Historically, external threats have tended to unite Israelis and impose a measure of national cohesion on its fractured politics. Yet two years after the worst external attack in the country's history, and in the face of multiple external challenges, Israel is internally divided as never before. Indeed, the country can now be said to be in the midst of a constitutional crisis centered on competing interpretations of democracy and Jewish identity. Few scholars are better placed to analyze this crisis than Dr. Masua Sagiv, a leading analyst of Israeli political culture and constitutional order. Join Amichai Magen in conversation with Masua Sagiv.

Dr. Masua Sagiv is Senior Faculty at the Shalom Hartman Institute and Senior Fellow at the Helen Diller Institute for Jewish Law and Israel Studies at UC Berkeley School of Law. Masua’s scholarly work focuses on the development of contemporary Judaism in Israel, as a culture, religion, nationality, and as part of Israel’s identity as a Jewish and democratic state. Her research explores the role of law, state actors, and civil society organizations in promoting social change across diverse issues: shared society, religion and gender, religion and state, and Jewish peoplehood. Her recently published book Radical Conservatism (Carmel, 2024) examines the use of law in the Halachic Feminist struggle in Israel.

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