How did Israel establish democracy? The answer is Jewish cultural tradition - opinion

Now, ask yourself: What are the chances that this country will not only survive but sustain a functioning democracy?

If you were designing an experiment in political science, this would be a scenario in which democracy would be expected to fail almost instantly. History tells us to expect dictatorship, military rule, or perpetual instability.

But reality was far less accommodating. With very few exceptions, most of these new democracies failed, either collapsing into one-party rule; or falling to military coups, embracing communism, semi-fascism, or some grotesque hybrid of the two. 

However, the country in question – despite its flaws, despite facing relentless wars, terrorism, and diplomatic isolation – grew from a fragile population of 650,000 people into a thriving nation of nine million, where 20% of its citizens are Arab, who have full legal rights. Unlike almost every other post-colonial state that emerged in the same period, this nation has not succumbed to military rule, one-party dictatorship, or ideological totalitarianism. Against all odds, under circumstances far harsher than any of the other new states, it is somehow this country that has maintained its democracy.

The country, of course, is Israel. But the real question is: Why?

Why has Israel maintained its democracy?

The first answer often given is that there is a tradition of democracy in Judaism. This idea is intuitively appealing – after all, Jewish civilization has long emphasized debate, legal reasoning, and moral autonomy. The notion of human dignity is deeply embedded in Jewish scripture. So, is this where Israel’s democratic resilience comes from? The answer is unequivocally no.

Ancient Jewish governance was monarchical, not democratic, and religious texts offer no blueprint for democracy. And the texts? Nowhere in the Bible, the Mishnah, or the Talmud is there a blueprint for democracy. More importantly, liberal democracy itself is a modern invention.

The second theory suggests that the first Jewish immigrants to Ottoman and Mandatory Palestine brought with them the European traditions of liberal or social democracy. Scholars often compare this to the settlers of North America who imported British parliamentary principles, later enshrined in the American Constitution. By this logic, early Jewish immigrants must have transplanted European enlightenment values – liberalism, democracy, and civic governance – into what would become Israel.

This argument is more plausible than the claim that democracy is rooted in Jewish religious texts, but it still falls short. Most Jewish immigrants came from authoritarian regimes, not democracies. 

If political inheritance shaped Israel’s governance, its founders would have carried with them the legacy of autocracy, not democracy.

The reason that Israeli democracy developed does have to do with Jewish history, though, but it emerged from historical and social realities. For centuries, European Jews – who made up 85% of global Jewry before the Holocaust – operated under self-governing communal structures. The kahal functioned as a political entity, managing internal affairs, resolving disputes, and negotiating with external rulers. While Jews lacked sovereignty until 1948, they had long practiced the mechanics of self-governance, making the transition to statehood less of a leap and more of a continuation.

Political scientist Shlomo Avineri points out that whether Jews lived under Muslim or Christian rule, they prioritized two things: a place of worship, and a space where children could learn about Jewish historical norms. They quickly realized that the only way to achieve this was through a voluntary electoral system. European Jewish communities were established only when a sufficient number of Jews assembled and chose to form a community by electing members as chairmen, secretaries, or treasurers.

This system wasn’t dictated by rabbinical authority but by the community’s ability to elect its own leaders. Some of those leaders were rabbis, some weren’t. Some communities were more egalitarian, others more hierarchical. Some functioned as oligarchies, allowing the same families to retain power, while others imposed limits to prevent any single family from dominating leadership. But in every case, these Jewish communities operated as miniature city-states – a kind of polis, if you will.

In other words, Jews may not have had a state, but for centuries they had been practicing community politics in ways that closely resemble modern elective democracies. Their systems had all the familiar virtues and dysfunctions of democratic life seen in Israel today. Disputes over leadership or the community rabbi often led to secessions, with dissenters moving across the street or up a nearby hill to establish a “rival” community. Through this process, Jews became adept at electing leaders, building coalitions, challenging opposition, and establishing a basic framework for voluntary taxation.

In some countries, like the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Jews established larger regional councils, such as the Va’ad Arba Aratzot (Council of the Four Lands). Meeting annually in Lublin, these councils functioned as de facto political parliaments, setting communal policies despite lacking sovereignty. As early as the 17th century, they mandated basic education for young boys to ensure literacy in Hebrew, implemented voluntary taxation, and reinforced communal solidarity. When disasters, pogroms, or wars struck one community, others pooled resources to help rebuild or integrate those affected into new communities.

By the time the Zionist Movement was founded in 1897, Jews knew exactly what to do. The First Zionist Congress established elections – and held them. When the first Jewish olim arrived in Eretz Yisrael in the late 19th century, they built agricultural colonies, and then a garden suburb they named Tel Aviv. They elected secretaries for the first kibbutzim and municipal leaders for Tel Aviv. They knew how to allocate and collect taxes, often through voluntary means. 

When the State of Israel was founded, its political structure was a natural extension of how Jews had governed themselves for generations. David Ben-Gurion, already chairman of the Jewish Agency, became provisional prime minister. Ministers were drawn from existing Jewish institutions in Mandatory Palestine. Independence was declared, war was fought, and the next step was elections. The political parties were already in place – various labor factions, bourgeois liberals, and left-wing Zionist worker movements. 

This is why, as the Netanyahu government threatens the very democratic institutions that have allowed our Jewish democracy to endure, the issue extends far beyond politics. It is not merely a question of governance; it is a betrayal of something far more fundamental – the way Jews have historically held themselves together. The countries that sought our destruction have collapsed under their destructive ideologies. Israel’s survival has depended on the opposite: a constructive, self-governing model that allows us to argue over the Jewish future rather than be silenced by it. When a government begins to dismantle the institutions that make that discourse possible, it does not simply weaken democracy – it undermines the very mechanism that has kept Jewish civilization alive.■

The author is a writer and political researcher. He works at the Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI).