British Chief Rabbi Warns Israel on Sabbath Desecrations

Israel is “religiously indifferent” and has deeply “affronted” Sabbath observers, in the opinion of Dr. Israel Brodie, Chief Rabbi of the British Empire. Discussing last week’s riots in Jerusalem, which followed demonstrations by pious Jews against Sabbath desecrations, Dr. Brodie, in his principal Rosh Hashanah sermon, has warned that “Israel cannot for long command the mystic and deeply felt affection of world Jewry” if it fails to “preserve and respect the sacred institutions of Judaism.”

Expressing “deep sympathy” with the victims of the “unfortunate war of brothers,” the Chief Rabbi declared; “The ultimate hope of Israel was the restoration of the Jews to the land of their Fathers under the reign of the Almighty. The vision of the Redemption is both physical and spiritual in nature. Where there is no such vision, nationhood loses its distinctive Jewish character. Without the Torah, Israel is like a body without a soul.”

The new State of Israel, Dr. Brodie continued, does not as yet live up to the Messianic hopes, being “as yet unlike the vision upon which generations of Jews have been sustained.” While the leaders of Israel “and those who have rejoiced in its emergence” have employed Biblical terms to describe its present achievements, the Chief Rabbi asserted, “the actual fact is that the Israel constitutional democracy is secular and religiously indifferent.”

PROTESTERS ARE JUSTIFIED, CHIEF RABBI SAYS

Dr. Brodie declared that “a state is properly called Jewish if it respects the sacred institutions of Judaism. Consequently, there is justification on the part of those who have been deeply grieved and who have protested at affronts which have been perpetrated against the Sabbath and other Jewish practices.”

He warned that “the unity of the Jewish people must not be endangered by provocative incidents which lead to division within the ranks of Jewry inside and outside the Holy Land.”