In the 18th and 19th centuries, the mostly German thinkers who laid the groundwork for Reform, Conservative, and even Modern Orthodox Judaism—as well as the academic field of Jewish studies—tended to be skeptical of Kabbalah, and in some cases considered it a source of embarrassment. Pinchas Giller sees an alternative approach, rooted in the Mizraḥi tradition, in the thought of Rabbi Elia Benamozegh. Reviewing Another Modernity, a biography of Benamozegh, Giller writes:

Benamozegh was an Italian rabbi of Moroccan extraction, a pillar of the Jewish community of Livorno for much of his life (1823-1900). He received an Enlightenment education, which was the foundation for his liberal understanding of society and history. He was a staunch Italian patriot, in the nationalistic mold of the time, and his aspirations and sensibilities are best understood in the context of the Risorgimento, the 19th-century movement for the unification of Italy, even as he moved to writing and publishing in French. He advocated an enlightened orthodoxy with a sophisticated North African perspective.

Benamozegh was also an ardent and articulate Kabbalist, and kabbalistic ideas, rather than Maimonidean rationalism, remained his default theology as he turned his gaze out to the larger world. His unabashed admiration for Kabbalah was based on the Zohar’s canonicity in North Africa, and his Kabbalah was based on the classical models of the Galilean Renaissance of Kabbalah: the thought of Moses Cordovero and Isaac Luria.

Benamozegh saw Judaism as a universalistic religion, based in Kabbalah, of which the halakhic nature was, variously, an isolationist shell. He saw the possibilities of universalism nascent in the Jewish mystical vocabulary and campaigned on the notion that “greater particularism made for greater universalism.” Hence, Benamozegh’s attitude towards Christianity was conciliatory. [However], he viewed the archetypal contents of Indian religion as a better adaptation of kabbalistic ideas than Christianity, notwithstanding its pagan trappings. He also offered radical reinterpretations of Feuerbach and Darwin, bringing them into harmony with religious belief through kabbalistic ideas.

Yasir Arafat was often quoted as saying that his “strongest weapon is the womb of an Arab woman.” That is, he believed the high birthrates of both Palestinians and Arab Israelis ensured that Jews would eventually be a minority in the Land of Israel, at which point Arabs could call for a binational state and get an Arab one. Using similar logic, both Israelis and their self-styled sympathizers have made the case for territorial concessions to prevent such an eventuality. Yet, Yoram Ettinger argues, the statistics have year after year told a different story:

Contrary to the projections of the demographic establishment at the end of the 19th century and during the 1940s, Israel’s Jewish fertility rate is higher than those of all Muslim countries other than Iraq and the sub-Saharan Muslim countries. Based on the latest data, the Jewish fertility rate of 3.13 births per woman is higher than the 2.85 Arab rate (since 2016) and the 3.01 Arab-Muslim fertility rate (since 2020).

The Westernization of Arab demography is a product of ongoing urbanization and modernization, with an increase in the number of women enrolling in higher education and increased use of contraceptives. Far from facing a “demographic time bomb” in Judea and Samaria, the Jewish state enjoys a robust demographic tailwind, aided by immigration.

However, the demographic and policy-making establishment persists in echoing official Palestinian figures without auditing them, ignoring a 100-percent artificial inflation of those population numbers. This inflation is accomplished via the inclusion of overseas residents, double-counting Jerusalem Arabs and Israeli Arabs married to Arabs living in Judea and Samaria, an inflated birth rate, and deflated death rate.

The U.S. should derive much satisfaction from Israel’s demographic viability and therefore, Israel’s enhanced posture of deterrence, which is America’s top force- and dollar-multiplier in the Middle East and beyond.