Unorthodox Alliances at the Margins of the State: Haredi Jews, the Israeli State, and the Collaborative Battle Against Sexual Violence

Abstract

Over the last decade, ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) Jewish society in Israel has witnessed an unprecedented attempt to place sexual violence high on the agenda, calling for concerted communal action and assistance to individuals in need. Based on a long-term anthropological fieldwork, I explore in this article how this revolution from within the Haredi sector catalyzes and is further solidified by unorthodox alliances with various agencies of the Israeli state. By this, I mean a range of pedagogic, discursive, and institutional processes of collaboration and trust-building, established between Haredi community leaders and representatives of the secular Israeli state. These unorthodox alliances constitute a two-way street of communication and adjustment, advancing, on the one hand, the socialization of Haredi populations to state laws, logics, and discourses, and requiring, on the other hand, that the state tailor its services and procedures to exercise culturally sensitive considerations. I analyze the labor invested in these alliances through the framework of “the margins of the state.” I contend that these alliances establish, or at least experiment with, arrangements that may ultimately reconfigure and recalibrate the relationship between the two sides.