The Association for Israel Studies, in partnership with the European Association for Israel Studies, held its annual conference at the Charles University in Prague from July 1 – 3, 2024. The conference brought together a broad range of scholars from Israel, North America, and Europe, and the panels featured a mix of the latest research in Israel Studies with assessments of the political, strategic, cultural, and social situation of Israel in the post-October 7 world.
Dr. Rogachevsky, Associate Director of the Straus Center, presented a paper entitled the “Herut Party Debate on Rights (1948-49).” The research focuses on the extraordinary debate conducted by the leading figures of the Herut Party, in the days following the founding of the state, on the political ideas and principles to advance now that they were transforming into a political party in an established state rather than an illegal underground movement. The key figures in this debate were people who would set the ideological direction of the Israeli right for decades to come, including Eliyahu Meridor, Yuli Margolin, Yochanan Bader, and, of course, future Prime Minister Menachem Begin, who, more than anyone, else shaped the Herut Party.
According to Rogachevsky, there were some substantive disagreements between these figures on the role of the state in the economy, the relationship between religion and state, and whether positive and negative rights could be successfully combined politically. Overall, Herut expressed a clear liberal national vision for their party and for the new state of Israel. Israel ought to be a strong sovereign state oriented towards the protection of the equal rights of all. Herut’s firm rejection of tyranny and the rule of any one class or party over another was in part motivated by fears of Mapai (Labor Party) hegemony in Israel, but it also was a firm expression of the party’s commitment to liberal democratic principles. On the relationship of religion and state, Rogachevsky highlighted the extraordinary preamble to the Herut Party “Bill of Rights,” written by Yuli Margolin. It reads:
“The first principle of the bill of rights derives from the first chapter of Genesis: the creation of the human being in the image and likeness of God. The historical foundation of the bill of rights is Hebrew culture and European democracy.”
This text expresses the Herut aspiration for a kind of creative harmonization of the ethical principles at the core of Jewish Civilization and the principles and practices of modern democracies. Equal human dignity is said to stand at the root of both biblical religion and modern liberal democracy. Herut’s position in 1948-49, noted Rogachevsky, stands in marked contrast to other positions advanced, at the time and in subsequent years, which thought there must be absolute estrangement between democracy or liberalism on one hand and Judaism or religion on the other.
Security at the conference was strict considering the difficult security situation around the world. Attendees were told not to wear conference badges outside of the university, nor to publicize their presence in the Central European city. This was a necessary measure and an especially sobering one, heightened by the fact that the conference was held just a short walk from the synagogues and other cultural splendors of the Jewish community of Prague. The Association for Israel Studies and the European Association for Israel Studies deserve credit for carrying on with their important work in these difficult times for the Jewish state.
