But don’t you think this is morally problematic? After all, it opens the door to harming minorities who live here. If people aren’t required to rent/sell apartments to Arabs, then why should they be required to provide any kind of service to Arabs? Then this really becomes racial segregation, like in 1960s America (obviously there’s a difference in motives; I mean in terms of the practice).

First of all, Arabs can also live in such a settlement, so the Rabbi is right. There is equality in this law. And it isn’t talking about existing settlements.

Maybe it would be more comfortable for them too.
In my opinion it’s a great law; I don’t see it harming anyone at all. There’s nothing even to think about.

I appreciate the president’s intervention, even if I don’t justify it and don’t agree with it. “Can two walk together unless they have agreed?” A communal bond only strengthens that community.

In my opinion the law went one step further; they should have “validated” the law for streets and neighborhoods, and only afterward expanded further. Maybe that would have made it less frightening to the “opposition.”

Tair,
I think your remarks are a good example of the slippery slope involved in using slippery-slope arguments. In my opinion this opens no door to anything. Of course everyone has to provide service to every person, and also rent and sell an apartment to anyone. What does that have to do with it? I’m talking about people’s right to live in a place according to their way of life, and even that only for reasonable reasons and only without government funding.
This is only about certain cases in which there is a place defined as having a certain character, and for proper reasons. Is it not reasonable to give Haredim the option of living separately (without secular people or Religious Zionists) when every woman without sleeves or without head covering drives them crazy and ruins, in their view, their education? So why only them? Because they are more violent? We need to take the real needs of a public into account, and quiet down a bit the knights of political correctness who have taken over our discourse.

By the way, it’s hard not to make two comments here:
1. In my mythological “two wagons” story about the meeting at Midreshet Sde Boker, you can see how an astonishingly liberal population (Ben-Gurion academics) was up in arms over the fear that Haredim might come live there. They set up an organization to fight it and went to the press. I heard this with my own ears from their committee, and I even rebuked them for it. I have no doubt that today they are among the greatest opponents of Section 7.
2. Today a Jew can hardly live in almost any Arab town at all (see Peki’in, where Jews who bought houses there were driven out violently and nobody said a word), but that doesn’t bother anyone. And when Kach people want to hold a demonstration in Umm al-Fahm, everyone shouts about the provocation. And when settlers buy a house in an Arab town (even when it is done lawfully and legally), like in Hebron, all the knights of equality cry out about harm to the town’s character and residents.
In short, current policy is not liberal; it merely rewards violence and leads to blatant inequality before the law. Instead, the issue should be properly regulated in legislation. That will bring real equality, in which the privilege of living separately will be recognized in every case where there is a real need, and not only for those who use violence, as happens today.
Today’s “egalitarian” trend gives rise to violence, and from that comes the inequality that currently prevails. Exactly the way that the peace-seekers and those protesting violence against the Palestinians keep bringing war and violence upon us again and again. The instinctive slogans in one direction, when any sensible person knows there is no basis for them (at least not a practical one), come from the gut. The time has come to get past the gut and conduct ourselves with our heads.

You spoke about allowing communities to live in a place according to their way of life. No one disputes that, and for exactly that reason there is the Admissions Committees Law, which allows “rejecting candidates who are not suited to the fundamental outlook of the settlement.” That means that if you are a senior figure in a Haredi community, and women with short sleeves drive you crazy, you are allowed not to accept them.
In the case of the Nation-State Law, this clause could allow that as well (otherwise why was the clause written, given the Admissions Committees Law?)—people to refuse to sell apartments on a national background, since they are “members of one religion/nationality who wish to maintain a separate communal settlement.” I didn’t understand how the connection here is unclear.

“This is only about certain cases in which there is a place defined as having a certain character, and for proper reasons.”
Are you claiming that this is the intent of the clause? If so, it’s not clear how you concluded that, and if you are claiming that only if this is the law’s intent do you support it, then I agree with you.

As for your two comments, they are accurate but not related to the subject. True, there is a great deal of hypocrisy. True, the legal system discriminates more against Jews than against Arabs when it comes to settlement issues. All the things you mentioned are serious and require attention, but how is that relevant to the fact that this clause also requires attention?

In my view, the Nation-State Law is actually a good and important law. This specific clause could be problematic, and therefore I think it is unnecessary, nothing more. In any case, I asked for your opinion and received it. Thank you for the detailed response.

Tair, admissions committees apply only in communal settlements. That’s not the situation with the Haredim.

If today, de facto, only Arabs are allowed to prevent Jews from entering their villages by threats of violence, then following the new clause Jews too will be able to preserve the character of their settlement and protect the residents’ security from hostile elements.

What should be noted is that this has nothing to do with the ‘Nation-State Law,’ which defines the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people. The right to preserve national, religious, and cultural character should be included in a ‘Communal Autonomy Law,’ and it should protect every ‘communal settlement’ without distinction of religion or nationality.

Best regards, S. Z. Levinger

I’m not expert in the legal details. The question is not legal but value-based, and that is what I answered. I wrote what I support, and I don’t know whether it belongs in the Nation-State Law or the Admissions Committees Law, or what the relation between them is.
However, from the wording cited here, I do not see how it follows that a private person would not sell an apartment to someone because of such a consideration. This is a decision of the state or of the settlement with state approval. That is exactly an admissions committee, and it is justified under the conditions I wrote. If that means there is a redundant law, then let them repeal it.

Regarding the sale of Jewish homes in the Land of Israel to non-Jews and renting to idol worshippers, there is an explicit halakhic prohibition. Those whose throats ring with democracy are supposed to defend it in the name of ‘freedom of religion.’

As for renting an apartment, there has to be trust between landlord and tenant, and there is no room here for criteria at all. Can someone demand that a person entrust his property to any watchman who offers himself?

Best regards, S. Z. Levinger