"Unconstitutional"

2 Kislev 5774

Do you know why there's nothing in the picture? Because Israel does not have a constitution. However, that does not stop those who are enamored of everything "western" to imagine that one exists (the one in their mind) and to accuse those who adhere to Torah law as acting extra-constitutionally - outside of the bounds of this non-existent "constitution." Because, of course, this "constitution" mimics "western" values, not Jewish ones.

Call me obtuse, but you'll never convince me that those who hold to the Torah law that was given to the Jewish people over three and half millenia ago are by definition in violation of a constitution that does not exist. You gotta be a former Israeli Supreme Court President or Israeli Justice Minister to understand such a 'deep' and illogical concept as that.

Former Supreme Court President Barak: Marriage Laws Violate Basic Human Rights

...Hiddush- Freedom of Religion for Israel has published selected highlights from Professor Aaron Barak’s forthcoming book, “Human Dignity: The Constitutional Right and its Derivatives” on its Freedom of Marriage World Map website. In these excerpts, Barak addresses Israel’s marriage policies, which are governed by religious law and deny Israelis the right to marry. He stresses that the laws infringe on the constitutional derived rights to human dignity, religious freedom, and equality.

In the book’s analysis of the right to family life and marriage in Israel, Barak writes, “Anyone who is unable to marry according to religious law, and anyone who does not want to marry according to religious law for their own reasons, cannot marry in Israel. Civil marriage is not recognized in Israel. This state of affairs violates the constitutional right to marry…The present law does not only violate the constitutional derived right to marriage, but it also often violates the derived right to freedom of conscience and freedom from religion.” Barak also explicitly relates to same-gender marriages, saying: “A law that prevents two members of the same gender from entering a relationship of couplehood is a violation of the human dignity of each partner.”

...Israel is the only western democracy in the world that denies its citizens freedom of marriage and unfortunately is in the unenvious company of many of the world’s Islamic fundamentalist countries. The majority of the Israeli public and world Jewry are completely opposed to these policies, which deny hundreds of thousands the right to marry and refuse millions more the ability to marry in a ceremony congruent with their beliefs. Professor Barak clearly demonstrates the constitutional illegitimacy of religious monopoly on all marriages in Israel and its clear violation of human dignity and basic human rights.
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Did you ever think you'd live to see the day that Rabbi Meir Kahane, Hy"d would have something in common with Yesh Atid's Yair Lapid? Well, Rabbi Kahane said it first, but he called it schizophrenic:

Lapid: Israel's definition as Jewish and democratic is an unsolvable contradiction

Israel’s definition as a Jewish and democratic state is a contradiction that cannot be solved, Finance Minister Yair Lapid said Tuesday in a speech that cut deep into the fundamental problems facing the country’s minorities.

“The unsolvable problem is that Israel is defined... both by law and by a decisive majority of its residents, as a Jewish democratic state,” he said at the Prime Minister’s Conference on Arabs in the economy at Tel Aviv University.

“Judaism is a whole line of values that have existed for thousands of years, but the democratic idea is a new idea, and significant parts of it stand in contradiction to Judaism,” he said.

Which is precisely why I think the last act of the "only democracy in the Middle East" should be to vote to restore the Davidic Monarchy.  Hey!  Some of us actually mean the words of those prayers we say three times a day!!