Jewish identity, citizenship and society

The identity of a state and the authority it exercises over its citizens are two different questions. Yehodaya will be a Jewish state because it will be established by and for the Jewish people, serve as a home for Jews, and express Jewish history, language, and culture in the public sphere. At the same time, a state is a bureaucratic entity, not a person. It does not observe religious commandments, and it will not use its power to compel its residents to do so. Nor will it be a halachic state or grant governmental authority to any religious institution.

Yehodaya’s Jewish identity will be expressed through several central elements:

• The right of members of the Jewish people to immigrate to Yehodaya and receive citizenship.
• Hebrew as the state’s primary language.
• Incorporation of the Sabbath and Jewish holidays into the national calendar.
• Symbols, dates, ceremonies, and public content drawn from Jewish history and culture.
• Study of the Hebrew language, the history of the Jewish people, its cultural achievements, and its heritage.
• A commitment by the state to assist Jews and Jewish communities in times of distress.

None of these elements requires religious coercion. The Sabbath, for example, will be the national day of rest and government services, excluding public transportation, will cease operation on that day; private business owners and individuals, however, will be free to work, travel, trade, or rest as they choose. This is an expression of the state’s public calendar and identity, not an attempt to dictate a religious way of life to its citizens.

Separation of religion and state means that the state will have no official religion, no Ministry of Religious Affairs, and no state rabbinate. The state will not fund synagogues, yeshivas, ritual baths, rabbis, or any other religious institution. Religious communities will be free to establish institutions, employ officials, and practice their customs using members’ funds and private donations.

The legal system will be entirely civil. Marriage will be regulated through a civil contract, and disputes concerning property, inheritance, or responsibility for children will be decided by the state’s courts. Couples will be free to hold an additional religious ceremony in any community they choose, but that ceremony will have no independent legal authority, and religious courts will not operate as judicial tribunals of the state.

In matters of conversion, kashrut, and religious status as well, the state will not determine religious law. Jewish communities will decide for themselves whom they accept into their ranks and on what terms. The state will act as an administrative registrar: it will record the recognition granted to a person by a recognized community, but it will not determine whether that person is Jewish under one theological conception binding on everyone.

Private kashrut bodies will be free to establish standards and issue certifications in accordance with their own outlook. The state’s role will be limited to preventing fraud: anyone who represents a product as kosher will be required to comply with the standard he claims to meet. The state will not define what constitutes kashrut and will not grant a monopoly to any particular religious body.

This separation will allow every Jewish stream to develop on its own terms, without seeking control over the machinery of the state and without being subordinated to another stream. Religious Jews will be free to live fully religious lives, secular Jews will be free from coercion, and different communities will compete for people’s trust and participation through the value they provide.

Complete separation of religion and state requires that no religious institution receive governmental authority, public funding, or the power to impose its rulings on anyone who has not chosen to be subject to it.

Yehodaya will be Jewish in its language, culture, purpose, and the story it tells about itself; civil in its legal and judicial system; and free in the life of the individual and the community.

For purposes of the Law of Return, the term “Jewish” will be a civil-national definition rather than a halachic ruling. Its purpose is to determine who is entitled to join Yehodaya by virtue of belonging to the Jewish people, not to decide a religious question binding on all communities.

A person will be eligible under the right of return if he or she belongs to any of the following groups:

• A person born to a Jewish mother or a Jewish father.
• A person with at least one Jewish grandparent.
• A person who joined the Jewish people through a conversion conducted by a recognized Jewish community.

Eligibility by descent will not depend on religious belief, observance, or affiliation with a particular stream. A secular Jew or an atheist will be as eligible for citizenship as a religious Jew. Yehodaya is a state of the Jewish people as a whole, not of one religious community within it.

The state will recognize conversions conducted by Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and Karaite communities. A recognized community will have to be an existing and functioning body with institutions, members, leadership, and a documented conversion process. These requirements are intended to ensure that conversion is a genuine process of joining a community and the Jewish people, not a fictitious route created for the purpose of obtaining citizenship.

The state will not establish a conversion authority, employ rabbis, or determine which stream represents “correct Judaism.” It will examine the authenticity of documents and the standing of the community and record that the person was recognized as Jewish by that community. Every other community will remain free to decide whether it recognizes that conversion for its own religious purposes.

It is therefore possible that a person will be considered Jewish for purposes of the Law of Return and citizenship but not recognized as Jewish by a particular religious community. There is no contradiction in this. The state determines civil eligibility; the community determines religious belonging. Neither has authority to impose its definition on the other.

Proof of eligibility will be based on documents such as birth certificates, family records, community records, conversion certificates, and historical evidence. Where documents are missing or disputed, there will be an orderly civil procedure for examining the evidence, and its decisions will be appealable to a civil court.

Eligibility under the right of return grants the right to apply for citizenship, but citizenship itself will also require an oath of allegiance to the state, its Constitution, its laws, and its values, together with basic proficiency in Hebrew. These conditions apply to the citizen by virtue of his commitment to the shared state, not by virtue of his religious beliefs.

Being Jewish will not be a condition for every person living in Yehodaya to become a citizen. A non-Jew may receive temporary or permanent resident status in accordance with the law. Paths to citizenship not based on the right of return—including the citizenship arrangement for residents living in the territory when Yehodaya is established—will be defined separately and will not require them to be Jewish or to convert.

The guiding principle is simple: Yehodaya’s gates of return will be open to members of the Jewish people from every stream and every way of life, without placing the keys to the state in the hands of any religious establishment.

No. A libertarian state limits the scope of government, but it does not ignore people who are unable to provide for their basic needs. Yehodaya will establish a targeted, simple, and effective safety net that assists those who need help without making the entire population dependent on a broad government apparatus.

The guiding principle is equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome. The state will guarantee equality before the law, access to education and basic healthcare, and the absence of government-imposed barriers or preferences. It will not attempt to equalize the outcomes of people’s lives through ever-increasing taxation, redistribution of income, or management of their choices. Human beings differ in their abilities, ambitions, efforts, and decisions, and their achievements will therefore differ as well.

Equality of opportunity does not guarantee that every person will begin life at precisely the same point. It means that economic hardship will not prevent a child from receiving a quality education meeting standards set by the state; that illness will not leave a person without the means to obtain treatment; and that state law will not impede a person who seeks to work, study, create, and advance.

The model will distinguish among three different situations:

• A person who is capable of working and supporting himself.
• A person who works but whose income does not reach the defined minimum level.
• A person who is wholly or partly unable to work because of illness or disability.

A person capable of working will be responsible for his livelihood and his choices. The state will not subsidize a particular lifestyle, occupation, or level of consumption. A free market, low taxation, the absence of tariffs and barriers to entry, and ease of starting businesses will enable more people to work, create enterprises, and improve their circumstances through their own efforts.

A person who works but earns a low income will receive an income supplement through a negative income tax. The supplement will be automatic, simple, and paid through the tax system, without a separate apparatus of offices, committees, and welfare officials. Its amount will be calculated according to income and the extent of employment, so that every increase in earned income improves the person’s situation rather than causing a sudden loss of benefits.

A person who is unable to work at all because of disability or illness and has no other sources of income will receive direct assistance from the state sufficient to cover basic needs. Assistance will be provided primarily in kind—help with housing, food, care, equipment, and necessary services—and tailored to the person’s capacity to function and work. Where partial capacity exists, the system will allow employment to be combined with assistance rather than force a choice between the two.

The state will participate in healthcare and education through personal vouchers that cannot be transferred or used for another purpose. Every citizen will be able to use them to choose among private kindergartens, schools, clinics, hospitals, and insurance companies that meet the required standards. Providers will compete for the citizen’s choice on quality, price, and service.

Yehodaya will not establish a national-insurance institution administering benefits, pensions, and insurance for the entire population. Responsibility for pension insurance, disability coverage, and additional protections will be personal and provided through private institutions. Pension savings will accumulate in an account owned by the contributor and will not be based on a commitment by the next generation to finance the current one.

Personal responsibility and social solidarity are not contradictory. Alongside the public safety net, families, communities, foundations, and private aid organizations will operate. The state will recognize a portion of charitable contributions as tax-deductible expenses but will not finance those organizations directly.

This is a safety net designed to catch a person when he falls and help him rise again—not a system designed to manage his life or decide for him what outcome he ought to have.

They can be sufficient, provided that Yehodaya builds the state described in this document rather than importing the expenditure structure of an existing welfare state. A tax rate cannot be considered in isolation; the relevant questions are which functions the state assumes, how services are provided, and the size of the economy on which the tax is levied.

The proposed tax ceiling is not negligible: up to 22% national income tax on individuals and companies, up to 9% municipal income tax, together with a land tax. The tax base will be broad and uniform, without brackets, sectoral exemptions, or special tracks. There will be no VAT or customs duties, but income from labor, capital, and business activity will be taxed in a simple and transparent manner.

The principle is the reverse of what is common in many countries. Yehodaya will not first create a broad government apparatus and then raise taxes to finance it. It will establish a hard constitutional tax ceiling and design government and public services so that they can operate within the revenue framework that ceiling permits.

Several features of the model will reduce public expenditure:

• The government will not operate state-owned companies or subsidize businesses, industries, or pressure groups.
• Large government systems for education, healthcare, insurance, and pensions will not be created. The state will fund basic services through vouchers, and citizens will choose among competing private providers.
• There will be no broad system of transfer payments. Assistance will focus on those unable to work, while a negative income tax will supplement the income of low-wage workers.
• Government will be digital, the number of ministries will be limited, civil servants will not enjoy permanent tenure, and there will not be parallel tax authorities.
• Religious institutions, embassies, international organizations, subsidies, and projects outside the state’s basic functions will not be publicly funded.
• The state will not take on debt, and its budget will therefore not carry years of interest payments on past expenditure.

Defense, justice, policing, and protection of civil rights will stand at the top of the national budget’s priorities. Basic education and healthcare will be funded through vouchers set at predefined standards. Those who want expanded services will be able to purchase them with their own money or through private insurance. Economic infrastructure such as energy, communications, ports, and transportation will, wherever possible, be built through private capital, concessions, and user charges under rules designed to prevent monopoly and protect rights.

It is important to distinguish between establishing the state and financing its ongoing operation. The construction of ports, water and energy systems, cities, security installations, and initial infrastructure will not be funded solely from taxes paid by the first tens of thousands of residents. Establishment costs will be financed through the Foundation Fund, private investment, project companies, and development rights. The tax system is intended to finance ongoing operations after the initial infrastructure has already been built.

During the establishment period, part of the founding capital will also be allocated to developing security capabilities and to a national stabilization fund. In an exceptional emergency, this fund may be used, or a temporary and designated emergency tax may be imposed, subject to the required approval and an automatic sunset clause terminating it when the need ends.

The ability to finance the state also depends on growth. A simple tax system, free trade, the absence of tariffs, strong protection of property, and ease of establishing businesses are designed to attract capital, entrepreneurs, and workers and to expand the tax base. A moderate rate imposed on a broad and growing economy can yield more revenue than a high rate imposed on a weak economy burdened by exemptions and avoidance.

Before establishment, a full fiscal model will be built to test different scenarios for population, income, security needs, and the costs of vouchers and infrastructure. If it becomes clear that a particular service cannot be financed within the tax ceiling, the answer will be to alter its scope, method of delivery, or pace of implementation—not to breach the ceiling whenever the government wishes to expand its activities.

The tax rates are not a promise that every public desire will be financed. They are a framework that compels the state to choose, become efficient, and concentrate on its essential tasks. Yehodaya will not ask how much tax can be collected to finance an ever-growing government, but what government can and should be sustained within the limit its citizens have set for it.