With New Leaders and New Challenges, the U.S. and Israel Need to Renew Their Sense of Common Purpose

On August 27, Naftali Bennett and Joe Biden met in the White House: the first meeting with an American head of state for Bennett since becoming prime minister, and the first meeting with a head of the Israeli government for Biden since becoming president. Jonathan Schanzer considers the future of the alliance between Jerusalem and Washington in light of the new administrations, and changing global circumstances:

Shared Western values have been the cornerstone of the U.S.-Israel relationship for more than 70 years. But that relationship now needs a greater sense of common purpose.

Israel may seek to demonstrate how it can support America in [its] looming tussle with Beijing. The Israelis can set an example for how allies can optimize their economic and diplomatic engagements with America’s adversary to mitigate risk—and in fact, are already doing so, even if there is more work to be done. Israel could also serve as the eyes and ears for America in the Middle East, where China clearly seeks to build up assets.

The future could also be built on military cooperation. Israel is one of the few military powers capable of defending American interests, even when America is unwilling or unable to do so. It has played this role for years, taking out the Iraqi and Syrian nuclear programs and undermining the Iranian program through cyber and other means. Looking ahead, the Israelis could forge deeper alliances with some of their new peace partners in pursuit of this mission.

Read more at Newsweek

More about: China, Joseph Biden, Naftali Bennett, US-Israel relations

It’s Time for Haredi Jews to Become Part of Israel’s Story

Unless the Supreme Court grants an extension from a recent ruling, on Monday the Israeli government will be required to withhold state funds from all yeshivas whose students don’t enlist in the IDF. The issue of draft exemptions for Haredim was already becoming more contentious than ever last year; it grew even more urgent after the beginning of the war, as the army for the first time in decades found itself suffering from a manpower crunch. Yehoshua Pfeffer, a haredi rabbi and writer, argues that haredi opposition to army service has become entirely disconnected from its original rationale:

The old imperative of “those outside of full-time Torah study must go to the army” was all but forgotten. . . . The fact that we do not enlist, all of us, regardless of how deeply we might be immersed in the sea of Torah, brings the wrath of Israeli society upon us, gives a bad name to all of haredi society, and desecrates the Name of Heaven. It might still bring harsh decrees upon the yeshiva world. It is time for us to engage in damage limitation.

In Pfeffer’s analysis, today’s haredi leaders, by declaring that they will fight the draft tooth and nail, are violating the explicit teachings of the very rabbis who created and supported the exemptions. He finds the current attempts by haredi publications to justify the status quo not only unconvincing but insincere. At the heart of the matter, according to Pfeffer, is a lack of haredi identification with Israel as a whole, a lack of feeling that the Israeli story is also the haredi story:

Today, it is high time we changed our tune. The new response to the demand for enlistment needs to state, first and foremost to ourselves, that this is our story. On the one hand, it is crucial to maintain and even strengthen our isolation from secular values and culture. . . . On the other hand, this cultural isolationism must not create alienation from our shared story with our fellow brethren living in the Holy Land. Participation in the army is one crucial element of this belonging.

Read more at Tzarich Iyun

More about: Haredim, IDF, Israeli society