Nothing could be more harmful to the domestic debate within Israel and our ability to continue the project of Jewish sovereignty and wrestle with its implications than the phrase “Jewish and democratic.”
Tzipi Livni, Israel’s minister of justice, nominated on Aug. 19 professor Ruth Gavison in charge of drafting a constitutional law proposal that would enshrine Israel’s status as the nation-state of the Jewish people, to address the slew of similar legislation initiatives. Her nomination and the phrasing of the laws as “Israel: Homeland of the Jewish people,” inspire hope for repairing the damage in the national and international discourse caused by the phrase “Jewish and democratic.”
The description of Israel as “Jewish and democratic” appears initially not in the Declaration of Independence — as is often thought — but in two 1992 constitutional laws pertaining to freedom of professions and dignity of all humans. Since that time, this has become the most common phrase describing the essence of Israel. But this formulation, originally intended to help resolve various tensions, has in itself become a source of problems. By its very phrasing as Jewish and democratic — joined together by the article “and” — the immediate assumption is that the two aspects are inherently contradictory and that Israel could hope for nothing more than a problematic compromise between the two.
Within Israel, as well as among Jews and Israel watchers, this equation has become one of antonyms — Jewish is the opposite of democratic. For those on the left, the democratic part of the equation has come to symbolize all the liberal and progressive values that they hold dear; and the Jewish side a mirror image of that. For the left, Jewish values are increasingly viewed as the repository of all that they detest. This is flipped for many on the right. For many on the right, Jewish values represent all that they care about and democracy the repository of all that threatens what they hold dear. Both left and right perceive Jewish and democratic as conflicting adjectives. They are wrong.
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