"A Nation that Dwells Alone": Israeli Religious Nationalism in the 21st Century

INTRODUCTION

One of the most surprising and far-reaching aspects of Zionist/Israeli history in the 121 years since the first Zionist Congress in Basle has been the developing role of religious nationalism, especially since 1967. Many of the most contentious issues in both Israel and the Diaspora today are rooted in various, often innovative, religious Weltanschauungen, and these perspectives significantly affect state policy and societal attitudes. It also reflects the central paradox of the Israeli state. The central element of the Zionist movement has always been that the Jews are a people—and thus have enough in common to constitute both a nation and a national state. However, it is precisely that tension between Judaism and nationalism that has become the basis for the most contentious struggles in that state and within the Jewish people. These struggles are centered in the Religious Zionist camp, but have spilled over to affect the entire State.

These changes have taken place since 1967, barely more than a blink in the 3000-year span of Jewish history. They alter the national ethos; it is not simply a matter of National Religious families becoming a greater percentage of the population. A recent study of the National Religious public points out, "This increasing prominence cannot be chalked up to demographic change. … The transformation of Israeli society [through the growth of the National-Religious camp] has strategic implications for the country's character, the balance of power within the ruling institutional system, the national agenda, and even [I would say 'especially'-PS] the foreign and defense policies of the state".¹

Originally, Zionism sought to reframe Judaism in national terms, largely removing religion. What secular Zionists never would have imagined is that in the last few decades, Zionism has been, to a large extent, reframed in religious terms and, for elements of the National Religious Camp, Zionism and Judaism have become intertwined.

IN THE BEGINNING

Although the earliest "proto-Zionists" were rabbis, notably Zvi Hirsch Kalischer and Yehudah Alkalai, most of those initially attracted to Zionism—and who became its early leaders—were primarily individuals one generation away from traditional Judaism, who had rejected observance and acquired a secular education. The primary exception was Theodor Herzl himself, who had scant Jewish background and knew little of Judaism or Hebrew. Orthodox rabbis were always suspicious of Zionism because it ignored the traditional necessity of divine intervention in returning the Jewish people to their land, relying on human (usually totally secular) activity alone.²

Nevertheless, although the vast majority of Orthodox leaders inveighed against it until at least 1948, from the beginning there was a small Orthodox contingent that embraced Zionism and which, in 1902, formed the Mizrachi movement, as the first distinct faction within Zionism.³ Herzl felt closer to them than to many secular Zionists because they, like he, rejected Ahad Ha'am's and others' "cultural Zionism" in favor of perceiving Palestine primarily as a refuge and a political solution to anti-Semitism.⁴ Obviously their cultural predilections were utterly contrary—Torah Judaism vs. high German Kultur—but they agreed that such a determination should not be a significant part of Zionism. The Mizrachi movement was perhaps the strongest contingent supporting Herzl's ill-fated "Uganda" plan precisely on that basis. They did not seek to end the Galut; rather, they wanted safety and a place to be observant.

The Mizrachi movement, first headed by Rabbi Yitzhak Yaakov Reines (1839–1915), embodied this perspective until the aftermath of 1967. However, the most visible public face of Religious Zionism was Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Kook (1865–1935), first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Palestine from 1921 until his death. He was the most popular figure Religious Zionism has ever produced, especially among the large secular majority of the Yishuv at that time. Nevertheless, he had little immediate ideological impact on the Yishuv and Israeli Religious Zionism, notably regarding its defense policies, which were often more dovish than those of Mapai, its perennial coalition partner until after 1967. However, it has been claimed that these dovish policies really "reflected the...