The press release I received today from the Tel Aviv Yafo municipality opened: “Today, 12th of December, the municipality of Tel Aviv-Yafo hung a sign on the wall of its city hall, of the Declaration of Independence in full. It will later also set up a sign at the entrance to the building, with a quote from the scroll: ‘The State of Israel will maintain full social and political equality of rights for all its citizens – regardless of religion, race, and gender.’”
The sign is 36 meters long and 10 meters wide and was hung on the eastern front overlooking Ibn Gevirol Street as a form of protest against the incoming, right-wing government. Personally, I couldn’t imagine a finer form of protest, than to remind Prime Minister-elect Benjamin Netanyahu and his partners of the spirit of our state and the rights it guarantees everyone living here.
But because I believe that God is in the details, I thought there was something strange about the quote that was plastered across the entrance. It wasn’t anything I recalled from school about our declaration. So, I rushed to the Knesset website, where the official English translation of the document is available, and, indeed, found no trace of the “quote.”
Here is what the declaration actually says about equality, in the complete context of the item:
“THE STATE OF ISRAEL will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice, and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education, and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.”
It doesn’t say “maintain,” it says “ensure”; it doesn’t say “full,” it says “complete”; it doesn’t say “citizens,” it says inhabitants”; it doesn’t say “regardless,” it says “irrespective”; it doesn’t say “gender,” it says “sex.”
But even more important: the sentence above the entrance to City Hall is offered without the context of the “Ingathering of the Exiles,” and “safeguard the Holy Places of all religions.” The first, opening sentence of the paragraph stresses the Jewishness of the state, and the second promises Jews access to their sacred places – something which is being presented by the folks inside Tel Aviv City Hall as a dangerous disruption of the status quo that would surely set the Middle East on fire.
The Mayor of Tel Aviv-Yafo, Ron Huldai, declared on Monday: “The declaration of the establishment of the state of Israel took place at the Tel Aviv Museum, the former home of the first mayor Meir Dizengoff. The Declaration of Independence established the foundations of freedom, justice, and peace. This morning we hung the Declaration of Independence on City Hall. Now, more than ever it is necessary to remember its values.”
I couldn’t agree more. Now, Mr. Mayor, let’s jump into the nearest mikvah together, and let’s go daven Mincha on God’s Temple Mount.
By the way, the word “equality” is also mentioned further down the document: “WE APPEAL – in the very midst of the onslaught launched against us now for months – to the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve peace and participate in the upbuilding of the State on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions.”
It is safe to say, we’re still waiting.
