Jewish Orthodoxy and Its Discontents

Religious Dissidence in Contemporary Israel

Marta F. Topel

• Publisher: University Press of America
• Year: 2012
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9780761859185
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Jewish Theology

In this book, Marta T. Topel utilizes anthropological research to analyze both macro and micro social processes among secular and Orthodox Jews in Israel. She covers such complex issues as the tensions between the two groups and the radicalization of Israeli Jewish Orthodoxy in the last thirty years. The book also delves into micro social processes such as the long and tortured journey of Israeli religious dissidents and the role of non-governmental organizations in helping these dissidents adapt to secular society. In addition, she discusses the symbolic and ritual paraphernalia that dissidents must become familiar with in order to be successful in their new lives as secular Jews. Jewish Orthodoxy and Its Discontents approaches the phenomenon of religious dissidence within the Jewish Israeli Orthodoxy through the lens of the inverse phenomenon: religious conversion to Jewish Orthodoxy. This outlook is based on theoretical ground as both events constitute a radical change of the ideology of both the social actors and the social structures they have abandoned.

Table of contents

• Introduction
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1 The Disenchantment of the World and the Dismantlement of Rabbinical Judaism
• Chapter 2 Religion and Religious Coercion in the State of Israel
• Chapter 3 Religious Dissidents, the New Marranos and the Discontented; or, Of a Certain Unrest in the Orthodox Universe
• Chapter 4 Separation: In Search of Questions
• Chapter 5 In the Margin of the Margins
• Chapter 6 Incorporation: A Limited Number of Answers to a Great Many Questions
• Glossary
• Bibliography