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Is Fundamentalism Inherent toJewish Traditionalism? IS FUNDAMENTALISM INHERENT TO JEWISH TRADITIONALISM? A REVIEW ESSAY by Chaim I. Waxman Rutgers University Department of Sociology 73 Jewish Fundamentalism in Comparative Perspective: Religion, Ideology, and the Crisis ofModernity, edited by laurenceJ. Silberstein. New York: New York University Press, 1993. 248 pp. Tbe Fundamentalism Project, a series edited by Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby. Chicago, University of Chicago Press: Vol. 1: Fundamentalism Observed. 1991. 872 pp. $45.00 (c). Vol. 2: Fundamentalisms and Society: Reclaiming the Sciences, the Family, and Education. 1993. 592 pp. $45.00 (c). Vol. 3: Fundamentalisms and the State: Remaking Politics, Economies, and Militance. 1993. 665 pp. $45.00. Vol. 4: Accountingfor Fundamentalisms: The DynamicCharacter of Movements. 1994. 852 pp. $47.50. The term "fundamentalism" is very au courant in the vocabulary of those who study religion and religious movements today, but it is a term which is not easily definable. In its original context, it relates to the literal Biblical fundamentals, as defined by the Protestant Fundamentalists. Clearly, this is a notion which is completely alien to Judaism, which has always emphasized the Oral law as the interpreter of the Written law. A more popular notion of fundamentalism is that of the American Heritage Dictionary, namely, "A movement or point of view characterized by rigid adherence to fundamental or basic principles. " The problems with this definition are the terms "rigid" and "basic." For example, in their discussion ofGush Emunim, two of the foremost authorities on fundamen- 74 SHOFAR Spring 1995 Vol. 13, No.3 talism, Martin Marty and R. Scott Appleby, the editors of The Fundamentalism Project, make the following assertion: The Gush outdo even Orthodox Jews when it comes to strict observance of certain religious precepts. Beyond the customary fasts on Yom Kippur and the Ninth of Av ... , for example, they observe at least four additional fast days a year. Gush faithful conform to norms which are not stipulated explicitly in the Torah, and enforce the separation of the sexes in education and entertainment beginning in early childhood. The Gush also emphasize the need for the detailed, comprehensive knowledge of these norms, which is only provided by rigorous study. Students, some of whom may spend eighteen hours a day in the yeshiva, count the number of pages they devote each day and week to the Gemara.... Children attend a heder, a class providing strict religious instruction. In addition to interpretation and elaboration of religious law, Gush Emunim expands the scope in which it is applied. Not only domestic matters but also business decisions and civic and political behavior, are to be conducted according to Talmudic regulations. Gush members also look to their rabbis for guidance in voting.1 Clearly, such a conception is unacceptable to anyone who knows anything about traditional Judaism. According to Marty and Appleby, all Orthodox Jews are fundamentalists and thus the term has no meaning. Jonathan Sacks, now Chief Rabbi of United Hebrew Congregations of the British Commonwealth, puts it this way: Of this, I am sure: that every Jew, from Neturei Karta to the most radical Reform, is convinced he or she is a centrist Jew. Wherever a Jew stands in the spectrum of commitment, those to the right of him are the fundamentalists , and those to the left of him are the assimilators. By a miracle of cognitive geometry, the midway point between fanaticism and unacceptable compromise always coincides exactly with wherever the individual happens to stand. "There are," he or she says, "so few sane Jews left."2 A somewhat different and more specific conception offundamentalism is that of another scholar, a political scientist at the University ofPennsylvania , Ian Lustick. He says, "I conceive of fundamentalism as a political style. The defining characteristic of that style is that political action, dedicated towards rapid and comprehensive transformation of society, is seen to express uncompromisable, cosmically ordained, and more or less directly lMartin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby, The Glory and the Power: The Fundamental Challenge to the Modern World (Boston: Beacon Press, 1992), pp. 117-118. 2Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, ed., Ortbodo:xy Confronts Modernity (Hoboken, NJ: Ktav, 1991), p.143. Is Fundamentalism Inherent to Jewish Traditionalism? 75 received imperatives...

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