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Abstract
Post-secularism in Israel is expressed, among other ways, by the growing public acceptance of identities that are neither religious nor secular. This paper is predicated on research of individuals located on the boundaries of Orthodox Religious Zionism. It explores their attitudes on a range of issues and argues that they reflect their post-secularist identities. In-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with young men and women who chose to abandon the strictures of a Religious Zionist lifestyle as well as those who still remain within its bounds. Various late-modern and post-secular modes of thought and expression were identified in interviewees’ narratives. These included pluralism, relativism, egalitarianism, the personalization of relationships with God, and a disregard for theological arguments based upon scientific findings. It is argued that these attitudes are related to two late-modern social processes: (1) the rise of individual expressivism and (2) the belief in the liberal human-rights ethic. These tendencies cut across the social divide between interviewees who left Religious Zionism and those who chose to remain within the fold, traversing the previously dominant religious–secular social divide and thus serving as yet another indication for the blossoming of new post-secular spaces in Israeli Jewish society.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Adam Ferziger and the anonymous reviewers for their extremely helpful comments and suggestions, and Michal Kravel, Rachel Werczberger and Adam Klin-Oron for commenting on an earlier version of this article.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. Yadgar (Citation2010) argues that “traditonism” is a more accurate descriptor for this group than the commonly used “traditionalism.”
2. Traditionism and Mizrahi culture have both gained popularity and moved closer to the cultural centre over the last decades but are still often associated with lower classes and street culture, see, for example, Sagiv (Citation2014).
3. See the section in this paper, “Leaving Religious Zionism.”
4. Midrashot (pl.) are post-high-school-level religious studies institutions for Religious Zionist women.
5. Rabbi Avia Hacohen is a popular Religious Zionist rabbi and educator.
6. See, for example, http://www.srugim.co.il/34580-%D7%94%D7%A8%D7%91-%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%96%D7%9F-%D7%A4%D7%95%D7%9C%D7%9E%D7%95%D7%A1-%D7%94%D7%AA%D7%A0%D7%9A-%D7%9C%D7%AA%D7%A4%D7%90%D7%A8%D7%AA-%D7%94%D7%9E%D7%97%D7%9C%D7%95%D7%A7%D7%AA-%D7%94. Similarly, a heated dispute arose in early 2015 over a new cooperative initiative to foster daily bible study that offers exposure to a broad spectrum of voices from the Religious Zionist and secular sectors, see: http://www.929.org.il
7. For a discussion of expressivism in Religious Zionist theology and society, see Fischer (Citation2007).
Additional information
Ari Engelberg holds a doctorate from the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the Hebrew University. His doctoral dissertation discusses prolonged singlehood among Religious Zionists and he has published several articles on this subject. He spent a postdoctoral term at the Oxford Centre for Jewish and Hebrew Studies as a Kennedy-Leigh fellow where he conducted the research upon which the article published in this volume is based. He currently lectures at The Hebrew University, Bar-Ilan University and the Ruppin Academic Center.