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Yoav Peled and Horit Herman Peled, The Religionization of Israeli Society. New York: Routledge, 2018. xii + 238pp., $150 (hardback)

The Religionization of Israeli Society depicts the influ- or deride state symbols. However, despite the impor- ence of religious on various areas of Israeli tance in the art field of Bar Hama, who was until society from 1967 to the present day. The authors, recently the head of the Department of Arts in the political scientist Yoav Peled of Tel Aviv University Ministry of Culture and Sports, which is responsible and artist Horit Herman Peled, present the general for formulating the policy of support for cultural and evolution of Israeli society in such fields as education, art institutions, the authors use Bar Hama’s position to defense, art, feminism, film, and television, and focus paint the entire religious-Zionist world as monolithic. particularly on Jewish religious communities. This book The depiction of Bar Hama as the archetype of the is unique in that it is the first to undertake a broad religious-Zionist artist serves the authors’ broad claim survey and examination of the new circumstances of that right-wing has adopted sophis- national-religious and ultra-Orthodox Jewish artists ticated strategies to force its way into Israeli culture in . Chapter 7 examines the art created in the and civil society so that it could take up a dominant religious Zionist and ultra-Orthodox communities, position therein (23). while Chapter 9 surveys film and television. Chapter The narrative of the book when it comes to con- 8 addresses religious and discusses temporary art and culture continuously creates a religious feminist art. The book converges on a gloomy dichotomy of binary opposition, religious–secular and and disturbing description of right-wing, messianic right–left, which influences the authors’ reading and Orthodox (“”) propelling Israeli interpretation of the topic so as to confirm their thesis, society and its educational system, military, and culture even when the material under discussion points to a to the brink of a constitutional (220–221).1 different, and perhaps more complex, explanation. For The discussion of the arts throughout the book example, the authors mention Porat Salomon, who points to the past and present exclusion of religious studied art at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, artists from Israeli cultural fields (e.g., 162–163) and the the preemiment art school in Israel. Salomon is indeed means by which they become actors in their chosen one of the most prominent and interesting voices in fields. The conclusion of the book, which can appear the burgeoning art world of religious-Zionist Jews in to be its starting point, is that the entry of the religious Israel. In keeping with the uniform narrative of the into social and cultural fields is, in fact, the capture of book, Salomon “the settler” serves as the representative the political right and messianic religious communities of the religious right that is seeking to dominate the of cultural and social centers of control and influence Israeli mainstream art world (180). But Salomon, in my in Israel. In this review, I will show that, at least in understanding, which is based on personal acquain- relation to culture, the book provides an incomplete tance, values heterogeneity and sees secular Israeli picture as a result of the authors’ limited acquaintance art positively, including the work of left-wing artists with different artistic disciplines and their reductive who disagree with him. He has no interest in control- readings of artistic works. ling or obliterating secular art and culture. Salomon The chapter focusing on art prominently discusses intends to have a genuine, profound, complex, and the writings and works of the artist Avner Bar Hama, rewarding dialogue with secular Israeli art as part of his who is identified as “one of the leading national-reli- “I.” Indeed, a number of scholars have acknowledged gious artists working today” (75). Bar Hama discusses that modern Jewish Orthodoxy involves socialization creating an alternative to the left-wing, secular art through several cultural communities to form networks world and supports the Loyalty in Culture Bill, which of different meanings, of which is only one, and permits the Minister of Culture and Sports to rescind therefore embodies a multicultural existence.2 Thus, funding from organizations that, in her opinion, harm the narrative of the book vis-à-vis contemporary art is

1 All translations and transliterations are by the author unless 2 See Menachem Mautner et al. (eds.), Hirhurim al Rav Tarbuti- otherwise specified. yut Be-yisrael [Reflections on multiculturalism in Israel] (Tel Aviv: Ramot, 1998), 67–76.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2019 IMAGES Also available online—brill.com/ima DOI:10.1163/18718000-12340108 Downloaded from Brill.com10/07/2021 07:10:10AM via free access BOOK REVIEWs 215 blind to the postsecular perspective that succeeds in read and internalize them to be a good poet. You must capturing the complex identities that combine religion especially rid yourself of hubris and catchphrases.5 and rather than replace one with the other.3 Thus, the book presents religious upstarts in Israeli Moreover, the analysis found in the book avoids cultural worlds in a monolithic and monodirectional making an in-depth assessment of the interaction framework: they religiously politicize society and seek between artists from marginal/minority groups and the to undermine the legitimate secular culture (222). The dominant art world. For example, how do the creators more complex alternative, that the religious and the and institutions from these groups operate within the secular influence each other, is not even mentioned. majority society, and how does the latter impact the The authors’ analyses of the artworks themselves former? An examination of these processes would are narrow, as though the art is a manifesto or politi- undermine the one-dimensional narrative presented cal platform with one distinct message. One example in the book. A striking example of what I am referring of this is their understanding of “ Rug 2” (2003) to here is evident in the discussion of religious and (fig. 1) by the artist Ruth Kestenbaum Ben-Dov, a ultra-Orthodox cinema. The relevant chapter contains work that depicts thought-provoking connections a broad discussion of the Ma’aleh religious film school, between and and between and which was established in 1989, and its contribution Palestinians (169–170). The texts painted on the Jewish to the admittance of religious artists to the fields of parochet ( ark curtain) / Muslim prayer rug are cinema and television. As they do with regard to other taken from the “Aleinu Leshabe-ach” (“It is our duty to fields, as will be shown below, the authors argue that praise ”) prayer that is recited at the end of each of the school’s productions sometimes criticize Orthodoxy the three daily services. The text includes and depict complexity, but always remain within the phrases that range from universalistic statements to framework of the Orthodox world and Jewish law (205). chauvinist and racist ones intended to create a separa- Absent from the discussion is the mainstream, secular tion and polarization between .6 The authors, film world’s constant influence on religious artists and however, do not appreciate the concepts of conflict religious institutions; institutions, like identities, are and the dialectic, which are so central to the work; for not fixed. Ma’aleh is a case in point: when it was estab- them, everything is rooted in the right-wing–left-wing lished in 1989, an exercise in the nude by a student dichotomy. In the verses of hatred quoted alongside the caused a furor, but a decade later Chaim Elbaum won a verses expressing humanistic and universalistic values, prize for the best feature film at Ma’aleh for his film Ve- their method sees a message of Jewish superiority as Ahavta (And Thou Shalt Love) about a opposed to the aspiration for coexistence between student grappling with his homosexual identity.4 A Israelis and Palestinians (170). similar complexity was presented directly by Eliaz In the chapter dedicated to religious feminism, reli- Cohen, a prominent poet in the Mashiv Ha-Ruach gious feminist art is presented as one of the remarkable religious poetry group. (Poetry, along with literature, results of religious feminism making its voice heard theater, and music, is prominent in the religious-Zionist in Israeli society. The authors rely on avant-garde and society. All four fields, however, are not treated in the radical concepts as almost the sole method of under- book.) In a recent article, Cohen said: standing the political and social significance of a work. At a deeper level, we find ourselves influenced much They present the art of the Israeli religious worlds, as more by Israeli culture than we influence it…. In poetry, well as their types of feminism, as limited and conform- for example, the greatest teachers are poets who are ist, claiming that these artists always remain faithful distant from the —but you must to the halakhic system (189).

3 For example, see Yehouda Shenhav, “Hazmanah le-mitveh 5 Ariel Horowitz, “Will the National-Religious Set the Tone for post chiloni le-cheker ha-chevreah be-yisrael” [An invitation to a Art as Well?” [in Hebrew] , January 6, 2017, https://www postsecular framework for the study of Israeli society], Sociologiya .haaretz.co.il/gallery/.premium-MAGAZINE-1.3195052. Yisraelit 10, no. 1 (2008): 161–188. The term “postsecular” in the book 6 For more on the Prayer Rug series, see David Sperber, “‘Host- is mostly used to mean “after/following secularism.” ing Culture’: The Relationship between Judaism and Islam in 4 For more on the student exercise in studying the nude see the Works of Three Israeli Religious Female Artists,” Studies in Aviva Luri, “The Livnah Affair,” [in Hebrew] Haaretz, August 28, Visual Arts and Communication—An International Journal 1, no. 1 2011, https://www.haaretz.co.il/misc/1.1025497. (2014): 12–23.

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Fig. 1. Ruth Kestenbaum Ben-Dov, Prayer Rug 2, 2003, oil on canvas, 125 × 80 cm, Private collection. (Permission of Ruth Kestenbaum Ben-Dov, photograph provided by Ruth Kestenbaum Ben-Dov, Eshchar)

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Figs 2-3. Nurit Jacobs-Yinon, A Tale of a Woman and a Robe (details), 2013, Beit HaOmanim, Tel Aviv, Video Installation, 3:03 minutes, Loop. (Collection of the artist, Shoham, Israel.)

The lengthy discussion of the installation A Tale of a feminism and its central organization , but they Woman and a Robe (figs. 2-4), which was exhibited present the work as representative of religious feminist by Nurit Jacobs-Yinon at the Tel Aviv Artists House art that remains tethered to a closed halakhic system. in 2013, illustrates the authors’ limited understanding In any case, according to the authors, the work does of the subversive practices of religious feminism in not offer a real feminist alternative to the problems it general and of religious activist art in particular. The identifies (193). In practice, a careful examination of exhibition criticized the practice of immersion the reception of the work and Jacobs-Yinon’s activities by a woman wearing only a robe, which must be wit- in the field reveals how very wrong their conclusion nessed by a religious court of three men, during her is. In fact, this work offered sweeping criticism of the . The authors rightly point out state-sanctioned rabbinic institutions in Israel.7 The the centrality of this activist art project within religious authors claim that this project and religious feminism

7 See David Sperber, “Contemporary Orthodox Jewish Feminist Issue: The Feminist Art of Religious Women 38, no. 2 (2020): Art in Israel: Institutional Criticism of the Rabbinical Establish- (forthcoming). ment,” Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of , Special

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Fig. 4. Nurit Jacobs-Yinon, The Female Converts’ , 2013, Beit HaOmanim, Tel Aviv, multimedia video installation. (Collection of the artist, Shoham, Israel). in general do not challenge the exclusion of women In fact, the strategies used by religious feminists are from serving as judges on a religious court, and that it more complex than those suggested in the book. only addresses the difficulties for women raised by the Although the radical African American feminist rabbinic establishment (197). In fact, religious feminist Audre Lorde claimed that “the master’s tools will discourse and, in some cases, rabbinic discourse saw never dismantle the master’s house,” religious femi- the exhibition as a piece of criticism aimed at the nism acts using “the master’s tools” to correct them.10 patriarchal institution of the religious court, a condem- The “master’s tools” used by the artist is the tool of nation that goes beyond the question of immersion (Jewish law), and she addressed the laws of of female converts and touches upon the asymmetric modesty and claimed that men observing a woman’s power relations between women and men within the immersion is, in fact, incorrect behavior according to Orthodox Jewish world, the inferior status of women, halakha. She makes sophisticated use of the language and the eradication of their voices.8 In 2016, Jacobs- and the internal logic of halakha to create a significant Yinon presented the project at a meeting of the revision in the Jewish world and to undermine its (Israeli Parliament) Committee for the Advancement patriarchal structure. For Jacobs-Yinon, the first step is of the Status of Women and Gender Equality, and she for women to serve as “representatives of the rabbinic stated: court,” which will solve the modesty problem of ritual immersion for women converts, but their inclusion in I think that the issue of women converting to Judaism is the mikvah will pave the way to their addition to the related to two groups of women—those that are required to use the mikvah and those who are prevented from religious court.11 Indeed, the sociologist Nissim Miz- being at the mikvah, since women are not able to serve rachi emphasizes that a liberal social change asserts a on a religious court, or even be representatives of the break with the past, which means breaking old social religious court.9 frameworks and depressing traditions to create a new

8 Ibid. See Ronit Irshai and Tanya -Waldoks, “Ha-feminism ha- 9 See “Protocol No. 88 from the Committee on the Status of Orthodoxy-ha-moderni be-yisrael: bein nomos le-narativ” [Modern Women and Gender Equality,” 20th Knesset, second session [in orthodox feminism in Israel: From nomos to narrative], Mishpat Hebrew] (June 7, 2016), 25. u-mimshal 15, no. 1–2 (2013): 237. 10 Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (1984; repr., 11 This is how the artist presented her work in the 2014 Bar-Ilan Freedom, CA: The Crossing Press, 2007), 110–114. University Gender Studies Conference.

Downloaded from Brill.com10/07/2021 07:10:10AM via free access BOOK REVIEWs 219 world. On the other hand, change in religious commu- David Sperber is an art historian, curator, and art nities is supported by continuity with and attachment critic. In 2012, he co-curated the international exhibi- to the past, and relies on tradition as a source to justify tion “Matronita: Jewish Feminist Art” at the Mishkan normative change in the present.12 Le’Omanut, Museum of Art, Ein Harod in Israel. Sper- The authors affectionately dedicated the book to ber’s articles have appeared in numerous publications, the art critic Tzipora Luria, who is identified as a reli- including academic periodicals, museum exhibition gious settler who was active and esteemed by the art catalogs, and popular media. Sperbers’ forthcoming world. Luria herself sought an amiable dialogue in the book, based on his PhD. dissertation, is entitled Devoted pursuit of cultural heterogeneity. She called on the art Resistance: Religious Jewish Feminist Art in the US and community, usually associated with the political left, to Israel, 1990–2017. As a postdoctoral Associate at the reevaluate its attitude toward artists with a right-wing Institute of Sacred Music, Yale University, Sperber is political and religious agenda, and to “on the one hand, currently at work on his second book entitled Liberat- shake off an ideological view, and on the other develop ing Body, Earth, and God: Helène Aylon’s Jewish-Feminist a compassionate humanitarian perspective.”13 Luria’s Art in the United States, 1970–2017. spirit of humility and openness is a far cry from the spirit of The Religionization of Israeli Society. David Sperber Yale University

12 Nissim Mizrachi, “Sociology in the Garden: Beyond the Liberal 13 Tzipora Luria, “Ha-dimui ha-rek” [The empty image], Eretz Grammar of Contemporary Sociology,” Israel Studies Review 31, Acheret 10 (2002), 42. no. 1 (2017): 36–65.

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