Prompt:
Identify a nation that is characterized by the strong presence of religious nationalism (i.e. religious nationalism accurately describes the governing party or a powerful opposition party). The may select one of the nation's we've focused on already in the study materials, or you may select another nation of your choosing. Drawing on terms, concepts, and themes from the course thus far, summarize how and why religious nationalism became emboldened in that specific context.
Reply:
Israeli Pride?
Israel, up until the current government took power, was being held hostage by Jewish nationalists known as the Haredi, who are now in direct opposition to the current government. The Haredi are ultra-Orthodox Jews who not only think that their way of interpreting Jewish law is the only correct way, and indeed they have taken control of the religious life in Israel, making it all but impossible for non-Orthodox Jews to get married or be buried in Israel, restricting access for non-Orthodox women at the Western Wall, controlling the religious court systems in Israel to favor Orthodox men (which they use to hide sexual predators, domestic abusers, and men of ill repute), systematically erasing women from advertisements on billboards, and making life in Israel miserable for anyone who does not wish to adopt a Haredi way of life. They breed like rabbits, marrying their children off at younger and younger ages, some as young as 15, and teaching them that it is their moral obligation to repopulate the Jewish people that were lost in the Holocaust until these children have 14 or more children themselves. The Haredi do not work. They live off government subsidies, community donations, and local handouts. Men will go to synagogue to study Torah all day while the women are left to tend to their massive families, keep up with the housework, and often will have low paying jobs themselves, since the Haredi do not believe in providing women with secular education beyond rudimentary middle school classes. But because of these large families, the Haredi outnumber the smaller secular Israeli families and were able to take control of the Israeli government for many years. And they ruled with fear. The Haredi live in a world without television, movies, and radio. They dress like 19th century Polish nobility. They eschew most modern conveniences in favor of a more traditional lifestyle. Secularization pollutes their godly lifestyle and turns their focus away from scripture. The Haredi will put the fear of God into you. They ruled by majority. When you come from a community where smaller families are still more than 6 people large, you are quickly going to become outnumbered. Are they popular? Well Benjamin Netanyahu sure liked them. He was their greatest ally. And they are staunchly pro-Israel, believing that Israel is given to the Jewish people by God, at the cost of everyone else, including the Palestinians. Populism. Nationalism. Authoritarianism. And Majoritarianism. The Haredi have it in spades. What’s worse is that the Haredi don’t just exist in Israel; they are also on American shores as well. They exist in small Jewish enclaves throughout the United States, poisoning the well with their nationalist ideas about how the Jewish people are far superior to all other races, and how Israel is the motherland that we should all aspire to return to. They see no irony when they clap shoulders with Trump supporters who secretly think they control the world’s banks, as they walk away and whisper about the “goyim.” Israel has a lot of problems, but the most prevalent of them all is the control that the Haredi have on religious life within the nation state, and, up until recently, control of the Knesset as well.
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Grade: 50/50
Professor Comments: None
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