Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
A rally held in the western Negev town of Sderot against the Israeli government's plan for unilateral with-
drawal from the Gaza Strip, August 2005. (Getty Images / Image Bank.)
party collapsed. Dati voters signed on with a variety of parties across the spectrum. The more
dovish supported the tiny Meimad Party, while many of the leaders joined with right-wing
secularists to form the small National Union and Jewish Home parties.
All these political passions and splits notwithstanding the Datim continued to make up a
community with a full range of social needs and multiple interests. Many make a conscious at-
tempt to show their dedication to the country as a whole. Datim play an ever larger role in the
army, with their proportion among combat units' offi cers steadily increasing. Datim are also
involved in all aspects of society, including academia, science, and high technology.
Non-Orthodox Judaism
The Jewish Reform and Conservative movements were relatively late in establishing them-
selves in Israel, remain very small there — less than 1 percent of the Jewish population are
adherents — and are still generally seen as non-Israeli approaches to religion that have merely
accompanied some Western immigrants from their native countries. Shlomo Avineri made
a famous statement on this issue when he said, “The synagogue I don't go to is Orthodox.”
In other words, nonreligious Israelis perceive religious Judaism of either the Haredi or Dati
variety as normative.
In Israel, the Conservative movement runs a number of TALI schools (TALI is the He-
brew acronym for “Enriched Jewish Studies”). They are somewhat equivalent to a North
American Jewish day school, and their curriculum is somewhere between that of the national
