Not just religious influence: Are secular Israelis capable of soul-searching?

Many secular Israelis are resentful of processes of religious influence in the educational and public spheres, and of processes of radicalization in the form of "messianism." There is much truth in the current criticisms, but is secular society capable of seeing that significant changes have also occurred within its own ranks, in terms of faith and culture, regarding the State of Israel and the heritage of Israel?

Despite the common argument that secular people founded the State of Israel, it is sometimes difficult to see a real resemblance between the secular people of "the old days" and the secular people of today, since many of the leaders of the Yishuv had a traditional and messianic affinity that today would be perceived as truly religious.

Ben-Gurion, for example, referred to the establishment of the state and the ingathering of the exiles in terms of "redemption," and described the period of the state's establishment as the realization of the Jewish vision of the messianic era. If one examines the poetry of poets like Bialik and Alterman, one discovers that their secular Hebrew work draws heavily from religious sources, to such an extent that a contemporary secular person lacks the knowledge required to understand it. This is not surprising, since both Ben-Gurion and Bialik (along with many others) received a religious education in their childhood, so they did not grow up on the knees of secularism but developed it from a different sociological context — that of leaving religion.

However, today the world of tradition has become not only foreign, but also an object of hostility for many in the secular sector. If about 20 years ago state-secular education was based on national concepts, heritage stories such as the stories of the Maccabees and the prophets were taught, and great emphasis was placed on the Hebrew calendar, today a significant segment of the secular sector has begun to change the center of its identity and seeks to change state education into "democratic education."

Also in the political system, we see an identity shift from national concepts ("The Zionist Camp" led by Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni) to cultural concepts ("The Liberal Camp" or "The Democratic Camp"), in the spirit of the liberal concepts of contemporary Western secularism.

A prominent example of this cultural shift can be seen in the change in attitude toward the calendar: if once things foreign to Jewish tradition, such as New Year's parties or Halloween, were looked at askance, today an approach is developing that there is nothing wrong with the foreign religious roots of celebrations of this kind. Also regarding mourning, the attitude toward the calendar has changed: if once secular leaders set the Holocaust Remembrance Day and the Memorial Day for the fallen soldiers of the IDF on Hebrew dates, today, in marking the anniversary of the Simchat Torah massacre, the secular leadership insists on October 7 as the official date.

Of course, secular people have the right to be secular in whatever way and with whatever intensity they wish; they are allowed to eat what they want, celebrate what they want when they want, and educate their children in whatever way they see fit. It is also important to remember that like the traditional, religious, and ultra-Orthodox, secular people are also diverse, and this description does not apply to everyone. But we must be honest: when we talk about the secular foundations of the Jewish-Zionist state, we are not talking about democratic education, Halloween parties, or a disconnection from the Hebrew calendar, but about a reorganization of Jewish tradition and its transformation into a living and sovereign Hebrew nationalism and culture, which is not based on the strict observance of commandments.