Are Rabbis Informed? Mass Media Information and Jewish Clergy in Israel

Cohen: Are Rabbis Informed? The Rabbi and Synagogue in contemporary Israel The impact of the media upon the Israeli rabbi is partly determined by the professional role which the rabbi fulfils today. The rabbinical profession may be broken down into three types: community rabbis; rabbis teaching in schools or at higher institutes of religious study (yeshivot); and religious court judges (dayanim) who are authorised by the state to adjudicate in personal status matters (Stern & Friedman, 2011). In Israel, the rabbi and the synagogue do not enjoy a monopoly in being a single focus of Jewish identity, as they do in the Diaspora. The Jewish state itself, its official organs and other non-official institutions, have replaced the synagogue to a considerable extent as focii of Jewish identity. Moreover, the synagogue in Israel has a limited impact on the lives of Israeli Jews beyond the strictly religious than that in the Diaspora where it serves as the focus of the community for also the traditional, or not strictly orthodox. The functions of the synagogue in Israeli society are narrower mostly comprising the holding of religious services and educational activities like religious lessons (shiurim) and lectures. Apart from the strictly religious the rest of the Israeli Jewish population (estimated to be between 70-75%) have no regular daily or weekly interaction with the synagogue in Israel. Yet, the traditional, as distinct from the orthodox Jewish communities – which account for 45% of the Israeli Jewish population – also have varying degrees of selective or irregular contact with the synagogue, such as comprising attendance at the Jewish holydays and life-cycle events including circumcision, the barmitzvah, the wedding huppa, or funeral. Moreover, in Israel, religion Published by Digital Commons @ Kent State University Libraries, 2013 1 Advances in the Study of Information and Religion, Vol. 3 [2013], Art. 2 enjoys a centrality in public life which does not exist in other religions in many other countries. This includes responsibility by the state rabbinical religious courts (batei din) for personal status matters including religious conversion, marriage and divorce. Rabbis play important roles in the state education system notably the modern orthodox (or dati leumi) stream and Haredi stream. The Rabbinical Profession in the Media Age Rabbis and Jewish educators in Israel are beginning to come to terms with the implications of the information age, and with their own changing role. But this in no way diminishes the challenge and task for rabbis (Cohen, 2006b, 2012a). The relationship between rabbis and mass media may be broken down into five broad types: First, as moral leaders rabbis legitimise – and delegitimise – mass media. The exposure of Haredi Jews to mass media has been heavily influenced by their spiritual leaders. The influence of religious hierarchies -notably rabbis -- is paramount in the Haredi communities. The rabbi educator in the school system has an important pedagogic function in influencing the outlook of religious children and youth towards the wider society, including towards the media and regarding such values as freedom of speech and tolerance. Secondly, rabbis - particularly community rabbis - increasingly recognise the opportunities which mass media channels offer as alternative `pulpits’.The rabbi’s influence is felt within the religious population such as from the pulpit to congregants through the Sabbath sermon, but the media is an additional channel to spreading the rabbi’s religious message even if this tends to occur much more in the religious https://digitalcommons.kent.edu/asir/vol3/iss1/2 DOI: 10.21038/asir.2013.0001 2 Cohen: Are Rabbis Informed? media than in the secular Israeli media. Rabbis and communal leaders are discovering the value of the Internet in circumventing the mainstream media and in building community websites. Thirdly, the media play an important role in constructing mutual perceptions between religious and secular communities. Demands of Haredim for government budgeting such as for their yeshivot at the same time as their refusal to participate in the compulsory national military service generates hostility towards Haredim among the rest of the Israeli Jewish population, including in the secular media. The modern religious population’s demands for government support for building settlements in the administrative terrritories of Judea and Samaria (or West Bank) has a not dissimilar effect upon secular perceptions of the modern religious. And, the secular population’s refusal to adopt Torah, religious values, like the legislative system in Israel itself - reflecting Western, democratic values -generates perceptions of sinning, lesser Jews among Haredim, including in the Haredi media. But no less significant is a fourth role which the media play for rabbis as providers of information. Rabbis are themselves updated about events from the media both generally and regarding current religion-related developments. Rabbis use news media sources to gather information about general national and world affairs and about developments inside their religious communities. In order to be effective rabbi-teachers in yeshivot and synagogues, rabbis require to be exposed to the media to which their own audiences, children or synagogue congregants are exposed. Rabbinical court judges, for example, in determining Published by Digital Commons @ Kent State University Libraries, 2013 3 Advances in the Study of Information and Religion, Vol. 3 [2013], Art. 2 decisions (pesuk din) require not only mastery of Jewish religious law (halahkah) but also awareness of contemporary affairs. This paper focuses on this dimension of the work of the Israeli Rabbi. Given that the rabbi has a leadership and guidance function in his community – -- indeed are key `decisionmakers’ in the world of religion -- it needs to be questioned whether, and if so to what extent is the rabbi in touch with the wider environment and to what extent are rabbis exposed to the same media as their community.. This article examines the information-gathering practices of Israeli rabbis, and the impact of information sources upon the rabbis. Review of the Literature Reflecting the low priority which religion enjoys among mass communications researchers in Israel, little applied research has been carried out concerning the interplay of media and religion in the Israeli Jewish context (Cohen, 2012a). Most academic attention has focused on official state-religion relationships. The religion-state relationship in Israel has been the subject of wide academic attention (Abramov, 1976; Liebman & Don-Yehiya 1983; Sharansky, 2006). Notwithstanding popular street-level discussion inside Israel about the media’s coverage of religion, much less academic attention has been given to non-official actors like mass media. Most research on religion and media has been carried out in the US (...truncated)