Professor Uriel Reichman, founding president and chairman of the Board of Reichman University, warned that Israel's upcoming October elections present a question far deeper than government formation. He stated the nation faces a critical choice about the very nature of the Jewish state, a debate unfolding for decades and rooted in competing visions of Zionism.
Reichman cited Jewish history, specifically the split of King Solomon's kingdom, as a stark warning. He emphasized that internal division consistently leads to national catastrophe, a lesson he finds painfully relevant today. The country never fully confronted the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin 31 years ago, according to Reichman. He recalled the morning after Rabin's murder in 1995, when hundreds of students gathered, their eyes red, to light memorial candles.
Reichman argued it's a mistake to focus solely on the assassin, Yigal Amir, without examining the ideological environment that enabled the murder. He noted that Israel largely avoided this reckoning under the banner of national unity, leaving the ideological roots unexamined. Opposition to the Oslo Accords, while a legitimate public debate, escalated among some extremist elements within the religious settlement movement. These groups invoked the halachic doctrine of moser, which permits killing a Jew who delivers fellow Jews or their property to hostile authorities.
Amir later claimed he received rabbinic authorization to consider Rabin a moser. However, leading rabbinic authorities, including the Chazon Ish and Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, had ruled that the moser doctrine holds no place in the sovereign State of Israel. The roots of this ideological transformation trace back to the Six-Day War 59 years ago. Reichman, a paratrooper officer at the time, remembered hearing Motta Gur announce, “The Temple Mount is in our hands.”
Many Israelis, both secular and religious, felt a profound reconnection with biblical Jewish sites. Most viewed the war as an extraordinary military achievement, won through courage and sacrifice, and did not initially see settlement throughout the territories as a religious obligation. Yet, another current, inspired by Rabbi Abraham Isaac HaCohen Kook and developed by his son, Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook, interpreted the war as a decisive stage in divine redemption. This worldview birthed Gush Emunim, which regarded settlement across the biblical Land of Israel as a religious commandment.
This outlook raised fundamental questions about the limits of obedience to the state when its decisions conflicted with the commandment to settle the Land. Over time, parts of this movement underwent a deeper transformation, with some increasingly asserting the state lacked legitimate authority when it diverged from their redemptive vision. Following the disengagement from Gaza 21 years ago in 2005, this evolution accelerated. For some, the evacuation represented a violation of a divine commandment to “inherit the Land.”
Among influential religious educators, particularly within the Bnei David pre-military academy and circles associated with the Mercaz Harav yeshiva, a new constitutional vision gained traction. Their objective extended beyond influencing public policy; they sought to reshape the state itself.
The Threat to Israel's Democratic Core
This vision aims to replace a Jewish and democratic state with one whose constitution is the Torah, while building the necessary political, educational, and public power to advance this goal. In this conception, democracy is primarily understood as majority rule. Judicial independence, checks and balances, and the protection of minority rights are not seen as essential democratic features but as obstacles to establishing a halachic state.
The judicial overhaul proposed in 2023 must be understood against this background, reflecting a much deeper debate over Israel’s source of authority. The question is whether Israel remains faithful to the Declaration of Independence's vision or moves toward a fundamentally different, religious model. Political theory, rooted in Aristotle's insight, posits that the state's role isn't to enforce ideological unity. Instead, its purpose is to enable people with diverse beliefs to coexist, promoting stability, openness, and moderation.
Erosion of Western Values
The architects of modern Zionism—Theodor Herzl, Ze’ev Jabotinsky, and David Ben-Gurion—explicitly rejected theocratic statehood. They envisioned a Jewish state that would be democratic, committed to liberty, equality, and the rule of law. Israel's Declaration of Independence captured this synthesis, establishing the nation-state of the Jewish people while pledging “complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex.” It also guaranteed “freedom of religion, conscience, language, education, and culture.”
The proposed judicial overhaul seeks to alter the very essence of the State of Israel, departing from the Zionist vision embodied in its founding document. This internal ideological drift risks undermining Israel's unique position as a liberal democracy in a hostile region.
A Call for Civilizational Defense
The coming elections offer Israelis an opportunity not merely to choose a government but to reaffirm their national commitment to the values upon which the state was founded. Providing these values with the constitutional framework they deserve is crucial. Professor Reichman concluded that Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state depends on this choice, a critical decision for the only Western outpost in the Middle East.