What Yair Netanyahu's Norwegian Dating Game Tells Us

By Emily L. Hauser for The Jewish Daily Forward

It’s easy for liberal Jews to write off the hullabaloo regarding the dating habits of one of Israel’s better known sons as just that: Hullabaloo. Sound and fury signifying nothing, or maybe signifying a prurient interest in famous lives, or possibly signifying a helplessly stultified and hidebound worldview that has nothing to do with us. Or, you know, politics.

But the Sturm und Drang in certain Jewish circles about Yair Netanyahu’s (maybe?) girlfriend is bigger than that – as evidenced by the speed with which his father the Prime Minister has turned around to deny the romance. It goes to the heart of the Jewish experience and the soul of our people. Who are we, how do we define ourselves? Whether or not we realize it, that’s what we’re talking about, and ultimately, these questions go to the heart and soul of how the Jewish faith is conducted everywhere, not least in the Jewish State.

Liberals often forget that for many Jews, the question of one Jew’s dating habits is, genuinely, the business of all Jews. If the younger Netanyahu marries a Gentile, these Jews will (genuinely) feel it to be a catastrophe – a national catastrophe, not just for the State, but for the entire Jewish people. We see more than a little of this fear reflected any time an American Jewish leader starts talking in dire tones about intermarriage.

This is, of course, true as regards any Jew’s decision to marry out, but it’s more powerfully true when the Jew in question is well-known. Marit ayin (appearance) plays a powerful role in how Jewish law is interpreted; minhag k’din (“custom as law”) is no joke. A well-known Jew can lead others astray, new customs can arise, and these will, eventually, change the way that people understand the law.

Which, I tell myself, is fine – those folks can believe whatever they want. I don’t daven with them.

Because even though it warms my heart to see Jews marry each other and raise little Jews, I do (genuinely) believe that people must live lives that provide them with meaning – that an individual’s God-given right to authenticity, respect, and love, wherever it may appear, is more important than the collective’s desire to have more bar mitzvahs. I also have bone-deep faith in the future of the Jewish people and, not incidentally, believe that children born to a Jewish father are Jewish if they are so raised, no matter who their mother is.

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