Israel’s Justice Minister: Jewish Law Should be Binding
Justice Minister Yaakov Neeman on Monday said he believes Jewish law (Halakha) should be the binding law in Israel, Army Radio reported.
“Step by step, we will bestow upon the citizens of Israel the laws of the Torah and we will turn Halakha into the binding law of the nation,” said Neeman at a Jewish law convention at the Regency hotel in Jerusalem, in the presence of many rabbis and rabbinical judges.
“We must bring back the heritage of our fathers to the nation of Israel,” Neeman said. “The Torah has the complete solution to all of the questions we are dealing with,” he added.
However, Neeman’s statements during the conference were received with applauds from participants, among them Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef.
Other guests at the event included Likud MK Yisrael Katz, Interior Minister Eli Yishai and Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger.
Kadima chairwoman and opposition leader Tzipi Livni on Tuesday harshly criticized Neeman’s comments, saying they should be troubling to “every citizen who cares about what happens in Israel in terms of its values and democracy.”
Neman’s remarks also drew criticism from left-wing politicians, including Meretz leader Haim Oron and Hadash chairman Mohammed Barakeh.
“It is unfortunate that the justice minister has detached himself from the state of Israel’s basic values and is being disolyal to civic and national principles,” Oron said on Tuesday, using a play on words on Neeman’s name, which means “loyal” in Hebrew.
“His remarks reflect a disturbing process of ‘Talibanization’ occurring in Israeli society,” Oron continued.
Barakeh called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to oust Neeman from his position, saying, “The man who sees his main role as establishing a fundamentalist Israel is a threat to the country’s democracy.”
A former cabinet minister, Amnon Rubinstein, said Neeman’s plan “would amount to severing the majority of Israel” from the state, and mean most of Israel’s judges would have to be replaced by rabbis.
In the wake of the uproar caused by his remarks, the Justice Ministry on Tuesday issued a statement denying that Neeman intends to replace Israel’s legal system with Jewish law.
“Justice Minister Yaakov Neeman “wishes to clarify that these remarks were not a call for Jewish religious law to replace the laws of the State of Israel, either directly or indirectly,” a statement from the ministry said.
“Minister Neeman spoke in broad and general terms about restoring the stature of Jewish law and about the importance of Jewish law to the life of the country.”
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 2
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 3
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
- 4
Culture How two Jewish names — Kohen and Mira — are dividing red and blue states
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Secretive GOP firm distorts Democratic candidate’s views on Israel in NJ governor race
-
Fast Forward Trump administration to review nearly $9 billion in Harvard funding over campus antisemitism
-
Yiddish World Yiddish fans in Berlin launch a Yiddish open mic series
-
Fast Forward Cornell pro-Palestinian student leader opts to leave US, as Columbia ‘self-deportee’ makes her case to return
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.