Religious-Nationalism in Israel/Palestine

Abstract

This dissertation describes and analyzes the reasons for the changing nature of the religious-Zionist community in Israel. It offers an innovative sociological framework to discuss recent social, ideological and religious trends within the religious-Zionist sector in Israel, which challenges the prevalent conceptualization of religious-Zionism as a sui generis ideology. In contrast to researchers who emphasize the synthesis of Orthodox Jewish religion and militant Zionism in the religious-Zionist ideology, it argues that the religious-Zionist identity is based primarily on social connections (kinship, geographical, institutional) among the members of the group. The dissertation focuses on several case studies within the religious-Zionist community, demonstrating that there is no ideological core that brings together all religious-Zionists. Based on interviews, participant observation and textual analysis, the dissertation describes the different ideological responses by religious-Zionists to the evacuation of Gaza settlers in 2005, with regard to loyalty to the Israeli state, on the one hand, and the religious authority of rabbis, on the other. Another phenomenon described in the dissertation is the rise of American conservative movement in the religious-Zionist community and its attempts to establish a new religious-Zionist hegemony in Israel.