Zvika’s legacy

Dr. Zvika Zameret, 78, passed away, this week. Zvika (as he asked all to call him) was an educator par excellence, historian and prolific author, as well as the legendary CEO of Yad Ben Zvi. He was also my neighbor for many years in Beit Shemesh and we shared wonderful conversations about Zionism, Israeli history and politics over coffee in his apartment.

During one of those visits to his home some years ago, he shared a story that occurred during a period of civil tensions over Bar-Ilan Street, in Jerusalem. For those unfamiliar, Bar-Ilan Street is a major artery passing through a largely haredi neighborhood and was the site of more than a decade-long religious-secular tension over whether the road should be closed off to automobile traffic on Shabbat. There were repeated and sometimes violent flare-ups between haredi and secular residents.

In 1996, Zvika was asked to head the Zameret Committee, which included religious, ideological secular and haredi members, to find a compromise that would be acceptable to the haredim and the secular residents of Jerusalem. Much of what happened during that period is still highly relevant to the continued tensions over how Shabbat should be observed in the public domain and more fundamentally, how Israeli society can be Jewish for all Jews, whether or not they adhere to Halacha.

In 2000, following the courts’ adoption of Zameret Committee recommendations,

Zvika met with Rav Ovadia Yosef, leader of the Shas party and former Sephardi chief rabbi, known simply as Maran, as one of our generation’s central halachic decisors. Zvika and Yosef discussed the solution to the Bar-Ilan crisis and the rabbi praised the outcome.

Zvika was surprised by the praise, as it included the acceptance that there would be an agreement by the parties for the public desecration of the Shabbat laws. To which Rav Ovadia replied, “There is no Shabbat desecration greater than a civil war that takes place on Shabbat and there is no greater desecration of Shabbat than stone throwing on Shabbat.”

Separately, Zvika shared a story with our community regarding the same committee and a conversation he had with one of the rabbis involved. Zvika and the rabbi discussed a certain aspect of the compromise with which the rabbi seemed pleased. Of course, Zvika assumed that this would mean that the rabbi would vote for it at the committee. To which he responded, “I couldn’t possibly vote in favor, that would be sanctioning the desecration of Shabbat.”

Now, I have not mentioned this anecdote to patronize the rabbi but simply to show the complexity for those with a total commitment to halacha when it comes to compromise, which they understand to be the correct thing to do, even though they can’t put their name to it. In the end, with his never-ending patience, Zvika managed to bring the committee to a compromise, which included the road being closed for part of Shabbat and open for the rest.

In his own chronicle of the committee’s work, Zvika defined himself as neither secular, nor religious and perhaps it would be better to think of him as both secular and religious, or in the words of researcher and author Shmuel Rosner, a Jewsraeli, someone who practices #IsraeliJudaism. And perhaps this is what uniquely qualified him to serve as committee chair and to act as the bridge between the competing communities and interests.

FROM TIME to time, the question of public transport on Shabbat returns to the political agenda and whether important maintenance work on the railway system should be carried out on Shabbat. Sadly, these issues are debated within a political atmosphere that encourages debate for the sake of political point scoring and not a real debate looking for ways to square the complex and sometimes even paradoxical positions.

Since the Zameret Committee, the only serious attempt to create a grand covenant or social contract on the many thorny questions about how to define the Jewishness of the country has been the work led by the late professor Ruth Gavison along with Rabbi Yaakov Medan. Gavison was a law professor specializing in civil rights and constitutional law, and Medan is the head of one of the prominent religious Zionist Yeshivot. In 2000, they looked at questions relating to the Law of Return, conversion, marriage arrangements and Shabbat in the public square.

In 2004, Zameret commented on the resulting agreement reached by Gavison-Medan: “The covenant includes far-reaching proposals: on the one hand they protect the Jewish character of the state of Israel and on the other, they meet the requirement to give maximal freedom for its citizens.” This was the bridge that Zvika was constantly trying to build between all parts of Israeli society. The permanent tension he sought to resolve.

In the early 1980s, Zvika was one of the founders of Efrat. He had a vision of a mixed religious-secular community that was also open to the possibility of a unified education system that includes the spectrum of secular, traditional and religious Israelis within it. Realizing this would not materialize, he moved to Beit Shemesh where he formed part of a team of local leaders seeking to reduce tensions between the haredi and non-haredi residents.

On one hand, the vision of Gavison-Medan has never materialized into law, Efrat has grown as an almost exclusively religious community and Beit Shemesh remains a city with complex community relations. On the other hand, much of what Zvika dreamed of is now being promoted by a wide range of activists and organizations, many of whom Zvika remained active with quite literally through to the end of his life, promoting the creation of more mixed schools and communities catering for the broadest spectrum of religious beliefs.

While not yet mainstream, it would certainly be a fitting legacy for such a great man as Zvika for us to continue the work of creating local and national frameworks and solutions that allow for the full harmony of Israel as a richly Jewish country, bound by its democratic principles.

May his memory be a blessing.