The Movement for Reform Judaism

Manna: The Forum for Progressive Judaism is the Journal of The Sternberg Centre for Judaism.

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As a taster, here is Rabbi Dr. Tony Bayfield's editorial piece from the latest issue of Manna. 

Gaza cries out for a new start 

Wells Cathedral is an exquisite building, inexhaustible in its interest. But so, too, is the Bishop’s residence which stands beside it. For the Bishop’s residence is a medieval palace, complete with moat. It speaks eloquently of power.Stand beside the great wooden doors which lead into Lambeth Palace and the same aura is unmistakeable. Even the dwarfing of Lambeth by adjacent buildings cannot destroy the symbolism of the Church’s great Palace facing the Palace of Westminster across the Thames.

But what was once a reality is now an illusion. The Archbishop of Canterbury lives in a small flat in his Palace and, largely stripped of the power that was once proclaimed by the buildings, struggles to maintain Christian influence on a society in which a secular government with different priorities and a frequently unsympathetic press marginalise religion.

Christianity has experienced the extremes of power and powerlessness. It has both exercised absolute power and also renounced power completely, inspiring groups and individuals who have turned their back upon society and the world. Yet influencing society, seeking to persuade society to embody (Judeo-) Christian values has, understandably and laudably, remained a Christian goal.

Which is why there are Christians today who lament their present powerlessness. It was right, they would argue, to give up the power symbolised by palaces. It is right that Church and State should be separate. Religion should not wield political power. But religion cannot escape from the political. If religion is not concerned about the society and the world in which we live, if it cannot influence social structures, if it cannot pronounce a critique upon that which denies people freedom, perpetuates injustice and inequality, fails to vindicate people’s right to the opportunity to fulfil themselves –then what is the value of religion? One might suggest that living without power is the greatest challenge to Christianity in our times.

When it comes to power, Islam faces a different challenge. Islamism at its most extreme draws on memories of the early Caliphate and preaches a world-wide Islamic empire. Less extreme, there are nevertheless many countries, particularly in the Arab world, with groups bent on overthrowing their often corrupt and undemocratic regimes – and replacing them by theocracies which live by shariah law.

Because ours is an age of mass population migrations, it has brought to Europe significant numbers of Muslims. The Muslim minority is here to stay – in Britain, France, Germany and many other European countries. But it will remain what it is – a minority. Islam has very little experience of living in democratic, secular states as a minority. The dominant model is one of power. Learning to live with the radically diminished power of a minority in a democratic, secular state is Islam’s greatest challenge.

A columnist recently suggested that Israel has killed as many as 1,000 Hamas activists – terrorists – and is targeting 1,500 more. He sought to defend the policy in ethical terms. But, MANNA would argue, the first question is not an ethical one but a pragmatic one. If picking off the enemy in this way works, and peace and justice for Israelis and Palestinians alike can be brought closer, then there is indeed an ethical debate to be had. But if killing 1,000 terrorists produces 2,000 new terrorists as a result, a different policy is needed rather than an ethical discussion.

Gaza draws closer to catastrophe every day. As rocket attacks on southern Israel increase and the lives of 150,000 Israeli citizens are put at risk daily, Israel attempts to turn the population of Gaza against the terrorists by tightening the economic screws. But Hamas are cynical in the extreme – interfering with their own electricity supply, attacking aid convoys, diverting supplies of food and medicine in order to increase external pressure on Israel and fuel the hatred of Gazans.

Everything cries out that this is a pragmatic issue even before it is an ethical one. If tightening the screw on Gaza works, separates the population from Hamas and strengthens the moderates against the extremists – then ethics come into play. But if, as seems obvious at a safe distance from the kassams and mortars, the policy is not working, if the reverse is happening – then a radical change of policy is needed.

The difficulty, the desperately painful difficulty is that it is not clear what the alternative policy should be.
The exercise of power, the application of Jewish values to the situation of a democratic Jewish state battling an enemy of unprecedented ruthlessness and cynicism is proving extraordinarily difficult.

Christians are struggling with loss of power. Muslims are struggling with diminished power. Jews are being driven to despair by the necessary exercise of power.

It is probably too much to ask that all three faiths understand that they have a common problem. But on the resolution of that common problem, the very future of religion itself may well rest

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