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As religious affairs minister, Matan Kahana tried to bring Israelis closer to Judaism — by reducing religious laws
Matan Kahana was an F-16 fighter pilot in the Israeli Air Force, so he’s not one to back down from a difficult mission. When he entered politics and served as Israel’s minister of religious services in Naftali Bennett’s coalition government, Kahana gave himself a politically perilous assignment: to loosen the grip of haredi Orthodox rabbis on Israeli religious life. He pushed for significant reforms within Israel’s religious institutions and kashrut certifications and appointed women to religious councils. The Israeli press called his actions “revolutionary.” Now a Knesset member for Benny Gantz’s National Unity party, Kahana said he will fight to temper the far right and keep his reforms intact.
In our interview, Kahana talks about his own religious background, why he chose to take on a mission of reform, and how Israelis and the diaspora can find common ground.
The perception that the Orthodox have a hold on Israeli life is one of the most significant points of contention between Israel and Diaspora Jews. Is that starting to change?
Most of the Jews in Israel are Orthodox. Even the secular Jews in Israel are Orthodox. As we say here, “The synagogues that we are not going to are Orthodox synagogues.” Take me, for example. I never met a Reform Jew until I joined politics, and the first time I met a Conservative was after I was released from the army at the age of 46. All this influences the relationship between Israel and the Diaspora. We have to work together with the Jews in the Diaspora to find solutions to this to this issue. The hardest thing is the conversion issue because we don’t accept non-Orthodox conversions. Even when I was the minister of religious affairs, and I was a very revolutionary one, I made a lot of reforms in these religion-and-state issues. But we have to find a solution so we will not tear the relationship between Jews in Israel and Jews in the Diaspora. It’s very important that we continue to be am echad — one people.
The Times of Israel called you an Orthodox revolutionary. It sounds like that’s a term you embrace. What is it about your background or your personality that makes you want to take these established institutions and reform them?
That’s a very good question. The thing is, I have two legs. Of course, my right leg is an observant Jew that observes halacha and the living God and tries to do all the mitzvot. But my other leg is where I spent all of my adult life with the most secular people in Israel — the pilots in the Israeli Air Force. So, I thought that a person like me could bring a solution to these rifts. You can’t force anyone to believe in God. And you can’t force anyone to be a religious Jew. And I believe that if we do as much as we can to reduce forcing people, they will come by themselves. This is what I tried to do, to reduce religious laws, and hopefully, they will try to be more and more close to Judaism.
You’re a relative newcomer to politics. As you know, Israeli politics is a rough business. What have you learned so far?
I learned that it’s totally different from what I knew in the air force and in the army, where there is competition, but everyone wants you to succeed. In politics, everyone wants you to fail, and they will be happy to see you fail. Everything in politics comes with a price. If you and I want the same thing, but you want it a bit more than me, it will cost you.
What are your priorities now as a member of the Knesset?
I will fight to preserve some of the changes that I made. And I hope that they will not erase everything. I’m very afraid about what they are going to do when the opposition is very weak, and the coalition is very strong. I will have to make sure that things are going in the right direction. In every field that they will deal with — in security, the law, religion and state, economics, everything — we should watch them and see that they’re going the right way. Even in the field of connection to the Diaspora Jews, I am very afraid that it’s not going to be very simple.
The Z3 conference is focused on fostering a sense of Jewish unity. What do you think are the biggest obstacles to unity between Israel and the diaspora?
I will start with the relationship between the Orthodox Jews in Israel and Reform and Conservative Jews in the Diaspora. In my days as the minister of religious affairs, at least I had some conversations with non-Orthodox Jews in the Diaspora. When I was visiting the United States, I visited Reform synagogues. Maybe I didn’t deliver all that they wanted, but they knew that I would always listen to them. I am not so sure that the next minister of religious affairs will want to meet them at all.
Let’s say we put you in charge tomorrow. What is the ideal relationship between synagogue and state? How would you set things up?
What’s happening is that extremists from both sides have been influencing what’s happening in Israel. The ultra-Orthodox are telling us how we should act and, on the other side, there are also secular extremists that will not accept any kind of agreement. So, if the normal people in the middle of this political mess gather together and say, “We want some agreements,” everyone will give a little bit. Each side will compromise a little bit—not fulfill all our dreams, but we will be able to live together in harmony.
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Trump Wants Say on Iran’s Next Leader, Claims Tehran Calling US About a Deal
US President Donald Trump speaks on the day he honors reigning Major League Soccer (MLS) champion Inter Miami CF players and team officials with an event in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, US, March 5, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
US President Donald Trump claimed the right to join Iran in deciding its next leader as the war escalated on Thursday, with US and Israeli jets hitting areas across the country and Gulf cities coming under renewed bombardment.
In a phone interview with Reuters, Trump said Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei – a hardliner who has been considered a favorite to succeed his father – was an unlikely choice.
“We want to be involved in the process of choosing the person who is going to lead Iran into the future,” he said.
Trump also encouraged Iranian Kurdish forces to go on the offensive.
“I’d be all for it,” said Trump, whose administration has had contact with Iranian Kurdish groups since the US-Israeli strikes began. He would not say whether the United States would provide air cover for any Kurdish offensive.
The attack is a major political gamble for the Republican president, with opinion polls showing little public support and Americans concerned about the rise in gasoline prices caused by disruption to energy supplies. Trump dismissed that concern.
He said later in the day that Tehran was reaching out to the United States about making a deal amid US and Israeli strikes on Iran, adding that further action to reduce pressure on oil was imminent.
“They’re calling, they’re saying ‘how do we make a deal?’ I said you’re being a little bit late,” said Trump, speaking at an event with the Inter Miami soccer team at the White House.
Trump touted the US military actions in Iran, saying they were destroying Tehran’s missile and drone capability and that “their navy is gone – 24 ships in three days,” as he called on Iranian diplomats to request asylum and help shape a better country.
“We also urge Iranian diplomats around the world to request asylum and to help us shape a new and better Iran,” he said.
ISRAELIS WARN TEHRAN RESIDENTS
On the war’s sixth day, Iran launched a series of attacks on Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar. Fire crews in Bahrain extinguished a blaze at a refinery following a missile strike.
Two drone attacks targeted an Iranian opposition camp in Iraqi Kurdistan, as well as an oil field operated by an American firm, security sources said.
The Israeli military warned residents to evacuate areas including eastern Tehran, while Iranian media reported blasts were heard in various parts of the capital. An air attack killed 17 people in a guest house on a road northwest of the capital, Iranian state television said.
MANY MUNITIONS, IRAN‘S ATTACKS DROPPED
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Admiral Brad Cooper, who leads US forces in the Middle East, said that the US has enough munitions to continue its bombardment indefinitely.
“Iran is hoping that we cannot sustain this, which is a really bad miscalculation,” Hegseth told reporters at Central Command headquarters in Florida. “Our munitions are full up and our will is ironclad.”
Cooper said the US had now hit at least 30 Iranian ships, including a large drone carrier that he said was the size of a World War Two aircraft carrier. He added that B-2 bombers had in the past few hours dropped dozens of 2,000 penetrator bombs targeting deeply buried ballistic missile launchers, and that bombings were also targeting Iran‘s missile production facilities.
Iran‘s ballistic missile attacks had decreased by 90% since the first day of the war, while drone attacks had decreased by 83% in that time frame, he said.
WARNING SIRENS BLARE IN MULTIPLE NATIONS
Azerbaijan on Thursday became the latest country drawn in, as it accused Iran of firing drones at its territory and ordered its southern airspace closed for 12 hours. Iran, which has a significant Azeri minority, denied it had targeted its neighbor, but the episode underlined how rapidly the war has spread since the surprise US and Israeli airstrikes that killed Khamenei on Saturday.
Along with the gleaming cities of the Gulf, in easy range of Iranian drones and missiles, Cyprus and Turkey have both been targeted. European nations have pledged to deploy ships to the eastern Mediterranean and hostilities have been seen as far afield as waters off Sri Lanka, where a US submarine sank an Iranian warship on Tuesday, killing 80 crew members.
In Iran, at least 1,230 people have been killed, according to the Iranian Red Crescent Society, including 175 schoolgirls and staff killed at a primary school in Minab in the country’s south on the first day of the war. Another 77 have been killed in Lebanon, its Health Ministry says. Thousands fled southern Beirut on Thursday after Israel warned residents to leave.
NETANYAHU SAYS ‘MUCH WORK STILL LIES AHEAD’
Shares on Wall Street fell on Thursday, weighed by surging oil prices, as the economic impact of the campaign intensified, with countries around the world cut off from a fifth of global supplies of oil and liquefied natural gas and air transport still facing chaos and global logistics increasingly snarled.
On Thursday, Iran‘s Revolutionary Guards said they had hit a US tanker in the northern part of the Gulf and the vessel was on fire, the latest of numerous reports of such attacks.
Visiting an air force base in the south of the country, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel’s achievements so far in Iran had been “great” but that “much work still lies ahead.”
Iran‘s foreign minister said Washington would “bitterly regret” the precedent it had set by sinking a ship in international waters without warning. A commander of the Revolutionary Guards, General Kioumars Heydari, told state TV: “We have decided to fight Americans wherever they are.”
The body of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, killed in the first hours of the US-Israeli air campaign in the first assassination of a country’s top ruler by an airstrike, had been due to lie in state in a Tehran prayer hall from Wednesday evening to launch three days of mourning.
But the memorial, expected to draw many thousands of mourners to the streets, was abruptly postponed.
Two sources familiar with Israel’s battle plans said that Israel, having killed many Iranian leaders, was now planning to enter a second phase when it would target underground bunkers where Iran stores its missiles.
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Israel Decided to Kill Khamenei in November, Defense Minister Says
Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz and his Greek counterpart Nikos Dendias make statements to the press, at the Ministry of Defense in Athens Greece, Jan. 20, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Louisa Gouliamaki
Israel took the decision to kill Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in November and was planning to carry out the operation around six months later, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Thursday.
Khamenei was killed in the first hours of the US-Israeli air campaign that began on Saturday in the first assassination of a country’s top ruler by an airstrike.
The joint air assault is nearing the end of its first week after opening salvos killed the country’s leaders and set off a regional war, with Iranian attacks in Israel, the Gulf and Iraq, and Israeli attacks against Iran’s ally Hezbollah in Lebanon.
“Already in November we were convened with the prime minister in a very tight forum and the prime minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] set the goal of eliminating Khamenei,” Katz told Israel‘s N12 TV news. The timing was set for mid-2026, he said.
The plan was eventually shared with the Washington and brought forward around January after protests broke out Iran, when Israel was concerned its pressured clerical rulers might launch an attack against Israel and US assets in the Middle East, Katz said.
Israel has said its aim is to eliminate the existential threat it sees in Iran’s nuclear program and ballistic missile project, and to bring about regime change. Iran’s rulers have so far shown no sign of relinquishing power.
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China in Talks With Iran to Allow Safe Oil and Gas Passage Through Hormuz, Sources Say
An oil tanker unloads crude oil at a crude oil terminal in Zhoushan, Zhejiang province, China, July 4, 2018. Picture taken July 4, 2018. Photo: REUTERS/Stringer
China is in talks with Iran to allow crude oil and Qatari liquefied natural gas vessels safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz as the US-Israeli war on Tehran intensifies, three diplomatic sources told Reuters.
The war, which entered its sixth day on Thursday, has left the critical shipping passageway all-but shut, with countries around the world cut off from a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas supplies.
China, which has friendly relations with Iran and relies heavily on Middle Eastern supplies, is unhappy about the Islamic Republic’s move to paralyze shipping through the Strait and is pressing Tehran to allow safe passage for the vessels, according to the sources.
The world’s second-largest economy gets about 45% of its oil from the Strait.
Ship tracking data showed a vessel called the Iron Maiden passed through the Strait overnight after changing its signaling to “China-owner,” but far more sailings will be needed to calm global markets.
Crude oil prices are up more than 15% since the conflict began amid production stoppages as Tehran attacks energy facilities in the Gulf as well as ships crossing the Strait.
Its missiles have also reached as far afield as Cyprus, Azerbaijan, and Turkey, destabilizing global markets and prompting major economies to warn about inflation risks.
Crude tanker transits through the strait fell to four vessels on March 1, the day after hostilities broke out, versus an average of 24 a day since January, Vortexa vessel-tracking data showed.
Around 300 oil tankers remain inside the Strait, according to Vortexa and ship tracker Kpler.
Sugar industry veteran Mike McDougall told Reuters that Middle East sugar executives say there are some ships transiting the Strait at the moment, all of which are either Chinese or Iranian-owned.
Jamal Al-Ghurair, the managing director of Dubai-based Al Khaleej Sugar, told Reuters some ships carrying sugar are currently allowed to pass through the Strait while others are not, without giving further details.
Iran‘s government said earlier in the week that no vessels belonging to the United States, Israel, European countries or their allies would be allowed to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, but the statement made no mention of China.