The Israeli State and Judaism


 

Publication Date: January 1996

Publisher: Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs

Author(s): Daniel J. Elazar

Research Area: Culture and religion

Keywords: History; Religion; Zionism; Israeli Jews

Type: Report

Coverage: Israel

Abstract:

The author discusses the role of the Jewish religion, and especially Zionism as a religious value, in the political history of Israel. He focuses on the impact of modernity, the peace process, and the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, to show the growing distance between Israelis who have a religious ideological relationship with Israel and those who have a less specifically Jewish territorial relationship with it, and the challenge that that divide poses for the future of Israel, Judaism within Israel, and Israel as a Jewish state.