“Centrist” Orthodoxy and Religious Zionism
chapter 7 Two Orthodox Cultures: “Centrist” Orthodoxy and Religious Zionism Shlomo Fischer Introduction In this paper I will compare two contemporary Jewish Orthodox cultures, American “Centrist” Orthodoxy and Israeli Religious Zionism. I argue that despite common Orthodox religious orientations and a shared right-wing polit- ical orientation, these two communities have significantly different underlying religious cultures. Israeli Religious Zionism is a Romantic nationalist culture with a strong expressivist dimension; that is, a strong emphasis on self-expres- sion and notions such as authenticity. American Centrist Orthodoxy continues the traditional Jewish pattern of emphasis upon religious heteronomy; that is, the Torah and God’s commandments are imposed externally on the Jew. As a result of these cultural differences, the two communities differ in terms of cul- tural phenomena such as the place of art and literature and, to a certain extent, in regard to the type of interpretation of Biblical and Talmudic sources that is current, favored, and valued. Underlying these differences are fundamen- tal differences concerning how the self and its relation to religious practice, authority, and tradition are conceived in the two communities. I would like to conduct this comparison mainly through two Orthodox publications: Makor Rishon in Israel, and The Jewish Press in New York. Both are leading newspapers for their respective communities. The Jewish Press was founded in the 1960s and targets the Centrist Orthodox community (Beckerman, 2010). The Haredi community in America is served by English versions of two Haredi newspapers that appear in Israel, Yated Neeman and Hamodia. The Jewish Press is published in New York, but sells the newspaper nationally and has a weekly circulation of 50,000.
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