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<\/a>\n\t\tIsrael\u2019s newly appointed Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Labor party leader (center) with Rabbi Michael Melchior, chairman of religious party Meimad (right) in Jerusalem, on 18 June 2007. (Olivier Fitoussi \/Flash90)<\/p>\n
The Times of Israel recently spoke with Melchior on the phone twice and then joined him in his apartment in Jerusalem. The rabbi is still optimistic about the trajectory of Israel and the Middle East, stating that despite two and a half years of wars triggered by the October 7, 2023, Hamas atrocities, peace is possibly closer than ever.<\/p>\n
Today, Melchior rejects the \u201cleft-wing\u201d label. He is, however, still working to promote a different way of bringing religious values into public service and discourse, at a time when the Religious Zionist community is increasingly associated with the hard right.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday, we work pursuing peace based on a religious perspective, rather than a left-wing one,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
What are religious values?<\/p>\n
According to Melchior, a sore lack of understanding of religious identity and values across both the Israeli and the Palestinian populations was one of the most significant factors behind the failure of the peace process, as well as the public\u2019s alienation from it.<\/p>\n
\u2018People might have been willing to give up land, but not who they were\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cPart of the failure of Oslo was that it included the [largely nonreligious] peace camp, but did not attempt to include the more traditional and religious community,\u201d Melchior posited, referring to the US-brokered agreements signed in the 1990s between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) that created the Palestinian Authority.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe tent of Oslo became too narrow, and therefore could not succeed on the Israeli side or the Palestinian side,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you use peace in order to go against the DNA of a society, as part of [an attempt to promote] secularization, then you\u2019re not going to achieve either peace or secularization. People might have been willing to give up land, but not who they were.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t According to Melchior, the Camp David process led by Prime Minister Ehud Barak a few years later was even worse.<\/p>\n \u201cI knew very well [prime minister and Oslo architect] Yitzhak Rabin, may his memory be a blessing, and I could talk to him about these issues,\u201d he recalled. \u201cI sat in the cabinet of Ehud Barak, and he took all the most sensitive religious issues and messed them up.\u201d<\/p>\n To promote a different approach in 1999, Melchior established Mosaica, working with the late Sheik Abdullah Nimer Darwish, founder of the Islamic Movement in Israel. The Islamic Movement\u2019s political wing later became the Ra\u2019am party, which in 2021 was the first Arab-majority party in decades to join a governing coalition in Israel.<\/p>\n According to the rabbi, today Mosaica gathers hundreds of religious leaders, both Jewish and Muslim, in Israel, the West Bank and beyond.<\/p>\n \u201cWe work behind the scenes and do not advertise our successes,\u201d Melchior said. \u201cI can say thousands of lives have been saved through our work.\u201d<\/p>\n \t He recalled how, on October 7, 2023, his phone would not stop ringing with calls and messages from imams from both Israel and the West Bank, saying they were going to speak at mosques and communities not only to dissuade people from joining the attacks, but also calling them a desecration of Islam.<\/p>\n \u2018I can say thousands of lives have been saved through our work\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cThis is exactly what happened,\u201d Melchior said. \u201cIt was a proof to me, and it\u2019s still the case, that our coalition stands on very solid ground. Around the world, most Jewish-Muslim dialogue initiatives evaporated on that day.\u201d<\/p>\n A different path for Religious Zionism<\/p>\n Melchior admitted that most people who identify as Religious Zionists in Israel today support ideas that are very far from his Torah of tolerance.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople in the religious camp have somewhat gotten very obsessed about the issue of land,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cI myself moved to Israel because I feel that our connection to the land is both historic and religious, that us coming back to the land is the fulfillment of a God-given promise,\u201d he added. \u201cAt the same time, there is another people living in the land, and I believe that this is also something which God wished to be so \u2014 otherwise it wouldn\u2019t be so.\u201d<\/p>\n \t According to Melchior, \u201cGod\u2019s wish is ultimately for us to make peace; there is no Jewish prayer which doesn\u2019t end in making peace.\u201d<\/p>\n The rabbi pointed out that his view is backed by many biblical and Jewish sources.<\/p>\n \u201cAbraham, Isaac and King Solomon gave up land in order to make peace,\u201d he said. \u201cThe Talmud also explains that people did not need to [reside] in Samaria [the ancient kingdom of Israel] if socioeconomic [conditions would not allow it].\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been in different debates with rabbis who oppose this [view], and I\u2019ve never heard a substantial answer to those arguments,\u201d he added. \u201cIt\u2019s more a question of feelings, and with feelings, I think we can deal with.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018God\u2019s wish is ultimately for us to make peace; there is no Jewish prayer which doesn\u2019t end in making peace\u2019<\/p>\n According to Melchior, even hardline rabbis are ready to be more flexible when they hear a sincere desire for peace among Muslim leaders.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Jewish dream is that one day [the land] should all be ours,\u201d he said. \u201cHowever, when [these rabbis] see Muslim leaders who also have that dream saying that we have to put it aside, because peace and hope for future generations are bigger dreams, and are writing authoritative fatwas [rulings on Islamic law] about this, they understand there is something which we can maybe work together.\u201d<\/p>\n \t Melchior also said that many of those hardline rabbis consider the dramatic increase in extremist settlers\u2019 violence against Palestinians completely unacceptable.<\/p>\n \u201cThey do not always know what to do with it, but they understand this,\u201d he maintained.<\/p>\n Data released earlier this year from the Israel Defense Forces and Shin Bet shows that settler attacks rose by 27% in 2025 compared to the previous year. The left-leaning Yesh Din registered 378 incidents during the recent 40 days of hostilities with Iran alone, with eight Palestinians killed and 200 injured.<\/p>\n \u201cSettler violence can only grow when there is legitimization for it in the general settler community and in the government circles,\u201d Melchior said. \u201cEven those who condemn it do not take efficient means to stop this disgrace.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe are all responsible as a society,\u201d he added. \u201cThe question is what we do with it. Again, in my mind, the best solution is to make peace and include the Religious Zionist camp.\u201d<\/p>\n Rising antisemitism felt in the Diaspora<\/p>\n Melchior still heads the rabbinical court of Scandinavia, and, until recently, he served as the chief rabbi of Norway. Now his son Joav has taken over the position; another son, Jair, is the chief rabbi of Denmark.<\/p>\n \t Asked about how the Jews in Scandinavia have been faring amid the increase in antisemitism registered by many communities in the world, the rabbi said that it depends on whether one looks at the glass as half-full or half-empty.<\/p>\n \u201cFirst of all, it disturbs me that when people ask about the Jewish community, it is always about antisemitism,\u201d he said. \u201cJewish life is flourishing.\u00a0 After October 7, even more people want to connect with each other and strengthen Jewish life.\u201d<\/p>\n At the same time, the rabbi acknowledged that antisemitism is a problem in Scandinavia.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is antisemitism, especially in Norway, verbal antisemitism, more than physical antisemitism,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \t \u201cMostly, it is antisemitism in the form of very vicious attacks against Zionism,\u201d he explained. \u201cI am not of those who say that people who disagree with Israel are antisemites, but demonization of Israel is a red line. People in the Jewish community have found themselves feeling isolated because they\u2019re Jewish, and that is intolerable, not only for the sake of the Jews, but for the sake of any healthy society.\u201d<\/p>\n A religious minority<\/p>\n Melchior noted that support for the ideas he promotes has never been especially popular among the religious community in Israel.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were always a small party; I was mostly the only member [in the Knesset],\u201d he noted. \u201cHowever, today, several leading people in our party sit in the Knesset in different parties. We haven\u2019t diminished; quite the opposite.\u201d<\/p>\n Asked if he is bothered by the fact that a party that embodies a very different approach to religious values calls itself Religious Zionism, he said that everyone is entitled to their opinion.<\/p>\n \u2018Today, several leading people in our party sit in the Knesset in different parties\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe it bothers me that by calling themselves Religious Zionism, they want to take a monopoly on Religious Zionism,\u201d he said. \u201cFor sure, they do not have it, since according to the polls, they might not even pass the threshold.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOf course, they sit in the government and have a lot of influence,\u201d he added. \u201cBut there are a lot of rabbis who support them with whom it is possible to have a serious dialogue around these issues.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a>
\n\t\t(L-R) Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, US President Bill Clinton, and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, at the Oslo Accords signing ceremony on September 13, 1993. (Wikipedia)<\/p>\n<\/a>
\n\t\tIsraeli soldiers look around the destruction caused by Hamas terrorists in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, near the Israeli-Gaza border, in southern Israel, October 15, 2023. (Oren Ben Hakoon\/Flash90)<\/p>\n<\/a>
\n\t\tIllustrative: Israeli security forces clash with Hilltop Youth as they evacuate and demolish an illegal outpost built near the Jewish settlement of Metzad, east of the Palestinian city of Sa\u2019ir in the southern West Bank on November 17, 2025. (Menahem Kahana\/AFP)<\/p>\n<\/a>
\n\t\tRabbi Michael Melchior in his apartment in Jerusalem on May 14, 2026. (Rossella Tercatin\/Times of Israel)<\/p>\n<\/a>
\n\t\tRabbi Joav Melchior (courtesy)<\/p>\n<\/a>
\n\t\tRabbi Jair Melchior talks to a Danish soldier guarding the Jewish Synagogue in Copenhagen, Denmark, on Friday, September 29, 2017 (Nikolai Linares\/Scanpix Denmark via REUTERS)<\/p>\n