The Biggest Mistake Jews Make About Israel

The problem is not that Israel has failed to be perfect. It is that we expected perfection in the first place.

photo: Cole Keister/Unsplash

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For nearly 2,000 years, Jews dreamed of returning to Israel.

Then we did something far more difficult: We actually did.

We resurrected a language. We drained swamps. We built cities, universities, hospitals, farms, companies, one of the world’s greatest armies, a ruthless democracy, and an economy with global intentions. We absorbed Jews expelled from Arab countries, survivors of the Holocaust, Soviet Jews, Ethiopian Jews, and immigrants from virtually every corner of the earth.

We took an ancient longing and turned it into a functioning country. And somewhere along the way, perhaps because Israel accomplished something so improbable, we began expecting it to accomplish the impossible.

We asked Israel to keep Jews safe. We asked Israel to end antisemitism. We asked Israel to unite the Jewish People. We asked Israel to give Jews identity. We asked Israel to make the world respect us. We asked Israel to behave more morally than every other nation while simultaneously surviving genocidal enemies. We asked Israel to be a refuge, a military power, a spiritual center, a liberal democracy, a biblical homeland, a technological superpower, a diplomatic miracle, and the physical embodiment of Jewish morality.

And then, when Israel failed to perfectly fulfill all of those expectations, Jews began asking what was wrong with Israel.

Perhaps that is the wrong question. Perhaps we asked too much of it.

The great promise of modern Zionism was never that Israel would eliminate every danger facing the Jewish People. Modern Zionism promised something far more modest and far more revolutionary: Jews would no longer be completely dependent on other people for our survival.

For most of Jewish history, Jews could plead with kings, presidents, governments, and neighbors for protection. We could hope that the societies around us remained tolerant. We could contribute disproportionately to their economies and cultures. We could demonstrate loyalty. We could assimilate. But ultimately, when the political climate changed, Jewish safety depended on someone else deciding that Jews deserved to remain safe.

Zionism changed that equation. For the first time in nearly 2,000 years, there was once again a Jewish government capable of defending Jewish lives with Jewish soldiers. That did not make Jews invulnerable. It made Jews responsible. Those are very different things.

Israel was never a promise that October 7th could not happen. Israel was the reason October 7th was followed by Jewish soldiers fighting to protect Jewish communities rather than Jewish communities waiting helplessly for someone else to save them. That distinction is painful, but enormous. The existence of Israel did not abolish Jewish vulnerability. It abolished Jewish powerlessness. We confused the two.

And because we confused them, every Israeli tragedy began to feel like evidence that Zionism had somehow failed. If Jews can still be murdered, what is the point of Israel? If Israelis still need bomb shelters, what is the point of Israel? If antisemitism still exists, what is the point of Israel?

But no serious national movement promises that its people will never suffer again. France cannot guarantee that no French citizen will ever be attacked. America cannot guarantee that no American will ever be killed. Ukraine cannot guarantee that its borders will never be invaded. National sovereignty does not eliminate danger. It gives a people the ability to respond to danger.

Israel gave Jews agency. That alone represented one of the greatest transformations in Jewish history. But we did not stop there. We also asked Israel to solve antisemitism. Early Zionists understandably believed that Jewish sovereignty might normalize the Jewish condition. If Jews became a nation like every other nation, perhaps the pathological obsession with Jews would eventually disappear.

History had other ideas. The Jew was hated when he was stateless; then the Jew was hated for having a state. Jews were once accused of refusing to assimilate; now Jews are accused of nationalism. Jews were accused of being rootless cosmopolitans; now Jews are accused of being too attached to a particular piece of land. Jews were accused of cowardice; now Israel is accused of excessive military strength.

Jewish weakness did not satisfy our enemies. Jewish strength does not satisfy them either. The uncomfortable lesson is that antisemitism was never primarily about Jewish behavior. It was about the needs of antisemites. Israel could not solve a psychological, religious, and political phenomenon that endlessly reinvents its justification for hating Jews.

We also asked Israel to carry Jewish identity. This may be one of the most consequential mistakes Jews have made. For decades, Israel became the easiest form of Jewish identity. You could know very little Torah. You could rarely attend synagogue. You could speak no Hebrew. You could observe few Jewish traditions. You could have almost no understanding of Jewish history. But you could support Israel.

And for millions of Jews, particularly in the diaspora, that became enough. Israel became a shortcut to Jewishness. A blue-and-white flag could sometimes substitute for Jewish literacy. A trip to Israel could substitute for years of Jewish education. Political advocacy could substitute for Jewish practice. Supporting Israel mattered. It still matters enormously. But Israel was never supposed to do the work of Judaism.

A Jewish state cannot create Jewish identity for Jews who do not know what being Jewish means. Israel can protect Jewish civilization, but it cannot replace it. Israel can inspire Jews, but it cannot educate them from afar. Israel can provide a homeland, but it cannot make a home Jewish. Israel can give Jews sovereignty, but it cannot give every Jew purpose.

And this helps explain one of the strangest developments in modern Jewish life: Some Jews became deeply invested in Israel without becoming deeply invested in Judaism.

Then, when Israel became politically complicated, their Jewish identity became complicated too. If our connection to the Jewish People rests primarily on whether we approve of the policies of any given Israeli government, then every election becomes a theological crisis. Every prime minister becomes a referendum on Judaism. Every military operation becomes a referendum on Jewish identity.

That is an impossible burden to place on a country.

Israel is governed by politicians. Politicians make mistakes. Governments fail. Policies change. Coalitions collapse. Leaders disappoint us. That is not evidence that Israel has failed. It is evidence that Israel is a country.

We often say that Israel should be treated like every other country, but Jews themselves sometimes struggle to do that. We expect Israel to behave like a nation while simultaneously demanding that it function like a moral symbol. Every Israeli decision must somehow represent Judaism itself. Every Israeli soldier becomes a representative of Jewish ethics. Every Israeli politician becomes a spokesperson for the Jewish People. Every Israeli failure becomes a Jewish failure.

No other country carries this burden.

When an Australian government behaves badly, nobody declares Australian civilization illegitimate. When an Argentinian president makes a poor decision, nobody argues that Argentinians should abandon the idea of Argentinian sovereignty. When Britain fights a controversial war, nobody begins questioning whether British self-determination was a historical mistake.

Yet Israel is constantly forced to justify not merely what it does, but why it exists.

And sometimes Jews internalize that standard. We begin defending Israel as though its right to exist depends upon its perfection. It does not. Israel does not have to be near-perfect to deserve to exist. It does not even have to be exceptional. The Jewish People are entitled to national self-determination for precisely the same reason other peoples are entitled to it: because we are a people.

Israel does not require a humanitarian exemption from history. It does not need to be the most democratic country in the Middle East to justify its existence. It does not need to invent world-changing technologies. It does not need to cure diseases. It does not need to win Nobel Prizes. It does not need to provide the world with moral inspiration. Those things are wonderful, but they are bonuses. Israel has the right to exist even on its worst day.

Perhaps the most dangerous expectation we placed upon Israel was the belief that creating a Jewish state would allow the rest of the Jewish world to relax. Israel would handle Jewish survival; diaspora Jews could handle everything else. The Israelis would serve in the army. The Israelis would speak Hebrew. The Israelis would maintain Jewish national culture. The Israelis would fight the wars. The Israelis would absorb endangered Jewish communities. The Israelis would keep Jewish civilization alive at national scale.

Meanwhile, Jewish communities elsewhere could slowly become thinner and expect Israel to compensate. That arrangement was never sustainable. Israel cannot be the Jewish People’s outsourced identity department. The future of the Jewish People requires a strong Israel and strong Jewish communities outside Israel. Not one or the other. Both.

Israel needs Jews who understand why Israel matters beyond geopolitics. The diaspora needs Israel because Jewish identity without connection to Jewish peoplehood eventually becomes dangerously abstract.

But the relationship must mature. Israel is not our parent. Israel is not our insurance policy. Israel is not our substitute for Judaism. And Israel is not a machine designed to produce Jewish pride on demand. Israel is the national home of the Jewish People. That is both more limited and more profound.

The great accomplishment of Israel is not that it solved the Jewish condition. The great accomplishment is that Israel changed it.

Before Israel, Jews were a people with history but without sovereignty; now we are both a civilization and a nation. Before Israel, Jewish survival often depended entirely on the mercy of others; now Jews possess the ability to defend ourselves. Before Israel, Hebrew belonged primarily to prayer and ancient texts; now children argue with their parents in Hebrew, comedians tell jokes in Hebrew, scientists conduct research in Hebrew and soldiers shout instructions in Hebrew. Before Israel, Jerusalem was mostly a direction Jews faced while praying; now you can get stuck in traffic there.

There is something profoundly Jewish about that transformation: We turned mythology back into geography, and we turned memory back into life. That should have been enough. Instead, success distorted our expectations because Israel accomplished the extraordinary: We began demanding the miraculous.

We wanted Israel to end Jewish insecurity, but Jewish history may never provide complete security. We wanted Israel to end antisemitism, but hatred cannot be cured by the behavior of its target. We wanted Israel to make Jews Jewish, but identity cannot be outsourced. We wanted Israel to unite the Jewish People, but unity requires work from Jews everywhere. We wanted Israel to become proof that history had finally resolved the Jewish question, but there is no final resolution to the Jewish question.

There is only the ongoing Jewish answer: Build, learn, defend, create, remember, raise Jewish children, strengthen Jewish communities, strengthen Israel, and understand that none of these responsibilities can replace the others. Israel does not relieve us of the responsibility of building Jewish life; it makes that responsibility possible on a scale our ancestors could scarcely imagine.

Perhaps the next stage of Zionism requires Jews to stop asking what Israel can do for Jewish identity and begin asking what Jewish identity must do for Israel. We should expect Israel to defend its citizens. We should expect its government to be accountable. We should expect its institutions to improve. We should criticize mistakes and demand competence. But we should stop asking Israel to redeem Jewish history. No country can do that.

Israel was never supposed to make Jews invincible; it was supposed to make us sovereign. It was never supposed to eliminate antisemitism; it was supposed to ensure that antisemites would no longer have the final word. It was never supposed to replace Judaism; it was supposed to give Jewish civilization a place where it could live fully in its own language, culture and time.

And it was never supposed to finish the Jewish story. Indeed, Israel gave us something far more valuable: the ability to keep participating in and engaging with it.

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