Judaism and Modernization on the Religious Kibbutz

This work in the field of intellectual history explores religious ideas which emerged in Jewish thought under the influence of secular ideologies, and in response to the social and cultural realities created by Jewish Emancipation, Zionism and socialism. By concentrating on the major Jewish Orthodox movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Professor Fishman examines the innovative mechanisms of traditional Judaism that were activated by these movements, as they strove to accommodate new realities. The study focuses specifically on the Religious Kibbutz Federation in Israel, which (in the process of building its self-contained pioneering settlements) developed a religious sub-culture that incorporated the central values of Jewish nationalism and socialism. Professor Fishman shows that - by creating the most far-reaching synthesis of modern, and traditional Jewish, culture at the community level - the settlements of the RKF may be regarded as a test case for the measure of the capacity of Judaism to adapt to modern life.

Fishman, as a phenomenologist, allows us to experience, vicariously, the tensions between religious commitment, socialist norms, and economic realities better than an externalist analysis might." Contemporary Sociology, "Students of the kibbutz and of religious movements will find this study worth their close attention." Walter Hirsch, Shofar, "...a noteworthy contribution to the study of religion and modernization..." American Journal of Sociology, "What makes his contribution particularly unique is that his focus is on the Religious Kibbutz Federation in Israel, a federation that was not only religious, but which also incorportated the central values of Jewish nationalsim and socialism. Moreover, he inverts the usual approach to Orthodoxy by suggesting that traditional Judaism can provide 'vigorous mechanisms for legitimate innovation in response to modernity, as well as limit change'....Fishman deftly characterizes the intellectual processes and forces whereby the very traditions that rail against modernism become modern phenomena by skillfully weaving an array of theoretical arguments and primary data to make his points. Fishman leaves the reader with an appreciation of his command of the historical scholarship." Debra Kaufman, Critical Review