ABSTRACT
The interplay between Judaism and democracy is one of the most frequently discussed topics on the public agenda in the State of Israel—defined in its Declaration of Independence, and a number of its basic laws, as a Jewish and democratic state. Upon listening to the public debate on this subject, however, there often appears to be a basic ambiguity regarding the essential distinction between these two systems and the ways in which they interact. We often hear conciliatory voices that attempt to present the two systems as being convergent and complementary. Others accentuate the tension in the concept of a “Jewish and democratic state” by embracing one of its com-ponent parts and rejecting the other. I will attempt to clarify some of the fundamental differences between Judaism and democracy, and to examine the different attitudes that result from the distinctions between them.
