Non-Jewish Science Minister
Props to the Israeli government for appointing Galeb Magadla. I have never been able to internalize how the country could consider itself a modern democracy when religion and state are as intertwined as they are in Israel. I'm glad to see the country moving in a positive direction to give more rights to those that are not Orthodox Jews.
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The vast majority of Israelis, although nominally Jewish, are in fact secular.
But the question of democracy and religion is nothing new. Europe has tons of Christian Democracy parties and more than a few democratic states have state sponsored religions (hell, England, the most liberal of the lot, still does).
But in the Jewish case what's interesting was how ready the Jewish people were during the emancipation movement in Europe during the 1800s to follow the French dictum that to the Jews as a people nothing but to the Jews as individuals everything. In other words, to separate religion and state. This led to huge changes in Jewish culture including the creation of Reform Judaism one of the biggest movements in Judaism as well as the formation of conservative Judaism which until recently was the largest movement.
But as the Jews found out, emancipation was nonsense. Just about every country was more than happy to oppress and kill their Jewish population and to speak openly of their expulsion. Although to be fair, the farther east you went the worse things became. But even in 'liberal' France the Dreyfus affair ripped the country in half.
Keep in mind that the first Zionist Congress was in 1897 and it was well attended! This was long before the Holocaust. Many Jews "got it" that for whatever reason western culture was completely against them and that if they wanted to continue to exist as a religious group their only hope was to band together and protect themselves as a group. Although to be fair many, many Jews were anti-zionist wanting to believe against all evidence that the political emancipations were real. But the Holocaust, for obvious reasons, ended the argument.
To put this in perspective Gentleman's Agreement, an outstanding movie and an amazingly clear look into modern antisemitism was made in 1935, not 1835 and this was about America, one of the most immigrant and Jew friendly countries on earth. Heck, even in the states Jew Quotas for colleges only disappeared in the 1950s and 60s.
In an ideal world religion and state would be completely unrelated but as the Jewish experience, well, everywhere, really, shows, it's just not practical. In the real world religion matters and so long as that's so having a Jewish state is, I believe, an absolute necessity.
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