2nd Class Citizen, 1st Class Tax Payer (A reoccurring theme?)

Whilst reading the paper today I came across a statistic relating to an issue that I’ve incidentally been talking about quite a bit lately. The title of the article in the Jerusalem Post declares “83% of Israelis want freedom of religion”

Actually a closer inspection the first line of the article points out that in-fact this statistic only relates to the Jewish Israeli population. I’d also be interested in seeing the demographic breakdown of the 1,200 Jewish Israelis interviewed for the survey. I realise the shaky ground one stands on when they start sprouting newspaper statistics, especially when they are being offered by an organization who’s mission statement calls for freedom from religion freedom of religion. As a guy I was debating gun control laws with last week pointed out, “you can use statistics to back up anything!” then again, you can probably guess what side of that debate he was on...

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The report continues by pointing out a selection of interesting numbers, for example:

1. 83% of Israel's Jewish population supports freedom of religion and thought...although most Haredim - 53% - do not
2. 63%... expressed dismay over the influence Haredi political parties have in religious and political matters.
3. 84% of the Israeli public opposes the exemption of yeshiva students from mandatory military service.
4. 71% agree that financial support for yeshiva students and families with many chidlren should be decreased, to encourage Haredi men to work.
5. 95% of immigrants from the former Soviet Union expressed opposition to "the Orthodox monopoly on marriage" 
6. 64% expressed support for civil or Reform marriage ceremonies.
   

Again I'd really like to know where this data was collected from because it doesn't really seem like a real cross section of the Israeli people. However, personally I am happy that articles like this are making it into the paper and the more people that start thinking about some of these issues the better.

To start with lets take a look at the Declaration of The Establishment of The State of Israel (in simple terms, the Declaration of Independence)   

"The State of Israel... will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace... it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture" - May 1948

Unfortunately in modern Israel, this really isn't the case. If 83% of Israelis really do want to see a change in the relationship between church(synagogue?) and state in this country then I'd really appreciate it if you could all actually do something to this affect! In the elections earlier this year, 16% of the vote went to religious political parties, namely Shas, United Torah Judaism (Not to sound disparaging but I've always wondered if United Torah Judaism is a less ridiculous name for a political party when said in Hewbrew...) and Jewish Home. These 3 parties are now also part of the ruling coalition under Netanyahu, meaning that of the 74 seats making up the coalition in the Knesset, 19 of these seats are taken by members representing religious parties.  That's over 25% of the ruling party blatantly influenced by religion.


In the almost 10 months I've been living in Israel I've seen numerous examples of the desperate need for separation of religion and state. To name a few...

• The Ultra-Orthodox stranglehold over marriage and divorce in this country means that a growing number of citizens are refused the basic right to marry the person they love due to religious influence (Gee...that sounds rather familiar..). Conversely people are being forced to remain in unhappy, unhealthy and sometimes even downright dangerous marriages thanks to the system of divorce used in this country.
• State funded religious schools have openly discriminated against citizens based on tenuous claims of religious ineligibility that is often just an excuse for glaringly obvious racism. The case a few weeks ago where Israeli children of Ethiopian descent were refused entry to a STATE funded religious school because the principal felt they were perhaps not Jewish enough to be treated with equality. 
• An Ultra-Religious Deputy Minister of Health who in his first statement as a Minister, at the height of the Swine Flu hysteria earlier this year, decided not to announce the ways in which the state was going to combat the virus. Instead he felt the need to assure the State of Israel that he was doing everything in his power to change the name to 'Mexican Flu' as clearly pigs are non-Kosher and thus such a name is unacceptable. As my sister pointed out "since when has it been kosher to eat Mexicans?" I don't take issue so much with the fact that he is religious, my problem is that the Deputy Health Minister has absolutely no health based experience and continues to make statements that are downright embarrassing and pointless. 
  
• The state offers a disproportionate amount of aid and support to the religious communities, especially considering that the majority use this aid as a crutch so as to be able to purposefully be able to avoid working. The logic stands that they are providing for the nation 'spiritually' paying a kind of prayer tax I suppose.
• Over the last number of years Jews who have converted to Christianity have been violently targeted by the ultra-religious community in a number of hate crimes and public demonstrations. Everything from mob beatings and pipe bombs left on doorsteps wrapped as a child's birthday present to public demonstrations and smear campaigns that have forced people to move cities and lose businesses.    

I do realise the significance of Israel as a Jewish State and in there lies the entire paradox. How to have a modern democratic state whilst maintaining it as a Jewish state without discriminating against ethnic and religious minorities. Personally I feel like a second class citizen (technically resident) here. On a very basic level I am completely unable to personally relate to the national anthem or the flag. The anthem involves such religion specific lines as "As long as in the heart within, a Jewish soul still yearns". From a more important stance I am denied legal and social benefits that would be otherwise available to me if I was Jewish. And to many I will always be a welcome (in some cases tolerated) guest, no matter how long I live here or how much I give back to the nation.

This is an issue that the government and the people need to face. Theocracy or Democracy? They are generally mutually exclusive concepts. Let's hope then, that the report I read this morning was grounded in some version of reality and the people really are sick of the current state of things, because there needs to be a separation of synagogue and state.