Law and the Culture of Israel

Abstract

Within a short span of time in the course of the 1980s, the Supreme Court of Israel effected far-reaching changes in its legal doctrine and in the way it perceives its role among the state's branches. This book locates those changes in the context of the great historical process that took shape in Israel in the second half of the 1970s: the decline of the political, social, and cultural hegemony of the labor movement, and the renewal of the struggle over the future orientation of the country's culture. Two social groups have confronted each other at the heart of this struggle: a secular group that is aiming to strengthen Israel's ties to Western liberalism, and a religious group intent on associating Israel's culture with traditional Jewish heritage and the Halakhah. The Supreme Court — the institution most closely identified with liberalism since the establishment of the state — collaborated with the former group in its struggle against the latter. The story of the Court serves as the axis of another two stories. The first deals with the struggle over the cultural identity of the Jewish people throughout the course of modernity. The second is the story of the struggle over the cultural identity of Israeli law, which took place throughout the 20th century. In addition to the divide between secular and religious Jews, there is a national divide in Israel between Jews and Arabs. These two divides are interrelated in complex ways which shape the unique traits of Israel's multicultural condition. The book ends with a few suggestions as to how, given this condition, Israel's regime, political culture and law should be constituted in the coming decades. The suggestions borrow from the discourses of liberalism, multiculturalism, and republicanism.

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