What Is a Jew and an Israeli According to Bennett (Column 396)

With God’s help

Disclaimer: This post was translated from Hebrew using AI (ChatGPT 5 Thinking), so there may be inaccuracies or nuances lost. If something seems unclear, please refer to the Hebrew original or contact us for clarification.

In the column before last I discussed Naftali Bennett’s political decisions. In the previous column I addressed religious commitment via Racheli Rotner’s post. I will devote this column to Bennett’s conception of Judaism and Israeliness, as he presents it here (without the preface; see also here). At the end of the column I will return and tie all these together.

My initial inclination was not to agree with the gist of his words (see the series of columns on Judaism, from column 336 onward), and at times I felt like a trainee in a Bnei Akiva activity or a pathetic civics class—an emotional, somewhat childish enthusiasm meant to instill in me certain values. I’m past that age. But for some reason, as I read I found myself identifying quite a bit with parts of it, and that made me uneasy (and even a bit worried). So I thought it appropriate to give it some more thought, and try to delineate the lines of agreement and disagreement, of comfort and discomfort.

Bennett’s Words

I’ll begin with a full quotation of his words:

First Questions

Several principal questions arise for me upon reading this (particularly because parts of it don’t speak to me, and yet I still think I am a Jewish Israeli, with or without a hyphen):

1. Apparently he intends merely to describe some typological figure—that is, to define the concept “Jewish-Israeli.” But in practice it seems he sketches an exemplary, utopian figure and preaches that we be like it, while criticizing those who are not. This is not a neutral description but a kind of exhortation.
2. It is unclear which of these are criteria for “Jewishness” and which are criteria for humanity. Quite a few of these criteria do not seem connected to Judaism in any way (and some not even to Israeliness).
3. It is unclear which of these are values and which are facts. One can define a Jew in the factual-ethnic sense, and one can also define values such that whoever is faithful to them is a Jew in an essential sense (that is really a definition of Judaism, not of “a Jew”). Is there value in being a Jewish-Israeli? If one does not meet these criteria, is one “not okay” in some sense? Is he not a Jew, not an Israeli, or perhaps only missing the hyphen?
4. What role does emotion play in defining the Jewish-Israeli? If someone’s heart does not burst with pride at the torch-lighting ceremony, or does not see in Miriam Peretz a continuation of the prophetess Deborah, is he not a Jew, or not an Israeli? Conversely, if someone’s heart does burst and he falls in admiration at Miriam Peretz’s feet, must he be a Jewish-Israeli? Perhaps he is from the Mekuyah sect, or just a gentile who loves people who contribute to society, or maybe an Evangelical Christian who sees us as the people of the Bible?
5. What is the standing of the hyphen in the expression “Jewish-Israeli”? Is this a different kind of Judaism, a different kind of Israeliness, or is it a “juxtapositional” compound in the Rogatchover’s terminology (that is, the two components dwell side by side without blending—unlike a “blended” compound)? My impression is that for him this is mainly a definition of Israeliness, though naturally some part of it is Judaism (even though there are non-Jews and Druze who are as good Israelis as you and me).

My View on the Matter

In my eyes, a Jew in the halakhic sense is one born to a Jewish mother or who converted in accordance with halakha. A Jew in the essential sense is one who is faithful to halakha—no more and no less. In the ethnic-national sense, “Jew” is a fairly amorphous definition, and it is very hard to set criteria for it. Everyone says whatever they want here and there is no way to decide; but there is also no real need to decide. That definition is not important (what would be the practical difference whether someone is a Jew in the ethnic-national sense?), except perhaps for academic researchers of nationalism. Of the three definitions, only the middle one has a value dimension. The first and third are mainly facts (even if the third is a very amorphous fact and hard to diagnose).

From this you’ll understand that my fundamental view regarding the term “Jewish Israeli” is juxtapositional and not blended (hence I did not write it with a hyphen). The term “Israeli” in my eyes denotes facts, not values. It is my nationality and my state, just as Belgium is for Belgians. I ought to be loyal to the state (even if, in my opinion, there is no obligation to burst with pride about it), precisely as a Belgian should be regarding Belgium. It’s simply that, to my sorrow or to my joy, I was born here and not in Belgium. There is no inherent value here beyond a basic loyalty to the state and the society of which you are part, as part of the civil covenant implicitly signed by every citizen. For me this is similar to the value of fulfilling a contract, not some supreme substantive value. I wouldn’t write odes of praise to a paid watchman who pays up when the animal deposited with him is stolen or lost.

Nor do I see value in bursting with pride about any event—if only because emotions are not a matter of values (see column 22). Emotion is a fact. Beyond that, emotions are subjective and emotional, and each person has his own mental and emotional makeup (if he has one at all). In different situations there are those whose hearts will burst and those whose hearts will not. A person lacking emotions, whether due to a brain defect or simply a cold personality, is as fine an Israeli as I am. Therefore a mentally healthy Israeli who simply does not burst with pride at this ceremony—or any other—is, in my eyes, an excellent Israeli like me and like any other Israeli. You may not believe it, but in my opinion even someone who has harsh criticism of the state and/or of the way the torch-lighters are chosen, and therefore feels his heart ache with sorrow during the ceremony (or simply doesn’t bother to watch it)—he can still be a wonderful and caring Israeli like me and like Bennett. True, if someone is indifferent to the whole matter (despite being mentally healthy), then something is probably missing in his Israeli identification and civic concern; and still, he is an Israeli in every respect. It’s permissible to be indifferent, as long as you fulfill your obligations as a citizen.

So when Bennett says that a Jewish-Israeli is supposed to burst with pride during the torch-lighting ceremony, it seems to me that he is merely describing what happens to him personally, and saying that despite—or because of—that he sees himself as a good Israeli. That, of course, I can agree with. From there to general criteria for Judaism or Israeliness or their conjunction, the distance is great. So why did I nevertheless feel some identification with his words?

The Meaning of Bennett’s Manifesto

As I wrote, I still feel there is something non-trivial in what he says. First, my sense is that Bennett seeks to hold up a mirror to the common conceptions (such as mine) that see Judaism as something timeless and anachronistic: a religion (in the biblical sense, “dat” means law) that has no bearing on what you think or do, apart from fulfilling your halakhic duties—the conception that your Judaism is a set of mechanical actions that can be performed in any situation and under any circumstances, and are independent of them. That, of course, I do not accept.

In his words Bennett also holds up a mirror to Haredi-ism, which sees Judaism as an idea that clashes with loyalty to the state, with modernity, and with everything outside it. Here I am, of course, with Bennett. Bennett essentially claims that a Jew need not live in exile, and he argues that even in biblical times Jews were not only observers of commandments. They had a national identity; they waged wars; there were power struggles, ceremonies, governance and institutions—all those things that for many of us (like me) are no longer associated with Judaism. I accept this thesis partially. I fully agree that a Jew is also a citizen of the world and ought to be one. Judaism is not a monastery and should not be sequestered in Noah’s arks. But that’s not because what is outside the ark is also Judaism—it isn’t. Rather, it is because a Jew is also a human being—perhaps first and foremost a human being—and as such he ought to live and act across all arenas of life, not only in the beit midrash and the ark. The Torah was not given to ministering angels. There are several similar yet non-identical facets to this, as I will now explain.

Halakhic Renewal

His remarks about the halakhic renewal that this requires of us seem very correct to me. For some reason, statements like these are always linked to the debate between Religious-Zionism and Haredi-ism. But it’s important to understand that to say this, there is no need to assume that Israeliness is part of Judaism, nor to be a Religious-Zionist (with or without a hyphen). It suffices to recognize that in Israel there is factually a situation in which many Jews are trying to run a state and modern social life, and therefore it is clear that this requires creative and open halakhic engagement. It is important to remember that halakha also deals with how one eats and, by contrast, how one expels the waste of that food from our bodies; therefore it should also deal with how one runs a modern state. This does not mean the state has religious value, or that Israeliness is necessarily part of Judaism—just as it doesn’t mean that excreting or eating lunch has religious value. Israeliness is the circumstance within which I live my Judaism, and therefore it demands recognition and halakhic treatment.

The implication is that the need to renew halakha exists objectively, regardless of one’s attitude to the state. Even Haredim who oppose Zionism need to recognize and understand this need. Here one can see the distinction I have often made between two meanings of Haredi-ism: conservatism (particularly halakhic conservatism) and opposition to Zionism. My claim here is that halakhic openness can go together with opposition to Zionism, as long as one takes care to look at the surrounding reality and not to seclude oneself in physical and conceptual Noah’s arks. I feel that, among other things, Bennett means to say this—and here, too, I fully agree.

Normative Duality

This is the place to note the opening in which Bennett describes his relationship (in the broad sense, including his wife’s entire family). At least in the subtext, I understand him to be claiming that a person can be a Jew faithful and committed to halakha while living simultaneously in a parallel, additional world that is more general and universal—and sometimes even directly contradictory. As I argued at length at the beginning of the third book of my trilogy, a person can be faithful to halakha and at the same time fight for gay rights and for opening mikva’ot (ritual baths) to anyone who wishes to immerse, even if that is not in line with halakha. The reason is that in my world beyond halakha there is also an entire realm of values (such as democracy and equality), and I am committed to all of them. Moreover, I explained there that when these values clash with halakha, halakha does not always prevail. As a Jew faithful to halakha I can desire that every Jew be obligated by halakha, and at the same time as a Jewish-democrat (Jewish-Israeli?) fight for his right not to observe it and to live according to his own path. In other words, I detect in his words an additional claim: halakha is not the whole picture. In addition to being a Jew, I am also a human being. Needless to say, I fully agree with that as well.

On Particularistic Universality, or: In Praise of Normalcy

True, Bennett paints this universality in Israeli-particularistic colors, but in my opinion that is of little significance. This is universality as experienced by us here in Israel. Our secular, normal life (the arts and literature, professional pursuits, sports, and more) is in Hebrew. Our democracy is Israeli. The hills we hike are Israeli. But essentially, for me, this is a manifesto for normal Judaism and not specifically for Israeli Judaism; it just happens to be written by an Israeli. It seems to me that this is precisely the point where I connect with his words despite my initial antagonism. His Israeliness is, in my eyes, universal, and as such I do see in it a certain value dimension. I must, however, sharpen that this is a negative value dimension: that is, there is a rejection of the value-laden claim that all this has no place within a Jewish worldview. That does not mean that any of these things, in themselves, are values—and certainly not Judaism. That, as noted, I do not accept.

My antagonism is directed at the identification he makes between all this and Judaism (because in my view there is no connection, at least on the value plane), and also somewhat at the fact that this universal normalcy dons Israeli-particularistic colors for him in a way that makes it harder to understand that it is essentially sheer universality and normalcy. He could have written the same thing about a Jewish-Belgian, and in principle it would be the same. As an Israeli, I of course find myself identifying with his words as phrased here, but that is only because I was born here and these are my feelings. More precisely, it stems from facts and not from values. Factually, I want to live with my people in my homeland, Israel, and therefore it is natural for me to speak of Israeliness rather than “Belgian-ness.” But that is really a contingent and factual matter, not a value. From an objective viewpoint, there is no greater value in being Israeli than in being Belgian. This is a matter of built-in identification within us that is, at its core, factual. In short, the value dimension—so far as I see such a dimension here—is not Israeliness but universality. I identify with his claim that a Jew should and can be normal, but not with the notion that this normalcy has intrinsic value or that it is part of Judaism, nor with its connection specifically to Israeliness.

Beyond my critique of the failure to distinguish between values and facts in his words, when one makes too big a deal out of this particularistic fact, one can also reach fascism (in which you see your nation as something essential rather than a contingent fact, and also as a supreme value that tramples individuals beneath it—and of course you see your nation as superior to every other nation). But that is another discussion.

Conclusion

What leads me to see Bennett as a good representative of mine is that same freedom and opening of frameworks, as opposed to the prevailing religious rigidity. I am not with him in the “lite-ness,” nor in the am-ha’aratzut (ignorance) and the balabatish ideological small-mindedness. But there is something refreshing in his normalcy. I am fed up with religious representatives about whom you can predict in advance what they will say about anything—those who subjugate every statement and every reference to the religious conceptual framework (when there is no need). I do not want a Knesset member or a rabbi who feels compelled to refer to a Pride Parade as a “parade of beasts” because halakha forbids homosexual relations—someone incapable of understanding that one can live in both worlds and that it is not right to subordinate one to the other. Bennett, in my eyes, represents the possibility of being a Jew faithful to halakha and, in parallel, a human being with universal values. Not because there is no contradiction—sometimes there is indeed a contradiction—but because I belong to both of these worlds together, and when there is a conflict, it must be resolved rather than ignoring one of its sides.

In this sense, the present column joins the previous one. I wrote there that Racheli Rotner represents, in my view, a certain normal and free Judaism, just as with Bennett. Except that my sense is that in both of them this is not grounded and not theoretically supported (neither halakhically nor philosophically). It is apparently a natural and obvious feeling for them, and both are unwilling to give it up, even though it runs counter to accepted Torah and religious dogmas. As I wrote there, I am trying to formulate these conceptions into a coherent intellectual framework, thereby giving them theoretical and halakhic—or rather meta-halakhic—backing.

I must add that, at least within the religious framework, I believe that natural feelings that are not supported by a theoretical and halakhic foundation cannot truly exist and progress. Whoever goes with them as they are is ejected from the religious framework, and then those who remain inside are only the fossils. Therefore a deep and thorough theoretical plowing is needed, and I believe that, in the end—even if only after many years and even generations—it will come to fruition and bear fruit on the practical plane and even the political one.

Moreover, this has an expression in the political sphere as well. As long as these natural feelings are not supported on the theoretical plane, it is very hard for people to support them and even to give them a voice at the ballot box. Their simple feeling—accompanied, of course, by statements from the rabbinic establishment—is that a serious Jew committed to halakha cannot lend his hand to a coalition some of whose components have emblazoned on their banners freedom and rights for every person, with any sexual orientation and gender identity. You must decide: Are you a Jew or a democrat? We need only hear the voices coming out against Bennett and his coalition from those quarters to understand the power of the rigidity. Therefore I wish to argue here: You indeed can, and it in no way contradicts your religious commitment. Here we return to Bennett the politician. May he—and we—enjoy great success. And see life with the woman whom you love…