A Conversation Overheard in a Tel Aviv Café
A Conversation Overheard in a Tel Aviv Café
Israel, a Jewish State and a Democracy:
I had no intention of listening to their conversation.
They were sitting at the next table in a Tel Aviv café, the kind of place where people speak a little too loudly, phones interrupt sentences, and politics somehow always finds its way between two cups of coffee.
One was Haredi, an ultra-Orthodox Jew. The other belonged to that part of the Israeli right that sees itself as nationalist, deeply attached to the Jewish state, the army, and individual responsibility.
They seemed to have known each other for years.
The argument had clearly begun before I arrived.
“I still don’t understand,” the second man was saying, “how you can ask the state to fund your schools while denying it the right to determine what is taught there.”
“To audit the money? Certainly. To decide how we educate our children? No.”
“But if the money is public?”
“Public money does not give the state ownership over people’s consciences.”
“I’m not talking about conscience. I’m talking about math, English, science. A basic education that allows a child, once he becomes an adult, to choose his own life.”
The religious man smiled.
“You see? You say ‘choose his own life.’ So you have already decided that ours may not be the life he should choose.”
“No. I want him to be free to choose yours.”
“Provided he knows enough about yours to leave ours.”
“Provided he can leave yours if he wants to.”
A pause.
The waiter placed two glasses of water on the table.
“That is exactly where we disagree,” the religious man continued. “You call it the child’s autonomy. We sometimes see it as the state trying to transform a community it does not understand.”
“And you call it educational freedom when the state finances an education over which it is allowed to say almost nothing.”
“Because a democracy must be able to finance things it does not share.”
“Yes. But can it finance, without conditions, institutions that reject its conditions?”
The religious man shrugged.
“So you want us to be free, but on your terms.”
“And you want the state present when it pays and absent when it asks questions.”
This time he did not answer immediately.
“And the Army?”
The other man leaned toward him.
“But in the end, school isn’t even the real problem anymore.”
“I know. You’re going to talk about the army.”
“Of course.”
The religious man’s expression changed.
“We’ve been having this argument for fifty years.”
“Exactly. For fifty years, we’ve postponed it. Governments bought coalition peace by pushing the question into the future. But now we’re at war, reservists are being called back, families are living through months of absence. You can’t answer this question as though we were still thirty years ago.”
“Why? Has our Torah changed?”
“No. Reality has.”
“For us, Torah study contributes to the protection of Israel.”
“I respect your belief.”
“You say that as if it were a superstition.”
“Not at all. I’m simply saying that the state cannot measure divine protection.”
“Not everything can be measured.”
“Certainly not. But military service can. We know who leaves, how long they serve and, unfortunately, sometimes who does not come home.”
The religious man looked down.
“So you think those who study contribute nothing?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“It’s what you think.”
“I’m saying there is a difference between a spiritual contribution defined by your community and a material obligation imposed by the state. A soldier cannot simply say, ‘I believe my contribution to the nation should take another form, so I’m not reporting for duty.’”
“Because you don’t recognize Torah study as part of the defense of the country.”
“It isn’t my job to decide whether God protects Israel because people study Torah.”
“Then why do you get to decide the opposite?”
“I don’t. I’m saying that belief cannot become a legal rule requiring another citizen to risk his life in your place.”
Silence again.
“You Want Us to Disappear”
The religious man finally spoke.
“Do you know what we are really afraid of?”
“The army?”
“What it represents. You take an eighteen-year-old boy who has spent his entire life in our world and send him into an institution governed by different rules, different relationships between men and women, a different understanding of authority, a different way of life. And then you are surprised that we are afraid of losing him.”
“Now I understand you better.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Because we’re no longer talking about God protecting the borders. We’re talking about your fear of secularization.”
“And is that fear illegitimate?”
“No. It’s entirely understandable. But it changes the argument. You are no longer asking for an exemption because Torah study protects Israel. You are asking for an exemption to protect your community from Israel.”
The religious man objected.
“From a certain Israeli society.”
“Fair enough. That’s more accurate.”
He paused.
“But then say so.”
Two Classes of Citizens?
The café was filling up. Yet their conversation continued as though no one else were there.
“There’s something you refuse to hear,” the man on the right continued. “A young Israeli interrupts his studies. He leaves his job. His wife stays home with the children. He goes back into uniform for weeks or months. He can be wounded. He can be killed. And his taxes are simultaneously financing institutions whose students are exempt from the same obligation.”
“You reduce everything to the army.”
“Because in wartime the army has a brutal way of reducing rhetoric to reality.”
“We pay taxes too.”
“That’s not the point.”
“We have families, charities, social institutions. We contribute to society.”
“I don’t deny any of that. But why should your contribution entitle you to an exemption that the rest of the population cannot choose?”
“Because we are a particular community.”
“Israel is full of particular communities.”
“Not like ours.”
“That’s exactly where the problem begins.”
The religious man stared at him.
“You think there are two classes of citizens.”
“I’m afraid we’re creating them. Those who are protected and contribute to their protection, and those who are protected but can remain permanently exempt from contributing to it.”
“That’s a caricature.”
“Maybe. But tell me how I should explain it to the reservist being called up for the third time.”
The religious man said nothing.
“We Have Elected Representatives”
After a moment, he continued.
“There’s something else you’re forgetting. We are citizens. We vote. Our representatives are elected. Our parties participate in governing coalitions. What we obtain isn’t stolen from the state in secret. It is the result of democracy.”
“That’s true.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“A majority can pass a law. That doesn’t automatically make the law just.”
“So now you reject election results?”
“Not at all. I reject the idea that democracy is nothing more than parliamentary arithmetic.”
“That’s convenient when you dislike the majority.”
“And it’s convenient for a small party to become indispensable to a coalition and obtain far more influence than its actual weight in the country.”
“That’s politics.”
“Yes. But we’re talking about rules governing the duties citizens owe one another. If you ask others to carry the permanent cost of your exception, the question of legitimacy doesn’t disappear because you managed to get enough hands raised in the Knesset.”
“So our votes count less?”
“No. They count exactly as much as everyone else’s. That’s precisely my point.”
What Does a “Jewish State” Mean?
The religious man laughed.
“You’re strange for a man of the right.”
“Why?”
“Because you sound like a secular liberal.”
“I am secular.”
“And yet you claim to defend a Jewish state.”
“Of course.”
“Jewish in what sense?”
The question stopped the other man for a moment.
“Maybe that’s the real question,” he finally said.
“I’m listening.”
“Israel is the state of the Jewish people. Their national home. Their refuge. The place where, after two thousand years, Jews no longer depend on the goodwill of others for their survival.”
“So far, we agree.”
“Its language is Hebrew. Its calendar is Jewish. Shabbat shapes the week. Jewish holidays structure the year. Its history and symbols are Jewish.”
“Still agreed.”
“But none of that means rabbis should govern the country.”
The religious man smiled.
“Now we get to it.”
“Why? Do you believe that for Israel to be truly Jewish, it must become increasingly religious?”
“I believe that a Jewish state in which Judaism has no consequences for public life will eventually be Jewish only on its postage stamps.”
“Between postage stamps and theocracy, there may be a few possibilities.”
“Nobody is asking for a theocracy.”
“Then who decides? Marriage? Conversion? Public transportation on Shabbat? Education? Military service? Who gets to say, ‘This is Jewish, therefore the state must impose it’?”
“We have a tradition.”
“We have several traditions.”
“There is only one Torah.”
“Perhaps. But there are many Jewish ways of living with it — or even without it.”
Who Speaks for Judaism?
The secular man continued.
“Look at the country. Haredim, Modern Orthodox, traditional Jews, Masorti, Reform, secular Israelis. Some believe deeply. Others barely believe at all. Some never set foot in a synagogue and still feel entirely Jewish.”
“That doesn’t mean every interpretation is equally valid.”
“Religiously, that’s your concern. Politically, it belongs to all of us.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your party can represent its voters. It cannot decide by itself what being Jewish must mean for all of Israel.”
“And the secular majority can?”
“No.”
The religious man looked surprised.
“Then who can?”
“Perhaps no one. Or perhaps the Jewish people in all their diversity.”
“That’s a slogan.”
“Maybe. But it’s better than giving one religious institution a monopoly over our identity.”
And What About Citizens Who Aren’t Jewish?
The religious man stirred his coffee.
“If you follow your reasoning to the end, Israel is no longer a Jewish state.”
“On the contrary. But we have to distinguish three things.”
“Which three?”
“Nation, citizenship, and faith.”
“Explain.”
“Israel can be the nation-state of the Jewish people. Citizenship must remain equal. And religious belief must remain free.”
“That sounds very simple.”
“It isn’t. Because there are also Arab, Muslim, Christian, and Druze citizens. They live in a state that defines itself as Jewish even though they are not Jewish.”
“It is a Jewish state. They know that.”
“Exactly. Our responsibility is to make sure that ‘Jewish’ never means that they are second-class citizens.”
“Otherwise you deny the Jewish people the right to their own state.”
“No. I distinguish national self-determination from civic discrimination.”
“And will our enemies make that distinction?”
“Some never will.”
“Then why make their job easier?”
“Because I don’t define Israeli democracy according to what our enemies think.”
The Café Was About to Close
The waiter came to clear the cups. Neither man appeared to have convinced the other.
The religious man put on his jacket.
“So in the end, you want a Jewish state without allowing religion to determine what being Jewish means.”
“And you want a democratic state in which one community can decide for itself which common obligations it accepts.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No. That’s why we’ve been arguing for an hour.”
They laughed.
Then the religious man became serious again.
“Do you know what bothers me about your argument?”
“Tell me.”
“You accept our identity as long as it produces no consequences that make you uncomfortable.”
The other man thought for a moment.
“That’s a good objection.”
“And do you know what bothers me about yours?” he added.
“I assume you’re going to tell me.”
“You ask democracy to protect your difference, but you have trouble accepting that democracy may ask what that difference costs everyone else.”
The religious man remained silent.
They stood up.
I thought the conversation was over when he turned around.
“Then answer me one thing. For you, is Israel Jewish because it belongs to the Jewish people — or because it obeys Judaism?”
His companion slipped his phone into his pocket.
“That’s exactly the question I was going to ask you.”
They walked out.
I remained for a moment before the empty table, with the feeling that their disagreement reached far beyond the military exemption of the ultra-Orthodox.
Behind their argument lay a question Israel has never fully resolved:
Can a state be profoundly Jewish in its history, culture, and national purpose without giving religion the power to determine the rights and duties of its citizens?
And conversely:
Can a democracy permanently accept that, in the name of divine protection, some citizens are exempt from participating in the human defense of the state that protects them?
