Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-25wd4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T20:50:26.365Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

THE FUNDAMENTALIST DILEMMA: LESSONS FROM THE ISRAELI HAREDI CASE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 July 2016

Netanel Fisher
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article explores the “fundamentalist dilemma,” or how fundamentalist movements participate in secular political systems, especially when they gain prominent political positions that allow them to impose their extreme ideology on the entire society. After analyzing prevailing responses to this dilemma, ranging from political integration to aggressive takeover, the article turns to the case of Israeli Haredim. It explores three models of political integration through which Haredim have applied religious practices in the public sphere: protest, consolidation, and takeover. The study's main finding is that, opposite to a commonly accepted assumption that fundamentalists’ integration into secular politics causes them to moderate, the more political power that fundamentalists accrue the stronger is their tendency to promote their religious agenda. Yet the Israeli Haredi case also reveals the limitations of this tendency: fundamentalists often restrain their expansionist instinct when having to take nonfundamentalist reactions into consideration.

Keywords

Arab SpringfundamentalismHaredimIsraelreligion and politics
Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 48 , Issue 3 , August 2016 , pp. 531 - 549
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

NOTES

Author's note: Research for this article was supported by The Open University of Israel's Research Fund (grant no. 102120). I thank Menachem Friedman and Benyamin Neuberger for their valuable insights. I am also grateful to the anonymous referees for their useful comments, which helped me to improve my analysis.

1 Gellner, Ernest, Nations and Nationalism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990), 75–79Google Scholar. See also Smith, Anthony D., “The Sacred Dimension of Nationalism,” Millennium-Journal of International Studies 29 (2000): 791–814Google Scholar.

2 Eisenstadt, Shmuel N., Fundamentalism, Sectarianism, and Revolution: The Jacobin Dimension of Modernity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 1–3Google Scholar.

3 Emerson, Michael O. and Hartman, David, “The Rise of Religious Fundamentalism,” Annual Review of Sociology 32 (2006): 130–31Google Scholar.

4 Almond, Gabriel A., Appleby, Scott, and Sivan, Emmanuel, Strong Religion: The Rise of Fundamentalisms around the World (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 93–94Google Scholar; Bruce, Steve, Fundamentalism, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2008), 117Google Scholar; Emerson and Hartman, “The Rise of Religious,” 130–35.

5 Bruce, Fundamentalism, 13.

6 Almond, Appleby, and Sivan, Strong Religion, 92–93; Heilman, Samuel C. and Friedman, Menachem, “Religious Fundamentalism and Religious Jews: The Case of the Haredim,” Fundamentalisms Observed 1 (1991): 257Google Scholar.

7 Almond, Appleby, and Sivan, Strong Religion, 23–89; Eisenstadt, Shmuel N.. “The Construction of Collective Identities: Some Analytical and Comparative Indications,” European Journal of Social Theory 1 (1998): 229–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Emerson and Hartman, “The Rise of Religious,” 127.

9 Juergensmeyer, Mark, Global Rebellion: Religious Challenges to the Secular State, from Christian Militias to Al Qaeda (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 2008Google Scholar).

10 Sadowski, Yahya, “Political Islam: Asking the Wrong Questions?,” Annual Review of Political Science 9 (2006): 215–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 Almond, Appleby, and Sivan, Strong Religion, 145–89.

12 Eisenstadt, Fundamentalism, 173; Emerson and Hartman, “The Rise of Religious,” 138; Kaplan, Lawrence, Fundamentalism in Comparative Perspective (Amherst, Mass.: University of Massachusetts Press, 1992), 7Google Scholar.

13 Biswas, Shampa, “To Be Modern but in the ‘Indian’ Way: Hindu Nationalism,” in Gods, Guns, and Globalization: Religious Radicalism and International Political Economy, ed. Ann Tétreault, Mary and Denemark, Robert A. (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Reiner, 2004), 107–34Google Scholar.

14 Masoud, Tarek E., Counting Islam: Religion, Class, and Elections in Egypt (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

15 Almond, Appleby, and Sivan, Strong Religion, 185–87.

16 Ibid., 185.

17 Heilman and Friedman, “Religious Fundamentalism,” 197–219; Katz, Jacob, “Orthodoxy in Historical Perspective,” Studies in Contemporary Jewry 2 (1986): 3–17Google Scholar; Katz, , “Traditional Society and Modern Society,” in Jewish Societies in the Middle East, ed. Deshen, Shlomoh and Zenner, W. P. (Washington D.C.: University Press of America, 1982), 33–47Google Scholar; Samet, Moshe, “The Beginnings of Orthodoxy,” Modern Judaism 8 (1988): 249–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 Soloveitehik, Hayim, “Rupture and Reconstruction: The Transformation of Contemporary Orthodoxy,” Tradition 28 (1994): 64–130Google Scholar; Friedman, Menachem, “Life Tradition and Book Tradition in the Development of Ultraorthodox Judaism,” in Judaism Viewed from within and from without, ed. Goldberg, Harvey E. (Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1987), 235–55Google Scholar.

19 Soloveitehik, “Rupture and Reconstruction,” 339, 346.

20 Ferziger, Adam S., Exclusion and Hierarchy: Orthodoxy, Nonobservance, and the Emergence of Modern Jewish Identity (Philadelphia, Pa.: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005Google Scholar).

21 Lustick, Ian, For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1988Google Scholar).

22 Cohen, Asher and Liebman, Charles S., “The Struggle among Religious Zionists over the Issue of a Religious State,” in Religion, Democracy and Israeli Society, ed. Liebman, Charles S. (London: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1997), 37–55Google Scholar.

23 Aran, Gideon, “Jewish Zionist Fundamentalism: The Bloc of the Faithful in Israel (Gush Emunim),” Fundamentalisms Observed 1 (1991): 469–77Google Scholar; Lustick, For the Land, 4–8.

24 Almond, Appleby, and Sivan have rightly noted that the Lubavitchers are an exceptional group in the Haredi community due to their active messianism. Almond, Appleby, and Sivan, Strong Religion, 63–64. See also Brown, Benjamin, “ha-Yahadut ha-Haredit ve-ha-Medina,” in Keshe-Yahadut Pogeshet Medina, ed. Stern, Yedidya Z.et al. (Tel Aviv: Miskal, 2015), 114–24Google Scholar; Armstrong, Karen, The Battle for God: Fundamentalism in Judaism, Christianity and Islam (London: Harper Collins, 2000), 258Google Scholar–66, 340–44.

25 Heilman and Friedman, “Religious Fundamentalism,” 238–39.

26 Ibid., 213–27.

27 Kaplan, Kimi and Stadler, Nurit, eds., Me-Hisradut le-Hitbasesut: Temurot ba-Hevrah ha-Haredit be-Yisraʾel u-Vehikrah (Tel Aviv: ha-Kibbutz ha-Meyuhad and Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, 2012Google Scholar); Kaplan, Kimi and Sivan, Emmanuel, eds., Haredim Yisraʾelim: Hishtalvut be-Lo Temiʿah? (Tel Aviv: ha-Kibbutz ha-Meyuhad and Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, 2003Google Scholar).

28 Zicherman, Haim and Cahaner, Lee, Harediyut Modernit: Maʿamad Beinayim Haredi be-Yisraʾel (Jerusalem: Israel Democracy Institute, 2012Google Scholar); Stadler, Nurit, A Well-Worn Tallis for a New Ceremony: Trends in Israeli Haredi Culture (Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2009Google Scholar).

29 Heilman and Friedman, “Religious Fundamentalism,” 254–58; Yoram Peri et al., “The ‘Religionization’ of Israeli Society,” Israel Studies Review 27 (2012): 1–30; Dan, Joseph, “ha-Harediyut ha-Mistareret: Tozar shel Yisraʾel ha-Hilonit,” Alpayim 15 (1998): 234–53Google Scholar.

30 Brown, “ha-Yahadut ha-Haredit,” 263.

31 Ibid., 157–62.

32 Heilman and Friedman, “Religious Fundamentalism,” 240–41; Friedman, Menachem, “‘Neturei Karta’ ve-Hafganot ha-Shabat be-Yerushalayim be-1948–1950—Reka ve-Tahalikhim,” in Yerushalayim ha-Hatzuyah 1949–1967, ed. Bareli, Avi (Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi, 1994), 224–40Google Scholar.

33 Guzmen Carmeli, Shlomo, “She-Tizdʿazeʿa Erets ha-Kodesh, be-Ezrat ha-Shem: Hafganot ba-Rehov ha-Haredi ke-Vitsuʿa Tarbuti,” Tarbut Democratit 15 (2013): 31–59Google Scholar.

34 Ravitzky, Aviezer, ha-Kets ha-Meguleh u-Medinat ha-Yehudim: Meshihiyut, Tsiyonut, ve-Radikalizim Dati be-Yisraʾel (Tel-Aviv: Am Oved, 1993), 214Google Scholar.

35 Sprinzak, Ehud, Brother against Brother: Violence and Extremism in Israeli Politics from Altalena to the Rabin Assassination (New York: Free Press, 1999), 110Google Scholar.

36 Heilman and Friedman, “Religious Fundamentalism,” 241.

37 Weingrod, Alex, “Etzem ha-Inyan: Al Archeiʾologiyah ve-Antropologiyah ba-Idan ha-Postmoderni,” in Kardom Lahpor Bo: Archeiʾologiyah ve-Leʾumiyut be-Erets Yisraʾel, ed. Shiloni, Z. and Feige, M. (Beer Sheva: Ben-Gurion Research Institute, 2008), 207–20Google Scholar; Hallote, Rachel S. and Joffe, Alexander H., “The Politics of Israeli Archaeology: Between ‘Nationalism’ and ‘Science’ in the Age of the Second Republic,” Israel Studies 7 (2002): 84–116CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Michael Feige, “Hazon ha-ʿAtzamot ha-Yeveshot,” in Haredim Yisraʾelim, 56–81.

38 Gabriel Barkay, “Battle over Bones: Politics—Not Religious Law—Rules Ultra-Orthodox Demonstrators,” Biblical Archaeology Review (1997): n.p.

39 Feige, “The Vision,” 64.

40 Sharon Kedmi, “Keshe-Nagiʿa la-Kever Naʿakof Oto,” Haaretz, 12 July 2005.

41 Feige, “Hazon ha-ʿAtzamot,” 63, 73.

42 Friedman, “Neturei Karta,” 224–40.

43 Gutkind-Golan, Naomi, “Parashat Kolnoʿa Heikhal,” in le-Khiyot be-yakhad: Yahasei Datiyim-Hilonim ba-Hevrah ha-Yisraʾelit, ed. Liebman, Charles S. (Jerusalem: Keter, 1990), 70–87Google Scholar.

44 Horowitz, Neri, “ha-Haredim u-veit ha-Mishpat ha-ʿElyon: Shvirat Keilim be-Perspectiva Historit,” Kivunim Hadashim 5 (2001): 22–78Google Scholar, 62–67; Brown, “ha-Yahadut ha-Haredit,” 187–88; Haim Zicherman, Shahor Kahol Lavan (Tel Aviv: Miskal, 2014), 324–29.

45 Shilhav, Joseph and Friedman, Menachem, Hitpashtut Toch Histagrut (Jerusalem: Jerusalem institute for Israel Studies, 1989Google Scholar).

46 Ben-Porat, Guy, Between State and Synagogue: The Secularization of Contemporary Israel (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013Google Scholar).

47 Brown, “Ha-Yahadut ha-Haredit,” 184–96. Some Haredi groups did identify with the state to a certain extent, but their political power was and remains small, and they do not question the ideological rejection of the secular state. See ibid., 95–143; and Heilman and Friedman, “Religious Fundamentalism,” 227–34.

48 Brown, “ha-Yahadut ha-Haredit,” 187–88; Heilman and Friedman, “Religious Fundamentalism,” 227; Horowitz, “ha-Haredim u-Vait ha-Mishpat,” 47–48, 54–55.

49 Ravitzky, Messianism, 368–87; Horowitz. “ha-Haredim u-Veit ha-Mishpat,” 52–53.

50 Heilman and Friedman, “Religious Fundamentalism,” 234–41.

51 Horowitz, “ha-Haredim u-Veit ha-Mishpat,” 57–60; Brown, “ha-Yahadut ha-Haredit,” 136–39.

52 Stadler, Nurit, Ben-Ari, Eyal, and Mesterman, Einat, “Terror, Aid and Organization: The Haredi Disaster Victim Identification Teams (‘ZAKA’) in Israel,” Anthropological Quarterly 78 (2005): 619–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

53 Zicherman, Shakhor Kakhol Lavan, 99–114, 192–97, 328–39.

54 Ibid., 341–43. In this context, it is important to distinguish between Ashkenazi-Haredi parties, which maintain the separatist ideal by making due with deputy minister positions, and the Sephardic-religious party Shas, which has never shied away from fully embracing political positions. Nonetheless, similar to other scholars such as Cohen, Asher and Susser, Bernard (Israel and the Politics of Jewish Identity: The Secular–Religious Impasse [Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000], 69–70Google Scholar), I do not detect significant differences between Ashkenazi and Sephardi Orthodoxy with regard to their separatist common agenda. See Leon, Nissim, ha-Rediyut Raba (Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi, 2010)Google Scholar.

55 Rimlat, Noya, “ha-Mishpat ke-Sohen shel Rav Tarbutiyut,” Mishpatim 42 (2013): 773–834Google Scholar; Fischer, Shlomo, “Yes, Israel Is Becoming More Religious,” Israel Studies Review 27 (2012): 10–15Google Scholar; Shapira-Rosenberg, Ricky and Carmi, Ruth, Excluded, For God's Sake: Gender Segregation in the Public Space in Israel (Jerusalem: Israel Religious Action Center, 2012Google Scholar).

56 Cohen and Susser, Israel and the Politics, 68–69.

57 Rubinstein, Amnon and Medina, Barak, ha-Mishpat ha-Hukati shel Medinat Yisraʾel (Jerusalem: Shoken, 2005), 339–53Google Scholar.

58 Cohen and Susser, Israel and the Politics, 69–72.

59 Ibid., 121–26.

60 Horowitz, “ha-Haredim u-Veit ha-Mishpat,” 51; Brown, “ha-Yahadut ha-Haredit,” 198–99, 248.

61 Halperin-Kaddari, Ruth, Women in Israel: A State of Their Own (Philadelphia, Pa.: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), 233–40Google Scholar; Radzyner, Amihai, “Annulment of Divorce in Israeli Rabbinical Courts,” Jewish Law Association Studies 23 (2013): 193–217Google Scholar.

62 Netanel Fisher, “‘We Are Not True Heretics’—Non-Jewish Volunteers in the Kibbutz Movement and the Establishment of State Conversion in Israel in the 1970s,” Israel Affairs, forthcoming.

63 State of Israel, Supreme Rabbinic Court, docket no. 5489-64-1, 10 February 2008.

64 Fisher, Netanel, Etgar ha-Giyur be-Yisraʾel (Jerusalem: Israel Democracy Institute, 2015), 79–85Google Scholar; Waxman, Chaim I., “Multiculturalism, Conversion, and the Future of Israel as a Modern state,” Israel Studies Review 28 (2013): 44–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

65 Brown, “ha-Yahadut ha-Haredit,” 254.

66 Fisher, The Challenge, 81–85. This example allegedly illustrates the claim that Sephardic rabbis are more moderate than their Ashkenazi colleagues. However, over the past two years Rabbi Amar's successor, Yitzhak Yosef, has enacted a strict conversion policy and has expressed himself strongly on the subject.

67 Hermann, Tamar, The Israeli Democracy Index (Jerusalem: Israel Democracy Institute, 2013), 61–75Google Scholar; Brown, Benjamin, Haredim Mishilton ha-Am (Jerusalem: Israel Democracy Institute, 2012Google Scholar).

68 Klemp, Nathaniel J., “The Christian Right: Engaged Citizens or Theocratic Crusaders?,” Politics and Religion 3 (2010): 1–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sadowski, Political Islam; Riesebrodt, Martin, “Fundamentalism and the Resurgence of Religion,” Numen 47 (2000): 266–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

69 Brown, “ha-Yahadut ha-Haredit,” 263–68; Zicherman, Shahor Kahol Lavan, 344–50.

70 Liebman, Charles S., “Extremism as a Religious Norm,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 22 (1983): 75–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

71 Ben-Porat, Between State and Synagogue.

72 Rimlat, “ha-Mishpat ke-Sohen,” 818–34.

73 Rubin, Aviad, “The Status of Religion in Emergent Political Regimes: Lessons from Turkey and Israel,” Nations and Nationalism 19 (2013): 493–512CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

74 Baumgarten, Albert, “Leʾifyun ka-Kanaʾut ha-Datit?,” in Kanaʾut Datit, ed. Litvak, Meir and Limor, Ora (Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center for Jewish History, 2008), 43–56Google Scholar.

75 Philpott, Daniel, “Explaining the Political Ambivalence of Religion,” American Political Science Review 101 (2007): 505–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar.