Omri boehm biography

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Reading and conversation with Omri Boehm (New York/Berlin)

Photo: Neda Navaee

There is a blatant contradiction between a Jewish state and a liberal democracy, says the Israeli philosopher Omri Boehm. For a Jew is whoever is “of Jewish descent” – or religiously converted.
In a major essay, he sketches the vision of an ethnically neutral state that overcomes its nationalist founding myth and thus finally has a future.

Israel has changed dramatically in the last two decades: While religious Zionism is becoming increasingly popular, the left is lacking convincing ideas and concepts. The two-state solution is widely considered to have failed. In view of this disaster, Omri Boehm argues for a rethink of Israel’s statehood: Only the equal rights of all citizens can end the conflict between Jews and Arabs. The Jewish state and its occupied territories must become a federal, binational republic. Such a policy is not anti-Zionist; on the contrary, it lays the foundation for a modern and liberal Zionism.

Omri Boehm, born in 1979 in Haifa, studied in Tel Aviv and served in the Israeli secret service Shin Bet. He received his doctorate at Yale with a dissertation on “Kant’s Critique of Spinoza.” Today he teaches as

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A radical humanist: Israeli philosopher Omri Boehm

Omri Boehm is a former employee of Israel's Shin Bet secret service. He is also a staunch human rights defender who dreams of a state that upholds equal rights for both Jews and Arabs.

The philosopher's concept of "humanistic universalism," as articulated in his 2022 book, "Radical Universalism. Beyond Identity," has earned Boehm the Leipzig Book Prize for European Understanding.

Endowed with €20,000 ($21,785), the prize was awarded to the philosopher during the opening of the Leipzig Book Fair, on March 20, 2024.

The jury honored Boehm for his "obligation to recognize the equality of all human beings, against any relativization."

In "Radical Universalism. Beyond identity," the author "resolutely opposes the ideological hardening of the present," said the jury.

Against sacrificing 'difficult truths'

In his acceptance speech, Boehm referred to the devastating impact of the Israel-Hamas war on the Palestinians: "My Palestinian friends know that anyone who does what what my country is now doing in Gaza, and calls it self-defense, is bringing deep shame to my identity, the Jewish and Israeli one."

At the same time, he added, it would be "morally bankrupt" to describe the October

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Omri Boehm, Ph.D.

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A Critique confiscate Post-Metaphysical Thinking

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