The Response of Israeli Society to New Religious Movements: ISKCON and Teshuvah

Abstract

A comparison is made here between the societal responses to new religious movements in Europe and the United States on the one hand, and Israeli responses to the Hare Krishna movement and to the movement for teshuvah (the return of secular Jews to Orthodox Judaism) on the other hand. Reactions to NRMs in Israel can be understood in the context of a close association between religion and state, the near monopoly of Orthodox Judaism in the provision of religious services, a division between religious and secular sectors, and the association of Judaism with Jewish-Israeli national identity. In contrast to other western societies, the most active and effective anti-cult activities in Israel have been initiated and carried out by religious interests and organizations, and especially by the ultra-Orthodox who are themselves involved in the conversion of secular Jews to a religious perspective. Even though secular Jews have depicted ISKCON and teshuvah as having similar negative effects (the break with families and the losses to the army, economy, and social welfare), the response to teshuvah has been more ambiguous than the wholly negative response to ISKCON. Whereas Israeli members of ISKCON have rejected the symbolic center of the state and society, the values and behavior in teshuvah are linked to the identity of most secular Jewish Israelis. The new religious movements (NRMs), which are widely termed cults in Englishspeaking countries, have attracted relatively small memberships, but they have become the focus of considerable attention, mostly negative, of the mass media and of official and voluntary organizations.' In his comparison of controversies in a number of countries, Beckford (1985) has emphasized that, although there is some truth to the claim of a standard repertoire of attacks against NRMs, the nature of the cult problem also varies according to the social, political, and cultural conditions of each country. A comparison of societal responses to NRMs, which is mainly a comparison of anti-cult campaigns, can deepen our understanding of cross-cultural and cross-national variations in the perceptions of, and methods of coping with, threats to the social structures and cultures of societies.