{"id":268,"date":"2007-04-19T18:20:00","date_gmt":"2007-04-19T18:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/virtualtalmud\/2007\/04\/defining-jewish-state.html"},"modified":"2007-04-19T18:20:00","modified_gmt":"2007-04-19T18:20:00","slug":"defining-jewish-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2007\/04\/defining-jewish-state.html","title":{"rendered":"Defining a Jewish State"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I understand <a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/blogs\/virtualtalmud\/2007\/04\/wolf-guarding-sheep.html\">Rabbi Grossman\u2019s discomfort<\/a> with including a person in Israel&#8217;s government who isn&#8217;t committed to the notion of Israel as a Jewish state, but I also think that the term \u201cJewish state\u201d is so vague and amorphous that it makes a dangerous litmus test.  If \u201cJewish state\u201d means religiously Jewish, then we should kick out the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org\/jsource\/Politics\/Shinui.html\" target=\"_blank\">Shinui Party<\/a>, which is dedicated to secularism.  If &#8220;Jewish state&#8221; means culturally Jewish, then we should disallow the Hadash Party, whose anti-Zionist platform derives from its Marxist anti-nationalism.  And if \u201cJewish state\u201d means demographically Jewish, we should disallow Arab parties like Raam and Balad \u2013 or, for that matter, right-wing parties like <a href=\"http:\/\/www.yisraelbeytenu.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Yisrael Beiteinu<\/a> that reject a two-state solution, leading to a majority non-Jewish country.  The point is that the concept of &#8220;a Jewish state&#8221; is still very much a work in progress, and orthodoxies of any sort (to say nothing of name-calling) stifle this progression rather than further it.<\/p>\n<p>I encourage anyone with thoughts along these lines to look at the relevant section of  <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rhr-na.org\/resources\/Part%202%20Democracy.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">a thought-provoking document<\/a> entitled Masechet Atzma&#8217;ut (&#8220;Tractate Independence&#8221;) \u2013 a Talmud-like commentary on Israel\u2019s Declaration of Independence put out by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rhr.israel.net\/\" target=\"_blank\">Rabbis for Human Rights<\/a>.  I want a safe and secure Israel as much as anyone, and I think an important component of this goal is figuring out exactly what we mean when we say &#8220;Jewish State.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><b>Read the Full Debate: What&#8217;s the Place of Non-Jews in a Jewish State?<\/b><\/p>\n<ul><\/p>\n<li><b><a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/blogs\/virtualtalmud\/2007\/04\/wolf-guarding-sheep.html\">Rabbi Grossman: A Wolf Guarding the Sheep<\/a><\/b><\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li><b><a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/blogs\/virtualtalmud\/2007\/04\/advancing-jewish-state.html\">Rabbi Waxman: Advancing the Jewish State<\/a><\/b><\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li><b><a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/blogs\/virtualtalmud\/2007\/04\/interfaith-dialogue-israels-future.html\">Rabbi Stern: Interfaith Dialogue &amp; Israel&#8217;s Future<\/a><\/b><\/li>\n<p><\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I understand Rabbi Grossman\u2019s discomfort with including a person in Israel&#8217;s government who isn&#8217;t committed to the notion of Israel as a Jewish state, but I also think that the term \u201cJewish state\u201d is so vague and amorphous that it makes a dangerous litmus test. If \u201cJewish state\u201d means religiously Jewish, then we should kick&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":100,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Defining a Jewish State - Virtual Talmud<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2007\/04\/defining-jewish-state.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Defining a Jewish State - Virtual Talmud\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I understand Rabbi Grossman\u2019s discomfort with including a person in Israel&#8217;s government who isn&#8217;t committed to the notion of Israel as a Jewish state, but I also think that the term \u201cJewish state\u201d is so vague and amorphous that it makes a dangerous litmus test. 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If \u201cJewish state\u201d means religiously Jewish, then we should kick&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2007\/04\/defining-jewish-state.html","og_site_name":"Virtual Talmud","article_published_time":"2007-04-19T18:20:00+00:00","author":"Rabbi Joshua Waxman","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2007\/04\/defining-jewish-state.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2007\/04\/defining-jewish-state.html","name":"Defining a Jewish State - Virtual Talmud","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/#website"},"datePublished":"2007-04-19T18:20:00+00:00","dateModified":"2007-04-19T18:20:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/#\/schema\/person\/b2c907457be70b05b78f556cde42041f"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2007\/04\/defining-jewish-state.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2007\/04\/defining-jewish-state.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2007\/04\/defining-jewish-state.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Defining a Jewish State"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/","name":"Virtual Talmud","description":"Rabbi Brad Hirschfield, where politics and pop culture meet 3,000 years of Jewish wisdom","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/#\/schema\/person\/b2c907457be70b05b78f556cde42041f","name":"Rabbi Joshua Waxman","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/6ea\/6eaad0ba16ec89046c9580c3b08d2e4cx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/6ea\/6eaad0ba16ec89046c9580c3b08d2e4cx96.jpg","caption":"Rabbi Joshua Waxman"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/author\/jwaxman"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/100"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}