Alan J. Yuter, “Modern Orthodoxy,” Midstream: A Monthly Jewish Review, vol. 43, no. 7 (October 1997): 21-24 (original) (raw)
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Reconsidering Israel-Diaspora Relations
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This paper intends to follow the state of mind of Jewish intellectuals in the USA regarding Israel in the last 20 years, among three groups of intellectuals, who were connected to two Journals and a newspaper since 1990: Encounter, Tikkun, and Forward. Their discourse was concentrated in the Jewish-Arab national struggle. Each group represented a unique political and spiritual ethnic approach towards Israel's policy vital for its existence as a Jewish State. The Encounter recommended power policy; Tikkun preached messianic liberalism; and Forward advised a realistic political approach. All three approaches express the involvement of the intellectuals in the political issue without being professional politicians. Jonathan D. Sarna: From Worldwide People to First-World People: Consolidating Jewry Jews imagine that we are an "am olam," a global people spread "from one end of the world even unto the other." Since World War II, however, the Jewish world has been consolidating at an unprecedented rate. More than 80 percent of world Jewry lives in just two countries: the United States and Israel. Half of all Jews live in just five metropolitan areas: Tel Aviv, New York, Los Angeles, Haifa and Jerusalem. More than 93 percent of Jews live in countries of the First World, meaning countries with the most advanced economies, the highest standards of living, the most advanced technologies and the greatest influence on world affairs. Most of the countries outside of the First World, by contrast, are totally barren of Jews or house remnant communities that are far too small to be viable. In short, where once Judaism was a "world religion," today, increasingly, it is a "First-World religion". This paper will examine the consolidation of world Jewry and its implications. Dina Porat: The impact of anti-Semitism and the Holocaust on Israeli and Jewish identity This is a vast issue, long debated and researched. Therefore, given the time and framework limit, let us present four viewpoints, and try to illustrate them by using a number of examples: First, the impact of anti-Semitism on Jewish identity: a letter from Albert Einstein to Haim Weizmann, deploring the undermining impact of anti-Semitism on the inner most feeling of the modern Jew, vis-à-vis the Orthodox attitude that denounces such an impact all in all: anti-Semitism, and the Holocaust, are part of Jewish history, that the believer can afford to ignore on account of a solid well-built identity. Second, the impact of the Holocaust on the tension between Jewish and Israeli identities: Recently, author Aharon Apelfeld advocated the understanding of the Holocaust as characterized by love, especially within the Jewish family, that made it possible to overcome the disaster, while author A. B. Yehoshua's perception of the Holocaust is one of terrible failure. Hence, Apelfeld fosters Jewish identity, while Yehoshua would like Israelis to distance themselves from exilic identity, and foster a purely Israeli one.
Israel's National-Religious Jews and the quest for peace
The Middle East Peace Process has often marginalised the voice of the ‘National-Religious,’ or ‘Religious Zionist’ Jews. Ofer Zalzberg argues that this has been a mistake. Drawing on the fruits of a major report produced by the International Crisis Group, he sets out why it is vital to include religious Zionism in the quest for peace, and how its support or at least its acquiescence might be secured. Original version published on Fathom Spring 2014. Updated version (attache) published on Palestine-Israel Journal, Vol.20 No.4 & Vol.21 No.1, 2015.
It is now more than fifty years since the State of Israel was established. It has passed the initial stages of nation building and is today, in many respects, a Western, technological society. It was never, however, a "new nation," created ex nihilo. It was built, in large measure, on the experience of ideologically driven Jewish settlement in Eretz Israel (Palestine), which began in the nineteenth cen tury. It also had as its background the Holocaust and its tragic results for the Jewish people; war and an ongoing military struggle with neighboring coun tries; and the necessity of absorbing unprecedented numbers of new immigrants from very different backgrounds. It has a multiethnic population, comprising groups that vary widely in their degree of Jewish cultural traditionalism as well as their level of modernization. While the challenges of immigration, absorp tion, and the external threat of war served as unifying factors for Jewish society in Israel for much of Israel's history, the situation has shifted in recent years. Partly as a result of the establishment of formal relations with a number of major Arab neighboring states and the ongoing search for reconciliation with the Palestinian Arabs-a relationship which again flared up and doused aspira tions for a speedy accord-the strengthened self-assurance of Israel's long-term existence shifted the focus of Israeli public discourse to domestic matters. In addition, Israel has experienced significant socioeconomic development and, along with it, the emergence of a pattern of individualism characteristic of other advanced Western societies. Additional Western, mainly American, cultural influ ences, particularly in the area of consumerism, have also, through rapid growth in electronic communication, increasingly penetrated, inter alia, into Israel's so cial structure. Israel of today is thus a society in transition where different sets of values occasionally increase intergroup tensions and challenge social cohe sion. The rhythm of events, trends, and innovation in various areas is intense. Israel continues to be a living laboratory for social research. This book consists primarily of new articles, as well as a few that are expan sions and elaborations of previous work, by foremost specialists on the central issues of contemporary Israeli Jewish society. Our approach to understanding Jewish life in Israel is largely interdisciplinary but with an overriding sociologi cal perspective. We focus on the behaviors of people, rather than institutions or organizations, within the many social, cultural, and political realms. We begin with a social history of Jews in Israel over the last century (Rebhun), to provide background for the rest of the volume. This is followed by a detailed analysis by
Revisiting Contemporary Judaism in Modern Israel
Journal of Literature and Art Studies
Today's society in Israel is divided and torn on many issues, including religion, and Jewish and Israeli identity, yet occasionally, a single event emerges which combines several divisions. One such issue is the "identity crisis" also known as the question of "Who is a Jew?". This is a thorny complex problem, and one which has not yet been awarded a clear-cut constitutional solution. For example, it continues to be debated whether the religious definition should be the decisive factor, that is, should a Jew defined as an individual born to a mother who is Jewish or has been converted according to halacha, or whether Israeli identity is the more critical element and whether any individual born in or immigrated to Israel who served in the army, works and pays taxes in Israel, and identifies with the state's values should be identified as a Jew? In this paper, the author wishes to focus on equally complicated issue, although one has attracted less attention. This is the issue of halachic polarization or extremism that characterizes Judaism in modern Israel. Following a brief historical explanation, the author defines the problem at hand, and propose a solution.
The Religions Zionist Sector at Bay
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In the last decades Religious Zionism moved from the margins to the center of Israeli society and politics. Members of this sector (RZS) are located today in top positions in Israeli politics, businesses, and among professional elites, academia, and the military, gaining growing influence over the national decision-making processes and policies. No wonder, then, that public opinion polls indicate that the members of the RZS are the most satisfied and optimistic in Israel today. The fact that the RZS is positioned mostly on one side of the political spectrum (Right), the tight interrelations within this sector and its widening periphery have further increased its national impact. It is argued here that this is a critical development in Israeli politics as this sector’s members, and in particular those voting for the RZS parties, show relatively low commitment to core democratic values together with a clear preference for the Jewish aspect over the democratic aspect of the state of Is...