LE MINISTRE ISRAELIEN DE LA JUSTICE VEUT FAIRE APPLIQUER LA HALAKHAH (CHARIA JUIVE) !

(Les malades mentaux de Mea Shearim)

Israeli Justice Minister wants to create a theocracy

The Israeli Justice Minister, Ya'acov Neeman, said last week that he would like to see Israel develop into a theocracy based on Jewish law.

Mr Neeman, speaking to a conference of rabbis and religious court judges on Monday, said that holy texts contain "a complete solution to all the things we are dealing with".

He said that the "law of the Torah should become the binding law of the land." ("The Torah" can mean parts of the Old Testament but it also sometimes includes the Talmud, a delineation of Jewish laws dating to the second and third centuries and subsequent rabbinic opinions.)

Mr Neeman praised the work of rabbinical courts that gain jurisdiction by mutual consent in solving financial disputes. He said they were a good stepping stone on the way to full religious law.

Coming from the justice minister, the remarks were seen as threatening by secular Israelis, who make up 80 per cent of the Jewish population.

Secular Jews are constantly on guard for instances of perceived coercion by the religious in a country that defines itself as Jewish but has never really specified what that means. It is already impossible to get married or divorced in Israel without an orthodox rabbi and state institutions observe the Sabbath as a day of rest.

Secular Israelis fear that if religious law gains more sway, they will lose some of their personal liberties.

Amnon Rubinstein, a former justice minister from the liberal Meretz party, warned that "Proposing to transform Israel into a state of religious law is a revolution that will negate Israel's character as a Jewish, democratic state, nullify the standing of the Knesset (parliament] and necessitate the replacement of judges with religious jurisprudents. ... This will not be the Israel that we know and a large part of the non-religious public will not want to live in such a state."

Haim Oron, a left-wing MP said Mr Neeman's statements "reveal a worrisome process of Talebanisation of Israeli society."

Mr Neeman later tried to retreat a little from the statement he made to the rabbis.

In a speech to the Knesset he said: "All that I did was to praise the work of the rabbinical monetary courts that arrive at their rulings on the basis of Hebrew law.

The courts are overloaded and it is appropriate to encourage a transfer of authorities to alternative frameworks," he said. Given his remarks about increasing the influence of religious courts bit by bit, however, this was unconvincing.

(www.secularism.org.uk)
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