Publication date:
07 April 2006Length of book:
334 pagesPublisher
Lexington BooksDimensions:
238x165mm6x9"
ISBN-13: 9780739112595
In Israel's Higher Law, Steven V. Mazie draws on the voices of Israeli citizens to shed new light on the relationship between liberal democracy and religion. By analyzing Israelis' perspectives on a number of divisive issues—including Jewish state symbols, marriage law, public Sabbath observance and funding for religious education—Mazie identifies a rift between Israeli and American understandings of 'separation of religion and state' and a gulf between Jewish and Arab citizens' visions for Israel's religion-state arrangement. Mazie's compelling study offers more valuable insight into these dilemmas than any publication to date and proposes new guidelines for resolving them. Israel's Higher Law is the definitive work on the tensions between religion and democracy in Israel. It is a must-read for anyone interested in politics and Jewish studies.
Israel's Higher Law makes a valuable sociological contribution to the important debate about Israel's status as a Jewish and democratic state. The heart of the book lies in a series of lively interviews with a range of representative Israelis about their own interpretations of the problem. Informative and characteristic, these interviews are the next best thing to actually being on the ground and hearing Israeli voices directly. The method of addressing a problem of political theory through lay interviews is rich and innovative, producing surprising results that subvert more formalist approaches and remind us that political philosophy is alive and well as a popular vernacular practice.