Faith, Power, and Social Change: Jewish Religiosity in Contemporary Israel
Faith, Power, and Social Change: Jewish Religiosity in Contemporary Israel
This online talk examines the growing role of Jewish religiosity in shaping contemporary Israeli society, politics, and culture. Moving beyond traditional divisions between religious and secular communities, the discussion will explore how faith has become an increasingly influential source of social power—affecting political decision-making, public space, education, gender norms, and debates over democracy and pluralism. The talk will consider the forces driving these changes, including demographic trends, institutional influence, and shifting identities, as well as the tensions they generate within Israeli Jewish society. By situating current developments in a broader historical and social context, the event offers a nuanced look at how religion is reshaping Israel’s social landscape and what these transformations may mean for its future.
Speakers:
Shmuel Rosner is a Tel Aviv-based researcher, columnist and editor. He is a Senior Fellow at The Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI), the founder and editor of the data-journalism and research initiative themadad.com, and the founder and editor of the Books & Ideas initiative The Hedgehog and the Fox. He writes a weekly column for The Jewish Journal in Los Angeles. and for Maariv in Israel. Rosner held various positions in leading Israeli and international media outlets such as the International New York Times, Kan News TV (Israel’s public television), The Jerusalem Post, and Haaretz. He wrote for many magazines, including Slate, Foreign Policy, Commentary, The New Republic, The Jewish Review of Books, and others. Rosner has published 3 books: Shtetl, Bagel, Baseball (Hebrew, 2011); The Jews, 7 Frequently Asked Questions (Hebrew 2016, forthcoming in English in the fall of 2025), and #IsraeliJudaism, Portrait of a Cultural Revolution was published by Dvir (Hebrew, 2018, and English, 2019).
Dr. Gila Stopler is a Professor of Law and former Dean of Law School at the College of Law & Business. She is the head of the Human Rights Division and head of the MA in Law and Society and serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Law & Ethics of Human Rights. Dr Stopler’s areas of expertise include constitutional law, comparative constitutional law, religion-state relations, multiculturalism, women’s rights, human rights, populism, and democratic erosion. She served as a Tikvah Fellow (faculty fellow) at the Tikvah Center for Law and Jewish Civilization at the NYU School of Law, and as a research faculty fellow at the National University of Singapore (NUS), a Hauser Research Scholar at the NYU School of Law, and as a research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for International and Public Law. She holds an LL.B. from the Tel Aviv University Faculty of Law, and LL.M. and J.S.D degrees from the NYU School of Law. Dr Stopler is the author of the recently published book Women's Rights in Liberal States: Patriarchy, Liberalism, Religion and the Chimera of Rights (2025).
Dr. Alex Weinreb is a Research Director at the Taub Center and an expert in demography. Until 2019, he was a Professor in the Department of Sociology and the founding director of the Health and Society Undergraduate Major at the University of Texas at Austin. Before his move to Austin, he was a Lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Dr. Weinreb is a social demographer whose work has focused primarily on population change in developing countries—he ran several NIH-funded research projects in sub-Saharan Africa, and has also worked extensively on cross-cultural measurement issues. Dr. Weinreb received his PhD in Demography and Sociology from the University of Pennsylvania and was an NICHD Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Demography at the Population Research Center at the University of Chicago. He has a BA in Philosophy and Politics from the University of Durham (UK).
This online talk examines the growing role of Jewish religiosity in shaping contemporary Israeli society, politics, and culture. Moving beyond traditional divisions between religious and secular communities, the discussion will explore how faith has become an increasingly influential source of social power—affecting political decision-making, public space, education, gender norms, and debates over democracy and pluralism. The talk will consider the forces driving these changes, including demographic trends, institutional influence, and shifting identities, as well as the tensions they generate within Israeli Jewish society. By situating current developments in a broader historical and social context, the event offers a nuanced look at how religion is reshaping Israel’s social landscape and what these transformations may mean for its future.
Speakers:
Shmuel Rosner is a Tel Aviv-based researcher, columnist and editor. He is a Senior Fellow at The Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI), the founder and editor of the data-journalism and research initiative themadad.com, and the founder and editor of the Books & Ideas initiative The Hedgehog and the Fox. He writes a weekly column for The Jewish Journal in Los Angeles. and for Maariv in Israel. Rosner held various positions in leading Israeli and international media outlets such as the International New York Times, Kan News TV (Israel’s public television), The Jerusalem Post, and Haaretz. He wrote for many magazines, including Slate, Foreign Policy, Commentary, The New Republic, The Jewish Review of Books, and others. Rosner has published 3 books: Shtetl, Bagel, Baseball (Hebrew, 2011); The Jews, 7 Frequently Asked Questions (Hebrew 2016, forthcoming in English in the fall of 2025), and #IsraeliJudaism, Portrait of a Cultural Revolution was published by Dvir (Hebrew, 2018, and English, 2019).
Dr. Gila Stopler is a Professor of Law and former Dean of Law School at the College of Law & Business. She is the head of the Human Rights Division and head of the MA in Law and Society and serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Law & Ethics of Human Rights. Dr Stopler’s areas of expertise include constitutional law, comparative constitutional law, religion-state relations, multiculturalism, women’s rights, human rights, populism, and democratic erosion. She served as a Tikvah Fellow (faculty fellow) at the Tikvah Center for Law and Jewish Civilization at the NYU School of Law, and as a research faculty fellow at the National University of Singapore (NUS), a Hauser Research Scholar at the NYU School of Law, and as a research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for International and Public Law. She holds an LL.B. from the Tel Aviv University Faculty of Law, and LL.M. and J.S.D degrees from the NYU School of Law. Dr Stopler is the author of the recently published book Women's Rights in Liberal States: Patriarchy, Liberalism, Religion and the Chimera of Rights (2025).
Dr. Alex Weinreb is a Research Director at the Taub Center and an expert in demography. Until 2019, he was a Professor in the Department of Sociology and the founding director of the Health and Society Undergraduate Major at the University of Texas at Austin. Before his move to Austin, he was a Lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Dr. Weinreb is a social demographer whose work has focused primarily on population change in developing countries—he ran several NIH-funded research projects in sub-Saharan Africa, and has also worked extensively on cross-cultural measurement issues. Dr. Weinreb received his PhD in Demography and Sociology from the University of Pennsylvania and was an NICHD Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Demography at the Population Research Center at the University of Chicago. He has a BA in Philosophy and Politics from the University of Durham (UK).