JERUSALEM — On the eve of Israel's 60th anniversary, its two chief rabbis issued an audacious demand: Cancel the International Bible Quiz for Jewish teenagers, a popular highlight of the annual Independence Day celebration.
The reason? An Israeli finalist, 17-year-old Bat-El Levi, had been revealed as a Messianic, one who believes in Jesus as the messiah. Most Jews consider Messianics to be Christians.
"It is unacceptable," the rabbis wrote, "that a member of a cult that has removed itself from the Jewish faith will take part."
But the nationally televised contest went ahead Thursday with all 16 finalists. Bible Quiz attorneys ruled that the girl, whose mother is Jewish and whose identity papers say she is too, met the strict definition of who is a Jew.
The dispute was about Israel's identity as well.
As they began celebrating six decades of Jewish national rebirth, Israelis were engaged as intensely as ever in religious, ethnic and political tugs of war and fretting over the future of their state.
Some of the quarreling struck at the heart of the anniversary celebration itself. Nearly 100,000 Israelis signed a petition calling the $28-million price tag a scandalous waste in a country where every third child is poor.
Thousands of Israeli Arabs marched in a solemn countercelebration, depicting Israel's embattled creation as their nakba, the displacement of Arab families from their homes in 1948. Eleven people were injured in a clash between protesters and police.
Hanging over the holiday was a new corruption inquiry that could unseat Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, whose fitness to rule has been under assault from rivals for most of his two years in office.
The discord reflects the country's introspective mood. War, or the threat of war, has clouded every day for Israelis since David Ben-Gurion proclaimed the state as a haven for Jews in the wake of the Holocaust.
Peace with the Palestinians and some of its Arab neighbors remains elusive. Israelis feel threatened by Iran's nuclear ambitions.
Yet in recent polls Israelis say they feel as much or more angst over internal troubles: income inequality, inept and corrupt leadership, inter-communal strife and intolerance between secular and religious Jews.
Kicking off the festivities at sundown Wednesday, parliament speaker Dalia Itzik asked whether Israel, despite its achievements, was becoming a society of "each man against his brother . . . . a callous, suffering and insufferable nation."
