Synagogue and state: religion and politics in modern Israel.

CHARLES S. LIEBMAN is Avner Professor of Religion and Politics, and ASHER COHEN lectures in the Department of Political Studies at Bar-Ilan University.

Jews constitute about 80 percent of the Israeli population. Roughly one-fifth define themselves as "religious," by which they mean

that they are fully or almost fully observant of Jewish law. Almost all of the remaining Jews maintain many of the customs and rituals of the Jewish religion and firmly believe that Israel is and should remain a Zionist or Jewish state. What precisely is meant by a "Jewish state" is a matter of dispute, but there is a consensus among

the vast majority of Jews that the symbols as well as the public policies of the state should reflect its Jewish nature and should serve the interests of the Jewish people, not only those who are citizens of Israel but also Jews throughout the world.

Only a small minority, estimated at about ten percent of Israeli Jews, neither observe any religious rituals nor feel any special identification with other Jews. Some define themselves as post-Zionists, and under the slogan, "Israel as a state for all its citizens," they challenge the notion that Israel should remain a Jewish state. They argue that the Jewish nature of Israel is incompatible with its existence as a liberal-democratic state. The more radical among them argue that Israel should sever its ties to its Jewish past and to the Jewish people. Much of what this group finds objectionable in Israeli life is represented by the memorialization of the Holocaust. Memory of the Holocaust, central to Israeli political culture, is preserved in monuments, institutions, school curricula, and a special day of observance. The manner in which the Holocaust is to be remembered, if at all, has become a focus of controversy between the Israeli establishment and its post-Zionist critics.

Though numerically small, the militant secularists and post-Zionists occupy key positions within Israel's cultural life. They include newspaper columnists, academics, writers, and artists (prominent playwrights in particular). Others within the cultural elite argue that the post-Zionists have gone too far in charging that Israel was "born in sin," but they are nevertheless sympathetic to the goal of reducing the presence of Judaism and Jewishness within Israeli life. In addition, the militants have won some sympathy among the broader population because of their vigorous opposition to the religious establishment and to the efforts of religious parties to enlarge the field of religious legislation.

These efforts have also won the support, in the last few years, of many Jews in the United States who resent the efforts of the religious establishment to deny legitimacy to non-Orthodox (Conservative and Reform) religious movements. Conservative and Reform Jews constitute a tiny proportion of the Israeli population, and they do define themselves as religious. However, they and their more numerous American sympathizers have made common cause with the militant secularists since both oppose the Orthodox religious establishment and the religious parties. These American Jews, it should be added, often do not understand the nature of the alliance of which they have become part.

The religious parties, in turn, have increased their efforts to enact religious legislation. Part of this effort can be understood as an attempt to counterbalance decisions by the Israeli courts under the leadership of the present Chief Justice. The courts in recent years have adopted an activist posture, interpreting the law in a manner which the religious public, and especially their leaders, find objectionable. For example, although Israeli law recognizes the validity of conversions performed by Conservative or Reform rabbis overseas, the government made clear as early as 1971 that the Ministry of Internal Affairs would not recognize non-Orthodox conversions when performed in Israel itself. When the Israeli Supreme Court declared this practice invalid in the absence of an appropriate statute, the religious parties sought legislation to mandate that which had previously been imposed by administrative regulation. To understand what has ensued, one must bear in mind that domestic circumstances in Israel have changed in recent years. Since 1990, Israel had absorbed an estimated 150,000 non-Jewish immigrants from Russia. Many of these immigrants who sought conversion eschewed an Orthodox conversion given the demands by the rabbinical courts that they promise to conduct their lives according to the strict codes observed by Orthodox Jews. The proposed legislation evoked the most negative of responses from the Conservative and Reform movements in Israel, which succeeded in mobilizing their far more numerous American sympathizers in an aggressive campaign to prevent the passage of the law.

The increased animus and the militant stances which characterize the two sides in what is sometimes referred to as a religious-secular war, however, typifies the attitudes and behavior of a minority of the population. Most Israelis, as we suggested, are neither religious nor militantly secular. Nevertheless, the kulturkampf which is both the cause and effect of the breakdown in the arrangements which heretofore characterized political relations between the religious and non-religious parties has increased the levels of domestic tension. Furthermore, cleavages in religious orientation which once did not lead to differences in attitudes toward the Arabs now do create divisions over policy toward those issues.

The Decline of Civil Religion

Both the secular left and the religious right are being pulled away from the center, and among growing numbers of Israelis, passion and commitment to Israel as a Jewish state have declined. This is reflected in the decline of Israel's civil religion over the past two or three decades. Israeli civil religion is defined in the volume Civil Religion in Israel: Traditional Judaism and Political Culture in the Jewish State, written by Charles Liebman and Eliezer Don-Yehiya in 1983. The book describes how religious symbols were used to construct a system of myths and rituals which served to legitimize the social order and to integrate and mobilize the Jewish population in pursuit of collective goals.

The conclusions of that study, published in the wake of the war in Lebanon, suggested a declining level of commitment to the civil religion. That hypothesis of the past is a certitude today. In the last few years, the Israeli media has undermined the foundations of the nation's civil religion by providing extensive publicity to studies that question the stature, heroism, and motivations of Israel's founders and early pre-state heroes. Television dramas in the same skeptical vein have been produced and aired. Such publications and broadcasts suggest that Israeli society is far less appreciative today than it once was of civil religion's venerable heroes.

Israel's willingness to enter into a peace agreement with the Palestinians is attributable at least in part to recognition by the political and military elite that the country has already been overtaken by the demand for individual autonomy and material comfort--a demand that erodes if not shatters any ideological or symbolic system which provides a communitarian society with meaning. For example, when commenting on the apparent rise in the number of young Israelis who consider military service "inappropriate," the Israeli army's Chief of Staff noted, "the problem is a preference for individualism over the collective in an age of liberalism." Likewise, Dan Margalit, a popular columnist and television host has argued that Israeli society has become materialistic and consumer-oriented. Self-fulfillment and the good of the individual are now projected as having priority over any commitment to the commonweal.

Other signs of the decline of civil religion include the transformation of civil religious celebrations into private events. A good example is the decline of Independence Day as a major national holiday. In the past, Independence Day celebrations were massive events, but today the occasion is often observed only through more intimate family barbecues in public parks.

Judaism versus Democracy?

The recent concern over the issue of Judaism and democracy is of special relevance. The notion of a virtually irreconcilable conflict between Judaism and democracy is taken for granted in much of the debate on the topic, despite the fact that some outstanding scholars argue that this dichotomy is hardly as sharp as the protagonists in the debate suggest. It is true that one finds major themes within the religious tradition that are inimical to democracy, but there are minor themes and minority opinions in the sacred texts themselves which affirm almost all the major values of liberal democracy. What is remarkable is that the intellectual, political, and cultural elite in Israeli society has ignored rather than sought to transform these elements of the Jewish religion into normative values. Core symbols and values of the Jewish religion were transformed in the recent past. For example, religious holidays celebrating man's relationship to God were transformed into national holidays celebrating the achievements of "the nation." Hence, the failure to adapt the liberal elements within the religious tradition into contemporary Judaism is significant.

The answer as to why this has not yet occurred is a matter of timing. Had the issue of Judaism and democracy arisen 40 years ago, at least one segment of the country's elite, that identified with Ben-Gurion and Mapai, rather than with the more radical leftist party, Mapam, would have argued forcefully that Judaism and Jewish values were entirely consistent with those of a democratic society. The religious Zionist elite would not have challenged them on this score. Had they done so, the secular elite would have been relatively untroubled because of their own sense that the cultural tradition, as distinct from halakhic (legal) norms, was as much theirs to interpret as it was that of the religious public. This kind of Jewish self-assurance is entirely lacking among today's secular political leaders, not to mention the cultural elite. Their tendency is to defer to the religious elite in terms of what Judaism means. Indeed, many among the cultural elite are happy to do so since it facilitates the construction of polar models for a society: Jewish versus democratic.

The real problem has been the inability or unwillingness, with the decline of the civil religion, to construct a new form of secular Jewishness which legitimizes the existence of a uniquely Jewish collectivity. The goal of those who created modern secular Jewish culture, a culture which prospered in the period preceding the establishment of the state and in its early years, was to retain historical continuity with the Jewish past, while transforming the cultural identity of the new Jew into modern European forms. One or two generations ago, an observer could have felt assured that secular Jewishness was successful in adapting traditional Jewish forms to modern European forms of life and creating an indigenous Jewish (Hebrew) culture. There is reason to doubt this today. Israel has not absorbed or assimilated Western culture as much as it has subjected itself to it. The dominant culture of many Israeli Jews is not secular Judaism but rather the kind of hybrid post-modern culture common to all the West.

Religion and the Left's Weakness

It would be a mistake, however, to suggest that these tendencies, especially notable among the higher income, better educated Jews of European rather than North African background, will necessarily prevail. It is important to recall that the vast majority of Israelis still feel ties to Judaism, the Jewish tradition, and the Jewish people. This middle segment of the population, neither religious nor militantly secular, constitutes a silent majority lacking both leadership and a well-articulated ideology. Nevertheless, this group does make its voice heard, especially at election time, and it probably accounts for the continued strength of the political right in Israel and the weakness of the Israeli left.

The 1996 Israeli election campaign and the election results can be understood in this context. Shimon Peres, the candidate of the left for the post of prime minister, campaigned on the slogan of peace and security. He virtually suspended all talks with the Palestinians during the campaign, and he closed off the West Bank and Gaza to prevent terrorist acts and to demonstrate how tough he was. Two months before the election, Hizbollah, the Syrian-supported terrorist organization in southern Lebanon, shelled a town in northern Israel. Peres' opponents immediately charged that he was soft on terrorism and lacked the courage to take dramatic military steps. Under political as well as military pressure, Peres authorized the bombardment of villages in southern Lebanon over a two week period, leaving hundreds of thousands of Lebanese homeless and causing the deaths of over 100 civilians. Peres' efforts to demonstrate his own commitment to Israel's security were insufficient. His opponent, Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu, the right wing candidate for the post of prime minister, won 55 percent of the Jewish vote. Netanyahu's campaign theme was that his opponent, Peres, had sacrificed the security of the country in his efforts to reach a peace agreement with Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian National Authority. Netanyahu promised to continue the peace process but at a slower pace conditioned upon guarantees for Israel's safety. A campaign slogan which appeared two days before the election, "Only Netanyahu is good for the Jews," captured the flavor of the campaign. Campaign materials bearing the slogan were paid for and distributed by an ultra-Orthodox group, but the phrase evoked enthusiasm among almost all of Netanyahu's supporters and revulsion among his opponents. A bumper sticker circulated earlier in the campaign carried a similar message. It read, "Bibi or Tibi." (Ahmed Tibi, an advisor to Arafat, had formed an independent Arab party in the campaign for the Knesset (parliament). He actually withdrew from the race before the elections were held).

In addition to voting for prime minister, Israelis voted separately for parties to represent them in the Knesset. The religious parties increased their representation from 16 to 23 seats. It is estimated that at least 150,000 non-religious voters, out of a total of three million voters, cast their ballots for the religious parties. The campaign materials of these parties stressed the need for more Judaism and more Jewishness in Israeli society. There were no promises or threats of religious legislation but rather a promise to strengthen the Jewish climate of the country. The two religious parties that improved their own position most dramatically stressed the fact that non-religious as well as religious Jews supported them. The National Religious Party campaigned under the slogan that they were the party of "Zionism with soul," with the term "soul" serving as a euphemism for "tradition."

Should tensions between Israel and the Palestinian National Authority grow, and should Israelis feel that their security is threatened by either terrorist attack or hostility of neighboring Arab states, the centrality of Jewishness is unlikely to diminish any further. The inability of the Israeli left to understand the Jewish concerns of the electorate accounts for its electoral weakness and leaves the government in the hands of the very element least anxious to reach an accord with the Palestinians.