Mizrachi Jews

[OK, now that I've gotten my rather depressing political rants out of my system, we can return to our regularly scheduled programming. – aiwac]

In my first post on Israeli MO policy, I brought up the touchy issue of interaction with that vague population of Jews in Israel which defines itself not as "religious" or "secular" but rather "traditional" or "masorti". This amorphous group, largely made up of Sephardic/Mizrachi Jews, has not really been given much academic treatment (on their religiosity) over the years and is often the subject of cliché and generalization. This is beginning to change, and two books have recently come out on the subject.

The first book, "Soft Charedism", is by Dr. Nissim Leon, an up and coming researcher who specializes in the development of that unique blend of Charedi outlook and Sephardi religiosity. Leon is a serious scholar with an understanding of how religion actually works (a rarity nowadays among academics). He discusses the development of Mizrachi Charedism through changes in the Mizrachi shul and siddur, as well as the development of a cadre of Mizrachi yeshiva bachurim that grew over time. Highly recommended.

The second book is by Dr. Yaacov Yedgar, a researcher previously known for his analysis of the changing of the national ethos form 1967 to 1995. His study, called simply 'The masortiyim in Israel', is based on thorough interviews of with self-identified 'traditionalists'. While I am less familiar with Yedgar's work and am a little skeptical as to how many people are "consciously" and "ideologically" masorti, his study sounds like a good start on the subject at least.

Unfortunately, both these books are only available in Hebrew...unless someone could take the challenge of translating them...:)