For an Israeli Civic Identity
Judaism is in constant transformation. And yet, in the face of contemporary upheavals, it runs the risk of a gradual collapse. Ironically, it was precisely the founding of the Jewish State that brought halakha into the most serious crisis in its history. This turning point coincided with humanity’s entry into the Age of Enlightenment and its distancing from religion. In retrospect, one can say that halakha has failed in its attempt to govern the lives of Jews in their own state. It lacked the courage necessary to adapt to the realities of a sovereign people. Its rabbinical authorities were unable to revise commandments that had become anachronistic, contrary to modern ethics and incompatible with social progress. Instead, they chose to retreat inward, building walls and erecting new barriers in an attempt to contain the ideological earthquake shaking their foundations. In place of the great intellectual figures who once shaped Judaism, a disoriented rabbinate has emerged—one that veers toward mysticism, excessive messianism, and the exploitation of the most vulnerable.
A Crisis of Judaism in a Jewish State
The political activism aimed at imposing religion on secular society reflects a latent crisis of faith within the religious community itself. Their leaders are no longer driven by a desire for renewal, but by a visceral fear of change. The effects of this became apparent rather quickly: halakha is now undergoing an unprecedented intellectual decline. Its fragility is evident in the mediocrity of its elites—many of its defenders have become mere religious bureaucrats, sometimes corrupt, and utterly detached from any ethical or spiritual reflection. They have abandoned engagement with the fundamental questions of faith, preferring instead to attack secular Jews through practices of religious harassment. Lacking the courage to reform itself, halakha has ended up alienating a large segment of the Jewish people.
It is difficult to foresee how Judaism might recover from such a crisis. What does seem certain, however, is that the clerical obsession with the lifestyle of secular Jews is no solution. It is easier for religious leaders to impose their authority on the secular world than to confront their own uncertainties. And yet, our era is marked by transformations occurring at an unprecedented pace in human history. It is unlikely that religion will vanish, but it will have to reinvent itself. Rabbinic Judaism, as formulated in the Talmudic literature, is unlikely to survive the current upheavals. It is headed for a profound transformation.
At the same time, those who identify with secularism, liberalism, and humanism have also failed to develop a robust intellectual alternative in the face of religious encroachment and its harmful effects. The free world is itself undergoing a deep ideological crisis. Attempts at reconciliation between religious and secular communities have been, once again, largely one-sided. On the secular side, some continue to harbor a complex before the “Jewish textual treasure,” while on the religious side, no effort is made to welcome secular culture. Contemporary halakha refuses compromise. The religious live according to strict norms derived from rigid dogmas, while the secular navigate a world based on plurality, rationality, and critical doubt. In Israeli society, only religious sensitivity seems to be taken into account; the secular worldview receives no symbolic or moral recognition. At times, secular Jews observe certain traditional rites emptied of spiritual substance, reduced to mechanical gestures. Yet it must be acknowledged: the religious dimension and the human fascination with the sacred are deep-seated traits of human nature, just as much as the darker impulses that culture seeks to restrain.
Israeli Jewishness is currently experiencing a deep moral and spiritual crisis. This is reflected in the proliferation of religious figures who exploit superstitions, amulets, and magical practices for personal gain, often preying on vulnerable populations. In a post-ethnic world, Judaism will only survive if its religious leaders voluntarily abandon commandments that have become devoid of faith—just as the sages of the past once replaced blood sacrifice with collective prayer. Will a spiritual leader ever emerge who can bring Judaism back into the light of its intellectual golden age? Will we see the rebirth of thinkers of the stature of Saadia Gaon, Maimonides, Ibn Gabirol, Abraham Ibn Ezra, or David Kimhi? Will a new religious legislator arise who can break down the walls of halakha to adapt it to scientific advances? If this moral drift is not reversed, it is not unthinkable that contemporary religion will collapse like a house of cards. No one can predict the future of religious Zionists, settlers, or ultra-Orthodox groups. But one thing is certain: they will not disappear; they will evolve, as everything does in a world in constant flux.
Since the collapse of dogmatic ideologies in the 1970s, the global intelligentsia has also been at a loss in the face of religious radicalization. Liberalism, humanism, and scientific progress have failed to provide an effective bulwark against the rise of racism and violence. By reducing the debate between religious and secular to the sole question of God’s existence or religious coercion, we obstruct any fundamental questioning of religion itself—and of Judaism in particular. It is entirely possible that the religious world will implode from within, without any external intervention. Not so long ago, pragmatic Zionism rejected the Exile and considered the phrase “Jewish State” to be an oxymoron. Many rightly argue that a Jewish state cannot be fully democratic, and that a truly democratic state cannot, by definition, be Jewish. Even more striking—and paradoxical as it may seem—is the notion that a Judaism grounded in exilic consciousness cannot exist within a sovereign state, and that a sovereign state cannot be Jewish without internal contradiction.
The Teaching of History: Globalization or Ethnicity
The contemporary world, marked by globalization, multiethnicity, and the plurality of nations, remains largely misunderstood by educational policymakers in Israel. In their eyes, the “East” is essentially reduced to Morocco and Iraq, deliberately ignoring major civilizations such as Japan, China, Indonesia, or India. They seem to disregard the fact that we live in a sovereign state and not in exile—whether in Yemen or Ukraine. A significant portion of the Israeli population today belongs to the third generation of immigrants.
Had the Minister of Education truly wished to address the shortcomings of the school curricula, he would have established a commission composed of historians and literature scholars, tasked with rethinking the educational content to adapt it to contemporary realities and the intellectual world of the students. It would have been wiser to create a body dedicated to the teaching of history from an integrated perspective, rather than artificially introducing a program based on ethnic or communal criteria within an already highly segmented education system. Such a commission would likely have recommended abolishing the archaic separation between “Jewish History” and “General History”—a distinction that still persists in textbooks and even at the university level.
A national education system must look toward the present and the future. Education should provide a common foundation for all citizens, regardless of their origin or religion. In a context of advanced globalization, it would be a mistake to maintain a Judeocentric or Eurocentric perspective.
It is now imperative to break free from the ideological filters that cloud our perception of the world and adopt a renewed reading of both the past and emerging dynamics. To enable Israeli students to fully integrate into the global society to which they belong, they must acquire substantial knowledge of non-European cultures. They cannot remain ignorant of the civilizations of China, India, Japan, or South America. They must also be introduced to the history of the great religions that have shaped humanity: the Persian religion, biblical worship, the origins of Christianity, rabbinic Judaism, the writing of the Quran, Buddhist thought, Confucian doctrine, and Mayan culture.
They will also need to master the major intellectual movements that have traversed human history: Hellenism, polytheism, capitalism, communism, liberalism, and humanism. It is essential for them to understand the key stages of human evolution: the emergence of Homo sapiens, the mastery of fire, the development of language, the invention of writing, and the agricultural, industrial, scientific, and digital revolutions, as well as the formation of nation-states.
Israeli citizens must be fully familiar with the cultures of the Mediterranean basin, in which they live: the history of Ancient Egypt, Sumer, Akkad, Assyria, Babylon, and even more so Persia and Greece; that of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, Byzantium, the Mamluks, the Crusaders, and the Ottomans. In a globalized society, an educated person must possess solid knowledge in the major fields of intellectual, philosophical, scientific, artistic, and literary culture. This is the conceptual foundation of every 21st-century citizen.
Today, the teaching of history in Israel suffers from deep distortions. These cannot be corrected by commissions tasked with “strengthening Eastern communities,” nor through the imposition of religious content in civics textbooks. The mandate to incorporate the history of Eastern Jewish communities into school curricula is bound to fail. Methodologically, there is no coherent common denominator among these various communities.
Although my research partly focuses on Moroccan Judaism, I do not believe it necessary to impose its study on my children, as some of these commissions suggest. As a parent, what concerns me is the world in which my children will live as adults. Primary and secondary students are not meant to study the history of North African Jews, nor that of the Jews of Iran, Tunisia, Bulgaria, Poland, Spain, Ukraine, Yemen, Algeria, Romania, or Iraq.
History should not be reduced to a competition of identity-based narratives. Israel does not need an “Eastern” counter-narrative to compensate for an “Ashkenazi” narrative. Academia does not require the creation of a separate faculty for Eastern Judaism, detached from the humanities, under the pretext of correcting an injustice. Nor should Israeli society maintain an institutionalized rabbinic duality—with one Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi and one Sephardic Chief Rabbi—as if these were two different faiths.
Today, it is impossible to know the exact number of Muslims or Arabs living in France, simply because the law prohibits the recording of religion or ethnic origin in official documents. In enlightened societies, such distinctions have become obsolete. The greater the migratory flow from Africa and Asia, the better for Europe: sooner or later, the children and grandchildren of these migrants will enter into mixed marriages with the local population, thereby transforming the demographics and prompting a critical reappraisal of European culture. It is precisely this dynamic that will give rise to a new Europe—different from the one that plunged into the depths of racism and caused unprecedented human catastrophes.
The historical lesson of Europe in the second half of the 20th century is unambiguous: ethno-nationalist and religious isolation leads to catastrophe. Europe experienced mass killings because ethnic nationalism was exalted. What would have happened if, on the eve of the war, millions of Arabs, Africans, Indians, or Chinese had lived in Europe? Could an extermination campaign have even been conceived if mixed marriages were commonplace in Berlin, Paris, Rome, or London? Scientific progress and cultural flourishing did not prevent Europe from sinking into ethnic racism.
The future of Europe lies in a bold policy of welcoming populations from the poorest regions of the globe. But the reality is more complex: wealthy countries now tend to protect themselves through increasingly sophisticated mechanisms.
For an Israeli Civic Identity
A striking phenomenon among Jews in the diaspora is that of Israelization, which once again raises the issue of dual loyalty. Jewish identity is increasingly defined by its connection to Israel—its language and its culture. Jewish communities around the world cannot remain politically indifferent to the existence of Israel. At the same time, it is impossible to conceive of Israeliness without the cultural and historical layers of Judaism, even independently of religion. Can one imagine French, Italian, Spanish, or German culture without their deep ties to Christianity? Israeli culture is currently undergoing a dynamic process of transformation. Independent of official Orthodox Judaism in Israel, various connections to Judaism and religion in general exist within Israeli society. All of these are evolving rapidly. Today’s ultra-Orthodox are not the same as they were 70 years ago; religious nationalists have undergone radical change. At the same time, distinct sectors of the population—such as settlers and Arabs—are also experiencing profound transformations. The Jewish diaspora is now undergoing major changes under the influence of Israeli reality, with all its strengths and weaknesses. Jewish identity is taking on a new form that can no longer be separated from the Israeli model.
The weakness of mass ideology lies in its simplistic schematization. Everything is divided into two parallel camps that will never meet. It lacks nuance and subtlety. It disregards global powers, international public opinion, and the laws of globalization. Must the conflict be approached solely through the prism of security versus demography? Is there only one strategy to ensure the state’s security? Does the mere strengthening of settlements, the blockade, and the expulsion of populations from their land guarantee its survival? Are submarines, tanks, and the high ground the only means to secure our borders? Would it not be more reasonable to consider Israeli society in terms of the difference between those who believe in solutions and agreements, and those who fear them? Between those who are optimistic and those who have lost all hope for a more peaceful future? Between those who dread a peace scenario and those who believe in its benefits? Between those for whom morality is an essential guide and those who are convinced that the life of another is not worth the same as that of a Jew? The system traps us in the illusion of a symmetrical dilemma, leading to the stagnation of the status quo and ongoing violence. Many countries that experienced hatred after bloody wars have found a path to compromise and cooperation. Have we become the pariahs of the world?
Some brandish the demographic monster to frighten us with dark prophecies about the dangers of peace. The state’s slogan of being “Jewish and democratic” is nothing more than a euphemistic and sanitized expression referring to an ethnocratic state centered on Judaism, based on a virtual genetic lineage determined by maternal ancestry. Such a state will face difficulties in the dynamic world of tomorrow. A closed society is doomed to backwardness and degeneration. Enlightened countries are increasingly transforming into multinational societies in which the defining identity is civic identity. Is it conceivable that the “Arabs of Israel” will forever be perceived as disloyal citizens of their own state? Are they less patriotic than Israelis who hold ultra-Orthodox and anti-nationalist religious views? Should we not allow those who wish to study in Hebrew-language schools the opportunity to gain professional advantages? Is it not fair to enable every Israeli, regardless of origin, to serve in the army as a unifying force? Can an American of African and Muslim heritage become President of the United States, while an Israeli born in a village in the Galilee or in Wadi Ara could not become President of Israel?