Mikhael Manekin

Smol Emuni Conference
March 30, 2025

The Smol Emuni was born in Israel out of frustration with communal political loneliness. After the last elections in Israel, we felt too scattered, too alone. We all know that feeling when we tell our friends, “I’m a religious lefty,” and they respond—"how many are there like you? Five?” Look around the room. We are many more than we thought.

The justification for Smol Emuni is not just communal—it is political and religious. It is about how we perceive the meaning of God’s moral demands in light of the violent political interpretations of those who claim to speak in His name. It is about responding from within to the rhetoric of violence, vengeance, erasure, and transfer. It is about rejecting the refusal to acknowledge the suffering of the other, a refusal which has the perverse result of sacrificing our own hostages in the name of revenge.

I was glad to see the theme of this panel: B’tzelem vs. Segula. Many of us were raised to believe in an inherent tension between the particular and the universal. In Israeli political discourse, this tension has another name: Jewish and Democratic. Since October 7th, this framing has been again rearticulated—especially in religious right-wing thought—it is now Survival vs. Morality.

Let’s take a moment to consider these so-called tensions. What meanings are created through them? What functions do these words play? Take, for example, the phrase Jewish and Democratic. Many in this room accept this tension as a given, or at least we don’t give it much thought. But what is the function of “Jewish” in this framing? We can begin to answer this question by seeing when the term Jewish is used and when it isn’t.

To put it bluntly: There has never been a case where the term ‘Jewish’ forbids us from doing something that democratic values permit. Has anyone, for example, ever said: International law allows for sieges, but Jewish law does not? International law allows for the destruction of trees, but Jewish law does not? Have we ever heard the claim that Jewish law is more stringent when it comes to pre-emptive violence than international law?

The answer, as we all know, is no. In the Jewish and Democratic framework, “Jewish” is invoked only to justify transgressions against democratic and humanitarian norms. Let that sink in. Judaism, instead of being a response to חטא (sin, transgression), becomes the חטא itself against morality. Judaism becomes the language of emergency that permits deviation from goodness. Is there any greater Chillul Hashem than this?

Since October 7th, the problems with the framing of tension has become even clearer. The religious right describes the abandonment of moral discourse—the preference for killing innocents, for vengeance, for national pride—as a necessity for survival, which it sees as “Jewish”, in contrast to what they dismiss as the “Western ethic” of love. But my moral upbringing as a Jew rejects this false dichotomy. And I’m sure many of yours do as well. Voicing this tradition is crucial, today more than ever.

This, I believe, is the significance of what we are building today. Because the central starting point of the Smol Emuni is not mediating tensions (and within that, enabling articulation of Jewish as counter moral). Rather, the central starting point of Smol Ha’emuni is to reclaim a Jewish ethic rooted in "מה הוא רחום אף אתה היה רחום"—Just as He is merciful, so too should you be merciful.

Our role is not to mediate between tribe and world, between Jewish and Democratic, or between morality and survival. Our role is to reject the false premise of that tension altogether. Doing so, through communal reengagement with our tradition, is needed for that sense of moral belonging so crucial for our political work.

So there is much work ahead: Creating and interpreting Torah, and just as importantly, building the frameworks and institutions necessary for this Torah to expand. This is not only an internal Israeli challenge or an internal American Jewish challenge. It is a shared challenge for all Jews who feel that the language of Torah has been hijacked by tribalist, survivalist, or even idolatrous concerns.

The voices of your communities here in the U.S. are no different from ours. We are the same. We are all an Am Segula, advancing one of the central tenets of our faith: "אדם נברא בצלם"—Every human being is created in the image of God.