Secular-Religious Division in Israel: Concepts, Necessities, Dynamics and Changing Balances

In Israel, concepts of secularity and religiousness, relationships between the secular part and the part with highreligious sensitivity, conflicts in regard to social life, rules and laws on the basis religious and secular worldviews,values and principles in this regard are subject to and deserve special attention both due to similar topics in othercountries and due to uniqueness of Israel in this topic. Though the religious part of the society in Israel representrelatively small part in percentage, it has been divided in itself as religious and political views strongly differ andsometimes from time to time: in early years of the State of Israel and in following decades, religious parties in Israelwere represented in the government in coalition with leftists, while later they began to build coalitions with rightists.Furthermore, they have since played an important role in adopting rules and laws (for example, one that exemptsorthodox Jews from military service that is mandatory in Israel) that based on religious principles. Such conditionsshow that the secular-religious relationships in Israel should be researched from different viewpoints. Established in1956 and abolished in 2008, MAFDAL Party declared its principles as living in the "Democratic Jewish State" and"Adopting lifestyle based on Torah in the Land of İsrael", while another religious party - SHAS defends religiousrules, theocratic legislation and lifestyle based on Sephardic interpretation, conservativeness and Zionism.