Mass Mobilization for the Separation between Religion and State in Israel's First Years: "The League for the Prevention of Religious Coercion"

• In Event: Issues on Religion and State

Abstract

According to the conventional historiography, the early decades of the State of Israel are distinguished by a curious paradox: While significant figures in the Zionist movement were unsparingly anti-clerical, religious institutions maintained a control over key aspects of society, including personal status law and Sabbath regulations in certain public spaces. The typical explanation for this is that the political philosophy of the neutral or "secular" public square associated with Anglo-American liberalism was lacking in the Israeli context. However, an important but little known movement, the League for the Prevention of Religious Coercion, challenges this historiography. The League was founded in 1951, lasted in various iterations until the end of the 1960s, and brought together thousands of activists from an incredibly broad political spectrum, including Canaanites, Revisionists, Communists, and members of the ruling Mapai party. It found support from Jews abroad, and, early indications show, also from Christians, particularly Baptists. The League campaigned for civil marriage, against restrictive Sabbath legislation, and more. This paper will explore the origins of the League's political philosophy, finding its sources in traces of American and German political thought, as well as in a new "Sabra" political vernacular. Very little has been written about the League by scholars. What has been written has paid little attention to the public perception of its activities, as recorded in the press and other sources. One contribution of this paper will therefore be to fill out the historical record. A second, theoretical, contribution will be to challenge the widespread belief, among the public as well as among many scholars, that challenges to Orthodox power in Israel are necessarily imported from (typically American) Jewish liberal ideologies. The record shows that a home-grown opposition to religious legislation represented one of Israel's earliest and broadest-based activist communities.

Author

• Alexander Kaye, Brandeis University