Schweid: A Zionist Prophet of Post-Secularism

: Eliezer Schweid is a constructive philosopher, social critic, cultural observer, public intellectual and educator. His vision is a unique hybrid of secularity and religiosity that integrates Zionism, Hebraism, and humanist Socialism. Immersed in the entire Jewish tradition and committed to transmit it to future generations, Schweid’s sui-generis analysis critiques the three dominant forces of contemporary life: postmodernism, globalization and technology while perpetuating the Jewish past without falling prey to historicism. This paper suggests that Schweid is best understood as a Zionist prophet of what is today known as “post-secularism”. The term was coined in 1982 by Richard John Neuhaus, but came into wide use only after 2001 when Habermas made it the cornerstone of his admission that something “was missing” in our secular life and that religion must be allowed in the public sphere. But it is not in dialogue with Habermas that Schweid is best understood, but rather in dialogue with Charles Taylor, the Canadian Catholic philosopher, theologian, and social theorist who has analyzed the cross-pressures of the secular age and who also resists the “post-secular” label. This paper, then, argues that by reading Schweid and Taylor in tandem, Schweid’s originality and distinctive Zionist response to (Christian) secular modernity may be elucidated.