This book analyzes the new religious-Zionist discourse about the body and sexuality, and the term "new" refers to the period it covers--the first decade of the twenty-first century. Even a cursory glance reveals that this decade does indeed open up a new era, not only because of the new political questions it considers--withdrawal from the occupied territories, the religion and state relationship, and more--but also, and mainly, because it deals with many questions that had been excluded from the classic religious-Zionist discourse. We have chosen to grapple with the most distinct expression of this shift--the discourse about the body and sexuality. Dealing with change has been a persistent feature in the history of religious-Zionism from its earliest days. As a modern movement, religious-Zionism participated in the developments affecting the modern Zionist world. But the pace of its relationship with these developments has at times been slow and contingent on its capacity, as a religious movement, to digest and internalize changes, and on the unique voice that emerges in the encounter between religion and modernity. Hence, a discourse that had long been commonplace in secular Jewish-Israeli society often enters religious-Zionist society at a later stage.
Sexuality and the Body in New Religious Zionist Discourse