Moderator: Col. (res.) Adv. Pnina Sharvit Baruch
Adv. Talia Sasson, Dr. Assaf Malach, Lt. Col. (ret.) Avital Leibovich and Dr. Lior Alperovich
Focusing primarily on questions of religion and state, panelists offered different perspectives on the requisite balance between these defining elements and their implications for related issues, e.g., the attitude to the Arab minority in Israel. For Adv. Talia Sasson, religion and democracy are opposed to a great deal, and what should define Israel as a Jewish state is a Jewish majority. Israel might allow easier, “unequal” entry for Jews, but once in the state, all citizens must be treated equally. Puncturing democratic values punctures Jewish values. For Dr. Lior Alperovich, representing a haredi standpoint, the Jewish people in Israel are struggling with the idea of how to balance its 3500-year old Jewish identity and its recent (100+-year old) political Zionist environment. Israel is an anomaly among national projects. To him, demographics are irrelevant to the essence of the Jewish nation, and once there is an attempt to extract religion from the state, the Jewish state has lost the justification of its existence. In contrast, Lt. Col. (ret.) Avital Leibovich argued for the need to acknowledge and understand the fact of the large Jewish community in the United States, 85% of whom are not Orthodox. It is not right for Israel to forfeit this large Jewish community just because they represent different streams of observance or identity. For Dr. Assaf Malach, societies are built on organizing ideas: the State of Israel is organized on the idea of its being a Jewish state, whose founding fathers never thought of removing the Jewish element from the state – which does not mean a state defined by fundamentalist Jewish law. Deferring the Jewish nature of the state is tantamount to forfeiting Israel’s very essence. At the same time, it is important for the two large Jewish communities, in Israel and the United States, to learn from one another.