The Lutheran Church Turns against Israel

Nearly 500 years ago, Martin Luther called for the burning of synagogues and the destruction of Jewish homes. In 1994, the leaders of the American Lutheran church, along with the global organization, formally rejected and condemned the anti-Semitism of their denominations’ founder. Now, however, the church’s current leaders are seeking to reverse that decision. The triennial assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA), the official U.S. Lutheran organization, recently voted in favor of resolutions calling for divestment from Israel and for the U.S. government to end aid to the Jewish state, recognize a Palestinian state, and pressure Jerusalem to stop the building of “settlements.” Petra Heldt explains how the anti-Israel movement hijacked the church:

Both resolutions, de facto, intend the destruction of the state of Israel. The anti-Israel character of the resolutions fits the old-style Lutheran anti-Semitic diatribes. . . .

The strategy was simple: Isaiah 58 [a U.S.-based anti-Israel Lutheran group] and the network of the current head of the Lutheran World Federation (Munib Younan, [a Palestinian]) teamed up for the preparations of the anti-Israel resolutions. The organized lobbying work [at the conference] produced the desired results. To make sure that no mishap occurred, . . . Pastor Khader Khalila from Bethlehem addressed the ELCA assembly on the alleged Israeli occupation of Bethlehem (which of course has been controlled by the Palestinian Authority since 1993). It worked like clockwork. There was no recognizable group of Lutheran Christians that was able to defend its own turf against such anti-Semitic usurpers. . . .

While politicians might be able to afford to ignore old-fashioned and outdated resolutions on Israel and continue with their business as usual, the good leadership of the Lutheran churches worldwide should not.

Read more at Gatestone

More about: Anti-Semitism, Israel & Zionism, Jewish-Christian relations, Martin Luther

It’s Time for Haredi Jews to Become Part of Israel’s Story

Unless the Supreme Court grants an extension from a recent ruling, on Monday the Israeli government will be required to withhold state funds from all yeshivas whose students don’t enlist in the IDF. The issue of draft exemptions for Haredim was already becoming more contentious than ever last year; it grew even more urgent after the beginning of the war, as the army for the first time in decades found itself suffering from a manpower crunch. Yehoshua Pfeffer, a haredi rabbi and writer, argues that haredi opposition to army service has become entirely disconnected from its original rationale:

The old imperative of “those outside of full-time Torah study must go to the army” was all but forgotten. . . . The fact that we do not enlist, all of us, regardless of how deeply we might be immersed in the sea of Torah, brings the wrath of Israeli society upon us, gives a bad name to all of haredi society, and desecrates the Name of Heaven. It might still bring harsh decrees upon the yeshiva world. It is time for us to engage in damage limitation.

In Pfeffer’s analysis, today’s haredi leaders, by declaring that they will fight the draft tooth and nail, are violating the explicit teachings of the very rabbis who created and supported the exemptions. He finds the current attempts by haredi publications to justify the status quo not only unconvincing but insincere. At the heart of the matter, according to Pfeffer, is a lack of haredi identification with Israel as a whole, a lack of feeling that the Israeli story is also the haredi story:

Today, it is high time we changed our tune. The new response to the demand for enlistment needs to state, first and foremost to ourselves, that this is our story. On the one hand, it is crucial to maintain and even strengthen our isolation from secular values and culture. . . . On the other hand, this cultural isolationism must not create alienation from our shared story with our fellow brethren living in the Holy Land. Participation in the army is one crucial element of this belonging.

Read more at Tzarich Iyun

More about: Haredim, IDF, Israeli society