Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Gol Kalev
Read between
January 9 - January 20, 2022
bound together Judaism: The Temple, the sacrifices, the centrality of Jerusalem and the Land of Israel.
Rabbinic Judaism
bound together Judaism: the prayers, Jewish law, rituals, canonization of the Oral Torah, and the yearning to return to the ancestral homeland.
Zionism (Judaism 3.0) is becoming the architecture not only through which Jews connect to their Judaism but also by which the outside world perceives the Jews.
Through the 2010s, Zionism was merely viewed as an important part of Judaism, but not its anchor. Insurmountable hurdles in the first 70 years of Israel’s independence prevented the transformation from materializing:
Zionism’s secular nature:
Haredi objection:
Socialism:
Poor and fragile:
– Status quo driven:
Zionism is no longer associated with secularism. This is due to two developments: further democratization of Israel, leading to a shift of power from the secular minority to the religious/traditional majority, and a religious rapprochement amongst Israeli seculars themselves, while staying secular.
De-sectorization allows seculars to somewhat de-secularize
In addition to the blurring of the inter-sector lines, intra-sector trends within the seculars lead to a greater embrace of the Jewish religion by seculars relative to the early days.
Ben-Gurion and his generation rebelled against the previous generations of Jews. In their eyes, those were exiled Diaspora Jews, weak Jews, defeatist Jews and indeed religious Jews. Hence, the “Ben-Gurions” were implicitly rebelling against Jewish religiosity.
Since Israel was shaped in the image of the “Ben-Gurions,” Israeli seculars growing up in the 20th century felt that part of their strong expression of Zionism and patriotism was a latent suppression of their own religiosity.
today the new generation of Israelis are rebelling against the rebels.
Many in the current generation of Israeli seculars feel they were stripped of religious content, experiences and spirituality. While not becoming religious, Israeli seculars are finding new ways to re-engage with religiosity.
Unlike secular Europeans, most secular Israelis do not reject religion,
not agnostic, and certainly not atheist.
“Cafeteria Christians,” are similar to the Israeli seculars.
seculars who consume religious experiences a la carte
Datlaf, which is the Hebrew acronym for “sometimes religious”
secular Israelis choose to stay within the realm of Israeli Judaism with which they are familiar – Orthodoxy. They do not gravitate toward the Reform or Conservative streams, which comprise the vast majority of affiliated American Jews. They instead choose a point in the “sometimes” Orthodox continuum, as opposed to abandoning the continuum and going elsewhere.
This rapprochement of secular Israelis with the Jewish religion removes a primary hurdle that stood in the way of a Jewish transformation until now,
soft trend
Israeli seculars tend to “look up” to religious people – a complete reversal
driven in part by the characteristics of the National-Religious community: Greater giving, volunteering and civic service. Nowhere does this come to bear more strongly than in the changing composition of the country’s military command.
in recent years, the traditional and religious majority has been taking more and more leadership roles in Israeli culture, community, politics, industry and academia.
Intra-sector developments within the religious community contribute to such a trend and to a closer association of Zionism with Judaism.
Religious-lites penetrate secular society
US Modern Orthodox connect to religious-lites, hence, to Israel
Non-Zionist Haredi turning Zionist
GROWING ACCEPTABILITY OF ZIONISM BY THE HAREDIS
that Haredis are non-Zionist is primarily a definitional matter. Notwithstanding fringe movements (less than 5%), most Haredis are de facto Zionists while others are even “Zionists in the closet.”
New entrants to the periphery of Haredi circles such as Haredi-National-Religious (Hardal) as well as the increasing “open-architecture” of religion in Israel mentioned earlier, contribute to the increasing de facto Zionification of the Haredis.
GROWING ACCEPTABILITY OF HAREDIS BY ISRAELIS
The army is more understanding of religious needs and is keen to accept Haredi soldiers.
growing and recognized sub-segment in the Haredi community called the “working Haredi.”
mitigates the third issue that alienates Israeli society against Haredis: prejudice.
As Israelis increasingly appreciate the contributions of the Haredi community, prejudice will likely erode. Given that Haredi insularity is also a two-way street, the acceptance by the broader society of Haredi lifestyle as legitimate and not something that needs to be “cured” might enable a less defensive and more open posture in the Haredi community.
Another contributor to the rapprochement between the broader Israeli society and the Haredi society is a reaction to the extreme confrontations that occurred in the 2010s
As a result of growing acceptability of Haredis on the one hand, and the greater propensity of Haredis to work on the other, it is possible that Israel is on the verge of attaining its next engine of economic growth, planted in the high entrepreneurial and studious excellence of the Haredi community.
migration of the Haredi language over the last decades from Yiddish to Hebrew.
ZIONISM ABANDONING ITS SOCIALIST ETHOS
the shift from socialism to capitalism removed a hurdle that stood in the way of the Jewish transformation. Zionism being in line with the West and consistent with the economic views of the majority of the Diaspora Jews clears the path for it to be the anchor of Judaism.
As a whole, Israelis have not only stopped being the “charity case” of the Jewish world, but are gradually turning to be “the rich Israeli uncle” of the Jewish world.
Israel is a one-nation market.
This allows for changes to happen fast.
Israeli society now being so grounded and deeply rooted enables greater Israeli pluralism and social experiments.
is becoming increasingly evident that Israelis view Judaism as a Zionist experience and not the other way around.
