Declaration of the 7th Congress of the Fédération internationale des Juifs Humanistes et Laïques

Tel Aviv, October 10, 1998

We, delegates to the Congress of the Fédération internationale des Juifs Humanistes et Laïques (International Federation of Secular Humanistic Jews), are gathered here in Israel for our biennial Congress, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the State of Israel and the 100th anniversary of the Zionist movement.

Together with the citizens of the State of Israel and the majority of the Jewish people throughout the world, we commemorate these two events with our hearts filled with pride in the achievements of hope and for the future. And yet our pride and our hope are not free of an awareness of past wrongs and abuses. They do not release us from our anxiety for the future.

1. Our commitment to the peace process.

We are gathered at a moment when the deadlock imperils the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians — a process that, a few years ago, aroused enthusiasm and hope among the majority of our people in Israel and in the diaspora. We affirm our commitment and our adherence to the vision of peace that is solidly rooted in the vision of the prophets of Israel. We pledge to support all those who, in Israel and elsewhere, stand at the forefront of the struggle for peace. We reaffirm our conviction that peace is possible only through mutual concessions and the mutual recognition of each side’s rights, as well as the end of terrorism and occupation.

2. The danger of fundamentalism and fanaticism.

We feel deeply concerned by the strengthening of fundamentalist movements in several regions of the world. Certain fundamentalists place at the heart of their propaganda the war against Israel and hatred of the Jews. The mixture of the political deadlock, the resurgence of the danger of a violent confrontation, and the rise of fundamentalism threatens not only Israel and the other Jewish communities in the world, but the whole of human society. The dangers of fundamentalism become more and more evident wherever this phenomenon asserts itself, not only in Muslim countries but also in the West. Today, all forces must be mobilized for democracy and tolerance against terrorism and fundamentalism.

We recognize with sadness that the Jewish people is not exempt from this phenomenon. We think in particular of the expansion of the ultra-Orthodox (haredi) educational system, characterized by withdrawal into the self, ethnocentrism, and estrangement from the values of democracy and pluralism. We are witnesses to missionary activities whose objective is to bring Jews back under the sole sway of religion. We are particularly disturbed by the fundamentalist extremism, at once national-religious and “messianic,” that leads openly to radical, racist, and murderous expressions. The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, by which we are stricken, and the terrible massacre perpetrated by the murderer Goldstein at the Tomb of the Patriarchs are illustrations of this deviation. These dangers still hang over us.

3. The struggle for equal rights for all currents of Judaism.

Our meeting takes place at a moment when the repercussions of the storm raised in Israel and in the United States by the conversion bill¹ are being felt.

We reiterate our declaration concerning the struggle for a broad and open definition of Jewish identity. Our struggle will continue until the realization of our objective. Orthodox figures, especially ultra-Orthodox ones — rabbis and politicians — are attempting to impose on us a narrow and restrictive approach to Judaism and to the question “who is a Jew?” This approach is in contradiction with the history of the Jews, with fundamental humanist values, with integration, with the immigrants in Israel, particularly those from the former Soviet Union and from Ethiopia, as well as with the interests of the unity of the Jewish people. As humanist Jews, we are not indifferent to the struggle of the various religious currents for the equality of their statuses in Israel. Despite our secular philosophy, we are party to this struggle on account of our convictions that freedom of conscience does not exclude religious freedom. The campaign of these various movements — Liberal, Conservative, and Reconstructionist — for their full recognition in Israel, on an equal footing with Orthodox Judaism, is of great significance for all those who share the values of humanism, pluralism, and democracy. We affirm that only an alliance between secular humanist Jews and enlightened Jews belonging to the Orthodox, Conservative, and Liberal currents can prevail over these dangers to the Jewish people and over the tendencies that distort the image of Judaism.

4. Jewish continuity at the dawn of the 21st century.

The continuity of the Jewish people and the flourishing of Jewish civilization cannot be assured by the sole return to religious Orthodoxy advocated by certain Orthodox speakers and by certain non-Orthodox Jewish intellectuals. Nor, moreover, can they be achieved through the formation of a new “Israeli” identity cut off from our historical and cultural adherence to the Jewish people and its traditions. The development of Jewish life and culture can be assumed only by embracing the Jewish past, choosing within it the ethical and humanist values. This reinterpretation must be in accord with modernity, science, and the universal rights of man. In this way, in the 21st century, Jewish culture will accomplish the essential and fertile mission once fulfilled at the decisive crossroads in the course of our people’s history. Our principal field of action is the struggle for the education, without exclusion, of our children in Israel and in all the Jewish communities of the diaspora. We consider ourselves committed to the struggle for a Jewish education that cultivates all the human, moral, enlightened, and beautiful aspects of our people’s cultural tradition. This education must integrate the best of the Jewish traditions into the creativity of the universal culture of humanity.

5. Judaism, a culture.

At its founding by the Detroit Conference (United States) of October 1986, our federation affirmed its vision of Judaism as the complete experience of the Jewish people throughout its existence, as it has been developed by its various ethnic groups, communities, and currents. We have recently borne witness to this perception of Judaism as a culture rooted in many places in the world. In Israel, for some years now, several institutions have been founded that contest the de facto Orthodox monopoly over Jewish education. These institutions develop different approaches characterized by pluralism, openness, and a humanist attitude. We recognize in particular the fruitful activities of the College of Pluralistic Judaism, directed by members of our federation who play a central role in it.

Text translated [into French] by Doris Bensimon, Violette Attal-Lefi, and Flora Novodorsqui.

This translation is not literal; it places the emphasis on the spirit of this declaration.

Notes