Situation and Dynamics of the Jewish People Annual Assessment תש"פ | 2020   Project Head Shmuel Rosner Contributors Avinoam Bar-Yosef, Dan Feferman, Shlomo Fischer, Avi Gil, Inbal Hakman, Michael Herzog, Gitit Levy-Paz, Dov Maimon, Steven Popper, Uzi Rebhun, John Ruskay, Adar Schiber, Noah Slepkov, Shalom Salomon Wald Editors Barry Geltman Rami Tal

“In those days, there was no king in Israel; every man did that which was right in his own eyes” (Book of Judges). Based on current events in Israel, we seem to be reverting back to the period of the Biblical judges, with each tribe fighting against the other, in an atmosphere of complete chaos. This would be bad enough…

Among all the jurists of the last generation, the late Ruth Gavison stood out as an intellectual beacon. She was blessed with unusual acuity and intellectual brilliance, creativity and courageous thought, a broad education, curiosity, and meticulous attention to detail. Her professional writings, carved out by an analytical razor, and nourished by a sharp critical sense, were marked by sparks…

Picture this. It’s morning at the “Kalo Cafe” in Jerusalem. Mustafa the cook is standing by the induction cooker frying an omelet. Customers are sitting down and ordering. Suddenly, in walks a man in a white shirt and Kippa. Without saying a word, he walks over to the wall behind the counter, takes down the kashrut certificate, and leaves. Why?…

Today, Tisha Be’av, the ninth day of the month of Av, we commemorate the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, a key landmark in the sequence of events that led to the Jews’ exile from their land. From a national perspective, it was the result of poor geopolitical judgment, which spurred a hopeless revolt against the mighty empire that ruled…

The current debate about applying Israeli sovereignty to parts of the land beyond the Green Line could be of great importance to the future of Israel and its people. Published in the Jerusalem Post When asked if Israel’s Declaration of Independence should be postponed because of pressure exerted by the United States, Léon Blum, the Jewish former socialist French prime…

After developing an independent policy on a number of issues such as businesses opening on Shabbat and asylum seekers, Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai announced this week that the city would recognize same-sex marriage. Tel Aviv is demanding autonomy, and we are here to do it right and declare the first extra-territory in Israel -- the State of Tel Aviv.…

Israel’s golden decade has been brought to an abrupt end, as the country now faces a long line of ticking bombs: a pandemic that the state is failing to deal with and that professionals fear is spiraling out of control; a devastated economy that has left around a fifth of the population on the breadline; and a fateful decision to…

The abusive diatribe recently leveled by Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef against Israeli immigrants from the former Soviet Union is merely a symptom, not the problem itself. The real problem is that the Chief Rabbinate, headed by Rabbi Yosef together with his Ashkenazi counterpart Rabbi Lau, makes life difficult for this immigrant population on a daily basis, applying an extremely stringent…