Religion & politics in Israel:

...It was only later that religious Zionism developed, and while it gradually grew, it remained a minority both among Zionists, who remained predominantly socialist and non-religious, and among the religious Jews, most of whom remained opposed to the whole idea of Zionism until well into the twentieth century Most of the founders of Israel were profoundly non-religious (Ben Gurion even refused to be married by a rabbi...

...One should add that there was a great deal of Jewish support in the Western world for the movement toward secularization...

...both the Likud and the Sephardic population (who supply most of the Likud vote) are more inclined to respect and even identify with religious demands...

...As a result, the coalition agreement concluded after the election deals with religious issues - concessions to the religious parties - in over fifty of its eighty articles...

...It is not a mass movement in the real sense of the word...

...Such issues can be significant - the Rabin government fell over a Sabbath observance issue - but they were not directly linked to questions of the country's basic political direction...

...The labor movement, the Herut movement, and others incorporated schools, newspapers, medical funds, and many other aspects of life .The religious population, naturally, organized itself in the same way Religious parties, like other parties, existed before the state existed...

...Originally there was no word for "religion" in Hebrew...

...Recently, however, the National Religious Party, the Zionist religious party, has become essentially hawkish on territorial issues, in oppos-sition to its past "neutrality" on foreign policy questions The NRP has close ties with Gush Emunim, the group most active in establishing official and unofficial civilian settlements in the occupied territories...

...The bottom line is that, despite the entrenched position of the religious establishment in politics, there is little likelihood of a theocratic state...

...First of all, there is no direct influence between the two phenomena Religious fundamentalists tend to be each other's worst enemies...

...The biblical roots offer no conception of the separation of politics and religion...

...They also opposed goals such as the rebirth of Hebrew as a spoken language, preferring that it remain a liturgical language...

...roughly seventy percent of the children attend secular state schools, twenty-five percent attend state religious schools, and the other five percent - the ultrareligious who still remain somewhat opposed to Zionism and refuse to accept state schools - have their own independent school system ). The religious Zionists (the twenty-five percent whose children go to state religious schools) are represented in politics, to some extent, by the National Religious Party, which in the past usually received about ten percent of the vote but has recently dropped to about five percent...

...The Middle East might be described as the spiritual epicenter of mankind, an area in which religion has always been taken very seriously...

...Despite the sense of growing religious strength, there is no evidence for the numerical growth of religious adherents, measured at least in terms of the votes for religious parties...

...Islam is a code governing one's total existence and the arrangements of society as well...

...For example, when the law forbidding the sale of pork was passed, a non-kosher butcher shop operating in what was then the Knesset building continued to sell pork products openly Laws on Sabbath entertainment are widely ignored Religious leaders seem satisfied to have the laws on the books...

...But the word "rabbi" originally did not have a strictly religious connotation...

...This obviously expressed the Jewish interest as a minority, since any minority is opposed to using the majority religion as a basis for organizing and governing society Jews were at the forefront of the movement to remove religion from the politics of the Western world...

...NO THEOCRACY BUT GROWING RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE Religion & politics in Israel ALAN DOWTY IT IS HARD for us, in our Western secular tradition, to appreciate the profound difference of approach to religion and politics in an area of the world where the concept of secularization has never really penetrated...

...it could be translated as "master" or "teacher," and referred to someone who was learned and therefore was consulted in all matters of importance to the community...

...Consequently, the established religious leadership was in almost total opposition to Zionism...

...First of all, there is a strong ideological tradition in Jewish politics that reinforces party allegiance...

...A religious educational system exists alongside the secular system, and in a number of other aspects religious observance is carried out within the framework of the state...

...Secularization is a Western invention...

...Their political vehicle is the Agudat Yisrael Party and the Agudat Yisrael Workers' Party, which together capture about five percent of the vote (this being a very cohesive and disciplined voting bloc...

...The third element is Zionism...

...This may, in time, become a very serious issue...

...This put them, of course, in an excellent position to bargain for some of their own programs...

...The main problem that remains, insofar as religious interference in daily life is concerned, is with non-orthodox Judaism, since the system does not provide for variation within groups...

...As in Islam, the law encompassed everything which we would now consider political, as well as religious Consider the Ten Commandments, which in fact govern what would now be considered civil matters as well as ecclesiastical, or the often political role of the prophets in the Bible...

...It's easy again in the contemporary Western secular context to regard Jews as another religious denomination, equivalent to Methodist or Episcopal...

...Under this system, each religious community governed itself in certain respects: in matters of personal status such as marriage and divorce, and in a number of other important aspects...

...The Israeli Declaration of Independence grudgingly makes reference to the Almighty in the form of the reference to the "Rock of Israel," as ambiguous as such a reference could be...

...The Ottoman Empire as a whole was the millet of the Moslems within it, but within that framework there was considerable self-governance among the Christian and Jewish communities scattered throughout the Empire...

...Religion was central, of course, in cementing Jewish identity and maintaining it throughout the millennia, giving rabbis the central role in the community...

...But given the subsequent history of the twentieth century, assimilation was discredited (German Jews were among the most assimilated in the world), and Zionism has emerged as a predominant answer in the Jewish community...

...It should not be surprising that in all of the Middle East traditions the idea that politics should be governed by religion is considered perfectly legitimate, and even a prevailing norm...

...Their rabbis cannot perform marriages, divorces, or any other normal functions of a clergy...

...And the great leaders of Judaism throughout the millennia - from Rabbi Akiba to the Baal Shem Tov - were all rabbis There was no secular Jewish leadership tradition...

...It has borrowed some of the techniques of mass demonstrations, but essentially it is institutionalized and works within the system...

...the ultra-religious in Israel, and Islamic activists elsewhere, would both be very hostile to the idea that they had anything to learn from each other Nevertheless, certain similarities are obvious Above all, the belief that politics is a legitimate concern of religion, and that religious authority and law should in fact dominate the political system, is common to both...

...This has given a disproportionately small number of people a disproportionately large influence over the direction of government policy Incidentally, the Agudat Yisrael, the ultrareligious non-Zionist party, does not share this hawkishness since it is not moved by the issues of the historic homeland and other "Zionist" aims that motivate the NRP...

...In other words, before the British arrived in Palestine there was already in place a system of religious governance for the Jewish community in Palestine, as small as it might have been, with its own institutions and systems of courts...

...This is of course in stark opposition to what we like to think of as Western political traditions...

...Like other nationalist movements of that time, Zionism was secular and even anti-clerical...

...Finally, in both cases there is often a state of mind that is not hospitable to pluralism, but which believes that a single belief system should guide society Politics is seen as a matter of right and wrong, rather than of mutual accommodation and adjustment among different groups...

...they were a way of life...

...They saw it as a threat to their own position of leadership within the Jewish community, naturally enough...

...For example, the outlawing of pork applies only to Jews and Moslems, among whom pork is forbidden...

...In the society itself there is a striking division, almost a polarization, between the "religious" (dati) and the non-religious (lo dati...

...These pieces of legislation have accumulated over the years, but on the whole do not really affect the tenor of Israeli society...

...Secondly, the proportional representational system used in Israel protects the power of minority groups: fifteen percent of the votes meant fifteen percent of the seats for the religious parties...

...In other words, Agudat Yisrael participates in government to the extent of enabling the regime it favors to remain in power, but will not itself actually assume responsibility for governing...

...Even Jewish communities outside the Middle East tended to have a great deal of self-governance in matters of personal status- they taxed themselves, disciplined themselves, and had their own welfare system - all of this under rabbinical leadership...

...In fact, in the 1981 election the vote for religious parties declined...

...It does not apply to Christians, unlike the Sunday laws in this country which forbid Jew and Christian alike from trading on Sunday...

...Let me take them in order...

...One would expect a very contradictory and anomalous situation, and that is exactly what characterizes modern-day Israel...

...Other religions - Moslems, Christians - exist as recognized communities in Israel and are relatively unaffected by laws that apply only to Jews, but non-orthodox Jews from Reform or Conservative movements have trouble...

...In almost all respects the rabbis were the most vocal opponents to Zionism within the Jewish community...

...The result is what might be called the "creeping religifica-tion" of Israeli law (looking for a term that expresses the opposite of secularization...

...Nevertheless, given the arithmetic of the results they were in a stronger bargaining position than ever, since the remaining votes split evenly between the two major groups and neither could form a coalition without religious support...

...These three forces are the traditions of the Middle East, the traditions of Judaism itself, and the history of Zionism...

...That would not be the case in most times and places, and Jews in late nineteenth-century Europe found it natural, in response to Russian, Rumanian, or Polish nationalism, to express Jewish nationalism in similar terms...

...It is possible, however, that religious influence in politics has peaked with the 1981 election, given the beginning of a real reaction against this kind of influence that followed the coalition agreement (as expressed, for example, in the struggle over ending El Al flights on the Sabbath...

...But the differences are also striking Religious influence in Israeli politics is not a case of "resurgence," but rather of steady growth in political power - and not necessarily even in numbers - over time...

...Thirdly, there is also a link to nationalist sentiment and to exclusivist claims, to the idea that certain rights are decreed by God, and that conflicting claims of other nationalities, peoples, or religions are therefore superseded...

...A second common feature is alienation from secular governments, sometimes to the point of violence...

...One is reminded of the story that David Ben Gurion once received a prominent American Jewish intellectual who declared: "First of all, Mr...

...All state institutions observe Kashrut, the dietary laws...

...Religious leaders have made the argument that certain moral issues release them from obligations to obey the state when a conflict occurs...

...THE POLITICAL SYSTEM, as it happens, is structured in a way that increases the power of the religious parties...

...In this context, their ambitions of necessity are somewhat less total than the aims and aspirations of Islamic movements that seek to establish an outright theocracy...

...There are also some extreme groups that do not accept the Jewish state at all - what one might term the surrealistic religious...

...Finally, the religious parties in Israel operate in what remains largely a secularized, Western society - certainly the most secularized society in the Middle East - and face a vocal opposition that has no real parallel in any of the other countries of the region...

...It is not an expression of social strain and reaction to modernization, as in other Middle Eastern states...

...Still another reason for the increase of religious influence in politics is that Labor Zionist ideology is losing its dominance Labor Zionism was basically hostile to the role of religion in politics, though prepared to strike bargains when necessary...

...The clash of Middle Eastern and Judaic traditions with secular Zionism created a largely secular society with a strong built-in religious establishment, which in broad terms explains the role of religion in politics in Israel to this day...

...This fifteen percent, more often than not, was the balance in setting up a governing coalition without the cooperation of the religious parties...

...There is no distinction between the rules and rituals of what we nowadays categorize as religion, and the rules and regulations that govern all the other facets of life...

...In this sense, Islam is political from the beginning...

...In the non-Zionist religious community, or the eda haredit - the five percent with their own school system, rabbinical courts, and other institutions - there is an uneasy coexistence with the institutions of the state...

...In response to Western secularization, the concept has been accommodated by stretching the connotations of existing terminology, but before that there was no word to distinguish what we think of as religion and the rituals of Judaism from the other parts of Jewish law...

...The religious bloc as a whole won only thirteen seats, whereas in the past they normally held about eighteen seats...

...Here, finally, was something entirely discordant Zionism is part and parcel of the Western secular nationalist tradition...

...What is clear is that there will remain, over the long run, a very serious split in Israeli society and politics, more serious than the split between the different ethnic groups in the country because it is institutionalized in so many ways, and there is no consensus between the two sides on the ultimate shape of Israeli society HOW, IF AT ALL, does all this fit into the regional framework...

...Begin has had to fashion his policies in such a way as to keep the ultranationalist groups inside the tent...

...This is less true in Israel than in some Islamic states, but there have been some tendencies among the religious population of Israel to conduct a struggle outside the system, involving civil disobedience and mass demonstrations, rather than following accepted channels of dissent...

...It should also be pointed out that, in accordance with the millet system, religious legislation in Israel applies only to members of the relevant religion...

...It can be seen from these figures that many religious voters do not vote for religious parties...

...In all other respects the leadership of the Zionist movement kept their distance from the traditional religious leadership...

...The first two of those stand in opposition to any Western conception of secularized politics...

...The religious establishment, with its system of rabbinical courts, still controls marriage, divorce, and most matters of personal status...

...Since the government has to accommodate the NRP, the result is a dynamic in which the tip of the tail wags the tail and the tail then wags the dog...

...They also opposed it on theological grounds because it threatened to establish the Jewish state outside the religious framework, as a result of the endeavors of man rather than of the intervention of God...

...It does not appear even in Western history until the last few centuries...

...The increase in Sephardic votes - Sephardic meaning Jews from non-European countries - brings to the fore a population much less hesitant to see an active role of religion in politics Related to this is the rise of the Likud, the Right Wing...

...One such group actually tried, after the 1948 war, to emigrate into Jordan, saying they would rather live under Jordanian rule than in a heretic Jewish state...

...So long as the secular majority is not impinged upon too much, there is no serious opposition to this type of bargaining...

...Many of these concessions, again, are trivial, but the total impact is one which has the secular Israeli majority more concerned than past bargains of this kind...

...Our secularization is by no means complete...

...However, Jews soon discovered that substituting nationality for religion did not necessarily improve their status Since Jews had no state, they were again in the minority in every country, and in some cases were even more pressed than before to find an answer to their own identity and their own political self-determination Zionism was one of the answers to this dilemma, and complete assimilation was another...

...Obviously our difference in perspective is very critical here And I'd like to suggest that the role of religion and politics in Israel is in fact a result of the convergence of three factors, two of which are totally alien to the Western concept of secularization...

...That remains to be seen...

...Such groups are quite small although they sometimes manage to be quite vocal Politically they are not important, especially as they refuse to participate in the political process...

...One can also doubt how total our secularization is, considering the ALAN DOWTY is a professor in the department of government and international studies at the University of Notre Dame recent intervention of religious movements in politics in this country...

...In Islam, religion encompasses all aspects of life...

...This has meant that the NRP has tried to accommodate the ultranationalists with which it has ties...

...Prime Minister, you have to understand that I am a human being first, an American second, and a Jew third " Ben Gurion wasn't fazed at all, and said: "That's fine...

...In Hebrew we read from right to left...

...We have a clash here between two forces that legitimize the linkage of politics and religion, and a third - very much a Western import - that leads in the opposite direction...

...Much of this religious legislation is trivial and much of it is unenforced...

...There is strong resistance to religious influence within Israeli society, and religious leaders still often find themselves on the defensive...

...About seventy percent of the population remains secular, while about thirty percent actually observe the rules of the Jewish religion (The best measurement of this is probably the choice of school...

...Added to this was the structure of the Jewish community in the Diaspora, where Jews had no political self-determination for a period close to two thousand years and where leadership was normally religious Rabbis assumed the role of leaders not just in what we would consider religious affairs, but in political matters as well...

...Just as the nationalists of Europe sought to liberate themselves from all traditionalism, including clerical control of politics, Zionism sought new political paths free of religious restraints...

...The rabbinical establishment in fact governed in most matters of personal status and in many other communal issues...

...In Middle East custom and practice there has never really been a division of religion from spiritual life...

...The ambivalent attitude of Agudat Yisrael toward the government is expressed by the fact that currently it provides the votes that keep Begin in power, but does not choose to sit in the Cabinet...

...This religification is, however, marginal to everyday life in Israel, and comes far from constituting theocracy as that word is usually defined What happens is that every time a coalition is formed, religious parties secure passage of certain legislation-the prohibition of the sale of pork, a Sabbath observance law, new rules on drafting women into the army-as the price for their support of the government...

...A more important concern, however, is the linkage between religion and nationalism that has developed in the last few years, and which may be tipping the balance in certain crucial foreign policy decisions certain crucial foreign policy decisions...

...It should be stressed that historically Jews have considered themselves, and been considered by most others, to be a nationality as well as a religion...

...ANOTHER ISSUE that has already emerged in recent years is the growing alliance between religion and a certain kind of territorial nationalism Historically the religious parties focused on purely religious issues such as the selling of pork, the conduct of autopsies, the recognition of non-orthodox conversion to Judaism, Sabbath observance laws, and - recently - controversies over archaelogical excavations in areas thought by religious leaders to contain ancient cemeteries...

...This was before a Jewish state was suggested, and before the development of a significant Jewish community with political aspirations Secondly, Judaism itself, like Islam, originally viewed itself as a way of life and not simply as a religion...

...HOW DOES ALL this fit together...

...they would undoubtedly prefer that the laws be enforced, but meanwhile there is a modus vivendi with which everybody can live...

...In the Middle East the link between religion and politics was expressed in the millet system of the Ottoman Empire...

...Historically the parties served as more than just a vehicle for votes...

...One more anomaly is that the religious vote has not increased over the years...

...They can practice their religion, of course, but they do not receive the same recognition from the state nor the same support that other religious groups do...

...It does not have an anti-Western character, as Islam often does in functioning as a symbol of revolt against Western influence...

...Under such assumptions, there is little room for territorial compromise over disputed areas...

...In other words, how does religious fundamentalism in Israel compare with the "resurgence of Islam" that has made its mark in some of the other countries in the area...

...As a matter of fact, the religious parties in Israel have been very skillful in manipulating the system to their benefit, and in some ways they are the most conservative elements within it since they do not want to change political arrangements that have worked so well to their benefit...

...Begin himself is not religious in the usual sense, but he is very careful to observe all the outward forms - for example, walking rather than driving on the Sabbath when representing the state (as in his attendance at Sadat's funeral in Cairo...

...It was a movement for Jewish national self-determination in the same mode as other nationalist movements of the nineteenth century...