Introduction: Judicial Overhaul and Political Upheaval in Israel

Abstract

Introduction:Judicial Overhaul and Political Upheaval in Israel Arieh Saposnik and Natan Aridan Over the past few months, Israeli society and culture, the Israeli state and Israeli politics, have entered what is by all accounts an unprecedented period of crisis and upheaval. The so-called "judicial reform" initiated and led principally by Minister of Justice Yariv Levin and MK Simcha Rothman, chair of the Knesset's Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, has been the principal focus of a protest movement of unprecedented size and duration (and arguably, impact), which has made the call "democracy" its central rallying cry. But it is not just the attempt to reshape the Israeli judiciary and the balance of power between the executive, legislative and judicial branches in the Israeli republic that have aroused passions. There is a broad and deepening perception among many Israelis (and others) that the legislative, administrative and political thrusts of the present government converge to create an overall effort to reshape the Israeli polity, the principles on which Israeli culture and society were established, and perhaps even the most fundamental tenets of Zionism as they had been understood by most Zionists over the course of much of Zionist and Israeli history. The current Israeli government includes within it, for example, one member who has declared herself a "proud racist," and other members who have been openly associated with Meir Kahane's Kach movement, outlawed by the (Likud-led) Knesset in the 1980s due to racist positions. More broadly, within the evolving discord and dissension, central Israeli symbols—most notably, the flag, the Proclamation of Independence, and the National Anthem—have been undergoing transformation and contestation of "ownership." In a great deal of the public discourse of the past few months, the struggle has often been cast as one that pits "right" against "left," or between proponents of a "Jewish" Israel and advocates of a "democratic" [End Page 1] state. Such characterization is, of course, superficial and far from accurate. Thus, for example, in the contentious discourse regarding the bolstering "Jewish identity" in public schools in Israel, the debate tends to be cast as one between believers in Jewish identity—meaning Orthodox Jews of a particular religious and ideological variety—and its negators, ostensibly meaning "secular," or non-Orthodox, Jews of various positions. In fact, however, secular Zionism itself had at its core a bolstering of Jewish culture and identity through its remodeling. And today too, the deeper question is not a "yes or no" one regarding Jewish identity (of individual Israelis and of Israeli society writ large). It is, rather, a far more complicated (and perhaps difficult) standoff—with historical roots that reach to the very origins of Zionism (and even earlier, to the cornerstones of Jewish modernity)—of what Jewish identity and what understandings of Jewishness ought to characterize Israel and Israelis. The complexity and depth of the questions involved in the upheaval taking place in Israel calls out, in our view, for engagement by scholars of various disciplinary and methodological perspectives. The task of scholarship is, of course, to analyze, clarify, and—one hopes—to add to our understanding of complex and difficult phenomena. This is true many times over with regard to the kinds of processes taking place in Israel today, which have wide-ranging historical, cultural, legal, political and social roots and consequences. This is a time that is no less critical for scholars of Israel than for Israel itself. As the object of our inquiry is undergoing upheaval, so too—necessarily—is our field. Add to that the special role into which Israel Studies has long been thrust in the broader struggles for the nature of academic work and the meaning of truth-seeking in the humanities and social sciences; add to it, further, the direct engagement of Israeli academia in the current legal-political-cultural upheaval and the implications that the changes bear for academic work and academic freedom. The combination of these factors have led us to conclude that a journal such as Israel Studies must not sidestep the necessity of engaging in the issues that are clearly so vitally important to Israel and to the scholars who seek to understand...