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 full Haredi 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

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

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 Haredim on 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.2 The 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 confronted

each 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

The Shulchan Aruch is the central 16th Century 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.

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.

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

Seymour Martin Lipset, Political man: the social bases of politics (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press,1981), ch. 3.

Arend Lijphart, "Typologies of Political Systems", Comparative Political Systems, 1, 1968-9, pp.
3-44; Arend Lijphart, The Politics of Accommodation, (Berkeley ,1968.

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.5 After 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.6 The 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

Dan Horowitz and Moshe Lissak, Origins of the Israeli Polity-Palestine under the Mandate,
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press,1978).

Dan Horowitz and Moshe Lissak, Trouble in Utopia-The Overburdened Polity Of Israel,(NewYork:State University of New-York Press,1989),ch.4.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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 Politics 9,4 (2003), pp. 463483; 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).

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

Gne Murat 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).

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 proZionist 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 Haredi groups 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 ultraOrthodox Haredi groups 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 the Mizrachi movement 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, the Agudat Yisrael kept
its distance from the Zionist state-building project. It expressed complex but
predominantly negative views about the attempt to achieve Jewish sovereignty in the
8

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 multinational 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.24 Modern 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.

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.

10

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 of Haredim support 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-Zionist Haredi.
The most basic tenet of Haredi 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
Haredim in their response to the secularizing of Jewish identity by the Zionists at
the beginning of the 20th Century. 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.

11

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 Haredi position 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 oftenraucous 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 (NewYork: 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.

12

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.

13

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.

14

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
Haredi Orthodoxy organized politically as the Agudat Yisrael Party 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, the Haredi attitude 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 ghettoized Haredi 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).

15

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

The Haredi community 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, the Haredi prerogative 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 Haredim are
beholden to the secular majority. This created an anomalous situation that only a
moderating politics of collaboration and accommodation could sustain: an entire
community dedicated to religious study that was subsidized by a secular
government for which the Haredi public 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
16

in the hundreds, today the number of non-conscripted Haredi young 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
Haredi community. 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 Jewish
State 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.

17

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, Mamlachtiyut is
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 popular
sovereignty, 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).

18

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 the
smaller, 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.

19

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

effects. As we saw in the theoretical background, according to the inclusinmoderarion 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
Haredi parties have undergone in the past decades are cases in point.
We also need to distinguish in the Haredi and 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

43

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

20

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 the Haredi community. 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 ultraOrthodox 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 the Degel Hatorah party leaving Agudat 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).

21

Hatorah is today the continuation of the historic Agudat Yisrael that unites both ultraOrthodox 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 the Haredim) 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 antiZionist, 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
European Haredi community.
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 the Haredi party,
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
the Agudat 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).

22

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. The Haredi 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
Haredi women, 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 the Haredim into 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 the Haredi community. The finance committee decided not only on
supporting the Haredi community in general; it also determined which part of the Haredi
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, the Haredim 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
23

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 see David 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,

24

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 ultraOrthodox to apportion to the Sephardim the Knesset representation they numerically
deserved. This bias some would call it racism was also prevalent within the ultraOrthodox 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).

25

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 ultraOrthodox 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

26

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 ultraOrthodox 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.

27

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
28

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 of stability between 1949 and the realignment of 1977, the NRP was
identified as a camp 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
themselves as looking out for the vital interests of those affiliated with its defined socialcultural group, and as an organized vehicle for realizing its ideology. It also serves as a
social-integration party in the sense that it focuses 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 an alternative 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

29

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 rightwingers 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. 53As 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).

30

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.54Among 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.

31

outside.55The 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, RamatGan:Bar-Ilan University, 2009).

32

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
33

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
Haredi parties 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 antiestablishment, 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 Haredim whose 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
34

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.

35