Religion
Related: About this forum‘I Want To Live In A Democracy, Not A Religious State’
For liberals and centrists, a growing fear of Orthodox power.
Francine Klagsbrun
Special To The Jewish Week
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
The 15-year-old daughter of an Israeli friend announced to her parents that when she gets older she will leave Israel. The religious are taking over, she said. I dont want to be treated like a second-class citizen, and anyway I want to live in a democracy, not a religious state.
I didnt have an answer, my friend said.
While Jews in the United States worry incessantly about Irans threat to Israel or the moribund peace process, many Israelis place one major concern above all: the internal culture wars between the ultra-Orthodox and the rest of society secular and non-Orthodox Jews and, in many cases, the moderate Orthodox. Like my friends daughter, these people wonder what has happened to their country and what place they will have in it.
The degrading treatment of women by the ultra-Orthodox haredim has been the most visible sign of the increasing strength of religious extremism in Israel. The Beit Shemesh violence and gender segregation on the streets and buses in haredi neighborhoods have received much media attention and angry public reaction. Many have objected also to the absence of womens faces from posters in Jerusalem and womens voices from various public events, all at the insistence of the haredim and rigorously Orthodox Religious Zionists who call themselves hardalim (a combination of haredi and dati leumi, religious nationalists).
http://www.thejewishweek.com/special_sections/israel_now/i_want_live_democracy_not_religious_state
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)"Puritanism: the haunting fear that someone, somewhere is having a good time." - H.L. Mencken
Just substitute "Ultra-Orthodoxy" for "Puritanism"..
rug
(82,333 posts)Humanist_Activist
(7,670 posts)freeing up their time to try to enact their theocratic agenda and make a lot of babies. Israel has to try to maintain a secular government, if the Ultra-orthodox were to gain enough power, they could turn it into a Jewish version of Iran.
rug
(82,333 posts)Thats my opinion
(2,001 posts)Fundamentalism anywhere or any kind--religious or non-religious--is a blight on culture. The Israeli government needs two of the ultra-religious parties to hold together a governing majority. It is one of the blights of the parliamentary system.
edcantor
(325 posts)facts, science, math, logic, reason, critical thinking?
"Fundamental" stuff like that?
edcantor
(325 posts)cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)You know, common sense stuff.
Response to edcantor (Reply #6)
rexcat This message was self-deleted by its author.
DanM
(341 posts)...those who would have it as a Jewish Iran (the Charedim and Beit Hamesh) and secularists.
I'm relatively new to DU, but this thread touches on a subject I've been following for a couple of years. I really think more awareness needs to be had with regard to the potential to lose Israel to the forces of dogmatic religion.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)I don't know much about this and look forward to your input.
...and among my interests, which I will participate in on DU, is the protection of the state of Israel as a Jewish homeland, but without it becoming another troublesome theocracy adding powder to the powderkeg that is the Middle East.