RELIGION AND EDUCATION IN ISRAEL: Ideological Orientations of State Religious Education

The aim of this chapter is to analyse which factors operating within Israeli society in general—and more particularly in religious society and the religious schooling system—cause extremism and fanaticism. The chapter argues that the ideological orientation of the Israeli society in general and that of religious society and religious schools more specifically, are among the primary sources nourishing extremism and fanaticism. Fanaticism is generally presented in the guise of ostensibly legitimate ideological arguments and justifications, and finds a secure place for itself within the society’s system of institutional structures in general, and most particularly in schools—that constitute its agents of socialization. The chapter contends that one of the severest problems typifying ideological societies, as well as Israeli society and Religious-Zionist society, is the tendency and desire to resolve conflicts and the inability to manage and co-exist with conflicts. The need to resolve conflicts calls for dramatic solutions of a dichotomous nature, that create an a priori polarized discourse, liable to lead to fanaticism and extremism. The chapter attempts to suggest alternative educational options for coping with this singular reality.