Israel and Jew: One and the Same

Everybody has by now heard of Jewish actress Hannah Einbinder, who cursed the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency and called to “Free Palestine” while leaving the stage at the Emmy Awards in Los Angeles. As if that wasn’t enough, she clarified backstage: it was her “obligation as a Jewish person to distinguish Jews from the State of Israel because our religion and our culture is such an important and longstanding institution that is really separate to this sort of ethno-nationalist state.”  However abject and outrageous, this behavior — together with her statement and the red-hand pin she proudly wore instead of the yellow ribbon for the hostages — had one merit: it said out loud a question brewing beneath the surface. Can you dissociate between a Jew and Israel?

The debate has shifted in the past years from whether antizionism equals antisemitism, to whether one can support Israel but not its government, then to whether one can support Israel but not Prime Minister Netanyahu. And now the ultimate question: can one be a Jew and not support Israel at all?

The obvious answer seems to be yes, right? Israel and Jew are two separate notions, so how could one equate them? As a free-willed, thinking Jew, of course you can love Israel, protest its government, disagree with its policies. But then, what does it mean to “support” Israel? To love it? Why? Can you love Israel and slander it at the same time? These questions matter, especially when the slandering is done in the name of Jewishness itself. And when a Hollywood star declares, in the name of her Jewishness, such a radical dissociation, it forces us to think this equation anew.

What is the connection between Israel and Jews? In the words of Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks:

“It is the sole place on earth where Jews have had the chance to create an entire society on Jewish lines… Only there do they form a majority. Only there are they able to construct a political system, an economy, and an environment on the template of Jewish values. There alone can Judaism be what it is meant to be – not just a code of conduct for individuals, but also and essentially the architectonics of a society.” (Covenant & Conversation, The Religious Significance of Israel)

Many Jews in the Land seemed to have overlooked this special relation, taking it for granted. For Diaspora Jews, on the other hand, the connection was once clearer: Zionism. Just as Jews yearned for 3,000 years to return to the Land of their ancestors, so Diaspora Jews kept Israel in their hearts. The Zionist movement gave this yearning political form, and the Declaration of Independence said it best: “The Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here, their spiritual, religious, and national identity was formed. Here, they achieved independence and created a culture of national and universal significance. Here, they wrote and gave the Bible to the world. Exiled from Palestine, the Jewish people remained faithful to it in all the countries of their dispersion, never ceasing to pray and hope for their return and the restoration of their national freedom.”

But the second question of the equation remains: what does being Jewish mean? Ask one hundred Jews and you will get one hundred answers. In Israel, the guideline that subsides is the halakhic definition. A Jew is someone belonging to the ethnoreligious group of the Hebrews, either by birth (through the mother) or by conversion. All trace their origins back to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob — later named Israel. Israel complicated this slightly when it instituted the Law of Return in 1950, offering every Jew, and even those with one Jewish grandparent, the right to immigrate and become a citizen.

Diaspora developments (Reform Judaism most of all) added to the complexity, diverging from the halakhic definition. The connection between Jewishness and Israel seemed less straightforward as Israel matured. Assimilation in the Diaspora has grown, while Israel is about to become the largest Jewish community in the world, soon home to the majority of Jews. This demographic shift, coupled with the shock of October 7, changes the relationship. Indeed, the Hamas pogrom has revived the question with brutal urgency. In Israel, many Israelis felt a desire to connect with their Jewishness, while others seem to reject it even more. In the Diaspora, Jews stood at first united in unconditional support for Israel. But soon, some started hesitating and taking distance not only from the government’s actions but from Israel itself.

But here the paradox appears: how can one pretend to love Israel and at the same time set it on fire? Because its government is “too Jewish”? Too “Messianic”? Because it believes in the fulfillment of the destiny of the Jewish people in their own land? Because one chooses the lies of Hamas propaganda over Israel’s truth? Then what is the claim of such people to Israel, and even to being Jewish? To dissociate Jew and Israel is to mark a disconnect from both Jewish identity and life in Israel — to the point where the authenticity of such a Jewish identity must be questioned. For those who have lived in Israel long enough to partake in its life (education, army, work, and volunteering) and who also study Torah and reflect on God and the Jew’s relation to Him and to the Land, the link between Israel and Jew strengthens until the two become inextricable. The distinction blurs not because of definitions but because of lived reality. Actions speak louder than words.

Seventy-seven years after its founding, the State of Israel is nothing less than the fulfillment of Jewish destiny: to build a just and moral society rooted in tradition yet turned toward the future. No slur of “genocide” or “famine” will stop the Jewish people from walking this path. As Rabbi Sacks puts it: “There is a directness, a naturalness, of Jewish experience in Israel that can be found nowhere else.” Life in Israel unites what others try to divide: the Jew and Israel. One and the same.