Israeli Politics Erupts Into Religious-Secular Conflict : Culture clash: The debate eclipses the struggle over peace talks with the Palestinians.

In the midst of hard bargaining over who will lead Israel’s next government, a passionate and resentful debate has erupted over remarks by a prominent rabbi disparaging secular Jewish culture.

The venom has exposed a persistent undercurrent of culture clash in Israeli life, a struggle between those Orthodox Jews who strictly follow scriptural doctrine and Zionists, who have traditionally made secular concerns primary.

So harsh was the outbreak of ill will that it has eclipsed the issue that caused the collapse of the country’s coalition government: peace with Palestinians. In the past few days, little has been heard of such pressing details as plans to attend peace conferences, possible agendas and negotiating positions.

Instead, arguments rage over such questions as whether Jewish life has been strengthened by the Zionist-led founding of the state or whether other-worldly religious thinking made possible the slaughter of Jews at the hands of the Nazis.

“It’s an ugly scene,” observed Jewish philosopher David Hartman. “It’s a competition for the soul of Jewry.”

At heart in the debate are conflicting interpretations of Jewish history and the role of modern Israel in it. The argument pits ultra-Orthodox leaders, who find full identity within the bounds of the Bible, against secular Jews who hold an expanded view of Jewishness to include modern nationhood.

Such a debate might seem to be academic given the minority status of the ultra-Orthodox in Israeli politics; their parties in the Knesset, or Parliament, hold about 10% of the seats.

But the open structure of Israeli politics and the inability of Israel’s major parties, Labor and Likud, to control a parliamentary majority has provided the ultra-Orthodox parties the balance of power. In the current deadlock over coalition-building, the ultra-Orthodox hold the key to who will be Israel’s next prime minister.

The rancor between the Zionists and the ultra-Orthodox exploded after a speech Monday by Rabbi Eliezer Schach, the elderly spiritual leader of two ultra-Orthodox parties in the Knesset, Shas (Sephardi Torah Guardians) and Degel Hatorah (Flag of the Torah).

In his speech, the rabbi was expected to throw his weight behind either Labor’s Shimon Peres, or Likud’s Yitzhak Shamir, the caretaker prime minister, in their battle for power.

His speech was much anticipated and his followers filled a 10,000-seat basketball arena in Tel Aviv to cheer him on. They greeted him as “king.”

Schach refused to back Peres and appeared to provide a boost for Shamir, although he never mentioned either name, but current events seemed not to be the main focus of the speech. Instead, the nature of Jewish life and history were at issue.

“What is the secret of Jewish survival?” Schach asked. “The secret is belief in God and keeping the Commandments.”

He continued: “The nation of Israel in diaspora after diaspora, through destruction, fire and killing, with other nations standing opposite us trying to destroy us--yet with empty hands, it was possible to stand and we were victorious.

“What is the miracle? I am a Jew and I am stronger then they. They will kill me but my sons will remain alive.”

Schach went on to accuse secular Jews of falling away from the faith and by implication, undermining Jewish strength. He singled out for special censure the kibbutzim or communal farms, an institution that is much identified with the creation of Israel.

“The kibbutz members who don’t know about Yom Kippur and the Sabbath and ritual baths and who eat rabbits and pigs, do they have any connection with their fathers? What kind of a Jew is that?” he asked.

The rabbi, who identifies with a Jewish tradition known broadly as the “Lithuanian” because of its East European origins, spoke with confidence that the secular origins of the Israeli state are being swept aside by new religious fervor.

Schach’s comments shocked secular politicians across the political spectrum, prompting them for the moment to forget their rivalries. Being Zionists, the politicians were offended by Schach’s apparent downgrading of Israeli nationalism’s contribution to Jewish survival.

The attack on the kibbutz movement was widely viewed as a general attack on secular life, and much offense was taken because of the role that kibbutz farmers have played in defending Israel in wartime. Strictly Orthodox males usually do not serve in the army.

Rivalry between the ultra-Orthodox and Zionists stems in part from Zionist belief that the Judaism of strict Orthodoxy, with its emphasis on Talmudic scholarship and preference of an enclosed society, must be abandoned to a more open, muscular and forward-looking Judaism.

When Israel was founded, it was expected that the black-clad, “Fiddler-on-the-Roof” style of Jewish life represented by the ultra-Orthodox would disappear. In its place would arise a New Jewish Man: hoe in one hand, rifle in the other, no longer with his nose in the Scriptures or confined to a crowded ghetto. No more 17th-Century clothing, knee stockings, unkempt side-locks and fur hats.

Ultra-Orthodox followers viewed the Zionist approach as nearly heretical. The Zionists were abandoning the true power of the Torah, forgetting tradition, and blending into non-Jewish culture, they believe. The foundation of the state itself was an assimilationist move, in the strict Orthodox view, since it copied a non-Jewish model.

Judaism transcends statehood, which in any case is supposed to be the construct of the Messiah, not of men, according to these believers; the state will come when the rule of the Torah is accepted by all.

Despite the clear division between the ultra-Orthodox and the Zionists, both Labor and Likud, each of them Zionist parties, are continuing efforts to woo the religious parties. The goal is to break a deadlock in Parliament and give one or the other a ruling majority.