State and Religion in Israel Possible Scenarios

The increasing role of religion in the Middle East has by no means spared Israel, and in the course of 2014 the religious aspect became even more prominent in the multi-layered Palestinian-Israeli conflict, as well as in Israeli domestic politics. Thus, whoever wishes to forecast what Israel will be like for its 75th anniversary must also seriously examine – in addition to its geopolitical position and relations between Arabs and Jews – the relations between religion and state. While the first two topics were previously analyzed by GIIS research papers in this series (2011 and 2012), this one examines the role of religion in Israeli society, a topic that is perhaps already receiving more critical attention than ever before. In fact, between when the essay was written in early 2014 and when this preface is added, in early December of the same year, religion has overflowed the banks of the status quo and made its presence inescapable, especially in Jerusalem, with the Temple Mount /Haram al Sharif and the so called " Nationality bill " in the Knesset as only two of the foci. State and Religion, as discussed here, encompasses at least four fundamental disagreements that cleave Israeli society. First is the struggle over the place of religion in public life, such as personal status law, conversion, burial, and the like. Second is the struggle for equality, whether of men and women, or for non-Orthodox streams of Judaism, exemption from military service for " Ultra-Orthodox " Jews, and attitudes towards non-Jews. Third is the struggle over Israel's public space, such as in public transportation, on billboards, in archaeological excavations, and so forth. And, of course, the struggle over the borders of the state. Within each one of these struggles, opposing values and ideologies are confronting each other over the following questions: What is the source of authority: supremacy of the civil law or of religious law? Freedom of choice, or the traditional strictures of religion? Liberal democracy, with its emphasis on the value of equality, or the sublime value of national unity? Examination of the cultural camps that are engaged in these passionate disputes, and careful review of the forces shaping the character of these camps and the relationships between them, lead, according to Hasson's research, to four possible scenarios regarding the future relations between state and religion in Israel: 1) stagnation, 2) occupation, 3) divisions, 4) connections. Today, …