Democracy in the State of Israel

In the first decade of the 1979 Islamic Revolution over 200 Baha’is were executed in Iran. Hundreds more were tortured or imprisoned. Faced with international criticism, Iran’s Supreme Cultural Revolution Council in 1991 promulgated a secret memorandum proposing to snuff out Baha’ism by quieter means, denying Baha’is jobs and expelling them from the universities. The so-called the Golpaygani Memorandum was exposed in January, 1993 by the UN Human Rights Commissioner Galindo Pohl. But despite the exposure tens of thousands lost their jobs and were denied education. A 2004 U.S. State Department report stated that “the property rights of Baha’is are generally disregarded,” and numerous private and business properties confiscated, while public and private universities were denying admission to Baha’is. Since 2005 nearly 900 Baha’is were arrested including all seven of the community’s leadership. In 2010 the seven were sentenced to 20 year terms, commuted to 10 years late in 2015. But the raids, arrests, detention, and imprisonment continue. At the direct instruction of Ayatollah Khameni, Baha’is are closely monitored. Their bank accounts and activities are watched by the armed forces, police, and intelligence services. Meanwhile, pensions are denied, inheritances withheld, publishing and even copying facilities barred. Attacks on Baha’is, even murders, are not prosecuted. No one has been arrested in the 52 known acts of arson against Baha’i properties. Baha’i properties and holy places, in fact, are confiscated or destroyed. Baha’i cemeteries have been desecrated or vandalized at least 55 times. In 2014 the Revolutionary Guard removed dozens of bodies from the Baha’i cemetery in Shiraz to build a sports complex on the site, where some 950 Baha’is are buried. Hassan Rouhani’s promises to end religious discrimination remain unfulfilled: Some 170 Baha’is were arrested since his inauguration in 2013; thousands more remain barred from higher education. Threats, intimidation, and government closures of businesses continue, even as the government-controlled media actively defame the Baha’i religion.

The phrase ‘open society’ is Henri Bergson’s; a typically brilliant articulation of his, of values he drew from the deep well of Judaic moral and social thinking.

Rav Kook, Shemonah Kevatzim (Jerusalem: Mossad Ha-Rav, 2nd edition, 2004) 6.83, translated after Mirsky, Rav Kook, 110.

“Rabbinic review,” as Gerald Blidstein points out (“Halakha and Democracy,” Tradition 32 (1997) 18–20 ), does not check the Knesset’s work product for kashrut. The aim rather, was to foster broad coherence with Judaic norms of equity and justice. Issues abound, he urges, where such guidance would be salutary. The alternative, a state scrubbed clear of Jewish values, would be “a spiritual Uganda.” Neither the Law of Return nor the use of the Menorah as a national symbol is mandated halakhically. The same might be said of the colors of the tallit in Israel’s flag and the references in Hatikvah to the dreams of “a hundred generations.” But symbols like these are a rallying cry akin to those that every nation needs to sustain the loyalties that frame a nation and render effective statehood possible. Israel’s symbols affirm the Jewish character of the state by reference to the ancient roots of the Jewish people in the Land. The Law of Return goes farther, making poignant practical reference to the exigencies that were the birth pangs of the modern State – exigencies that Herzl saw with prophetic clarity and that show no signs of abating.

Kasher, 68.

Kasher, 70–72.

^*Kasher, 63.

Kasher, 76.

Kasher, 76–77

Kasher, 78–79.

Kasher, 74–75.