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Israeli democracy may not survive a ‘reform’ of its Supreme Court
(JTA) — On Dec. 29, Israel swore in Benjamin Netanyahu’s sixth government. The Likud leader became Israel’s prime minister once more, and one week later, Israel’s long-anticipated judicial counterrevolution began.
In the Knesset Wednesday, newly minted Justice Minister and Netanyahu confidant Yariv Levin unveiled a package of proposed legislation that would alter the balance of power between Israel’s legislature and its Supreme Court.
At the core of this plan is a bill to allow the Knesset to override the Supreme Court. Levin’s proposals — which almost certainly have the immediate support of a Knesset majority, regardless of Levin’s assurances that they would be subject to “thorough debate” — would pave the way for Israel’s new government to pass legislation that curtails rights and undermines the rule of law, dealing a blow to Israeli democracy.
The dire implications of this proposed judicial reform are rooted in key characteristics of the Israeli political system that set it apart from other liberal democracies. Israel has no constitution to determine the balance of power between its various branches of government. In fact, there is no separation between Israel’s executive and legislative branches, given that the government automatically controls a majority in the parliament.
Instead, it has a series of basic laws enacted piecemeal over the course of the state’s history that have a quasi-constitutional status, with the initial intention that they would eventually constitute a de jure constitution.
Through the 1980s, the Knesset passed basic laws that primarily served to define state institutions, such as the country’s legislature and electoral system, capital and military. In the 1990s, there was a paradigm shift with the passage of two basic laws that for the first time concerned individuals’ rights rather than institutions, one on Human Dignity and Liberty (1992) and the other on Freedom of Occupation (1994). These laws enshrined rights to freedom of movement, personal freedom, human dignity and others to all who reside in Israel.
Aharon Barak, the president of Israel’s Supreme Court from 1995 to 2006, argued that these laws constituted a de facto bill of rights, empowering the court to review Knesset legislation and to strike down laws that violate civil liberties, a responsibility not explicitly bestowed upon the court in the basic law pertaining to the judiciary. In 1995, the Supreme Court officially ruled that it could indeed repeal legislation that violates the country’s basic laws, heralding an era of increased judicial activism in Israel in what became known as the “judicial revolution.” The court has struck down 20 laws since, a fairly modest number compared to other democracies.
The judicial revolution of the 1990s shifted the balance of power in Israel’s political system from one of parliamentary sovereignty, in which the Knesset enjoyed ultimate power, to one in which the legislature is restricted from violating the country’s (incomplete) constitution. Israel’s Supreme Court became a check on the legislative branch in a country that lacks other checks and balances and separations of power.
As a result of these characteristics, the Supreme Court currently serves as one of the only checks on the extraordinary power of Israel’s 120-member Knesset — which is why shifting that balance of power would have such a dramatic impact on Israel’s democracy.
Levin’s proposed judicial overhaul includes several elements that would weaken the power and independence of Israel’s Supreme Court. The plan includes forbidding the Supreme Court from deliberating on and striking down basic laws themselves. It would require an unspecified “special majority” of the court to strike down legislation, raising the threshold from where it currently stands.
Levin has also called for altering the composition of the selection committee that appoints top judges to give the government, rather than legal professionals, a majority on the panel. It would allow cabinet ministers to appoint legal advisors to act on their behalf, rather than that of the justice ministry, canceling these advisors’ role as safeguards against government overreach. Should a minister enact a decision that contravenes a basic law, the ministry’s legal advisor would no longer report the violation to the attorney general, and would instead merely offer non-binding legal advice to the minister.
The pièce de résistance is, of course, the override clause that would allow the Knesset to reinstate laws struck down by the Supreme Court by 61 members of Knesset, a simple majority assuming all members are present. The sole restriction on this override would be a provision preventing the Knesset from re-legislating laws struck down unanimously, by all 15 judges, within the same Knesset term.
This plan’s obvious and most immediate result would be the effective annulment of the quasi-constitutional status of Israel’s basic laws. If the Knesset’s power to legislate is no longer bound by basic laws, these de facto constitutional amendments no longer have any teeth. There are no guardrails preventing any Knesset majority from doing as it wishes, including violating basic human rights. The Knesset could pass laws openly curtailing freedom of the press or gender equality, for example, should it choose to do so.
This counterrevolution, in effect, goes further than merely undoing what occurred in the 1990s.
Most crucially, the Knesset that would once again enjoy full parliamentary sovereignty in 2022 is not the Knesset of Israel’s first four decades. Shackling the Supreme Court is essential to the agendas of the new government’s various ultra-right and ultra-religious parties. For example, the haredi Orthodox parties are eager to re-legislate a blanket exemption to the military draft for their community, which the court struck down in 2017 on the grounds that it was discriminatory. They also have their sights on revoking recognition of non-Orthodox conversions for immigrants to Israel, undoing a court decision from 2021.
The far-right, Jewish supremacist parties of Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, meanwhile, see an opportunity to deal a decisive blow to an institution that has long served as a check on the settlement movement. They hope to tie the court’s hands in the face of oncoming legislation to retroactively legalize settlements built on private Palestinian land, which are illegal under Israeli law. But this is only the beginning: Neutering the authority of the court could pave the way for legal discrimination against Israel’s Arab minority, such as Ben-Gvir’s proposal to deport minorities who show insufficient loyalty.
The timing of Levin’s announcement Wednesday could not be more germane. The Knesset recently amended the basic law to legalize the appointment of Aryeh Deri, the Shas party leader who is serving a suspended sentence for tax fraud, as a minister in the new government. The Supreme Court convened Thursday morning to hear petitions against his appointment from those arguing that it is “unreasonable” to rehabilitate Deri given his multiple criminal convictions, a view shared by Israel’s attorney general. Levin’s proposals would bar the court from using this “reasonability” standard.
The Israeli right has long chafed at the power of the Supreme Court, which it accuses of having a left-wing bias. But a judicial overhaul like this has never enjoyed the full support of the government, nor was Netanyahu previously in favor of it. Now, with a uniformly right-wing government and Netanyahu on trial for corruption, the prime minister’s foremost interest is appeasing his political partners and securing their support for future legislation to shield him from prosecution.
In a system where the majority rules, there need to be mechanisms in place to protect the rights of minorities — political, ethnic and religious. Liberal democracy requires respect for the rule of law and human rights. Yariv Levin’s proposals to fully subordinate the Supreme Court to the Knesset will concentrate virtually unchecked power in the hands of a few individuals — government ministers and party leaders within the coalition who effectively control what the Knesset does. That those individuals were elected in free and fair elections is no guarantee that the changes they make will be democratic.
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Simchat Torah in Hostages Square lays bare divide over just how much to celebrate yet

(JTA) — Rabba Anat Sharbat, the unofficial “rabbi of Hostages Square,” wept as she recited the Shehechiyanu blessing after lighting the candles to mark the beginning of Simchat Torah holiday on Monday evening, hours after all 20 living hostages returned to Israel.
Two years before, the same holiday had been marked by silence and fear after the Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel ended celebrations across the country.
Before the plaza even became known as Hostages Square, Sharbat had established what became a ritual — Kabbalat Shabbat services and Havdalah every week, in her words, “out of a deep belief that there needed to be a space here for prayer,” not only for protest.
Faith, she said, had played a role in the hostages’ return.
“The prayers in the square were an integral part of the effort to return them,” Sharbat said. “We heard from hostages who came back that they heard and felt the prayers, and that it gave them strength.”
Last Simchat Torah, she faced uncertainty about whether to hold prayers at all. There was barely a minyan — the quorum of 10 needed for Jewish prayer — and dancing felt impossible. Still, she insisted on continuing “out of a deep belief in the need to maintain hope, together with the families, that their loved ones will return home.” That conviction was validated when Dvora Leshem, the nonagenarian grandmother of the hostage Romi Gonen, approached the small group that night and said she was glad the prayers were taking place. Romi Gonen would be released about three months later.
On this year’s Hebrew anniversary, a very different scene unfolded in the square. As evening fell, a few dozen men and women gathered for prayers followed by hakafot, the traditional Simchat Torah dances encircling the Torah scrolls. The crowd of dancers quickly swelled to more than 200, while onlookers filmed and applauded from the sidelines. Among them was a woman in a Bring Them Home T-shirt who recalled that less than two weeks before Oct. 7, the sight of public, gender-separated prayer during Yom Kippur services had filled her with “extreme anguish.”
“But today, let them dance,” she said. “We are all dancing, finally.”
But the joy was marred by the knowledge that not all the deceased hostages had returned. For some, that reality was impossible to reconcile with the scenes of jubilation. One man, wearing a T-shirt that read in Hebrew, English, and Arabic “We are all created equal,” shouted at the dancers while filming on his phone. “These religious zealots can’t just stand respectfully, they have to dance like animals,” he said.
By Wednesday morning, eight bodies had been brought to Israel for burial. Seven were identified as hostages, while the eighth did not match any of the 28 confirmed dead. Two more, both Israelis, were returned on Wednesday.
The tension carried into Tuesday night, when tens of thousands filled Hostages Square again for a second round of Torah dancing traditionally held after the holiday. The seven dances alternated between grief and gratitude, each dedicated to a different group, including the fallen hostages still in Gaza, those who had returned, reservists, and their families.
Tel Aviv Deputy Mayor Chaim Goren said the event, organized annually by the municipality with Ma’ale Eliyahu Yeshiva and other national-religious groups, was originally meant to take place at a nearby plaza. “It felt detached to hold it there,” he said. The Hostages and Missing Families Forum agreed to move it to the square, though the decision wasn’t final until the last minute.
“There was back-and-forth until the holiday started about whether and how to do it,” Goren said. “With all the joy, there’s still a kvetch in the heart” — using the Yiddish word for ache — “but there’s also a deep need to give thanks to God for what we’ve witnessed.”
For Tel Aviv resident Sapir Barak, the night offered a release she hadn’t allowed herself since Oct. 7, 2023.
“When they announced the release yesterday, I basically had a nervous breakdown,” she said. “I was crying so much. There are so many emotions. It’s like a dream come true, but you don’t know what to do with it.”
Nearby, Henri Rosenberg cut an unusual figure in Hasidic garb with a fur shtreimel and a “Bring Them Home” dog tag around his neck, standing beside his grandson who wore a red MAGA baseball cap. But despite appearances, Rosenberg said he no longer identified as haredi Orthodox, having grown disillusioned by what he called indifference within some haredi circles to the pain felt by other Israelis during the war. Health problems had led him to attend a nearby national-religious synagogue over the High Holidays, where, he recalled, “the cantor wept for the hostages and the soldiers.”
“They are our flesh and blood, and that’s why I’m here tonight,” he said.
From the stage, Genia Erlich Zohar, aunt of American-Israeli hostage Omer Neutra — whose body remains in Gaza and who would have turned 24 on Tuesday — called on the crowd to respect the duality of the moment.
“We hold both joy for those who came home and hope and pain for those who haven’t,” she said. “We are one people, one heart.”
Miri Polachek, a friend of the Neutra family who has volunteered with relatives of the hostages, said she came to the event to support the Neutras and the other families. Recalling her own son’s playdates with Omer when they were children, she said, “It’s a never-ending reminder that it could have been any of our children.”
Among those on stage was Elkana Levy, a Golani Brigade officer who lost both legs in an explosion in Khan Younis. One of three brothers wounded in the Gaza war, he led a silent hakafa from his wheelchair and vowed that those “fighting day and night for the return of our brothers … would never break.”
At the edge of the square, a few dozen demonstrators held posters of those still in Gaza, chanting “Everyone, now!” — the familiar rallying cry for the hostages’ return.
Hagit Chen, holding “Gucci,” the small white dog that had belonged to her son, slain hostage and dual American-Israeli citizen Itay Chen, whose body has not yet been returned, called Monday’s release “a huge miracle,” even as she admitted her faith had been shaken.
“I was convinced Itay would be returning home yesterday with the others,” she said. Still, she added, the elation around her was not an affront. “I don’t look at joy that way. I embrace what’s happening here. We all need the strength it gives us.”
“But we cannot take our foot off the gas,” she said. “The deal is not a good one for the fallen hostages.” She pointed to what she described as the vague language of the Trump.-brokered agreement, which requires Hamas to make “all necessary efforts” to secure their release. “If we don’t see their return, it will be an open wound for all of us.”
Dani Miran, whose son Omri was among those freed on Monday, said Israel should halt the next stage of the deal until every hostage is accounted for.
“We should have resumed fighting at 1 p.m. yesterday, the moment we understood the 28 bodies weren’t coming home,” he said at Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, where his son is receiving treatment. “[Hamas] will not understand anything else.”
Miran said he would remain in Tel Aviv, where he has lived since his son’s abduction, until the last hostage returns. He declined to say whether he would shave his long white beard, a vow he made to keep until Omri came home.
Activist and artist Hila Galilee, posed with Miran’s longtime partner, Galia Korel, while holding a mock yellow Torah scroll with images of the hostages. “The entire Torah is the hostages,” she said.
The question of what to do with the hostages’ symbols no longer has a single answer. Romi Gonen was filmed with friends tearing off the tape marking the number of days the hostages have been held, cheering as they did. Rachel Goldberg-Polin, who began the tape tradition for her son, slain hostage Hersh, said on Wednesday that she would continue to wear hers.
Hagit and her husband, Ruby Chen, criticized Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana for removing his hostage pin during President Trump’s visit to the Knesset. “It isn’t over,” Chen addressed Ohana in a video posted to social media. “Put the pin back on until the last hostage is back.”
After Trump announced that the living hostages would be returning home, Miran urged Tel Aviv mayor Ron Huldai to rename the site Returnees’ Square. But Hagit Chen said in an interview on Tuesday night that the name Hostages Square should remain until all are home.
In the square, posters of freed hostages have been taken down, some replaced by new banners, including one with Trump’s words, “Now is the time for peace.” Other features remain unchanged, including the mock tunnel evoking the underground passages where many hostages were held in Gaza and the digital clock counting the days and seconds since the attacks.
Miran, who had walked the one block from the hospital to the square, led the crowd in a psalm of thanksgiving. “Secular, religious — I hate these distinctions. All I see from up here is Jews,” he said from the stage. “Let’s stay like this. The nation of Israel lives.”
The post Simchat Torah in Hostages Square lays bare divide over just how much to celebrate yet appeared first on The Forward.
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2 more deceased hostages, including only woman, returned to Israel as Hamas says it has freed all it can

Hamas returned the bodies of two more hostages late Wednesday and said it had released all of the remains it is able to access, leaving 19 people unaccounted for.
The two hostages returned Wednesday, DNA analysis showed, were Muhammad Al-Atarash and Inbar Hayman.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum announced in December 2023 that Hayman, 27, had been killed in Gaza after being abducted from the Nova festival. And the Israeli army announced in July 2024 that Al-Atarash, 39, a Bedouin father of 13, had been killed in combat while responding to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack.
Their return leaves 19 hostages unaccounted for and deepening tensions over their return. The ceasefire deal struck last week required Hamas to release all hostages, living and dead, within 72 hours. It met the deadline for the 20 living hostages, who were freed on Monday, but has not for the deceased ones.
Israel reportedly believes that Hamas knows where additional hostages’ remains are located, following reports from freed hostages that they were sometimes held alongside bodies. President Donald Trump, who brokered the deal between Israel and Hamas, said on Wednesday that he believed further efforts were being made to locate the hostages, who were killed on and after Oct. 7.
“It’s a gruesome process,” he said. “But they’re digging. They’re actually digging. There are areas where they’re digging, and they’re finding a lot of bodies. Then they have to separate the bodies. You wouldn’t believe this. And some of those bodies have been in there a long time, and some of them are under rubble. They have to remove rubble.”
Turkey has reportedly offered to send teams of searchers who have expertise developed through responding to earthquakes in their country. The country’s relations with Israel deteriorated sharply during the Gaza war as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan openly supported Hamas.
The status of the remaining hostages has left Jews around the world torn over how deeply to celebrate the living hostages’ release and the end of fighting. Some say it is inappropriate to celebrate when there are still 19 people abducted from Israel who have not been returned for a proper burial.
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Simchat Torah in Hostages Square lays bare divide over just how much to celebrate yet

Rabba Anat Sharbat, the unofficial “rabbi of Hostages Square,” wept as she recited the Shehechiyanu blessing after lighting the candles to mark the beginning of Simchat Torah holiday on Monday evening, hours after all 20 living hostages returned to Israel.
Two years before, the same holiday had been marked by silence and fear after the Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel ended celebrations across the country.
Before the plaza even became known as Hostages Square, Sharbat had established what became a ritual — Kabbalat Shabbat services and Havdalah every week, in her words, “out of a deep belief that there needed to be a space here for prayer,” not only for protest.
Faith, she said, had played a role in the hostages’ return.
“The prayers in the square were an integral part of the effort to return them,” Sharbat said. “We heard from hostages who came back that they heard and felt the prayers, and that it gave them strength.”
Last Simchat Torah, she faced uncertainty about whether to hold prayers at all. There was barely a minyan — the quorum of 10 needed for Jewish prayer — and dancing felt impossible. Still, she insisted on continuing “out of a deep belief in the need to maintain hope, together with the families, that their loved ones will return home.” That conviction was validated when Dvora Leshem, the nonagenarian grandmother of the hostage Romi Gonen, approached the small group that night and said she was glad the prayers were taking place. Romi Gonen would be released about three months later.
On this year’s Hebrew anniversary, a very different scene unfolded in the square. As evening fell, a few dozen men and women gathered for prayers followed by hakafot, the traditional Simchat Torah dances encircling the Torah scrolls. The crowd of dancers quickly swelled to more than 200, while onlookers filmed and applauded from the sidelines. Among them was a woman in a Bring Them Home T-shirt who recalled that less than two weeks before Oct. 7, the sight of public, gender-separated prayer during Yom Kippur services had filled her with “extreme anguish.”
“But today, let them dance,” she said. “We are all dancing, finally.”
But the joy was marred by the knowledge that not all the deceased hostages had returned. For some, that reality was impossible to reconcile with the scenes of jubilation. One man, wearing a T-shirt that read in Hebrew, English, and Arabic “We are all created equal,” shouted at the dancers while filming on his phone. “These religious zealots can’t just stand respectfully, they have to dance like animals,” he said.
By Wednesday morning, eight bodies had been brought to Israel for burial. Seven were identified as hostages, while the eighth did not match any of the 28 confirmed dead. Two more, both Israelis, were returned on Wednesday.
The tension carried into Tuesday night, when tens of thousands filled Hostages Square again for a second round of Torah dancing traditionally held after the holiday. The seven dances alternated between grief and gratitude, each dedicated to a different group, including the fallen hostages still in Gaza, those who had returned, reservists, and their families.

Rabbi Haim Eidelis, left, embraces Dani Miran, the father of released hostage Omri Miran during a celebration for Simchat Torah in Hostage Square in Tel Aviv, Oct. 14, 2025. (Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images)
Tel Aviv Deputy Mayor Chaim Goren said the event, organized annually by the municipality with Ma’ale Eliyahu Yeshiva and other national-religious groups, was originally meant to take place at a nearby plaza. “It felt detached to hold it there,” he said. The Hostages and Missing Families Forum agreed to move it to the square, though the decision wasn’t final until the last minute.
“There was back-and-forth until the holiday started about whether and how to do it,” Goren said. “With all the joy, there’s still a kvetch in the heart” — using the Yiddish word for ache — “but there’s also a deep need to give thanks to God for what we’ve witnessed.”
For Tel Aviv resident Sapir Barak, the night offered a release she hadn’t allowed herself since Oct. 7, 2023.
“When they announced the release yesterday, I basically had a nervous breakdown,” she said. “I was crying so much. There are so many emotions. It’s like a dream come true, but you don’t know what to do with it.”
Nearby, Henri Rosenberg cut an unusual figure in Hasidic garb with a fur shtreimel and a “Bring Them Home” dog tag around his neck, standing beside his grandson who wore a red MAGA baseball cap. But despite appearances, Rosenberg said he no longer identified as haredi Orthodox, having grown disillusioned by what he called indifference within some haredi circles to the pain felt by other Israelis during the war. Health problems had led him to attend a nearby national-religious synagogue over the High Holidays, where, he recalled, “the cantor wept for the hostages and the soldiers.”
“They are our flesh and blood, and that’s why I’m here tonight,” he said.
From the stage, Genia Erlich Zohar, aunt of American-Israeli hostage Omer Neutra — whose body remains in Gaza and who would have turned 24 on Tuesday — called on the crowd to respect the duality of the moment.
“We hold both joy for those who came home and hope and pain for those who haven’t,” she said. “We are one people, one heart.”
Miri Polachek, a friend of the Neutra family who has volunteered with relatives of the hostages, said she came to the event to support the Neutras and the other families. Recalling her own son’s playdates with Omer when they were children, she said, “It’s a never-ending reminder that it could have been any of our children.”
Among those on stage was Elkana Levy, a Golani Brigade officer who lost both legs in an explosion in Khan Younis. One of three brothers wounded in the Gaza war, he led a silent hakafa from his wheelchair and vowed that those “fighting day and night for the return of our brothers … would never break.”
At the edge of the square, a few dozen demonstrators held posters of those still in Gaza, chanting “Everyone, now!” — the familiar rallying cry for the hostages’ return.

Hagit Chen, the mother of the deceased hostage Itay Chen, poses with his dog in Hostages Square after Simchat Torah in Tel Aviv, Oct. 14, 2025. (Deborah Danan)
Hagit Chen, holding “Gucci,” the small white dog that had belonged to her son, slain hostage and dual American-Israeli citizen Itay Chen, whose body has not yet been returned, called Monday’s release “a huge miracle,” even as she admitted her faith had been shaken.
“I was convinced Itay would be returning home yesterday with the others,” she said. Still, she added, the elation around her was not an affront. “I don’t look at joy that way. I embrace what’s happening here. We all need the strength it gives us.”
“But we cannot take our foot off the gas,” she said. “The deal is not a good one for the fallen hostages.” She pointed to what she described as the vague language of the Trump.-brokered agreement, which requires Hamas to make “all necessary efforts” to secure their release. “If we don’t see their return, it will be an open wound for all of us.”
Dani Miran, whose son Omri was among those freed on Monday, said Israel should halt the next stage of the deal until every hostage is accounted for.
“We should have resumed fighting at 1 p.m. yesterday, the moment we understood the 28 bodies weren’t coming home,” he said at Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, where his son is receiving treatment. “[Hamas] will not understand anything else.”
Miran said he would remain in Tel Aviv, where he has lived since his son’s abduction, until the last hostage returns. He declined to say whether he would shave his long white beard, a vow he made to keep until Omri came home.
Activist and artist Hila Galilee, posed with Miran’s longtime partner, Galia Korel, while holding a mock yellow Torah scroll with images of the hostages. “The entire Torah is the hostages,” she said.

Galia Korel, left, and artist Hila Galilee pose in Tel Aviv with a Torah decorated with the faces of deceased hostages in Gaza, Oct. 14, 2025. (Deborah Danan)
The question of what to do with the hostages’ symbols no longer has a single answer. Romi Gonen was filmed with friends tearing off the tape marking the number of days the hostages have been held, cheering as they did. Rachel Goldberg-Polin, who began the tape tradition for her son, slain hostage Hersh, said on Wednesday that she would continue to wear hers.
Hagit and her husband, Ruby Chen, criticized Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana for removing his hostage pin during President Trump’s visit to the Knesset. “It isn’t over,” Chen addressed Ohana in a video posted to social media. “Put the pin back on until the last hostage is back.”
After Trump announced that the living hostages would be returning home, Miran urged Tel Aviv mayor Ron Huldai to rename the site Returnees’ Square. But Hagit Chen said in an interview on Tuesday night that the name Hostages Square should remain until all are home.
In the square, posters of freed hostages have been taken down, some replaced by new banners, including one with Trump’s words, “Now is the time for peace.” Other features remain unchanged, including the mock tunnel evoking the underground passages where many hostages were held in Gaza and the digital clock counting the days and seconds since the attacks.
Miran, who had walked the one block from the hospital to the square, led the crowd in a psalm of thanksgiving. “Secular, religious — I hate these distinctions. All I see from up here is Jews,” he said from the stage. “Let’s stay like this. The nation of Israel lives.”
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