Fighting from the Pulpit: Religious Leaders and Violent Conflict in Israel

Abstract

Religious leaders greatly influence their constituents’ political behavior. Yet, it is unclear what events trigger nationalist attitudes among religious leaders and why this effect occurs more among some religious leaders rather than others. In this article, I examine the content of Israeli Rabbinic rhetoric during different military and political conflicts. Drawing on an original collection of Sabbath pamphlets distributed to Synagogues, I demonstrate that religious rhetoric is highly responsive to levels of violence for the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. I find that religious rhetoric and tone are more nationalist during conflict with the Palestinians and that this effect is mediated by religious ideologies toward the state. In contrast, religious rhetoric does not respond to military conflict in Lebanon or other internal Israeli political conflicts. These findings highlight under what conditions religious leaders infuse conflict with a religious tone, arguably making it harder to gain support for political compromise among the religious public.

The Religious Communication Approach and Political Behavior

“…The religious communication approach has also been turned toward an understanding of the dynamics of other Abrahamic faiths as well, as several studies of the kinds of social and political arguments publicly leveled by rabbis have emerged over the last couple of decades (Djupe & Sokhey, 2003a, 2003b; Freedman, 2019; Sokhey & Djupe, 2006). Work detailing the level of political activity in evidence within synagogues has generally found that they often specialize in offering access to non‐electoral forms of political activity to their adherents, as has been found to be the case with other faith traditions (Kotler‐Berkowitz, 2021).…”

Seeking Power from Two Different Voices: A Gendered Approach to Freedom Activists’ Speeches

“…The crises that emerge in the Middle East are mostly caused by the oil resources possessed by the transcontinental region (Balat, 2006;Peretz, 1963). Several studies (Alashqar, 2018;Canetti et al, 2019;Freedman, 2019;Schiff, 2018) showed that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the most intractable issue in these lands around the Mediterranean Sea. Other conflicts related to civil right violation, women's liberation, and education are also emerging (Brown & Bjawi-Levine, 2002;Syed, 2013).…”