By the summer of 2023, it was clear that judicial reform was never really the story: The real battle was over Israel’s identity. And that battle touched on the deepest fears and disagreements Israelis were too busy surviving to address ever since the nation’s inception.

Can an Israel occupied by a religious majority remain recognizable to the nation’s secular elites? Can its institutions be reformed to better reflect the will of the country’s democratically elected majority? And can Israelis resolve all of these deep and difficult quarrels and still remain one people?