Jewish and Democratic State
On March 2, 2009, Ruth Gavison, Haim H. Cohn Professor of Human Rights at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Law Faculty and Founding President of The Metzilah Center for Zionist, Jewish, Liberal and Humanist Thought, presented the lecture entitle...
A fascinating panel of leading Jewish intellectuals addressed AIPAC Policy Conference delegates on the changing face of Zionism and the evolution of Israel's place in the world. Panelists: Natan Sharansky, human rights activist; Ruth Gavison, H...
Denied A Divorce
The issue of conversion is ostensibly no longer in the headlines, but it still figures prominently on religious Zionism's agenda. The proposal to establish religious courts to serve as an alternative to those of the Chief Rabbinate comes up repeat...
Civic equality does not mean freedom of immigration
Professor Ze'ev Sternhell recently launched a scathing attack on both the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law (Temporary Order), which restricts immigration to Israel by residents of the Palestinian territories even if they have Israeli spouses,...
Ultra-Orthodox press digitally erases women from images
Haredi print, internet media refuse to publish photos of women, even those in prominent positions; female member of Winograd Commission omitted from photograph on news website
One people, multiple views
Is the UN partition plan of November 1947 still relevant? Is the official recognition of the Jewish people's legitimate need for an independent state still applicable? Is there a real threat to the legitimacy of Jewish identity, and is the Jewish ...
Bridging the Post-Gaza Divide
Now that Israel has completed its evacuation of settlements in Gaza and the northern West Bank, many uncertainties that plagued us for the past several months have been resolved. The Israeli government showed that it could successfully implement i...
Center, We Have Come Back to You Again
For a few moments, when you blink in the strong light, it looks as though a new political movement is once again in view on the horizon. The right is contending with its rupture in Gaza and is losing control. The alternative of Labor, or what is l...
An incomplete voice
Ari Shavit's book "Halukat Haaretz" ("Dividing the land") was written hastily, as he says on the first page. Out of the haste, an impressive document has been created - the first focused attempt to analyze the disengagement plan and discuss what c...
Israel Makes It Harder for Non-Jews to Become Citizens
TEL AVIV - It was announced this week that the government plans to stiffen the rules for granting citizenship to non-Jews, through amendments to the law that make it difficult to grant legal status to Palestinians and other foreigners married to I...
Implications of Seeing Israel as a Jewish (and Democratic) State
The paper starts from the fact that Israel is described as a 'Jewish and Democratic' state. It opens with a rejection of some preliminary charges that Israel cannot be both Jewish and democratic or that maintaining its Jewish particularity is in p...
The Jews’ Right To Statehood: A Defense
Israel is the only country in the world whose very legitimacy denied by its critics. Most Israelis try to avoid such challenges to its legitimacy - but this is a mistake. The question should be faced. The right of Jews to a state in which they c...
Can Israel be both Jewish and democratic?
In 1947, the UN decided that there will be two states in Palestine, one Jewish and one Arab, and that both will be constitutional democracies, securing full civil and political rights to all their citizens. Naturally, all supporters of the plan as...
Jewish and Democratic? A Rejoinder to the "Ethnic Democracy" Debate
Growing awareness of tensions between Jewish and democratic elements in Israel's regime abounds in the scholarship of Israeli society of the last two decades. This may be surprising, since the tensions were not created recently. They have accompan...