Israeli, Jew, and What Lies Between

At the mass rally in Tel Aviv marking thirty years since Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination, leaders of Israel’s liberal opposition—Yair Lapid, Gadi Eisenkot, and Yair Golan—took the stage. In a surprising turn, much of Lapid’s address focused on defining what Judaism is—and what it is not. “Itamar Ben Gvir’s racism is not Judaism,” he declared. “Yigal Amir (Rabin’s assassin) is not Judaism.” Responding to claims that “when Judaism and democracy collide, Judaism comes first.”

It seems that Israel’s liberal bloc—protesting for three years against Netanyahu’s government, first over the judicial overhaul and later the Gaza war—is now launching its election campaign with a new mission: to reclaim Judaism. Having already adopted the national flag as a symbol of democratic resistance, the movement now seeks to define its own version of Jewish identity.

If “Jewish” has become contested, “Israeli” once referred to all citizens of the state—even if Arab citizens rarely felt part of that identity. “Israeliness” was shaped by the ruling Mapai party, which settled the land, founded the state, and built its institutions. It deliberately distanced itself from exilic Judaism, turning Hebrew from an ancient sacred language into a national spoken one, while cutting ties with both European and Mizrahi Jewish pasts. For decades, no one questioned anyone’s Judaism; to say “Israeli” was to say “Jewish.” That held until 1977, when Menachem Begin’s rise brought not just political upset, but a social revolution.

The old elite—the kibbutzim, the Histadrut, the universities, the judiciary—all symbols of the “old Israel”—became the enemy. In the 1981 election, Begin branded these “bleeding hearts” as adversaries and tore open the ethnic divide when he replied to entertainer Dudu Topaz’s “Chachchachim” (riffraff) speech with: “Our Mizrahi brothers were brave warriors.” Thus, he drew a sharp line between the religious, right-leaning Mizrahim and the Ashkenazi “high minded” waving red flags.

More than forty years later, Israel’s liberal camp still struggles to shed its image of elitism, condescension, and detachment from Jewish tradition. Netanyahu has done everything possible to inflame those divides. In 1997, he was caught whispering to Shas’s Rabbi Kaduri: “The left has forgotten what it means to be Jewish.” In today’s political shorthand, “left” means Israeli, while “right” means Jewish. Those who see themselves as Jews vote right; those who see themselves as Israelis vote left.

Lapid is wrong to think the fight with the right is over who is “more Jewish.” The battle is existential—about democracy itself—just as the struggle against Iran or Hamas is existential.

To erase the stigma, the left has tried everything. In 2017, hoping to win over traditional Mizrahi voters, Labor chose Avi Gabbay—a Mizrahi politician—as leader. Soon after, Gabbay too, told young party members: “The left has forgotten what it means to be Jewish.” Two years later he quit, and lately Labor merged into a new bloc, The Democrats, led by former general Yair Golan.

The “Jewish camp’s” victory in the last elections paved the way for a genuine constitutional revolution: an effort to redefine Israel not as a democracy, but rather as a religious state with democratic trimmings. The first step came with the 2018 Nation-State Law, which enshrined the country’s Jewish character at the expense of its democratic one. The current government has since launched open war on the Supreme Court—the only real check on discriminatory laws in a state without a constitution.

In practice, every institution is under siege. The army is labeled liberal, prosecutors are accused of persecuting the right and ultra-Orthodox, the media branded “the enemy of the people,” universities deemed elitist, the arts subversive, and the Shin Bet part of a “deep state.” The government insists these pillars of democracy are biased and block its “governability.” Though the right has ruled for decades, it still claims it isn’t truly in power.

Under the “Jewish” worldview, every arm of the state must serve the sovereign—the people—embodied by the coalition and its eternal leader, Benjamin Netanyahu. The right’s immediate goal is to cement control by silencing all criticism—from courts, media, and within. Its ideology rests on three pillars: Jewish settlement across the West Bank, the supremacy of religious values, and the right of ultra-Orthodox Jews to study Torah without serving in the army—on the public dime.

This is the Israel that has rules over five million Palestinians for decades, dreaming of their eventual expulsion. It is an Israel where citizens can no longer live—nor wish to—because equality, democracy, and liberty are trampled daily. Against this rupture between two irreconcilable visions, one wonders why Lapid, of all topics, chose to focus in his speech on Judaism. A secular man known for his disdain for the ultra-Orthodox, contempt for settlers, and view of Ben Gvir as a racist, Lapid sees in Netanyahu a liar, manipulator, and the spiritual instigator of Rabin’s murder.

This government has brought upon Israel its gravest disaster since founding. Yet it continues to rule, deflecting blame for the October 7 massacre onto everyone else: Rabin and Oslo, the Supreme Court, the attorney general, the IDF, the Shin Bet, protest groups, the media—everyone but itself. Lapid is wrong to think the fight with the right is over who is “more Jewish.” The battle is existential—about democracy itself—just as the struggle against Iran or Hamas is existential.

Israel’s current government has turned the country into a global pariah. Netanyahu faces potential prosecution in The Hague; Smotrich and Ben Gvir have become synonymous with ethnic cleansing; and Israelis everywhere feel the sting of isolation. And this is when Lapid chooses to lecture on Judaism? History shows such debates always serve the right. Even if Lapid wore a kippah, wrapped in tefillin, and observed all 613 commandments, his Jewishness would still be doubted.

The coming elections are a historic test. Israel needs leaders who grasp the magnitude of this moment. The ceasefire with Hamas—opposed by Ben Gvir and Smotrich—has shattered the illusion of a “Greater Israel” and the dream of annexing the West Bank. October 7 has reignited the debate over ultra-Orthodox conscription: the public now demands democracy and equality and refuses to trade them for a coalition that has brought ruin.

A vast majority of Israelis now call for an official state inquiry to expose Netanyahu’s lies and his evasion of responsibility for the massacre. What matters to those who filled the streets to defend democracy is not who is “more Jewish,” but something simpler: will Israel live by democratic principles—or sink into an empty debate over Jewishness? The opposition to Ben Gvir, Smotrich, and Netanyahu is not because they are Jews, but because they are fascists, racists, and corrupt.