Israel and the Threat of Jewish Fundamentalism

Within the last two decades, Israel has witnessed a significant growth of Jewish fundamentalism, including entry into the highest echelons of the Israeli government.

Tomer Persico, Claire Sufrin

February 23, 2024

February 23, 2024

Tomer Persico

Dr. Tomer Persico is a Research Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute, a Rubinstein Fellow at Reichman University and a Senior Research Scholar at the UC Berkeley Center for Middle Eastern Studies. His fields of expertise include contemporary spirituality, Jewish modern identity, Jewish renewal, and forms of secularization and religiosity in Israel. His first book, The Jewish Meditative Tradition (Hebrew) was published by Tel Aviv University Press in 2016, and his second book, In God’s Image:

Claire Sufrin

Israel at War, Video, Ideas for Today

Within the last two decades, Israel has witnessed a significant growth of Jewish fundamentalism, including entry into the highest echelons of the Israeli government. The March 2023 pogroms at Hawara and other Palestinian villages in the West Bank are the visible result of this growth and the resulting power of divergent Religious Zionist groups whose aim is to transform Israel into a theocracy. For some, the current war is nothing but a harbinger for Messianic days and a pretext for political violence.

In this session, Sources editor Claire Sufrin and Tomer Persico, author of ‘A Natural Act of Vengeance’: Settler Violence and Two Types of Jewish Fundamentalism from the Fall 2023 issue of Sources: A Journal of Jewish Ideas, discuss this growing phenomenon and its connection to October 7th and the Israel-Hamas War.

/ Ideas for Today

Israel and the Threat of Jewish Fundamentalism

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