The_Influence_of_Participation_In_Democr.pdf

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The Influence of Participation in Democratic Processes on Religious Parties

in Israel

Asher Cohen, Moshe Hellinger and Bernard Susser, Bar-Ilan University, Israel

A. Introduction

In the early 1950s, two intriguing meetings took place, meetings that elucidate the central

processes and the typical settings that exemplify the religious parties in Israel. In both

meetings, one of the participants was the Chazon Ish1, the undisputed leader of the Haredi

non-Zionist, ultra-Orthodox community in Israel during that period. One of these

meetings took place between him and David Ben-Gurion, the first Prime Minister and the

dominant figure among the founding fathers of the State of Israel. The second meeting

took place between the Chazon Ish and the leader of Israels religious Zionist movement,

Moshe Shapira.

Out of the meeting between the Chazon Ish and Ben Gurion, Israeli collective

memory has latched onto one oft-repeated parable: the Chazon Ish spoke of a full wagon

and an empty wagon that need to cross each other on a narrow road that has room for

only one of them to pass. Who has the right of way? The Haredi leader likened the

ideologically secular community to the empty wagon, as opposed to the full Haredi

wagon laden with age-old Jewish learning and culture. The parable intended to convey to

Ben Gurion why it was beholden upon the secular-empty wagon to stand aside and allow

the fullHaredi wagon to pass. At first sight, this might seem to be a graphic example of

the potentially collision-course politics between the secular-Zionist and Haredi

communities in Israel. A closer look reveals a different reality: At the time, the Haredi

electorate comprised a mere 5% of the population; they stood opposed to the secular,

state-founding parties that represented the vast majority of Israelis and that possessed

1 Rabbi Avraham Yeshayahu Karlitz, better known by his penname: the Chazon Ish.


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unquestioned political dominance. And yet, the Hazon Ish could, not incongruously, ask

for precedence over his far more powerful interlocutor.

The second meeting of the Chazon Ish was with Moshe Shapira and it occurred

against the background of a clash between the two religious camps: the Haredimon the

one hand, the religious Zionists on the other. The clash was over a proposed law that

would have accepted national service for young women in lieu of military conscription.

(Israel has a national conscription law that includes women as well as men.) Religious

opposition to the drafting of women led the religious Zionists to propose national service

as an alternative. The Haredim opposed the law vehemently. Their conservative view of

the role of women in society was incompatible with the conspicuously public activities

that national service would involve. Shapira, who supported the national service

alternative as an expression of his Zionist commitments, asked the Chazon Ish

sarcastically where in Halachic literature is there a prohibition of national service. The

Rabbi answered with equal sarcasm: in the fifth part of the (four part) Shulchan Aruch

which is accessible only to Torah sages.2The Chazon Ishs meaning could not have been

clearer: Although there is no outright prohibition, Torah sages possess a privileged point

of view that provides them with authority beyond the written word; they make Halachic

decisions from a broader, more comprehensive standpoint not given to those who merely

rely on the explicit text. In this incident two religious worldviews confrontedeach other: moderate and stricter.

This essay examines the processes that have influenced religious parties in Israel by

causing changes in their organization and ideology. The first part of the essay presents a

brief theoretical introduction. Then, we focus on the historical and ideological roots in

which the respective developments of the religious parties originate. Thereafter, we

concentrate on the structural factors that account for the ever-present moderating

influences that affect religio-political conflicts in Israel. Finally, we present a number of

2 The Shulchan Aruch is the central 16thCentury codex of Jewish law written by Rabbi Joseph Karo

that constitutes the basis upon which Halachic decisions are made in the Orthodox world. It is

divided into four parts.


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concrete cases that exemplify the complex attitudes of the various religious parties along

the axis of moderation/pragmatism and extremism.

B. Causes for moderation-The Theoretical Backround

Any analysis of the influences on moderation/radicalism of religious parties needs to

stress the importance of the following elements:

* Structural characterizations of the specific political system.

* The nature of the religious and political leadership of the party and their inner

reciprocation.

* External influences (the political environment, political and ideological processes)

as well as internal influences (organizational changes, power struggles between

different sections within the party).

The first element is the structural characterizations of the specific political system.

According to Lipset, the nature of the party system has great importance on

moderation/radicalism of parties. A bipartisan system is more inclined to moderate party

ideologies, which are assumed to attract voters from the center.

3

In contrast to Lipset,Arend Lijpharts consociational model (also referred to as a politics of accommodation)

accounts for the ability of democratic systems to preserve their continuity and functional

stability despite the existence of deep political cleavages and conflicts.4 Wary of

debilitating conflicts, the majority chooses not to use its potential power to impose its will

on the minority preferring rather to achieve some form of accommodationist modus

vivendi. Neither does it wish to keep the minority in a permanent state of opposition; it

seeks to establish different forms of coalitions with it coalitions that permit the

3 Seymour Martin Lipset, Political man: the social bases of politics(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins

University Press,1981), ch. 3.

4 Arend Lijphart, "Typologies of Political Systems", Comparative Political Systems, 1, 1968-9, pp.

3-44; Arend Lijphart, The Politics of Accommodation, (Berkeley ,1968.


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minority, at some level at least, to collaborate in shaping policy and to be active in the

division of public resources. Moreover, the majority is careful not to cross the red lines,

that is, those issues that are categorically unacceptable to the minority party.

Horowitz and Lissak demonstrate how consociational patterns characterized many

aspects of the Yishuv(pre-state) period in Palestine.5After the establishment of the state

of Israel, with the growth of centralized governmental institutions these erstwhile

consociational arrangements declined. Nevertheless, they remained in place in the area of

religion and state and, more generally, in regard to relationship between secular and

religious Israelis.6The retention of consociationalism, largely explains moderate trends

within religious parties in Israel.

The second element is the relationship between the religious leadership and the political

leadership in the religious parties. The importance of this leadership derives, among other

things, from the way it designs the mechanisms of consociational politics. This

relationship can be manifested in a spectrum of possibilities ranging along two poles. At

one pole, there is a complete subordination of the political to the religious leadership such

that the political leadership acts as the emissary of religious leadership in the public

sphere. At the other pole, the political leadership is largely autonomous; its relationship to

the religious leadership is not that of an inferior to a superior. In regard to Israeli religious

parties, different variants of these models obtain. Moreover, in none of the variants is it

possible to speak of a complete split between the political and the religious leadership.7

As a rule, the more important the religious leadership is, the less it tends to be moderate.

The third element is the external and internal influences that either strengthen or weaken

moderate tendencies. One of the most important characteristics of the democratization

process in the last generation is what Samuel Huntington defined as: "the democratic

5 Dan Horowitz and Moshe Lissak, Origins of the Israeli Polity-Palestine under the Mandate,

(Chicago: University of Chicago Press,1978).

6 Dan Horowitz and Moshe Lissak, Trouble in Utopia-The Overburdened Polity Of Israel,(New-

York:State University of New-York Press,1989),ch.4.

7 Eliezer Don Yehyia, Religious Leadership and Political Leadership [Hebrew], in Ella Belfer (ed.),

Spiritual Leadership in Israel, (Ramat-Gan: Institute for Contemporary Judaism and Thought,

1982), pp. 104-134.


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bargain. This involves "the trade-off between participation and moderation.8 It

predicates moderation in tactics and politics by the included leaders and groups.9

Huntington's conceptual apparatus deals with opposition groups in authoritarian regimes

that undergo a process of moderation once the regime accepts the democratization

processes. In the last decade, this inclusion-moderation theory has been applied to

radical Islamist parties that turned from extremist to moderate tactics (even aspirations)

once they became part of the electoral process (to wit: in Muslim countries such as

Turkey, Jordan and Egypt).10

As Jillian Schwedler shows, this theory is also relevant to moderate parties that become,

due to their inclusion in politics, more moderate still.11

The Muslim world has undergone

profound democratization processes in key countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia,

Bangladesh, Pakistan and Turkey. In all these countries, the participation of Islamic

parties and figures in the democratic parliaments and cabinets went hand in hand with

adopting democratic attitudes and principles.12

Turkey is unique in this regard. The AKP

party is not simply a member in the parliament but is the country's ruling party. Notably,

under its leadership, Turkey has, in many respects, become more democratic.13

The moderation of religious parties due to democratic influences is related to a more

general characteristic of political parties: the causes for ideational and organizational

changes. As Panebianco already showed, environmental influences such as defeat in

8 Samuel P. Huntington, The Third Wave-Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century,(Norman:

University Of Oklaoma Press,1991),p.169.

9 Ibid, p.170.

10 For a review of the literature on this topic see Jillian Schwedler, Faith in Moderation: Islamist

parties in Jordan and Yemen,(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006),pp.11-18.

11 Ibid, p.13.For a somewhat different interpretation see Janine A. Clark, "The Conditions of Islamists

Moderation: Unpacking Cross-Ideological Cooperation in Jordan, International Journal of Middle

east Studies 38:4 (November 2006), pp. 539-560.

12 Alfred Stepan, Religion, Democracy, And the Twin Tolerations, Journal of Democracy 11:4

(October 2000), pp. 37-57.See especially p. 47 ff.

13 Ishan Dagi, "Turkeys AKP IN Power,Journal of Democracy,19:3(July 2008) p.29.


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elections may cause important changes on parties.14

Harmel and Janda stress even more

the key role of outside changes, especially shocks due to failures.15

They also point to the

fact that changes can be an accumulation of day to day processes.16

Such environmental

changes can also effect ideational moderation of religious parties (and not only strategic

change).17

Finally, one has to consider the distinction made by Martin Seliger between the

fundamental dimension of ideology and its operative level. This distinction is

significant in understanding the gap between the declarative-symbolic nature of religious

partys discourse and the pragmatic, on-the-ground character of its actions and policies.

At the fundamental level, ideology describes what is desirable in principle. It presents an

ideal vision of reality were there no obstructing factors hindering its realization. By

contrast, operational ideology involves the strategies that ideologies need to adopt in a

not always tractable reality a reality of complex power relations, limited resources etc.

The radicalism of a party cannot be measured simply by its fundamental ideology; rather

it is a function of the degree to which pragmatic, operational needs are factored into

political action.18

For our purposes, it is common to find a significant disparity between

the statements of principle made by a religious party and its day-to-day maneuverings and

14 Angelo Panebianco, Political Parties: Organization & Power(Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press 1988), ch. 13.

15 Robert Harmel and Kenneth Janda, An Integrated Theory Of Party Goals And Party Change,

Journal of Theoretical Politics 6,3 (1994), pp. 259-287.

16 Ibid, pp. 276-277.

17 See for instance the examples from Turkey and Holland: Saban Taniyci,Transformation Of

Political Islam In Turkey- Islamist Welfare Partys Pro-Eu Turn, Party Politics9,4 (2003), pp. 463-

483; Fraser Duncan,Lately, things Just Dont Seem The Same External Shocks, Party Change and

Adaptation of the Dutch Christian Democrats during Purple hague, Party Politics, 13,1 (2007), pp.

69-87; Kees van Kersbergen The Christian Democratic Phoenix and Modern Unsecular Politics

Party Politics; vol. 14,3(2008), pp. 259-279.

18 Martin Seliger, Ideology and Politics(London, Allen and Unwin, 1976).


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compromises. The participation of religious parties in a pluralistic party system has its

effect on their moderation tendencies, at least when it come to operational ideology.19

C. Historical and Ideological Roots

The early ideological roots of the various religious parties, the none-too-friendly

interrelations between them, as well as their attitudes to the secular world lie buried in the

Jewish Enlightenment that peaked in the late 19th

Century. The prominent Israeli

historian Yaacov Katz goes so far as to claim that no nation was as deeply influenced by

these modernizing historical processes, as were the Jews.20

In Peter Bergers well-known

terminology, religion and its institutions that had enjoyed a socio-cultural monopoly in

traditional Jewish life lost their grip in the face of the sweeping proliferation of

secularization. They now found themselves on the defensive needing to hold their

ground in a tumultuous and open ideological market.21

The phenomenon of Orthodoxy

that grew up in central Europe in early 19th

Century was the counter-reaction of the

traditional world to the threatening inroads of modernity.22

This clash of worldviews set

those who remained loyal to traditional-religious culture against those who, under

modernitys influence, chose to set out in new directions.23

As noted above, a central axis of this study is the distinction between the religious

Zionist and the Haredi non-Zionist camps. Religious Zionism is an umbrella term

covering a wide variety of approaches, the common element of which is the parallel

commitment to Zionism, centering on the State of Israel, on the one hand, and, on the

19 GneMurat Tezcr, The Moderation Theory Revisited- The Case of Islamic Political Actors,

Party Politics,16,1(2010), pp. 69-88

20 Jacob Katz, Out Of The Ghetto- The Social background Of Jewish Emancipation, 1770-1870

(Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press,1973), ch. 1.

21 Peter L. Berger, The Social Reality of Religion (Harmonsworth: Penguin Books, 1973), part two.

22 See, for example Moshe Samet, The beginning of Orthodoxy, Modern Judaism 8,3 (1988), pp.

249-269.

23 For an extended treatment of this subject see Ehud Luz, Parallels Meet (New York, Jewish

Publication Society, 1988).


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other, to the Jewish Halachic tradition. The Haredi ideology, by contrast, connotes a

number of anti-modern religious approaches that reject Zionism, i.e., Jewish nationalism

in all its contemporary forms. To be sure, when religious Zionism is said to be pro-

Zionist this should not be taken to mean that its relationship to secular Zionism has been

conflict-free. To the contrary, some intense ideological/political battles have marked their

association over the years. The obverse is also true: Its opposition to Zionism

notwithstanding, the Haredigroups relationship to Zionism and the State of Israel has

not been exclusively mired in conflict. In truth the interactions and exchanges of all three

camps we are discussing Haredi, religious Zionist and secular Zionist are remarkably

complex.

For the most part, political parties develop in the framework of existing states. In

this regard, Israel stands out: in broad outline at least, both its religious and its secular

parties developed long before statehood was declared in 1948. The origins of Israels

political parties go back to the 19th

century when the European nationalist idea resonated

among Jewish thinkers both secular and religious. In the last decades of the 19th

Century,

organizations with proto-Zionist ideas such as Chovevei Tziyon (Lovers of Zion)

proliferated especially in Eastern Europe and, even at this early stage, the basic patterns

that would remain permanent fixtures of Jewish/Israeli politics are already visible. At the

center stood the numerically and politically dominant secular Zionist groups, while along

its margins smaller offshoots, recognizable today as the precursors of the religious

Zionists, made their semi-independent ways. Even further from the center were the ultra-

OrthodoxHaredigroups that rejected the entire Zionist enterprise root and branch.

The early stirrings of religious Zionism are already present at the political party

level when Rabbi Yaacov Reiness in 1902 founded theMizrachimovement as a separate

faction within the general Zionist organization. The Haredi party, Agudat Yisrael was

established a decade later in 1912 largely in response to the Zionist movements entry

into what were called cultural issues. While both major religious Zionist groups the

more centrist Mizrachi and the more socialist-leaning Hapoel Hamizrachi took part in

activities leading to the establishment of a Jewish state in Israel, theAgudat Yisraelkept

its distance from the Zionist state-building project. It expressed complex but

predominantly negative views about the attempt to achieve Jewish sovereignty in the


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Holy Land by human efforts alone. So that when Israel became an independent state in

1948, both the religious Zionists and the non-Zionist Haredim were already well

established political parties with coherent agendas and operating bureaucracies.

Alongside the much larger, ideologically secular, socialist-liberal Zionist organizations,

they formed the kernel of what was to become Israels system of political parties.

D. Factors that Intensify and Moderate Conflict: An Overview

The complex ensemble of factors that underlie both extremism and moderation among

Israels religious parties are shaped by the crucial fact that in the Jewish experience,

national and religious identities overlap. While there have been historical attempts to

sunder these two characteristics, it is safe to say that their union represents the

overwhelming reality of Jewish existence from the Biblical era onwards. In sharp contrast

to Judaism, the two other great monotheistic faiths Islam and Christianity are multi-

national and multi-state religions; they constitute common religions for many disparate

societies and nationalities. Modern Jewish nationalism is marked by powerful

secularizing tendencies that often set it on a collision course with traditional Jewish

identity. It is also idiosyncratic in its admixture of a pre-modern ethnic sensibility and a

modern form of nationalism.24Modern Jewish nationalism perpetuates many traditional

motifs and, in so doing, transforms them into novel, contemporary themes and symbols.25

The significance of these two overlapping identities has led some scholars to argue that

Israel is a 'deviant case' among modern democracies.26

24 Elie Kedourie, Nationalism,(Oxford:Blackwell,1993),p.70; Anthony D. Smith, Nationalism and

Modernism(London:Routledge,1998),pp.168-169.

25 Shmuel Almog,The Role of Religious Values in the Second Aliya in Shmuel Almog, Jehuda

Reinharz and Anita Shapira(eds), Zionism and Religion(Hanover and London:Brandeis University

Press,1998),pp.237-250; Anita Shapira,The Religious Motifs of the Labor Movement,

ibid,pp.251-272.

26 Eliezer Don Yehiya and Bernard Susser, "Israel and the Decline of the Nation-State in the West,"

Modern Judaism, 14,2 (May 1994), pp. 187-202 and "Nation-States in the West: Israel as a 'Deviant

Case'" (Hebrew) Democratic Culture 1( Spring 1999), pp. 9-22.


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Many aspects of Israeli public life are marked by this intersection of religion and

nationality. To take only the most obvious examples: Israels national symbols derive

from Jewish religious symbols.27

Its days of rest and national holidays are religious in

origin and celebrated according to the traditional Jewish calendar. To be sure, Israel is a

secular state. The Israeli Parliament, the Knesset, is sovereign and does not require any

religious-rabbinical imprimatur to promulgate the laws of the land. And yet, issues of

marriage, divorce and 'personal status' (who is a Jew?) are in the hands of the official

rabbinate as determined by Knesset legislation. Consequently, Israel is one of the few

Western democracies in which the lack of separation between religion and state is

expressed in a substantial institutionalization of religion. Which is to say that despite its

secular character, religious coercion in Israel is rife: first, toward secular Jews whose

marriage, divorce and personal status is contingent upon Orthodox rabbinical

confirmation and, second, toward non-Orthodox branches of Judaism that are

systematically obstructed and delegitimized by the official rabbinate.

What is more, in all the research done on the subject, the Jewish public in Israel,

including those who identify themselves as secular, even anti-religious, preserve

traditional patterns of behavior to a greater or lesser degree.28

This overlap between

nationality and religion has divergent, sometimes contradictory effects on the

intensification and/or moderation of religious conflict. Although this is true for all

ideological positions across Israels political spectrum, it is distinctively so for the

religious camps. To take a single example: despite its rejection of modern Jewish

27 Israels national symbol is the seven-branched Menorah which stood in the Holy Temple. The colors

of the national flag are blue and white reminiscent of the colors of the prayer shawl. Whatever may

be its early non-Jewish origins, the Star of David that appears on the Israeli flag has also served as a

religious/national symbol that appears in many synagogues worldwide.

28 For example, conducting some form of Passover Seder, lighting Chanukah candles, fasting, and

even more universally, refraining from driving on Yom Kippur. Some of these practices reach close

to 100 percent (driving on Yom Kippur) while others are observed by more than 70% of Israels

Jewish population. See Shlomit Levy, Hanna Levinsohn and Elihu katz, The Many faces of

Jewishness in Israel in Uzi Rebhun and Chaim I. Waxman(eds), Jews in Israel- Contemporary

Social and Cultural patterns(Hanover And London:Brandeis University Press,2004),pp.265-284.


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nationalism, the Haredi populations feeling of being inextricably bound up with the

'Jewish people' remains very powerful. Nor is it surprising to learn that a very large

percentage ofHaredimsupport right wing nationalistic causes.

Radicalizing Forces: A Map

1. Understanding the Religious Tradition as the Ultimate Source of Jewish

Identity

The rise of modern Zionism had the effect of shifting the focus of Jewish identity

away from the specifically religious and toward more generally cultural and

national perspectives. Secular Jews could feel fully identified as Jews by dint of

their affiliation with Jewish nationalism and Zionism. The Orthodox religious

camps rejected this development and offered two alternative strategies to deal with

this challenge: The religious Zionist and the non-ZionistHaredi.

The most basic tenet ofHaredi Orthodoxy is that obligation to Halacha is the alpha

and omega of Jewishness, the ultimate expression of a Jew's identity. Perhaps the

best-known adage in this regard is that of Rabbi Saadia Gaon (882-942): Our

nation is a nation only in its Torah(s).29

This adage became a rallying cry for the

Haredimin their response to the secularizing of Jewish identity by the Zionists at

the beginning of the 20thCentury. Any attempt to present an alternate source for

Jewish identity, that is, one not rooted in Torah and Halacha, was denounced as

fundamentally illegitimate. In the context of modern Israeli politics, such claims are

inherently confrontational.

By contrast, the religious Zionists accepted the advent of Jewish nationalism as a

common project for all Jews, be they religious or not. Its leading thinkers could not,

of course, accept the secularizing tendencies of the non-religious Zionists but it was

their expectation that the return to Jewish national roots was an ante-chamber to the

29 Rabbi Saadia utilizes the plural form for Torah to emphasize that it is both Scripture as well as the

rabbinically elaborated oral law that are the core of Jewish nationality.


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return to Jewish religious practice and belief. It should be emphasized nevertheless

that no legitimization was given to secular nationalism per se.30

To understand the full complexity of the religious-national intersection, it should be

emphasized once again that the Harediposition is not in constant and unremitting

conflict with the secular Zionist movement any more than the religious Zionists are

always in accord with it. As we shall see, the Haredi camp developed intricate

strategies of accommodation with the secular Zionist leadership just as the religious

Zionists, despite its regular cooperation with the secular camp, has, over the years,

conducted pitched battles with the mainstream Zionist establishment.

2. The Ideological Dimension

Intense ideological conflict was and remains a central fact of Israeli public life;

clashes over world-view and fundamental values are at the very center of often-

raucous and rancorous political battles. Arguably, the more significant and

principled the ideological controversies are and secular-religious conflicts are

among the most acerbic the more entrenched the embattled sides become and the

more difficult it is to reach accommodation and compromise.31

Over the course of the past generation, major changes have taken place in these

ideological battles. On one side, the ideological fervor of the secularist community

especially on the left has diminished as Westernization, wealth and

consumerism have eaten away at the sources of earlier intellectual loyalties. The

Left today, is a rump of its former self. On the other side, the enthusiastic,

confrontationist activism of the religious Zionists has gained in force over the

course of the past decades; their commitment to the Greater Land of Israel agenda

30 Dov Schwartz, Faith at the crossroads: a theological profile of religious Zionism (Leiden: Brill,

1992), ch.5.

31 Dan Horowitz and Moshe Lissak, Trouble in Utopia-The Overburdened Polity Of Israel (New-

York: State University of New-York Press, 1989), ch. 4. For a classical statement in this regard see

Seymour martin Lipset, Political man : the social bases of politics.(Baltimore : Johns Hopkins Univ.

Press, 1981), ch. 3.


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as well as to the settlement project in the West Bank (and the Gaza Strip prior to the

2005 evacuation) expresses this newfound zeal dramatically. And yet, there remains

a fundamental agreement to play by the democratic rules. Earlier, during the first

generation of statehood when the tables were turned and ardently secular Mapai

(The Israeli Labor Party) was in clear control of Israeli public life and adopted

avowedly secular policies, the religious Zionists refrained from precipitating an

irreparable rift with the Zionist mainstream. Still, the potential for extremist conflict

remains. Most recently, the Netanyahu governments policy of temporarily

freezing new construction in the West Bank settlements has dramatically

demonstrated the potential for ideological conflict between a right wing, largely

secular leadership and a vocal religious minority that sees this halt in construction

as politically illegitimate and religiously repugnant.

3. The Fear of Secular Inundation by a Religious Minority

The modern process of globalized secularization has kindled a fear among the

religious minority of being inundated by non- and anti-religious forces, which will

erode and undermine the Jewish tradition, especially among the young. Facing a

threat that ostensibly endangers its existence has made for a hardening of positions

among the religious. Radicalized conservatism has become more prevalent and

uncompromising Halachic positions more common. The walls are raised and

reinforced as the enemy draws nigh.Haredi self-segregation over the course of the

20th

Century into ghetto-like communities is one illustration of this phenomenon.

Radicalization of this kind also alienates the ultra-Orthodox from the more

moderate religious and traditional communities, making accommodation all the

more difficult.32

32 Samuel Heilman,Defenders of the Faith-Inside Ultra-Orthodox Jewry(New-York:Schocken Books,

1992), ch. 2.


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Moderating Forces: A Map

Moderating Forces in the non-Zionist Haredi Camp

1. The Principle of Political Passivity in the Haredi Camp

One of the central beliefs of Orthodox Judaism is in the coming of the Messiah who

inaugurates Redemption at the End of Days. In the last years of the Second Temple

in the first Century CE, active anticipations of messianic deliverance ended in

catastrophe: the Temple was destroyed and it marked the beginning of a Diaspora

that lasted nearly two millennia. Consequently, throughout the centuries a

significant strain of Judaism has fostered restraint, even passivity with regard to

Messianic activity. Actively hastening the Redemption has about it the aura of an

irresponsible adventure that can lead to calamity. Perhaps the most striking and

well-known text in this regard is the three oaths that God insisted that Jews

accept: That Israel not ascend the wall(i.e., not rise up forcibly against the

Diaspora in order to return to the Land of Israel)not rebel against the nations of

the worldand the idolaters not to oppress Israel overly much, that they not revolt

against the peoples of the world and that they not force the End of Days.33

This

attitude of restraint was, arguably, entirely appropriate to the conditions of the

Diaspora.

Leaders of the religious Zionists were regularly challenged to explain how their

belief in the rebirth of Jewish sovereignty in a modern state accorded with these

express prohibitions of active messianism. Orthodox anti-Haredi leaders who

opposed the activist religious Zionist vision based themselves on the three oaths

to justify their opposition to the nationalist program. In the view of all these

religious opponents of Zionism, Redemption is an apocalyptic event that transforms

the entire nature of the world; an event miraculously authored by God Himself that

33 Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Ketubbot 110a . On this issue see Aviezer Ravitzky,The Impact Of

the Three Oaths In Jewish History,Messianism, Zionism and Jewish Religious Radicalism,

Trans:Michael Swirsky and Jonathan Chipman(Chicago:University of Chicago Press,1996),

Appendix,pp.211-234.


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comes into being from above sharply and instantaneously. For religious leaders

opposed to the Zionist program, it was an illegitimate human intrusion into Gods

cosmic plan doubly illegitimate because secular protagonists led the Zionist

movement.34

But this logic has an obverse side as well. If Israel is not the focus (not even the

incipient focus) of messianic deliverance, there is no imperative to change it in

some fundamental way to accord with the standards of Salvation. It is merely

another secular state in which there are many Jews but it is not to be understood in

Divine categories. Although Israel, in Haredi eyes, is illegitimate, it needs to be.

evaluated by its contribution to the well-being and advancement of the Ghetto of

Haredi community. Given this dogma of discrete distance from the Zionist state, an

often-substantial potential for adjustments and adaptations becomes possible. 35

2. The Influence of the Shoah and the Security Threats to the State of Israel

HarediOrthodoxy organized politically as theAgudat YisraelParty in 1912. Until

World War II, its main enemies were Zionism and modernism. But in the wake of

the Shoah that decimated the European ultra-Orthodox community, the massive

immigration that brought hundreds of thousands of Jews to Israel in the 1950s and

the hostility of the surrounding Arab states that exploded a number of times into

outright war, theHarediattitude toward the Zionist state underwent subtle but quite

significant changes. To be sure, they did not become Zionists; but their

unremittingly hostile attitude Zionism was tempered by the crucible of events that

affected everyone living in the Holy Land. Their objective became the

establishment of a vibrant ghettoizedHaredi community in Israel, one that lived its

life according to the dictates of Torah. Whatever their ideological differences from

the Zionists, the collective existential security threats that regularly challenged the

34 Ravitsky Ibid, chs 1,2; ,Yosef Shalmon,Religion and Zionism: the First Encounters(Jerusalem:The

Hebrew University Magnes Press,2002),ch.10

35 Ravitzky,ch.4; Menachem Friedman,The Haredi Community-Sourses,Trends and Processes

[Hebrew](Jerusalem: Jerusalem Institute for Israel Research,1991).


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state encouraged, to a certain degree, the sense of a shared fate with their secular

co-citizens. These conflict-moderating external threats became especially potent in

periods of existential panic when the physical existence of the country appeared to

be at stake. Such was the case in the weeks leading up to the June 1967 (Six Day)

war, the 1973 Yom Kippur War and the second Intifada (2000-2002) with its rash

of indiscriminate terror attacks.

3. Socio-Political Minority and the Trauma of Cultural Erosion

TheHaredicommunity structures its world-view around the idea that it constitutes

a minority group within an invasive surrounding culture. Judging by voting results,

their percentage of the electorate has risen from roughly 5 in the early years to

perhaps 10 percent (their birth rates are exceptionally high) at present. Recognizing

its relatively modest demographic power and its limited political clout has led to the

'realistic' attitude that it must be flexible and reasonably conciliatory in it dealings

with the non-Haredi world. The Haredi minority realizes that it cannot seek

victory; at best, it can hold hostile forces at bay and promote policies that advance

its community's interests. Haredim recognize that they are dependent upon the

secular majority for many of their needs and this translates into a pragmatic attitude

toward its rivals/benefactors. For example, exempting Haredi young men from

mandatory universal conscription (in order to spend their lives studying Torah in

the Yeshiva) is dependent upon the consent and good will of the secular parties.

Similarly, theHarediprerogative to conduct their own 'independent' school system

subsidized by the state in which instruction in mathematics, literature, English,

civics and history are minimal at best is a perquisite for which the Haredimare

beholden to the secular majority. This created an anomalous situation that only a

moderating politics of collaboration and accommodation could sustain: an entirecommunity dedicated to religious study that was subsidized by a secular

government for which theHaredipublic had little sympathy.

Nevertheless, the demographic growth of the Haredi community over the past

generation has intensified conflict in a number of ways. If in the early years of

statehood the number of conscription-exempted Yeshiva students could be counted


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in the hundreds, today the number of non-conscripted Harediyoung men reaches

roughly 10 percent of potential yearly conscripts, creating a problematic burden

upon those who do serve in the army. Similarly, the demographic rise in life-time

Yeshiva students who are neither high-school nor university graduates and live

from public grants creates a heavy budgetary burden on the national treasury. Large

families and non-income generating pursuits increase the large government

subsidies, based on taxes, a fact that only intensify secular resentment. In a word:

the secular community is increasingly antagonized by these forms of largesse to the

Haredicommunity. The potential for conflict grows apace as accommodations of

this sort become more and more burdensome.

Moderating Forces in the religious Zionist Camp

1. The Holiness of Mamlachtiut (focus on a general state perspective

rather than upon partisan points of view) the Religious Status of the

State

Religious Zionists accord great weight to the idea that the state, despite its secular

democratic character, needs to be understood in proto-messianic terms. For

religious Zionists, the welfare of the Jewish State and of the Jewish people are

inextricable. A covenant of fate unites secular and religious Jews to the JewishState

36. The most celebrated and revered of religious Zionist rabbis , Rabbi A. I.

Kook, sharpened the point dramatically: The State of Israel is the essential seat of

God in the world.37

This statement was directed toward the ideal Israel, what it

would become when the Torah was accepted as the law of the land. But his son

Rabbi Z. Y. Kook who was the mentor of a generation of more radical religious

Zionist leaders took this statement a crucial step forward: His fathers assertion,

he claimed, referred to the actual, historical nature of the current State of Israel.

36 See Joseph Baer Soloveitchik, "Kol dodi dofek, it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh in

Bernhard H. Rosenberg(ed), Theological and Halakhic Reflections on the Holocaust (Hoboken:

Ktav, 1992), pp. 51-117.

37 Rabbi Abraham Issac Hacohen Kook, Orot[Hebrew] ,(Jerusalem:Mossad Harav Kook,1993),p.160.


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Whatever its policies, insofar as it is a Jewish State it has sacred standing.38

This

viewpoint enhances the trend toward accommodation even in the midst of intense

religious/secular conflict. This relative moderation was visible in the period of the

Israeli disengagement from the Gaza Strip when the supporters of Mamlachtiut

triumphed over the firebrands and the evacuation was carried out without incidents

of lethal violence or by the refusal of religious soldiers to carry out orders. It

remains fair to say that in spite of growing religious radicalization,Mamlachtiyutis

still the dominant mainstream of contemporary religious Zionism.

2. The Influence and Internalization of Western Values and Patterns of

Behavior

From its origins onward, religious Zionism has had a selectively positive

engagement with modernity and democracy. Rabbi Kook (the father) raised this

engagement with democracy to a theological level. Although the Jewish tradition

speaks of the Messiah-King from the House of David as the true legitimate ruler of

Israel, in the absence of such a king, all power resides in the hands of the people.39

This conception provided legitimacy to the Israeli Parliament , the Knessets

legislation. Other Zionist rabbis, relying on religious texts, lent their support to

additional practices of liberal democracy: For example, they validated popularsovereignty, majority rule, the rule of law, equality between citizens and so on.

40

Moreover, the great silent middle class of religious Zionists internalized these

modern democratic ideas as part of their Life World in Berger and Luckmans

terms. In the past decade, a substantial number of studies have shown how

heterogeneous the religious Zionist community is; it comprises within itself

substantial groups that have synthesized Western democratic values with their

38 Ravitzky, (supra note 27),ch.3.

39 Rabbi Abraham Issac Hacohen Kook, Mishpat Cohen [Hebrew] ,(Jerusalem:Mossad Harav

Kook,1985),p.337.

40 On this issue see Moshe Helinger , The Model of Jewish Democracy versus the model of

Democratic Judaism in the Thought of Zionist modern Orthodoxy in the 20TH

Century(P.hD

Dissertation, Ramat-Gan:Bar-Ilan University,2002).


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religious viewpoints. New forms of religiosity, directly related to Western ideas

have emerged. To cite a single example: the rise of Orthodox religious feminism

has had a marked influence on the religious Zionist community and has found

spokesmen among liberal rabbinical authorities.41

All of these provide the basis for

moderating the position of the religious Zionist camp.

E. Political Engagement and Coalitional Partnership: Moderating and

Radicalizing Factors

Beyond the internal factors we have dealt with, the general party structure of Israeli

politics also contributes significantly to the moderation/radicalization divide. The

religious camp has always been a minority among political parties from a low of

less than 10% of the electorate to a high of more than 20%. Out of a Knesset of 120

members, the lowest number of religious seats was 10 (in 1981), while the highest

was 27 (in 1999 and 2006).42

Two historical periods are distinguishable in terms of

party representation. First, from 1948 to 1977 in which the state-founding Mapai

(later:the Labor Party) was unquestionably dominant. Second, from 1977 to the

present in which the Likud rose to power although it did not become dominant, in

the way Mapai had been in the early years of statehood. Indeed, during this second

period, the party structure was most of the time a two block system in which thesmaller, mediating parties especially the religious parties became scale tipping

parties and gained inordinately in strength. Moreover, the religious coloration of

public life was enhanced because the majority of the Likuds voters come from the

more traditional Mizrachi/Sephardi (Jews from countries in which Islam is the

dominant religion) community. This allowed for a deeper bond between the

religious parties and the Likud than had been possible when Mapai, an

archetypically secular-leftist party, had been dominant.

41 Yair Sheleg, The New Religious Jews:Recent developments among observant Jews in

Israel[Hebrew](Jerusalem:keter Books,2000),part 1.

42 On the religious parties in Israel see Ira Sharkansky The Politics Of Religion And The Religion Of

Politics-Looking at Israel(Lahman,Maryland:Lexington Books,2000),ch.7.


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Depending on context, scale tipping has had either moderating or radicalizing

effects. As we saw in the theoretical background, according to the inclusin-

moderarion theory, moderate parties become, due to their inclusion in politics, more

moderate still. This theory can gain support from what happened to the religious

parties in Israel. To the degree that a mediating Israeli party becomes more

substantial in its weight and acquires greater political indispensability, the

moderating forces acting upon it will often grow. The political processes that the

Harediparties have undergone in the past decades are cases in point.

We also need to distinguish in the Harediand religious Zionist cases between how

deeply democratic values have been internalized in their ideas and practices. On the

one hand, the religious Zionists accepted these values from early on (even in regard

to internal party politics) while, one the other, the Haredi parties, both at the

declarative and the practical level, both externally and internally, rejected it flatly.

Nonetheless, even the Haredi parties have undergone a process of creeping

democratization as they become more indispensable to coalition formation. Even if

they do not make overt declarations in this direction, democratic elements have

nevertheless insinuated their way into the discourse they conduct.

One of the distinctions emerging from the research literature is between behavioral

and ideological moderation. Allegedly, the former can occur more easily then the

latter.43

The opposite is ture of the Haredi parties in Israel: their anti-democratic

rhetoric tends to go hand in hand with practically adopting a democratic outlook

when it comes to political issues such as security, the economy, and so forth.

As we noted in the theoretical introduction, different scholars utilize Lijpharts

consociational model to account for the accommodation and collaboration between

political adversaries that took place in the pre- and post-state periods. This

consociational model is especially significant for the religious parties because it

allowed the National Religious Party(NRP. In Hebrew:Mafdal) a partner in the

ruling coalition for many years to espouse pragmatic, moderate positions. The

Haredi parties as well even in the long periods when it was not a part of the

43Jillian Schwedler, Faith in Moderation(supra note 10).


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coalition tended to shy away from dangerous radicalization and the precipitation

of crises. The complex system of arrangements known as the status quo in matters

of religion and state preserved basic political stability until the 1980s. Over the

course of the past two or three decades, these consociational arrangements have

frayed and faltered as religious and secular elites adopted more adversarial and

crisis-driven policies.44

Nevertheless, the outbreak of the Intifada in the year 2000,

strengthened the basic feelings of solidarity between the religious and the secular

who commonly shared a profound security challenge. This is particularly true of the

moderate wing of the religious Zionists and theHaredicommunity. By contrast, in

light of the controversial evacuation from the Gaza Strip, at least a part of the

religious Zionist leadership has been unwilling to continue operating according to

the rules of consociational accommodation.

The weakness of accommodationist policies among the religious Zionists has

another source as well. While the religious and political leadership of the ultra-

Orthodox retained its control over the Haredi community, remaining stable and

defined, the religious Zionists suffered from the weakness brought on by

fragmentation as well as by a growing vacuum in its religio-political leadership. In

the absence of an effective, united leadership, consociationalism weakens because it

makes negotiating accommodationist politics all the more difficult.

Let us now turn in detail to a survey of the various religious parties.

Yahadut Hatorah Agudat Yisrael and Degel Hatorah

From the time of its founding in 1912 until 1984, Agudat Yisrael,the Orthodox Haredi

party, comprised within it two distinct groups: The Hasidic and the Lithuanian branches

of ultra-Orthodoxy. In 1988, the Lithuanian community broke off from Agudat Yisrael

and founded theDegel Hatorah party leavingAgudat Yisrael as the sole representative

of the Hasidic ultra-Orthodox camp. Since 1992, Agudat Yisrael and Degel Hatorah

competed electorally under the combined rubric of Yahadut Hatorah.In a word: Yahadut

44 Asher Cohen and Bernard Susser,Israel and the politics of Jewish identity : the secular-religious

impasse,(Baltimore:John Hopkins University Press,2000).


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Hatorah is today the continuation of the historic Agudat Yisrael that unites both ultra-

Orthodox camps.

Haredi behavior evinces a complex system of interactions with the political

environment in which it operates. This behavior has two distinct, even contradictory,

tendencies: On the one hand, opposition to and rejection of engagement with the Zionist

establishment; on the other, a growing integration into this same political mainstream.

Four distinct periods can be delineated in this regard.

1.The pre-statehood period (1919-1947) in which the ultra-Orthodox camp split

into two parts: the extreme, uncompromising side (Neturei Karta) that opposed any form

of cooperation with the Zionist enterprise and the more moderate camp (those we have

spoken of to this point as theHaredim)that championed pragmatic, selective engagement

as dictated by realitys constraints.45 Even though the declared policy of the more

moderate branch (that formed the majority of the ultra-Orthodox camp) was sharply anti-

Zionist, the violent clashes between Jews and Palestinians in which many Haredim were

injured, encouraged tendencies of moderation and practical cooperation with the Zionist

mainstream. There was even passive, oblique support for an independent Jewish state.

This is especially true after the Shoah that decimated (among others) virtually the entire

EuropeanHaredicommunity.

2.The transitional period from the Yishuv to statehood (1947-1952) during which a

substantial degree of collaboration developed between the secular and ultra-Orthodox

camps one example being the Haredi signature on the Israeli Declaration of

Independence on the day the State was established. In fact, the leader of theHarediparty,

Rabbi Yitchak Meyer Levin, even served as a minister in the provisional government and

retained the post until the party left the coalition in 1952. During these years a

consociational form of political cooperation on religious-secular lines developed. Even

theAgudat Yisraels departure from the coalition and its joining the opposition for a long

period did not change the fact that it continued to practice a politics of accommodation.

45 Menachem Friedman, Society and Religion- The Antizionist Orthodozy In Palestine 1918-1936

[Hebrew],(Jerusalem: Yad Ben Zvi, 1977).


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3.The period of polite opposition lasted from 1952 when Agudat Yisrael left the

coalition over the issue of national service for women until it joined it again in 1977

with the rise of the Likud to power. Ostensibly, this period of liberation from coalitional

pressures would bring with it growing antagonism toward the ruling secular

establishment. However, here the political passivity we spoke of earlier came into

effect. In Haredi ideology there is intrinsic value to passivity and non-intrusion into

secular-centered political conflict. TheHaredi community underwent a broad-based inner

consolidation focusing upon the advancement of its communal interests. Nevertheless,

advancement entails basic cooperation with the environing majority especially when

many of its interests non-conscription of yeshiva students, no national service for

Harediwomen, a subsidized independent educational system etc. depended upon the

agreement and good will of the secular majority.

4.From the rise of the Likud to power in 1977 until the present, the Haredim have

enjoyed the status of a scale tipping party. It is here that we can see the influence of the

political environment on moderation of a religious (even fundamentalist) party. The

Haredi ideological proximity to Menachem Begin and the Likud whose support came

largely from traditional voters and themselves championed traditional values, made the

integration of theHarediminto the government elite easier and more natural. They took

an active and even enthusiastic part in the democratic game. Their prominent members

served as the heads of the very powerful Knesset finance committee and as the ruling

coalition leader in the Knesset. In their hands, the finance committee became a conduit

for shunting funds to theHaredicommunity. The finance committee decided not only on

supporting theHaredicommunity in general; it also determined which part of theHaredi

community the Hasidim, the Lithuanian branch, the Sephardim, etc. would receive

government handouts. Beyond these community-centered, sectorial functions, those

who held these powerful positions also became de facto partners in administering the

Zionist state once again encouraging moderation in the anti-Zionist discourse of the

Haredi leadership. Curiously, despite their scale tipping position, theHaredim declined

to assume the position of full-fledged ministers in the government. In order to refuse to

take responsibility for the non-religious policies of the government, they chose

appointments as Deputy Ministers with no Minister above them. They were, to all intents


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and purposes, the chief executives of Ministries such as the Ministry of Health and Social

Welfare even though their title was Deputy Minister.

Once again, the same pattern emerges: on the one hand, a narrow sectorial concern

for the interests of the Haredi community; on the other, inevitable responsibility for

larger issues of budget, foreign policy, welfare, housing, education etc. All of which

serves to moderate their residual anti-Zionism perhaps better described at present as

non-Zionism while simultaneously encouraging them to identify with the State of

Israel. They have undergone a subtle but significant process of political Israelization,

much as they have been influenced in some measure by a globalized, Americanized

ethos. Yet, paradoxically, despite the moderating effect of their growing power within

government coalitions, they are thrust into the inevitable clashes over public issues such

as abortion and Sabbath violation. To the degree, that Israelization takes place, so does

the sense that they are responsible for what takes place in Israeli public life.

Shas

Yoav Peled begins an edited collection of essays on the Shas party as follows: [Shas] is

without doubt the most talked about and least understood party in Israeli politics. The

title of his own essay in this same anthology is A Riddle Called Shas.46

It is impossible

to miss the great surge both in publicistic and academic writing about Shas at the end of

the 1990s when the party reached its greatest electoral achievement and won seventeen

Knesset seats in the 1999 Knesset unprecedented for all religious parties since the

Israels founding.47

46 Yoav Peled (ed), Shas: the Challenge of Israeliness (Tel Aviv, Yediot Achronont 2001)[Hebrew]

Introduction, p. 11 and pp. 52-74.

47 On Shas seeDavid Lehmann, Batia Siebzehner, Remaking Israeli Judaism : the challenge of Shas

(London: Hurst Co, 2006);Lilly Weissbrod,Shas: an ethnic religious party, Israel Affairs

9,4(2003),,pp.79-104.

For other studies[In Hebrew] of Shas see Aviezer Ravitzki (ed),Shas: Cultural and Ideological

Perspectives(Tel-Aviv:am Oved,2006); Riki Tesler, In The Name of God: Shas and the Religious

Revolution(Jerusalem:Keter,2003); Yoel Nir,Aryeh Deri: the Rise, the Crisis, the Pain(Tel Aviv,


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As opposed to Agudat Yisrael and the National Religious Party, which have long

histories reaching back to the beginning of the 20th

Century, Shas is a new party founded

only in 1984. Its enigmatic character derives from a number of questions that Shas

electoral achievement raises: How did a party with an avowedly ethnic/communal

(Sephardic Jews) character succeed when all other ethnic/communal parties in Israels

past have failed?48

How are we to explain the contrast between Shas ultra-Orthodox

leadership and its voters who are not religiously observant but rather largely traditionalist

in character? How are we to define its relationship to Zionism, which is different, both

from the non- or anti-Zionism of other Haredi groups and from the attitudes of the

religious Zionists? Notably, in January 2010 Shas joined the World Zionist Organization.

Within the ultra-Orthodox context, Shas success represents a backlash against the

continuing prejudice against the Sephardi sector in the Agudat Yisrael party. The bias

toward the Sephardim expressed itself in the long-term refusal of the Ashkenazic ultra-

Orthodox to apportion to the Sephardim the Knesset representation they numerically

deserved. This bias some would call it racism was also prevalent within the ultra-

Orthodox educational institutions in which Sephardi students were stigmatized as

inferior. This sense of prejudice intensified dramatically in the early 1980s for two main

reasons: first, the electoral victory of the Likud in 1977 highlighted the sense of

alienation felt by the Sephardic population. After all, they had contributed substantially to

the Likud victory but within the ultra-Orthodox community, they were still second-class

citizens. Second, the return of the Agudat Yisrael party to the ruling coalition led by the

Likud, sharpened the sense of discrimination felt by the Sephardim in the ultra-religious

camp. The Sephardim felt acute discrimination in that the Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox

parties were able to liberally budget their own institutions while they, despite their

growing numbers, were unable to support their own causes.

Yediot Achronot, 1999) [Hebrew]; Menachem Rahat, The Spirit and the Power: How Shas

Prevailed Over Israeli Politics(Tel Aviv, Alpha Communications, 1998).

48 On the persistent failure of the ethnic/communitarian parties see Hanna Herzog, Political Ethnicity

the Image and the Reality (Tel Aviv, Yad Tabenkin, 1986).


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To understand the phenomenon of Shas and its continuing success we need to

understand its difference from the Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox party Yahadut Hatorah.

Fisher and Bekerman, utilizing Max Webers terminology, understand the difference

between Yahadut Hatorah and Shas as that between a sect and a church. Sects are

characterized by members who are totally dedicated to the religious ideals of their

institution. Churches, by contrast, are distinguished by the disparities and the hierarchal

structure characterizing the religious status of their believers. In our case, the ultra-

Orthodox Yahadut Hatorah is a sect while Shas is better understood as a church.49

The Sephardic ultra-Orthodox leadership was never driven by an ethos of

uncompromising struggle against threatening secular adversaries, an Enlightenment,

that presented itself as an alternative to religious tradition. In these Islamic countries,

even those individuals who distanced themselves from Orthodox observance did so as

individuals and not as a movement. They retained a respect for the tradition and its

rabbinic leadership. Hence, it is clear why the Sephardic rabbinic leadership continued to

see itself as the representative of the entire community including those who had

ostensibly left the fold. Some scholars even doubt the existence of a proper Sephardic

Orthodoxy until the middle of the 20th

Century. It also accounts for the relative

moderation of the Sephardi Halachic tradition as opposed to the greater severity of the

European rabbinical tradition.50

Research done on the differences in the religious self-identification of Sephardi

Jews on the one hand, and, their degree of obligation toward Halacha on the other, aids in

understanding this phenomenon. In the case of Sephardi Jews, this gap is especially wide.

Among those who decline to define themselves as religious, many are rather scrupulous

in observing selective traditions. Tzvi Zohar demonstrates how despite the fact that Shas

partys slogan To Return the Glory of Yesteryear was understood quite differently

49 Shlomo Fisher and Zvi Beckerman,A Church or a Sect?in Yoav Peled, Shas(supra

note40),pp.321-342. For Webers terminology see Max Weber, Economy and Society-An Outline of

Interpretive Sociology(new-York:Oxford University Press,1958),pp.1204-1211.

50 Zvi Zohar, The Luminous Face Of The East-Studies in the Legal and Religious Thought of

Sephardic Rabbis of the Middle East [Hebrew] (Tel-Aviv:Hakibutz Hameuchad Publishing House,

2001). For a different view see


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by the Orthodox and traditional wings of Shas, nevertheless, all the party supporters

could unite behind the same formula.51

The most dramatic characteristic of Shas is the large gap between its Knesset

representation and its rank and file supporters. Its Knesset representatives belong

exclusively to the partys Haredi wing even though the Shas Haredi members do not

surpass a quarter of the partys voters or the equivalent of four Knesset seats. Most of the

other Knesset seats come from voters who are religiously observant but not ultra-

Orthodox and, in an even a larger proportion, from traditional Sephardi Jews whose

attitude to Halacha may be described as latitudinarian. More practically, this means that

in regard to perhaps the most visible of religious symbols in Israel, most Shas (male)

voters do not regularly wear a Kippa. As was the case in their lands of origin, Shas

religious representatives have no trouble in viewing the traditional majority as part of its

religious community any more than its traditional supporters have difficulty in accepting

its ultra-Orthodox elite as its legitimate Knesset representation.

Shas soft ultra-Orthodoxy is unique as well in never having developed a

profound anti-Zionist ethos like those of their European brethren. As opposed to Yahadut

Hatorah that refuses to accept full ministerial positions because it renders it at least

symbolically responsible for Zionist activity, Shas has no such worries. Indeed, Shas

has fought with great energy to accumulate as many ministerial positions as it can. Once

again, this leads to both moderation and radicalization. On the radicalizing side, it brings

a demanding Haredi agenda to more government ministries; on the moderating side, the

Shas ministers must share responsibility for the general conduct of national policy that

has a moderating effect. Moderation is also enhanced because wanting to aid its own

Sephardic constituency requires compromises on other issues.

For example, Shas responsibility for the Ministry of Interior has created repeated

confrontations on personal status issues such as those related to the Israeli citizenship of

non-Jews. Starting in the early 1990s, immigrants from the former Soviet Union began

arriving in great numbers; a significant portion of them was not Halachically Jewish. The

51 Tzvi Zohar To Return the Glory of Yesteryear The Vision of Rabbi Ovadia in yoav Peled, Shas

(supra note 40),pp.159-209.


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fact that a conservative Haredi minister was in charge of citizenship issues, intensified the

conflict over the status of these new immigrants. The same is true of the current debate

within Israeli society on the status of the children of foreign workers. Eli Yishai, the

interior minister of the Shas party, holds a conservative, anti-democratic point of view

that supports the deportation of hundreds of children born and raised in Israel, for whom

this country is their only home.

On the other hand, Shas pivotal role in coalitional politics has led to some strikingly

moderate policy decisions. To mention only one example: Shas lined up with the Rabin

government in taking responsibility for the Oslo agreement with the PLO,despite the

right-wing sympathies of much of its constituency. Adding to these moderating effects,

we need to mention the religious decision of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the undisputed

spiritual leader of the Shas party, that giving up land for a peace agreement was an

acceptable Halachic option. To be sure, over the past decade, Shas and its supporters have

become increasing right wing in their foreign policy orientation but this is part of a

general shift to the right of the Israeli electorate rather than to specific Shas-related

issues.

Perhaps the most significant indication of Shas ideological moderation was the

decision to submit its candidacy for membership in the World Zionist Organization. In

January of 2010, a decisive majority or the WZO approved this candidacy. As a condition

of this acceptance, Shas adopted the 2004 Jerusalem Plan that stipulated the basic

policy articles of the Zionist movement. It is the first time a party that defines itself as

ultra-Orthodox, overtly and officially accepts the Zionist ideology. There is little doubt

that its sectorial needs as well as its sense of general responsibility for national welfare

were involved in this critical change of policy.

Shas has not become an internally democratic party. To be sure, it participates in

electoral contests and its ministers feel responsible to their constituency. It has also

declared that it would be willing to serve under a woman Prime Minister not a simple

statement for a Haredi party. Nevertheless, Shas Knesset members are not elected by an

internal democratic process; rather, they are appointed by Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, its

spiritual leader, in consultation with the party leader (Eli Yishai). Moreover, women are

excluded from serving as members of Knesset


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Religious Zionism and its Parties: The Center Cannot Hold

The electoral history of the religious Zionist camp divides rather neatly into two major

periods: First, the period of organizational and functional stability it enjoyed during the

early years from 1949 until the rise of the Likud in 1977; Second, the period of

turbulence and change that has overtaken it from 1981 to the present.

In many senses, the history of the religious Zionist parties represent the obverse

side of the two ultra-Orthodox parties. While the ultra-Orthodox parties have remained

stable with 11-12 seats for Shas and 5-6 for Yahadut Hatorah, the religious Zionist parties

have continually lost their strength. This is especially true in regard to the religious

Zionist mother party the National Religious Party (NRP) that reached its electoral

nadir of 3 seats in 2009.

In the period ofstability between 1949 and the realignment of 1977, the NRP was

identified as acamp party, that is, a party identified, in its leadership and constituency

with a specific, unified socio-cultural community. It is not a grab bag of disparate voters

who happen to support a specific party in a particular election. Camp parties see

themselvesas looking out for the vital interests of those affiliated with its definedsocial-

cultural group, and as an organized vehicle for realizing its ideology. It also serves as a

social-integration party in the sense that itfocuses not only on gaining voter support in

elections but on a range of more general areas such as culture, education, society,

employment, economics, and the like,with the aim of preserving and promoting the camp

that it represents.

Electorally speaking, a camp party has two distinguishing features both of which

were manifest in the historical NRP. First, the vast majority of religious Zionists

consistently voted for it; and two, no significant party presenting itself as analternative to

the NRP emerged among religious Zionists Moreover, the NRPs representation remained

more or less constant over the years, ranging in general from 10 to 12 seats. (Religious

Zionists comprise roughly 10% of the Israeli population.)52

52 Eliezer Don-Yehiya, Origins and development of the Agudah and Mafdal parties Jerusalem

Quarterly 20 (1981), pp. 49-64


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From 1981 onwards, a number of critical changes take place. First, the rise of

ethno/communitarian religious parties such as Tami (religious Sephardic Jews) that

offered itself as an alternative to the NRP. Tami was quickly replaced by Shas that

provided a far more substantial ethno/religious alternative to the NRP. A second factor

was the growth of a radical religious right that rebelled against the more moderately

hawkish positions taken by the NRP. Various blocs of uncompromising religious right-

wingers undermined the monopoly of the NRP and shattered what had been a unified

party into a variety of competing factions.

The NRPs consistent attainments in the past rested upon its fear that as a minority

religious group in a majority secular culture, it would be swept away by a wave of

aggressive modernity. Hence, its position was defensive vis--vis the dominant Israeli

Labor Party (Mapai). The rise of the Likud to power liberated them from this fear of

cultural isolation and erosion. The second generation of religious youth felt secure in its

position, because the Likud, especially under Menachem Begin, was favorable to Jewish

cultural and religious values. Moreover, this second generation was bent on carrying out

the new settlement agenda in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. In the 1970s, Gush

Emunim (the Bloc of the Faithful) spearheaded this program.53

As a result, many of the

former supporters of the NRP joined with more radically right-wing religious factions as

well as with the Likud. The electoral attainments of the religious Zionists in the past

decades has dropped and became unstable receiving 4 seats in 1984, 9 seats in 1996 and

only 3 seats in 2009.

53 On Gush Emunim movement and its tremendous impact on Israeli politics and society there is an

extensive literature. Some of the main works are;

Gidon Aran, Jewish Zionist Fundamentalism: The Bloc of the Faithful in Israel (Gush Emunim),

in Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby (eds.), The Fundamentalism Project,Vol 1:

Fundamentalism Observed (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press,1991), pp.265-344; Eliezer

Don-Yehiya, Jewish Messianism, Religious Zionism, and Israeli Politics: The Impact and Origins

of Gush Emunim,,Middle Eastern Studies 23 (1987), pp.215-34; Ehud Sprinzak, Gush Emunim:

The Iceberg Model of Political Extermism, Jerusalem Quaterly 21 (1981); idem, Gush Emunim: The

Politics of Zionist Fundamentalism in Israel (New York: American Jewish Committee, Institute of

Human Relations, 1986).


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The break-away of the extreme religious Zionists, forming first Tekuma and later

The National Union (in the run-up to the 1999 elections) is of special significance.

From this point forward, The National Union becomes the focus of the extreme religious

right. To be sure, in 2006 a joint National Union and NRP list won 9 seats but only 3 of

them were NRP representatives. (Cohen 2007). During the last 2009 elections, an attempt

to unify religious Zionism under a single banner failed. In the end, two parties arouse: the

Jewish Home which is part of the government and is a continuation of the historic NRP

(it won 3 seats in the Knesset) and the National Union which is only partly religious in its

Knesset representation (it won 4 seats and is in the opposition.) In a word: To the degree

that the younger generation of religious Zionists has integrated into the general Israeli

society and marketplace, so has the organized political power of traditional religious

Zionism declined. This new confidence explains both why religious Zionists have moved

to right-wing traditionalist parties like the Likud as well as why they have not feared

creating brash, radical parties on the extreme right wing of Israeli politics.

It is important here to correct a prevalent but mistaken perception of the religious

Zionist community. It is far from being a monolithic activist group unanimously

committed to a politics of Zionist messianic redemption. In fact, the religious Zionist

camp is very various and complex in its character. As Yair Sheleg pointed out in his

pioneering book on the variegated tendencies within the religious Zionist community: in

the 1990s there already existed a broad spectrum of phenomena each one of which could

be identified as an opening toward a different aspect of the [secular] general

culture.54

Among these phenomena, Sheleg refers to the new forms of leisure activity,

secular artistic expression especially in the world of film ; the growth of a religious

feminist movement; the growing legitimacy of scientific approaches to scripture; the rise

of a new liberal rabbinate (most especially the group called Tzohar) and the change of

attitude toward military service. Sheleg describes the escape from narrow communal

sectarianism with the following formula: be a Jew inside your house and an Israeli

54 Sheleg,(supra note 35),p.56.


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outside.55

The weak and fissured nature of the religious Zionist community is the best

indicator of this variegation.

Since the publication of Shelegs book, various studies that expand and flesh out his

findings have appeared. The variety of orthodox religious experience is now well

established.56

As opposed to the conservative, even fundamentalist, currents that certainly

exist in religious Zionism, there is also a large, liberal, open, Torah-centered community

as well. Especially noteworthy is the existence of a large comparatively moderate middle

class constituency of religious Zionists . Recent research finds, as is only to be expected,

that among the religious Zionists, right wing views predominate, to wit, general

opposition to the return of territory conquered in 1967. Nevertheless, important sectors

within this community are not messianists in character, that is, they do not support the

agenda of the Greater Land of Israel. One of the significant findings of this research is

that there is a clear correlation between fundamentalist religious views and radical right

wing positions.57

. The party that incarnates this correlation is The National Union. By

contrast, the large middle class religious Orthodox community votes for The Jewish

Home (the heir to the NRP) and the Likud. This relative moderation is the perpetuation of

the themes represented by the historical NRP.

These views are especially expressed by The Jewish Homes leader, Rabbi

Professor Daniel Hershkovitz. Hershkovitz is one of the most prominent rabbinical

figures in Haifa as well as being a professor of Mathematics at the Technion. He serves as

Minister of Science and devotes the greater part of his energies to advancing the cause of

science in Israel rather than to ideological matters. To be sure, he belongs to the right

wing section of the government, but Prime Minister Netanyahus declarations on the

desirability of a two state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as well as his policy

55 Ibid,p.75.

56 Moshe Hellinger and Yossi Londin, The Relationship between Socio-Economic Ideology and

Religious and Political Ideology: Variant Movements of Religious-Zionism in Israel 1995-2007, as a

Test Case,(forthcoming).

57 Hanan Mozess,From Religious Zionism to Posr-Modern Religious: Directions and Developments in

Religious Zionism since the Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin[Hebrew](PhD dissertation, Ramat-

Gan:Bar-Ilan University, 2009).


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of freezing building in the West Bank settlements, did not cause his party to consider

leaving the coalition. No such voices were audible. The National Union, by contrast, is a

fighting opposition to Netanyahus Government. Among its Members of Knesset is

Michael Ben Ari an explicit supporter of Rabbi Meyer Kahana, the iconic leader of the

Kach extreme right party that was banned by Knesset legislation in 1988. It seems

therefore that these two parties represent both tendencies within the religious Zionist

community: the one more moderate, the other radical and extreme.

One of the more prominent features of the recent Knesset elections is the rise of

religious Zionist support for the secular-traditional party: the Likud. In the 2006

elections, the Likud won 9% of the vote while in the 2009 their vote rose dramatically to

22%. The Likud gained votes in all of the religious sectors (urban, villages, kibbutzim,

etc) but most significantly in the religious kibbutzim that, in the past were identified with

left-wing positions.

It is quite obvious that the split in the religious Zionist community weakened

support for the religious Zionist parties. Moreover, the Likud became a political

solution for those religious Zionists who held to moderate right-wing points of view.

Finally, since the evacuation from the Gaza Strip, those voices calling upon religious

Zionists to abandon their sectorial, isolationist position and integrate themselves in

national, all-Israel politics intensified substantially. This splits the religious Zionist

community in yet another way. Notably, in the recent election, the Likud incorporated

five religious Zionist candidates in realistic spots on its party list, which indicates the

deepening roots of the religious Zionists in the Likud mainstream. Within the context of

contemporary right wing religious Zionism, the move to the Likud represents a

moderating force, a move in the direction of integration into the general Israeli public. In

this case, participating in a democratic pluralistic system of government clearly tends to

weaken the strength of a religious party.

F. Summary and Conclusions

Israels religious parties are unique not only in the world of Western religious parties, but

also in the context of Moslem states that are undergoing a process of democratization. By

contrast to Christian Democratic parties that aim to be broadly and loosely


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representative, catch-all parties, Israeli religious parties are primarily camp or

niche parties concerned with the interests of a particular religio-social minority group.

Employing their political power especially when placed strategically in coalitions

they attempt to leverage governments into adopting positions that are congenial to their

constituencies. On the other hand, Moslem parties in countries like Turkey or Jordan are

not camp parties: they do not represent an integrated, distinct community; on the

rhetorical level, they may speak in favor of a state with a more Islamic character, but they

do so generally in the name of Islam rather than as representatives of a particular,

delimited camp.

One of the main themes of this study is that as members of a coalition government,

Israeli religious parties often undergo processes of moderation and pragmatization. They

accept the rules of the democratic system and even, to a certain degree, accept the

democratic form of government as sensible, if not as ideal. The permanent inclusion of

Harediparties in government coalitions in the past generation and their growing power

among political elites have contributed to their enhanced Israelization both in the cultural

sense and in terms of the internalization of the democratic process. On the other hand, the

religious Zionist parties, that earlier incorporated the democratic principle both as an

ideological vision and even more in the pragmatism that marked its political activity, has

become more and more fractured and, at parts of its outlying wings, has turned to anti-

establishment, extremist politics. This process has been exacerbated, as substantial

elements of the religious Zionists have not been included in recent government coalitions.

We may, therefore, conclude that radicalizing and moderating forces in religious parties

are not substantially related to the internal democracy regnant within the party. The

religious Zionists are internally democratic and yet radicalism is rife in its outlying wings

while the Haredimwhose internal democratic quotient is low, have adopted pragmatic

policies vis--vis Israeli mainstream politics.

The basic characteristics of Israel's social and political systems profoundly

influence the tendencies to radicalization and modernization in its religious parties. Three

of these characteristics are especially critical. First, the religious parties and the

constituencies upon which they rest have always been social and political minorities.

Second, there exist powerful forces of national solidarity that derive from the common


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sense of an existential threat to the country's existence. Third, religious and national

identities overlap and create a sense of communality not often present in other states.

Whether or not processes of democratization are taking place within the various religious

parties, these essential traits are critical and constantly in play.

Basic as well are the powerful consociational forces that shape religious-secular

relationships in the Israeli political system. Accommodationist tendencies have been at

work in Israel since the pre-state period and have demonstrated their indispensability in

defusing some potentially explosive crises. Consociationalist politics also boost the

democratizing tendencies of the religious parties externally in that they encourages

acceptance of the democratic rules of the game even if they do not necessarily

strengthen internal democratic processes within the Haredi parties. The prevalence and

power of consociational politics is further demonstrated in that the religious parties in the

government coalition 'represent' an absolute majority of the Israeli Religious public. Even

the Likud itself has a sizeable religious wing. Only 4 of the 23 religious members of the

120 seat Knesset are outside the coalition and express more radical points of view.

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