Our last post discussed the troubling fact that the leading Orthodox poskim (halakhic authorities) define the law and legal system of the State of Israel as “foreign” or “Gentile law” (ערכאותיהם של גויים). To say that halakhah does not recognize the legitimacy of Israel’s law  is to signal to observant Jewish citizens of the state that they may be entitled to violate that law.  It is also to suggest that the state itself, which expresses its national identity and conducts its public life by means of its law, is a “Gentile” creation, neither truly “Jewish” nor totally legitimate in the eyes of the Torah. It is an embarrassment to the Zionist idea, an insult to all who would like to believe that there is no essential contradiction between the establishment of a modern, democratic Jewish state and the precepts of traditional Jewish religion.

It is also wrong. Continue reading Does Jewish Law Recognize the State of Israel? Part 2 →