Monthly Archives: July 2018

According to Mikó Imre Minority Rights Legal Aids Service, two legislative proposals containing minority-friendly provisions have recently been passed in the Romanian Parliament, both waiting to be officially signed by President Klaus Iohannis. One concerns an amendment to the 2011 Law on Education, which stipulates that a linguistic minority must be consulted whenever the issue of establishing, re-organising or closing an educational institution of that linguistic community is raised. This amendment is especially welcome by the Hungarian community in Romania, since it would preempt situations like the one of the Catholic school in Tîrgu Mure?/Marosvásárhely, the fate of which is still uncertain. However, the President has so far refused to promulgate the law, invoking a few passages in the text of the law that are ambiguous, according to Iohannis, including the term “linguistic minority”.

However, the President has so far refused to promulgate the law, invoking a few passages in the text of the law that are ambiguous, according to Iohannis, including the term “linguistic minority”.

We find it regrettable that the President, himself a member of a linguistic minority, namely the German/Sachsen community in Romania, would use his power to block a piece of legislation that would be beneficial to all minority communities in Romania.

The other proposal concerns the new Administrative Code, which contains certain passages that would advance the issue of linguistic rights for minorities. The Civic Forum of Romanians from Covasna, Harghita and Mure? Counties addressed a letter to President Klaus Iohannis, in which they asked him not to promulgate this law, because according to them it will undermine the status of Romanian as the official language of the country. As formulated by Erika Benkő, the head of the Mikó Imre Minority Rights Legal Services Assistance: “I find it unacceptable that in the 21st century someone can be disturbed by the fact that others use their mother tongue. The Hungarian community in Transylvania represents a cultural asset for Romania. It is very hurtful and also unacceptable that there are people who would like to curb our basic rights.”

(26. 07. 2018 via dailynewshungary.com)

At 5:30 a.m. this morning, Rabbi Dov Hayun of Haifa’s Conservative Moriah Congregation was awakened by police knocking at his door, coming to detain him. What crime were they investigating? Hayun reportedly performed an unlawful wedding. Under Israel law it is illegal for anyone who is not a member of the Israeli Rabbinate to perform a Jewish wedding. Rabbi Hayun was released after agreeing to return next week for further questioning.

Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak wrote: “The craziness is out of control. The Prime Minister has turned into a dishrag. Arresting the Rabbi from Haifa because he performed a wedding under the rules of the Conservative movement is a stupid act that hurts the underpinnings of the ties between us and the Jewish people. It undermines the civil rights of every Israeli.”

It is fitting this arrest occurred hours after the Knesset approved the Jewish Nation-State Bill, and shortly after the Prime Minister of Europe’s leading “illiberal democracy,” Hungary, arrived for a two-day visit.

While Victor Orban has been very pro-Israel, he is also very much a Hungarian nationalist, and as such, has lauded the World War II Hungarian government of Miklós Horthy, who was complicit with the Nazis. Orban also attacked financier George Soros, who promotes liberal causes in his native Hungary, in a campaign dripping with traditional anti-Semitism.

Prior to their first meeting in Jerusalem, Orban said the “Excellent ties between Israel and Hungary are in large part the result of personal ties between two patriotic leaders.” Indeed the parallels between Benjamin Netanyahu and Orban, as well as the deepening of Israel’s ties with Hungary and Poland, and the concurrent passage of the Jewish Nation-State Laws, is not accidental; nor are the close relations between Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Donald J. Trump.

If you were to ask Netanyahu, he would say he is merely protecting Israel’s interests. Orban is a good friend of Israel, as is the current right-wing leadership in Poland, as is, of course, Donald Trump. However, the answer is not as simple as that. Part of the reason Netanyahu was reelected was due to his outcry on election day warning that “Arabs were being bussed to polling stations in droves.” Orban, Mateusz Morawiecki of Poland, as well as Trump, all use fear of immigrants; fear of the outsider, to gain and maintain their hold on power.

The Rabbis living in their self-made ghettos, who forced the Israeli government to pass a law criminalizing weddings performed by anyone outside their limited association, act out of similar motivations to those who needed to pass a law to reiterate the Jewish character of the Jewish state—or an American president who repeatedly attacks immigrants as criminals and potential rapists.

Historically, the non-liberal right-wing has risen or strengthened during times of economic difficulty. But here in Israel, as in much of the world, this has been a period of unprecedented economic growth. It is, however, that very economic growth and fear of the technology that underlies it, which may be the root cause of this illiberal rise.

The information revolution slowly taking place over past decades has reached a tipping point, now that we all have small powerful computers in our pockets. Rabbis who masterly overcame the tide of the enlightenment and were able to keep TV out of the homes of their disciples have been powerless to keep smartphones and the unfettered spread of information out the hands of their followers.

The Rabbis can no longer maintain a monopoly on the marketplace of ideas. So they use their political power to pass laws that infringe on the freedoms of the rest of the public. A right-wing government in Israel sees enemies everywhere, so they pass a law restating the obvious, despite the fact that doing so can only be seen as a gift to the enemies of the country.

The leaders of Poland and Hungary, whose countries’ economic well-being is due to their membership in the European Union, violate the very democratic principles upon which the EU is based, while Trump applauds from the sidelines. What do they all fear? They fear the very basic human truth that all mankind was created equal; that the differences between us are less than what ties us together. The national boundaries overcome by technology have made our equivalence clear—and that is what these leaders all fear. They fear a world they do not fully understand and a future they may not be able to control.

As an American-Israeli who cares deeply about both countries and believes in the virtues of a liberal world order, these have been difficult years. However, as a student of history, I take solace in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., from 1957: “The road to freedom is a difficult, hard road. It always makes for temporary setbacks.”

Marc Schulman is a multimedia historian.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own.??

(07. 18. 2018 via newsweek.com;MARC SCHULMAN)