During my sabbatical, I have had the luxury of reading in a leisurely fashion, without courses and writing projects in mind, going where my interests take me. It has been a pleasure and, as it happens, a fruitful practice. Without intention, it has led me to a new project, as I have already reported: an exploration of the unresolvable dilemmas built into the social fabric, the study of the social condition. Today, another example, the tensions between religion and politics in modern society: I returned to this problem reading Nachman Ben Yehuda’s latest book, Theocratic Democracy: The Social Construction of Religious and Secular Extremism.

Ben Yehuda, my old friend and colleague, is studying in his book Jewish extremism in the Jewish state. He investigates deviance in the religious community as a way to analyze the conflict between the religious and secular in Israel. Central religious and political commitments in Israel as a matter of the identity of the national community pose serious problems. Not only has the recognition of Israel as a Jewish Democratic state become a key demand and obstacle in negotiations with the Palestinians: it has become a problematic challenge to the relationship among Israeli Jews. Nachman, an occasional Deliberately Considered contributor explores this. His central findings are presented in part 2 of Theocratic Democracy, on the deviance and the non-conformity of the ultra orthodox, and part 3 on cultural conflict in the media.

In part 2, a selection of “illustrative events and affairs” is presented, among many others: a 1958 affair surrounding the building of a swimming pool for mixed, male and female, bathing, in ultra-orthodox rendering the “abomination pool,” and the 1981 ultra-orthodox attack on an archaeological dig of the City of David, near the old city of Jerusalem, leading to a series of conflicts, ultimately resulting in the fine tuning of the law of archaeology. During 1985-6, there were Haredi attacks on advertising posters. Further, there were attacks on movie theaters open on the Saturday Sabbath, . . .

Read more: The Social Condition, Religion and Politics in Israel