Every interaction with Israelis this week began and ended identically, with a smile and a warm exchange of “Chag sameach,” happy holiday. Israelis, secular and religious, heralded the opportunity to vacation to the southern resort-town of Eilat, spend a few nights with the family in a cabin in the Galilee, or at least picnic with friends surrounded by nature. This holiday mentality does not merely appear once a year to coincide with Passover; weekly, Israelis declare “Shabbat shalom” to one-another as government services, including public transportation, rest for 24-hours, from Friday night to Saturday at sun-down.
However, the streets of Tel Aviv remain most crowded on Saturday morning, with taxis and private mini-buses bearing the brunt of Israelis’ need to commute. Finding a wait less-than 30 minutes at a restaurant is a feat for the ages, with even some establishments serving their proverbial bread and butter as various forms of pig product for brunch. During Passover, the sight remains the same, with coffee shops continuing to serve deliciously leavened bread. On Israeli news during the first day of Passover, a report filmed Israeli picnickers as one individual proclaiming joy for the holiday season before wrapping a kabob in bread and saying, “It’s the best with pita.”
Even an elderly gentleman I know in southern Israel (alright, fine, grandpa) sat proudly at the Passover Seder eating matzo and talking about the first kibbutzim in Israel prior to the 1948 war. As a diabetic and self-proclaimed Yekeh (Yehudi Kasheh Havanah, a term used to describe early German-Jewish immigrants, mocked for not fully understanding the culture but being overly meticulous in many matters), the elderly man checks his blood sugar on a near-hourly basis and refuses to eat any food product sweetened with sugar. Upon being offered a sugar-free kosher-for-Passover cake during his daily tea-time, he expressed an air of confusion before entering the cupboard to produce his regular, diabetic, leavened cookies. While clearly possessing the will power to capably manage his diet, the thought of keeping kosher for Passover remains to him a bizarre superstition.
On face value, many Israelis embrace the holiday spirit but dismiss the religious connotation associated with the event, thereby ascribing solely to the cultural connotations. I, for one, maintain kashrut during Passover, but the thought of entering a synagogue leaves me entrenched in confusion, capable of only uttering ‘why?’ to the mere idea.
This discrepancy of secular versus religious, observant versus cultural, and outward perception versus actual beliefs embodies itself beyond merely observing a week-long event that coincides with Easter. Many political scientists question the validity of Israel’s democratic system due to the imposition of certain religious tenets on the population and differing citizenship criteria for non-Jews. Conversely, due to the ability of businesses to operate on the Sabbath and serve non-kosher products, for example, some observers state that the religious grip on the community remains weak and tangential.
A recent opinion piece from Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy encourages the secular community to cease its passive-aggressive opposition to religious imposition into their lives. He dictates the need for non-observant Jews to oppose, what he views as, “dark religious aspects” analogous with “Iran, Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia.”
Israel is not fully westernized and democratic; nor is it completely religious and pious. While the country should protect the rights of all religious people to freely practice their faith, even observant Jews, the imposition of these beliefs onto the general population remains resisted, leaving many Israelis befuddled by the notion. The government should not mandate piousness, rather permit Israelis to participate in Judaism as they themselves see fit, even if it is just a quick “Chag sameach” or “Shabbat shalom.”
Pardon me while I go back to eating matzo, but I sure would like to ride the bus on Saturdays.
