We seem to be stuck with the words "Jewish and democratic Israel", with the latter reminding us not to be too Jewish • Even today the democratic West is a minority and not necessarily strengthened • Opinion
Illustration: Shimon Engel
Anyone who has sent
children to the education system
in the last decade
and bothered to ask them, "Well, so what did you learn in a citizenship class?"
He probably received the answer: "We debated whether the State of Israel could be both Jewish and democratic."
Wow, really?
Was the parent wondering.
If so, there is probably a contradiction between Judaism and democracy, so the challenge for the citizens of Israel is to ensure that democracy does not lose the debate and come out of it with a dome on its head.
That is exactly why we set up the famous religion alarm.
One can understand the citizenship teachers, who preferred to discuss the tension between "Jewish" and "democratic."
It is better to focus on such arguments than to teach citizenship, and indeed God willing the average matriculation score in two citizenship units is even lower than the matriculation average in five math units.
Who is the madman who would bother to read in the controversial textbook "Being a citizen of Israel - a Jewish and democratic state"?
After all, this is a 600-page mammoth whose whole purpose is to provoke media discussions between the left and the right on a parallel question: "Is the Citizenship Book more nationalist and occupation or more leftist?"
The Citizenship Textbook, updated in 2016, contains more quotes from people like Aharon Barak, Meir Shamgar, Mishael Cheshin, Haim Cohen and Ayala Procaccia, and even Hagai Elad, chairman of the anti-Israel organization B'Tselem, than quotes from Jewish sources. And there is no special need to count representative quotes, since a book with the words Jewish and Democratic appear as equal - can only come from one side of the map. The one who is concerned about religion and anxious for democracy.
Still, we seem stuck with the trio of words "Jewish and Democratic Israel." We must not be too Jewish, lest we be harmed by the true holiness - democracy.
Politicians on the right will also be careful not to say of Israel as a Jewish state, without being careful to mention the "democratic", lest they be suspected of plotting to establish a messianic theocracy with a high priest And do not ask.
Well, if we are talking about democracy in Israel,
it is worth mentioning a little before the election that we still have something to improve.
We are one of the only countries in the world where a legal adviser has more power than government ministers. Contrary to the Basic Law), the Attorney General has the authority to refuse to represent the government's position and even to prevent it from being represented in its place.
The Election Commission has legal authority, but no practical authority, to disqualify candidates for the Knesset, but the Supreme Court has such authority, even when the candidates do not meet the conditions set out in the Basic Law.
We do not have a body that can criticize and restrain the judiciary, and the chairman of the State Audit Committee, MK Elazar Stern of Yesh Atid, prevents the publication of the auditor's report on the functioning of the Election Commission over the years. Although he claims there is no worrying evidence in the report To the dysfunction of the Election Commission, but he fears that the publication of the report will provoke a "biased discourse on the matter" and may undermine confidence in the purity of the election. MK Stern inadvertently demonstrated the contradiction between Judaism and democracy: he himself is a religious Jew, and really has no affinity For democracy.
These and other characteristics of Israeli democracy indicate that as a democracy, we have a place to move forward, and also that, like any other democratic state, our democracy is not without flaws.
If and when we fix them we will have a damaged democracy like all other democracies, and that will be fine, because democracy has many versions.
But a Jewish state has only one version.
One example, and that is the State of Israel.
And here the room for error is very small.
If the sample this small Jewish state will no longer be a Jewish state, with the flag of the Star of David, and Marta grade, right, and knowledge of the Bible, and the soul of a Jew yearns, and the Law of Return and national law - even democracy will not be here.
The whole point of democracy It is the only Jewish state in the world. It is common to talk about the danger lurking for democracy by the Jewish national identity, but the truth is that the more Israel's Judaism is attacked, the more democracy is undermined by those whose state Judaism clashes with higher values, such as universality or state All its citizens or abstract human rights unrelated to the identity and character of the state.It may be very democratic, in essence, but forgive me the High Priest of democracy if I say that without the slaves who took over the Torah in the desert - the whole Western world would not be able to moderate tribalism Embedded in it or succeeding in organizing it around values greater than the tribal instinct.Even today the West on its democratic values is a minority in the world, and it is not necessarily strengthened.
This week it was reported that
ancient finds were discovered in a
cave
in the Judean Desert, with the cinematic name "Cave of Horror".
There was the body of a 6,000-year-old girl, a 10,000-year-old basket and passages from the scrolls of the Book of Nahum and the Book of Zechariah that were written and remained there from the time of the Bar Kochba revolt.
All the finds - from the pre-democratic period, and you will know who the tribe was that buried one of its daughters there and what its connection is to the tribe that buried a braided basket in the cave that not only did not hear about democracy, they also had no idea what bronze was and what could be done with it.
But Nahum and Zechariah and the rest of the Bible have been studied by Jews ever since, and at least half of them do so in the only Jewish state in the world, in Hebrew-speaking schools. First graders were able to have a conversation with Bar-Kochba Jews hiding in caves, and also celebrate with them Pesach, even the most successful democracy could not work such a miracle.