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What Will Israel
Look Like in 2048?
Rachel Avraham | JNS.org
F ormer U.S. Ambassador to Israel and member
of Knesset Michael Oren discussed his vision
for the Jewish state’s future at a recent event
in Jerusalem launching his new book, “2048: The
Rejuvenated State.”
Oren, a historian who fought in the Second Lebanon
War, said, during his remarks at the Menachem Begin
Heritage Center in Jerusalem, that the book began
as a conversation between himself and Benjamin
Netanyahu fi ve or six years ago.

“We used to schmooze at 3 a.m. in the morning
during our Knesset debates. I told him once that we
never have a chance to think about Israel’s future.

We are so bogged down with our current crises that
we never think of what kind of state we want to build
for our children and grandchildren,” Oren said at the
Begin Center.

“Now, the 50th anniversary [of Israel’s indepen-
dence] does not feel like that long ago, so leaping
forward 25 years is not beyond the canon. For young
people, 25 years may be a long time, but not for older
people,” he said.

Oren noted that when Israel was established,
intense discussions were held regarding what kind
of state it should become.

“Should it be a socialist state or a capitalist state?
Pro-Western or pro-Eastern [Bloc]? As much as by
the power of the sword, this country was created by
the power of the word."
But somewhere along the way, Israel stopped
holding these discussions, he said. A state
18 MAY 4, 2023 | JEWISH EXPONENT
commission was once established to delve into
these issues, but its mandate was sabotaged by the
collapse of the government, he added.

At that point, Oren told former Jewish Agency
leader Natan Sharansky that these discussions were
too important to abandon, so they were moved to
the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, but then
COVID-19 hit.

It was during the pandemic that Oren decided to sit
down and actually write the book.

“Afterward, we had Zoom talks on Israel-Diaspora
relations, Israel’s foreign policy, and some extraor-
dinary things caused me to establish an NGO, Israel
2048,” he said.

In the book, which is printed in English, Hebrew
and Arabic in one volume, Oren delves into many
issues that aff ect Israeli society today. For example,
he criticizes the state for not recognizing Reform
Judaism, which is the main Judaism practiced in the
Diaspora. “The absurdity, indeed the obscenity, of the situa-
tion was underscored by the aftermath of the massa-
cre of Jewish worshippers in Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life
Synagogue on October 27, 2018,” he said. “While
expressing solidarity with the victims, several Israeli
ministers and the Chief Rabbinate refused to call Tree
of Life a synagogue. The place where Jews were killed
while praying as Jews had in the words of the Jewish
nation-state merely a ‘profoundly Jewish fl avor.’”
Oren accused Israel of being ungrateful for the
fact that Diaspora Jews account for some 6.5% of
its GDP, which is roughly equivalent to its defense
budget, and have “contributed massively to building
Israel’s educational, medical, cultural and fi nancial
infrastructure.” He said that by 2048, “Israeli and Diaspora Jews
must share a sense of common identity and destiny,
an awareness of the fact that regardless of where we
live, we belong to a single people.”
Haredim In the book, Oren describes haredim as an “existen-
tial threat” to the state of Israel because they “pro-
duced nothing materially but only drained the state,
shared none of its liberal and democratic values and
denied children even the most basic modern educa-
tion.” If these issues are not remedied, it will “cause
Israel’s collapse,” he wrote.

Oren said the state of Israel must force all haredi
schools to teach English, math, science and civics,
but to achieve this via persuasion and not coercion.

“Proposed legislation for penalizing haredim and
their schools for draft dodging will only backfi re
and result in large-scale unrest and incarceration.

Instead, the state must make a historic eff ort to
engage ultra-Orthodox leaders in a dialogue.”
Polygamy Oren also described the polygamy practiced by the
Bedouin in the Negev as a threat to Israel’s long-term
security. “The tradition is radically anti-feminist and
frequently cruel, with many wives purchased like
chattel, forced to conduct hard labor and bear seven
children or more. With four wives, a Bedouin male
need never work but only collect child subsidies from
the government. For this reason, in 1977, the Knesset