“We hereby declare the establishment of a Jewish state in the Land of Israel…”
— From Israel’s Declaration of Independence, 1948

A ‘state’ is (as we all know) an entity which by itself has no genetic flavor or religious belief. What then is a “Jewish state”? Without any intention of presenting one political opinion or another, let us attempt to present a selection of answers to this complex question, and briefly discuss the positive and negative aspects of each of these answers.

Let’s start with perhaps one of the main sources of the phrase “Jewish state” – it can be found in an old article (in Hebrew) by the late Prof. Uzzi Ornan in the local “Haaretz” magazine:

‘… When the UN tasked the residents of Palestine-Israel with establishing a state for Jews and a state for Arabs, it referred to the states as “Arab state” and “Jewish state”. The Jewish community knew that it had to fulfill two conditions: the Jewish community will establish the “Jewish state”, and its regime will be consistent with the UN principles.

David Ben-Gurion (Israel’s first prime minister), in his letter to the ultra-Orthodox leaders of “Agudat Israel” (dated July 12, 1947), also explains that the decision includes both the term “Jewish state” and the rules of equality among citizens: “This is not possible if freedom of conscience in the state is not guaranteed for all its citizens, and if it is not clear that the intention is not to establish a theocratic state”.

The term “Jewish state” was therefore born from the need to be loyal to the United Nations, and has no religious obligation …

In the local “Maariv” newspaper, April 29, 1998, Judge Zvi Berenzon, the drafter of the Declaration of Independence, clarifies: “The expression ‘Jewish state’ is taken from the UN partition resolution … The entire intention of these designations was to distinguish the states from each other”.’

— * — * —

And now for the different answer options. Note that in principle, it is possible to “accept” more than one answer concurrently. It is, of course, also possible to think of additional answers.

1. A “Jewish state” is a country whose book of laws is the laws of the Jewish Orthodox religion. This is the definition that certain religious Jews aspire to and is commonly known as a “Halachic state”. In such a country, there is no transportation at all on the Sabbath, neither public nor private. Male head cover (“Kippah”) as well as plenty of other religious rules – are all part of the official laws of the country (it should be noted that some of those laws are already enforced indirectly nowadays). In such a country, a fierce battle is also expected to arise between different branches of the Orthodox religion, regarding opposing interpretations of quite a few issues – for example: between religious Zionism and other Haredi groups, on issues related to Zionism and Jewish immigration.
2. A “Jewish state” is a country in which members of the Jewish people are preferred citizens in some way, and the other “minorities” – even if their presence is permitted – are treated differently by law. This specific answer immediately raises two fundamental problems: (a) Such a country, by definition, is not democratic – its laws are not egalitarian and discriminate on an ethnic basis; (b) How do we know “who is a Jew”…? This is the old debate again regarding the religious-Orthodox definition (“a person whose mother is Jewish or who has converted according to the Orthodox Jewish law”), versus other definitions.
3. A “Jewish state” is a state of “refuge” for the Jewish people, especially following the Holocaust that took place in the 20th century. In such a state, contrary to the previous answer, the law does not discriminate between citizens, neither based on religion nor based on their origin. However, the law clearly favors the welcoming of Jewish immigrants into the country over the immigration of all others. In fact, this is roughly the situation today in Israel, with what is known as the “Law of Return”. Here too, of course, there is the problem of defining “who is a Jew”. In addition, the goal of creating a Jewish majority is not automatically guaranteed, and it is possible, for example, that the rate of natural increase of “all others” will over time result in a Jewish minority – something that could democratically lead to an update of the aforementioned immigration rules.
4. A “Jewish state” is a country whose laws and/or character dictate general Jewish cultural characteristics. For example: The Sabbath is, in principle, the day of rest. The official language is Hebrew. Jewish holidays are officially integrated into the calendar, etc. Here too, this is roughly the situation today. However, this definition does not contain any statement regarding the “Jews” themselves, and in this context also does not care about the “continuity” of those characteristics, which can be updated later in a democratic manner.
5. A “Jewish state” is the state that is one of the two states mentioned by the UN in the partition plan adopted on November 29, 1947. Historically, as explained above, this may be the more correct answer, but it has its problems: The historical partition decision has long since ceased to look the way it did on the old map of that time – both from an “official international” perspective (for example, in light of the “Rhodes Agreements” – the armistice agreements signed between Israel and its neighbors following the War of Independence in 1948), and certainly from a practical perspective. In addition, this answer says nothing about the contents of that state (neither culturally nor in terms of residents and citizens), except for its connection to the Jewish settlement that existed at that time.

— * — * —

Mathematically, it is very difficult for “Jewish democracy” to maintain itself as such over time, due to the inherent contradiction between the two concepts. Almost all the above solutions “suffer” from the risk that their current definition may change their future definition. The important point to understand is that in the long run, things change, and it is not always something that was considered “bad” at the time. In fact, Israel’s situation today also constitutes a major change from what the Jews in Israel a hundred years ago might have wanted things to be here. Furthermore, the exact fulfillment of their dream might be considered a “nightmare” by most Jewish citizens today.