Trends and Characteristics in the Study of Orthodoxy in the Israeli Academy / שקיעה ושכחה, פריחה ועניין – מגמות ומאפיינים בחקר האורתודוקסיה

This article traces several key stages and developments in the historical-critical study of Orthodoxy in Israeli academia. Although several works and projects of a documentary nature on the Old Yishuv have their roots at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with a few additional later exceptions, the systematic study of Orthodoxy emerged only in the late 1960–early 1970s. Since then, it has developed in various directions. The examination of these developments leads to several preliminary findings, such as a correlation between the state of Orthodoxy and its study. Namely, when Orthodoxy was perceived, both internally and externally, as weak and possibly disappearing in the foreseen future it did not receive much scholarly attention; but when it re-emerged with notable vigor, its study intensified and diversified considerably.