The upcoming elections will determine not only who sits in the next government but also what kind of country we want to be. Amid the debate over haredi (ultra-Orthodox) military enlistment, public funding, religious services, and Israel’s identity, a more fundamental question has been forgotten: Who actually owns our Judaism?
In Israel, a dangerous equation has taken root: Judaism is equated with religiosity, religiosity with Orthodoxy, and Orthodoxy with the rabbinical establishment and the haredi political parties.
From there, it is only a short step to sectoral demands rooted in a notion of Jewish superiority: Those who lead a religious way of life are perceived as preserving Judaism on behalf of the entire public and, as such, are entitled to special status. This ranges from exemption from the most basic civic obligation in the State of Israel – military service – to the demand that society subsidize a nonproductive way of life whose cost to the public continues to grow.
The ongoing wars, which have underscored the urgent need to integrate haredim into Israeli society and, above all, to enlist them in the IDF, cannot be separated from the struggle over the Jewish identity of the state. Nor can it be separated from the fact that haredi control of the religious establishment and religious services translates into control over the Jewish character of the state.
Kashrut, the Chief Rabbinate, religious councils, rabbinical appointments, marriage, and divorce have long since become centers of political power. They serve as instruments in reinforcing an imagined division of roles that has become embedded in the public consciousness – a division that is not only false but generates alienation from Judaism itself.
At the same time, however, the opposite phenomenon is taking place. Outside the religious establishment, official religious services, and political appointments that are handed out as spoils to haredi parties, an Israeli Judaism is flourishing: traditional, popular, cultural, and communal. It thrives in music, literature, customs, and in the Israeli way of life itself.
Israelis have not abandoned Judaism
Who decided that Judaism belongs only to those who wear a kippah? In Israel of 2026, this is no longer a philosophical or theological question. It has become a political and civic question – and even a question about our very ability to live here together.
Israelis have not abandoned Judaism. They are abandoning those who claim ownership over it.
The effort to enlist haredim in the military and integrate them into the workforce must begin by giving Judaism back to the Jews. First and foremost, we must break the notion that anyone can claim to be the “owners” of Judaism.
This is one of the great challenges facing the next government: dismantling the ideological foundation that allows one sector, on the one hand, to appropriate Judaism as its exclusive property and, on the other, to demand special privileges.
It is time to say what may have become almost taboo in Israel: Judaism does not belong to the religious establishment. It does not belong to any political party, to the rabbinate, or to any particular sector. It belongs to all of us.
In the next Knesset, this principle must be translated into action: breaking monopolies in religious services; restoring competition in kashrut services and allowing Tzohar rabbis to operate as a state-recognized authority; transforming religious services into services that truly serve the public; turning the rabbinate and religious councils from arenas of political patronage into institutions that work for the public good; giving greater power to local communities, a greater role to women, and greater freedom of choice to every citizen.
In a country increasingly divided into identities and tribes, and one that must integrate its haredi population, this is no longer merely a question of religion and state.
It is a question about our future.
The writer is a member of the Yisrael Beytenu party list.