Israel's Haredim: “Israelization” and the Ultra-Orthodox Community's Place in Israeli Society

Описание: Recorded on February 19, 2026, at UCLA. Organized by the UCLA Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies. Co-sponsored by the UCLA Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures and The Taubman Symposia in Jewish Studies at UCSB.

About the Talk:
Israel's Ultra-Orthodox community, the Haredi, makes up approximately 12% of Israeli society. The community consists of numerous factions and sub-factions, which share a common overall reluctance or ambivalence toward Zionism and the State of Israel and largely segregate themselves from the surrounding society. This seclusion manifests in several ways, including distinct educational institutions, norms and ways of life, and striving to live in Haredi cities or neighborhoods. Nevertheless, in the last few decades, there has been evidence of increasing "Israelization" within this religiously conservative society, which can be described as "integration without assimilation." This new direction has stemmed from the grassroots level of Israel's Haredim society, and sheds new light on this community's place in Israel.

Since the beginning of the October 2023 War, the Haredim's relationship with Israeli society has been subject to extensive and heated discourse in Israel, with a focal point being that the Haredim are not subject to Israel's military conscription. These recent developments challenge existing scholarship on the trends of this Ultra-Orthodox community and present a need to re-evaluate various scholarly observations and projections about Israel's Haredim.

About the Speakers:
Professor Kimmy Caplan teaches at the Israel and Golda Koschitzky Department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry, Bar-Ilan University. His field of scholarly interest is Jewish Religious History in the 19th and 20th centuries, and his primary research topics include religious streams, popular religion, sermons, and homiletics. Professor Caplan's current focus is on Israeli Haredi society in Palestine during the British Mandate period and in the State of Israel.

Richard Hecht (moderator) is Professor Emeritus at UCSB Department of Religious Studies. Professor Hecht was trained as a historian of religions under the influence of Mircea Eliade through his teacher at UCLA Kees W. Bolle. He has become increasingly interested in the deep contextualization of religion in its lived environments and most centrally the intersections of religion, politics, and culture. His work is comparative and multidisciplinary, both of which are essential, in his opinion, to the larger study of religion.

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Prof. Zipperstein's Intro @ 00:00
Prof. Hecht 's Intro @ 00:02:59
Prof. Caplan's Presentation @ 00:09:01
Conversation and Q&A @ 00:52:36

DISCLAIMER: The views or opinions of our guest speakers and the content of their presentations do not necessarily reflect the views of the UCLA Younes and Soraya Nazarian Center for Israel Studies. Hosting speakers does not constitute an endorsement of the speaker's views or opinions.