Israel Convulsed by Religious Fury as Fundamentalists Push Into Politics

Theodore Herzl, father of the Zionist movement, once joked that Israel would not truly be a nation until there were Jewish thieves and prostitutes. By that standard, Herzl’s dream has become a reality. In fact, the reality includes something Herzl never dreamed of. Israel now has to cope with an uprising of militant fundamentalist Jews. Ultra-Orthodox zealots polarize the Jewish world just as Islamic militants divide the Muslim world and born-again fundamentalists send shock waves through Christian society. All over the world, religious militancy is rising in political protest.

Could this be what the early Zionists meant when they said that Israel must become a nation like all the others?

The source of contention is, of all things, the movies. Ultra-Orthodox Jews, about 15% of Jerusalem’s Jewish population, are demanding that the city enforce a ban on the showing of films on the Jewish Sabbath, even in non-Orthodox areas. Movies are shown on the Sabbath in other parts of Israel but not in the holy city of Jerusalem, where only “cultural events” are allowed on the Sabbath.

Are movies like “Body Heat” and “Little Shop of Horrors” cultural events? Sure they are, say secular Jews, as long as each film is preceded by a lecture.

And so, three weeks ago, Jerusalemites witnessed the spectacle of Israeli police sealing off the city’s ultra-Orthodox neighborhood. The police were there to prevent religious zealots from demonstrating at movie theaters outside and to keep secular extremists from provoking trouble inside. There were sounds of glass breaking and horses’ hoofs clattering on the pavement. Helmeted police, waiting for angry protesters to start throwing stones, tapped rubber truncheons into their palms. To more than a few observers, the scene was eerily reminiscent of dark days in the European ghettos.

A few days later, some 20,000 ultra-Orthodox Jews gathered at the Western Wall to protest desecration of the Sabbath. Elderly Torah sages, including some who rarely participate in politics or even leave their homes, showed up. One religious newspaper described secular Jews as “a small minority of anti-Semitic goyim, even if they happen to be of the seed of Israel.” If religious Jews cannot win by persuasion, one rabbi said, “they will take the law into their own hands.”

A week later, they did just that. Ultra-Orthodox demonstrators showed up Saturday at 15 major intersections, where they shouted “ Shabbos, Shabbos “ at Sabbath violators driving automobiles. The protesters were met by 500 policemen who used tear gas and water cannons filled with green dye against them. “Nazis!” shouted the protesters. “You son of a bitch,” said a mounted policeman. “I’m desecrating the Sabbath because of you.”

The secular Jews are far from innocent. It was secular activists who provoked a confrontation to challenge the status quo. “The key word is a show of force,” said one veteran activist. “We have to teach them a lesson they won’t forget. Otherwise, we’ll lose not only in Jerusalem, but in all of Israel.” Unusually large crowds fill movie theaters on Friday nights.

The conflict has a nasty side. Secular activists ambushed an 11-year-old Orthodox boy and shaved off his side-locks, a sign of piety to religious Jews. Secular Israelis are increasingly using the term “blacks” to refer to ultra-Orthodox Jews, an apparent reference to their traditional costume. But overtones of bigotry and contempt are close to the surface.

There are many things secular Jews resent about the ultra-Orthodox. They resent their ghetto mentality, their refusal to fight in the Israeli army and, most of all, their effort to dominate Jerusalem. A few months ago, after a rash of suspicious bus-shelter fires, ultra-Orthodox Jews won a battle to have “suggestive advertising”--for example, posters showing women in bikinis--banned from the city.

Tel Aviv has become a symbol of secularism and sophistication to Israelis. Large numbers of non-religious Jews have moved there, while others participate in a mass exodus to Tel Aviv every Friday afternoon. Which is fine with the rabbis, one of whom said, “The holy city of Jerusalem must never try to compete with Tel Aviv’s cafe-and-disco culture.”

What is in danger of collapse is the status quo agreement between Israel’s early religious and political leaders. That agreement, made in the 1940s, allows Orthodox authorities to control marriage, education and religious practices. In turn, they accepted the authority, if not the legitimacy, of the Zionist state.

Why, after 40 years of statehood, is religion suddenly becoming an issue? After all, the religious vote is not growing. Only 15% of Israelis describe themselves as “religious,” of whom less than 5% are ultra-Orthodox. In fact, the religious vote has splintered over the past decade and is now represented by four different political parties.

Moreover, Israel is governed by a Grand Coalition between the two major political forces, Labor and Likud. The government does not need religious support to sustain its majority. And there is no political advantage in wooing the ultra-Orthodox. According to Hanoch Smith, one of Israel’s leading pollsters, the Jewish public is less sympathetic to ultra-Orthodox Jews than to Israeli Arabs.

In some ways, what is happening in Israel is similar to what has been happening in Christian and Muslim societies. Rising education has produced increased secularism. As their influence wanes, religious fundamentalists become more alienated--and more aggressive. Their values are threatened, and so they turn to politics to survive. They challenge the established order, which, in Israel, is symbolized by the status quo agreement.

This may be the key factor behind the increasing political influence of religious fundamentalists worldwide. In the United States, in Israel and in other countries, religious militancy signifies opposition to the political Establishment. In Iran, for instance, Islamic militancy challenged the the shah’s secular, pro-Western regime. What may ultimately explain the rise of worldwide religious fundamentalism is not the growth of religiosity but the weakness of political Establishments.

That is true in Israel. According to pollster Smith, there have been two dramatic changes in Israeli politics over the past 10 years. One is the realignment of the Sephardic vote. Sephardic Jews, who trace their origins to non-European countries, are now a majority of the Jewish population. They have been leaving the Labor Party--the party of the old European Zionist Establishment--and voting for Likud, the party of militant nationalism.

The other change is the radicalization of religious voters. The old religious party, identified with the status quo agreement, has lost control of the religious vote.

Why did the political consensus disintegrate? In Smith’s opinion, it happened because of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. “The Labor Party Establishment blew it. The military failure scared people,” he says. “As a result, Labor is a minority party and the Israeli electorate is more polarized than ever before--religious versus secular, European versus non-European Jews.”

The Establishment’s failure has given rise to two new political forces--extreme nationalism and extreme orthodoxy. The two seem to have little in common. Most ultra-Orthodox Jews come from European backgrounds, while the extreme nationalists are predominantly Sephardic. Moreover, ultra-Orthodox Jews have always been anti-Zionist. They consider the State of Israel illegitimate because it was founded without the coming of the Messiah.

In effect, however, the two forces have formed a right-wing alliance--united by opposition to the secular Zionist Establishment. For instance, both the extreme nationalists and the ultra-Orthodox support Jewish settlement of the West Bank--the nationalists because they believe in the concept of Greater Israel, and the ultra-Orthodox because they believe the occupied territories were in God’s biblical promise to the Jews.

The Labor Establishment is politically tolerant and willing to consider making accommodation with the Arabs. That is unacceptable to extreme nationalists, a minority of whom are Jewish racists. Labor is also tolerant of religious diversity. That is unacceptable to ultra-Orthodox Jews.

The religious-secular controversy is primarily a division among European Jews. The secular “civil rights” movement is led by children of the European Zionist Establishment, while the ultra-Orthodox are Yiddish-speaking. Couldn’t the Labor Party use anti-Orthodox resentment to regain the loyalty of Sephardic voters?

No. Sephardic Jews have no tradition of secularism. They are as distrustful of civil rights activists as they are of religious zealots. Second, the Labor Alignment is unwilling to write off the religious vote. For 30 years, Labor governed Israel, with the support of religious parties. Maybe religious militancy will die down and the Establishment will reassert itself.

Then again, maybe not. President Reagan gambled on making a deal with moderate, pro-Western forces in Iran--and lost. The Democrats believe that the religious scandals in the United States have destroyed born-again Christianity as a political force. They, too, may lose their bet.