My Judaism is Not Made of Rituals but of Justice, Commitment, and Humanity.

My father and my entire family were wholly assimilated. For us, Judaism was not a constant practice but a distant memory, sporadically revived during holidays where food was the main attraction. The smell of gefilte fish in the air or the sweet aroma of apples with honey were almost the only remnants of a faith that had once guided generations before us. However, the Judaism that took root in me came from elsewhere, where tradition met critical thinking and human sensitivity.

Through Amos Oz’s words, I found my way back to Judaism, not one of the rituals, but the Judaism of ideas, the struggle for justice, and the defense of the oppressed. With his narrative steeped in love for Israel and pain for its contradictions, Oz taught me that being Jewish is, above all, being human—a human being who questions is disturbed by injustices, and is not afraid to love, even when love becomes complicated.

But Oz did not walk alone with me. Alongside him, Martin Buber brought the concept of the “I and Thou,” where the relationship with the other, with one’s neighbor, is a direct reflection of our relationship with the divine. He made me understand that spirituality is not in the grandeur of gestures but in the simplicity of actual encounters with others.

Hannah Arendt’s relentless analysis of banalized evil taught me the importance of resisting conformity and being the dissenting voice when society chooses apathy. She made me see that silence in the face of injustice is a form of violence.

Primo Levi, a Holocaust survivor, with his courage to recount the unspeakable, taught me that memory is an act of resistance. He showed me that telling our stories is vital so that future generations understand the horrors humanity can inflict on itself and, thus, perhaps, avoid them.

Following these masters, I found Abraham Joshua Heschel, who taught me that religion should be a moral force, a call to social action. For Heschel, spirituality is deeply connected to the struggle for justice, and he made me see that praying with one’s feet in civil rights marches is as sacred as praying with books.

Finally, there was also Emmanuel Levinas, who had a philosophy of the face of the other. Levinas made me understand that ethics precedes ontology, that the first human duty is towards the other, and that this inescapable responsibility defines our existence.

I might not know how to pray, and I admit that I don’t follow the laws of kashrut with the discipline that many consider essential. But when I look at what indeed underpins my life, I see a Judaism imbued with the wisdom of Oz, the ethics of Buber, the clarity of Arendt, the courage of Levi, the engaged spirituality of Heschel, and the ethics of the other of Levinas.

In hindsight, ironically, the absence of a structured Judaism in my family may have been, in fact, a blessing. According to the laws of physics, there is no absolute vacuum; what seems empty is merely a space waiting to be filled. And that space in my life was filled with a Judaism that does not cling to formal traditions but breathes through the teachings of these giants of thought. The absence of rituals did not leave a void but created fertile ground for these ideas and ethics to take deep root within me.

Thus, the Judaism that guides me is practiced not only with books and absolute truths but also with the mind and heart. It does not express itself in rigid rules but compassion and the relentless pursuit of justice and dignity. Judaism goes beyond ritual practices and is grounded in the defense of human dignity, the pursuit of justice, and the rejection of hatred. It is a leftist, humanist Judaism, where the value of life is always greater than any border or ideology.

And it is precisely this Judaism that makes me look with repulsion and anger at the leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right group. They promote a policy of violence and destruction, which not only takes innocent lives but also destroys any hope for peace. What Netanyahu offers the people of Israel is not security but an illusion sold by force at the cost of human dignity and justice. He and his allies perpetuate a cycle of hatred, turning Israel into a state that, in the name of survival, sacrifices its soul.

What pains me, what tightens my chest, is the realization that our destiny has been hijacked by those who should be the guardians of our soul. It’s not the politics that disturb me; it’s the amputation of our humanity. What Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right entourage have done is not governance but dehumanization. They create a scenario where life is measured by the power of destruction, where the silence of bombs drowns out any hope for peace. With painful clarity, I see that what is sold to us as security is merely fear in disguise, an illusion that erases our identity and tears at our spirit.

This is not just a government but an open wound that corrodes our deepest values. The Israel I learned to love, which exists in texts, in words, and the memories of a just land, is lost each time force overrides compassion; each time, hatred shouts louder than the desire to live in peace. What haunts me is the feeling that we are trading essence for an empty shell, sacrificing dignity for the instinct of survival.

I don’t speak as an analyst; I speak as someone who feels, suffers, and watches the people I belong to drift away from what makes us human. What I want, what I wish with all my soul, is that one day we can awaken from this nightmare, that we can see the reflection of what we have become and find the strength to change. Israel’s true power does not lie in weapons but in its ability to be a beacon of justice and humanity in a world so desperately in need of light. May we, one day, remember who we are and, more importantly, who we can be.