In the state of Israel, four govenmental reports were written against “cults”. What is disturbing in this phenomena? Is it likely that each one of the reports finds different kind of problems with regard to the new religious movements in Israel? What can we understand from this? What can we learn about the Israeli society from those various reports?
In this study, we’ve analysed the wording of the reports (from a discoursive angle), and indicated the similarity as well as the difference between them. The study serves of course a mirror for the Israeli society and processes it undergone in the last decades.
This study (some 7,000 words in Hebrew; and a similar one published in English – as follows) was published in a special issue of the journal Israel Studies in Language and Society, dedicated to “Authoritative groups (cults) in contemporary Israeli society”, edited by David Green. The journal is published by the Israeli Association for the Study of Language and Society.
Abstract
From 1982 to 2011, the State of Israel published four reports concerned with New Religious Movements, all emphasizing their dangers. In spite of the ongoing anti-cult hue of the reports, in-depth analysis shows that they also reflect the wide discursive shifts that Israeli society underwent – from a collectivist-hegemonic-nationalistic discourse to a multi-sectorial individualistic-globalistic one. In fact, the reports draw from two major discursive sources: the anti-cult discourse that has been constant over the years, and the Israeli public discourse that has gone through significant changes since the 1980s. The current study offers an analysis of the influences of these two discursive sources on the government reports, demonstrating the adaptation of the anti-cult discourse to the shifts in the Israeli discourse, thus enabling its ongoing influence.
Language
Hebrew
Academic/Non-academic
Academic item
Bibliographical citation
Klin-Oron, Adam, and Marianna Ruah-Midbar Shapiro, “State of Israel vs. the Cults: The Anti-Cult Discourse and the Israeli Public Discourse in Government Reports”, in Israel studies in Language and Society 12.2 (2019; special issue on “Authoritative groups [cults] in contemporary Israeli society”): 126-144. [Hebrew]
