A certain historical factor is important here, I will try to expand on it.
World religions are similar in that many have more liberal branches, more mystical branches, more conservative branches, more textualist branches, etc. For example, Sufiism and modern Breslov (Breslev/Bratslov) Chassidism or original Chassidism are similar mystical responses to institutional monotheism (however, the similarity here might be partially caused by direct Sufi influence on Judaism rather than convergent development). Similarly, different religions have produced people believing variously that: modern dating methods are fatally flawed, the Earth was created as if billions of years old, scripture was meant allegorically, scripture was not divinely given, or that the whole tradition is invalid. It is a matter of playing whack-a-mole in which one must admit to some unpleasant conclusions, but not all, and interpretation determines which.
Religious Zionism was the centrist movement in religious Judaism around the founding of the state, the median and mode Orthodoxy, and probably the mean as well, to the extent that means anything. It was the result of biased interpretation of tradition and text to be in accord with the majority of Jews. This happened due to historical exigency and under circumstances that may well have been extreme enough to invoke such a reading under the tradition’s own principles. What’s important is that a secular twentieth-century movement was justified in a religious community.
For a while Religious Zionists were heroes of the state and people, the secular majority’s link to traditional Judaism, traditional justifications for Israel, and its evidence its conflict with the Chareidim wasn’t simply the result of secular anti-Orthodox prejudice. This is what one would expect, considering that creating this unity was the justification for non-traditionalism. Yet, like all religions, Religious Zionism got stuck. Once the social milieu changed, it could not alter its ideology to match, at least not at great speed. In any case, it did not want to and would never have wanted to—secular Zionism was perhaps worth religious flexibility to meet half way, secular post-Zionism and anti-Zionism less obviously so. Nonetheless, the value of empathizing with the mainstream has never been abandoned, indeed it is difficult to see how it could be, and it is still cited as a justification.
That is where we are today. At something less than a million of Israel’s something less than six million Jews, Religious Zionists constitute most new combat officers and only a bit less than half of all new army officers. Their organizing principle of establishing holds on strategically important locations is now theirs alone now, but was once a universal Zionist ideal.
However, Religious Zionism is not merely the continuation of Zionist ideology under religious aegis. Orphaned by time, it faces a shocking hostility from a public that increasingly blames them for conflict with the Arabs rather than lauds them for bearing the brunt of it, and as always the secular state disregards their religious desires. As an established religion, it faces its own splintering into factions emphasizing aspects of its creed differently, exacerbated by the fact that a reason for its existence was pegged to an unstable variable—the secular public.
Though it was born from centrism, I expect Religious Zionism to become more diverse over time regarding how extreme its components are.
A certain historical factor is important here, I will try to expand on it.
World religions are similar in that many have more liberal branches, more mystical branches, more conservative branches, more textualist branches, etc. For example, Sufiism and modern Breslov (Breslev/Bratslov) Chassidism or original Chassidism are similar mystical responses to institutional monotheism (however, the similarity here might be partially caused by direct Sufi influence on Judaism rather than convergent development). Similarly, different religions have produced people believing variously that: modern dating methods are fatally flawed, the Earth was created as if billions of years old, scripture was meant allegorically, scripture was not divinely given, or that the whole tradition is invalid. It is a matter of playing whack-a-mole in which one must admit to some unpleasant conclusions, but not all, and interpretation determines which.
Religious Zionism was the centrist movement in religious Judaism around the founding of the state, the median and mode Orthodoxy, and probably the mean as well, to the extent that means anything. It was the result of biased interpretation of tradition and text to be in accord with the majority of Jews. This happened due to historical exigency and under circumstances that may well have been extreme enough to invoke such a reading under the tradition’s own principles. What’s important is that a secular twentieth-century movement was justified in a religious community.
For a while Religious Zionists were heroes of the state and people, the secular majority’s link to traditional Judaism, traditional justifications for Israel, and its evidence its conflict with the Chareidim wasn’t simply the result of secular anti-Orthodox prejudice. This is what one would expect, considering that creating this unity was the justification for non-traditionalism. Yet, like all religions, Religious Zionism got stuck. Once the social milieu changed, it could not alter its ideology to match, at least not at great speed. In any case, it did not want to and would never have wanted to—secular Zionism was perhaps worth religious flexibility to meet half way, secular post-Zionism and anti-Zionism less obviously so. Nonetheless, the value of empathizing with the mainstream has never been abandoned, indeed it is difficult to see how it could be, and it is still cited as a justification.
That is where we are today. At something less than a million of Israel’s something less than six million Jews, Religious Zionists constitute most new combat officers and only a bit less than half of all new army officers. Their organizing principle of establishing holds on strategically important locations is now theirs alone now, but was once a universal Zionist ideal.
However, Religious Zionism is not merely the continuation of Zionist ideology under religious aegis. Orphaned by time, it faces a shocking hostility from a public that increasingly blames them for conflict with the Arabs rather than lauds them for bearing the brunt of it, and as always the secular state disregards their religious desires. As an established religion, it faces its own splintering into factions emphasizing aspects of its creed differently, exacerbated by the fact that a reason for its existence was pegged to an unstable variable—the secular public.
Though it was born from centrism, I expect Religious Zionism to become more diverse over time regarding how extreme its components are.