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Jewish state
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The terms "Jewish state" and "homeland of the Jewish people" are used to describe the Zionist movement and the State of Israel and refer to its status as a nation-state for Jews. The phrase "national home for the Jewish people" has evolved over the years since it originated and was used in official documents such as the Balfour Declaration of 1917. The concept of a national homeland for the Jewish people is enshrined in Israeli national policy and reflected in many of Israel's public and national institutions.
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The terms "Jewish state" and "homeland of the Jewish people" are used to describe the Zionist movement and the State of Israel and refer to its status as a nation-state for Jews. The phrase "national home for the Jewish people" has evolved over the years since it originated and was used in official documents such as the Balfour Declaration of 1917. The concept of a national homeland for the Jewish people is enshrined in Israeli national policy and reflected in many of Israel's public and national institutions. The concept was codified in the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel on 14 May 1948 as well as in the Law of Return, which was passed by the Knesset on 5 July 1950, and stated "Every Jew has the right to come to this country as an oleh."
Jewish state or a state of Jews?
There has been ongoing debate in Israel on the character of the state, regarding whether it should enshrine more Jewish culture, encourage Judaism in schools, and enshrine certain laws of Kashrut and Shabbat observance. This debate reflects a historical divide within Zionism and among the Jewish citizens of Israel, which has large secular and traditional/Orthodox minorities as well as a majority which lies somewhere in between.
Secular Zionism, the historically dominant stream, is rooted in a concept of the Jews as a people that have a right to self-determination. Another reason sometimes submitted for such establishment was to have a state where Jews would not be afraid of antisemitic attacks and live in peace, although such a reason is not a requirement of the self-determination right and therefore subsidiary to it in secular Zionist thinking.
Religious Zionists, who believe that religious beliefs and traditional practices are central to Jewish peoplehood, counter that assimilating to be a secular "nation like any other" would be oxymoronic in nature, and do more to harm than to help the Jewish people. They seek instead to establish what they see as an "authentic Jewish commonwealth" which preserves and encourages Jewish heritage.
Drawing an analogy to diaspora Jews who assimilated into other cultures and abandoned Jewish culture, whether voluntary or otherwise, they argue that the creation of a secular state in Israel is tantamount to establishing a state where Jews assimilate en masse as a nation, and therefore anathema to what they view as Jewish national aspirations. Zionism is rooted in a concept of the Jews as a nation, in this capacity, they believe that Israel has a mandate to promote Judaism, to be the center of Jewish culture and center of its population, perhaps even the sole legitimate representative of Jews worldwide.
Partisans of the first view are predominantly, though by no means exclusively, secular or less traditional. Partisans of the second view are almost exclusively traditional or Orthodox, although they also include supporters who follow other streams of Judaism or are less traditional but conservative and would not object to a more prominent state role in promoting Jewish beliefs — although not to the point of creating a purely Halachic state.
The debate is therefore characterized by significant polarities. Secular and religious Zionists argue passionately about what a Jewish state should represent. Post-Zionists and Zionists argue about whether a Jewish state should exist at all. Having been created within the sphere of international law as the instrument for Jewish self-determination, the question of whether Israel is to maintain and strengthen its status as a state for the Jewish people, or transition to being a state purely for "all of its citizens", or identify as both — and, if both, how to resolve any tensions that arise from their coexistence — captures these polarities. Israel has, to date, steered a course between secularism and Jewish identity, usually depending on who controls the Israeli High Court of Justice.
On the 19 November 2008, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni addressed the United Jewish Communities General Assembly in Jerusalem. In her speech, she announced: These two goals of Israel as a Jewish and a democratic state must coexist and not contradict each other.
So, what does that mean, a Jewish state?
It is not only a matter of the number of Jews who live in Israel. It is not just a matter of numbers but a matter of values. The Jewish state is a matter of values, but it is not just a matter of religion, it is also a matter of nationality. And a Jewish state is not a monopoly of rabbis. It is not. It is about the nature of the State of Israel. It is about Jewish tradition. It is about Jewish history, regardless of the question of what each and every Israeli citizen does in his own home on Saturdays and what he does on the Jewish holidays. We need to manitain the nature of the State of Israel, the character of the State of Israel, because this is the raison d'etre of the State of Israel.
Sixty years have passed and unfortunately, because we did not make it clear enough in our education of the younger generation, there seems to be a new creation in the State of Israel - the new Sabra. That is a problem because being an Israeli is not only speaking Hebrew or serving in the army, which, by the way, is very important for us as a society. It is also about Jewish education and about history and tradition, because this is the common denominator, the common ground for the bonds between Israelis and Jews in the Diaspora.
A Jewish commonwealth
Advocates of Israel becoming a more narrowly Jewish commonwealth face at least the following practical and theoretical difficulties:
- How to deal with the non-Jewish Arab minority in Israel (and the non-Jewish majority in the West Bank and Gaza).
- How to alleviate concerns of Jews in Israel who favor a relatively secular state.
- What relationship should official Judaism hold vis-à-vis the Government of Israel and vice versa?
- What role do schools play in supporting Jewish heritage, religion, culture, and state?
- How will the government be organized (theocracy, constitutional theocracy, constitutional republic, parliamentary democracy etc.)?
- Should the justice system be based on secular common law, secular civil law, a combination of Jewish and common law, a combination of Jewish and civil law, or pure Jewish law?
- On what mandate or legal principles should the constitution of a Jewish state be based?
- How to integrate the economy of the state in line with Jewish law.
Theorists who grapple with these issues focus on the future of the State of Israel and realize that although the sovereign political state has been established, there is still much work to be done in relation to the identity of the state itself.
Public opinion
A poll commissioned by the Israel Democracy Institute in 2007 found that 75% of Arab-Israelis would support a constitution that maintained Israel as a Jewish state with equal minority rights:
A vast majority of Israeli Arabs would support a constitution that maintained Israel's status as a Jewish and democratic state while guaranteeing equal rights for minorities, according to a poll whose results were published on Sunday.
Among the 507 people who participated in the poll, some 75 percent said they would agree with such a definition while 23 percent said they would oppose it.
Criticism
The notion that Israel should be constituted in the name of and maintain a special relationship with a particular group of people, the Jewish people, has drawn much controversy vis-à-vis minority groups living within the country — in Israel, the large number of Muslim and Christian Palestinians residing in Israel and, to the extent that those territories are claimed to be governed as part of Israel and not as areas under military occupation, in the West Bank and Gaza. For example, the Israeli National Anthem, Hatikvah, refers to Jews by name as well as alluding to the concept of Zionism, and it contains no mention of Palestinian Arab culture. This anthem therefore excludes non-Jews, including the Palestinians, from its narrative of national identity. Similar criticism has been made of the Israeli flag which resembles the Tallit (a Jewish prayer shawl) and features a Star of David, generally acknowledged as a symbol of Judaism. Critics of Israel as a Jewish nation state have suggested that it should adopt more inclusive and neutral symbolism.
In the course of the Cold War, the Soviet Union, its satellite states and agencies, as well as many Arab states, presented the concept of Zionism and the Jewish state as an embodiment of racism, imperialism and colonialism. In 1975, the UN General Assembly Resolution 3379 was passed, which equated Zionism with racism. It was revoked by UN General Assembly Resolution 4686 in 1991.
Linguist and political commentator Noam Chomsky makes a distinction between the concept of "a Jewish ethnic homeland in Palestine" and "a Jewish state" in his interview on C-SPAN:
"I have always supported a Jewish ethnic homeland in Palestine. That is different from a Jewish state. There's a strong case to be made for an ethnic homeland, but as to whether there should be a Jewish state, or a Muslim state, or a Christian state, or a white state — that's entirely another matter."
Some Jewish nationalists base the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state on the Balfour Declaration and ancient historical ties to the land, asserting that both play particular roles as evidence under international law, as well as a fear that a hostile Arab world might be disrespectful of a Jewish minority — alleging a variety of possible harms up to and including genocide — were Israel to become a post-national "state for all its citizens."
Jewish self-governance throughout history
While nowadays the concept of a Jewish homeland means almost always the State of Israel under some variation of its current borders, in the course of Jewish history after ancient Israel and Judah there have been other proposals. While some of those have come into existence, others never came to be implemented.
See also
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