Expressivist Religious Zionism

This book presents a new approach to the study of Religious Zionism. In counter-distinction to the prevalent fundamentalist approach, it argues that mainstream of Religious Zionism is a romantic religious nationalist movement in which the modern idea of self-expression and related notions, such as the free and authentic self and the overcoming of alienation, forms its philosophical core.

By showing how such notions are combined with conservative and un-modern cultural and political goals (such as the restoration of a messianic kingdom), it provides a profoundly complex and nuanced account both of pervasiveness of modern notions in contemporary culture and of the modern aspects of conservative and even extremist religious and nationalist groups. By uncovering the process of the sacralization of the nation, the state, the national destiny and territory, it contributes to our understanding of religious nationalism globally. It also shows how the violence and extremism perpetrated by Religious Zionism elements is not some atavistic holdover from the past but is in fact rooted in the drive to self-actualization and constitutes modernist violence.

This book will appeal to researchers and students of Jewish studies, Israel, and the Middle East. Its intended audience also includes researchers on religious nationalism, and contemporary religious and national movements.

"With the furies of religious nationalism literally and figuratively exploding around the world and more ferociously by the day, Shlomo Fischer's long-awaited, groundbreaking masterwork is the book we need now. It is both a crucial intervention today, and an outstanding historical study, leavened with lifelong reflection on philosophy, theology and social theory, that will be a standard work for years to come. The deep erudition and keen analyses Fischer brings to bear in multiple fields bear out his striking contention that Israel's radical religious Zionists - and by extension their parallels elsewhere - are not, as so often portrayed, Fundamentalist reactionaries, but themselves revolutionary modernists at heart. Failure to recognize this has contributed to decades-long failures at peacemaking. And so this outstanding work should be required reading not only for scholars, but for policymakers, journalists, educators and more."

Professor Yehudah Mirsky, Brandeis University, former US State Dept official, author of Rav Kook: Mystic in a Time of Revolution (Yale University Press, 2014).

"This book is an intellectual tour de force that takes readers into the heart of the Religious Zionist movement. Shlomo Fischer's brilliant account of both the philosophical foundations of the movement and its every-day culture is also strikingly novel. Fischer lays to rest the commonplace understanding of Religious Zionism as yet another fundamentalist movement. He shows, instead, that Religious Zionism is a thoroughly modern phenomenon, akin to other modern revolutionary movements, where ideas such as authenticity, individual self-expression, and the general will take center stage. This breathtaking study should be required reading for students of contemporary nationalism and indeed, for anyone who wishes to understand one of the great antimonies of modernity: the close connection between emancipatory movements and violence."

Professor Suzanne Last Stone, Cardozo Law School