“Why a handshake became a national anxiety”

YNET, the website of Israeli daily newspaper Yediot Ahronot, published the article, “Why a handshake became a national anxiety” by Rabbi Dr. Sharon Zeude Shalom, founder and director of the International Center for the Study of Ethiopian Jewry at Ono Academic College.

In this piece, Rabbi Shalom uses a personal moment from reserve duty—an emotional reunion with male and female comrades—to open a wider public question: what do we do, as a society, with a simple gesture like a handshake? When asked if he is *shomer negiah*—the practice of refraining from physical contact with the opposite sex outside close family—he answers with a deliberate alternative: he is not “touch-avoiding,” but “boundary-observing.” For him, that distinction is not clever phrasing; it marks two different moral worldviews: one that imposes a blanket ban, and one that insists on context, responsibility, and trust.

Rabbi Shalom then connects this to the recent Shin Bet handshake controversy surrounding David Zini, where a directive reportedly asked female staff not to offer a handshake at a formal event. The backlash, he argues, is not only about modesty rules. It is about fear that such “private” religious practices—once normalized in state ceremonies—may reshape the public sphere and weaken democratic habits of equality and civic respect. At the same time, he points out a paradox: the very “liberal” public culture that objects to religious limits on touch can also normalize forms of sexualized objectification of women in advertising and consumer life. So the question becomes sharper: what is the moral difference between a faith-based request that claims not to harm anyone and a broader cultural norm that presents itself as neutral while carrying its own ethical costs?

To challenge the idea that all cross-gender touch is inherently immodest, he turns to Scripture and communal memory. The Torah describes Jacob kissing Rachel—a detail that made many commentators uneasy, prompting reinterpretations about what kind of kiss it was and where it landed. Rabbi Shalom contrasts that discomfort with Ethiopian Jewish practice, quoting conversations with leading Ethiopian spiritual authorities who treat greeting-touch—handshakes and even cheek-kisses—as normal expressions of affection, longing, and human dignity rather than sexual desire. In that tradition, he argues, such gestures are not seen as spiritual compromise but as *davar Hashem*—a dignified practice compatible with religious life.

He then makes a core historical claim: the main change over recent decades is not halakhah itself, but cultural outlook and power dynamics. Halakhically, he frames the strongest bases for restriction as the laws of *niddah* and broader sexual prohibitions (*arayot*), but he challenges the move from specific prohibitions to an all-encompassing ban. Ethiopian Jewry, he explains, preserved strict *niddah* practice in a socially clear way, which kept the Torah category concrete and situational rather than abstract and universal. From there he asks a pointed question: does every polite touch necessarily carry sexual meaning? If not—since touch among relatives is permitted—then the assumption that all other touch is inherently sexual reflects something else: a deficit of trust in human judgment and self-control.

From this he proposes the framework that anchors the essay: rejecting a sweeping “prohibition culture” while affirming real boundaries. In ordinary life—work, service, courtesy, honoring another person—he argues there is room for humane flexibility grounded in *derekh eretz* and human dignity. In intimate contexts, and certainly around *niddah*, restraint remains binding and serious. He warns that obsessive fixation on “touch/no-touch” can backfire—fueling anxiety and even preoccupation—whereas Ethiopian tradition frames restraint not as panic about desire but as disciplined moral responsibility formed through encounter with another person.

The essay’s emotional engine is his claim that the real subject is fear. He invokes Jorge Luis Borges (as filtered through Shalom Rosenberg) to argue that fear defeats love—and that this dynamic explains how a handshake can be treated as if it were in the category of the gravest prohibitions. He maps fear on two levels: personally, as a lack of trust in oneself and others to hold boundaries; and politically, as an escalating cycle where permissiveness and tightening conservatism feed each other. That cycle, he argues, turns social life into “us vs. them,” deepening mistrust between groups.

Finally, he reads the Shin Bet dispute as a mirror of Israel’s broader argument about the state’s identity: religious-sectarian norms versus shared civic-democratic norms. He brings in Danny Limor to sharpen the line between private religious life and the obligations of a public officeholder representing the state. He also cites criticism from within the religious camp that a kind of “sexual panic” has taken hold—and that public modesty extremism does not necessarily prevent real harm. The closing note is deliberately aspirational: Israeli society must choose whether fear will keep organizing public life, or whether trust, love, and mutual respect will. He ends with optimism rooted in the solidarity he believes emerged after October 7, arguing that a people capable of love in crisis can also learn to reduce fear in daily life.

The full article, in English, can be read at: https://www.ynetnews.com/jewish-world/article/ryogybx0011e