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158 8 Conclusion A Reconstruction of Fundamentalism and Piety Piety, as i have argued throughout this book, is not a permanent pattern of belief; it is always shifting, being revised, reinterpreted, and contested. As we have seen, in the Jewish fundamentalist world, male piety is being reconsidered and reconstructed as a result of, and in response to, the challenges of modernity. The changing economy, politics, feminism, and new ideas about the family all have penetrated the fundamentalist enclave, reconsidering its basic models and religious experiences . This encounter between fundamentalism and the various trends and issues of modernity has created new religious phenomena and raised questions about the unique nature of piety and its current implementations by young fundamentalist devotees. At the beginning of this book, i asked how male piety was reconstructed in the fundamentalist context and in what way this redefinition has led to social and cultural changes. in contrast to the views of scholars of the Haredi culture (M. Friedman 1991, 1993), who describe yeshiva piety in israel as a text-based elite fundamentalist culture, i maintain that Haredi piety is shifting and, with it, the nature of Jewish fundamentalism in general. After world war ii and the Holocaust, the yeshiva culture in israel was formed as part of what Almond, Appleby, and Sivan (2003) call the reinforcement of “strong religion,” the intensification of morality that helped mobilize people to establish and protect the fundamentalist enclave, even while living in a secular liberal state. As defined by Menachem Friedman (1991), this intensification of the society of learners and its yeshiva-based institutions was the key to a world that would renew the spirit of the Jewish social ethic in the decadent modern era. But after examining students’ attitudes, reading yeshiva writings, and watching films and DvDs on the military, family, work, and gender, i have concluded that this religiosity A Reconstruction of Fundamentalism and Piety 159 is shifting to what Max weber termed this-worldly piety (weber 1904/5), a new set of pious ideals reflecting the institutionalization and popularization of current fundamentalism. That is, yeshiva students are now demanding a piety that is more inclusive, heroic, profane, and militaristic, as well as experiencing religion as individualistic, domestic, and popular. This shift in the nature of piety, the core of the fundamentalist mind, also has resulted in changes in the fundamentalist group, including the yeshiva’s relations with the state and civil society and its conceptions of citizenship. As we have seen, the transformation of male piety is not only the result of inner pressures and shifts but has also been influenced by the state and israeli society as a whole. Since the mid-1980s, israel’s society and polity have undergone several interrelated transformations that have influenced the Haredi community and its modes of religiosity. First, the threats to israel’s survival and the conflicts in which the country is involved have affected conceptions of membership, citizenship, and the links between individuals and the nation-state. The first Palestinian intifada (1987–92), the first Gulf war (1990/1), the iraq war (2003–), the second intifada (beginning in 2000), and the Second Lebanon war (summer 2006) all have altered basic conceptions about relations between the civil and military worlds and the links between the state and civil society. Because the attacks by the Palestinians and Hezbollah have targeted civilians as well as soldiers, and Jewish as well as Arab citizens of israel, the differentiation between the military front and the civilian rear and the boundaries of the israeli collective, albeit always fluid, are changing as well. The second broad sweep of changes was the result of a new emphasis on israel’s neoliberalist policies. in brief, neoliberal policies have weakened the israeli state, undermined state-mandated arrangements for supplying social and health services, and led to new forms of citizen participation and have significantly undermined social privileges associated with citizenship (Shafir and Peled 2002). Beginning in the 1980s, neoliberalism—the privileged status of Jewish law and, particularly, the status of the orthodox rabbinate—has given the Haredim many advantages in politics, education, and more. For example, because the Haredi political parties wield great power in israel, the increase in the state’s support of education has allowed an unprecedented growth of such Haredi institutions as yeshivas. Furthermore, the Haredi community itself has grown since the 1980s, with the addition of new populations. Accordingly, the traditional separation of Lithuanians and Hasidic sects has been blurred with the arrival of...

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