The DNC Takes the…Chair!

But the issue is in large measure pushed by the more conservative Orthodox rabbinate in and out of Israel who have a definition of "who is a Jew" that is founded on their (restrictive) interpretation of the unique G-d given holiness of the body of Jewish law and observance codified by normative Jews for roughly, what, 17 centuries and for 3-4 centuries after that to today by the Orthodox (and Conservatives and mitzva-oriented Reform). Political Zionism was a secular adaptation of Jewish culture to begin with stressing nationalism and pre-rabbinic Bibilical patrimony. Changes in Israeli interpretation of "who is a Jew" affect the status and identiy of Jewish movements outside of Israel. And when "ultra-Orthodox" start to push for social norms whose "modesty" requirements segregate women in the back of buses or exclude them schools etc., then issues of what-are-we-here-for-and-who-are-we are unavoidably raised in Israel. Moderate and modern Jews, not least living within Israeli neighborhoods facing demographic change and conflict, do not wish to embrace a sectarian Judaism that compels them, against their will, to sacrifice western norms of democracy.