Today, in the final segment of our three part conversation with Professor Kandel, I sought to articulate, however inadequately, why I found his proposal brilliant but also unsettling. Is three semi-independent cantons really the state that we hoped it would be? Was it what the founders labored and died for?
What about limits? If the “Haredi” canton decided that women could not vote, would the rest of Israelis have to accept that? What about military service? Are the Haredim still not obligated to serve? What about Arabs and national service?
Is it called survival if what we do saves the country but breaks our hearts?
Those are the issues Professor Kandel and I discuss in this final segment.
Eugene Kandel served as a Professor of Economics and Finances at the Hebrew University, and previously taught at the University of Rochester and the University of Chicago. Since 2023, Kandel serves as the Chairman of the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. Kandel is also the Chairman of the ISFI, a non-profit aimed at increasing the resilience of Israel as a state. He chairs RISE Israel, a non-profit dedicated to supporting resilient and innovative Israeli economy. In 2015-2021 Kandel was the CEO of the Start-up Nation Central, a non-profit focused on Israeli technological innovation solving pressing problems around the world. In 2009-2015 Kandel served as the Head of the National Economic Council and the Economic Advisor to the Prime Minister of Israel and was actively involved in shaping the economic strategy and policy of Israel.
To learn about Professor Kandel, his proposal and this project, see the following additional resources:
Israel Strategic Futures website
Israel Strategic Futures YouTube Channel
Israel Strategic Futures LinkedIn page
Israel Strategic Futures Facebook page
The link at the top of this posting will take you to the full recording of our conversation; below you will find a transcript for those who prefer to read, which we are making available to all our readers and listeners.
Okay, we are back for the third and final part of our long conversation with Professor Eugene Kandel, who, along with his colleagues at the Israel Strategic Futures Institute, is trying to think through very clearly, very strategically, very openly, and very honestly, what are the fundamental structural issues that Israel face that, frankly, make the war seem like a minor problem. Because if we don't fix those structural issues, it doesn't really matter who wins the battle between Israelis and Palestinians because we're not going to be here anyway. We're essentially, as he argued in the first conversation, doing Iran's work for it because we're destroying our ability to survive. In the second conversation, He described more or less the strategic direction or the structural direction, I guess I should say, that he and his partners at the Israel Strategic Futures Institute have in mind, which is to copy big chunks of what Switzerland has done to have a federal system, a canton system, and a local system. He outlined that for us in the previous conversation. In this conversation, I want to ask Eugene one question more about the actual nature of the solution. And then I'm going to move from the head to the heart for a second, and then we'll wrap it up. To go back to the previous conversation and talking just about how the idea itself works, I want to hear more about the judiciary, where the judiciary lies. So let's say, for example, the Haredi. I keep calling it the Haredi Canton, which I know you don't want to do. You want to call it the Torah primary Canton, but I'm just using liberal democratic for the middle, Arab for the left, even though it's not that it's a country of all of its residents. There could be Jews who are part of that also.
No, it's more so that about half of our population would choose to be in the liberal.
In the middle one. Okay, but I'm just I'm using very rough and dirty codes, but I just want to make sure our listeners understand that I'm dumbing down the nuance of the way that you've called these Alumot or cantons. But let's just say that I'm going to call the Haredi Canton for a second, even though I know you don't call it that. They decide, Oh, yeah. Okay. Women don't vote. We're going to have elections, and we are going to internally vote that women don't vote. Or if the The majority of the non-Zionist Aluma is Arab, and presumably, the more hardcore Arab, because the more moderate Arabs would join what I would call the moderate liberal democratic Aluma. So that also decides, Yeah, women don't vote or whatever. What happens then? Is that up to them?
No. Certain basic rules of democracy that today are not really debatable. I mean, it's not like there is a strong movement of not letting women vote.
In France, women got the vote in the 1940s, right? I think it was 1945 or 46.
No, I think much earlier. I think in Switzerland. In Switzerland, it was much later.
Okay, I'm not sure. But okay, go ahead. You're arguing that there's some basic fundamental democratic values. But the Haredi Canton doesn't buy into the democratic values. That's the whole point.
But there is a very big difference, for example, between women not voting and, for example, not letting women ride on the bus in the front. There are certain things. And the difference is not as strict as some of us would have wanted, that you can easily say, this goes to here. But remember that in this world, we have to create, in some sense, win-win for everybody in order for everybody to agree to this change. This or some other similar change. So we have to separate. There will be negotiations, and certain things, if we cannot live with them at all, for example, you cannot, sorry for this, you cannot have sex with a 12-year-old. That will be definitely criminal offense, and the set of criminal laws will be embedded, and so they have to be backed by some issues that are clearly not okay.
Even if that trumps Torah law?
Yeah, but voting women does not. But if it really trumps Torah law, then it has to be left to them to decide. This is the first partition, but that partition is, there are certain parts of it are clearly black and white that we cannot just allow that, and certain things will have It needs to be negotiated. But there is additional safeguard, is that if you start, for example, suppose we would have allowed that, and they basically say, "We're not going to have women vote".
In what I'm calling the Haredi Canton?
How many families do you think will leave?
I don't know.
Well, those who care about this would say, I'm no longer willing to be part of that. I want to live in a society where I vote as a woman.
Okay. So let's say two-thirds of the Haredi Canton leaves. You still have a canton.
But remember that that canton now needs to finance itself. It has a huge problem.
Let's say that they can have the women go to work and they can make it work economically. But we're going to say that, theoretically, at least, there is in this Canton a rule that women don't vote. I mean, Theoretically could happen is all I'm asking you about the system.
But today in Bet Shemesh, in parts of Jerusalem, women are forced to wear full face covering. I mean, in France, it's illegal. In Israel, apparently, it's legal. You can't because the woman apparently decides to do that. Of course, the woman does not decide to do that on her own.
She's being pressured.
She's been within the culture. So in some sense, what are we talking about? With all the laws and all the protection, we have that. Women are not walking on certain sidewalks. Women are sitting in the back of the bus. There is a certain limit to paternalism.
All right. Basically, what you talked about before, and I thought it was a very profound idea, what did you call it? The equity of values?
Parity of esteem.
Parity of esteem. So what you're saying is that Daniel Gordis has to learn not to be so paternalistic and condescending. And I'm saying this not facetiously. I have to look at that society, at that Canton that says women can't vote, or women have to sit in the back of the bus, or that women cannot walk on that sidewalk. And I have to say, it rubs me the wrong way. I would never want that for my family or my daughters or my granddaughters or for my sons or grandsons. I would just never want that. But I can't look down on it anymore. I have to understand that it comes from a world of values and a world of Torah that may consider be given by God, not negotiable. I have to simply learn to honor something that my liberal democratic education taught me to dishonor. I don't have to honor it in the sense of approve it, but I have to honor it in terms of the right of it to exist.
The right of it to exist because failing to do that, if you say they have no right to exist, you're just giving them the right to say that you have no right to exist.
Right. That brings us right back to where we started, and the whole thing falls apart.
I'm an economist. In economics, everything is measured in relative terms, relative to alternative. The alternative is really, really, really bad. And so what we're saying is, let's improve. We cannot reach an utopia. We cannot reach it in military service. We cannot reach it in majority of places because our values come from two different axioms. And you can't argue about these axioms.
Right. Well, that's the major of axioms.
I think the Hume was the right axiom. And they think that Alacha has the right axiom. These things are not comparable unless people are forced to come and adapt.
We could get to a world. Now, I want to ask you a little bit to move more towards the heart head issue, and then we'll push that question a little further, then we'll wrap up. I'm thinking about Yom Ha'Zikaron and Yom Ha'Atzmaut, Memorial Day for Fallen Israeli soldiers and victims of terror, and Independence Day. I could see a world, tell me where I'm wrong, that the Torah Canton, which I've been calling the Haredi Canton, they don't do those. They don't do those now. They don't do them now. When you walk into Mea Shearim on Yom Ha'Zikaron and there's a siren, nobody stops. Everybody's walking on the cycle. I have had more than one occasion when I've been there on Yom Ha'Zikharon, and they haven't stopped. I found it so profoundly upsetting that I now make sure not to be anywhere near there on Yom Ha'Zikharon because it just ruins my day. You could see a world, I guess, in which what you're calling the country of all of its residents, they don't want to celebrate Yom Ha'Atzmaut because it's too rooted in. But it's the The official narrative of the country is that we're all celebrating this, that on days certain things are closed, and there are parades, and there's music, and there's this, and there's that. So it's true, there are outliers on the religious side, and the Arab side, and the hypersecular other side that are not doing it. But there's a very clear narrative emerging from the state of Israel on Yom Ha'Atzmaut, Yom Ha'Shoah, Yom Ha'Zikaron, and so on and so forth. It'll be different, right?
I don't think so.
No, you don't think so?
No. So if anything, people say also in the same way, but in the opposite direction, people say, Well, these liberal democratic Aluma will lose all connection to Judaism. And my point is that I say it's exactly the opposite.
I think you're right here.
Why is it exactly the opposite? It's in both directions. Because today, that Haredi, for him, this Yom Ha'Atzmaut, siren It's not a Jewish way to commemorate the dead. The Jewish way to commemorate the dead is to read the Tehilim and say Yzkor. For him, it's foreign, and it's part of the same system that is trying to impose on him foreign values. He resists that. So for him to stand, it's a statement that he affiliates with these values. But if these values stop being threatening to him, it's no longer imposing on him, he says, "Look, just out of respect to my fellow countrymen who lost their children in there, I'll stand". It's not against Torah. You can't explain it by a religious decree, the hand stand at the siren, or the same thing in the opposite direction. Today, I know a lot of Jewish parents who actively oppose getting any Jewish content, religious content, not religious, like traditional Jewish, like Judaism.
Like learning Jewish texts.
Not Jewish, but Judaism, context in their high school, in their school system. I send my children to "Tali", so they learn. Two of my children have bagrut in Tushba, five units.
Rabbinic texts.
Right. Rabbinic texts. They enjoyed it. They know it. They're not religious. But I wanted them to know what I missed from my upbringing in the Soviet Union. But people actively resist that because they see this as basically converting your children. Today, for example, there are kids in some schools setting up a stand to put tefilins. There's a huge uproar because it's seen as an attempt to change the culture of children that I send to school. If I know that there nobody is trying to impose anything on that, because that's the strategy, by the way. There are certain parts, by the way, not Haredi, but there are certain parts that are trying actively to bring Judaism and to force it on people. The minute you force it on people, they They're rejected. By the way, in Iran, after the Islamic Revolution, the attendance in mosques dropped dramatically. That happens every time. And so you resist when people are trying to those things on you. The minute you're not afraid, this is 3,000 years of my history. These are my people. Why do I not want my children to know their history? It would be crazy.
Yeah. I mean, we haven't talked at all about the conflict, and we're not going to talk about the conflict today because it's a whole separate conversation. But we're living in this era of hostage exchanges and hostages getting out, and we're hearing stories and interviews with people that are just chilling. But one of the things that I've been finding fascinating, I mean, obviously, this is a very small footnote to the story, but I just find it fascinating, is the number of people who are in tunnels for hundreds of days, petrified. Who are totally secular, who found some deep comfort in delving, zipping their bucket into the well of Jewish tradition.
Just saying Shma Israel.
Right. Eli Sharabi talked about it in his interview in Uvda. He said, Shma Israel every morning. Again, he said, I'm not religious, and I don't think he's going to be religious now, but there was something about connecting himself to a larger story that was so powerful, that even when his legs chained by metal and unable to walk and being fed a tiny bit of food one day a week, and he lost basically 40% of his body weight. He still said every morning it gave him strength. There's one young woman that actually started to keep Shabbat and kashrut under her captors, and she wouldn't eat the meat, whatever little meat they brought, she wouldn't eat. And she fasted on Yom Kippur, even though she was already starving. And again, I'm not saying that this is a phenomenon, but I think what it shows is that there was a human tendency to want to make ourselves part of a larger story and to want to make ourselves part of a larger cultural and spiritual story. And part of what's happened in Israel, as you're saying, is that people are running away from it because they're feeling that everybody's trying to force them to do it. So they want nothing to do with it. And if they just don't feel forced to do it, God forbid, not because they're hostages, but because they're just human beings who are searching for meaning and anchors and roots, they might find themselves actually free from religion, drifting more towards Jewish engagement.
Learning.
Learning. In fact, there I completely agree with you.
Just two points. One is that a religion, this is a connection to you people, to the persecution. You feel that you're part of this, and you will, yes, we persevere at Yehuda. But it also very powerful psychological tool. So it allows you to connect to something and keep yourself sane in four or 500 days in the tunnels. That's insane. Natan Sharansky, by the way, says when he was sitting nine years in the camps, he went on hunger strike to get his Tehilim back or his prayer book back, or his Sidur, because it's a connection and it's something that connects you and then it allows you to to have a psychological surrounding that gives you comfort, where no comfort can be found. The other point is about conflict. We definitely are not going to talk about, but what we propose actually offers ways between this single state and this two state solutions, neither one of them looking promising right now. Instead of going and saying, well, we have no, nothing to do, some kind solution in which you have a more complex confederation type of arrangement starts sounding much better.
So like Palestinian quasi-cantons.
But again, this is too early.
Let's first structure ourselves, and then it will allow us to figure out how we can actually go out and say, "We need to solve this".
Not immediately. We won't be able to solve immediately, but with patience over 50 years to figure out how it can be done.
Okay. I said we were going to go to the hard head thing, but I want to ask you one more question first, because everything you say raises so many interesting questions. Who goes to the army? What happens if the Haredi Canton, again, that's my nomenclature, not yours, but the Torah primary Canton says, "We're not going to the army. Our children are going to study". The country of all of its residents says, "We're not going to the army. Armies are oppressive, and they do terrible things, and we do army". Isn't that right where we are now, you can't stop missiles from hitting Baqa, but allow them to hit Mea Shearim, and that's ridiculous. You can't tell terrorists, if they cross the border, "Please go to that block because they don't serve, this block, we're going to shoot you". I mean, obviously, it doesn't work. So aren't you going to find a situation where that middle group is once again defending everybody, which is exactly the situation we have now?
Well, first of all, I've spent about six years trying to figure out the solution for the draft. There is even a whole proposition bearing my name. Unfortunately, it was rejected not by Haredim, but by others. And it was, unfortunately, one of my failures in the government. But what I'm saying is that, what I'm saying is two things. What was possible 10, 15 years ago is no longer possible. Two, we are not trying to create utopia. We cannot snap our fingers and create magical solutions. So what we want to do is to create a much significant improvement relative to what happens today and hope for the best. So that implies two things. First of all, there are two immoral things in the context of our perception of this, not the Haredi perception our perception. One of them is immoral in our perception, but moral in the Haredi perception, which is that people who study Torah do not go to war. Their interpretation in Torah, et cetera, I am going to go to there. But at least there they have 'one of you will have'. But there's another thing which, in my opinion, is even more immoral, is that people whose children do not go to the military and do not risk their lives, telling the children of others what dangers they're going to go to by their decision. That's completely immoral. And that has nothing to do with the Haredi religious beliefs. It's just immoral. Because if you're not sending your children to existential risk, to their life being in danger, you have no moral right to sit and decide on where they go and to what extent they're going to risk their lives.
You mean when you're voting for the Knesset and the policies of the Knesset and so forth?
No, it's just immoral. I mean, you have to excuse yourself from. You should, not could, should excuse yourself if you're a moral person. But given that this is not the case, what we're doing is the first thing in our proposal, we're saying that the Knesset will not have a power. The Knesset will be chosen, appointed according to the size of each Aluma population. That's a proportional representation on all issues apart from military. Because the military issue, you have to have people who make decisions, should represent people who children risk their lives.
But that also means foreign policy also.
Well, to the lesser extent, to the lesser extent. But foreign policy that is no defense, is not. But the foreign policy that is defense, yes.
Which countries you sign peace treaties with and how much territory you give up to have peace with Saudi Arabia.
Yeah, but those things will have to be determined anyway. I'm talking about day to day. I'm not talking about whether you give up territories or not. That military group is not going to decide. But everything else is that military group is going to decide. We are talking about a mini-knesset, like a Council for Defense that consists of 27 people, three coming out of each Aluma because you need to have a representative, but the rest will be proportional to the service of the people from that Aluma in the military. But that's one side of it. So it solves a very, very strong problem. So you know now that the people who are sending your children to take risks, their children are taking risks. So it's no longer this guy is not sending it. That's a big, big change. The second thing that we're proposing is that to introduce a mandatory service for everyone. The mandatory service includes Haredi, Arabs, men, women, everybody.
But it could be national service.
No, but the first thing we have to agree that everybody serves the same amount of time under the same conditions. It's not voluntary like today. It's mandatory. Everybody at age 18 goes and serves for two and a half years Their country. Now, the question is, first of all, you don't need that many people in the military. The second of all, but you have the police, you have jails, you have units that provide emergency support, you have firefighters, you have a whole bunch of things that in case of, let's say, an earthquake, you need emergency support teams. They need to be trained, et cetera. In the peace time, they can do other things like constructions, improving infrastructures. So what we propose is that each Aluma will decide what percentage of its residence will be mandatory. The first pick will be of the military. I would presume that the Aluma, the Jewish democratic Aluma, will say the military has the first pick, like today. But the others may choose different. What does that change? It changes quite a lot, actually. So if you're a Haredi, you choose to live in the democratic Aluma, which quite a few of them will, will have to serve. It's not a question. We'll have to serve in the military if the military needs them.
And then by the way, it's really not imposed on them because they have chosen to join that Aluma.
Exactly. If you don't want that, feel free.
So you get a Haredi draft without imposing anything.
Exactly. You chose to be here. If you chose to be here, there are no benefits. Today, the argument is that our privileges are disconnected from our responsibilities. No, that's not going to be the case. Because you have a choice today. If you don't serve, go to where you don't have to serve. So you will have more Haredi serving, more others serving, because everybody will be serving. It's not like you're a pacifist. You're a pacifist, you still serve. I'm going to send you to serve in In jail, to be a guard in jail or to be in the police, help police our cities.
Or a paramedic or whatever.
Paramedic or whatever. So you're not going to avoid. So today, for example, think about Arab Kids, at age 18, you go to the university. No, you're not going to university. You go to a service and in your community or in other fields, you're going to do well to your community, develop your community. Okay, but you're not going to decide, I don't want to do it. So the combination of these three things, whoever governs this whole system, that there is a service law. Imagine that a service means that you have to go and work as a sanitary assistant in a hospital. You say, Well, maybe I don't want to work in the sanitary system. Maybe I should join the military. It's better. At least I get a profession. Maybe I get some leadership skills, et cetera. So you're going to change. And remember, this is no longer going to be, on the one hand, everybody serves. It's not a question. And if you don't serve, there are ways to impose penalties on you. And there And your penalties are imposed on the Aluma, and so you change the norms, the societal norms in each society, because we're no longer fighting against it. We're fighting together to bring this country. This country could be one of the best countries in the world. We have the human capital, we have the initiative, we need a bit more social contract here. You know what happened in the last two years? If you look on these highways, we basically stop obeying laws. It's unbelievable.
No, the driving has become insane.
The driving become insane. It was always pretty crazy. But today, the speed limit goes from 110 to 70. Nobody slows down. Nobody.
People are 130, 140 all the time.
I'm constantly flabbergasted.
It's true in a lot There are different kinds of things. Let me ask you one last thing, and we'll wrap up, and I'm sure this is going to leave people thinking for a very long time. It's so thoughtful, and it's so rich, and it's so well thought out. And yet, I have to say, it's repaired, but it feels fractured in the sense that I was brought up on… Of course, I understand the problem with the Haredim, and of course, I understand the problem with Israeli-Arabs. But when I'm in the hospital or somebody, my family's in the hospital, and there's an Israeli-Arab nurse or doctor taking care of us, it's not only that I'm very grateful to that person. Obviously, I am. But I think, wow, that's what this country could be. Look at that. This is the moment when we're inching towards this vision of we're all going to do this together. There are Haredim in the army, and there are Haredim doing all kinds of things. When I come across them or meet them or see them doing what they're doing, I think, wow, okay, we have a long way to go. But we have this vision that we're all going to somehow be in this together. Some of us are going to be more Zionists and some of us are going to be more religious. Some of us are going to be more attached to the land and this and that. But we're going to build something whole. I understand all the reasons that you and your colleagues have laid out for saying, We got to break this up a little bit if it's to survive. But it does feel to me in my neshama a little bit like I have to... It's not only a parody of legitimacy of values, of esteem, which I think is a very valuable concept. It's giving up a little bit of that dream that my parents instilled in me when we were driving on the I-95 Highway on the East Coast with Israeli songs playing in the cassette recorder, and we were all singing along. It wasn't indoctrination of an intellectual sense, but it was certainly indoctrination of an emotional sense. They brought us up on this dream, and I guess it feels to me just emotionally, to save the dream rationally, I'm going to have to give up on pieces of that idealized vision that I was raised on. It's just hard for me. I'm not saying that it makes your position wrong in any way. I'm just saying that that's what I'm struggling with. It's painful for me.
I know. And as you can imagine, when I started thinking about this, every time there was a significant realization, it was like somebody was punching me in the stomach. Because I said, how can it be that we won't be liberal democracy? How can you give it up? I said, well, consider an alternative. I think what you are envisioning, what we propose is making it more likely rather than less likely. Exactly your dream. Except that you have this, from your upbringing, you were raised on this melting pot narrative. Which never was true. Which was never true. It was a good marketing gimmick. But the idea of a melting pot was flawed in two senses. One is that certain people didn't want to get into the melting pot. So already, they said, No, we're not part of it.
A lot of Arabs said the same thing.
No, some of the Arabs were not invited. The Arabs were initially not invited to the plot. They weren't part of that. And moreover, a lot of the immigrants from the Arab countries, felt they were also not invited to the same pot. They were in their separate pot, which was, talk about parity of esteem, which was much lower esteem, depending, by the way, which country you came from.
Right. Act more Ashkenazi and will accept it.
Exactly. But in some communities, Iraqi community, for example, where the elites came here as well, and their self-perception was completely different than other communities where the elites left to other places. So it's a very, very complex, but they definitely didn't feel much. Many of them didn't feel in that melting point. But today, so that idea that we're all going to be one unit is flawed, for the same reason is for that why brothers and sisters, when they leave their parents' home, they are not supposed to live under the same rules as they lived in their parents' home. Each of them develops their own set of rules. And having the freedom to live under their own set of rules day to day allows them to come to their parents and to each other and be tolerant and loving of each other. Imagine that you forced all of them to live under one set of law, and one of them is Haredi, one of them is religious, one of them is lesbian that lives on Shenkin covered in tattoos, and another one is just non-religious. I mean, they would hate each other if you force them to live under one loss. What we're saying is that we're not separating anybody. We're saying, give each one of us a breathing space so we don't have to constantly fight for our survival, spiritual value survival, in that if we move a little bit together, we can become much closer to each other than if we're forced to be one. To finish this, there is a saying, "anashim hachim anachnu".
And everybody uses that. From the Joseph and his brothers story.
No, that's actually Lot and Abraham. Lot and Abraham, when do they say this? Abraham says to Lot. If you go left, I'll go right, because there are people who are fighting over the pastures. And you say, We don't need to fight. There's plenty of pastures. Let's stay brothers. We're brothers.
By separating.
Exactly. But let's move a little bit. Let's give each other breathing space, and "anashim achim anachanu" which means we are people, we are brothers, we're people of brothers. It doesn't mean that we have to force each other to adapt to something in the middle. We have to love each other. We want to love each other and be together. But let's just leave a little bit breathing space so I don't have to be afraid of you. That's the goal. So your perception is driven by this false sense of unification. Whereas what we want is unity based on celebration of our differences. And confirmation of the right to have our differences.
Which is the exact opposite of a melting pot.
Exactly.
And the melting pot stopped working. This is you and your colleagues attempt, Save the Jewish State. Professor Eugene Kandel and his colleagues at the Israel Strategic Futures Institute have a radical, challenging, fascinating thought provoking set of assessments of what's not working in Israel, what needs to change so that Israel can work. And so, ironically, by being very different than it is in certain ways right now, the grandchild that you just had born, and Mazal to have again, and the grandchildren that I have, and the grandchild that your colleague just had, we'll all be able to, whether they're religious or secular or this or that, share something here that they'll all feel part of, all feel committed to, and as successful and prosperous as they may be, we'll all want to stay here.
And lead the world on how to do that, by the way.
And that would bring us right back to one of those old Jewish adages of that we have something to teach everybody.
First, we have to teach ourselves that before we can teach anybody else.
Professor Eugene Kendell, unbelievably fascinating, challenging, interesting, thought-provoking. Thank you very, very much all your time in this conversation.
Thank you, Daniel. It was a pleasure.
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