Abstract
The aim of this qualitative research is to investigate how religious Zionist female adolescents (N = 40) construct and deconstruct their perceptions of democracy within the ‘postsecular’ Israeli society as a result of their intensive, religious Zionist education and socialization process promoted by Israeli schools which subscribe to this ideology within the Israeli state religious education system. This study found that female graduates from the national religious schools were influenced by political theology which was promoted through their schools’ education and socialization processes. The findings highlighted the graduates’ belief in the Jacobin communitarian approach to democracy; their focus on Liebman’s concept of expansionism; and the challenges these approaches pose for maximal civic education in Israel.
Introduction
The aim of this qualitative research is to investigate how religious Zionist female adolescents (N = 40) construct and deconstruct their perceptions of democracy within the ‘postsecular’ Israeli society (Fischer et al., 2012; Hotam, 2017) as a result of an intensive, religious Zionist education and socialization process promoted by Israeli schools which subscribe to this ideology within the state religious education system (SRE). This article will investigate how these religious Zionist girls understand the concept of democracy and how the school’s curriculum and socialization transmit the religious Zionist perception of democracy to them. Through this case study, this article aims to shed light on the religious resurgence in Israel with ‘the ongoing sacralization of the secular self-understanding . . . and the turn from one dominant social imaginary (Jewish-Democratic) to a new one (Judeocratic)’ (Hotam, 2017). This study reflects broader trends within the postsecular Western world and aims to contribute to current literature on the re-emergence of religion in the postsecular Western world.
Theoretical background
This article focuses on the Religious Zionist section within SRE. Religious Zionism is a branch of Zionism which merges the Zionist revolutionary ethos with traditional Jewish religious practice and beliefs (Gross, 2013). Its philosophy is based on combining Jewish law (Halakha) with secular knowledge in contrast to the fundamentalist ultra-Orthodoxy which aims just to maintain the traditional Jewish lifestyle and knowledge. The contemporary movement, particularly after the 1967, believes that the conquest of such large areas surrounding the State of Israel within 6 days after fighting against five Arab nations was miraculous and divinely inspired. Religious Zionism is profoundly influenced by Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, and particularly his son, Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda, who envisioned the Zionist movement as heralding in the messianic age (Gross, 2013; Sagi and Schwartz, 2017; Schwartz, 2002, 2017) Drawing on this ideology of both Rav Kooks, contemporary religious Zionism believes that the 1967 victory represented ‘the inner purpose of God and the cosmos as a whole, which is that the cosmos must manifest and realize its true Godly nature’ thereby ‘realizing the ultimate eschatological redemption’ (Fischer et al., 2012: 270).
Since the conquest of the Palestinian territories in 1967, the messianic element has strengthened within the religious Zionist philosophy, so that the schools which emphasize the national element believe that settlement of the biblical heartland is a religious obligation (Don-Yehiya, 2014; Inbari, 2012). Aran described this as moving from ‘religious Zionism to Zionist Religion’ in his discussion of Gush Emunim, the group that founded the settlement movement (Aran, 1986). However, this can conflict with civic and collective responsibilities, especially if the state decides to withdraw from certain areas with strong biblical connections in the West Bank for political reasons leading to a clash between the citizenship and religious belief. Within the national, religious segment of the Israeli population, strong connection to the biblical areas in the West Back in the Land of Israel is a central part of their identity (Don-Yehiya, 2014; Kaniel, 2004). These concepts are strongly reinforced by B’nei Akiva, the religious Zionist youth movement, which sees its roots as being strongly embedded in the philosophy of both Rav Kooks (Aran, 1986; Gross, 2014; Sagi and Schwartz, 2017).
Contemporary religious Zionists are a minority within Israel’s population consisting of around 20% of the population, but they represent a very politically active segment and make up the absolute majority of the population on the West Bank (Aran, 1986; Inbari, 2012). They are characterized by strong right-wing leanings within the Israeli political system, with the Jewish Home Party advocating for Israeli control of the disputed territories conquered in 1967 and opposing advancement of a potential peace deal with Palestinians. Having their own unique separate school system, these religious Zionists can mobilize thousands of their members for right-wing-oriented political activism (Don-Yehiya, 2014; Inbari, 2012).
The SRE system is largely separate and different from the secular curriculum, especially in regard to subjects such as the Bible, History, and Citizenship. The curriculum is based on three main tenets (Gross, 2014; Kiel, 1977): religious education (religious thought and practice); modern education (science, technology, and humanities); and nationalist education (Zionist education). The official SRE curriculum includes these three components, but SRE schools are not monolithic. They demonstrate very different approaches toward these three elements, often with one or two components dominating, depending on the school’s mission statement, the ideology of the stakeholders, and the school population. Some SRE schools exclude secular studies entirely. Some, especially but not exclusively in the West Bank, emphasize the Zionist component, weaving a strong nationalist commitment into the curriculum by emphasizing the connection to biblical Israel. Others emphasize the modern educational component, particularly in large cities like Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Jerusalem, as well as socio-economically weaker towns in the periphery. These differences are also reflected in the teaching of civic education.
Civic education
Citizenship is a complex concept, which can just include the formal and legal status of the inhabitants to the country, with their specific rights and duties or within a broader framework of working toward the common good through active participation in the political processes (Heater, 1990). Current thought sees good citizenship as taking a broader approach that moves beyond the concepts of just obeying the law to a reflective approach that seeks to minimize hegemonic power and to protect the weaker members of the population (Cohen, 2017). McLaughlin (1992) believes that this maximal approach should be cultivated by the state, rather than the minimal approach.
The declared goal of civic education in Israel is to create equal opportunity for all its citizens and to facilitate this through the school curriculum (Cohen, 2016). However, there remains significant inequality in Israel between the different ethnic groups, aggravated by the Palestinian–Israeli conflict and the religious, secular divides. Cohen (2016, 2017) has argued that civic teaching is significantly influenced by teachers’ individual understandings of citizenship. Cohen (2017) investigated these differences through in-depth interviews with three civics teachers from the Israeli secular high school system and found that each teacher had a different understanding of good citizenship, influencing their teaching and learning approaches. Agbaria (2018) argues that the state civic education for Palestinians in the Arab sector depoliticizes the curriculum and excludes ideology and politics, and this has been reinforced recently by the current, right-wing government. Yet, again the teaching approach in the Arabic-speaking classroom is influenced by the attitude of the teachers so that teachers ‘attempt to reclaim the authenticity of the indigenous identity and knowledge, amplify its voice, and empower its agency for social change’ (Agbaria and Pinson, 2019: 16).
Although there have been these recent studies of the secular and Arabic sectors of the Israeli school system, there has been no comparative study of the national religious sector. This article seeks to fill this gap by examining civic education in Israeli, single-sex, female religious schools and seeing how the graduates from this system perceive their teaching and learning with its religious educational messages.
Theoretical framework
Classical social theory argued for the centrality of religion in terms of the relationship between religion, politics, and society. Unlike Marx, who dismissed religion as the opiate of the people, both Weber and Durkheim analyzed the importance of religion and recognized its ongoing role (Fischer et al., 2012). Weber (1963) argued that religion is a key basis of culture, which then influences society and politics, and expressed ‘a pessimistic hope for its return’ to the public sphere, to infuse the modern world with a sense of brotherhood and spirituality (Fischer et al., 2012: 263). Fischer et al. (2012) argue that ‘even after its time of magical “enchantment” has past, Weber ascribed some hope to its later version, “charisma,” Christian grace, which he calls “the revolutionary force in history”’ (p. 264). Similarly, Durkheim analyzed the centrality and importance of religion to society with most social frameworks and organizations emerging from religion (Fischer et al., 2012). His major work dealing with religion was published initially in 1912, but it has been revised and republished consistently since then (Durkheim, 2008 [1912]). This reflects the ongoing debate regarding the relationship between secularization and theology, with recent scholarship emphasizing the dialectical relationship between the two.
Recent global developments have highlighted the re-emergence of religion in the public sphere, as the public space has been ‘resacralized’ (Turner, 2010: 652). This has created new challenges in terms of the relationship between the secular state and religion. The secularization theory (Bruce, 2002; Casanova, 2009; Gorski and Altinordu, 2008; Turner, 2009) assumed that religion would disappear with the advance of modernity since modernity was associated with secularism, which viewed religion as outdated and that to be modern meant to reject religion. Casanova (2009) has argued that ‘secular ideology’ claims ‘“religion” is essentially nonrational, particularistic, and intolerant (or illiberal) and as such dangerous and a threat to democratic politics once it enters the public sphere’ (p. 1058). In fact, the opposite has happened with the emergence of extreme religious attitudes and beliefs so that religion is still a major actor (Berger, 1999). Despite the increasingly secular environment, religious communities are strengthening, leading to the emergence of the concept of ‘postsecular’ societies. Casanova (1994) has argued that this has led to a new era, beginning in the early 1980s, which has witnessed the ‘deprivatization’ (p. 5) of religion in the modern world. The relationship between the secular and the sacred is currently seen as being ‘dialectical’ and ‘dynamic’, rather than being ‘binary opposites’ (Hotam, 2017: 538). Through Western colonization and its meeting with other civilizations, the lines between ‘“sacred” and “profane,” “transcendent” and “immanent,” “religious” and “secular”’ have become blurred (Casanova, 2009: 1063).
Yet, there is an inherent conflict between extreme religious belief and democracy in a secular state which is a global problem and, as a result of political considerations, affects many countries which consider themselves to be democratic and has led to the emergence of a new political theology. This conflict also affects the issue of religion and education. It involves the problem of how ‘to retain community, authenticity, and meaning but not at the price of the exclusion and even the oppression of outsiders’ (Fischer et al., 2012: 278). This is a global challenge, which the Israeli education system is also facing with the rise of the radical right in Israel.
Secularism and the emergence of religious Zionism in Israel
One of the main disputes in Israel is the relationship between Judaism and democracy and whether Israel should be a Halakhic state (run by Jewish law) or a modern, secular, democratic state (Hellinger, 2008). For radical religious groups one of the major questions is whether democracy can be perceived as a philosophy of life or only as a technical asset that is based on pragmatic concerns? In the modern era, religion was perceived as one of the alternative worldviews that the individual can choose from, rather than a core value, but this is changing within postsecular states such as Israel (Hotam, 2017). Democracy was considered to be an alternative value system that sanctifies the idea of liberty, freedom, and the entitlement for the individual’s self-fulfillment as opposed to religion, which deals with the obligation of human beings to fulfill the will of God, which in Judaism means the focus on the community rather than the individual (Fischer, 2012; Hellinger, 2008). Yet, with the emergence of postsecularism, there has been a transformation within Israel society to the understanding of Jewish national identity (Hotam, 2017).
Smooha (2002) has argued that there are different forms of democracy: liberal, ethnic, and consociational democracy. Liberal democracy centers on the individual and her or his freedom and basic needs. It seeks to protect the rights of the individual yet also emphasizes the common values of the society. Communal democracy sees the implementation of the rights of the individual within the framework of a group where there is an obligation to take care of the liberty of communities (Elazar, 1995; Hellinger et al., 2016). Ethnic democracy consolidates the nation-state, where the state is subservient to a single ethnic nation. Consociational democracy, takes ‘ethnic and national differences as a given, officially recognizes the main ethnic groups, and uses a series of mechanisms to reduce ethnic conflicts’ (Smooha, 2002: 476). More recently, the concept of ‘illiberal democracy’, where free and fair elections take place, but individual rights are not protected, has emerged (Moller, 2008; Zakaria, 1997).
As well, a political theology of religion has emerged with the totalitarian, political religious movements ‘called “fundamentalist”, [but having] a decidedly “modern” character’ (Fischer et al., 2012: 266). Movements such as political Islamism and extreme religious nationalism in contemporary Israel draw on what Rousseau called the ‘general will’ (volonté génerale) and the Jacobin concept of communitarian democracy. These strands have continued to influence democratic regimes into the contemporary era (Fischer et al., 2012). This article will build on these concepts to analyze the multi-layered concepts of democracy and the attitudes of religious Zionism in Israel, drawing on Liebman’s taxonomy.
Modernity and Liebman’s taxonomy
Liebman’s (1982) models for the relationship between religion and modernity: rejection, adaptation, compartmentalization, and expansion provide a useful taxonomy to contextualize potential solutions to these dilemmas. Despite the fact that he developed this taxonomy before the concept of postsecularism fully emerged, his notion of ‘expansion’ assists in developing an understanding of political theology and its impact on education, including SRE in Israel.
The first approach, rejection, aims at complete separation from the cultural and social world in order to protect the consistency of religion so it attempts to preserve tradition through the separation from and dismissal of modernity. The rejectionists oppose the anthropocentric approach, which perceives the freedom of a human being as legitimate, because they believe that humans are controlled by God. As such, rejectionists believe that modernity and its values are a threat to the existence of Judaism.
Adaptation (or acceptance) means to interpret religion in light of modernity, so that gradually religion can change and even reform. Its advocates argue that there is no contradiction between the values of modernity and religion, since liberty, human rights, science, the preservation of civic law are interpreted as an integral part of original religious thought (Liebman, 1982). However, there is a limit to the extent of the acceptance/adaptation, and it is always accompanied with apologetics.
Compartmentalization refers to the desire to preserve the tradition without harming it. Religion holds sway within its areas of influence and responsibility, while other areas of life follow a secular logic. There is no contradiction between the secular and religious realms, but rather a differentiation between areas of authority and aspects of responsibility (Liebman, 1982).
The expansion mode means the acceptance of modernity, while gradually extending religious authority and influence to include what might be understood as secular or neutral. Religious nationalists are particularly prone to this model, as they gradually expand the religious sphere to include all aspects of their political and social lives. This approach pushes toward religious monism, as its aim is to offer one coherent religious interpretation to all aspects of life. Liebman claims that religious Zionism has adopted the strategy of expansion in its relationship with modernity, and the practical interpretation of this was to sanctify the entire process of modernization and secularization. Political sovereignty and the state’s institutions were given religious significance and validity and the development of these concepts has reinforced the dialectical nature of the relationship between religion and democracy in Israel. This article seeks to examine the postsecular religious political theology as it has emerged and is taught, through a specific case study of female graduates of Israeli SRE drawing on Liebman’s (1982) notion of expansion.
Methodology
This qualitative study examined how Israeli, religious Zionist, single-sex schools within the SRE system respond to the tension between Democracy and Judaism through the eyes of their graduates. The study was carried out among female graduates of these religious Zionist schools with the research sample consisting of 40 graduates (age = 19.5–20.5 years) from two types of schools from different geographical locations in Israel. The first type was the Ulpanot, which are elite, selective, and religiously rigorous boarding schools, and the second was the regular, comprehensive religious high schools, which are less selective, and less religiously rigorous than Ulpanot. They were all in their second year of National Service (20), that is non-military community service, or Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) service (20). 1 This research focused on the female gender because other school systems included secular and religious studies, unlike the male only Yeshiva high schools, many of which only teach religious studies.
For participant recruitment, I approached one of the agencies of Sherut Leumi which has participants from all schools in Israel. This agency connected me with the supervisors, who then canvassed for volunteers. I requested that the supervisors ensure that the final group of participants would be half Sephardi/Mizrachi and half Ashkenazi from all geographical areas in Israel. Since I wanted to include IDF soldiers, I also approached the center for Teacher Soldiers in the Tarbut Toranit Department, which works primarily in disadvantaged communities and with immigrants, dropouts, and disadvantaged soldiers and asked for its cooperation. After the research questionnaire was examined and approved by the army’s research center, the Tarbut Toranit Department connected me with the supervisors who also canvassed for volunteers, ensuring the same profile for the sample. The supervisors organized the interviews, with the Sherut Leumi girls being interviewed by the author either in their apartment or, if they chose, at the university and the teacher soldiers were interviewed at their army base. All participants were guaranteed full confidentiality.
The participants were first asked to complete a short written demographic survey including which region their school was in and their level of religiosity, which they had to rate on a six-point scale: very religious, not so religious, not religious, secular, and anti-religious. Then, in semi-structured interviews, they were asked to reflect, retrospectively, about their understanding of democracy and the education and schooling that they experienced during their high school years, as well as how that education constructed their attitude to democracy and the nature of the school’s democratic discourse, with the aim of comparing the Ulpanot with the state religious schools. All interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed.
The interviews were analyzed according to the constant comparative method (Strauss, 1987). In the initial stage of analysis, recurring topics were identified, of which the principal ones were the tension between democracy and Jewish law and the encounter between politics and religion. Through axial coding, the following categories and concepts were identified: The Land of Israel, the State of Israel, national identity, civic identity, and particularistic versus universalistic discourse. The final stage involved creating a category-based theoretical structure linked with Liebman’s taxonomy and developing an empirically corroborated theoretical framework to understand this particular religious group. The focus of this study was the participants’ retrospective reflections on their schooling and socialization and their perception of the attitudes inculcated in relations of the concepts of Israeli democracy.
Findings
Demographic data
The written, demographic questionnaire produced the following results: participants were equally represented between the Ulpanot and the regular religious school system; half were Ashkenazi and half Sephardi/Mizrachi from all geographical regions in Israel; and, therefore, from different socio-economic backgrounds. In terms of their levels of religiosity, Ulpanot graduates (M = 4.80) defined themselves as more religious than the regular high school graduates (M = 4.53). Those who served in the army defined themselves as less religious (M = 4.35) than those who served in the national service (M = 5.00). This difference was found to be significant and much of the analysis below will revolve around the differences between Ulpanot graduates and those of the regular religious high schools, as well as those who decided to enlist in the army rather than undertaking national communal service. These differences reflected the individual personalities of the participants and their different reactions to the religious schools’ messages.
Contradictions between democracy and Jewish law and participants’ responses
In both systems, the students claimed that their school explicitly presented democracy as contradicting Jewish law: ‘Democracy is the religion of secular people. They worship the goddess of Democracy—without it, they have no values’ (Ulpanot, National Service), or as another student explained: ‘Our teacher said that when man is ruling the world, we construct the tower of Babel. God does not exist according to democracy. Humanism substitutes Judaism’ (Yael, Army service, High school).
However, the participants had different responses to this contradiction. The comprehensive high school graduates tended to emphasize that the state law stands above everything, while the Ulpanot graduates tended to focus on the importance of religious law and the tension between civic law and the law of the Torah: Concerning civic identity there was always a feeling in the Ulpanot that we are above the law. It started even with very small issues like whenever there were [national] teachers’ strikes, in the Yeshivot and Ulpanot, they broke the strike. This was justified by saying that one is not allowed to cancel religious lessons. (Rachel, National service, Ulpanot)
Some graduate students went further, particularly those who defined themselves as more religious. They viewed democracy as the secular ‘religion’ of Israel’s non-religious population. The Supreme Court and the Knesset are presented as a temple, where people come to worship the false god of democracy, as this response illustrates: The Supreme Court is the biggest authority of the law—the temple of the Law—and you have to prove to everyone that you are obedient to it. (Rotem, Army service, High School)
One Ulpanot graduate in the national service program saw an indirect but clear link between liberal, democratic attitudes and abandonment of religious commitment: I have a good friend who believes in democracy. She is open and liberal, and, in the end, she became secular. Of course, this was not [just] because of her democratic beliefs but there is a line that might push you out. (Miriam)
She hinted at assimilatory tendencies as a gradual process in adopting these opinions, because of perceived contradictions between democracy and Jewish law.
To the questions, ‘Can a man be both leftist and religious? Is this possible?’ there were several responses, but all indicated the rejection of such a combination: ‘A person who holds leftist opinions cannot be fully religious. He may be religious but something inside is missing’ (Rivka, National Service, High School).
Students also described another contradiction, this one between religious commitment to the principle of Jewish chosen-ness and the democratic principle of equality for all. One student described their educational context, which did not confront this dilemma: Democracy was lip service. It was slogans. My feeling was that at the end of the day we talked about how in our country we are not really equal. We—the Jews—are above all the nations and of course above the Arabs. There is a hierarchy. They cultivated the view that we Jews are above the rulers of the state. We have to lead the state. (Hadar, Army service, High School)
Thus, the students were presented with the concept of the superiority of the Jewish people, contradicting democratic principles.
Though the schools emphasized the contradiction between democracy and Judaism most of the participants, both Ulpanot graduates (61.9%) and comprehensive high school graduates (63.2%), claimed that the school did not go into details in explaining the theoretical and practical contradiction between democracy and Jewish law, but simply presented this as a problem. The basic premise was that the elected secular politicians undermine the religious authority and its divinely sanctioned hegemony. One student commented: We did not have arguments at all as there were no other opinions. We were given ready-made answers to almost everything. There were other possibilities, but they were ‘there’—they do not belong to our world. (Lilach, Army Service, High School)
This graduate, who enlisted in the IDF was highly critical and viewed her school education as particularistic and one dimensional. Her decision to enlist, rather than volunteer for community service, reflected a more open approach to her religious identity.
Another Ulpanot graduate in national service took a more pragmatic approach: We have to differentiate between our Torah and what we can gain from the outside world, the modern world. I will not accept everything but when you can benefit from the state, why not? (Tirza, Ulpanot, National Service)
Thus, this student saw the contradictions between democracy and Jewish law but separated them for pragmatic reasons.
These students’ comments show how, in postsecular Israel, SRE females conceptualize democracy and how they perceived that their schools conceptualized a public theological interpretation in response to the current system in Israel.
The Land of Israel and the State of Israel
Ulpanot graduates and some high school graduates distinguished clearly between the Land of Israel, a biblical and religious concept, and the State of Israel, a modern political entity. These participants believed that democracy served the interests of the State but not the religious connection to the Land of Israel. They stated that ‘even though democracy protects the State of Israel, the democratic approach can sometimes be hostile to the religious concept of the Land of Israel. In dealing with this contradiction, they develop the concept of political theology’.
Our devotion to our state is religious devotion. Everything is religion. Being a good citizen means to apply religious ideas to our political actions. How can you separate Eretz Israel from religion? We have a special prayer for the wellbeing of the State. Without religion, this State is meaningless . . . We have to look at our history and reality and see the divine providence. (Bat El, National Service, High School)
This student’s comment reflects a view of a conflict between the Land of Israel and the State of Israel and she believes religion should govern the politics of Israel.
Another student maintained the distinction between State and Land but saw at least potential for a more harmonious encounter between them: Civic education deals mainly with the State of Israel, which is a technical body that contains the essence—the land of Israel. Therefore, civic education is also part of religious education and part of the historical and philosophical aspects of our nation—the Jewish nation. (Chen, Ulpanot, National Service)
Among some of those who served in the army, however, the sense of conflict with the secular majority and the tension regarding belonging was less pronounced. They saw themselves as equal participants in a larger pluralistic body: When I go to the army, it is mainly for the sake of my country—my state. I am part of most of the population in the state, which is not necessarily religious. A person cannot ignore the fact that we are part of a modern state. We are part of modernization. (Rotem, Army Service, High School)
Thus, these students had a more open mind to the relationship between the land and the state, represented already by their decision to enlist. However, most of the participants appeared to support a more Jacobean approach, with religious beliefs having more authority than the secular state. These students viewed this communitarian approach as being more positive given that they believed that the concept of Eretz Israel was the founding principle of the State of Israel.
Reactions to civic education
Democracy was mainly associated with the duties of the citizen, with upholding the law, the social order, obedience, and conformity: Democracy means first and foremost to obey the law. (High school, army) A state needs to be governed by law and the citizens and we as students need to understand the importance of respecting the law. (Limor, National Service, High School)
Most respondents claimed that their schools presented democracy as a formal procedure rather than as a value or an essential premise with their teaching concentrating on the practical processes: ‘We studied the procedures and processes that enable the [democratic] system to function and how we can be part of the system’ (Miriam, Ulpanot, National Service) and ‘how to vote, how to use practically the democratic system’ (Tzivi, Ulpanot, National Service).
In contrast, the regular religious high school graduates viewed upholding the law as a central value. One graduate said: ‘respecting the law was a dominant rule and an important value in our education’ (Smadar, National Service, High School). Students from high schools who chose to serve in the military rather than national community service were even more inclined to endorse their democratic socialization: I won’t say that democracy is an ideal, yet without it we are lost. There are many important things we can learn from it that are exactly like our Torah. Like complying with the law, being obedient . . . To be attentive to the power of the majority is also an important principle as the tyranny of the minority is frightening and immoral. (Liora)
This is a more inclusive pluralistic standpoint. Another stressed that her school encouraged her to enlist in the IDF. We were taught ‘to see our devotion to the State as an important component of our education’ (Shoshi, Army Service, High School).
Answers like these, which reflect a deep process of civic education, were not heard among Ulpanot graduates. A graduate of the Ulpanot said: ‘When I decided to enlist, I had to hide this fact as it was considered against the rabbinical law’ (Shani, Ulpanot, Army Service). This graduate had a stronger sense of responsibility to the State because she had a different understanding from her civic education. This approach represented the view that God gave humans the right of free choice and that from this perspective, the social need for army service did not contradict with Judaism. These responses indicated an expansion of public theology in the face of dialectic between religion and the secular state,
The role of political activism
When asked about how the school related to functioning within a democracy and the extent of political activism, the Ulpanot graduates who responded thought obeying civic laws was not a major issue within school socialization, although this was not discussed explicitly. However, the regular high school graduates thought that obeying the law was a major component of their school socialization. This issue related specifically to the question of withdrawing from settlements in the West Bank, with the participants from both types of schools, overall, being strongly opposed and arguing that political activism would prevent this from happening: The general will be not to withdraw from any part from Israel. We represent this general will and thus political activism in demonstrations is important. (Miriam, Ulpanot, National Service)
Another student said their teachers conveyed this message: ‘Go and shout out loud. Don’t give up. Democracy means fight for your own truth in the public sphere’ (Ofri, National Service, High School).
These Ulpanot graduates perceived political activism as part and parcel of good citizenship, envisioning a day when the political climate would change, and the majority would agree with them. They believed that resistance to an existing law or government policy was within the legitimate arena of democratic action. At times, however, these students drifted from emphasizing democratic opposition to a more problematic discourse, in which they believed that their opposition actually represented ‘the general will’, which would justify a minority imposing its will on the electoral majority. Thus, some students emphasized the need to protest specifically within the limits of democratic norms while others believed in the concept of public theology.
Discussion
This study found that female graduates from the national religious schools were influenced by political theology as this was developed by Rabbi Isaac and Rabbi Tzvi Yehudah Kook (Hotam, 2017). The findings highlighted the graduates’ belief in the Jacobin communitarian approach to democracy (Fischer et al., 2012); their focus on Liebman’s (1982) concept of expansionism; and the challenges these approaches pose for maximal civic education (McLaughlin, 1992).
The context
The issue of the return of religion and its role in public life (Turner, 2010) has been discussed in depth within the broader academic discourse, but its impact is only beginning to enter the field of education. This study has focused on SRE in Israel, as ‘a postsecular emergent society’ in Israel, as ‘a postsecular emergent society’ with ‘its current national Jewish education [being] starkly informed by a new theocratic vision for Israel’ (Hotam, 2017: 539). The interviews with the graduates revealed that they believed that if there was a clash between religious, liberal values, and religious ideology, the latter had to take precedence. Throughout the interviews, the graduates distinguished between the concept of the ‘Land of Israel’ which represents the theological-national domain, in which they ascribe religious significance to the Israeli territory, and the ‘State of Israel’, which represents the formal, civic domain. These attitudes were particularly apparent in their comments about the territories, reflecting the eschatological beliefs of Rav Tzvi Yehudah Kook and the settlement movement (Fischer et al., 2012; Hotam, 2017). Therefore, in the current political situation, they perceive liberal democracy as a threat to religiosity and civic law as opposed to religious law and advocate a different approach (see also Aran, 1986; Gross, 2010, 2013; Schwartz, 2002).
The students in this study live in a pluralistic and diverse country, but through the ideology of their high schools, most envision an ideal of a monolithic political community (Gross, 2008; Fischer et al., 2012). For the majority of participants, if democracy is identified as a set of values—of pluralism, individual rights, and freedom—then they identify democracy with liberalism, which they encode as dangerous, secular, and ultimately responsible for the lack of Israeli commitment to the complete Land of Israel (Hellinger et al., 2016).
The ideology of the schools promotes is one of an ethnic nationalism (Smooha, 2002), in which the political community is defined by a shared language, history culture, and values, rather than a civic nationalism where the political community is defined by a shared commitment to the core principles of democratic legitimacy. Within this definition of the graduates there is a clear ethnic hierarchy, with the Palestinian Arabs being subordinate to the Jews (Agbaria, 2018).
Communitarian approach versus liberal democracy
This study found that the participants identify democracy primarily in terms of Rousseauvian and Jacobin communitarian concepts based on the concepts of public theology (Fischer et al., 2012). The graduates’ descriptions of their socialization processes abounds with terms like conformity, obedience, and social order, a conception that detaches the term citizenship from the values of freedom and individuality associated with liberal democracy. Thus, this study found that in general religiosity challenges liberal democracy, since this approach values the dominance of authority over individual agency.
Though all the participants referred to the word democracy, two basic democratic approaches could be seen: the more religious participants who defined themselves as religious in the written survey endorsed participatory democracy from its Rousseauvian form (Fischer et al., 2012). With their emphasis on protest and direct action in the public sphere, they value a democracy which contributes actively to decision making, including the minority imposing their will on the majority. The less religious girls emphasized their civic identity and showed more of an inclination toward representative democracy, in which government represents the citizens, their values, and their identities. These two approaches from graduates of SRE illustrate the dialectical processes of postsecular societies (Casanova, 2009; Gorski and Altinordu, 2008). In the case of the Ulpanot graduates their religious beliefs and attitudes are much stronger, while with the graduates from the state religious high schools, the secular democratic beliefs are slightly stronger, although they are still influenced by their religious world views.
Expansionism versus containment
In the eyes of the graduates, individual democracy is mainly considered to be a procedural form of government rather than a worldview that consists of a set of values. Hellinger (2008) argues that one of the reasons that democracy is rejected by the more religious Israeli Jews is because it is interpreted only in its ‘thin’ individual, liberal form and other understandings are not considered. Drawing on Elazar’s (1995) theory, he argues that if Israelis would use the communal approach, they would understand that democracy can be a system of values relevant to Judaism, rather than only from a technical, pragmatic point of view.
In reaction to this ideological position, this study found that Liebman’s (1982) concept of ‘expansion’ contributes to the more recent theoretical conceptualization of postsecularism and the dialectical relationship between religion and democracy. As well another component—containment—also emerged, broadening the scope of this analysis. While the elements of rejection, adaptation, and compartmentalization (Liebman, 1982) did exist, the concept of expansion, that is including religion in all aspects of life including within the public sphere, was promoted by the more religious girls. A number of the participants, both from the Ulpanot (four who did national service) and the more religious girls from the comprehensive high school (three, all of whom performed national service), spoke about the need to accord religious meaning and interpretation to every single action in life. These students want to impose strategically a religious vision on a self-declared secular realm of civic democracy. They believed that the religious precepts relating to the Land of Israel were more important than the civil law, which had to be opposed through political activism. They argued that democracy was not a value in and of itself, but rather a tool which they must use to reach their pre-defined religious and messianic goals (Aran, 1986; Fischer, 2012; Fischer et al., 2012; Hellinger et al., 2016; Hotam, 2017; Inbari, 2012). They supported the expansionist approach and envisioned an ideal, monolithic, political community, in which the People of Israel would be fully committed to religious Zionism. They did not envision themselves as part of a multicultural society, one committed to diversity in principle, with their views reflecting the Jacobian, communitarian approach.
This study also identified a different approach, the containment stance, which attempts to combine the two opposed entities to enable them to co-exist. According to this view the power of the individual is very important. Her rights to live as she wants may contradict religious Jewish law, yet God gave humans free choice. So, although obedience to one’s free will may contradict obedience to God, this group believes they can combine these two elements. This was seen particularly with the group of graduates who chose to serve in the army, even though this was forbidden by some rabbis because they were female. Yet, these graduates, who still wished to lead strictly religious lives, recognized that this is challenging and might involve many complicated situations. Containment is a more inclusive, pluralistic, multidimensional stance that allows for post-modernist juggling without worrying about inconsistencies. The containment process is perceived as a strategy that does not want to ‘solve’ the contradiction between religion and democracy but respects it and creates a special mechanism to institutionalize those contradictions so that containment becomes an integrative force within society.
Though the numbers in this study who believed in the containment approach are small, they provide a framework for the spectrum of opinions between conservatism to liberalism within graduates of the religious Zionist school strand of SRE and highlight the dialectical, complex nature of postsecularism (Casanova, 2009).
Civic education
As discussed, the religious Zionist strand has a strong, nationalistic element to its educational approaches and most of the students are influenced by the right-wing ideological orientation of this strand. Echoing their teachers and communities, for these students the ideal of homogeneous national identity and expansive territorial borders, should be constructed by religious authorities and texts rather than by civic authorities and values (Gross, 2010). While officially, overtly political education is rejected within the school context, the findings demonstrate that religious Zionist teachers educate toward a specific ideological doctrine, identifying the connection to the biblical Land of Israel as part and parcel of religious education. This finding supports the influence of the teachers’ own worldviews despite the official requirement of neutrality in civic education, as has been demonstrated in both the secular, Jewish state school system (Cohen, 2016, 2017) and the Palestinian Arabic state system (Agbaria, 2018).
Despite attending the same school systems, whether in the Ulpanot or the State religious high schools, there were different reactions from the students to their civic education. As discussed, those students with a stronger religious identity took an expansionist approach, while those who were more open to secular views, albeit a minority from both school systems, took a containment approach. The expansionist approach reflects McLaughlin’s (1992) concept of a minimal approach to civic education whereas the containment approach reflects a maximal position. This demonstrates that while most of the students accepted the expansionist, theocratic worldview of their teachers, some of the teachers in the religious state high schools did take a more liberal approach according to the perception of the students. Within this framework, a small number rejected the expansionist view and came to a more maximal understanding of their civic engagement in Israeli society, even though this went against the accepted norms of most of their teachers, rabbis, and peers.
Conclusions and implications
This study has demonstrated that religion within Israeli society does play an increasingly important role in the public sphere (Turner, 2010) through the education and socialization of students attending the state religious high schools and the Ulpanot. While graduates from the Ulpanot emerged with a stronger religious worldview than those from the state religious high schools, the picture was more complex reflecting the dialectical nature of the relationship between religion and society (Casanova, 2009). The concept of political theology as presented by most of their civic education teachers, as well as the school mission statements as a whole, was very influential with most of the graduates. The theocratic nature of the religious messages in the schools, based on the Kookian, messianic ideology, inspired them to believe in the communitarian, Jacobian approach to democracy and to reject liberal democracy (Fischer et al., 2012; Hotam, 2017).
School as a socialization agent is a site where contesting powers struggle over the ownership of its students’ democratic vision and what can be perceived as legitimate political action (Fine, 2017). The discussion of legitimacy is a discourse of authorities and borders, which reflects a deeper discussion between traditionalism and modernity. The fact that students express various opinions reflects the diversity within religious Zionism, yet the fact that most of them express misgivings about democracy attests to the success of religious Zionist socialization in questioning Western liberal values. These findings illustrate a particularistic exclusionary discourse in most of the schools, particularly the Ulpanot, which in some cases is confronted by the more open and pluralistic girls who function within the tension between regulation and resistance (Fine, 2017). The religious Zionist school setting needs to construct what Homi Bhabha defines as a hybrid (Bhabha, 1994), inclusive third dimension (Rutherford, 1990) which combines Judaism, democracy, and modernity.
Citizenship relates to the formal, procedural, constitutional aspect of their being (Pedahzur and Perliger, 2004), whereas their national identity is connected to the ‘shared fate’ and the Israeli utopian and Zionistic vision and ideology (Aran, 1986; Hotam, 2017; Inbari, 2012). Williams (2007) asserts that civic education should enhance the idea of citizenship as membership in a community of shared fate, rather than the model of citizenship as identity with any particular ideology. Among the respondents, democracy as a set of core values is connected with universalistic ideas, while national ideas with particularistic conceptions relate to commitment to a shared fate. Within these paradigms, most prefer the particularistic. In their eyes, national identity is connected to organic solidarity (Durkheim, 1947), whereas civic identity relates to mechanic solidarity. In the opinion of the research subjects, their socialization does not value the basic democratic tenets of equality and the citizen’s individual rights but rather the concept of majority rule which they, as a minority through the mechanism of democracy, want to control and dominate because they believe that they represent the general will of the Jewish Israelis. For educators interested in enhancing the commitment to democracy, the results of this study raise significant questions about how education toward democracy can be enhanced within settings such as this particularistic, monolithic, religious Zionist school system in Israel.
Footnotes
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
