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Photo: Kobi Gideon/GPO
President Rivlin
Photo: Kobi Gideon/GPO

President proposes leaving Jewish matters to local jurisdiction without separating religion and state

Reuven Rivlin, speaking at a forum, considers leaving religious decisions, such as public transit on Shabbat, to local authorities; criticized by the Haredi press, he clarifies that he supports maintaining the religious-secular status quo in the country and that religion is inextricably bound with the State of Israel.

President Reuven Rivlin released a message on Thursday stating that he sought to clarify his statement of the preceding day in which he raised the possibility of allowing local authorities to decide on the degree of religious observance in the public sphere, including providing public transit within their jurisdictions on Shabbat.

 

 

His statements, made at the Global Forum of the National Library of Israel, whose topic this year is "the Fate of Secularism—the relationship between the religious and the secular," was harshly criticized in the Haredi press, which interpreted his words as opposing the status quo in matters of religion and state.

 

At the forum, the president called the "national question" of public transit on Shabbat a "predetermined zero-sum game between 'the State of Tel Aviv' and 'the State of Bnei Barak," contrasting the renowned secularism of the country's cultural hub with its ultra-Orthodox suburb.

 

Reuven Rivlin addressing the forum (Photo: Kobi Gideon/GPO) (Photo: Kobi Gideon/GPO)
Reuven Rivlin addressing the forum (Photo: Kobi Gideon/GPO)

 

"However," Rivlin continued, "while we all know and understand that those two important cities in Israel know how and are able to maintain excellent neighborly relations when they just have been given the mandate to take proper and fitting decisions for themselves, away from the spotlight, spin and political constraints.

 

"Indeed, some of the traffic arrangements on Shabbat already embody the local logic of this theory."

 

Evoking the pluralistic nature of Israeli society, the president wondered, "Perhaps the character and level of expression of the Jewish character of the public sphere—kashrut, chametz, and Shabbat to gender segregation—needs to be set principally at the local-, municipal- and even neighborhood-level, not just at the national level. For example, why should the arrangements for public transit on Shabbat be debated on the national level and not sorted out by companies and regional solutions?"

 

He clarified that he did not seek to separate religion from state in a Jewish and democratic State of Israel.

 

In his message released the following day, Rivlin explained, "I have said in the past, and I say again: More than Israel has kept the status quo, the status quo has kept them, us. I believe that we mustn't damage the status quo, that it is central to the design of our national outlook, especially in a matter such as the importance of Shabbat and keeping the State of Israel a Jewish state."

 

He also communicated, "The public display of Judaism, and Shabbat at the center of it, has maintained and maintains the Jewish character of the state of Israel. In my remarks yesterday, I said clear things about religious character of the state and that it would be impossible to separate between the religion and the faith that have carried us for generations and our lives today.

 

"We must consider anchoring arrangements to enable expression and respect for ways of life. Even today, the state shows considerable respect and support for various communities. Thus, I support closing Bar Ilan (Street) on Shabbat, and I supported the prohibition of imposing the core curriculum on the Haredi society in Israel."

 


פרסום ראשון: 12.02.16, 10:34
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