The line in Israel is that it is a Jewish-Democratic State. מדינה יהודית דמוקרטית.
That sounds GREAT if you like Judaism and Democracy. It is like if you want a smart and pretty girl and then you get one!
The problem is that there is no contradiction between being smart and pretty. There IS a contradiction between Jewish and Democratic and State.
Democracy, means, literally, rule by the people. The term is derived from the Greek dēmokratia, which was coined from dēmos (“people”) and kratos (“rule”) in the middle of the 5th century bce to denote the political systems then existing in some Greek city-states, notably Athens.
So we are super imposing a Greek idea onto Torah which has no such concept. It does say [Brachos 55a]
"אמר רבי יצחק: אין מעמידין פרנס על הצבור אלא אם כן נמלכים בצבור, שנאמר "ראו קרא ה' בשם בצלאל" (שמות לה, ל). אמר לו הקדוש ברוך הוא למשה: משה, הגון עליך בצלאל? אמר לו: רבונו של עולם אם לפניך הגון, לפני לא כל שכן? אמר לו: אף על פי כן לך אמור להם. הלך ואמר להם לישראל: הגון עליכם בצלאל? אמרו לו אם לפני הקדוש ברוך הוא ולפניך הוא הגון, לפנינו לא כל שכן?"
But that was not talking about a political leader. There is also a concept of ז' טובי העיר who represent the city but the present day government chosen democratically to lead and govern the entire country has no precedent in Judaism. ESPECIALLY given the fact that those elected are not observant which according to the Rambam [who is the only one to codify laws of governance] voids their election [! - Hil. Melachim 1-7]. Also, those voting are mostly not observant. There is nothing Jewish about Jewish people who don't keep Torah and mitzvos voting for people who don't keep Torah and mitzvos [some of whom are actually our non-Jewish Arab enemies!!] to rule the Land of Israel. The proper *Jewish* form of government is a Monarchy led by a very pious King. [Of course there is the very very famous יסוד of the Rav ztz"l in משפט כהן but that is an awfully big chiddush and probably wouldn't apply to our present circumstances].
I saw one person wrote:
השתתפות בבחירות, באמצעותה תיקבע המנהיגות של עם ישראל בארצו, היא מצווה מהתורה. "כי תבוא אל הארץ ... ואמרת אשימה עלי מלך ככל הגוים אשר סביבתי, שום תשים עליך מלך" (דברים יז, יד-טו). "שום תשים" ולא "שום אשים". "דאת הוא דשוי עלך" (ירושלמי סנהדרין ב, י), אנו הם אלו שמצווים לשים עלינו מנהיגות בארץ.
But as they say in modern Hebrew: הגזמת!
So this bill of goods we have been sold about a Jewish-Democratic State is simply put - Shatnez. East is east and west is west and never the twain shall meet. Like "kosher lobster" [even though lobster is more trief than democracy....]. The problem is that whenever there is a clash the democratic trumps the Judaic.
In the meantime this is what we have and frankly - it is MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH better than anything we have had here in the past 2000 years [from numerous perspectives but not all. The חילול השם of a secular government in Hashem's Land where they willingly trample on the Torah cannot be ignored]. One example is those evil Brits who only let a small number of Jews into the country and didn't treat the ones who lived here particuarly well, either.
Case in point:
The Exodus 1947 was a worn-out US-owned coastal freight passenger ship launched in 1928. Originally called the SS President Warfield, it sailed the Chesapeake Bay between Baltimore, Maryland, and Norfolk, Virginia, for over a decade. Transferred to the British under the Lend-Lease agreement as part of a group of shallow-draft ships, the President Warfield was later deployed in the Normandy invasion (June 1944). After World War II it returned to US waters.
Yet the ship was to take part in one more event which ensured its place in history, symbolizing the struggle for unrestricted immigration into Palestine.
Initially sold as scrap for slightly more than $8,000, the ship was acquired by the Hagana (an underground Jewish military organization). Hagana personnel arranged to dock the ship in Europe in order to transport Jews who sought to illegally immigrate into Palestine. The plight of the ship's passengers would capture the world's attention.
In July 1947, the President Warfield left Sète, France, for Palestine. It carried over 4,500 Jewish men, women, and children, all displaced persons (DPs) or survivors of the Holocaust. Even before the ship (by then renamed the Exodus 1947) reached Palestine's territorial waters, British destroyers surrounded it. On July 18 a struggle ensued between British naval forces and passengers on the ship. A Jewish crew member and two passengers were killed. Dozens suffered bullet wounds and other injuries.
In July 1947 in France, 4,500 Jewish refugees from displaced persons camps in Germany boarded the "Exodus 1947" and attempted to sail (without permission to land) to Palestine, which was under British mandate. The British intercepted the ship off the coast and forced it to anchor in Haifa, where British soldiers removed the Jewish refugees. After British authorities failed to force France to accept the refugees, the refugees were returned to DP camps in Germany. The plight of the "Exodus" passengers became a symbol of the struggle for open immigration into Palestine.
Attempting to make an example of the Exodus 1947, the British towed the ship to Haifa and transferred the passengers onto three navy transports which returned to Europe. The ships first landed at Port-de-Bouc, France, where the passengers were ordered to disembark. When the French authorities refused to forcibly remove the refugees, British authorities, fearing adverse public opinion, sought to wait until the passengers disembarked of their own accord. The passengers, including many orphaned children, forced the issue by declaring a hunger strike which lasted 24 days. Mounting pressure from international media coverage pressed British authorities to find a solution.
The ships sat for three weeks in the sweltering summer heat, but the passengers refused to voluntarily disembark and the French authorities were unwilling to force them to leave. The British government then transported the passengers to Hamburg, where they were interned in camps in the British zone of occupation in Germany.
Displaced persons in camps all over Europe protested vociferously and staged hunger strikes when they heard the news. Large protests erupted on both sides of the Atlantic. The ensuing public embarrassment for Britain played a significant role in the diplomatic swing of sympathy toward the Jews and the eventual recognition of a Jewish state in 1948.
So THANK G-D today any Jew can freely come to visit and live in ארץ ישראל as they wish!!! We anxiously await the Messiah!!!
