Religious-Zionism: History and Ideology

Religious-Zionist historiography has at times attempted to emphasize continuity, turning Abraham into the first Zionist and Nahmanides' travel to the Holy Land into another landmark in the realization of the religious-Zionist ideal. By contrast, this book approaches the creation of the Mizrachi as a genuine revolution, when the religious and rabbinic world entered institutionalized politics and, to some extent, assumed the demands of modernity. This is the first study in English tracing the course of religious-Zionism since the creation of the Mizrachi in 1902 until recent years, when traditional structures have changed or even collapsed and the movement confronts a new horizon.

Dov Schwarz was Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at Bar-Ilan University (2003-2006) and head of the Department of Philosophy (1999-2002). He occupies the Nathalie and Isidore Friedman Chair in the Teachings of Rav J. B. Soloveitchik, and currently heads the Department of Music at Bar-Ilan University. He is the author of Religion or Halakhah? The Philosophy of Rabbi J. B. Soloveitchik, 2007; Central Problems of Medieval Jewish Philosophy, 2005; Studies on Astral Magic in Medieval Jewish Philosophy, 2005; and others.