Not Whether, But How To Reform Israel's Electoral System

ELAZAR, DANIEL

Not Whether, But How to Reform Israel's Electoral System The call for electoral reform for Israel has now become public on both sides of the ocean, as the Jewish state's "deadlock of democracy"...

...It is what I call, so to say, legitimization...
...He succeeds to an impressive degree...
...The teacher's zeal is palpable on every page of the Steinsaltz Talmud...
...The country is divided into permanent districts—say, 12—whose boundaries would follow present administrative subdistrict lines to prevent gerrymandering...
...For example, the commentary does not suggest what in our world is comparable to the Gemara's "four cubits" so that we can grasp what is and—equally important—what is not at stake, for the rabbis who wrote the Talmud and for us, in the Talmud's discussion...
...The Christian publisher, Daniel Bomberg, made it into the standard form for the printed Talmud when he printed the first edition of the entire Talmud (Venice, 1520-1523...
...Again, there seems to be some likelihood that both major parties will support change, out of desperation if not out of conviction...
...First, there is the sheer erudition...
...be read, can be studied, even when it is not, makes a change...
...On the upper right of each page is a literal translation, which stays close to the original and adds almost nothing...
...7 Days, December 27,1989, p. 28...
...Knesset election reformers recognize that it is important to link more closely the representatives to the citizens who elect them...
...The best system under consideration is that used in several Spanish-speaking countries in Europe and the Americas and in some of the Scandinavian countries...
...But will it work...
...The Hebrew of the Bible or the Hebrew of the Mishnah...
...Treasure it...
...The two principal subgroups—the ultraOrthodox and the Israeli-Arabs— are likely to have at least 25-30 seats between them, especially if they organize into unified blocks in order to get any seats at all, as is likely under most of the proposed reforms...
...The fact that something is possible, that there is a book you can read, can change the world...
...113-114): Literal Translation of a Mishnah Passage [If a person] saw the found object and fell on it, and another person came and seized it, the one who seized it has acquired it...
...While Random House pitched the Talmud by evoking American Jews' romantic—and parochial—sentimentality about a text most of us never knew, Rabbi Steinsaltz sought to sell it by appealing to what he sees as an American Jewish sense of cultural inadequacy about the Talmud itself...
...He has supplied the Hebrew and Aramaic text with the normally missing vowels and punctuation marks...
...At that point, Knesset members introduced four private bills for election reform in the Knesset, three by Likud members with the tacit agreement of Prime Minister Shamir...
...Bava Metzia has 10 chapters...
...But he has filled the page with what, for Talmud study in any language, are pedagogical novelties...
...And there will be complaints about vocalization, halachic interpretations and other such issues...
...Translation and Commentary of the Same Mishnah Passage If a person saw a lost object and threw himself on it with the intention of acquiring it, but did not perform the formal act of acquisition, he did not acquire it...
...These minorities constitute significant percentages of the total population and are sufficiently concentrated geographically to win seats even in a territorially based system...
...If there is a central visual image in Judaism, it most likely is the seferTorah, the Torah scroll itself, unfurled in front of the congregation after being read...
...The Steinsaltz Talmud admirably and lucidly explains the Talmud's contents...
...One wonders which "original language" of Judaism Wieseltier means...
...The Talmud is challenging, not defeating...
...That's a touching * Baltimore Jewish Times, December 15, 1989, p. 66...
...Reform of Knesset elections is truly a necessity for Israel...
...For all its completeness, the Steinsaltz Talmud does not display the Talmud's potential contemporaneity...
...Baltimore Jewish Times, December 15, 1989, p. 65...
...With the direct election of die head of government, it would be possible to have an electoral reform that would allow full representation of all permanent groupings, giving them a vote but not a veto...
...Rabbi Steinsaltz really does want Jews to learn Talmud, and his teaching strategy is to remove or reduce the external barriers to the text's intelligibility, to refuse to let the Talmud be obscure...
...It daunts, teaches, scolds, tempts, pleases, defeats...
...Long on the "What...
...Random House seems to be banking on such romanticism about the Talmud—and the sense of Jewish inauthenticity this romanticism conveys— to sell the Steinsaltz volumes...
...To suggest that the Soncinos' page layout is the most powerful visual image in the Jewish religion is an exaggeration that misrepresents the Talmud and pushes Judaism all out of shape...
...Every 10 years, the 120 Knesset seats would be reapportioned among the districts based on population, so each district would have the number of seats appropriate to its share of the country's total population...
...they can consult the more comprehensive dictionaries or Hebrew glossaries of rabbinic terms...
...Several proposals have been offered...
...Likewise, the overly brief, sketchy—and utterly traditional—picture of talmudic history and society supplied by the Reference Guide obscures the similarities and differences between the rabbis' circumstances and ours...
...Israeli voters would then cast at least two ballots...
...The idea that merely buying a book—that owning an unused, unread book—can "change the world" is magical thinking...
...On the left side is a translation and commentary, an expanded translation based on Rashi's commentary, which spells out the text's unstated assumptions and fills the gaps in the literal translation...
...They can exercise this leverage as long as Israel maintains the present parliamentary system...
...Ironically, the very clarity of the Steinsaltz translation shows why the Talmud is a poor text for evangelism...
...To be sure, this trait does not diminish the accuracy of the translation, but it is a surprising absence from a book that aims to change people's lives...
...one for the head of the government and the other for the Knesset...
...Israelis would not have it otherwise...
...Not Whether, But How to Reform Israel's Electoral System The call for electoral reform for Israel has now become public on both sides of the ocean, as the Jewish state's "deadlock of democracy" takes on the characteristics of paralysis...
...It's not the kind of book you want to write in, the way serious learners do...
...It makes it something...you are really proud of...
...Therefore, if another person came and seized it, the person who seized it acquired it, because the object was still considered ownerless and the second person's action was a valid mode of acquisition...
...Wieseltier's romanticism about the Talmud even includes an anxiety about translation...
...Perhaps, as a Steinsaltz aide suggested, Bava Metzia was chosen as the first volume because in places it deals with business ethics and might be considered a practical beginning.* Sometimes students do start their study of Talmud with Bava Metzia, but they generally start with the second or third, not the first chapter which is Volume I in the Steinsaltz Talmud...
...To see how the literal translation and translation and commentary work together, let us look at an example, Bava Metzia 10a (Steinsaltz, pp...
...Bomberg's pagination has been accepted ever since...
...As you never could before...
...sentiment...
...Guilt about learning in translation is one thing Jews need not have...
...The rest of Wieseltier's description is equally sentimental and excessive...
...Other proposals are similar to the French model, requiring the cabinet to win the confidence of the legislature...
...Democracy requires that the permanent, widely differing groups in Israeli society—clearly exceeding two—be appropriately represented in the country's legislature...
...December 21, 1989, p. 26...
...Thus the prognosis for a step in that direction is mildly favorable...
...Wieseltier is talking about the page design of the printed Talmud, which * "Unlocking the Rabbi's Secrets," December 17, 1989, p. 3. he credits to the Romm family ("the widow Romm and the brothers Romm"), whose press published what has become the standard printed edition of the Talmud in Vilna (the "Vilna Shas") from 1880-1886...
...The only way out of this dilemma is to embrace the other major constitutional reform proposed in Israel in the last two years—namely the direct election of the head of government (prime minister...
...Faultfinders will scour the Steinsaltz Talmud for grist, but they won't find much...
...But in terms of selling books, it is very good economics...
...The best of them call for popular voting for individual candidates...
...This latter alternative would encourage the parties to nominate more attractive candidates with closer ties to the people in their districts...
...To be sure, there are some infelicities in the English—which, we should recall, is a translation of a translation...
...Beneath that is a section called Halachah, which cites passages from various codes that drew halachic conclusions from the text under study...
...He told reporter Russell Miller* that having Random House, as opposed to a Jewish publisher, produce the books "changes, somehow, the connotation of the word Talmud...
...The Conservatives and Labourites must now contend with the Liberals and Social Democrats...
...it also could encourage the head of government to provide a legislative basis for proptosals, knowing that the Knesset could unseat him/her...
...This system of Knesset elections would allow representation of permanent groupings in the society that deserve to be represented...
...In general, there is litde to quarrel with in this edition of the Talmud and there is much to praise and admire...
...The commercialism of this project may have undercut Rabbi Steinsaltz's religious message by presenting the Talmud as a thing to own rather than a text to study and a tradition to be changed by...
...It takes a special teaching skill to anticipate a learner's need for information, to know which facts to supply and which to ignore, and to place the answer in the text just when the question is most likely to arise...
...It is also vital to break down the exclusive power of the party oligarchies to determine candidates for the Knesset via party lists, a practice which stifles the entry of new blood and new ideas into the country's government...
...So those of us supporting reform have two obstacles to overcome: We must win agreement to make these far-reaching changes and we must design changes that will strengthen Israeli democracy...
...The Gemara answers that the Sages instituted this law concerning a person's four cubits so that people should not come to quarrel over the ownership of property they find...
...Its large size, high-quality paper, elegant printing, satin bookmark and lush, multicolored cover make it more appropriate for the coffee table than the library—a book for show rather than study...
...However accurate such criticisms might be, they will not tarnish the overall achievement of the work...
...Rosenzweig's German or Heschel's "Kddish and English...
...For all its stunning erudition, there is something quaint, almost anachronistic, about the Steinsaltz Talmud...
...How much beyond the text itself is Steinsaltz's...
...After all, such analogies are the primary means by which we get into an unfamHW text and the text gets into us...
...In such a vote, the Knesset also would be dissolved and there would be new elections...
...With respect to the ability of either of the two major parties—Labor and Likud —to form and maintain a stable government, it makes litde difference whether each has approximately 40 seats, with the other 40 divided among the small parties— or each has approximately 55 seats, with the small parties sharing the remaining 10...
...Israel is not like the United States, where differences of opinion fall within a relatively narrow spectrum, so that two parties, each a coalition of groups, are enough...
...During the past two years Israeli politicians have increasingly favored reform that would first secure the direct election of the head of government...
...Under the latter arrangement— which might be more appropriate for Israel—the head of government would be elected to office in his/ her own right for a fixed four-year term and would sit there whether or not his/her party has the largest number of seats in the Knesset...
...Steinsaltz might better have begun his English Talmud with a more user-friendly tractate, such as Berachot ("Blessings"), which contains much aggadah (rabbinic narratives about biblical or rabbinic figures), in contrast to halachah...
...But even as we press for this electoral reform, we must understand that it is not enough...
...The Random House version, by contrast, seems designed for an upscale rather than a mass market...
...Although it is not a sacred object like the Torah scroll, in Jewish culture the Talmud has been and still is the genuine article: It represents and embodies Jewish authenticity...
...The first time this proposal became more than a slogan was in December 1988, after the agonizing and distasteful process of forming the Yitzhak Shamir-led National Unity Government...
...What of reform of elections to the Knesset...
...As with so much else in Jewish culture, to deal with the gap between our great esteem for, and our minimal knowledge of, the Talmud, we tend to romanticize it and over-venerate it...
...He is a true talmudic evangelist...
...In Judaism, expertise in Talmud was and is perhaps the most celebrated intellectual achievement and the mark of religious authority...
...Literal Translation of the Accompanying Gemara Resh Lakish said in the name of Abba Kohen Bardela: A person's four cubits acquire for him everywhere...
...Second, there is the general reliability of the literal translation, which always lets you know when it is adding words the text does not contain...
...His profound faith in the power of the Talmud to transform the Jewish people is poignant, if arresting...
...Will access to a clear, detailed, multigenerational rabbinic discussion of how "four cubits acquire for a person everywhere" draw American Jews to Judaism, make them (more) religious...
...Unfortunately, it is just as easy (or difficult) to reform badly as it is to do it well...
...He obviously believes that exposure to the fleshed-out workings of the talmudic tradition, especially to its intellectual challenges, can change the Jewish people...
...Under this system, each voter would cast as many votes as there were seats in their district...
...Electoral reform can be achieved in several ways but none should change the reality that at least two permanent groups—the Orthodox Jews and the Israeli-Arab minority— will continue to hold the balance of power in the legislature...
...Will Success Spoil the Talmud...
...Third, there is the pedagogical astuteness of the enterprise...
...Sadly, even Rabbi Steinsaltz may not have been immune to the commercial pressures...
...The Steinsaltz Talmud evokes or demands few analogies with the present...
...of the Talmud, but short on the "So What...
...Even so, it might be necessary to have runoff elections between the two leading vote-getters if no candidate for head of government received 45 percent of the votes...
...The lack of a majority is still the lack of a majority...
...The suggested retail price, $40 per volume, is not cheap...
...Lest we doubt the intention here, Peter Osnos, the Random House editor who sponsored the Steinsaltz project, said the publisher hoped that the Talmud "will become a much larger factor in people's lives...
...Beneath the literal translation is Rashi's commentary, produced in the Hebrew typeface known as Rashi script, but here punctuated...
...Some proposals call for full separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches, with the head of government appointing a cabinet that would be subordinate to him, as in the United States, and the Knesset receiving augmented powers...
...Here there is room for some doubt...
...Although its production required the most contemporary and sophisticated computer technology, in essential respects the Steinsaltz Talmud is a pre-modern work...
...And Random House's Murphy says that future volumes—despite their $100,000 subsides—will be more cosdy still...
...Israel needs a system of checks and balances that will strengthen the Knesset as a legislature even while it strengthens the prime minister as head of government...
...Where does all of this stand today...
...As the National Unity government settled in, reform got lost...
...But if the goal of electoral reform is governmental stability and rule by a party with a majority, then electoral reform—currently focusing on reform in the way Knesset members are elected—will not do the job...
...In the bottom register of the page are notes that offer a precis of selected comments and observations of post-talmudic commentators...
...For all its pedagogical sensitivity, it still turns inward, presenting the Talmud only in its own terms...
...What is the reason...
...A person acquires any ownerless property that is within a four cubit radius of him, because this area is considered as if it were his private "courtyard," and it acquires ownerless property on his behalf as his own courtyard would...
...He told the Washington Jewish Week,** "Publicizing the Talmud is per se something...
...The other English volume contains— from the order Nezikin ("Damages," civillaw)—the first chapter of the tractate Bava Metzia (The Middle Gate), which deals with the problem of conflicting claims to ownership of a found object...
...Philo's Greek or Maimonides' Arabic...
...The Sages instituted [this] so that [people] should not come to quarrel...
...the Steinsaltz Talmud is a better linguistic translation than a cultural one...
...In so doing, it clarifies the boundaries of talmudic discourse but does not transcend them...
...They could either vote for a party list—a straight ticket— or could choose among the candidates on different party lists...
...These terms are nicely explained in English, but in each glossary the terms are listed alphabetically in Hebrew letters—according to the Hebrew alphabet...
...Steinsaltz knows the talmudic and halachic traditions very well, and he has deployed that knowledge with judicious skill...
...The Hebrew edition sells in the United States for around $20 per volume...
...In a different area, the Steinsaltz Talmud also pays curiously litde attention to the Talmud's aesthetic dimension, the frequent elegance of talmudic argument, which is part of the pleasure of studying it...
...The Steinsaltz Talmud is unique among translations of the Talmud in any language because it systematically brings the reader both to the Talmud itself and to the text's cultural afterlife in commentaries and codes...
...In terms of Rabbi Steinsaltz's larger message about Judaism and the Talmud, it is bad religion...
...the winner, whoever received at least 45 percent of the votes, would be the chief executive and would head the government for a four-year term...
...Since only a candidate backed by one of the two major parties could get elected as head of government, the smaller parties probably would develop coalitions with one of the two large parties and agree upon a candidate for head of government in advance...
...It makes one curious to know about the Talmud's impact on the lives of Osnos and other Jewish Random House staffers...
...Those with enough Hebrew to use the Reference Guide probably don't need it...
...They used it for individual tractates of the Talmud and scripture...
...And it is the sight of tradition itself...
...While the Hebrew edition is a modest production and looks like it's all business, the Random House version is ornate...
...Rabbi Steinsaltz is not selling the Talmud as a reference book or an encyclopedia...
...After the initial season of Steinsaltz synagogue study groups winds down, after the novelty of the Talmud on television dissipates, will textual clarity be enough to turn the mass of American Jews into long-term Talmud students...
...This is the way it is done in France...
...Agnon's modern Hebrew...
...It is a slap in the face of slovenliness and superficiality...
...Translation and Commentary of the Same Gemara Resh Lakish said in the name of Abba Kohen Bardela: A persons four cubits acquire ownerless property for him everywhere...
...Making the Talmud clear is not the same as making it interesting, or making it compelling, or making it fun...
...His edition presents the Talmud not in a scholarly way, as a historical text, but in a religious way, as a tradition...
...One wonders if commercial interests have not outweighed Rabbi Steinsaltz's more spiritual ones...
...But it is not enough...
...As in continental Europe, divisions DANIEL J. ELAZAR of opinion and ideology in Israel are far broader and more intense...
...But with the latest government crisis leading to a collapse of that broad coalition—and another round of distasteful maneuvering by the leaders of the two major parties to secure the requisite majority to form a government—and the resultant public disgust, the bills have been re-introduced...
...This would give the head of government strong bargaining power and would introduce a substantial measure of stability into the government...
...The irony here is strong...
...continued from page 27 literature...
...What Israel needs is direct election of the prime minister...
...Finally, marginal notes identify the rabbis named in the text, supply realia, and explain various rhetorical formulations and talmudic concepts...
...Its ads for the two-book set were aimed not at the general reading public but only at the Jews: "Read it...
...Even a Jew if he doesn't study the book—if he buys it and places it on his shelf—that is a statement that there is a connection arid he wants one...
...He wants Jews who study it in translation to feel guilty because "Judaism is a portable religion and it travels best in the original language...
...A book that can * 7 Days, December 27, 1989, p. 27...
...To convert the Jews, he goes for the head, not the heart...
...Among American Jews, anxiety about authenticity, usually phrased in terms of "identity," is a nagging and unnerving preoccupation...
...On this the Gemara asks: What is the reason that a person's four cubits are effective in acquiring property on his behalf, even though they are not, in fact, his courtyard...
...For newcomers this chapter will be a challenge because it is fairly abstract and consists mosdy of halachic argumentation...
...According to his aide at the Aleph Society, "Every word is his...
...Even so savvy a critic as Leon Wieseltier, literary editor for the New Republic, in his New York Times review of the Steinsaltz Talmud,* writes: " There is no more powerful sight in Judaism than a page of the Talmud...
...That judgment is no condemnation...
...Even if all the small parties were eliminated, the Orthodox and the Israeli-Arabs would coalesce into two medium-size parties, each with a potential 15-20 percent of the vote behind it...
...The terms are translated but not transliterated: If you can't read Hebrew, you will be lost (though the index, in English, may help...
...Steinsaltz has preserved the standard design of the printed Talmud page, which places the text at the center and surrounds it with commentaries...
...The expectation in much of the current debate is that once Israel accomplishes Knesset electoral reform, the minor parties—especially the extreme Orthodox—will no longer be able to block the formation of a stable government...
...The Steinsaltz Talmud makes the Babylonian Talmud accessible largely by making it clear...
...Unlike the Bible, the Talmud is wholly and exclusively Jewish...
...this will reduce guesswork and errors in reading...
...The notes also summarize the very technical halachic discussions in the Palestinian Talmud and several later commentaries about the circumstances in which, and the objects to which, the principle of "four cubits" applies...
...For religious reasons, Rabbi Steinsaltz looks for continuities, not disjunctures, between the Talmud and the present...
...Rabbi Steinsaltz uses Random House to display the Talmud in the aura of cosmopolitan high culture—precisely what the Random House ads deny it has...
...Unlike the Bible, the Talmud is a text Jews revere precisely because most of us will never master it...
...It makes it, at least, intellectually respectable...
...The notes explain that "a person's four cubits" means "the immediate area of which a person disposes" and that Abba Kohen Bardela—identified in a note in the page's upper left corner— innovates when he claims that the "four cubits" can effect acquisition of ownerless property...
...On the other hand, this system would prevent smaller groups from exercising inordinate power in determining who would govern...
...As we have seen in recent years, even Great Britain has had a hard time holding onto the two-party system...
...Some proposals provide that the Knesset could remove the head of government by a two-thirds—or greater—no-confidence vote...
...Study it...
...Actually, the Soncinos, the great Jewish publishers of Hebrew books, first used this basic page design—with commentaries surrounding the island of text—in the 15th and early 16th centuries...
...This would provide protection against a runaway chief executive...
...No one else claims to own it or to understand it better than we do...

Vol. 15 • June 1990 • No. 3


 
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