Jeremy Rosen
Is Israel a Theocracy?

Rabbi Jeremy Rosen - Is Israel a Theocracy?

- So everyone, interesting topic today because it’s topical, it’s historical, it’s theological. My position on things to do with Israel is that I am personally very much in favour of the separation of religion and state. But even so, I think we need to understand what we mean by a theocracy, and why I think that this talk about a theocracy in Israel is scaremongering and is missing the point, and as a result the real issues very often get ignored. And this is what is happening everywhere, wherever we look around us in the world, the democracies are divided between the left and between the right, there are demonstrations on the streets everywhere, on all the major issues, whether it’s religion, or whether it’s ecology, or whether it’s economics and the fairness of society, we are divided. And this is both the danger and the beauty of democracies. But when we talk about a theocracy, what do we really mean? Theocracy is to do with the theos, the God, and it is the rule of God. Now, technically speaking everywhere, everywhere until the enlightenment at the end of the 18th century was a theocracy in the sense that in all of them God played an important part. But did that mean that God actually ran things? And that people actually listened to God in terms of what things should be and how they should be run? When we look at the ancient world, in the ancient world everybody believed that their God was the major force behind their lives. And yet whether it was in the ancients to the Near East or indeed in Greece and the West, although people claimed to be ruled by the gods, in practise they were ruled by the monarchs, by the kings.

And in most places, the king, the priest, and the judiciary worked hand in hand. But as most kings were dictators, they decided to act according to their own wishes, and they did, and most of them were what we would call tyrants. It’s very interesting that when you look at this situation of a god where the god is supposed to run everything, in fact it’s clear that people were running things all the time, and running things according to their own particular ideology, whatever it might have been, pagan or otherwise. It’s also interesting that Judaism seems to be the first of these ideological systems that says that the ruler is subject to the constitution, that the king is not above the law. Even though as we see from the history of the kings of Judea and of Israel, kings often saw themselves as being above the law. And not only that, but when it came to the Second Temple period with the Hasmonean in charge and kings, eventually, they too saw themselves as being above the law. And the Israelites themselves were divided as to whether this was a good thing or a bad thing. But the uniqueness of the Jewish people is that almost as soon as the Second Temple is destroyed, they are no longer living under their own regime. And the principle that they have to deal with is the principle of the famous Talmudic Rabbi Shmuel, that Dina D'Malchuta Dina, the law of the land is the law, whether we like it or whether we’re not. There was some modification as to whether this applied to civil things or religious things, but nevertheless the principle was there that there are other means of ruling, not your own God and your own religious structure.

When we see the emergence of what we might call theocracies today, it really comes under the rubric of the emergence of Christianity and Islam. And in both cases there was a struggle again between whether it was God who was going to rule, or whether it were the people, or the humans who were going to rule. And here we have a very interesting problem. So whereas in earlier times there was this constant tension about who was going to be in charge, in Europe it really came to a head with the rise of what we would call the Holy Roman Empire. This was the empire that emerged slowly out of the collapse of the Roman Empire. The first emperor of the Holy Roman Empire was a man called Otto. And the most famous, I suppose, would be Charlemagne Charles the Great, both of whom were quite favourably disposed towards the Jews. But there soon became a battle of supremacy, it was in fact the Pope who saw himself as the head of the Catholic Church, and therefore, the head of the Roman Empire. And kings struggled against the authority of the Pope, and there was a famous case of the submission of the emperor, Henry VI rather, of the Holy Empire, who came on his knees begging forgiveness from the Pope at Canossa a little town. And he was submissive because he feared that the Pope had the power to excommunicate him.

And this fear of excommunication is what led him to capitulate and accept that the ultimate authority of the Holy Roman Empire was in fact the Pope. And that became the situation throughout Europe until the beginning of the collapse of that system, which really happened, first of all, intellectually with the Enlightenment, and then, of course, with Napoleon destroying the power authority of the Pope, and yet in the end, capitulating in the sense that he made a Concordat with the Pope. Now, before the Concordat the Pope had absolute authority, and kings and monarchs bowed down to him. Of course, the famous exception was Henry VIII who decided to rebel against him. And so with the emergence of Martin Luther and the Reformation, and with Henry VIII taking upon himself as the head of the Church of England, he became, technically speaking, the head and the power of both the political and the religious. And so you might say that here you have two examples of what we would call theocracies. And this was considered perfectly normal. After all, the idea of the divine right of kings meant that kings derived their political authority from God. The collapse of this system introduced a completely different form of government, a government which involved people who were not necessarily priests, who are not necessarily speaking in the name of God, but were actually functioning as individuals making their own decisions. And therefore we can say that in a way the traditional form of theocracy stopped at that particular moment in the West.

Parallel with that, you had a situation in the East where under Islam, after the death of Muhammad, the Muslim world was ruled over by the Caliphate, and the Caliph was somebody who was in effect elected to rule, and he purported to rule according to the Quran, according to the Constitution, except, of course, when it didn’t suit him, he managed to waive the Constitution. Similarly, within the alternative version to the Caliphates, the Shiite tradition of somebody leading as a descendant of the Prophet Ali, they too were the absolute authorities and everybody had to follow them. And therefore, in one sense you could say that they too became the theocracies, and were theocracies in the sense that they were running according to, we’ll call it a constitution of God. Now, whereas in the earliest form there wasn’t Constitution, there were just priests making up their minds as to what God said and what God wanted them to do. And now there were both in Christianity and in Islam, as there was in Judaism, a Constitution of sorts, which in a sense limited the control of the king. But whether the king, or the Caliph, or the Imam was above that constitution was a matter that was still disputed. This idea of whether God rules has become a very serious issue in our day, and we see it at work now in Israel where there is a claim that Netanyahu, the religious parties want to bring in a theocracy. Now, we have to understand exactly what does that mean?

Does that mean that they want to remove the current constitution of Israel completely? Does it mean they want to take it away, completely override it? Or are we seeing something which is rather more a struggle as to who should be the ultimate authority, and in what way? When Israel was founded, it was founded as a democratic state. There were certain agreements that were made with religious parties, and these agreements concerned the character of the state in the sense that the state should be run according to Jewish days off as opposed to Catholic, or Muslim, or some other day off, that it should see itself as an heir to a particular tradition. But nevertheless, the country would run on a democratic basis according to popular vote. There were arrangements that were made, agreements between Ben Gurion and the religious parties in Israel as to what the state would allow them to have a say in, and what not. And this has been the situation since the state was founded, a secular democratic state, some of whose decisions were, if you like, favourably disposed towards Judaism as the culture behind and the religion behind the state. But others were based on a combination of civil law, which combined part of Ottoman law, part of British mandate law, and part of Jewish law all intertwined. And this was considered the way the state should run. Now, the fact is that when the state began, it began as being dominated by a left wing, Secular Pioneer Zionist Movement, and they had a profound impact on the character of the state in its early days. And any of us who were in Israel at that time will know that the climate of opinion was very negative towards religion, and the religious people, whether they were Ashkenazic and Sephardi were regarded as being primitive, backward, and not the sort of people we want running our affairs.

Now, then the question was, is a left wing neo-Marxist or pseudo-Marxist, the right person to run our affairs either? And there were fights going on, and I remember in the early ‘50s or mid '50s rather, the big fight was a fight over autopsies. The ministries of health were in secular hands, in the hands of politicians who thought that religion was barbaric, who needed corpses in order to practise medicine, teach medicine, and for scientific reasons. And they had no interest in accommodating with the sensibilities, however primitive they may have seemed, of the right wing and of the religious, whether Ashkenazi or Sephardi. And the result is there was a battle, they found ways of carrying on to do what they did, ignoring the wishes of others. And the others began to fight back, and so you had the famous battles of whether one could have any autopsies at all. In which the religious parties, knowing there would have to be some sort of compromise, started from a position of saying, “No, autopsies at all under any conditions.” The secular side said, “Yes, autopsies under any conditions.” They came to certain compromises, the compromise initially was that you would allow an autopsy if the medical opinion determined we needed this to find the cause of death, or if the criminal authorities needed it to find the source or the reason for a crime.

But then it was discovered that the left wing, they were getting around the law by pre-sign documents that gave permission for autopsies. And so the battle waved to the right, to the left, until eventually there was some accommodation. And this process is typical of a process that applies in any democratic world. Now, many years later, there’s been a shift in policy, this shift in mood in Israel in two directions. In one direction, the religious, whether they are Sephardi or whether they are Ashkenazi, have become more numerous, more powerful, and have been able to make stronger demands. At the same time the secular world has gone in a very different direction. Once upon a time the secular world was solidly socialist, now it’s not, many of the secular world, for example, are Russians who lived under a communist regime and have no interest in returning to that kind of socialist regime. And similarly, within the religious community, you have a split between those Orthodox who will serve in the army, and those Orthodox who won’t serve in the army. And then you have all the subdivisions between, which I’m going to turn to again when I get to the end of my presentation. So in this situation we have both sides pulling from different directions, which is what you have in the United States of America where you have the demonstrations of the Democrats and the demonstrations of the Republicans, all of them scaremongering, all of them accusing the others of being Nazis, of dragging the country into chaos, and moving away from any kind of consensus. The same is true in England between the Labour Party and the conservatives, the same is true in France, the same is true wherever you look in the democratic world. It’s a mess, there’s a rise in extremism, of nationalism, there’s an extreme, a return unfortunately to prejudice in certain areas, while there is progress towards egalitarianism and equality in other areas.

What are we going to do in a democracy, other than try to work these things out? At the very worst, what we have is we have a situation in which at one moment one side will win and bring about the changes it wants, and at another side the other will bring about change in the way that it wants. Sadly, at the moment, there seems to be no willingness on either part to compromise. And yet in practise, somehow or other the institutions of governments in democracies have so far succeeded in managing to prevent utter collapse. And I happen to be an optimist in this respect that it is possible out of self-interest to avoid a crisis which leads to a collapse. But that doesn’t mean to say that one shouldn’t be campaigning actively, politically for whatever position one wants, and demonstrations are an essential part of a democracy. Whether those demonstrations are about the climate, whether they’re about prejudice, whether about their economic, shall we say, extreme inequality between different parts, these are the issues that are resolved eventually by some sort of compromise. But on the road to compromise there is always a problem. And one of the big problems is the question of the judiciary, and the question of Supreme Courts. In, for example, England in Britain, until recently, there were no Supreme Courts. This is something that only came in with the European Union. That didn’t mean to say that England didn’t survive and couldn’t cope without having a Supreme Court, it certainly did, and you mind you even think it did better in those days than it’s doing now.

In America too, we have the question of, should a Supreme Court overrule the choice of the representatives, the political representatives in the House of Representatives or in the Senate? Is it right that these people should have that say? Who are they? Why should they have a say? Shouldn’t the electorate have a say? And so you have a fight going on behind the scenes, and in public in America as to the role of the Supreme Court. And there are some people who want to water down the present Supreme Court by increasing the number of Supreme Court judges, so that they can bring in people who are more likely to vote their way. And this has always been the case in the Supreme Court. At one moment, the Supreme Court justices were appointed more on the right, sometimes more on the left. And the question is, is there an easy answer? No, there isn’t, this remains an example of conflict and disagreement within a democratic state as it does in England, as it does in France, where all these issues are on the table at this moment. And therefore the same thing applies in Israel. There is a strong case to say that the Supreme Court should not have the veto of the Knesset. There’s a strong case to say, no, the Knesset because it’s so politicised shouldn’t be the only people making the decision. So who should make the decision? And how are we going to get to this position of finding some sort of agreement? I happen to think that Israel’s in a particularly advantageous position because the makeup of the Knesset is composed of all these little different parties who in a sense can act as, if you like, counterpoints. You think that Netanyahu controls the Knesset, he has the biggest party, but the other parties on the left are not far behind.

And it’s on the basis of coalition that you come to some conclusion. Sometimes that coalition could be with an Arab party and the right wing of scandalised, sometimes with a right wing religious party and the left wing is scandalised. I personally would love to see a change in the electoral system, and I would like to see the removal of small parties. I would personally also very much like to see the removal of religion from political parties. This is not a view which I find much sympathy within Israel, but I point out to the fact that in many countries around the world, you have situations where there are no religious parties, but the governments choose because either this majority are Catholic, or they are Muslim, or they are neither that they will favour and benefit a particular or all religious elements within that country. And they can do this without having to have a political party. But the nature of Israel is what it is, and we’re not going to change that. And if Ben Gurion and Begin when they had the chance to reform the electoral system didn’t, they’re not going to reform it now. So if that is the case, what is the problem? Is the problem with religion? After all, the vast majority actually of Americans really think that America should be a Christian country. That doesn’t mean to say it is a Christian country. Most people in England tend to think of England as a Christian country. You might argue that England is because the crown, the monarch happens to be the head of the Church of England. Well, isn’t that a theocracy? And if there are bishops, Protestant bishops sitting in the House of Lords and having a say in, if you like, the political side of things, isn’t that a theocracy?

And may be the fact that in the Catholic cities, Catholic countries around Europe preferences given to the Catholic Church, isn’t that an example of a theocracy? It all depends on what you understand and how you understand a theocracy to be. If a theocracy is allowing a religious influence to have a say in the nature of the state and in the form of government, whether it’s through a political party or whether it’s through just public opinion, that does not make it a theocracy. There’s a strong case to be made out that one of the reasons why the peace process has dragged on for so long and has been such a disastrous failure is because both initially on the Arab side and on the Jewish side, the negotiators were all secular, and they didn’t want to consider or involve the religious side in the negotiations, which in many respects, might have been seen as a failure. It’s arguable, giving one point of view or another. I’m just presenting the fact that when we like to use certain words and throw them about, and use them in the argument without defining the terms, then it’s no different to accusing Israel of being an apartheid state when anybody who lived under apartheid knows jolly well it’s not an apartheid state. There may be a lot wrong with it, it may be doing a lot of things that we disapprove of, but that doesn’t make it an apartheid state.

So I’ve tried to show that over time the idea of a theocracy has gone through all kinds of changes, and that there are very few examples nowadays of a theocracy. If I can go back for a moment, to the development of government under historic Judaism. Under historic Judaism in its first phase, the king was the monarch, king David, the house of Judea, and he ruled. And although he ruled, technically speaking, subject to the constitution, he broke the law when it suited him, and so did most of the kings at that particular time. But the monarch working in hand with the priests was part of the system, and the system included, of course, the prophet to act as a counterbalance. Except, of course, the king wielded all the tools of coercion, the military, the force, as well as the finance and have the upper hand. After the First Temple was destroyed, when the Jewish community then moved to Iran or to Persia, Babylon initially, and then Persia, the Jewish community was run by two people. The exilarch supposedly descended from the House of David, who was the public political face of Judaism to the outside world, and the heads of the academy, the rabbis if you like, who controlled religious life. And in that sense, the priests were removed from the picture, except they came back with a return to Israel and the rebuilding of the Second Temple. The Second Temple you had, initially the High Priest was recognised as the representative of the state to the non-Jewish world, the High Priest was pretty corrupt. And as against the High Priest, you had the emergence of a meritocratic later called Pharisee or Rabbinic School who working through the Council of the Great Council then the Sanhedrin in a sense were an oligarchy.

But a meritocracy of people who were appointed should have been on the basis of talent, often was on the basis of influence, but nevertheless they were a counterbalance to the priesthood. The priesthood soon descended into corruption, buying and selling the role, and the Maccabees took over the priesthood and combined it with the role of king, which made it even more corrupt. So that when the temple was destroyed, the corruption of the monarchy, the corruption of the priesthood fell by the wayside, and you were left with, shall we say, the Sanhedrinean idea of a Council of Sages. Now, the Council of Sages functioned according to the constitution, the oral and the written law and debated issues and took majority decisions. And these majority decisions were normally accepted, and they would call in experts to give them advice on whatever issue it was, whether it was medical, or scientific, or political, or so forth. And this model became the model for Jewish leadership for the next, really, 2000 years. Was this a theocracy? Well, it depends. It was a theocracy in the sense that it was guided by the constitution of the Torah. It was not in the sense that the Torah legislated that decisions should be taken by human beings, and decided on a majority vote. That hardly makes it a theocratic state, if you define a theocratic state as a state run by God. The other interesting part of it is they were already under Roman Rule, and then Christian Rule, and then Muslim Rule.

And so they functioned without having absolute and total control, and hence, as I mentioned earlier, the idea of the law of the land. So if we now think in terms of Israel, what model are we going to have? Are we going to have the model of the Sanhedrin? And this is going to be the theocracy. Well, first of all as I said, the Sanhedrin is not necessarily what we call a theocracy because its decisions were just come about by a vote, and it was possible for that vote to change the course on certain types of political actions. But in order to achieve that situation nowadays, it would be absolutely, practically speaking, impossible. And it would be impossible for the following reasons. Within the Orthodox world, and we’re not talking about the conservative or reform world because even if they are included in a dream world, which I cannot imagine for one minute. Look at the Orthodox world, look how divided it is, it’s divided between Hasidim and non-Hasidim. And the Hasidim are divided between the different dynasties who often hate each other, dislike each other. Some of these dynasties work with the state of Israel, some of these dynasties work against the state of Israel. Each one of these dynasties consider their rabbi to be the ultimate authority, and will not accept any other authority at all, no matter who or what. I cannot for one moment imagine, for example, when it comes to building the temple, whether we will get all these different groups, the Zionist religious and the non-Zion religious to agree. Look, they can’t agree on anything at this moment within Israeli society on conversions, on marriages, or anything like kashrut or anything like that.

So how are they going to agree on who’s going to be the High Priest? Indeed, who’s going to be a priest, who’s going to be recognised by a priest? It’s all very well to say fine, the Messiah will come and Elijah will come and decide, but no sign of that. And besides, we all know we won’t necessarily accept Him. And therefore I can’t for one minute imagine there’s going to be agreement about who would sit on a Sanhedrin, which for all the attempts that would be made in Israel over the years, and there’ve been several, to reconstitute a Sanhedrin, they have come to nothing. So in practical terms there is no way in which there will be an institution that could function as a Sanhedrin. And even if they were to agree on one, they would have to have the agreement of everybody else. Nobody in the secular world is going to agree. Even if they are religiously traditional, they will not agree. Most, so to speak, centrist or however you describe them, Jews who are all Orthodox, non-Orthodox, traditional Masortim and whatever it is, would not like to be ruled over by a collection of what they consider to be fundamentalists, it simply isn’t going to happen. There might be division when it comes to an election under who’s going to sit in the Knesset, but if it were to come to a vote, a plebiscite or anything like that, even on the issue of peace we are not certain what the result would be, let alone on the matter of religion. And therefore, I cannot see in any way any realistic basis of this being a serious problem. There is a famous example that I would bring from the Talmud, from the Hasmonean era in which King Yannai, Jannaeus who was a very aggressive king, who expanded the country, who fought with the rabbis, supported the Sadducees against the Pharisees, who was divisive, an unpleasant guy.

He had a magnificent wife, I should say, by mitigating circumstances, called Shlomtzion HaMalka or Salome Alexandra, who was in fact the best, the best of the Hasmonean monarchs in my view, who brought peace internally and externally, and she only had one fault, which was that she was a Jewish mother and she had two spoiled sons who ruined things after she handed over. But nevertheless, the story is told that Yannai’s servant killed somebody, and was called by the Sanhedrin by Shimon ben Shetach to come and give evidence before him. And initially he refused, he says, “I’m the king, I’m above the law.” And in fact, the idea was the king should be above the law. Shimon Ben Shetach persisted, and eventually Yannai agreed and he came before the Sanhedrin. And he sat down as the king on the throne, and Shimon Ben Shetach said to him, “Yannai, you should get up, or king, "in the principle is that when we sit in court, "we stand up before the judge, so you should stand up,” something we still do today. He says, “No, I’m the king, I refuse.” Shimon Ben Shetach turned round to the other rabbis and said, “Are you going to support me on this?” And they didn’t have the guts to, they turned away.

And in one sense, Shimon ben Shetach won the day. And the principle was that the king should be, they made, above the law. And in fact in the Talmud there’s a principle which says the king should not be judged and should not judge. But in the end they decided that this principle may be if it applied, applied in historical terms to the realms of King David, and no longer applies now to the situation in which we are in today. And I would apply that to the situation we are in today, that whatever might have been in the past, however we may define theocracy one way or another, there is no true theocracy if we take theocracy to mean the rule exclusively by God. And there is no theocracy in the rule exclusively by human beings, that the truth is we ought to combine our political with our moral and ethical and find a balance. But I still believe that the balance should be the separation of religion and state, giving people the choice to live the way they wish to. And I do not believe that any claims that Israel is a theocracy or is even heading towards a theocracy should be taken any more seriously than the idea that America is heading towards a dictatorship. So on that point, I with the discussion and turn to your questions.

Q&A and Comments:

The first question is, well, this is really talking about the lectures on the Bible, which have been taken off the LU programme, of which I have no say in at all, so I can’t comment on that. “Now, Israel may not be a theocracy, "but it’s very much in the grip "of the most extreme rabbi,” says Ruth. Well, it depends what you mean by, in the grip of. It is true that rabbis, the chief rabbinate, at this particular moment, the chief rabbinate has the say that was granted by Ben Gurion over personal status in Israel. In that sense it does have the grip. On the other hand, you don’t have to get married in a synagogue if you don’t want to, or you can get married somewhere else if you don’t want to. In Israel for example, the law recognises Christians to get married as Christians, it recognises Muslims to get married as Muslims, and it also recognises that if you get married outside of Israel and you come into Israel with your marriage certification, then you are considered to be married. And so there are all kinds of ways around things. They do, it’s true, control conversion.

They do, technically speaking, include control kashrut, but as you know, you don’t have to be kosher in Israel if you don’t want to eat kosher, you can have anything in Tel Aviv in the street no matter where it comes from. So when you talk about, in the grip of, you say they have too much influence. And I agree with you, I would like that influence removed. And even within the Rabbinate, as you know, there’s a huge division between the different sections, between those who are part of the Argudu movement, those who are part of the Hardal, Haredi Leumi, the nationalists, and those who are, for example, Satmar, one of the biggest Hasidic group who are against the state altogether. And so when you talk about having a grip, what are you talking about? So if you’re talking about the religious parties having a grip, they have an influence. Of course, they have an influence. They can switch things and bring it to bear by negotiation. And I disapprove of that, but so can the left wing when they’re in power, achieve things through negotiation and compromise as they did in the previous government, and no doubt would in any future government. So when you talk about, the grip of, it is not a theocracy as, for example, the Imams are in Iran, nothing like that. They don’t control the politics, they don’t control the religious systems, there are other religious systems, so it’s a matter of defining terms.

“Israel’s form of proportion representation "allows minorities too much power,” says Ruth. Yes I agree, and I blame Ben Gurion, and I blame Begin for that. 'Cause they could have, in a sense, reformed the political system so as not to have these small powers having so much influence. But you can say the same thing anywhere in any political system, there are cliques and there are influences whether they’re on the right or the left, the extreme left, the squad, or whether on the other hand it’s the tea party that have influence, this is what happens in electoral systems, there’s no perfect system, Would you rather a dictatorship where one man like Putin, or like she disguised decides what happens?

Q: “Who will protect the minorities "from the tyranny of the majority "if there’s no Supreme Court "to defend the rights of every citizen?”

A: Ronnie, that’s a very good point, who will defend the rights? I certainly think that the Supreme Court has a very important role in defining rights, I certainly do. But that role should have certain limitations, and there should be a sensitivity to whether the democracy wants something that they specifically might not. And in the end, the rights are defended, either by a constitution or alternatively, the rights are defended by a process of challenge, and a process of debate and discussion. So the whole question of whether you need to have a constitution is an interesting issue. Britain didn’t have a constitution, didn’t mean it didn’t have rights, and didn’t mean people couldn’t influence things. And it didn’t mean, of course, that there couldn’t be too much influence one way at one moment, and too much another way at another moment. That is the challenge. So nobody is suggesting at the moment, I’ve not seen anybody suggest they get rid of a Supreme Court. They are just trying to put certain limitations on it, and even though I don’t necessarily agree with those limitations, just as I don’t agree with many of the laws imposed by the rabbinate, that doesn’t mean to say it’s the end of the Supreme Court, it doesn’t mean to say it’s the end of freedom.

Q: “What happened amongst the religious "from the founding of the state to today "to obviate the dictum, "don’t do too much to others which hateful to you.”

A: John, that’s an excellent point. That’s an excellent point that we certainly have seen a situation in which the Orthodox have got stricter on so many issues, but this is not just a question of the Orthodox getting stricter. We’ve seen an incredible rise in what I would call superstitious religion, where many secular Jews go to cabalistic rabbis for blessings, give them vast amounts of money, support them in so many different ways, and the whole of religious life around the world has moved to the right. One of the reasons it’s moved to the right is because the secular world has moved to the left. Look how far we’ve gone in going to the left when teenage kids can change the states of their bodies just for a whim, or a mood, or because it’s popular, and then find later on it’s too late to change back. So there are all kinds of problems in our society where there is tension between the right and the left. In one way that is helpful, you need a counterbalance. I am in favour of leniency under Jewish law, I’m in favour of being liberal, and open-minded, and tolerant. On the other hand, I think for people who feel that, that doesn’t work for them and want to be stricter, that is their right, and maybe that is an important counterbalance. All institutions change slowly. There is at this moment actually a counter movement going on in the Haredi ultra-Orthodox world. More and more people are ignoring their rabbi, more and more people are going into the army, are getting an education, are going out into the world and participating in it, it doesn’t happen overnight. And to change according to the whim, whether it’s what’s current educationally today, or what’s current sexually today, or what’s fashionable today, I think is dangerous too. So it’s necessary to have checks and balances. And although I think the checks have gone too far, throughout history, there’ve been cycles. There’ve always been cycles, and the clock’s always turned round. But it turns around slowly, it turns around very, very slowly.

Bernard Cordnos, “Isn’t I done a theocracy?” I don’t know what I done means, so if you’d like to come back to me, explain, I’ll deal with that.

Q: “According to Pew Research, "45% of Americans believe US should be a Christian. "Fortunately, a minority do not like you to go, how?”

A: That’s not quite true, I’ve seen the Pew Report. The Pew Report shows that there are different sections of opinion in different parts and sections of the community, and that in certain areas over 60% do. And it depends if you’re asking young people or not. And it’s quite true that America is getting less religious, but it doesn’t mean that there isn’t a significant number. But if you say 45% of Americans believe US should be a Christian country, you certainly can’t say 45% of Israel or Haradi, might be one day, but they’re nowhere near like that, most people think at this moment it’s under 20.

Q: Turner, oh yes, I should know your first name. “By means of procreation, Haredi parties "are getting strong every year, "why can’t Israel introduce a rule "that only people between the age of 20 to 45 "who’ve served in the idea of "should be eligible to vote? "This way most graduates would be excluded "from the electorate, "and so weaken their position in Israeli politics.”

A: Well that’s not very democratic. Surely in a democracy you must allow people to vote the populace. I mean, I would have to accept if the majority of Israel wanted stricter laws and imposed those laws, I would say, well look, that’s their choice, I may not agree with it. And so I don’t think you can have a democracy in which you’re saying a certain part of the population shouldn’t have the right to vote. Even though in principle I might agree with you, I think it would be a good idea. But no, what is a robinocracy? Well, yes, maybe a rabbi robinocracy would be a situation in which rabbis control. But what are they controlling? At this moment the only thing the rabbis are controlling is the rabbinate. There are whole areas, and the majority of Israeli Jews live the lives they want to live, and have the choices they want to have. Now, if you’re saying that only rabbis can sit in the Knesset, then I would agree with you, that would be ridiculous. That would be something that I don’t think is ever going to happen because regardless of whether there are many secular Jews at the moment who happen to vote for right-wing parties, I don’t think they’d vote in favour of robinocracy. Remember, most of Netanyahu who’s party are not rabbinical, they’re not Haredi. The Haredi parties are, and they’re a strong element, but don’t they have a right to be a strong element, so long as they’re kept in check.

“Ben Gurion could afford to be generous to religious "by a line serving in the army, "there are very fewer in the thousand.” Yes, much fewer, and the situation is different.“ Of course it’s different, and I believe it should be rectified. The question is, can it be rectified voluntarily, or can it be rectified compulsorily? I’m sorry that it is the way it is, I believe that it should be on the basis of whether you are taking your studies seriously or not. Just as seculars can have deferment from the army if they’re in the course of their studies, and people who are not taking their studies seriously ought to be excluded, I think that’s where you should draw the line. There was a time in the Haredi world where you never had examinations, you never had tests. Now, increasingly there are organisations that are conducting tests to see if people are studying properly, and seriously, and facing exams. So there have been changes, and there are changes, and there will be changes.

Q: Stephen says, "What if you define a theocratic state, "not one ruled by God, "but by religious rules rather than secular?”

A: Yes, I would, if you define it that way, I would be against it, but nobody is saying that. What they are saying at the moment is they want those aspects of Israeli life that impinge on the religious, they want those to go according to religious rules. But only those that impinge on the religious, and only insofar as the religious. So here’s a good case, I don’t want the rabbis to say, “You cannot eat kosher.” I can accept rabbis saying, “If you want to eat kosher, "we have to define what kosher is.” Now, I don’t like the way they define, I wish they didn’t define it in the way they did, I wish they’d be more tolerant of other forms of kashrut supervision. But there’s nothing wrong with religious rules, it depends how they’re applied and to what extent.

“To me,” says Faith, “it’s more the religious extreme wing, "so to speak, forcing substantially distorting policies "on the less religious and not just protecting their right "to practise Judaism as they believe. "Much as evangelicals are attempting to force "their philosophy on pro-choice, "on those who believe in choice.” And I agree with you 100%, which is why I think there are enough people, even with an increase in the birth rate, this increase of the birth rate is exaggerated to some extent because although it is exponentially greater, it doesn’t mean to say there’s also increase in the birth rate of people who don’t agree with this, and will not vote for it if it comes to plebiscite.

Q: “Is America not heading towards a dictatorship?”

A: I don’t think for one moment it is, and I don’t think it is because first of all, there are differences in the states between state and state. Secondly, because there are so many different minorities and interests who do not get on with each other, the Latinos don’t get on with the Blacks, who don’t get on with the Asians, and let’s leave out the Jews for the moment 'cause they’re relatively small. So I don’t think there is a chance of America heading towards a dictatorship. I may not like either the Democratic party, I may not like the Republican party, I don’t like almost any party you can think of, I wouldn’t vote for a politician unless I had no other option. But there’s no way I think America, however much of a mess it’s in and however much it’s eating itself up and destroying itself by not being able to deal with issues such as immigration, taxation, finance, bureaucracy, and so forth and so on, is not heading towards a dictatorship.

Q: “Is Iran a theocracy under your model of theocracy?”

A: Yes, I suppose that Iran is because Iran would not allow for one minute, anybody who does not agree with their interpretation of the law, of the Koran to have any position of power, they would be removed. Whereas Israel still will allow other people in the Knesset to have different opinions and voice them. If you voice a different opinion in Iraq, you are hung if they catch you.

Q: “How can individuals who do not serve in the military "be accepted to rule over the military?”

A: No, they can’t. But remember, the sort of people you are complaining about at the moment, the sort of extremists, everybody doesn’t like that, like shall we say, like Smotrich or Ben Gvir, they serve in army, he didn’t, but they want people to serve in the army, and they support the army, they’re not against the army. So nobody, I think, is going to come to power who is not going to support the army. And nobody who’s been in the Knesset up to now is not in favour of funding the army, protecting the state, and looking after it. So I don’t think that’s a serious fear.

Q: Susan says, “Israel recognises a marriage "who’s outside Israel, yes, "but every Jewish Israel "who wants to marry or divorce in his or her own country. "Can I a rabbi in Israel "who has no civil marriage or divorce? "In my opinion, this is problematic.”

A: I completely agree with you Ronnie. I don’t think it should be, I think there should be freedom. There are people in Israel who will carry out marriages even though they might not always be recognised. I think this is a serious problem, I would love to see it changed.

Q: “Israel does not have a constitution, "so how does impact of power, "balance of power in judicial and legislative change "if the current proposals are implemented?

A: But the current proposals are not to remove the Supreme Court, they’re not. They’re just saying there should be certain limitations on the Supreme Court. If they were trying to get rid of the Supreme Court, fine, but you will not show me anybody who has said, "I want to get rid of the Supreme Court.”

Q: Lawrence, “The idea of compromise sounds attractive, "but how can you have a compromise "when deciding if an airline flies on the Shabbat?”

A: What’s the problem? Other airlines can fly, you can fly if you want to, you can fly by Turkish Airlines, or some other airlines. It’s just saying, “I don’t want a Jewish airline to,” in the same way that you could say, “I want a Jewish airline to have kosher food.” If you don’t want to have kosher food, go on an non-Jewish airline, that can’t be a problem, surely.

“You’re talking about Israel’s constitution, "since it doesn’t have a constitution as in the US "you refer to the Bible Declaration of Independence, "which is not a real constitution.” No, I was using it in the loosest sense. I was saying it has basic laws, it has certain laws just as in England, if you like, these laws have developed, if you like, over time in different ways. And just as in Judaism you have, shall we say, Torah as a constitution. So the Torah constrains Orthodoxy as much as any other constitution does. But Israel has a series of basic laws, and it’s that which I refer to indirectly as a constitution.

Q: “Direction doesn’t mean destiny, "would you agree as you explore powers in US and Israel? "But it does suggest change.”

A: Yes, I think we need change. I think changes necessary because as I’ve said many times I do not like the involvement of religious parties. I do like the involvement of religious people, but religious parties are all corrupt, they’re all dishonest. One of the reasons why Israel has a terrible reputation for money laundering and corruption is because it hasn’t so far signed the convention on these issues. And the reason it hasn’t is because by and large the Haredi vote always pressurise against this, and they do this because they know that if there was clear declaration of where money comes from, most of the money and support they get, which comes in illegally, under the cover, dishonestly would be revealed. So there is tremendous corruption, which is why I want to see things change. But it takes time and I still don’t think that it’s as bad as people say it is in terms of they’re going to take away all our rights.

“A voice from Israel, old secular, native land, "call it whatever, an end discussion. "Once you consider local corruption at the top, "racial attitudes, the chosen people, "20% of , "different or different parts of the land.” I think you’ll have a very good point, a very, very good point. I think there has to be room and freedom for the minority, which is why I’m favour all minorities, why I’m in favour of choice, and I don’t want to see anybody remove that choice. There is choice in Israel. I`t’s true, there is corruption, horrible corruption. It’s true there is prejudice, it’s true there is bias. I want to see that removed, but the question of whether theocracy is going to make a difference or not, is not realistic at this moment. It’s not going to happen, and I cannot ever see it happen.

Q: “Do you have any opinion regarding "the religion of American Jews have "an influence politic decision of Israel?”

A: I don’t think American Jews should have any influence whatsoever on the politics of Israel. American Jews or any community can create the kind of Judaism they want, and follow the kind of Judaism they want. Israel has a different population, it should not interfere in Israeli politicians with Israeli politics. I strongly believe that, what’s good for America is not necessarily good for Israel. After all, the rate of intermarriage and the rate of assimilation in America is frightening. I think there should be alternative models of Judaism, and if Israel creates one I don’t like, then I can go And even America. Well, I do at the moment, but not because I don’t like Israel, that’s for other reasons.

Reeva, “Progressive religious Judaism "has gained ground in Israel with 50 congregations, "vast affiliated in the states and conservative progressive, "they’re significant factor.” Good, and I’m glad they expand, and I want them to expand. I’d love to see them expand. And they’ll do so and then they’ll have a bigger voice. But at the moment it’s the majority, and unfortunately the majority is a majority in a democracy.

Mickey, “It seems to me that we will now have to do "what our parents did, not even think about "should the extreme position holds.” The extreme position hasn’t held. It is there within those who want to be in the ghetto. But not everybody’s like that, not everybody in the religious and the Orthodox world is extreme, that’s not fair to suggest that.

Q: “Netanyahu has fired Deri instruction Supreme Court. "Now, he wants to limit the power of the Supreme Court "to allow Deri to continue in government. "Is that not a threat to democracy?”

A: Yes, I think it is, and I don’t think he should be allowed to put Deri in government. And I think if he does that, he will only confirm the fact that I find him a dishonest politician as most politicians are because most politicians are corrupt. I hope he doesn’t, I hope against hope. But at this moment at least you can see he abided by the decision of the court. I have yet to see the fact that it has been passed, that the court can be abolished. So for the time being he’s kept in check.

“We are in this mess because Israel, the manipulator, "doesn’t want to be on trial.” Well, that’s partially the truth, partially the truth. It’s because he is a manipulator, then I’m afraid to say most politicians are manipulators. Most politicians want power, and they will get in bed with the devil in order to keep power. And that’s how he does it, and that’s how all politicians work on the left as well as the right. “ for those studying subject, "they can use as offices in the army, e.g. doctors.” Well, I think that’s wonderful, and I think that’s how it should be. I was just suggesting the possibility of some sort of compromise as a first stage, but certainly I think in principle everybody equally should expect to serve in the army unless they have a good reason. But as you also know, the rate of people escaping the army on the left wing is rising all the time. So, you know, there’s sinners on both sides.

“You say Israel is not an apartheid state. "You know, on the West Bank "they have different laws for Jews and Arabs.” The West Bank is under occupation, there’s been no peace agreement. So don’t give me an example of the West Bank. If the West Bank is the way it is, it is because there hasn’t been an agreement. Now, both sides may be to blame, but you cannot compare the West Bank to Israel. And at the moment people like the enemies of Israel outside are saying that Israel is an apartheid state. And that is my argument because it can’t be if there are, if you like, Arabs have a vote, they’re part of the democratic system, Arabs sit on the Supreme Court. So how can you say it’s like the apartheid state of South Africa? Unless you’re then redefining an apartheid state means to suit the Palestinians.

Q: Oscar, “You say there’s no Supreme Court in the UK. "What does Supreme Court in the United Kingdom?”

A: I said it’s a recent one. Until England joined the European Court, there was no Supreme Court. Then they had to bring one in, in order to be part of the European Union. Now, they’re not, they’re still with the Supreme Court, but it only came in, and they met with the European Union, and they managed to cope with it for a long time without it.

Q: Simon, “If buses don’t run on Shabbat, "what choice do you have if only bus you can afford? "This is different from taking an alternative airline.”

A: I would agree with you, I think buses shouldn’t run in areas which are predominantly religious, but for people outside, it’s not fair. So I do agree with you, that’s one of the changes I want to see if you can try to work out some sort of compromise.

Yana, “The United States Constitution "created a system is intended to be slow, "to make changes the basic foundation difficult and slow. "The present changes in Israel, "intended to behave the opposite way "to allow room to make changes easily. "Not a good direction, I say.” I agree, I agree, but I haven’t yet seen, nobody has yet seen the final proposals. And until we find the final proposals, I am not despairing. But therefore, I agree it is right in the meantime to demonstrate, to protest, to try to bring as much pressure to bear as you can in a democracy to support your position.

Well, there we are everybody, I’ve come to the end. Thanks for listening and please do well, and I’ll see you next time.