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Religion in the Israeli parliament: a typology

par Weinblum, Sharon
Référence Religion, state & society, 42, 3, page (283-298)
Publication Publié, 2014-10-01

Article révisé par les pairs

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Résumé :

Because the relationship between secular and religious are often antagonistic and confrontational, most studies interested in the religious-secular cleavage have focused on the conflicts that arise from this divide. While the religious versus secular struggle indeed reflects an important historical cleavage in Israeli social and political life, I argue in this article that a closer look at the usages of religion in Israeli politics offers a more nuanced picture of the role of religion in Israel. In order to demonstrate this, I identify the main usages of Judaism in the Israeli parliament (the Knesset) and scrutinise to what extent these different mobilisations overlap with or cross-cut the secular-religious cleavage. This analysis leads to the elaboration of a typology of three usages of religion: religion as a source of authority; religion as a marker of identity and nation; and religion as a source of values. On this basis, the article shows that the role of religion in Israel and especially in the Israeli parliament cannot be reduced to the divide between religious and secular groups. More precisely, it demonstrates that if in its first usage, the religious-secular cleavage predominates, the use of religion as an identity marker does not necessarily lead to a conflict with secular members, while in its final form religion is mobilised as a resource by members of both groups.