From joy to disappointment, American Jews react to judicial reform bill

Some groups welcome measure as much-needed respite from judicial overreach, while others bemoan the passage of the new law.

By World Israel News Staff

Numerous groups representing American Jewry responded to the passage of a law limiting the Supreme Court’s ability to intervene on government decisions based on a standard of “reasonability,” with some groups praising the legislation and others decrying it.

“The Zionist Organization of America [ZOA] strongly supports and praises Israel’s democratically-elected Knesset for passing the first part of much-needed judicial reform,” ZOA President Morton A. Klein said in a press statement.

“The new law prevents the Israeli Supreme Court from striking down or reversing democratically-appointed government officials’ actions simply because the Court’s self-appointed, unelected left wing judges believe that the government’s actions are not ‘reasonable.’ Thus, existing judicial tyranny has been diminished.”

Mitchell Bard, executive director of the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise, told JNS that as the victor of Israel’s most recent national elections in November 2022, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has the right to advance his political agenda.

“Netanyahu won, and it was democratic for his government to fulfill the promises to its constituents,” Bard said.

The American Jewish Committee (AJC) voiced a different perspective on the bill, calling it a “profound disappointment” and charging that the measure had been “pushed through unilaterally by the governing coalition.”

The AJC did not explain how the vote of the law in a democratic legislative format, following more than four months of negotiations between the coalition and opposition parties, was equivalent to being forcefully passed.

The group also expressed “great concern” regarding the timing of the passage of the law, which it said occurred “amid deepening divisions in Israeli society as evidenced by the hundreds of thousands of Israelis who have taken to the streets.”

In a press statement, the Anti-Defamation League said that it was “deeply disappointed that the Israeli government passed the controversial Reasonableness Bill, failing to heed the call of President Herzog and others to reach a compromise rooted in a broad societal consensus.”

Speaking to JNS, Rabbi Moshe Hauer, executive vice president of the Orthodox Union, did not express an opinion regarding the law. Rather, he emphasized the importance of Jewish cohesion in the face of contentious and divisive issues.

“Responsible voices on all sides of the aisle and the ocean must calmly, humbly and firmly step forward and do everything in their power to restore calm and to rebuild unity within the Jewish family,” he said.

“We have absolute confidence in Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, but as we prepare for the Fast of the Ninth of Av, we worry deeply that we have not learned the lessons of our painful history.”