A foreigner visiting Israel might have had the impression that the candidates for the Supreme Court were running for a key political office, not for the highest-level judicial-professional position in the land.

The identity of the justices to be appointed is critical to the country’s future, as the court is a key player in the Israeli culture war.

In the current equation, the religious and the Haredim are "responsible" for defining what is "Jewish" in the Jewish state, and the secular and the religious alike quarrel over the meaning of "democracy." This is a fundamentally distorted equation.

In May 2021 Israel faced violent confrontations on two fronts, within the common broader context of Jewish-Arab relations in the Israeli-Palestinian space. One front was Hamas-controlled Gaza, from which over four thousand rockets were fired at Israeli cities. The other was the domestic front, centered around violent incidents of various kinds within Israel (including East Jerusalem): demonstrations, riots, arson, Molotov…

The past year presented Israeli society and its elected officials with quite a few challenges. Notable among them was a sense of polarization and (some maintain) hatred between different population sectors.

The most recent Israeli elections, like all election campaigns, can be analyzed on the tactical, short-term level or in regard to longer-term trends. On the tactical level, the elections did not result in a decisive victory to any of the political camps. This deadlock could lead to a fifth election cycle, or alternately, to the piecing together of an ideologically…