STATE OF ISRAEL BONDS
Celebrating
Israel at 60
'The miracle of return must be accompanied
by the miracle of revival.'
— Menachem Begin, on the eve
Identity Crisis from page A27
of Israel's independence
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Bobbi S. Elmer
Paula Lebowitz
Executive Director
Registered Representative
Registered Representative
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A28
May 15 • 2008
prehensive draft constitutions in
2006: the IDI with its Constitution
by Consensus and the Institute for
Zionist Strategies (IZS) with a coun-
terproposal. But the Second Lebanon
War in the summer of 2006 focused
attention on external threats and
weakened the Kadima-led govern-
ment, and no sustained effort has
taken place within the Knesset since
then.
When the IDI presented the
Constitution by Consensus at the
start of 2006, "our naive hopes were
that we would get close to the target,
not anticipating the difficulties,"
Carmon said.
The document, running some 200
pages, is all about compromises. For
example, Carmon said, the consti-
tution is a secular document and
includes a freedom-from-religion
clause, so religious parties will have
to give up any dreams of a theocracy.
"Israel;' he said, "will never become a
theocracy.
But secular and religiously pro-
gressive Jews also have to make
sacrifices. The IDI proposal excludes
four religious issues from review by
the Supreme Court: marriage and
divorce, conversion, Shabbat, and
kashrut in public places.
Rabbi Uri Regev, the head of the
World Union for Progressive Judaism,
complained in an interview in 2006
that excluding those issues from judi-
cial review would ruin religious free-
dom for non-Orthodox Jews in Israel.
"It's a total compromise. Everybody
hates it:' said Atlanta philanthropist
Bernie Marcus, who began financ-
ing the nonpartisan IDI 19 years ago.
"But they all understand that that's
the way it is:'
Marcus said he and other donors
as well as former Secretary of State
George Schultz, the IDI's honorary
co-chairman, support the institute's
proposal because Israel will tear itself
apart without a constitution to pro-
vide the basis for the rule of law.
Whenever he goes to Israel, mem-
bers of the Knesset all say the same
thing, Marcus said: "We have to have
it. Keep pushing for it."
Now the IDI is taking a lower-key
approach. The institute recently took
10 members of the Knesset, repre-
senting the full political spectrum,
on a four-day retreat to educate them
about the need for a constitution
and the issues involved. Carmon
said the plan is to hold a series of
such retreats to build support in the
Knesset, which has the sole power to
enact a constitution.
There's no precedent for a nation
existing more than a half-century
without a constitution, then manag-
ing to craft the compromises neces-
sary to enact such a charter. But there
haven't been many nations like Israel,
carved out of hostile territory to
restore a battered people to its ances-
tral homeland.
Carmon and others are convinced
not only that Israel can do it, but also
that it must do it to survive.
There's no way to know how much
time Israel has. Carmon used the
metaphor of a man with high blood
pressure. "you don't see any symp-
toms, but one day it cracks, the body
cracks. It's a serious mattee
He said an Israeli constitution is
closer to reality than ever before, but
it's still several years away. Two years
ago, constitutional advocates hoped
to celebrate Israel's 60th birthday
with its first constitution. Instead,
that milestone has come and gone,
and the hope now, Carmon said, is
just to get the first Knesset reading
of a full constitution in Israeli his-
tory before the 17th Knesset itself is
history.
"Jews across the world need to
face Israel's flaws with creativity and
pride," Cohen said. "On its 60th birth-
day, those who care for Israel's inter-
nal fortitude should join in gently,
democratically guiding our adoles-
cent state towards maturity."
Answering
Israel's Critics
The Charge
Iran's president, Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, said last week that
Israel's allies soon will be tried in
an international tribunal on charg-
es of war crimes.
The Answer
Ahmadinejad continues to rant
about Israel rather than address
the pressing needs of his nation. He
sees the world in a black or white,
anti-Israel or pro-Israel prism
— truly not a modern, global way
of thinking.
- Allan Gale,
Jewish Community Relations Council of
Metropolitan Detroit
0 Jewish Renaissance Media, May 15, 2008