Peter Martin had a very informative article in Saturday’s Toronto Globe & Mail about the rapid emergence of a new kind of religio-nationalists in Israel.
They even, he says, have a new name: “Hardal”– a cross between “haredi” (an ultra-orthodox Jewish believer) and Mafdal, Israel’s longstanding National Religious Party.
The piece starts like this:
- Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish community has come a long way.
No longer are they the inward-looking anti-Zionists who only cared that the government provide them with money for their separate schools, welfare and exemptions from military service. These days, many of the Haredim – the word means “those who tremble” in awe of God” – have joined with right-wing religious Zionists to become a powerful political force.
They now are equipped to redefine the country’s politics and to set a new agenda.
Two decades ago, they were confined mostly to a few neighbourhoods in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Today, they have spread throughout the country, in substantial numbers in several major communities, as well as building completely new towns only for their followers.
One Haredi leader who almost won Jerusalem’s mayoralty race last fall, boasts that, within 20 years, the ultra-Orthodox will control the municipal government of every city in the country. And why not? Of the Jewish Israeli children entering primary school for the first time this month, more than 25 per cent are Haredi, and that proportion will keep growing. There are between 600,000 and 700,000 Haredim in Israel, and they average 8.8 children a family…
Martin includes quite a lot of quotes from Dr. Nachman ben Yehuda, who has a book on the Hardal coming out next year.
He writes,
- Ironically, considering these religious leaders have made such use of the democratic process, they continue to say democracy is not consistent with Halacha.
“In many ways these guys are closer to Islamic fundamentalists than to anything else,” Prof. Ben Yehuda said.
They also do not shrink from violence.
Prof. Ben Yehuda’s research found that violence is the number-one criminal infraction among Haredim. He also found that most of that violence is for political purposes.
This past summer witnessed many vivid examples…
He makes a short reference to the relatively recent entry of some haredim into the IDF. A bigger story there, though, is probably the rise up the officer corps in recent years of substantial numbers of non-haredi religio-nationalists, and their influence within the IDF’s rabbinate.
Anyway, a fascinating article. I wonder when we’ll see one like it in a mainstream US publication?
“I wonder when we’ll see one like it in a mainstream US publication?”
You’re not holding your breath there are you Helena? How will all the Islamaphobes cope with the gender segregation demands the article addresses? A piece like this would have half of America twisting itself in knots attempting to reconcile myth and reality.
Having said that, the NYT did run a story about Ezra Nawi.
Hope springs eternal
Sometimes the reason things don’t appear in mainstream newspapers is because they’re not news. According to Wikipedia the term is nearly twenty years old. The article in Wikipedia disagrees with a lot of his other statements, too.
Read the article Joe. And if it’s a 20 year old story I think we have a QED moment.
Thank you, Helena for passing on yet another very informative story. In case you did not know, “Hardal” or Khardal in both Arabic and Hebrew means Mustard!
I read the article and the author’s wrong on a lot of points. The first one being the “new name”, of course. But he commits a fundamental error by lumping together traditional Charedi groups with Chardal. The former are non- or anti-Zionist; the latter are Zionist by definition. This distinction is fundamental to any sociological analysis of Israel’s population.
“This distinction is fundamental to any sociological analysis of Israel’s population”
Perhaps so, Joe but I don’t think those were the most important points the author had to make. To you, maybe. Personally, I don’t find them to be at all relevant.
Steve, above re “QED moment”: Yes!
Yousuf, thanks for that point. I knew about the Arabic– my ex-husband’s family property in S. Lebanon is near Jisr al-Khardali. Interesting (but not surprising) that it’s the same meaning/cognate in Hebrew.
Steve: The author’s point is that there is now a large religiously Orthodox (or ultra-Orthodox) pro-Zionist lobby in Israel. But the examples that he uses are drawn from all over the spectrum, some of which are not pro-Zionist at all. I don’t know how many people identify themselves as Chareidi – Dati Leumi (Chardal), but it’s almost certainly much smaller than the number of people who consider themselves as either Chareidi or Dati Leumi. So to take one of his examples, his claim that “the two largest settlements are entirely ultra-Orthodox”. Are the inhabitants motivated by an ideological desire to expand settlements (that is, are they Chardal) or are they just looking for cheap housing? This sort of thing is critical to his whole claim. The same goes for his allegation that Charedim “do not shrink from violence”. My understanding, having read reports of the incidents he describes, is that these acts of violence were carried out by non-or-anti Zionist Chareidim. So these incidents actually weaken his claim that the Chardal movement is dominating public discourse.
FYI The author’s name is Patrick Martin, and on Wednesday he engaged in a live Q & A on the subject, posted on the same site.
I’m not sure how you draw such conclusions from the article. Surely, his point is that what used to be a distinct, self-isolating socio/religious sub-group is expanding its involvement and influence into previously rejected area’s of the society and effecting what many Israeli communities would regard as negative shifts: gender segregation and increased religious sway in military affairs are just two of the trends highlighted by the author that must be pretty worrying to most of Israeli society.
My understanding is that the groups agitating for gender segregated buses are the non-or-anti Zionist Chareidim. They typically don’t serve in the army, unlike people who would describe themselves as Chardal. I don’t know whether the latter group would want gender-segregated buses; I don’t think so, but who knows.
Anyway, you have two very different groups here: one isn’t really interested in identifying with the State (although they engage with it, more or less, as clients) while the other is politically engaged and might even want some sort of religio-political reformation. I agree that secular Israelis might feel threatened by each group, but for different reasons: the traditional Chareidim are unsympathetic to their needs and appear to be living off their society without fully contributing; while Chardal is a threat because it’s a political as well as religious philosophy that is inconsistent with their own.
Joe,
>>> Are the inhabitants motivated by an ideological desire to expand settlements (that is, are they Chardal) or are they just looking for cheap housing?
It started as the latter, but became the former. They were essentially co-opted to because settlers. In the early 90’s they didn’t give a rat’s ass about the territories, now they are totally entwined in this enterprise.