Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Has Secular Israel Lost War With Ultra-Orthodox?

Some years ago, Israel Segal, a writer and journalist who was brought up Orthodox and became secular, summed up what he described as a secular defeat.

“The all-out war has indeed come to an end, in my view, with the defeat of the secular public,” he wrote. “We are living under an occupation government of the ultra-Orthodox minority. An occupation that is constantly tightening its grip.”

Do the results of the recent general election augur a change? On the one hand, the Haredi parties were left out of the government and have become a punching bag for the new coalition; but at the same time, a new alliance between religious Zionism and self-styled secular Zionism is reconstituting the Jewish state.

It’s a confusing situation. For couples who wish to marry, for example, the religious monopoly remains formally intact, and religiosity continues to constitute a central element of Israeli identity. But many couples find ways to institutionalize their marriage without the rabbinate, or choose to live in a non-institutionalized relationship. Similarly, the country’s public space has become in some eyes blatantly secularized in recent decades: Shopping centers are open on the Sabbath, stores and restaurants sell non-kosher meat, weddings and burials are held without the rabbinate, and colorful and crowd-drawing gay pride parades take place in different cities.

Is Israel becoming secular? Is a secular option possible in the Israeli reality? Or is it the case that these processes, which can be described as secularization, are not actually changing the essence of the connection between religion and the state, but only allowing the Israeli bourgeoisie limited comfort zones?

For more go to Haaretz

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.