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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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Arab Israelis Enjoy the Rights of Democracy — The Same Can’t Be Said for Citizens of Other Middle East Countries
A general view shows the plenum at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Jerusalem. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
On October 13, the Israeli Knesset met to mark a ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel that included the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke first, for 30 minutes. Yair Lapid, representing the Opposition, spoke next, for 15 minutes. Then, President Donald Trump delivered a largely extemporaneous speech lasting a little more than an hour.
A few minutes into President Trump’s address, there was a disturbance, a common feature of Knesset sessions. Two elected members of the left-wing party, Hadash — Ofer Cassif, an Israeli Jew, and Ayman Odeh, an Israeli Arab — held up signs saying “Recognize Palestine.” After a few moments of shouting, the two were removed from the Knesset chamber. (Note: They were not arrested. They continue to represent their constituency in the Knesset.)
This kind of democracy and dissent would not be possible anywhere else in the Middle East or North Africa. None of the 22 states in the Arab League operate on the basis of free and open elections, and respect for civil liberties and fundamental political freedoms.
Indeed, several of these countries (Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, and Libya) fit the category of “failed states” — unable to carry out fundamental functions, such as controlling borders.
Since 2006, the influential British news and business magazine, The Economist, has published a comprehensive annual Democracy Index, which analyzes in detail the democratic processes in 167 countries around the world. Based on 60 numeric scores, the rankings include five categories: electoral process and pluralism, functioning of government, political participation, political culture, and civil liberties.
Countries are divided into one of four regime types: full democracies, flawed democracies, hybrid (partially democratic) regimes, and authoritarian regimes.
The Democracy Index for 2024 lists 25 full democracies, 46 flawed democracies (including countries such as Israel, the US, France, and Italy), and 96 hybrid or authoritarian regimes. The Index gives an authoritarian score for Palestine.
A color-coded map of the world accompanies the Index report. Full and flawed democracies are dark blue and pale blue, respectively, while hybrid governments are yellow. Authoritarian countries appear light to dark brown.
Israel is not even visible from a quick glance at the map. To see Israel, one must either adjust the magnification of the computer image or use the “pinch to zoom” feature available with many devices. Only then does a little island of blue become visible amid a vast sea of brown.
In fact, the only Arab people in the Middle East or North Africa who have experienced what it is like to live in a democracy are the more than two million Arab citizens of Israel.
In a blog he wrote in The Times of Israel, Bassem Eid, a Palestinian activist and writer who monitors human rights abuses by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, writes that, as in other western democracies, Israeli Arabs “can vote in elections, own businesses, work, speak, and worship freely, wherever in Israel they call home.” To Eid, Israel is the best place to be an Arab.
Meanwhile, Ayman Odeh, leader of the Hadash party (yes, one of the Knesset members ejected during the Trump visit) has been working to establish a unified slate of Arab parties (a Joint List) in preparation for the next Israeli election. A unified party would energize Arab voters, increase the community’s political influence, and possibly lead to Arab participation in the government, as was the case during the short-lived Bennett-Lapid coalition that preceded the current Israeli government.
The Arab people of Israel know that Israel is a thriving, diverse, and democratic country, and that it includes a thriving Arab population. Or, as Bassem Eid puts it, Arabs have been fortunate to call Israel home.
Jacob Sivak, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, is a retired professor, University of Waterloo.
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Rabbis and other Jewish New Yorkers join Mamdani’s 400-member mayoral transition committees
(JTA) — Five local rabbis are among the more than 400 New Yorkers tapped for New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s transition committees, the teams tasked with preparing his administration ahead of his Jan. 1 swearing-in.
They include Abby Stein, who appeared in “Jews for Zohran” campaigns and shares the mayor-elect’s anti-Zionist outlook, on the health committee; Ellen Lippman, who recently retired from Kolot Chayeinu, the Brooklyn congregation where Mamdani attended Rosh Hashanah services, on the social services committee; and Rachel Timoner, whose Park Slope synagogue Congregation Beth Elohim hosted Mamdani for a meeting with congregants, and Jason Klein, who helms the LGBTQ synagogue Congregation Beth Simchat Torah, on the immigrant justice committee.
Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, executive vice president of the New York Board of Rabbis, sits on the emergency response transition committee. He is the only Jewish clergy member to join the transition committees of both Mamdani and Mayor Eric Adams, whom Mamdani unseated.
Adams’ 700-member transition team had a clergy committee with 16 rabbis from across denominations, including several from the city’s Modern and haredi Orthodox communities. Mamdani does not have a clergy committee and there are no Orthodox rabbis on any of his committees; during the campaign, he drew criticism from a wide array of rabbis over his stances on Israel, and received little support from Orthodox voters.
The transition committees advise on policies, vet personnel and broker relationships between the incoming administration and New Yorkers. Mamdani’s appointees range from traditional leaders, such as Kathryn Wylde, the longtime head of the city’s fundraising nonprofit, to those who traditionally have lacked power in the city — including representatives of the Democratic Socialists of America, the left-wing movement where Mamdani cut his teeth and which is vying to sustain influence as he assumes the mayorship. Mamdani has two committees, on worker justice and community organizing, that have not before been part of a mayoral transition.
Other notable Jews on the transition committees include Jonah Boyarin, a member of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice who helped craft city antisemitism trainings, on the community safety committee; Ruth Messinger, the former leader of American Jewish World Service, on the immigrant justice committee; Masha Pearl of the Blue Card, which supports needy Holocaust survivors, on the social services committee; and Mamdani’s high school teacher Marc Kagan on the transportation committee.
Also on the committees are a number of prominent New Yorkers who are Jewish but who have not made their Jewish identity a primary feature of their public personas.
The post Rabbis and other Jewish New Yorkers join Mamdani’s 400-member mayoral transition committees appeared first on The Forward.
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Bipartisan bill in Congress would create ‘Jewish Refugee Day’
(JTA) — The United States would recognize Nov. 30 as “Jewish Refugee Day” under a bipartisan resolution sponsored by two Jewish members of Congress.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the Florida Democrat, and Texas Republican Craig Goldman submitted the resolution on Friday, saying that the day would be known by both its English name and the Hebrew translation, Yom HaPlitim.
“I was proud to introduce a bipartisan resolution with Rep. Craig Goldman to honor Yom Haplitim and Jewish communities forced out of North African and Middle Eastern countries where they lived for millennia after Israel became a country,” Wasserman Schultz said in a statement to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “Their resilience is inspiring and a testament to the improbable survival of Jewish people throughout history.”
Wasserman Schultz, who was the first Jewish woman elected to represent Florida in Congress, initially introduced a similar resolution in 2024, but it expired before the start of the new Congress. She was the sole sponsor of that resolution.
The holiday, which was first adopted by Israel in 2014, commemorates the departure and expulsion of roughly 900,000 Jews from Arab countries following the founding of the state of Israel.
The date Nov. 30 was selected by the Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, because it follows the date on Nov. 29, 1947, when the United Nations approved the partition plan for the Palestine Mandate and the creation of Israel, which spurred hostility toward Jews in Arab nations.
In 2021, the first physical memorial for the mass expulsion was erected in Jerusalem by the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation.
The resolution states that Congress “continues to support the security of the State of Israel and the Jewish people around the world.” It also calls for “educational efforts throughout the United States, the Middle East, and North Africa to teach the history of the forced displacement and exile of the Jewish people.”
“Recognizing Jewish Refugee Day helps to ensure that Congress continues to bring awareness to the history of antisemitism and stand with the Jewish community around the world,” said Wasserman Schultz.
The resolution was referred to the House Committees on the Judiciary, Education and Workforce and Foreign Affairs for consideration.
The post Bipartisan bill in Congress would create ‘Jewish Refugee Day’ appeared first on The Forward.