he 2026 Tzohar Annual Summer Conference, themed “For the Sake of Heaven and Earth,” took place on July 21 at Expo Tel Aviv. The sold-out event brought together some 2,500 religious, secular and community leaders to explore contemporary challenges facing Israeli society and, to a lesser extent, the Jewish Diaspora.
The speaker lineup featured influential rabbinic authorities, global Jewish leaders and public intellectuals. Given the venue, residents of central Israel were well represented.
Tzohar is the leading organization representing Israel’s national religious community and is responsible for a wide range of ongoing initiatives.
Its primary goal is to bridge the gap between religious and secular Jews in Israel by promoting a welcoming, inclusive and modern approach to Orthodox Judaism. Founded by Zionist Orthodox rabbis, the organization seeks to provide an alternative to the bureaucracy of Israel’s Chief Rabbinate.
The conference’s 36 sessions reflected Tzohar’s strategic priorities, particularly:
- Cultivating Jewish unity by lowering social tensions and fostering mutual respect among different sectors of Israeli society.
- Strengthening Jewish identity by ensuring that future generations of secular Israelis maintain a positive connection to their heritage.
The conference’s core framework combined Beit Midrash Torah study with discussions of contemporary moral, ethical and societal challenges facing Israel.
The program also featured emotional “circles of testimony,” offering personal encounters and opportunities for shared reflection on current national events.
A central theme this year was the spiritual search taking place within secular Israeli society in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas massacre, the hostage crisis and the ongoing war.
Rabbi David Stav, chairman of Tzohar, spoke on one of six English-language panels devoted to this phenomenon. He noted that surveys show growing numbers of Israelis identifying as “traditional,” with increases seen among both Ashkenazi and Mizrahi Jews.
Dr. Michal Tikochinsky delivered a thought-provoking lecture on the place of aggadah—the narrative, parable and ethical tradition—in contemporary Torah study.
Rabbi Tamir Granot, head of Yeshivat Orot Shaul in Tel Aviv, whose son Amitai was killed fighting in Lebanon in October 2023, discussed his new book and the distinction between contract and covenant.
He argued that Israeli society has moved beyond crisis. It cannot return to what it was before, yet no one knows what lies ahead. Israelis, he said, are a “start-up nation” that must forge a shared identity and common purpose while respecting individual differences and accepting collective responsibility. The challenges, he said, remain immense.
A lively discussion between journalist Asaf Liberman and educator and writer Rabbi Chaim Navon explored the question of how Israeli priorities and values are shaped today—more by culture than by Halacha, even when rooted in Jewish law. The conversation even touched on the untrimmed beards both men wore during the Three Weeks, raising the question of whether the practice reflected Jewish mourning customs or simply contemporary fashion. More broadly, they asked whether children’s values are shaped primarily by family, society or the education system.
Politics entered the discussion during a standing-room-only session with journalist and political analyst Amit Segal, who focused on divisions within the national religious camp ahead of this fall’s elections. Illustrating his point, more than half the audience said they still did not know which party they would support, compared with about 12% of Israelis overall.
Segal argued that while security and borders have become even more prominent issues since Oct. 7, the balance between Judaism and democracy remains central to Israeli political life. Drawing a comparison to the U.S. Civil War, he said questions of identity, together with security, are now among Israelis’ greatest concerns.
Many participants, including those active in Tzohar, stressed the importance of repairing the internal divisions that preceded the war, arguing that Israel’s enemies exploited those rifts and warning against allowing such polarization to recur.
Tzohar’s ongoing initiatives themselves were not a major focus of the conference, perhaps because participants broadly supported them. Those initiatives include marriage services for secular couples led by empathetic, nonjudgmental rabbis; prenuptial agreements designed to prevent the abuse of divorce proceedings; an alternative kosher certification system emphasizing transparency, fairness and strict standards; community holiday programming; and other efforts aimed at modernizing the application of Jewish law without compromising Orthodox standards.
The one-day conference provided an important forum for discussing issues of particular concern to the national religious community, while also addressing questions that resonate across Israeli society.
For a constituency that often views itself as the bridge between Israel’s religious and secular communities, the conference could reasonably be considered a success.
