Israel's Moment of Truth

This week an opinion piece on the Ynet news website entitled "Revenge of the seculars", highlighted once again the religious, secular tensions that exist in Israel. The article subhead says, "Haredi radicalization prompting secular response, as Israel's moment of truth nears." Haredi Jews are commonly known as "ultra-orthodox" and have a very rapidly growing population in Israel and elsewhere. The piece begins by suggesting that, "The past year has been characterized by unremitting instances of religious radicalization across Israel." Some of the big issues are the fact that many Haredi Jews don't serve in the army and other issues such as the use of buses on the Sabbath. As the various religious segments of Israeli society experience rapid growth, the secular segments have low western level birth rates. As time goes on Israel is rapidly becoming a more and more religious nation, if time goes on the religious segments will dominate simply by sheer numbers. These factors are pushing Israel to a "moment of truth". Will the nation be secular or religious? How will this influence laws that are made and the underlying values of society?