Policy Positions
Bakshi-Doron has become somewhat notable for his willingness to depart from the conventional Religious Zionist party line. In 2000, while visiting the tiny Jewish community in Singapore, Bakshi-Doron declared that he was in favor of giving away parts of East Jerusalem to the Palestinians in exchange for peace in the Arab-Israeli Conflict. He added that any agreement would have to include the Temple Mount remaining in Israeli hands.
He also received attention in 2002 when he took part in an inter-faith conference in Alexandria, Egypt, along with the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. George Carey, Rabbi Michael Melchior, and the muftis of Bethlehem and the PA police forces. The conference resulted in a written agreement in which the religious leaders denounced the ongoing violence in the Middle East. Although the accord received the support of both Ariel Sharon and Yasser Arafat, it seems to have had little practical effect. Bakshi-Doron continues to participate in interfaith activities and currently sits on the Board of World Religious Leaders for The Elijah Interfaith Institute.
In 2004, Bakshi-Doron spoke out in favor of ending the Orthodox monopoly over marriages in Israel, saying that the law had become irrelevant and was now a source of division and hatred between Orthodox Jews and their Masorti, Reform, and secular counterparts. Bakshi-Doron's comments marked the first time any member of the Chief Rabbinate had recommended relinquishing its authority, and some in the Orthodox community described the speech as a "bombshell."
Bakshi-Doron came under fire by the Israeli Reform Movement in 1996 after a sermon in which he compared the movement with the biblical Zimri, who was killed by another man, Pinchas, son of Eleazar, for sleeping with a Midianite woman. Bakshi-Doron responded by dismissing the complaint as a publicity move, saying it was "unthinkable" that anyone would seriously consider his speech as an incitement to murder. He was attacked by the Reform Movement again in 1999 after comments which Reform leaders claimed compared Reform Judaism to the Holocaust.
In 2002, he accused Yasser Arafat of attempting to commit "a Holocaust against the State of Israel."
Bakshi-Doron briefly received attention in January 2005 for attending the First World Congress of Imams and Rabbis for Peace in Brussels, Belgium. The Congress was made up of around 180 notable Jewish and Muslim religious representatives, authorities and scholars from all over the world, and released a statement that called for the promotion of peace and understanding between Jews and Muslims.
In August 2005, Bakshi-Doron, along with Modern Orthodox rabbis Norman Lamm and Aharon Lichtenstein, condemned calls by other prominent rabbis for IDF soldiers to disobey orders to dismantle Jewish settlements as part of the Gaza Disengagement.
Read more about this topic: Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron
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