| Publication |
2013.
|
| Summary/Abstract |
The editors of Terrorism and Political Violence have been right to place Aran and Hassner's "Religious Violence in Judaism: Past and Present" at the center of this issue, and to solicit a scholarly debate around this important piece. As a political sociologist who is not indifferent to either Jewish religious violence in particular or the study of political violence and terrorism in general, I can easily think of several reasons. The first reason is that Aran and Hassner's explanatory framework is dynamic and context-sensitive; the second concerns the impressive balance between and attentiveness to violent and nonviolent elements in religion; and, the third reason relates to the timeliness of the topic of Jewish religious violence. In what follows, I critically evaluate the first two reasons, and in concluding refer to the third one. It should be pointed out that the underlying motif that "connects the dots" of my response relates to the relative neglect of "relational aspects" in Aran and Hassner's framework, and on which I say more below.
|