Politicized Secularism in Israel: Secularists as a Party to Communal Conflict

Abstract

Most of the attention paid to the religious-secular conflict in Israel has been devoted to the religious side. As a result, secular Israelis remain conceptualized as a residual category, as atomized individuals who share little but a lack of religiosity, and thus as passive subjects in the conflict. Drawing on lessons from identity politics, this article argues that secular fear of the religious, especially the ultra-orthodox, has led segments of the secular Israeli public increasingly to think of themselves as secularists, making their shared 'non-religious' identity politically relevant. To the extent that secularist social and political entrepreneurs succeed in bringing this about, the relationship between religious and secular is likely to resemble inter-communal conflict rather than tension between interest groups within a single community.

The “Ambassadorial” Journalist: Twitter as a Performative Platform for Ultra-Orthodox Journalists during the COVID-19 Pandemic

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Unpacking secularization: Structural changes, individual choices and ethnic paths

“…Secular and religious Jews have major differences of opinion about the role of religion in private and public life that translate to political tensions and struggles (Etzioni-Halevy, 2000; Katz, 2008; Kimmerling, 1999; Shelef, 2010). Secular principled struggles, however, capture only part of the impact of secularization.…”