היהדות בעיני אינטלקטואלים ישראלים חילוניים

Secularism arouses discomfort among many Israeli intellectuals. For them, the secular public — and Israeli society as a whole — has become devoid of the legacy of Jewish culture, and remains without roots or a substantive identity. Other Israeli intellectuals claim that the incessant search of secular Israelis for new relationships to Judaism is a result of a misunderstanding on the part of the secular. They demand a writ of divorce from religion, and from Judaism in particular. Common to all is their distress with Judaism: for some, Israeli society has abandoned Judaism and, consequently, is impoverished, bereft of a past. For others, Judaism is a burden which prevents the creation of a new national society. These thinkers have proposed solutions to resolve these problems. The aim of this article is to present their approaches, show their roots in Zionist thought, and explain why their proposals arouse distress.