Israeli Government Coalition Collapsing Over Kosher Hypocrisy

The golden Dome of the Rock overlooks the Western Wall in Old Jerusalem. Creative Commons photo

(ANALYSIS) JERUSALEM— With Passover set to begin Friday night, Holy Week for Catholics and Protestants underway, rioting taking place almost nightly outside the Damascus Gate during Islam’s holy month of Ramadan, and the country caught up in four recent lone-wolf terrorist attacks in which 14 innocent bystanders have been shot to death since March 22, one might think Israel’s politicians would be preoccupied with spiritual and security-related issues. Instead, the Jewish state may be on the brink of declaring its fifth election in three years.

The reason? Member of Knesset — Israel’s legislature — Idit Silman of the center-right Yemina Party resigned April 6 from Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s razor-thin 61-member coalition, saying she “could not take it anymore.” The final straw for the rookie politician was her disagreement with Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz, who wished to uphold a 2020 High Court of Justice ruling that armed guards stationed at the entrances to the country’s hospitals should be checking for weapons rather than contraband “chametz,” or leavened foods, during the seven-day Passover holiday.

Hospitals, army bases and all government facilities are scrupulously, ritually cleaned in advance of Passover. But there is no compulsion for secular Israelis, citizens of one of the world’s most vibrant democracies, to eschew leavened bread for matzo.

Underlying Silman’s decision to bolt from the government was her earlier disagreement over implementing the Kotel Compromise, whereby a relatively small area adjoining Jerusalem’s Western Wall would be set aside for egalitarian prayer. Currently, the piazza in front of the remains of Herod the Great’s destroyed temple is segregated by gender, and prayer is conducted there according to the Orthodox Jewish rite. Silman holds that the Kotel prayer plan is disrespectful to the holy site, and that non-Orthodox denominations have no place in Israel. For her, women reading from the Torah in a pluralistic setting is anathema.

Stiffening Silman’s resolve, she has reportedly been promised a future role as health minister if the Likud Party can cobble together a coalition.

Another possible defector to the Likud Party is Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked. But Shaked has a poor working relationship with prickly former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — who was forced out of office in 2021 after 12 years after repeatedly failing to form a coalition in the 120-seat Knesset. Once scorned by Netanyahu, Shaked may now be unwilling to enable the Likud-led opposition to form a coalition.

With Silman’s dramatic departure — and the possibility of further defections from the crippled centrist coalition — one might think elections are inevitable. After all, the fractured government has now been deprived of its legislative majority.

Not so fast.

Netanyahu, himself embroiled for the past 23 months in a trial in Jerusalem’s District Court on multiple charges of corruption, may find securing a 61-vote majority to be mission impossible. His right-wing Likud Party will not sit with members of the largely Palestinian Arab Joint List. While those six members of parliament view Netanyahu as a racist, many others in the government simply see him as a slimy opportunist whose best hope for avoiding a prison sentence is to return to the Prime Minister’s residence, called Beit Aghion. Once again ensconced as prime minister, Netanyahu could then seek to enact legislation granting him immunity from criminal prosecution.

But first Netanyahu, who has been compared to a wizard, must conjure up six more defecting legislative members in addition to Silman.

Rabbi Chaim Druckman of the religious Zionist movement, which ostensibly backs Bennett’s Yamina Party, applauded Silman’s defection and encouraged other Torah-observant members of Knesset to follow suit.

“I congratulate MK Idit Silman for the brave and worthy step she took,” the rabbi said, adding, “I call on the other members of the national Knesset for whom the Torah is important to join Idit and form a national Zionist government as soon as possible.”

Ironically, the kippah-wearing Bennett is himself the first prime minister of the Jewish state who is religiously observant. He scrupulously desists from work on the 25-hour Sabbath, is known to lecture about the weekly Hebrew Bible reading while attending synagogue abroad, and strictly observes the kosher dietary laws. Moreover, as a self-made tech millionaire, Bennett is perceived as being above the banal level of gifts of cases of champagne and fine cigars with which Netanyahu allegedly sullied the prime minister’s office.

Rabbi Zev Farber, the senior editor of TheTorah.com and a research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute’s Kogod Center, took a contrary view to Silman’s actions — and Druckman’s counsel.

“Those who advocate this kind of soft coercion do not understand its negative effects,” Farber said. “The best sell for Judaism is seeing the satisfaction observant Jews receive from their practices. Coercion accomplishes the opposite; it makes the coerced resent these practices. Moreover, it implies that the religious are not really content with their observance and are jealous of the secular, for why would they be so overcome by seeing their roommate eat a subway sandwich on Pesach (Passover) if they weren’t dying to have a bite themselves?

“In short, even soft religious coercion is an ethical and tactical mistake. In the long run, far from strengthening Israel’s Jewish character, moves like that of Silman’s endanger it.”

Politics in Israel makes for strange bedfellows.

In my view, the cycle of unstable governments and frequent elections will continue until the electoral system is revised so that there is direct representation rather than party slates. And currently, no one is advocating such a democratic revolution.

Another election is likely — perhaps this fall, if not sooner. But as for Netanyahu returning to the prime minister’s residence, he is more likely to find himself in Maasiyahu Prison, where former Likud Prime Minister Ehud Olmert once served time for fraud. And there he may enjoy ham and cheese on matzo, washed down with him favorite Dom Pérignon and followed by a fine Cohiba Siglo V cigar.

And there he may pontificate about the morality of keeping kosher.

Gil Zohar was born in Toronto, Canada and moved to Jerusalem, Israel in 1982. He is a journalist writing for The Jerusalem Post, Segula magazine, and other publications. He’s also a professional tour guide who likes to weave together the Holy Land’s multiple narratives.