Chapter Four: The Collapse of the Strategies

These three strategies are presently collapsing. Compartmentalization, alienation, and abdication served each of the communities in Israeli Jewish society and enabled them to survive without dealing with the implications for the Israeli “whole” of the strategies adopted by the other communities. Their relative success in the first thirty years of the state reflected the priority that the young State of Israel ascribed to the preservation of a broad consensus among members of the various Jewish communities in the country. At the time, everyone was wary of pushing the other beyond the pale of the consensus that united all. Thus, for instance, David Ben-Gurion, who was personally alienated from religion, guided the political system to adopt a consociational model of democracy on matters of religion and state. He understood the national importance of agreeing upon a status quo on matters of religion, and was willing to pay the high price of the secular majority’s relinquishing control over some of its ways of life.[31] Yet, the traditional consensus between the Jewish communities in Israel is now gradually collapsing, and the pressure on each of these three strategies is intensifying.

Many are concerned with an analysis of this breakdown, and with Israel’s transition from a consociational democracy[32] to a democracy in crisis.[33] In the last decade, when many believed we were about to find a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Arab conflict, the perception of an attenuated security threat allowed us to focus on our cultural disagreements. Less obvious is the effect of the collapse of the prevalent hegemonies and of the reallocation of political, economic, and social resources, shifting from the old elites to peripheral forces.[34] In the future, we may have to pay attention to the effects of globalization on the ties binding Israelis together. As foreign cultures become more accessible and their marketing instruments more aggressive, and as the national unit becomes less important and is replaced by other forms of social organization (such as multinational or supra-national bodies),[35] individual Israelis may become progressively estranged from their “Israeliness.”[36] Consensus will then be threatened not only from the inside, by the inter-communal struggle for dominance in influencing Israeli identity, but also from the outside, by the global alternative.[37]

How do the decline of social and political consensus in Israel and the focus of the public discourse on internal cultural controversies affect the behavioral strategies of each of the three communities?

The Orthodox community, which has yet to develop practical alternatives to the compartmentalization of its identities, pays a heavy price every day. In the new reality of open contest between Israel’s various cultures, the partitions between the drawers are being removed against its will. The Orthodox find it hard to persist in their compartmentalization while faced with an ongoing confrontation between the two components of their identity. Barring a strategy enabling the harmonious coexistence of both components, they are forced to choose between the available alternatives.[38] They can opt for the Jewish drawer and then, to push away the “other,” incline toward ultra-Orthodoxy;[39] or they can opt for the liberal drawer and then, at times, feel they must shed the religious identity that ostensibly contradicts this option.

Statistics show that the religious-Zionist community faces considerable difficulties in keeping its youngsters within the ideological framework accepted by its adults.[40] In my view, the compartmentalization strategy is the built-in flaw, the faulty gene of religious-Zionism, which led to this result. Compartmentalization is not marketable, and cannot be bequeathed either, because it cannot function as a mechanism for coping with a reality torn by cultural conflict. The constitutive text offering the non-haredi Orthodox a harmonious, or at least dialectical, solution to the complex riddle of their existence between two cultures has yet to be written.

Neither does the haredi alienation strategy offer a real solution. An ideology that readily dispenses labels of good and evil according to rigid criteria enjoys the advantage of clear and sharp messages. But the cost of alienation has proven too high for haredi society. First, in the past, alienation offered an option for operative functioning because it had developed in a context that took consociational existence for granted. At present, when the shared web is tearing, alienation begins to pose a real threat to the possibility of a shared existence.

Second, haredi society is growing and so are its needs, necessitating increasing recourse to political power. To use this power for its natural and obvious needs, haredi society has taken over large segments of the government.[41] With power and government come responsibility, and with it cooperation. In the long range, however, cooperation and alienation cannot coexist since they represent a contradiction in terms.

Third, the economic pressures affecting haredi society[42] almost preclude the withdrawal option. In the new world, where capital, land, manpower, and material resources make way for information as the major resource asset, haredi society must resort to non-traditional forms of knowledge, as news about intentions to establish a haredi university confirms. According to original haredi ideology, the very idea of a haredi university is absurd, but economic reality has its own laws. Education, power, and responsibility will necessarily lead to the collapse of the alienation and withdrawal strategy.

As for the secular strategy of abdication, there are initial signs of acknowledgment that “normal” existence, a desirable goal for some of the public, could emerge as a significant threat to Israeli culture because it would blur its uniqueness. In the wake of this acknowledgment, the thorny question of identity, [43] as well as others,[44] has cropped up again. The “Jewish bookshelf” is of interest to secular Jews sensitive to identity issues. They are unwilling to surrender this shelf, since it could hold the most significant answer to the riddle of their national and cultural uniqueness.[45] I do not share the perception that this is a passing fad. In my view, this is the existential need of a culture seeking meaning in its sources,[46] possibly leading to the creation of a modern midrash (commentary) that will pour unique and novel content into secular Jewish existence.[47] At present, however, this is essentially an avant-garde phenomenon in which most secular Jews take no part.

The analysis suggests that despite signs of change, all Jewish communities in Israel have difficulties coping with cultural duality, and none of them has adopted ideological models integrating both cultures. In the past, this was not enough to lead to an open identity crisis and to a confrontation between cultures because Israeli society functioned within a consociational framework. A practical arrangement, in a supportive political environment, provided a substitute for ideological confrontation with the tension resulting from cultural duality. Consensus created a reasonably firm and stable bulwark, which enabled joint survival while evading open discussion of fundamental questions of identity. Today, when Israel is a democracy in crisis, hidden strains have burst into the open. The primary impulse is no longer the search for a common denominator, for compromise or reconciliation, but a search for achievements, for the final truth, accentuating differences and stigmatizing the faults each finds in the other. Hence, the external defense line is now collapsing. The crisis paralyzes the ability to reach an “arrangement” through political and social mechanisms for releasing tension. The dispute over the question of identity is fully evident at the ideological level. Each community, exposed to pressures by the others, stands in the Israeli marketplace of ideas equipped with the strategy it had adopted for a life facing cultural duality—compartmentalization, alienation, or abdication. But these are flimsy props, since they have nothing to say to those seeking inclusiveness and integration of the two cultures. The collapse of past strategies brought about by the present crisis leaves key groups (and individuals) in Israeli Jewish society bereft of the ideological thinking patterns that had helped them to contend with the identity tension between Western and Jewish cultures. But, as King Solomon teaches: “Where there is no vision, the people become unruly.”[48] In circumstances of ongoing crisis, the Israeli public agenda includes more and more items whose core is inter-cultural tension. The general ideological failure hinders the attainment of inclusive solutions to these problems, with the unfortunate result of pushing everyone into a power struggle. The common fabric of Israeli society is stretched to the breaking point. The two cultures face each other as though deployed for war, each viewing the implementation of its platform as a deterministic need. Not only interests are at stake, although they are certainly at play, but also elements that, subjectively, constitute and explain reality.[49]

31. See Zvi Zameret, “Judaism in Israel: Ben-Gurion’s Private Beliefs and Public Policy” 4 Israel Studies (1999): 64. See also Zvi Zameret, “Yes to a Jewish State, No to a Clericalist State: The Mapai Leadership and its Attitude to Religion and Religious Jews” [Hebrew], in On Both Sides of the Bridge: Religion and State in the Early Years of Israel, ed. Mordechai Bar-On and Zvi Zameret (Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi Press, 2002).
 
32. The model of consociational democracy was suggested by Arendt Lijphart, The Politics of Accommodation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968); Arendt Lijphart, Democracies (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1984). In Israel, the concept was used to understand the organization of the Jewish political community during the British Mandate (Dan Horowitz and Moshe Lisak, Origins of the Israeli Polity: Palestine under the Mandate, trans. Charles Hoffman [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978]); as a key for understanding the relationships between religious and secular Jews after the establishment of the state (Dan Horowitz and Moshe Lisak, Trouble in Utopia: The Overburdened Polity of Israel [Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1989], 16-17), and to deal with various aspects of the religion/state relationship (Eliezer Don Yehiyah, Cooperation and Conflict between Political Camps: The Religious Camp and the Labor Movement and the Education Crisis in Israel, Ph.D. diss., Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1977).
 
33. Asher Cohen and Bernard Susser, “Changes in the Relationship between Religion and State: Between Consociationalism and Resolution” [Hebrew], in Multiculturalism in a Democratic and Jewish State: Memorial Volume for Ariel Rosen-Zvi, ed. Menachem Mautner, Avi Sagi and Ronen Shamir (Tel Aviv: Ramot, 1998), 675; Asher Cohen and Bernard Susser, Israel and the Politics of Jewish Identity: The Secular-Religious Impasse (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000).
 
34. Menachem Mautner, “Israeli Law in a Multicultural Society” [Hebrew], in The Rule of Law in a Polarized Society: Legal, Social, and Cultural Aspects, ed. Eyal Yinon (Jerusalem: The Israel Democracy Institute, 1999), 27.
 
35. Peter Ferdinand Drucker, Post-Capitalist Society (New York: Harper Business, 1993), Part 2.
 
36. The process of estrangement extends to several elements of the sense of belonging, such as the attitude of Israelis to their surroundings (Joshua Meyrowitz, No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior [New York: Oxford University Press, 1985]); their attitude toward sovereignty and the political unit (Joseph A. Camilleri and Jim Falk, The End of Sovereignty: The Politics of a Shrinking and Fragmenting World [Aldershot, U.K.: Edward Elgar, 1992]); their mutual relationship with the local society and economy (Thomas L. Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive Tree [New York: Anchor Books, 2000]).
 
37. See Charles S. Liebman, “Secular Judaism and its Prospects” [Hebrew], Alpayim 14 (1997): 97; Samuel Avigdor Ben-Sasson, “The Ascent of Man and the Absence of God: Notes on the Question of Our National Identity” [Hebrew], Alpayim 14 (1997): 117.
 
38. Many are not decisive and unequivocal in their choice of drawers. Were it otherwise, the Orthodox community would become an empty cell. Indeed, many in this community continue to shape their lifestyles through some kind of compromise, despite the difficulties, although they too are influenced by the social and cultural processes that Israeli society is undergoing. Thus, for instance, “the new religious-Zionists” who preserve their religious identity while internalizing aspects of the secular lifestyle in ways hitherto unknown, continue to live a compartmentalized existence. But the relative dose of influences absorbed from the contents of the two drawers changes. Thus, for instance, the attitude to the status of women, which had previously been drawn from the Jewish drawer, is now influenced by general cultural content. Only a minority in the religious community anchor their changing attitude to women in Jewish sources. From time to time, the new religious-Zionists also exchange some aspects of their existence between drawers. Thus for instance, the political identity of many is no longer defined by the Jewish drawer, and they can now, therefore, vote for a non-religious party. This transition is not backed by arguments drawn from the intra-religious discourse. For a description of this group, see Sheleg, The New Religious Jews, 54-93.
 
39. Charles Liebman, who analyzed this phenomenon about twenty years ago, enumerated five elements defining the decline of non-haredi Orthodoxy in Israel and the increasing tendencies toward religious extremism (neo-traditionalism or haredi-nationalism): increased levels of religious observance; the marginalization of family traditions; acceptance of a monistic approach; rejection of religious meaning to the State of Israel; and the style of religious observance. See Liebman, “The Rise of Neo-Traditionalism,” 237-240. These trends have definitely expanded over the last two decades, as evident in the significant numbers of non-haredi Orthodox youngsters studying at private institutions that are not part of the state-religious educational system. Whereas this had once been true of high school students (for instance, the Bnei Akiva networks of educational institutions for boys and girls), today it also applies to primary school children (for instance, the No’am, Ahino’am and Tsviah networks). Some of these educational institutions have gradually reduced the time devoted to secular subjects. Additional signs are the preference of many religious-Zionists for residence in homogeneous surroundings; their recourse to separate social and communal agencies different from those dealing with the rest of the population; a dress code that sets them apart through special and conspicuous features (such as big and colorful skullcaps); increasing recourse to rabbinical authority on everyday matters, and so forth.
 
40. For empirical studies of religiosity levels among students and graduates of the state-religious system, see Abraham Laslevi and Mordechai Bar-Lev, The Religious World of State Religious Education Graduates [Hebrew] (Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University, 1993). Findings show that 33% of the male students and 23% of the female students estimate that their levels of religiosity are lower than those of their parents. Only 7% of the male students and 10% of the female students assess their levels of religiosity as higher (109-111).
 
41. For a description of the mutual relationships between the perception of democracy by the Israeli public and by the haredi public see Shilhav, Ultra-Orthodoxy in Urban Governance, 103-105. The demands of ultra-Orthodox parties during the negotiations preceding the creation of Ariel Sharon’s coalition government [in 2001] attest to their increasing involvement. Yahadut ha-Torah [Torah Judaism - an ultra-Orthodox party] requested representation in the government (a commitment it had avoided since the 1950s). This is an innovation, since for ideological reasons, ultra-Orthodox representatives had so far confined themselves to such posts as parliamentary committee chairmen or deputy ministers. Shas, a party that from the outset had not refrained from participating in the government, asked at first for the finance portfolio, one of the three top positions in the government. At the local level, ultra-Orthodox forces are on the verge of accumulating enough power to appoint the mayor of Jerusalem, Israel’s largest city. On the ideological aspects of ultra-Orthodox attitudes toward the state, see Aryeh Naor, “The Sovereignty of the State of Israel in Orthodox Religious Thought” [Hebrew], Politika 2 (1998): 71, 77-80.
 
42. Bnei Brak and Jerusalem are among the poorest cities in Israel. For extensive information on Jerusalem’s ultra-Orthodox population see Momi Dahan, Ultra-Orthodox Jews and the Municipal Authorities (Jerusalem: Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies, 1998). About 55% of the gross income of an average ultra-Orthodox family in Jerusalem originates in state institutions, as opposed to 17% of the gross income of the rest of the city’s population. In 1995, about 69% of Jerusalem’s ultra-Orthodox population was living below the poverty line, as opposed to 6.9% of the rest of the city’s Jewish population. The cause of this poverty is twofold. The first reason is the low participation of the ultra-Orthodox population in the workforce. Whereas an ultra-Orthodox head of household in Jerusalem works an average of fourteen hours a week, the average for the rest of the city’s population is about thirty hours. About 62% of all ultra-Orthodox heads of household in Jerusalem do not work at all. The second reason is obviously the high average number of children in ultra-Orthodox families.
 
43. “Not only are the significant and sustained achievements of two hundred years of secular creativity in the spirit of the Enlightenment an insufficient foundation for the building of an Israeli national-cultural identity, but they themselves rest inseparably on three thousand years of essentially religious creativity…. A national culture that rules out conscious self-impoverishment must be wary of a devastating secularization, manifested in detachment from the sources and contempt for the importance of organic cultural continuity. Given the seductive ease surrounding attachment to the fruits of Western culture, one must remember that this culture is not supra-national but multi-national; hence, creative participation in it is possible only through a national culture. The trap is thus real, and so is the danger that assimilation, whose prevention was one of Zionism’s central aims, lies in wait for us in our own land.” Uriel Simon, “Religious-Secular Cooperation in the Building of a ‘Jewish Democratic State’” [Hebrew], Alpayim 13 (1997): 154, 158.
 
44. Rosen-Zvi assesses the recourse of secular Jews to Judaism as follows: “The democratic-secular-Jew passes through traditional Judaism in his attachment to the Land of Israel.… Secular Zionism needs the religious concept of the right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel as an (almost axiomatic) basis for the very claim to the Land of Israel as the historical home of the Jewish people…. Unquestionably, the Judaic concept in its religious sense (both in its philosophical and halakhic dimensions), and certainly in its broader cultural meaning, confers a dimension of uniqueness on the Jewish people, or at least contributes significantly to their self-definition. It constitutes a solid foundation for the absorption of communal values and their balanced incorporation into an ideology of individual freedom and personal rights. It also bestows added value on the Zionist idea whenever it comes into confrontation with the democratic component. In this case, the added value of the Jewish component joins the Zionist value to override the demand posed by the democratic element.” See Rosen-Zvi, “A Jewish and Democratic State,” 488-489.
 
45. On the burgeoning of study settings for an open discussion of Jewish sources, now numbering over one hundred and intended also for secular Jews, see Tamar Rotem, “Each One Will Choose Whatever He Wants from Judaism” [Hebrew], Haaretz, 13 October 2000, B12. The Panim association, a roof organization for pluralistic Judaism, reports 169 study settings where secular Jews study Jewish sources (sometimes together with religious people, in an attempt to have these venues function as meeting places as well). These study settings focus on a personal and intimate encounter with the text. Some deal with unique issues, such as Judaism and art, or Judaism and ecology. For a description, see Micha Oddenheimer, “In the Backyards” [Hebrew], Eretz Aheret 1 (2000):10.
 
46. I have no data on the success of the Conservative and Reform movements in spreading their message in Israel. The general sense is that Israelis are showing growing interest in the cultural and religious options that these movements offer, and that rates of membership in their communities have largely increased over the last decade. In my view, this success, though still small in absolute numbers, should be ascribed to the search of the secular public for links to their Jewish heritage.
 
47. “Opponents of Halakhah who uphold the notion of Israel as a Jewish national state are the ones who must find answers to the unique essence of Jewish nationalism. They are the ones who must impart this answer to new generations of Israelis who did not come here on the strength of the ‘Zionist revolution’ or because of a deep and existential struggle with their self-identity. Should they lack such an answer, two possible lines of development can be foreseen: either this vacuum will be filled once again by Jewish content as a religion, including all its isolationist elements, or all Israeli Jews will be people who speak Hebrew (some poorly and ungrammatically), but have no particular attachment to Jewish national culture.” See Ruth Gavison, “A Jewish Democratic State: Political Identity, Ideology, and Law” [Hebrew], in A Jewish Democratic State, ed. Daphne Barak-Erez (Tel Aviv: Ramot, 1996), 169, 216. See also Liebman, “Secular Judaism and its Prospects,” 113-116.
 
48. Proverbs 29:18.

49. An unfortunate instance of this is the political move known as the civic-secular revolution adopted by Ehud Barak’s government. The very idea of dealing with such acutely sensitive issues through one blunt stroke devised by a random political constellation is evidence of the crisis affecting Israeli society and of its leaders’ immaturity. A decision that favors one side in a kulturkampf setting is a proven recipe for disaster. For liberal truth zealots, Barak’s decision is a vital rite of passage that Israel must undergo on its way to normalcy. For them, the presence of religion in public life makes religion loathsome, corrupts politics, harms human rights, trivializes rational discourse, and diverts Israel from mainstream Zionism. By contrast, for zealots of the Jewish legacy in its ultra-Orthodox version, Ehud Barak’s proposed revolution confers the seal of state authority on the loss of national identity. The removal of religion from the state betrays Jewish history, subordinates Jewish culture to Western culture, and deprives the national revival of any meaning. When each side becomes entrenched in one cultural truth, the realization of one’s dream is possible only at the cost of the other’s nightmare. In my view, both contradictory views about the meaning of the civic-secular revolution are to some extent true. Barring a philosophy or ways of thinking that leave room for the values of both cultures to coexist, however, we will forever be forced to choose between them. The inevitable consequence will be the losing side’s unyielding refusal to accept the result.