Yoav Peled and Horit Herman Peled, the Religionization of Israeli Society
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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 Zionism 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 religious Zionism has adopted sophis- national-religious and ultra-Orthodox Jewish artists ticated strategies to force its way into Israeli culture in Israel. 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 feminism in Israel 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 Jews (“Gush Emunim”) 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 theocracy (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 religion 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 secularism 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 “Prayer 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 Judaism and Islam and between Israelis 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 (Torah 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 God”) prayer that is recited at the end of each of the school’s productions sometimes criticize Orthodoxy the three daily Jewish prayer 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 religions.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 Hesder yeshiva 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 religious experience—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] Haaretz, 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.