In this lecture I present Religious Zionism, the right-wing religious nationalist movement, which despite representing 12-16% of Israel’s population, has a prominent and influential place in the current “fully” right-wing government In contradistinction to previous research, I argue that this movement, which initiated and led the settlement movement in the West Bank and the Golan Heights, is best understood not as a fundamentalist movement, but as a religious romantic nationalist enterprise that at its philosophical core emphasizes modern notions, such as self-expression and self-realization. Thus, not only does it adopt important components of the modern cultural program, it also presents a religious theory of modernity. I briefly examine how opposing religious Zionist sub-streams developed in response to the political and cultural challenges that the broader Israeli society and government posed. Finally, I discuss the impact of recent developments: 1) the increasing acceptance of religious nationalism among the general Israeli public; and 2) the extensive Religious Zionist participation (and sacrifice) in the prosecution of the Israel-Hamas war.

Dr. Shlomo Fischer is a Senior Fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute in Jerusalem. Until his retirement, he taught sociology in the School of Education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has published extensively on religious Zionism and the Shas movement. His research interests include religion in Israel and its intersections with politics and class, the American Jewish community, and the relations of religious and civic education. His book, Expressivist Religious Zionism: Modernity and the Sacred in a Nationalist Movement was published in December 2024.