Who Killed the Mizraechi: Religious Zionism, Modern Orthodoxy, and the "Haredization" of Israel and America

The politicization of religion in Israel brings into sharp relief the question of the demise of Religious Zionism in Israel and of Religious Zionism’s late institutional and ideological home, Mizrachi/the National Religious Party (NRP), indeed of the political contours of the State of Israel and of religion in Israel and in America.

The author’s current research offers both historical and sociological analyses of this question. The genesis of classical Religious Zionism—including the birth of Mizrachi—first in Europe, thence in the Yishuv and in America, together with the parallel history of Orthodoxy in Israel and America, sets the context. The activities of Mizrachi founder Rabbi Yitzchak Yaakov Reines and Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook are analyzed and contrasted; and, revisited are the varied political and social movements with Religious-Zionist flavoring—including the oft-forgotten Poalei Agudat Yisrael (PAI).

The reasons for the demise of Religious Zionism, both ideologically and institutionally, are to be found in the radicalization of centrist Orthodoxy in Israel—parallel to “Haredization,” in the USA. This is no revelation. The author’s research, however, informs a new analysis, and looks toward the future of remnants of Religious Zionism, including the question of what is the new institutional home of “Dati Le’umi”—is it Ha-Bayit Ha-Yehudi?; and of the future of the Chief Rabbinate. The author’s research points to a construct in which in Religious Zionism, the “Religious” and the “Zionism” were “hijacked” by forces different one from another. New religious/political configurations in Israel could presage change in this arena.