Israel’s religious right is changing the state from within

In Israel, ultra-Orthodox and religious-nationalist forces are wielding growing political influence over questions that reach far beyond their traditional constituencies: gender segregation, religious education, rabbinical authority, the relationship between religious and civil law, and the meaning attached to settlement and territorial control.Their growing influence raises a broader question about religious fundamentalism and democratic power: what happens when fundamentalist forces do not need to overthrow the state because they can use its existing institutions to reshape it from within?The Taliban seized power in Afghanistan by force. But what does religious fundamentalism look like when it operates through elections, coalition politics and the institutions of the state? What, in that sense, would the rise to power of a “Jewish Taliban” look like in Israel?Picture Tel Aviv a few years from now. The cafes are still open. Women still walk the streets. Elections continue. The Knesset still meets. The Supreme Court has not shut its doors. No religious militia has seized power in a coup.Something deeper has changed, though. Sex-segregated spaces keep expanding, justified as respect...