SOCIOLOGICAL AND RELIGIOUS ORIGINS OF THE NONPROFIT SECTOR IN ISRAEL

Third-sector non-profit associations and voluntarism among Jews develo ped primarily under stateless conditions for nearly 2000 years during the exile of the Jewish people from its homeland. Only in modern times , with the re-establishment of Jewish statehood, has there been cause to assess and study the relationship-between the non-profit sector and the state. This situation in which the voluntary, non-profit 'third s ector' developed in the absence of a state (and in some ways, acted as a substitute for it) on a worldwide basis for the specific purpose of preserving religious and group identity is a unique phenomenon among the nations of the world (Anheier and Siebel 1990; Powell 1986). This article describes some of the historical roots of the non-profit or 't hird sector' in Israel from a sociological, religious, political and s ocio-economic perspective, its relationship to the state, and some com parative trends in other countries.