The ‘Jews vs Israelis’ lie: Right does not own Judaism, and the Left has not abandoned it - opinion

Of all the fault lines dividing Israeli society, none is more dangerous – or more misleading – than the supposed divide between “Jews” and “Israelis”: the notion, aggressively promoted by some, that the Right represents the “Jews” who keep the flame alive, while anyone who is not on the Right is merely “Israeli” – estranged from Jewish tradition and in thrall to global “progressivism” and its values.

The false narrative of “Jews” versus “Israelis” 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.

But the Right turned the idea into a popular political weapon. When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu whispered into Rabbi Yitzhak Kaduri’s ear that “the Left has forgotten what it means to be Jewish,” he was articulating a strategy designed to brand the entire liberal public as “Israelis” 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 “Jewish” bloc.

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 “Jews” and “Israelis.” Most of it falls within what might be called “Israeli Judaism” or the “traditionalist sphere.”

In this broad middle – which encompasses most of Israeli society, including most of the political Center and part of the Left – the two identities do not compete; they reinforce each other, in self-understanding as well as in practice.

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.

They object to the politicization of religion, in part because they refuse to surrender their Judaism to the Chief Rabbinate – an ossified political institution focused on the sectoral and economic interests of its insiders. But opposition to the rabbinate’s monopoly is not opposition to Judaism.

Participants in that debate include people on the Left whose concern for the state’s Jewish character – and for the character of Judaism within it – 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.

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.

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 – one built on a lie.