Of all the fault lines dividing Israeli society, none is more dangerous \u2013 or more misleading \u2013 than the supposed divide between \u201cJews\u201d and \u201cIsraelis\u201d: the notion, aggressively promoted by some, that the Right represents the \u201cJews\u201d who keep the flame alive, while anyone who is not on the Right is merely \u201cIsraeli\u201d \u2013 estranged from Jewish tradition and in thrall to global \u201cprogressivism\u201d and its values.<\/p>\n
This is a distorted picture of Israeli society. Israeli identity itself embraces Jewish values and traditions; Jewish tradition and its values are foundational to Israeli-Zionist identity. The data, too, tell the opposite story. The overwhelming majority of Israelis are deeply Jewish \u2013 in identity, values, and practice.<\/p>\n
The false narrative of \u201cJews\u201d versus \u201cIsraelis\u201d has antecedents at both ends of the political spectrum. Its intellectual roots reach back to the fringes of the Canaanite movement and later to the post-Zionist Left, both of which sought to sever Israeli statehood from its Jewish inheritance.<\/p>\n
The narrative as a political weapon<\/strong><\/p>\n But the Right turned the idea into a popular political weapon. When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu whispered into Rabbi Yitzhak Kaduri\u2019s ear that \u201cthe Left has forgotten what it means to be Jewish,\u201d he was articulating a strategy designed to brand the entire liberal public as \u201cIsraelis\u201d hostile to Judaism and its expression in the Jewish state; to give the right-wing and haredi (ultra-Orthodox) bloc a monopoly on Judaism; and, above all, to bind it together as a cohesive \u201cJewish\u201d bloc.<\/p>\n But anyone who looks squarely at reality can see this for the distortion it is. Data from recent years consistently tell a very different story. Jewish Israeli society is not split between \u201cJews\u201d and \u201cIsraelis.\u201d Most of it falls within what might be called \u201cIsraeli Judaism\u201d or the \u201ctraditionalist sphere.\u201d<\/p>\n In this broad middle \u2013 which encompasses most of Israeli society, including most of the political Center and part of the Left \u2013 the two identities do not compete; they reinforce each other, in self-understanding as well as in practice.<\/p>\n The Jewish identity of Israelis<\/strong><\/p>\n Consider the numbers. Roughly 80% of secular Israelis say it is very important to them that their children grow up as Jews. The share of Israelis who attend a Passover Seder, light Hanukkah candles, affix a mezuzah at home, and circumcise their sons consistently exceeds 90%. Even on Yom Kippur, three out of four Israeli Jews fast either fully or partially, and almost all car owners refrain from driving. Two-thirds of Israeli Jews (67%) keep kosher fully or in part, and 70% do not eat hametz on Passover.<\/p>\n Israelis in the Center and on the Left, along with substantial segments of the Right, oppose religious coercion. Most support civil marriage, limited public transportation on Shabbat, and a more equal sharing of civic burdens.<\/p>\n They object to the politicization of religion, in part because they refuse to surrender their Judaism to the Chief Rabbinate \u2013 an ossified political institution focused on the sectoral and economic interests of its insiders. But opposition to the rabbinate\u2019s monopoly is not opposition to Judaism.<\/p>\n The real debate in Israel is not between \u201cJews\u201d who care deeply about tradition and \u201cIsraelis\u201d who supposedly reject it and want to strip the state of its Jewish markers. The debate is over the Jewish character of the state.<\/p>\n Participants in that debate include people on the Left whose concern for the state\u2019s Jewish character \u2013 and for the character of Judaism within it \u2013 is no less profound than that of the Jews on the Right. The attempt to portray the liberal camp as having lost its Jewishness is a dangerous political lie. It is time to root it out of our public discourse.<\/p>\n Israel is a Jewish and democratic state. It is also deeply Zionist and Israeli. At their best, these identities coexist, complement one another, and draw strength from one another. There is, of course, tension among the different values that constitute Israeli identity. The debate over their place in the public sphere and the institutions of government is real and has accompanied the country since its founding.<\/p>\n But at the deepest level of identity, most Israelis are also Jewish. The Jewishness of those on the Left and in the political Center is no less real than that of right-wing Jews. This narrative may serve the political extremes and the campaigns of cynical politicians, but it threatens Israeli society with yet another fault line \u2013 one built on a lie.<\/p>\n