Rabbi Michael Melchior, 72, is constantly confronting the question of the ultimate aim of a Jewish state. The eighth generation in a line of Danish rabbis, Melchior chose to move to Israel from Denmark in 1986.

“Is the final purpose of a Jewish state just to achieve security [for the Jewish people]? Or a much higher one — a state sanctifying the name of God in the eyes of Jews and also in the eyes of the world, led by the ideas of justice and righteousness, all principles that the Torah describes as the purpose of us going into the Land?” Melchior asked.

To most Israelis above a certain age, the rabbi is known as the chairman of the long-defunct Meimad, a moderate Religious Zionist party that was associated with the Israeli left and supported the peace process with the Palestinians in the 1990s and early 2000s. The name Meimad was the Hebrew acronym of the words “A Jewish state, a democratic state.”

For a decade, Melchior served in the Knesset and in various ministerial positions. He was involved in some of the most high-level decisions regarding the peace process and national security, supporting and watching different attempts to end the conflict with the Palestinians bloom — and wilt.

“[Our] God is the God of justice, and this is how we want our society to be looked at in the world, because the biggest sin in Judaism is to desecrate the name of God,” Melchior said. “Is that a consideration at all when you sit in the security cabinet? I know a little bit about it, because I’ve been there.”

The Times of Israel recently spoke with Melchior on the phone twice and then joined him in his apartment in Jerusalem. The rabbi is still optimistic about the trajectory of Israel and the Middle East, stating that despite two and a half years of wars triggered by the October 7, 2023, Hamas atrocities, peace is possibly closer than ever.

Today, Melchior rejects the “left-wing” label. He is, however, still working to promote a different way of bringing religious values into public service and discourse, at a time when the Religious Zionist community is increasingly associated with the hard right.

“Today, we work pursuing peace based on a religious perspective, rather than a left-wing one,” he said.

What are religious values?

According to Melchior, a sore lack of understanding of religious identity and values across both the Israeli and the Palestinian populations was one of the most significant factors behind the failure of the peace process, as well as the public’s alienation from it.

‘People might have been willing to give up land, but not who they were’

‘People might have been willing to give up land, but not who they were’

“Part of the failure of Oslo was that it included the [largely nonreligious] peace camp, but did not attempt to include the more traditional and religious community,” Melchior posited, referring to the US-brokered agreements signed in the 1990s between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) that created the Palestinian Authority.

“The tent of Oslo became too narrow, and therefore could not succeed on the........

© The Times of Israel