A Jewish and Democratic State: Intra-Jewish Perspectives

תקציר

The Chapter describes the main elements of the legal infrastructure of Israel’s Jewish-religious identity, assesses the central arguments that have tried to rationalize or challenge it, and suggests a reconceptualization of the debates that engulf it. Part 1 presents a brief background, from the initial choice not to lockdown a constitutional arrangement, through the informal entrenchment of the “status quo” on religious issues, to the constitutional enactments of the 1990s and beyond that intensified the legalistic nature of Israel’s intra-Jewish disputes. This part also reviews the main policy issues implicated by Israel’s Jewish-religious identity. Part 2 tracks four dominant narratives in the intra-Jewish debate: Jewish first, democratic second; democratic first, Jewish second; minimalism (eschewing grand claims); and separation (segmentation of the public sphere). Each of the narratives provides partial resolution to the tensions invoked by the Jewish-democratic duality, but all fall short in yielding a sufficiently robust vision of coexistence for Israel’s polarized polity. Part 3 suggests a way forward in the debates. It recasts the Jewish-democratic duality as a methodological framework that sets the practical conditions—rather than the deductive outcomes—for deliberation, negotiation, and hopefully resolution of disputes on the character of Israel’s public sphere.