Non-Jewish volunteers in the Kibbutz Movement and the establishment of state conversion in Israel in the 1970s

Bibliographic Data

ID12540952
AuthorsNetanel Fisher (0000-0002-9475-1205, Department of Sociology, Political Science and Communication, The Open University, Raanana, Israel, corresponding author)
Year2017
Volume23
Issue5
Pages908-933
Publication date2017-07-12
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueIsrael Affairs (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1353-7121 • E-ISSN: 1743-9086
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13537121.2017.1343890
OpenAlexW2734377522
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited18

This article reveals how non-Jewish volunteers who joined kibbutzim in Israel in the early 1970s created a situation that brought about the establishment of an Israeli state conversion system. Contrary to the prevailing idea that issues related to non-Jewish immigrants and conversion became practical and urgent only from the 1990s on, the central argument in this article is that a structured conversion system had already been established 20 years earlier, as a result of the unique collaboration between the secular Kibbutz Movement and Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren, who assisted non-Jewish volunteers to convert to Judaism. This collaboration proves the ability of religious and secular to cooperate in order to promote the preservation of Israel’s Jewish character, but also points out the difficulties involved in doing so, which reflect the tensions that still exist between religion and secularism in Israel

Anti-Zionism · Argument (complex analysis · Character (mathematics · Immigration · Jewish state · Jewish studies · Judaism · Political science · Secularism · Sociology · State (computer science · Theology · Zionism · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies · Jewish Identity and Society · Law · Medicine · Middle East Politics and Society · Philosophy · Religious studies

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