Theocratic Democracy: The Social Construction of Religious and Secular Extremism

One social arena where cultural conflicts are played out is the media. This book examines more than 50 years of media reported unconventional and deviant behavior by the fundamentalist ultra-orthodox-Haredi-counter-cultural community in Israel. Haredi culture practices a "right of the people not to know" policy and under-reports infractions thus comparisons between Haredi and secular media tend to rely more on secular media. Haredi infractions have increased over the years and their most salient feature is violence. This violence is typically planned aiming to achieve political goals. Using such verbal and non-verbal violence as curses, intimidations, threats, setting fires, throwing stones, beatings, staging mass violations and more, Haredi (and other theocratic) activists try to make Israel more theocratic. Most of the struggle focuses on state-religion status quo and the public arena. Driven by a theological notion stipulating that all Jews are mutually responsible and accountable to the Almighty, these activists believe that the sins of the few are paid by the many. Making Israel a theocracy will, they believe, reduce the risk of transcendental penalties. Like other democracies in the global village, Israel has had to face both theocratic and secular pressures on significant levels of intensity. The political structure that accommodates these contradicting pressures is the theocratic democracy. This structure is characterized by chronic tensions and depends on dexterity of politicians. Although unstable, it allows citizens with different worldviews to live under one umbrella of a nation state without tearing the social fabric apart.