Between State and Synagogue is a pathbreaking book that lays out central parameters of the development of secular life in today's Israel. It is based on the growing recognition that secular life, as well as religious life, demands understanding and analysis. But rather than probing the conceptual and ideological dimensions and dilemmas of secularism, as has been done in recent studies vis-à-vis Islam (see Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 52, no. 3, 2010), Ben-Porat focuses on the processes of secularization, which he defines as a “decline in religious authority.” This decline has been a salient feature of Israeli life since the 1990s, even as it is “partial and non-linear” and multidimensional in its causes and expressions.
Secularization stems from various social processes: economic, demographic, and—utilizing Ulrich Beck's term—“subpolitical.” The latter adjective reflects countless individual decisions that are not aimed at turning Israel into a more secular society, but which cumulatively result in incremental institutional change in that direction. One critical background factor is the large-scale immigration from the former Soviet Union, which brought approximately one million newcomers after 1989. Another is the meshing of Israel's economy with global trends, along with consumerism and cultural embourgoisement, processes evident from the late 1980s.
Within the context of these developments, Ben-Porat documents the emergence of “secular entrepreneurs” who have identified and capitalized on new and expanding demands. These are as varied as representatives of the liberal religious movements (Conservative-Masorti and Reform-Yahadut Mitkademet), who enable couples to hold Jewish weddings in Israel in coordination with formal marriage abroad, and kibbutzim that set up cemeteries where funerals and burials can be conducted according to personal wishes, unencumbered by official rabbinic supervision. These entrepreneurs have responded to changing expectations within wide sectors of the society, even beyond the immigrants from the former Soviet Union, and the result has been a clear expansion of realms of behavior that have become disentangled from Orthodox religious rules. This has taken place even as there has been minimal change in the political and legal arrangements that have undergirded the influence of religion in previous decades, and relatively little shift in the self-definitions of Jewish Israelis when sorting themselves into the conventional categories of “secular,” “traditional,” and “religious.”
After an initial chapter that sets out a conceptual framework, and a subsequent one which outlines the zigzagging history of state and religion in Israel, the book examines four arenas in which the decline of religious authority is palpable. One chapter each is devoted to the changes in weddings and the new options available for burial, and two subsequent chapters document the growing normality of the production and sale of pork in Israel, and the expansion of Saturday as a day of shopping, even as many Israelis continue to view it as a day devoted to family and leisure. Each of these developments represents a different combination of economic factors, shifting cultural preferences, appeals to the courts, or nondramatic ideological adjustments, which Ben-Porat documents by mobilizing a range of materials such as newspaper reports, court records, interviews with secular entrepreneurs, and his own survey of attitudes and behaviors compared with those published elsewhere. The resulting portrait is that of a significant shift, in practice, of the once-regnant “status quo” regarding religion and the state, even though the extant political configuration, existing regulations, and widespread attitudes still do not permit Israel to be portrayed as a secular society or state, without considerable qualification of that depiction.
Examples of each of the aforementioned topics illustrate the “on-the-ground” complexity of the general issue and why it should be seen in the contextual details of its parts. Regarding weddings, the option of formally marrying abroad and then celebrating a Jewish wedding in Israel, without the involvement of the official rabbinate, initially attracted people whom the Israeli rabbinate refused to marry (like immigrants from the former Soviet Union whose Jewishness they questioned), but with time it has been adopted by middle-class couples who face no religious barrier but choose to avoid dealing with the established rabbinate. In the case of burial, a series of tragic situations led to widespread support for the need to weaken the monopoly of the rabbinate. In one publicized incident, a young immigrant from the former Soviet Union was killed during army service, and the rabbinate insisted on burying him in a separate area from other soldiers because of his non-Jewish status. This highlighted the unavailability of civil burial facilities and led to partial steps to remedy that lack.
The acceptance of pork as part of Israel's commercial and culinary scene was partially enabled by the step-by-step introduction of constitution-like “basic laws”: in this case the law guaranteeing freedom of occupation. Regarding commerce on the Sabbath, the construction of shopping malls outside the urban centers, within the municipal jurisdiction of “regional councils,” meant that they could operate on Saturdays without a struggle to alter long-standing political deals within urban politics that enshrined the “status quo.” This also reflects another point stressed by Ben-Porat: that those individuals and groups encouraging steps that lead toward secularization often prefer to reach their goals through indirect routes, avoiding major political and ideological confrontations.
While having clearly demonstrated the forces pushing toward secularization and their outcomes, in his concluding chapter Ben-Porat points to limitations on these processes. So long as there are no major political or ideological shifts, and symbols of exclusive Jewish solidarity remain central to Israel's culture, it does not appear likely that the religiously based institutionalized grip on the choices of individuals will wither way. Rather than reflecting on this overall assessment, I prefer to mull upon another implication of this rich study, at times surfacing and at times skipped over: that expressions of secularity and religiosity are often productively examined in relation to one another.
This may be noted on several levels. Historically, for example, the aversion that many Israelis (and not only those defining themselves as secular) feel toward the rabbinate should be understood in conjunction with the movement of this state-empowered body, originally an outgrowth of Religious Zionist ideals, into the hands of ultra-Orthodox rabbis who resist compromises with modernity. This process began before the period on which the book focuses, so that increasing ḥaredi-zation cannot be seen solely as a reaction to advances of secularization. Similarly, the study presents the growing religious strictness among Religious Zionists in this reactionary framework, while the roots of the post-1967 nationalistic-religious response can be found already in the 1950s.
At the same time, Ben-Porat alerts us to changes in religious sensibilities that are more symbiotic with secularization tendencies. Many of his survey respondents who define themselves as traditional have incorporated attendance at malls as part of their Sabbath experience. They may not choose it as their major shopping day, but find it consistent with family leisure activities carried out within a commercial setting. This seems to reflect a growing sense, which remains untranslated into ideology, of the value of personal choice in regard to religion. Is it far-fetched to speculate that the same attitude of “live and let live,” which has attenuated the public opposition to pork, may also appear in the growing acceptance of the liberal religious movements (a topic not discussed in the book), as a normal part of Israel's religious scene?
Even more poignantly, secularization as a process that privileges individual choice may have implications within the heart of religious habitus. An example is the recognized trend among some Religious Zionists of delaying marriage and family formation while studying and developing a career, and even of not-yet-married religious women undertaking to become single parents, both paths that counter widely accepted norms in their milieus. In conclusion, Ben-Porat, in his analysis of these wide-ranging trends, has not only taken a major step in laying out the dimensions and dynamics of secularization in contemporary Israel, but has opened the door to a more nuanced grasp of secularity/religion among Israeli Jews.
