Israel’s 1977 upheaval and the Supreme Court

This article argues that the far-reaching changes in the jurisprudence of Israel’s Supreme Court during the 1980s and 1990s need to be understood in the context of the 1977 upheaval (or mahapach). This momentous event signalled the decline of the hegemony of the Labour movement that had led Israel for over four decades, as well as the resurgence of the ‘war of cultures’ (kulturkapmpf) that had been part of the history of the Jewish people since the rise of Jewish Enlightenment in the second half of the eighteenth century, namely the struggle between secular, pro-Western, liberal Jews and their religious counterparts over the nature and characteristics of Jewish public life. This article argues that the short time between the unprecedented developments in the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court and the mahapach invites an explanation that connects the two together.