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Comment by tda | Hacker News Reader

Isn't Israel a defacto theocracy too?

No, Israel is not using religious norms or holy scriptures as the law, and establishes no state religion. Iran's constitution directly says that the norms of the Sharia law are its foundation, and makes Shia Islam the state religion.

"Jewish State" literally means religious norms and holy scriptures are considered a law. Rabbinical courts are part of the Israeli legal system, which operates religious courts in parallel to the civil court system.

The rabbinical courts exist for sorting out religious issues, such as religious marriages and divorces of Jewish citizens. Judaism is not even special-cased: «Such courts exist for the recognized religious communities in Israel, including Muslim courts, Christian courts, and Jewish Rabbinical courts.» (Wikipedia).

The Basic Laws, which sort of comprise the makeshift constitution of Israel, don't seem to make any religious references, but rather refer to the founding UN principles like human rights.

My apartment rental agreement had a clause all "all disagreements are to be resolved in rabbinical court". Reach of the religious courts is unlimited.

Even civil courts are allowed to refer to holy texts if the law is not clear.

Wow, that's wild! :-/

i believe it's only in some specific cases when both parties agreed to defer to religious laws.

could you please show me any law in israel, that gives blanket approval to civil courts to refer to holy texts if the law is not clear ?

you know such a clause in a rental agreement would be legal in the US as well, right? Binding arbitration clauses are legal in rental agreements at least in many parts of the US and agreeing to a rabbinical court to be the arbitrator is legal as well.

I would say the US is too at this point, given continued references to god by its leaders. A country where a senator can say he supports a certain foreign policy because it's written in the Bible?

No, it's not.

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