The Israel Surrogacy Law

The Israel Surrogacy Law

On Sunday a strike has been called, and will be supported by Labor unions. It is a strike of protest against the recently passed law on surrogacy, where women can bear children for others and then give them to waiting parents who can not have children. What is the reason for the strike? It is that the law did not take into account the desires of the LGBTQ people in Israel. They desire that men and women singles can become parents through surrogacy and that the state will pay for it. The man and women can be any adults according to their own self identification (they can be bi-sexual, transgender, etc. etc.) The law only allowed surrogacy for married hetero sexual couples and single women, and single women can include lesbian single women. Israel does not marry homosexuals. What a sorry state we are in that such a strike can be called. Here are some thoughts.

1. What should my tax dollars pay for surrogacy? We are taxed to the hilt and there is so much demand for funds from poorly funded education, to research, to welfare. I am against surrogacy in principle. I think parents should adopt children that do not have good homes. I support international efforts to bring down the costs so it is doable for most people who could be good parents. Then we pay a woman to bear a baby for someone else?
2. Secondly, the far left and the sexual libertines simply do not want to face the massive studies that show again and again that the best situation for raising children is a family situation of a father and mother in a stable good marriage. One of the great characteristics of the far left is the great flight from empirical evidence. They paint a subjective picture of the way they want the world to be and will not bring that picture to the bar of empirical evidence that shows the consequences. We see this with the socialists who will not face what socialism does and with sexual libertines that will not face what their new “family” arrangements do to society.

And wait for the push for the rights of poly amorous communities to adopt.

That this movement has such support in Israel is really depressing. That our Prime minister was going to sign a bill that supported such broad acceptance for parents and surrogacy is alarming. In this case, thank God for the Orthodox community that pushed back against it, but the bill still goes to far in supporting surrogacy and single mother parenting. I was raised by my widowed mother, but had much to overcome by not having my father.

The Bible shows the way to health and would that it would be a greater influence on the way we see.

Reform and Conservative Jews are going foolishly extreme

Reform and Conservative Jews are going foolishly extreme in their reaction to the Netanyahu government reneging on their commitment to establish an official egalitarian prayer location at the Western Wall. This was to save his coalition government which would fall if the Ultra Orthodox left it. However the Reform and Conservative now even talk of withholding support for Israel. This is so very stupid. Here is some historical context.

First, to Israelis this is a non-issue. It is only an issue to us in that we do not want to alienate Reform and Conservative Jews. But non Orthodox Israelis (80% of Jews here) for the most part don’t care about having the opportunity to do egalitarian prayer at the wall.

Secondly, through most of the 20th century, Reform and Conservative Jews supported the separation of men and women at the wall. Why? Because Jews were seeking to have the right of serious prayer at the wall, and having the partition was the symbol of it being a synagogue like place. In the earlier part of the century under the British, they fought for this. They argued for the prayer center at the wall to be Orthodox in character and to be governed by the Orthodox. This was documented in a J. Post article yesterday by Einat Ramon.

Thirdly, I am very sad about the direction of Conservative Judaism. They used to be more identified with Modern Orthodoxy and sought a way between Reform and Orthodox Judaism. But now they have drifted more and more to Reform as liberalism has taken over. So now the more important issue for them is radical egalitarianism. For many who want to pray at the wall in an egalitarian way, there is no real belief in the personal God of the Bible.

But there are real important issues in regard to the rigidity of the Chief Rabbis and their power in the government here. Prayer at the wall is symbol. But the real issue here in Israel is on issues of Jewish identity and marriage. Since the founding of the State, all conversions by Reform, Conservative and Orthodox in the diaspora were accepted in Israel. Now there is an attempt to reject conversions from Reform, Conservative and even several Orthodox rabbis. This will fracture the Jewish people. There is even a list being made to deny the Jewish identity of some who have had status as Jews in Israel and were able marry other Jews in the land. This list is mostly being applied to Russian Jews and is now pushing 6000. It will deny them marriage in the Land. Before, noting the difficulties in the Soviet Union, there was a lower bar of proof.

These are real substantive issues where Modern Orthodox, Reform, Conservative and others should make common cause. But the prayer at the wall issue is really being overblown. The big issue is the power of the ultra Orthodox in the government and how oppressive this is.

Anti Colonialism and Israel

Daniel Juster, Th. D. Restoration from Zion of Tikkun International

I want to write more on the foolishness of the anti-Western civilization orientation from the radical left. For some of these folks the basic problem with the world stems form white Europeans who foisted themselves on other more benign peoples and oppressed them. Israel then is demonized as a colonial imposition upon the native, innocent and peaceful Palestinian population. This completely misses the complexity of how Israel came into being, and the general opposition of the colonial powers after 1925. I mentioned in the last post that this claim of colonialism as something unique to white Europeans proves the ignorance of those who assert it.

The basic nature of colonialism is that a nation that is more powerful can take over and dominate a weaker nation and enrich themselves to the detriment to the weaker nation. Eventually their power grows to the point of dominating many peoples. Sometimes the colonial power does good for the subjected people and even civilizes them, but generally human selfishness brings much injustice.

Ignorance, self hatred or denial is the root of claiming that white Europeans are somehow and uniquely more evil than other cultures. A study of history shows that most peoples who became powerful and capable sought to control and dominate others. In ancient cultures, genocide was common. We see this in the history of the Middle East, India and China. The extent genocide, atrocity, torture to attain domination astonishes modern sensibilities. Yet some of these cultures produced great gains in art and science. China was formed form the dominant tribe subjugating all others. It was ruthless. The warfare in India with the goal of dominating the other tribes is an amazing and painful story. So also is the story of the conquering the colonialism of the Mongol hordes who came to power and ruled India for centuries. Japan was certainly a colonial power when they were able to be such a power and dominated Korea and East Asia. Korea was sometimes dominated by China and sometimes by Japan. Africa as well developed Kingdoms that were formed by a strong tribe dominating and controlling other tribes to their detriment. Africans sold other Africans into slavery as part of their war strategy. It is all a very sordid picture. Even today, we see China trying to take over the South China Sea and militarize it to their benefit and to the detriment of the nations surrounding their illegitimate territorial claims. Arab peoples conquered and dominated others forbidding their indigenous languages and cultures. Turkey was a major colonial power for centuries and subjected many peoples.

However, there is one nation that is an exception to this, at least in the original conception of this nation. Israel was formed to be the non-colonial nation. They were formed from the seed of Abraham to bless all nations. They were given a particular territory. Though they were to be an instrument of punishing the corrupt peoples of Canaan, they were told to not seek to conquer the nations around them, but to seek to live in peace with them. God would protect them without compromising alliances or becoming a colonial power. The goal and vision of Israel is that the nations would come into a place of peace under the rule of the Messiah. Isaiah 2 gives us the picture of all nations coming to Zion to learn the law of God and the Torah going forth form Jerusalem. The picture is that war has been ended and all nations are valued and able to find their own cultural affirmation in peace with other people. It is a picture where nations do not dominate one another. Though a great disappointment, the United Nations does reflect something of this biblical ideal in its charter, and even quotes the ideal of Isaiah 2 in the New York center, “They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.”

Israel does seek to bless the nations. They do not seek to be a colonial power. Yes, we have to deal with the difficult issue of the destiny of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, who are not citizens; one state, two states, autonomy, linkage of the Palestinians to Jordan and Egypt. But the colonial accusation leveled against the only nation ever formed to be an anti colonial blessing to all peoples is a bogus accusation and it always has been.