Israel Suffering Identity Crisis Over Religion

The surprising recent political gains by Israel’s religious parties have stimulated a rethinking of what holds this country together.

In the wake of their strong showing in the Nov. 1 election, debate quickly moved beyond the questions of whether movies will play on the Sabbath or whether the pious and cloistered communities truly contribute to the national good.

Rather, a deeper question thought to have been resolved 40 years ago when Israel was created, initially to absorb Jews who survived the Holocaust, was suddenly revived: Why are Israelis here?

On one side of the issue stand secular and liberal Jews who say Israel exists as a pluralist home to Israelis of various religious intensities who want to live in a modern, tolerant state. At a minimum, they define themselves as Jewish just by being here.

On the other, fundamentalist leaders preach rigid adherence to religious law in a biblical state of the future, a Holy Land that would truly be holy. In this view, residing in Israel is not enough to support one’s identity; one has to act according to God’s commands.

Which concept prevails, or perhaps more likely, what mixture of ideas emerges from the contest, will go a long way toward defining this country’s essential character, Israeli observers say.

Not a few politicians and common citizens are concerned that democracy is at stake in the Middle East’s only democratic nation. Whatever the case, most Israelis believe that the Nov. 1 election, with its 50% increase in religious votes, marked a major weakening of the secular Zionist movement that, in building a home for Jews while pushing religion to the side, had long defined Israel.

‘Identity Crisis’

“The issue is who validates the meaning of Jewish history,” said Israeli philosopher David Hartman. “Why have we come home? For us, the answer will be either the beginning or the end of maturity. We are a 3,000-year-old people with a teen-age identity crisis.”

Yaron Ezrahi, a political theorist at Hebrew University, commented: “Israel was a state founded on competing Utopias. We are trying them all out. The religious one has emerged as others have faltered.”

The pious fundamentalist idea of Israel has gained attention since the election. This idea describes Israel as a means of fulfilling a biblical goal--the settling of the land by Jews who strictly follow the Torah, the body of Jewish law.

According to this view, Israel is not just a place set up by Zionists as a refuge from anti-Semitism.

“Those who live in the Land of Israel according to Jewish Law are more Zionist than others who live in Israel,” said Rabbi Yitzhak Peretz, the leader of the Shas (Sephardic Torah Guardians) party, an ultra-Orthodox grouping of Israelis from North Africa.

“Israel is the Holy Land. We are Torah Zionists,” proclaimed Rabbi Menachem Porush, who heads the Agudat Israel party, another ultra-Orthodox organization. “I live in the state of Israel because it’s a holy land. We are fulfilling the call of our fathers. We are not here because the United Nations let us, but because God promised us.”

In the Nov. 1 election, four religious parties increased their seats in the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament, from 12 to 18. Although still a minority in the 120-member body, that strength gave them the balance of power between the right-wing Likud Party and the center-left Labor Party.

Using Bargaining Power

In tipping the balance to Likud, as they did Sunday, the religious parties are using their bargaining power to gain government ministries and access to public funds, especially for housing and schooling.

Three of the four are ultra-Orthodox parties distinguished by their fundamental acceptance of biblical teaching. Among their precepts is that the authentic creation of the Israeli state must await the coming of the Messiah.

Religious communities are the fastest-growing group in Israel’s population. The birthrate for religious couples is more than three times that of secular parents. About a quarter of the country is considered pious, although not all follow fundamentalist preaching.

Black-robed fundamentalists are pushing for the application of religious law in Israel. Such law covers everything from dietary practices to dress codes to the control of medical procedures such as organ transplants.

Narrow, Intolerant State?

For many Israelis, the fundamentalists’ campaign has conjured up the threat of a narrow, intolerant state.

“The fundamentalists are out to show that religion and modernity are incompatible,” said philosopher Hartman, head of the Shalom Hartman Institute here and a persistent critic of the ultra-Orthodox as anti-democratic.

Commentators with more apocalyptic views predict that the fundamentalist emergence could result in the creation of a fanatical state on the order of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s Iran.

In response, ultra-Orthodox rabbi-politicians have taken pains to calm fears that they intend to coerce Israel into acceptance of their views. “The ways of the Torah are gentle,” Peretz said.

Despite the soothing words, the religious leaders are firm in their demand that the government grant Orthodox rabbis the monopoly on converting non-Jews into Jews. The proposal is commonly known as the “Who Is a Jew Law” and is considered a litmus test for tolerance here.

Non-Orthodox believers say that the measure would reduce Conservative and Reform Jewish congregations to second-class status under Israeli law. Reform and Conservative congregations in the United States have strongly opposed the measure, but the rabbi-politicians are undeterred.

“We have to know who is a Jew, what is his pedigree,” Rabbi Porush asserted.

The fundamentalists also demand public money for schools that critics charge are inconsistent with modern educational precepts. Rabbi Porush, speaking of such schools, said, “If there is mathematics that oppose religion, we don’t teach it.”

He was asked about evolution. “You don’t look like a monkey to me,” he responded.

The insistence that Jewishness be defined by strict customs and rabbinical authority upsets many Israelis, not only because of the new strength of the minority parties, but because it touches sensitive issues of identity.

‘They Have No Right’

“They have no right to judge how we live. There was never a Vatican for Jews to say things in such an absolute way,” said Deddi Zucker, a Knesset member for the secular Citizens’ Rights Party.

“Who are they to tell me if I’m Jewish or not?” said Mordechai Vinter, a community leader in Ramot, a neighborhood of Jerusalem where secular and religious Jews have clashed over keeping the Sabbath holy.

Like many Israelis who feel their identity threatened, Vinter defends himself by producing his own pedigree of sorts. “My children are seventh-generation Jerusalemites. They can’t say my children are not Jews.”

Others, especially the young, respond by saying that no one asks them what kind of Jew they are when they are called to go to war.

Just Stay in the Ghetto

Secular Jews, while rejecting what they feel is the potential tyranny of the religious parties, are often willing to concede religious followers their way of life--as long as it is kept in the ghetto while secular citizens continue to attend movies, drive their cars and go to restaurants on the Sabbath.

“They should have their own neighborhoods. I don’t feel good breaking their peace on Saturday. I can’t even take out the garbage with a clear conscience,” said Knesset member Zucker, who lives in a mixed secular-Orthodox neighborhood.

The strength of the two sides will be matched again in February when Jerusalem holds city elections. About 40% of Jerusalem’s 350,000 citizens are religious, and if their numbers translate into seats on the city council, Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox parties are expected to press for closure of public transportation and entertainment spots on the Sabbath.

In the meantime, there seems little doubt that secular Zionism is fading. When Israel was founded, Zionist leaders dismissed the ultra-religious as a disappearing culture. Some day, their antique costumes--the men wear black hats, caftans and beards and cut their hair to let locks hang freely, the women wear long skirts and head coverings--and ways would disappear.

Guarding Old Values

In their place, a new, forward-looking Israeli, steeped in social justice and science, would arise. But while Israel developed, planting and irrigating the dry land, fighting wars and eventually sending a satellite into space, the religious population grew and guarded values nurtured in the Middle Ages.

“People used to say they lent flavor, color to the landscape. They were an ethnic repository. ‘See? That’s how grandfather looked. It’s the “Fiddler on the Roof.” They sing, they dance. Aren’t they cute?’ ” Hartman recalled.

“Now the ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ has come in the front door and is rearranging the furniture.”

The fundamentalists boast that their dedication to the Torah and tradition is a national bond that is proving stronger than the experimental political beliefs stressed before in Israel.

“Neither socialism, nor humanism, nor Zionism is keeping young people from running away from Israel or bringing anyone to Israel,” said Rabbi Porush. “Our religious students stay. They don’t run away.”

Porush confidently predicts more political power ahead. “If this election was a surprise, then the next one will be a bigger surprise,” he said.