Judaism and Modernization on the Religious Kibbutz

Aryei Fishman

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 1992
• Print ISBN: 9780521403887
• eBook ISBN: 9780511832864
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Jewish Theology

This work in the field of intellectual history explores religious ideas which emerged in Jewish thought under the influence of secular ideologies, and in response to the social and cultural realities created by Jewish Emancipation, Zionism and socialism. By concentrating on the major Jewish Orthodox movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Professor Fishman examines the innovative mechanisms of traditional Judaism that were activated by these movements, as they strove to accommodate new realities. The study focuses specifically on the Religious Kibbutz Federation in Israel, which (in the process of building its self-contained pioneering settlements) developed a religious sub-culture that incorporated the central values of Jewish nationalism and socialism. Professor Fishman shows that - by creating the most far-reaching synthesis of modern, and traditional Jewish, culture at the community level - the settlements of the RKF may be regarded as a test case for the measure of the capacity of Judaism to adapt to modern life.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• Part One Prologue
• Part Two The parent orthodox modernizing movements
• Part Three The religious kibbutz movement
• Afterword
• Appendix A The Religious Kibbutz Federation settlements
• Appendix B About the religious kibbutz members quoted in this book
• Appendix C Ideological periodicals referred to in book
• Notes
• Index