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Religious and Secular Knowledge on the Draft in Israel Laina E Scholarly Undergraduate Research Journal at Clark Volume 1 Article 6 October 2015 Religious and Secular Knowledge on the Draft in Israel Laina E. Pauker Clark University Follow this and additional works at: https://commons.clarku.edu/surj Part of the Social Psychology Commons Recommended Citation Pauker, Laina E. (2015) "Religious and Secular Knowledge on the Draft in sI rael," Scholarly Undergraduate Research Journal at Clark: Vol. 1 , Article 6. Available at: https://commons.clarku.edu/surj/vol1/iss1/6 This Manuscript is brought to you for free and open access by the Scholarly Collections & Academic Work at Clark Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Scholarly Undergraduate Research Journal at Clark by an authorized editor of Clark Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. Religious and Secular Knowledge on the Draft in sI rael Cover Page Footnote Thank you to everyone who participated in this research. Thanks to my advisor, Johanna Vollhardt, and to my other defense committee members, Rashmi Nair and Rachel Falmagne. Thank you to the Israel Religious Action Center in Jerusalem for their insight into how religious-secular issues are addressed. And thank you to my friends and family for their support through this process. This manuscript is available in Scholarly Undergraduate Research Journal at Clark: https://commons.clarku.edu/surj/vol1/iss1/6 Social Sciences Religious and Secular Knowledge on the Draf in Israel Laina E. Pauker Laina Pauker is a recent Clark graduate from New Haven, CT. She spent a year in Israel before beginning her undergraduate studies at Clark, inspiring her focus within the research on Intergroup Confict and Cooperation lab and her Psychology major. With a minor in International Development and So- cial Change, she is interested in where the two disciplines intersect. Laina also pursues her exploration of these topics through the fne arts and flm. She is currently working towards her certifcation in mediation, a form of confict resolution, and is organizing screenings of her debut documentary flm, “Year in Motion.” Abstract Tis research seeks to understand religious and secular knowledge on the question of military draft in Israel within the Jewish population. With recent legal changes in conscription policy, there has been much controversy over the role of Haredim [ultra-Orthodox] in the army. Drawing on feminist standpoint theory, this study uses thematic analysis of a qualitative (open-ended) online survey to examine what Jewish Israelis of diferent religious orienta- tions think and know about the draft issues as well as how they legitimize their ideas. In analyzing Jewish Israeli knowledge, this research draws on the historical, philosophical division as well as the contemporary religious-secular divide in Israel to contextualize the responses of participants. Te research aims to foster a greater understanding of the complexity within and between epistemological communities, and within Jewish Israeli knowledge on the draft specifcally. Religious and Secular situates the thinker in their political knowledge categories such as ideol- Knowledge on the Draft in and social context (Harding, 1993). ogy, values, norms, decisions, infer- Israel I also drew on Bar-Tal’s (2000) social ences, goals, expectations, religious psychological defnition of societal dogmas, or justifcations” (xii). Te issue of the draft is a beliefs, including their complexities Accordingly, “Societal beliefs fulfll controversial point of division be- in the context of Israeli society. In the elementary epistemic function of tween the secular and ultra-religious order to understand what perpetu- providing knowledge about society” Jewish communities in Israel. Due to ates the religious-secular polariza- (48-49). Bar-Tal theorizes about the policy of mandatory conscrip- tion, I examined how religious and the over-arching beliefs that citizens tion, the draft is a central aspect of secular people understand the draft, share regarding society and their role Israeli society. Tis paper looks at the how they react to opposing ideolo- within it; he discusses how beliefs ways in which Jewish Israelis under- gies, and the ways in which they give meaning to experiences in order stand the issue of the draft and how legitimize their ideas. Te purpose of to produce knowledge. Te collec- these ideas speak to their broader this study is to bring understanding tive experiences relevant to everyone understandings of the Jewish state. of diferent perspectives and ratio- in the society are transmitted and Using an open-ended, qualitative nalizations related to the contentious negotiated into societal beliefs. Tis survey (Krosnick, 1999), I sought social issue of the draft in Jewish can take various forms, ranging from to examine participants’ beliefs Israeli society. interpersonal interactions to institu- while recognizing the contextual tionalized channels of information and ideological roots of their argu- based on cultural, political, and ments. In studying both the ideas Societal Beliefs and Teir societal sources. Bar-Tal describes and the sources of knowledge that Splintering security as central to the ethos of participants drew on, I grounded the Daniel Bar-Tal (2000) Israeli society, dating back to the pre- analysis in feminist theory, which describes beliefs as, “basic units of 46 Social Sciences state Jewish settlements and continu- the Haskalah [Enlightenment], there civil religion in Israel is based on ing today. Tis regard for security is was a shift from traditional obser- “the sanctifcation of the society in refected in public agenda, political vance to secular study, assimilation, which it functions” which manifests debate, and media concern. He uses and rationality (Schoenberg, 2014). culturally and politically rather than the theme of security as an example Haskalah philosophies rejected religiously (Liebman & Don-Yehiya, of a prevalent belief that informs the centrality of the messiah in the 1983, 5). In the case of religious and many aspects of Israeli society. Jewish religion and asserted that secular Jews in Israel, beliefs and In closely examining the exile was not divine intervention, conceptions have evolved from fun- Israeli context, there is much splin- but rather a consequence of history damentally diferent understandings tering in societal beliefs based on (Cohen & Susser, 2000). With the of reality, and of the state as a Jewish diferent ideological orientations to escalation of anti-Semitism dur- entity. the state itself. Beyond the ongo- ing this time, Enlightenment ideas ing Israeli-Palestinian confict, Israel fostered Jewish nationalism. Out of Contemporary Israeli is fraught with internal divides on the Haskalah grew Hibbat Zion, a Judaism many societal levels (Yonah, 2005). pre-Zionist movement in the 1880s Analyzing the current de- Te country is made up of religious which sought to bring Jewish life mographics of Jewish Israeli reli- and secular citizens, ashkenazic and back to the Land, beginning with gious practice is complicated by the sephardic Jews, sabras and immi- the foundation of agricultural settle- discrepancy in what categories are grants, politically right wing and left ments (“Hibbat zion”, 2014). used and how they are understood. wing people, as well as many other Modern Zionism grew out While numbers describing Haredi deep and relevant divisions. Steeped of this Haskalah period, developing populations are more consistent, in diferent discourses, religious multiple strands ranging in their there is much variation in the ways and secular Jews have very diferent tactics as well as their relationship traditional versus secular Judaism orientations toward the meaning of to traditional Judaism. Schweid and are understood and measured for the state. Multiple ideologies within Hadari (2008) distinguish between surveys. Tis may refect the fact that the Israeli context inform under- Political Zionism, Spiritual Zionism, the latter contains much more indi- standings of the country and the and the Hebrew Labor Movement, vidual variation in practice where the role of religion within it. As a result, each with diverging approaches to ultra-religious communities follow religion is a division through which Zionist philosophy. As secular, civil a code of strict religious observance. polarization often unfolds (Cohen religion developed from these dif- Because of the complexities of the & Susser, 2000), leading to political ferent streams, thinkers like Achad various forms of civil religion, which clashes and societal confict. In ex- Ha’am (who was a proponent of have developed as a national culture, amining the beliefs of ultra-religious Spiritual Zionism) separated further statistics may limit our understand- and secular Jewish communities in from the orthodoxy of traditional ing. Israel, each difers in their under- Judaism. Deshen, Liebman, and Today, Jewish practice takes a standing of the Jewish nature of the Shokeid (1995) write, wide range of forms in Israel (Sharot, state itself. “It was clear to Ahad Ha’am and his 1990). Jews who identify as secular leading disciples that the appropriate may take part in practices such as Overview Of the Jewish custodians of Jewish tradition were Jewish holidays because they are part Israeli Context and the Jewish scholars and Hebrew writers of the nation’s culture and norms Origins of Religious-Secular rather than rabbis.Tis point of view rather than because of religious was inevitable since, in their
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