Word: orthodox
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Jews, a regular, modern, democratic place where Jews are in the majority? Israel's Zionist founders were almost exclusively secular--in many respects, antireligious--and they saw Judaism principally as a nationality. But in deference to tradition, and as a way of securing the support of the Orthodox minority, they made certain concessions to religion: restricting commerce on the Jewish Sabbath, for instance, and leaving such matters as marriage and burial in the exclusive hands of rabbinical authorities. In the past 20 years, religious political parties extracted further allowances as they joined various government coalitions...
...Israel in the past decade of more than 800,000 people from the former Soviet Union, the vast majority of whom are nonreligious. Today two-thirds of Israelis define themselves as secular. Included within the religious third are 10% of the general population who belong to the ultra-Orthodox, or haredim (literally "those who fear"), distinguished by the black hats and robes worn...
...rabbinical monopoly on marriage and burial is increasingly controversial, especially in light of the mass immigration from the former Soviet Union. Immigrants who are not officially Jews, meaning their mothers are not Jewish or they have not been converted by an Orthodox rabbi, cannot get married in Israel. There are very few places where they can be buried. After one such teenager died in a recent terrorist attack, his corpse wandered the country looking for a final resting place. A man was dug up five years after his death when rabbinical authorities questioned his Jewish credentials...
Relations with the Palestinians are another fault line. Some 56% of secular Israelis support the peace process, compared with only 9% of the haredim and 24% of the so-called modern Orthodox. One group of rabbis went so far as to instruct army soldiers to disobey any order to withdraw from parts of the West Bank, an invitation to insurrection. A survey last fall showed that 27% of religious teenagers condone the murder of Rabin...
...they will stop being Jews. Says Friedman: "They fear that one morning they will wake up, and there will be no Jewish people anymore." Even some secularists are worried that too many in their ranks are being alienated from their heritage because of disgust with the behavior of the Orthodox. Says author Yehoshua: "I say, You, secular person, open the Talmud for yourself. We need the religious memory and tradition not to find God but to find the historical roots of our people...