Law and identity in Israel: a century of debate (original) (raw)

2020, Comparative Legal History

Since the early days of Zionism, the role of law, its practice and how it generated many of the fundamental dilemmas that challenged the struggling nascent community have been intriguing. Although different figures throughout Zionist and Israeli history have sought to exclude law from some of the central debates that occupied the public arena, it still has played a unique and essential role in the story of Israel. Nir Kedar's Law and Identity in Israel: A Century of Debate incorporates and compares some of the fascinating stories that reflect the discussions on law and weaves them together into a vibrant plot. This book contains three major sections, all of which provide different angles on the complex question of what is the Israeli law that has persisted through the robust national history since the late nineteenth century. Moreover, each section ponders whether there is an independent, uniquely Israeli law and whether it is possible to construct such a law. Kedar's main claim is that the story of Israeli law is, in fact, the story of Zionism itself. As he demonstrates, many of the problematic dilemmas that trouble Israel today are actually very similar to contemporary debates with which the Zionist movement and its jurists grapple: that is, the basic paradigm of Jewish and Israeli identity and culture. Another claim central to the book (and extensively analysed in the second part) is that the content of Israeli law is very difficult to pinpoint (2). First, given the Israeli circumstances, it is hard, even risky, to define a national culture, and it is no less difficult to express this complex framework in terms of legal norms. Kedar fiercely argues that, as Israel is built on contradictions and conflicting agendas, any major decision impacting outstanding fundamental questions could threaten the integrity of Israeli society. Second, law is the proper arena for neither cultural debates and identity issues nor their clarification. The law of each country is connected with the culture and history of that country. However, it is almost impossible to define what that 'national law' really means. As the book explains, every national culture has legal norms that reflect some of its common presumptions. Yet these presumptions still cannot turn any state law into a particular national law. Therefore, Kedar's ambitious panoramic view reflects on the complexity of the different meeting points between identity and culture throughout the Zionist and Israeli experience. Kedar clearly advocates for leaving these issues outside the scope of Israeli law. The place for these kinds of controversies, he argues, is the intellectual sphere of Israel's ongoing political-cultural debate, the education system and other areas of the social framework, but not the Knesset (the Israeli parliament) and most certainly not the Court. Every time the collective national community has