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Israel seems in many ways to be becoming increasingly religious. A number of religious ministers, most notably Minister of Education Naftali Bennett of the Jewish Home party, have become increasingly outspoken about their aspirations to turn Israel into a religious state and have gained enough power to begin to realize them: Bennett's creation of a Jewish Identity Administration is one noteworthy example. Religious parties, once on the sidelines, hold more central positions in the government, and it may well be that for the first time an ultra-Orthodox Ashkenazi representative - Rabbi Yaacov Litzman, United Torah Judaism - will become a full government minister. Thus one may well ask: Was this what Zionism was meant to be? Was and is Israel destined to become a religious state?
Modem Zionism Was a Secular Movement
The founders of modem Zionism and the state of Israel had no intention of creating a religious state. Zionism was essentially a secular movement created to a large extent as an alternative to religious identity. Theodor Herzl, generally accepted to have been the father of modem Zionism, was not a religious man. His vision was of Israel as a haven for the Jewish people and his seminal book The Jewish State, written in German, was somewhat mistranslated: he entitled it Der Judenstaat - literally, the "State of the Jews," not the Jewish (certainly not religious) state. In a special chapter warning against theocracy, Herzl wrote:
We shall therefore prevent any theocratic tendencies. We shall keep our priests within the confines of their temples in the same way as we shall keep our professional army within the confines of their barracks.. .they must not interfere in the administration of the State which confers distinction upon them, else they will conjure up difficulties within and without." Furthermore, Herzl adds explicitly, "Every man will be as free and undisturbed in his faith or his disbelief as he is in his nationality. And if it should occur that men of other creeds and different nationalities come to live amongst us, we should accord them honorable protection and equality before the law.1
Herzl declared that the so-called Jewish question was a national question, that the Jews "are a people."2 Living in Austria before World War I, Herzl, as...