Debating Israel’s Conversion Crisis

One of the most persistent problems faced by the Jewish state has revolved around conversion to Judaism, which is governed by the Orthodox chief rabbinate. While many criticize this institution for making the bar to conversion too high, others have argued that conversions sanctioned by the chief rabbinate are frequently shams, where the prospective converts pretend to pledge themselves to a life of unfailing commitment to the laws of the Torah, and the rabbinic court pretends to believe them. In an in-depth discussion of these issues, Mosheh Lichtenstein and David Stav—both prominent Orthodox Zionist rabbis—find themselves exploring the very meaning of Jewishness in the modern state of Israel. (Moderated by Shlomo Brody. Video, 81 minutes.)

 

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More about: Conversion, Israeli Chief Rabbinate, Judaism

 

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

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More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF