On Religiosity and Super-religiosity (II): The Case of Jewish Ultra-orthodoxy

This is part two of my essay on super-religiosity. Though the two parts systematically relate to each other and are complementary, they can be read independently of one another. The first part, printed in the previous issue of Numen (vol. 60, issue 2-3, 2013) presented the analytic model of super-religiosity. The following presents a case study that is an illustration and test of the formerly published conceptual discussion and theoretical argument. The present part applies the idea of super-religiosity to the peculiar instance of Jewish ultra-orthodoxy. It is a comprehensive, methodic, and updated exposition of a particular super-religious society and culture. It focuses on the contemporary Israeli ultra-Orthodox known as Haredim. More precisely, this paper describes and analyzes the hard core of the Haredi group that manifests religious extremism. This examination of the Haredi case in terms of super-religiosity is applied towards an attempt at deconstructing and reevaluating the prevalent concepts of tradition, extremism, and fundamentalism.