His father was a Holocaust survivor from Łańcut, Galicia (Central-Eastern Europe), his mother an Israeli who had come to Uruguay to teach Hebrew.

He wrote his doctoral dissertation on the topic '"Values as interpretative criteria in Jewish law" under the supervision of Menachem Elon and Avishai Margalit.

[5] Halbertal believes that the Israeli government ought to finance and subsidize religious education, synagogues, and mikvahs, but not impose doctrinal tests on these institutions.

In his view, individuals should have an equal opportunity to form Orthodox, Reform, or other kinds of congregations with the same access to state funding.

It's a tribute to Israel that it has managed to maintain democracy under such conditions of diversity and high political stakes.