Israeli Rabbi Warns Nation’s Democracy Under Attack

At a recent Friday night service, The Temple welcomed the Reform rabbi who serves the many Jews in the Megiddo region of northern Israel. For the past dozen years, Rabbi Michal Ratner Ken Tor has served an area that’s the home to approximately 10,000 Jewish residents. The region is also the sister community of the Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta.

In introducing her to his Friday night minyan, The Temple’s Senior Rabbi, Peter Berg, described her as a person who is open and accenting of others, with “an unwavering belief in the inherent dignity of each and every individual.”

“Whenever she speaks,” Rabbi Berg commented, “she reminds us that Torah is not merely something we study, but rather, something we are called to live by, through justice, through kindness, through the daily choices that define who we hope to be.”

But in her response, Rabbi Ken Tor expressed deep reservations about how accepting her fellow Jews in Israel are of others.

A recent survey that she mentioned showed that Israelis today are overwhelmingly concerned about the decline in social acceptance. Given a choice of the greatest problem facing Israeli society today, 86 percent said it was the lack of acceptance that concerned them most, and that disagreements at the national level are often met with attempts to silence those who have opposing views, particularly if they are liberal religious views.

“Our mutual values here in The Temple and also in Megiddo region in the Reform movement are under major threat,” Rabbi Ken Tor said. “Democracy and Zionism that supports equality for all citizens and human rights and liberal Jewish thinking is under a deep threat.”

She pointed out that the minister of justice in Israel’s present government, which has been in a protracted battle to change how High Court judges are appointed, has not spoken to the head of the Supreme Court in over a year.

“It’s hard to believe the minister of justice is not talking to the president of the Supreme Court in Israel” she said. “This is not about which side believes in the policies of the right or the policies of left. This is thinking in a straight manner, conducting yourself in a straight manner, and walking in a direct manner.”

She mentioned that the conduct of government is not unlike the Biblical story of Joseph that was recently read from the book of Genesis. Joseph’s older brothers are so filled with hatred of him that they couldn’t speak to him peaceably.

“In translation of the Hebrew text,” she said, “they could talk to him in order to create peace. They just couldn’t talk to him because they hated him so much.”

Because of the present situation, Rabbi Ken Tor pointed out three past chief justices of the Supreme Court and the present presiding officer “warned politely, but unequivocally, that Israel is no longer the democracy it once was.”

“A nation that won’t listen to all of the voices,” the Israeli rabbi said, “particularly of criticism, is a nation where silence rules. And where silence rules, darkness rules.”

Even though she is pessimistic about present government policy, and she believes that the voice of liberal Judaism is being silenced, she is encouraged by the response of the many Jews she serves. In the last two years, she pointed out that those attending her Torah study sessions and worship services, that are often held in an informal setting and outdoors, have tripled in number.

“I am not a very political person. I choose to channel my anger and my sense of threat into action.”

But it is not just in Megiddo that Jews are finding in religion a refuge from the social turmoil that has plagued the nation. A poll conducted three months ago by the Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI), an independent think tank founded by The Jewish Agency in Israel, found that 27 percent of Israelis have increased their observance of religious customs since Oct. 7, 2023. Roughly one-third of Jewish Israelis say they are praying more frequently than before the war, and about 20 percent report reading the Tanach or psalms more often.

The JPPI head Shuki Friedman said that many Israelis, and especially the young, felt the war had made them more aware of their Jewish identity “not necessarily in a halachic way, but in a way that shows up very strongly in their lives and in the public space.”

And even though a majority of Israelis say the war didn’t change their belief in G-d, about 30 percent said it strengthened their reliance on the Divine. The implication of that shift is yet to be fully understood and there is no guarantee it will last.

For Rabbi Ken Tor, how belief may influence the common good still remains an open question.