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Culture and Organization
ISSN: 1475-9551 (Print) 1477-2760 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/gsco20
Juggling resistance and compliance: The case of
Israeli ultra-orthodox media
Varda Wasserman & Ines Gabel
To cite this article: Varda Wasserman & Ines Gabel (2019) Juggling resistance and compliance:
The case of Israeli ultra-orthodox media, Culture and Organization, 25:3, 217-232, DOI:
10.1080/14759551.2016.1239102
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/14759551.2016.1239102
Published online: 02 Oct 2016.
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Juggling resistance and compliance: The case of Israeli ultra-
orthodox media
Varda Wasserman
a
and Ines Gabel
b
a
Department of Management and Economics, The Open University of Israel, Raanana, Israel;
b
Department of
Sociology, Political Science and Communication, The Open University of Israel, Raanana, Israel
ABSTRACT
In an attempt to examine how resistant discourses are constructed in a
highly conservative society, this article presents four discursive forms of
resistance used by an Israeli ultra-orthodox Jewish magazine juggling
between compliance and resistance in its attempt to subvert hegemonic
rabbinical authority. These resistance forms are: cushioning, discursive
hybrids, explicit provocation and trivializing. Based on a qualitative
content analysis of 229 articles published in the weekly magazine
Mishpacha (Family), the study seeks to contribute to the existing
literature on resistance in and around organizations by exposing the
complex and heterogeneous nature of discursive resistance in
authoritarian-religious environments. Furthermore, the paper offers a
glimpse into the ways that a social group within a religious society
resists authority though without shattering its ideological basis.
ARTICLE HISTORY
Received 20 September 2015
Accepted 8 September 2016
KEYWORDS
Organizational resistance;
religion and organization;
social change; religious
media
Introduction
The post-industrial era has witnessed the emergence of two contradictory social processes: on the
one hand, extensive liberalization and modernization in society and the workplace, and on the
other, the flourishing of new forms of religious (and even fundamentalist) beliefs (Wallace and
Leicht 2004). While much of the organizational research focuses on secular organizations operating
in a Western, liberal context, not much attention has been paid to this tension between religion and
modernity within organizations. The scant literature on the relationship between religion and organ-
izations has focused at the individual level and on employees’religious/cultural diversity (Tracey
2012). The present study seeks to add another layer to the understanding of this issue by examining
how a religious organization is able to resist, change and shape its environment through a dynamic,
fluid process of negotiation vis-à-vis an extreme, authoritative social order. This negotiation simul-
taneously includes both change and maintenance; subversiveness and submissiveness; and resist-
ance veiled in a mantle of alleged compliance.
More specifically, we explore the ways in which an ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) Jewish media organ-
ization enables the voicing of subversive views with the aim of transforming the social norms of the
Haredi community in Israel. As in secular society, media organizations are a meaningful source of
power, and they have a central role in shaping the identities, patterns of thought and beliefs of
their readers and viewers (McQuail 2010). But unlike secular Western media, in the case of media
in a fundamentalist setting there is usually no place for counter-power and non-obedience. Examin-
ing processes of change through the organizational prism, particularly that which relates to resistance
studies, can shed light on the role of organizations in general, and media organizations in particular,
© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
CONTACT Varda Wasserman vardawa@openu.ac.il
CULTURE AND ORGANIZATION
2019, VOL. 25, NO. 3, 217–232
https://doi.org/10.1080/14759551.2016.1239102
in leading social change that is not just intra-organizational but falls within the wider social context.
The extensive literature on resistance within organizations has only peripherally pertained to the
ways in which religious organizations express and encourage resistance, and it also neglects the
role of media in their resistance.
In addressing these issues, we examine how journalistic discursive strategies are used as a site of
discipline and resistance through the case study of Mishpacha (Family),the most popular commercial
religious magazine in Israel, and its position vis-à-vis the integration of ultra-Orthodox people in
secular Israeli society. The choice of Mishpacha as our case study carries added significance, since
it is the largest circulated magazine in Haredi society. Thus, when it voices new, resistant ideas,
they are heard loudly throughout the community, enhancing the visibility of resistance. Moreover,
our case focuses on one of the most controversial issues within Haredi society –the integration of
Haredi people into secular society, especially in the labor market and higher education –which
reflects a vigorous identity struggle between conservative streams and more liberal ones within
this ultra-Orthodox society. We believe that focusing on this controversy will reveal the ways in
which organizations struggle over identity to promote wider social change.
We show that in a highly disciplined religious environment, where external pressures are placed
on all community members and their organizations, it is not easy to craft strategies of resistance and
to express them publicly. Since all organizations, and especially religious organizations, are
embedded in a socio-cultural environment, they are obliged to comply with the rules, values and dis-
courses acceptable in their environment (Koç 2012); thus, resistance is shaped within specific cultural
limitations. Under such circumstances resistance takes on different, unique forms, and practices that
are perceived as trivial in a secular context should be seen as highly provocative in a Haredi context.
Relying on recent scholarship that argues that resistance and compliance should not be conceptual-
ized as dichotomous opposites but rather as points along a continuum (Fleming and Spicer 2007), our
case adds the extra-organizational pressures and the religious context as the most significant factors
enabling a better understanding of the dynamics between these two concepts.
Thus, our contribution to the existing literature is threefold:
(1) First, most research on resistance focuses on identifying and/or categorizing types of resistance
aimed at improving employment terms and reducing the burden of control, supervision and
organizational power (Fleming and Spicer 2008). Rather than focus on attempts to avoid surveil-
lance, our study attempts to bring about extensive social change through the exploration of four
new forms of resistance. An examination of resistance for the sake of the ‘general good’rather
than individual interests enables us to move away from a focus on the various types of sabotage
aimed at the organization, and toward a focus on social struggle for the creation of an alternative
society with a more pluralist ethos.
(2) Second, while much of the critical literature on resistance focuses on the micro level, that is, on
employees who oppose the organization and corporate control, this study focuses on the macro
level –specifically, on an organization that resists external control. This focus allows us to deepen
our understanding of the unique dynamics of resistance within and around organizations, which
are very different from those of individuals. While the neo-institutional literature in fact refers to
resistance of organizations at the macro level, as we seek to explore, however, it is focused on
organizations that do not comply with the rules imposed on them through coercive control
(usually that of the state), and thereby lose their legitimacy. In this case, however, rabbis have
no legal power, but still their authority has a much greater impact than state laws, and still, organ-
izations are able to resist and be innovative without losing their legitimacy. Furthermore, a reli-
gious organization infused with conservative values and obedience to authority is likely to direct
its struggles of resistance in a different, unique manner. Following Gutierrez, Howard-Grenville,
and Scully (2010), we examine a religious group that resists the institutionalized religious environ-
ment. However, in contrast to their study, which focused on an organization that completely con-
demned the church’s behavior, in our case the organization does not reject the basic tenets of
218 V. WASSERMAN AND I. GABEL
the rabbinical authority but only seeks to extend the range of legitimate behaviors in order to
bring about social change.
(3) Despite the growing number of religious people in the public sphere, the emergence of extreme
fundamentalist organizations, the need to cope with religious pluralism within workplaces and
the socio-political processes that stem from these, the paucity of research focusing on the inter-
relation between religion and organization is surprising. Thus, following the increasing call from
researchers for a deeper investigation into the ways in which religion affects organizations (Koç
2012; Tracey 2012; Chan-Serafin, Brief, and George 2013), our study seeks to deepen the under-
standing of the context in which ultra-orthodox organizations operate and the way they voice
their agendas in the face of an authoritarian hegemony. Moreover, most exiting studies in this
field focus on the religious identity of employees at the individual level, while the organizational
level has been overlooked. However, we aim to investigate the ways in which religion affects
daily practices at the organizational level and to expose the unique characteristics of religious
organizations that operate between religious and secular realms.
We begin with a theoretical overview of resistance in and around organizations and the role of the
media as a means of resistance in religious authoritative society. We then depict the Haredi society
and the changes that allowed for the emergence of alternative voices in the last decade. After laying
out our methodology, we present four discursive strategies which we have detected in the Haredi
magazine that express the complexity of resistance within Haredi society. Finally, we present our
insights into findings that would benefit from further investigation in other social contexts.
Resistance in and around organizations
Critical organizational theory has long been interested in the dialectics of control and resistance in
organizations (Knights and McCabe 1989; Willmott 1993; Jermier, Knights, and Nord 1994; Ackroyd
and Thompson 1999; Knights and Willmott 2000; Fleming and Sewell 2002; Fleming and Spicer
2003,2008; Mumby 2005; Pullen and Rhodes 2014), and much of the contemporary writing on resist-
ance calls for challenging the binary opposition between organizational control processes and
employees’resistance. Control and resistance are therefore no longer perceived as diametrically
opposed to each other but rather as co-existing in a complex continuum, acknowledging that
those in positions of power might also resist social structures. Adopting the concept of ‘struggle’
as suggested by Fleming and Spicer (2008) to underscore the ongoing dialectical process involved
in the interrelations between power and resistance allows us to examine these dynamics in a
complex context where the juggling between these two is crucial for an understanding of resistance
boundaries in a specific cultural context. Highly conservative and authoritarian societies are bounded
by strict rules of what is allowed/possible and what is not probable due to harsh sanctions; thus, the
range of forms of resistance is much more limited. Our case shows that even in extreme conditions of
fundamentalist societies –where power and control are extremely tight and total compliance with
the authority’s rules is expected –there seems to be room for negotiation between compliance
and resistance.
Since the 1990s, several attempts to define resistance in organizations have been made by scho-
lars who emphasize the notion of resistance as a particular type of relation with power –one that
does not reiterate it but rather blocks, challenges, re-configures or subverts it. (For various definitions
of resistance see Ackroyd and Thompson 1999.) Hence ‘the meaning of resistance has undergone a
series of re-evaluations, making one single definition not only unfeasible, but also undesirable given
the importance of theoretical fluidity in contemporary organizational analysis’(Fleming and Spicer
2007, 40). Despite this disagreement over an acceptable definition, much effort has been invested
in identifying different forms of resistance. These new forms question the corporation’s power to
create fully disciplined employees, and resistance is no longer understood in terms of organized
overt union protests, but rather in terms of ‘micro-tactics’such as Svejkism (Fleming and Sewell
CULTURE AND ORGANIZATION 219
2002), skepticism and cynicism (Fleming and Spicer 2003), distancing (Kunda 1992), stories (Gabriel
1995), whistleblowing (Rothschild and Miethe 1994), aesthetic jamming (Wasserman and Frenkel
2011), and vandalism and destructive behaviors (LaNuez and Jermier 1994).
Recent studies point to new media –including blogs, Facebook and Twitter –as additional plat-
forms for expressing employees’resistance within organizations highlighting the creativity and
authorship of these unique organizational opponents (Schoneboom 2007,2010,2011a,2011b,
2015; Richards 2008,2011; Berkovich 2011; Richards and Kosmala 2013; Lefevre 2015). However,
whereas these resistance forms are employed by individuals using mainly cynicism to manifest per-
sonal dissatisfaction and/or to protest against organizational control and labor relations, not many
studies have examined, at the organizational level, the role of media as a resistance agent seeking
to challenge the social order. Our paper addresses this gap both by exploring the role of a religious
media organization in social change processes and by portraying resistance as a tricky notion that
may be manifested in various and sometimes contradictory ways. We show that in an authorita-
tive/religious context, resistance takes different forms that are more volatile and often harder to
detect than in Western/liberal environments. Thus, some of these forms are explicit while others
implicit; some are blunt and others subtle; and some are active and some quiescent. Our case
study exemplifies this complexity in a specific cultural context, in which the equilibrium between
these various manifestations of resistance takes the shape of a manifold form of resistance that
includes all these options simultaneously.
Organizational studies have paid insufficient attention to the religious context in which resistance
processes may take place (Gutierrez, Howard-Grenville, and Scully 2010; Tracey 2012). While most of
the existing literature that treats the interrelationship between religion and organizations is focused
at the individual level –in particular, by showing how religion shapes employees’identities (Cairns
and Mercer 1984; Chusmir and Koberg 1988; Weaver and Agle 2002; Vitell 2009)–only scant atten-
tion has been paid to the ways in which religious organizations resist their socio-cultural environment
(see Chaves 1996; Lindsay 2006; Scheitle and Dougherty 2008; Koç 2012). Moreover, these researchers
have not investigated the unique resources available to religious organizations in resisting their fun-
damental, hegemonic authority.
To bridge this gap, our paper explores the complex dynamics of resistance in religious organiz-
ations by exposing the tension between structural constraints affecting the organization and its
agentic power in processes of change. Given that change in a religious context has a unique
dynamic (Bartunek and Ringuest 1989), we illustrate empirically the dynamic process through
which a religious organization not only struggles over and shapes its identity, but also –and
especially –strives to change its environment.
Our focus on a religious and authoritative context highlights yet another theoretical aspect of
resistance, namely that of the intentionality and consciousness of the resisting actors. In a society
such as the ultra-Orthodox community in Israel, which has clear norms and behavioral rules
embedded in an authoritarian structure, any act that deviates from accepted behavioral patterns is
accompanied by a high level of consciousness and cannot be regarded as an unintended act of oppo-
sition to hegemony. Though the degree of intentionality in resistant actions has been thoroughly
debated (see Fleming and Spicer 2008), our contribution lies in a better understanding of the impli-
cations of this intentionality, arguing that in a fundamentalist society as the Haredi community resist-
ing acts take a unique form in order that actors may challenge authority without being expelled from
the community.
Haredi society and the media
To better understand the context that enabled the rise of alternative platforms to voice dissident
views within the Haredi society, we first present some of the main characteristics of this society
and examine the nature of its media.
220 V. WASSERMAN AND I. GABEL
Numbering around 800,000 people (almost 9% of the Israeli population), the ultra-Orthodox com-
munity in Israel has a distinctive cultural ideology that rejects the values and practices of wider
secular Israeli society. Due to the extreme conservatism of Haredis (plural of Haredi), any contact
with a secular, modern lifestyle is perceived as a threat to the community and is condemned.
Thus, isolation from the modern Israeli environment –including employment, education, residence,
the legal system and media –is encouraged and praised. Moreover, since the ethos of work, as it is
manifested in the Western world, is rejected by Haredi society, employment (especially in the secular
labor market) is considered inferior whereas total devotion to religious studies is perceived as ideal.
Despite the Israeli state’s attempts to intervene in Haredi society by encouraging Haredis’assimilation
into the labor market, education and military service, their isolation has been maintained –and even
increased –over many decades, partly because the state has provided economic support to them.
As with other religious fundamentalist communities, Haredi society is characterized by a rigid hier-
archy based mainly on the subordination of large groups to an elite rabbinical authority that often
professes the bestowal of divine authority (Barzilai-Nahon and Barzilai 2005). Haredi society is a
highly disciplined society wherein rabbis are the sole source of information, norms and daily rules.
There is an unequivocal expectation that the rabbis will be obeyed, and there is no place for alterna-
tive opinions; thus, any deviation leads to severe sanctions. Ultra-orthodox media have traditionally
taken on the role of preserving these ideals by voicing the rabbinical imperatives and maintaining
their hegemony. Since in the Haredi society the written word is perceived as a key component of
its culture, and because literacy is sanctified, the print media gained primary status as the mouthpiece
of rabbinical hegemony. Furthermore, since ultra-orthodox magazines and newspapers were ident-
ified with a specific political party, their readers were ‘captive audiences’of the rabbinical leadership,
which rigorously dictated the content of these media channels.
However, in the last two decades the media environment has profoundly changed, allowing for
the emergence of independent commercial magazines with a relatively liberal slant. These magazines
have succeeded despite many rabbis’blunt opposition to them, and their circulation has increased
enormously since the 1990s (Zicherman 2014). These popular independent magazines attracted non-
conformist editors and journalists and enabled them to voice non-conformist views, especially in
regard to the question of integration with the wider Israeli society. One of the main factors contribut-
ing to the liberalization of journalistic discourse was the emergence of new means of communication,
among others the Internet and cellphones, which ended the isolation from the secular world by
giving voice to alternative views. Internet and alternative media channels exposed Haredis to
other sources of information that challenged rabbis’monopoly and weakened their position as undis-
puted leaders. As a result, modernization has slowly seeped into the Haredi lifestyle, and the Israeli
liberal ethos has had an impact on Haredi daily practices.
Furthermore, the social, political and economical environment in which media operate has also
changed fundamentally, allowing the emergence of a discourse that portrays work and employment
as legitimate options. Specifically, the growing poverty that Haredi people could no longer bear has
caused many Haredis to acquire professional skills and use them to increase their income outside the
community instead of devoting themselves to religious studies. This phenomenon has gradually
escalated to gigantic proportions and has facilitated more and more encounters with secular
society. As a result, the legitimacy of a ‘working Haredi’has grown, and alternative media channels
can easily voice and even encourage it. Moreover, during the last decade the rabbis who led the com-
munity with their charismatic aura passed away, leaving a political void that enabled the media to
voice their own opinions on work and involvement in Israeli society (Zicherman and Cahaner 2012).
These processes together shaped a new form of religious media that is more profit-oriented and
less ideological, more independent and liberal and less isolated and political. As part of the blurring of
boundaries between secular and religious societies, professional journalism norms have infiltrated
the religious media, which now resemble the secular media in their content, graphic format and pro-
fessional ethics (Neriya-Ben Shahar 2008). Accordingly, new Haredi media dare to tackle previously
camouflaged disputed social phenomena and thereby promote their pluralist tendencies.
CULTURE AND ORGANIZATION 221
Methodology
In order to examine how a media organization constructs an alternative discourse in the ultra-Ortho-
dox society, we focus on the most controversial discourse in that society, namely the higher edu-
cation and employment of Haredis. Our analysis is qualitative and carried out in accordance with
the methodological approach of critical discourse analysis (CDA) (Glaser and Strauss 1999; Creswell
et al. 2007; Wodak and Meyer 2009). CDA is a theoretical and methodological perspective that
focuses on the relationship between discourse and society. It has been deployed in various research
fields such as sociology, communication, philosophy, organization studies, and more (Fairclough
1992; Van Dijk 2001). According to CDA, discourse contributes to the shaping of meaning systems,
construction of social identities and interrelations between groups.
One of the most significant models in CDA theory is Fairclough’s(1992) framework, which contains
three analytical dimensions: the linguistic and visual aspects of a text (vocabulary, grammar, syntax
and sentence coherence), the discursive practices around the production and consumption of texts
(the ways that discourse is produced, circulated, distributed and consumed) and the social practice of
the text as an ideological tool (the ideological effects of discourse and its contribution to the
reinforcement of power relations). We refer to these dimensions in our efforts to better understand
the role of ultra-Orthodox journalistic discourse in constructing social power relations. Since dis-
course is both socially constituted and constitutive, the media are a highly suitable platform for
exposing the ways in which discourse reconstructs power relations as well as enables the emergence
of resisting voices.
To better understand a wider social phenomenon, we chose to focus on a single-case study meth-
odology, one often seen as suitable to the purpose of generating theory (Eisenhardt 1989; Yin 1994;
Eisenhardt and Graebner 2007; Siggelkow 2007). A single-case study can richly describe a phenom-
enon that might be an extreme or rare example of the theory but one that enables the researchers to
better explore the special circumstances in which the theory ‘works’(Eisenhardt and Graebner 2007).
The case of Mishpacha is especially suitable for this purpose, since it provides abundant examples of
subversive discourse that enable us to delve into the ways in which an authoritative order can be
challenged by a single organization. Thus, based on content analysis of 229 articles published in
the weekly magazine, Mishpacha, we were able to decipher the various forms of resistance used
to construct an alternative discourse.
Data collection
This paper is part of an extensive longitudinal study of a Haredi media organization that seeks to trace
the emergence of new resisting ideas that challenge the Haredi hegemony. Our corpus was built
through the purposive sampling of texts –including articles, editorials, personal columns and
other items –published in Mishpacha in the years 2002–2013. The sampling was supported by com-
puter software that identified texts with relevant keywords such as ‘work’,‘employment’,‘work organ-
izations’as well as ‘higher education’,‘university’and ‘academy’. During an initial selection 709 items
were found from which 229 were chosen as most suitable since they directly address these issues.
The prolonged period (12 years) of the research enabled a processual analysis that is unbiased by
specific events in the past and instead to unravel sustainable longitudinal processes which are
anchored in major social changes within the society.
As secular researchers we did not have any contact with Haredi society or media prior to this
research project. Therefore, this study has thrown up many challenges, including the cultural distance
from Haredi norms and the difficulties in understanding the latent messages in the texts. To this end,
we worked together with a Haredi research assistant who is familiar with the complexity of Haredi
images and metaphors. This cooperation yielded the integration between the estranged perspective
and close familiarity, between the analytical observations of the external scholar and the interpret-
ation of an insider actor embedded in the community’s culture.
222 V. WASSERMAN AND I. GABEL
The case
Mishpacha is a Haredi weekly newspaper that was established in 1987 by a group of investors and
Haredi media people. Unlike other Haredi newspapers in Israel, Mishpacha is not affiliated with
any specific Haredi stream or political party. Mishpacha is thus able to target a wide range of ultra-
Orthodox readers and reflect the various views of different parts of the Haredi community. On the
one hand, it complies with hegemonic practices in Haredi society that require rabbinical surveillance
of every aspect of personal and social life, including media discourse, but on the other, its religious
stance is very moderate.
Originally a monthly magazine, it later became a weekly due to its growing circulation. For the last
few years Mishpacha has been the most widely read magazine in Israel’s ultra-Orthodox community,
reaching more than one-third (34.5%) of the Haredi audience in 2014. Mishpacha regards itself as a
high-quality magazine that offers a new form of Haredi journalism, distinct from hegemonic Haredi
media in terms of both form and content.
The official aim of the magazine is to be ‘a catalyst for conversation, discussion, and debate, both
around the table and around the globe’(as of February 14, 2016, the magazine listed on its website:
http://www.mishpacha.com/Browse/Article/71/Mission-Statement). Accordingly, Mishpacha is pub-
lished in two different versions: one in Hebrew for the local community and a more limited
version in English targeting the relatively liberal American Haredi community. Each magazine has
its own journalists and editorial staff and publishes different content, but the very fact that the maga-
zine has an English version provides a hint at its more liberal attitudes. We focus only on the Hebrew
version, because resistance in the local conservative context is much more challenging.
The professional team includes 180 journalists and editors recruited from all ideological streams
Haredi society, ranging from the most conservative groups to the relatively liberal ones. In addition to
the regular staff, Mishpacha often hosts guest writers. The organizational structure and the plethora
of views and lifestyles expand the range of topics covered by Mishpacha and widen its relatively plur-
alistic stance.
Mishpacha was chosen as our case study due to its distinctive characteristics and because it is
indicative of a significant social change in Haredi society. Specifically, it reflects a unique discourse
in religious society that challenges the hegemonic Haredi discourse. Its wide circulation indicates
its profound resonance and is reflective of a new cultural atmosphere that has emerged within
the ultra-Orthodox community. Furthermore, the hegemonic Haredi media often attack Mishpacha
and its moderate ideological line, a struggle that has been extensively discussed in the Haredi com-
munity. We can therefore conclude that the alternative discourse put forward by Mishpacha is not a
marginal trend, but rather reflects a profound social controversy within Haredi society.
Data analysis
Our analysis is based on an interpretative approach and on searching for repetitive patterns (Denzin
and Lincoln 1994) in order to expose various discursive forms of resistance performed by the
magazine.
In our first reading of the texts, we noticed the abundance of items about employment and aca-
demic education, which hints at the significance of these controversial issues. These items varied con-
siderably in the attitudes they expressed towards employment, as well as in terms of their linguistic
idioms.
Next, each of the authors carried out a second meticulous reading of all texts, which were classi-
fied into phrases, terms and opinions articulated by the reporters. These phrases included comments
on the opportunities embodied in higher education and the potential perils of employment.
In the third stage, each of the authors identified possible conceptual patterns and thematic simi-
larities, and compared our insights with each other. We then categorized these patterns in terms of
CULTURE AND ORGANIZATION 223
discursive practices. For example, texts that quote rabbis who permit studying at university and refer-
ences to medieval Jewish sages could all be grouped into a node labeled ‘rabbinical legitimacy’.
The fourth stage consisted of searching for links among the abovementioned practices and col-
lapsing them into theoretical clusters, which we then labeled as ‘forms of resistance to hegemonic
discourse’–cushioning, discursive hybrids, explicit provocation and trivializing –all of which
reflect different ways of coping/resisting the hegemonic ideology (see Table 1).
Our data analysis is a result of a recursive rather than a linear process, whereby we moved itera-
tively between the initial categories and theoretical clusters until an adequate framework was con-
solidated. To ensure that our interpretation is compatible with the cultural context of Haredi
society, we consulted with Haredi journalists. This involved asking them for their insights, jointly dis-
cussing the data and reaching a deeper interpretation of it.
Results
Our data reveal that while the hegemonic ultra-Orthodox discourse encourages isolation, magazines
such as Mishpacha present a different stance, one that reflects emerging voices calling for a more
integrative approach that would lead to improvement in the economic status of members of the
ultra-Orthodox community. Our data show that Mishpacha resists the authoritarian hegemony and
seeks appropriate patterns and platforms to manifest its resistance by echoing existing internal dis-
putes within the community.
However, this stance involves an internal conflict. On the one hand, Mishpacha maintains the rab-
binical leaders’status and avoids openly undermining their legitimacy; on the other hand, though, it
is attentive to the growing economic distress within the community and calls for further integration
with secular Israeli society. Therefore, in an attempt to cope with contradicting pressures, the maga-
zine has developed various forms for constructing a multi-vocal discourse within the Haredi
community
In order to resolve this internal conflict, Mishpacha adopts four forms of discursive resistance, each
of which entails specific practices. The first form –cushioning –involves the ‘softening’of employ-
ment and higher education as secular practices presenting them as unthreatening (or less threaten-
ing). In the second form of resistance –discursive hybrids –Mishpacha simultaneously presents in
various manners competing opinions and attitudes, thus creating a pluralistic discourse that is unty-
pical of ultra-Orthodox societies. The third form –explicit provocation –is a blunt resistance. The
fourth form –trivializing –frames employment and academic education as ‘non-issues’, as natural
developments of modern society, and as a ‘social fact’that should not be questioned.
Table 1 illustrates our data analysis and the theorization process.
We hereby present these four forms (Cushioning, Discursive hybrids, Explicit provocation and Tri-
vializing) of resistance in detail.
Table 1. Data analysis.
Textual examples Practices
Forms of
resistance
Interviews with respectable rabbinical figures Spokesmen Cushioning
‘Not all religious people can devote themselves to religious studies’Partial participation in higher
education
Grilak vs. Eichler’s personal columns Contesting opinions in personal
columns
Discursive hybrids
Advertisements, personal columns and articles Contesting opinions in different
genres
Publishing controversial issues during religious holidays Timing Explicit
provocationPraising secular skills Seeking secular legitimacy
The need for education derives from economic stress Compliance with bottom-up demands Trivializing
Prominent rabbinical figures who combine secular and religious
education
Presenting the controversy as a non-
issue
224 V. WASSERMAN AND I. GABEL
Cushioning
The first form of resistance that reflects an alternative discourse in Haredi journalism is cushioning,
that is, an allegedly ‘softened’challenging of hegemonic authority that is manifested in two practices.
One focuses on people (spokesmen) supporting higher education and work, and the other concen-
trates on the representation of higher education and work as a default for those who do not succeed
in religious studies.
Mishpacha publishes interviews with public figures, mainly rabbis, who are known for their enthu-
siastic support of the involvement of Haredi people in the secular labor market, but without directly
discussing the issue in those interviews. Since these figures’attitudes towards the secular world are
well known, the interview itself is a clear hint of the magazine’s own stand. This practice aims at legit-
imizing secular practices by leaning on rabbinical authorities who support it, thereby making it easier
for the audience to accept such views. It is important to note that in ultra-Orthodox society it is cus-
tomary to interview only people who support the magazine’s values. Interviews thus demarcate the
magazine’s community and are interpreted by the readers as a ratification of its agenda. For instance,
on 1 January 2009, Mishpacha published an interview with a rabbi, Pinchas Doron, who is also a uni-
versity professor [a highly exceptional combination of religious and secular realms]. Without even
directly discussing his attitude towards academic studies, his mere presence in Mishpacha’s discourse
signifies the legitimacy given to the involvement of Haredi people in secular society. Because Pinchas
Doron is a rabbi, by interviewing him, the magazine is able to put forward liberal points of view
without completely undermining unique religious cultural features. By using a figure known in the
community for a hybrid identity that straddles the secular and Haredi worlds, the magazine not
only seeks legitimacy for its identity, but also seeks to export this hybridity to Haredi society as an
ideal. Moreover, it expands the boundaries of the legitimate authority and promotes a much more
pluralistic understanding of orthodoxy and its acceptable leadership. It challenges the univocality
of Haredis as an authoritarian fundamentalist society that is led by a homogeneous single belief,
and thus it has the potential to elicit an effective counter-hegemonic force.
An additional practice used to ‘soften’the call to Haredis to enroll in the secular world is by limiting
it to people who cannot devote themselves to religious studies alone. In this way, the magazine
shows itself as accepting the moral supremacy of religious over secular life style. For instance,
Moshe Grylak, the editor and columnist, wrote: ‘Let it be clear: learning Torah day and night is the
peak. The Jewish Everest …the bright jewel in the crown …but not everyone can do it’(Mishpacha,
December 20, 2012).
It might be tempting to understand the cushioning form of resistance as a way of conforming to
hegemonic-traditional authority without offering a genuinely alternative discourse. However, it is
actually an elusive and tricky form of resistance operating in the guise of conformity, since it consti-
tutes a highly subversive strategy that allegedly embraces the dominance of traditional rabbinical
authority while at the same time hinting at another lifestyle as a valid option, even though it is
not the most preferable. Since in totalitarian societies such as Haredis resistance brings harsh sanc-
tions, resistance in the guise of conformity might be more effective (and thus more threatening). Such
resistance is difficult to locate and identify, and thus it constitutes a more tangible challenge to the
leadership.
Given that higher education and employment are perceived almost as revolutionary in this
community, the very act of raising it as an option must be seen as subversive and as enabling
the emergence of an alternative discourse in the Haredi community outside of the organization.
Cushioning enables Haredis who study and work to feel part of the ultra-Orthodox in-group
without undermining its basic values, and expands the range of legitimate behaviors. Its subtle
disposition reduces the potential antagonism that voices supporting secular culture may face,
and thus it may be potentially effective in its future impact. As an organization with a relatively
liberal social agenda, the magazine seeks to shape the Haredi community identity in subtle ways
in order to gain legitimacy for changes to the lifestyle acceptable within the community. However,
CULTURE AND ORGANIZATION 225
the organization does not wish to shake Haredi society to its foundations, but gain legitimacy
within existing social frameworks.
Discursive hybrids
In order to cope with the competing logics of the secular and religious worlds, Mishpacha adopts a
second form of resistance –discursive hybrids –whereby conflicting views are presented simul-
taneously, thus creating a pluralistic discourse that is untypical of ultra-Orthodox societies. This
form of resistance includes two main practices: (a) publishing columns by journalists identified
with rival streams within the ultra-Orthodox community in the same issue; and (b) expressing con-
testing opinions in different genres, such as news items and longer feature articles.
Mishpacha presents a relatively sympathetic attitude towards higher education and employment.
Moreover, Mishpacha’s editor, Moshe Grylak, is identified with the liberal stream that calls for further
involvement in secular society, including encouraging religious men to study at university and
provide for their families. Grylak is a well-known journalist and publicist who has participated in
various activities perceived as controversial in Haredi society: he worked for a secular newspaper
for more than a decade, and in recent years he has been active in a non-profit organization calling
for reconciliation between secular and religious communities in Israel. Unlike other religious publi-
cists, he has published several thrillers –which in itself is perceived as inappropriate –and has
tried to initiate a dialogue with secular society by writing books about religion and the religious com-
munity using secular idioms and imagery. These activities place the editor of the magazine at the
center of controversy with the more traditional streams in ultra-Orthodox rabbinical society.
Because the editor’s own ideas are published on a weekly basis in his personal column, and due
to his position as an editor who is entitled to define the magazine’s content and ideological line, Mis-
hpacha is perceived as a liberal magazine.
However, at the same time, several other journalists, such as Israel Eichler and Nathan Anshein –
prominent spokesmen of the traditional stream –have their own columns wherein they express com-
pletely different ideological positions, some of which perfectly oppose the editor’s stance. These
articles are published next to his pieces. As a result, contradictory views about the same topic
might be presented within a single issue, giving the impression that the magazine has no clear
and distinctive stance. In fact, this editorial policy may enable readers to independently arrive at
their own position.
The second practice in this category consists of publishing contradictory attitudes across differ-
ent genres, such as advertisements for academic studies alongside articles against academic
studies and employment. For instance, in a news item about the start of a new academic year,
attending a Haredi college is described as ‘the best opportunity to succeed in the economic
realm’and it is argued that ‘there is no substitute for a high-quality academic degree’(Mishpacha,
February 14, 2013). The article uses many secular idioms and imageries that are untypical to ultra-
Orthodox discourse, such as ‘excellence’,‘springboard to success’,‘respectable job’and ‘key role in
leading firms’. Consistent with Fairclough’s(1992) theoretical model, these idioms exemplify the
significance of the linguistic dimension of the text in demarcating Mishpacha’s ideological
resistance.
Simultaneously, in another opinion piece, academic studies are portrayed as part of secular
society’s demonic scheme to reduce the birthrate in religious families: ‘they [the secular society]
want fathers not to study in the Yeshiva but rather in a university …for one purpose: so that we
do not raise children in large families. They don’t want children at all, especially not Haredi children’
(Mishpacha,January 24, 2013).
The discursive hybrids form of resistance may seem ambiguous, and even spineless, as the maga-
zine appears to avoid expressing a clear and coherent stance, yet this ambiguity itself is a clear state-
ment, because in a hierarchical society, where the dominant authority imposes its agenda in every
aspect of daily life, contradictory opinions are unacceptable.
226 V. WASSERMAN AND I. GABEL
Furthermore, though presenting contesting opinions may seem to be an integral part of pro-
fessional ethics in secular environments, it is very rare in ultra-Orthodox media. Moreover, adopting
universal and professional ideals of neutrality and objectivity, which is regarded as a normative
imperative in secular journalism, is very controversial in Haredi society. Thus, even though the
journal publishes extremely traditional and conservative attitudes, the very act of allowing liberal
opinions to be heard is subversive, especially in a society that strives to homogeneity and
submissiveness.
The adoption of a universal professional ethics which originates outside the Haredi community,
and which is in many respects directly contrary to Haredi society, testifies to a migration of ideas
from secular society into the organization, and from the organization into Haredi society. Not only
does the organization function as the bearer of secular ideas and ethics, it also seeks to shape and
reshape extra-organizational Haredi identity and alter its character by inserting ideas which are con-
trary to this society.
Explicit provocation
As opposed to the first two forms of resistance, which are implicit in their nature, the third form
adopted in Mishpacha is the blunt provocation of hegemonic values and norms. One way of confront-
ing the ideological religious structure is by presenting controversial figures as role models, particu-
larly at times such as around religious festivities, when it is expected to comply with the
community’s values and to valorize religious heritage. A second practice in this regard is to empha-
size the importance of gaining legitimacy from secular society by showing off recognition granted by
public secular figures and by praising ‘secular skills’.
The first practice relates to dealing with controversial topics or individuals in special issues pub-
lished around the time of religious festivals. In September 2010, Mishpacha dedicated the Sukkoth
special issue to higher education and working people, praising the opportunities it opens up for
Haredis. Since religious festivities are special occasions that enhance traditional values and social
cohesion, Mishpacha’s decision to devote entire issues for the important festivals of Sukkoth
(2010) and Passover (2011) to this controversial subject is a clear and intentional act of defiance.
As evidence of the severity of this act, it sparked one of the most vigorous debates within ultra-
Orthodox society, played out in a fierce struggle between Mishpacha and competing newspapers,
including mutual attacks and threats in different platforms, and revealing the deep ideological
gaps within Haredi society. Rabbis condemned the editor and called on their followers to boycott
the magazine.
Despite the harsh condemnation to which it was subjected, six months later, in Passover 2011,
Mishpacha once again published a special issue about young Haredi people who had acquired an
academic education and succeeded in their careers. In fact, by presenting people who had
adopted a ‘modern’lifestyle that deviates from the traditional ideal type as role models, Mishpacha
was defying the core ethos of the Haredi community.
The second type of provocation is to emphasize the importance of receiving legitimacy from
secular society, which is an unacceptable posture in Haredi society, where secular lifestyles and
values are usually perceived as immoral, materialistic and inferior. For example, in a news item doc-
umenting the end of the academic year in a religious college, it was pointed out that the Minister of
Communications and Social Welfare attended the ceremony, praising ‘graduates [who had] success-
fully been integrated into the labor market and who were working in law companies, as accountants,
in the civil service and in private companies’(Mishpacha, July 26, 2012). Another example may be
found in the abovementioned special issue published in Passover 2011, where the Governor of
the Bank of Israel was invited to express his support for Haredis employment.
Another way of asserting legitimacy is to point to secular recognition of the unique abilities of reli-
gious people in realms that are mostly appreciated in secular society. This can be seen in articles in
which secular politicians and businessmen express their admiration for the skills and abilities of
CULTURE AND ORGANIZATION 227
Haredis, which are said to surpass those of a typical secular employee. In some texts, the authors
acknowledge the importance of skills that are relevant in the secular world but not in the Haredi
world, such as computing abilities or a service orientation. For instance, in an article praising the per-
severance and learning capacities of Haredis, it was stated: ‘a businessman in the field of computer
software said that he can teach Yeshiva pupils the skills needed for programming in half the time
needed by other students to learn the same thing’(Mishpacha, August 14, 2008). Another article
cites the CEO of an Israeli bank: ‘[secular people] have no idea what they are missing. Banking is
one of the most complex and sophisticated arenas, and if Haredis can deal with it successfully,
they can deal with any branch of the economic field’(Mishpacha, September 21, 2010).
Secular figures, along with their norms and values, are not usually perceived as a source of
legitimacy. Thus, the very act of boasting about acceptance by secular society is very unusual.
Furthermore, as opposed to the forms of resistance discussed above, the form of explicit provocation
directly defies the hegemonic structure by presenting an alternative ideal type that adopts secular
criteria of success, thereby undermining the exclusivity of the idea of the Yeshiva student.
Following Fairclough’s(1992) conceptualization, this form reflects the dialogue between
Mishpacha and other texts within the religious community and with secular society. Examining the
inter-textual context of these articles allows for a deeper understanding of the complexity of both
the production and acceptance of Mishpacha’s controversial texts.
Not only does the organization enter a dialogue with secular society, but it also seeks to bring
secular values and work ethos into Haredi society. While the strategy noted in the previous paragraph
relates to the permeation of secular professional practices, in this case the secular work ethos and the
interrelation with secular society are celebrated. Moreover, the third strategy underlines the unique
interrelation among a Haredi organization, secular society and Haredi community, while the organ-
ization takes the role of bridging and channeling ideas and values between the societies.
Trivializing
The fourth form of resistance involves relating to academic studies and employment in the secular
labor market as a natural option that ‘suits the Haredis well’, thus framing them as a ‘non-issue’
that does not need to be negotiated or discussed. Employment and secular education are trivialized,
and the whole controversy regarding their legitimacy is neutralized. This form of resistance is man-
ifested in two practices: (a) portraying the demand for employment and academic studies as having
emerged from the bottom-up and not as an ideological agenda initiated by the magazine, and (b)
denying the intrinsic dichotomy between religious and the secular/occupational realms by present-
ing them as non-competing logics that can easily co-exist in daily life.
Many texts in Mishpacha assert that engaging in academic education and searching for a job in the
secular labor market are a result of economic distress, which drives religious people to resolve their
problems by enriching their human capital and improving their economic conditions. Some articles
even argue that this trend is not forced upon the community from the outside through governmental
intervention, which suggests a conspiracy against the Haredi lifestyle, but rather that Haredi people
are willingly choosing to study and work. For instance, the editor wrote: ‘Haredi people study [aca-
demic studies] not due to secular demands, but rather because of deep [economic] distress’(Mishpa-
cha, November 17, 2011).
In the Haredi context, this discursive practice is perceived as extremely subversive since it chal-
lenges and reverses rabbis’monopoly over dictating the agenda. In a typical hierarchical society,
authority lies solely with the leading stratum, which prescribes its rules and norms top-down,
mostly ignoring the lower strata’s circumstances and demands. The practice reported here thus
suggests a reversed power structure, since it is a grassroots call to rabbinical leaders to change
their guidelines and adopt a much more flexible and practical approach to dealing with economic
hardship.
228 V. WASSERMAN AND I. GABEL
The second practice strives to resolve the conflict between religious and secular studies or
employment by denying that there is an intrinsic dichotomy between them, thereby neutralizing
the controversy. For instance, a rabbi who works in the Israeli air force (a symbol of the secular
Israeli ethos) argues:
Surprisingly, I saw many things in my job that had already been discussed and resolved by the Rambam [Maimo-
nides, a prominent Jewish philosopher from the 12th century] …the more you learn [secular studies], the more
you understand that everything is already written in the ancient religious texts. (Mishpacha, January 1, 2004)
This quote shows how Mishpacha resolves the conflict not only by presenting Haredis as people who
easily combine secular and religious studies, but also by noting that this ‘combination’is deeply
embedded in ancient religious texts. This implies that there is no ‘real’religious prohibition but
rather it is a contemporary interpretation of Jewish rules carried out by rabbinical leaders who
strive to deepen the social isolation of the community.
Given that the rabbis’biggest concern is the collapse of the unique cultural structure of the Haredi
lifestyle, these articles seem to suggest that Haredi identity, commitment to the community and its
distinctive way of life are not actually threatened by engaging with secular society. Moreover, the tri-
vializing form of resistance blurs the clear distinction between ‘us’(the religious community) and
‘them’(secular society) and offers a more integrative perspective. In a society where isolation is an
ideology, cracking the boundaries between the community and secular society is considered revolu-
tionary since it challenges the taken-for-granted.
The process of integration is manifested in two steps that are implied in both of the practices
described above: the first step presents integration as a practical response to everyday hardships
endured by the ultra-Orthodox public, while the second step frames integration as a normative
and moral move. In other words, whereas the first practice regards integration as a kind of default
choice and does not idealize secular values, the second practice constructs integration as an ideal.
This process is an attempt to institutionalize a new type of Haredi through discursive means,
thereby undermining hegemonic dominance.
Discussion
Our paper has presented four discursive forms of resistance demonstrating that compliance and
resistance are not dichotomous opposites, but rather a continuum in which the organization
juggles various available strategies (Fleming and Spicer 2008). These forms of resistance are per-
formed simultaneously and they foster a unique and complex dynamic that broadens the spec-
trum of possibilities available to an organization operating in a highly authoritarian and
conservative environment. Presenting a range of resistance forms that are relevant to the specific
social/cultural context allows us to examine resistance in organizations as a contingency theory
and to explore how organizations operating within a certain social environment act according
to its cultural constraints. More specifically, our study shows that organizations operating within
authoritarian societies based on a clear hierarchy and strict discipline find it hard to express
blunt resistance, and thus seek creative and unusual ways of expressing alternative positions
vis-à-vis hegemony.
This study also reveals new forms of resistance that, when used simultaneously and/or alternately,
may increase the effectiveness of resistance. While many of the organizational studies focus on a
single form of resistance and discuss its effectiveness, we believe that multiple forms of resistance
allow for more flexibility in expressing resistant stances according to the changing circumstances
in which the organization operates. This notion is even more significant in an authoritarian commu-
nity, since organizations in this context must have the flexibility to sometimes be blunt, to adopt
moderate strategies or even to occasionally withdraw in order to constantly assess the range of poss-
ible modes of resistance without being denounced or ostracized. Since authoritarian and fundamen-
talist societies tend to isolate themselves from exterior influences, change can only be enacted by
CULTURE AND ORGANIZATION 229
actors from within this society. Thus, paradoxically, an extreme act of resistance that results in denun-
ciation and ostracism from the community may completely neutralize the agentic power to change it.
Mishpacha, as an organization operating in a conservative environment, has a dialectic attitude
toward the Haredi social structure, since on the one hand it aims at liberalizing (at least to a
certain extent) the orthodox society’s norms, and, on the other, it makes a substantial effort to
stay within the society and to comply with socially accepted restrictions. That is, it attempts to
change the Haredi society by legitimizing alternative modern lifestyles, but without denying or
destroying its core ideology. This ambivalence is reflected, inter alia, in the incoherence of the
various resistance forms and in the simultaneous use of the four forms, as well as in its attempts
to pretend to be submissive even when it is not. We believe that, unlike secular organizations, ‘insti-
tutional entrepreneurs’(Greenwood and Suddaby 2006) that operate in religious environments (as is
the case in this article), are able to initiate change mainly from within and usually in an incremental
way, since they have the liability to preserve the community and its core values but, at the same time,
to adapt to changes in their environments. Mishpacha as an institutional entrepreneur alternately
uses all four forms of resistance as ideological tools, and should thus be regarded as a significant
agent of social change in a cultural battle between modern Israeli society and traditional, highly con-
servative norms.
It is important to note, though, that Mishpacha is not the only example of the agentic power of
media. In fact, recent studies focus on the power of new media as a contested terrain in the late
modern realm by emphasizing their capacity to threaten the hierarchical structure of authoritarian
societies through their ability to expose their users to multiple sources of knowledge, to a variety
of stances and to actors outside the community (e.g. Barzilai-Nahon and Barzilai 2005). Although Mis-
hpacha is not an example of new media, it operates in a ‘media ecology’that is shaped by new media
practices wherein both journalists and audience are exposed to new discourses and norms. This
media environment, which provides publicity to alternative voices, creates the setting in which resist-
ance may gain legitimacy and eventually lead to radical social change.
While our case study focuses on a very distinctive environment, thus making it more challenging
to generalize from this case to other authoritarian environments, future researchers may want to
delve into the different patterns of authoritative control and the various possibilities for expressing
resistance therein. In our case, the combined use of all four strategies contributed to the challenging
of a fundamentalist society, but we suggest that future research should explore which different com-
binations are effective in other authoritative environments, and which other forms of ‘veiled’and con-
cealed resistance are available. Moreover, we did not assess the consequences of the resistant stance
of the magazine over time, but future research should deepen the understanding of the risks and the
price that resistant actors pay for their disobedience in fundamentalist institutional environments by
examining employees’, clients’and community members’points of view. Because of the religioniza-
tion of society and the increasing presence of religiosity in the public sphere and in the labor market,
it is crucial to re-examine our assumptions about the various patterns of resistance in different cul-
tural contexts.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
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