The state will not be more Jewish if it keeps out people who see themselves as Jews or if it refuses to designate as Jews those whose fathers are Jews or whose attachment to their Jewishness is clear as day. On the contrary: Israel will be much more Jewish if it realizes the vision of Minister Yisrael Bar-Yehuda and opens up a civil pathway to the recognition of Jewishness, alongside the rabbinical pathway.

From a birds-eye view, the modern project of reestablishing Jewish sovereignty is one of the most stirring political stories of the new age. It is not surprising that some of the modern era’s greatest intellectuals were taken with the vision of a renewed Jewish state and of the Jews’ return to their ancient land. Despite being secular, I find great value in this romantic vision.

Israel never wanted to become Israeli: this is the tragic paradox of a nationalism that never dared to become one. What would it mean to become Israeli? It would mean for the state to let the diversity of definitions of Jewishness flourish and expand; it would mean building a common culture ample enough to become a meeting point for Jews and non-Jews. This would strengthen its democracy and, ironically, its Jewishness as well.

The Jewish intellectual world has yet to produce a leader of stature, comparable to the Pope, who might advocate for a change in our relationship with nature. During the 20th century, the Jewish people’s physical and spiritual survival was in jeopardy, leaving no physical or mental resources with which to address the earth’s survival.

Israel is a Jewish state because the vast majority of the people living in it are Jewish, because its public sphere is Jewish, because to a great extent private life is also Jewish, and because it is located in Eretz Israel, the national home of the Jewish people for thousands of years.

The time has come to build our state rather than continuing to invest our economic and human resources in a land that is not ours, from which we will have to withdraw sooner or later – preferably sooner.

The “Jewish and democratic” pairing in any case represents what chemists would call a compound, not a mixture. Neither of these components should be discussed separately; each of the two foundational values should strive where possible to display that aspect of it that best “speaks” to its counterpart.