Medinat Yisrael — The State of Israel and Jewish Renewal
The establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 — after two millennia of exile — is viewed by much of the Jewish world as the beginning of the fulfillment of the prophetic vision of ingathering and national renewal.
Medinat Yisrael (the State of Israel, established May 14, 1948) represents the most dramatic geopolitical event in Jewish history since the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. After the Holocaust destroyed one-third of world Jewry, the establishment of a Jewish state provided physical refuge, national renewal, and — for much of the Jewish world — a sign of divine faithfulness to the covenant. The religious Zionist movement (Rav Kook and his successors) interprets the State as 'the beginning of the flowering of redemption' (reishit tzemichat geulateinu). Ultra-Orthodox anti-Zionist movements reject Zionism as a human pre-emption of divine redemption. The majority of Jews view the State pragmatically — as a necessary response to millennia of persecution and the Holocaust, deserving critical engagement and ethical accountability. The State's ongoing relationship with its non-Jewish minority and its neighbors raises the ongoing prophetic question: does physical redemption require ethical redemption?
I will bring you into the land concerning which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Political philosopher Michael Walzer's 'Exodus and Revolution' and his later work on Jewish political thought document how the prophetic tradition of justice — not merely of return — must inform Israeli political life: the prophets who envisioned the ingathering were the same prophets who declared that justice for the widow, orphan, and stranger is non-negotiable.
Torah