A letter to a friend

Dear Joseph

The following links describe the notion of a Jewish State and explain why religion and such a state are inseparable.

Israel is not just a "sister democracy" as you put it, though that is reason enough for you to fight on the side of Israel.

But it is more than that, or many would argue, should be. For it to be a Jewish State, it will take more than a Jewish majority. It will take a return to our roots and our culture.

The Torah, and the Mishna and Talmud, which interpret it have served the Jewish people well for thousands of years. Notice, I didn't say the Jewish religion, because in Judaism, religion serves the people and not the other way around.

Jews of all stripes, both secular and religious, Right and Left, have a high regard for Judaism's values and principles and will often validate their own by reference to them. Many Jews oppose the notion of Israel becoming a "State like any other State" or "a people like any other people" and continue to believe that "Jews are a light unto the nations" or are meant to be .


Judaism is a very tolerant religion. If you are Jewish, you can be secular or religious and you remain Jewish. The secular, though, fight with the religious, over whether the Israel should enforce religious laws such as the Sabbath. There are many other such conflicts. This should not be an argument to support separating Israel from the Torah or the state from the religion. Such conflicts are capable of compromises where there is good faith on both sides. And compromise doesn't necessitate forcing the people to follow religious laws. Believe me, if the secular Jews in Israel will accept the compromises, the gentiles will also. The Jews are more rebellious and are the hardest to please.

Now in the US, there is a war going on between the atheistic Left and the religious Right. The Left wants to denude the country of its religious foundations. The same battle is being fought in Israel where the Left has held sway reaching their zenith with the post Zionists and are now being held to account by the people. In Europe, the Left won the battle a long time ago but now I believe there is a resurgence beginning where various European countries are starting to defend themselves.

Being an atheist yourself you may find it difficult to support a state with deep religious roots but I think that you would not find it a bar to your support. In fact this same battle is being fought over the role of patriotism vs relativism, assimilation vs multiculturalism and unilateralism vs multilateralism. Do we want to eviscerate our identity and culture in favour of a multicultural society with varying values and identities and allegiances. This is the culture war if you like.

This is how Sharansky put it in Temple Mount is more important than peace. And Sharansky is secular.


[...]Nor was it peace for which the Jewish people prayed for thousands of years. The Jewish people prayed for Jerusalem. Because of Jerusalem, the Jewish people returned to Israel from the four corners of the earth, for it they were willing to make all the necessary sacrifices. For that same dream of a thousand generations - "next year in rebuilt Jerusalem."

It should be noted that if we totally relinquish every value for the sake of peace, we won't have peace either. Just as in the past, this time, too, the Palestinians will interpret such a relinquishing of what constitutes our very identity as a tremendous weakness that calls for war.

The values symbolized by Jerusalem are not only religious in nature. One doesn't have to be religious to understand that without our historical connection to Jerusalem, without the link to the past, without the feeling of continuity with the ancient kingdoms of Israel for whom the Temple Mount was the center of existence, we really are foreign invaders and colonialists in this country.

One doesn't have to be religious in order to understand that relinquishing the Temple Mount is a justification of the Palestinian argument: You have no right to exist in this country, you have no connection to it, get out of here. One doesn't have to be religious in order to understand that relinquishing the Temple Mount is not only relinquishing the past, it is primarily relinquishing the future. The future of all of us, here.

The members of the Hovevei Zion Zionist movement were not religious - they were secular socialists who considered religion a degenerate and sick product of the exile. Despite that they fought with all their might against the Uganda Plan [a 1903 British offer to let the Jews build a homeland in Uganda]. It was clear to them that without a common past, without roots, the Zionist project had no chance of succeeding.

Even today we must understand that without Jerusalem and without our historical roots the Zionist project will not be able to survive. Without Jerusalem Israel will become just another Jewish community, one of many in the world, like that of New York, London or Toronto - except more dangerous, less wealthy and less comfortable. It will not be the center of the Jewish world, not the focus of its existence - just one more community. And if that's the case, why continue to live in it? For what? In the name of what?


Prof Eidelberg has an essay entitled A Jewish National Strategy in which he argues

Fear of the racist canard dominates Israel�s political and intellectual leaders and their financial backers in the Diaspora. Even among Jews who want a Jewish State, most are afraid to draw the logical consequences of such a state, namely, that its laws and policies must be determined exclusively by Jews as prescribed in a Constitution.

Prof. Shlomo Sharan wrote a paper entitled State and Religion in Israel subtitled Why the Separation of State and Religion is Inappropriate for Israel . His words are worth repeating

[...]Elections to the 15th Knesset in May 1999 once again brought to the forefront of Israel�s political life the problem of the relationship between state and religion. The ultra-Orthodox Shas party became the 3rd largest political party in Israel, and the newly formed Shinui party, elected on the basis of a narrow and exclusively anti-religious political platform, acquired 6 seats in the Knesset. Shinui, the Left-wing Meretz party and other extra-parliamentary groups, seek the adoption of a constitution that would formerly separate Judaism as a religion from the State of Israel as a secular nation. Such separation, claim the pro-secularist groups, would prevent the concentration of political power in the hands of the ultra-Orthodox parties (Haredim), as well as rectifying conditions created by what the secularists perceive to be coercive and anti-democratic legislation.

There are many reasons why separation of state and religion is inappropriate for Israel. Among these are:


1. The Jewish cultural-religious-historical heritage consists of the unfolding of Jewry�s creativity over a period of 3,400 years. It is not identified solely with the Talmud and Midrash. The latter possess enormous breadth and depth, having evolved over an 800-year period (200 B.C.E. to 600 C.E.), but Judaism as the Jewish historical heritage continued to evolve to this very day. This entire heritage, including Zionism, forms the basis of the State of Israel as a Jewish nation. Consequently, separation of Judaism from the State is tantamount to undermining the foundations of Israel.

2. The social cohesion of Israeli society, reconstituted as a body politic after 19 centuries of exile by Jews from all over the globe, depends upon Jewry�s identity as a distinct historical-religious-ethnic-national entity. Removal of any of these elements by shortsighted legislation could destroy the internal fabric of Israeli society and seriously weaken its ties to Diaspora Jewry.

3. Separation of state and religion would not eradicate the antagonism between the two militant poles, secularist and Haredi, of Israeli society. That conflict can be alleviated only through a long process of political compromise and visionary leadership.

4. Israel is only one of many ethnic democracies (such as Finland, Norway, Korea, etc. etc), that have one ethnic majority and one or several minorities that do not share ownership of the national territory. Israel�s identity as a Jewish nation is no less democratic than any other of these countries. Almost all of the ethnic democracies also have an official state religion, just as Judaism is the official national religion of Israel. An official state religion, along with a dominant ethnic majority, are fundamental features of many democratic nations.

Finally, Israel Jewry is urged to undertake a profound reconstruction of its cultural-religious life. The goals are to promote a higher level of awareness regarding Jewry�s historical-religious heritage among Israel�s Jewish citizens, and to make it possible for all major Jewish subgroups, that are devoted to promoting Jewish historical continuity, to identify with the State of Israel.