Multiple Modernities: A View from Jerusalem

This essay is a reflection on Peter Berger’s “Further Thoughts on Religion and Modernity” (Society, 49:4) from the perspective of S. N. Eisenstadt’s concept of “multiple modernities” that is rooted in his experience as a Zionist scholar educated in Jerusalem and concerned with Jewish society throughout history and in the present. Eisenstadt’s concept of “civilization” reflects an appreciation that many diverse and even apparently contradictory strands may co-exist, and it rejects religion and secularism as dichotomous and mutual exclusive. Eisenstadt’s approach is thereby complementary to Berger in finding that modern societies can and do comprehend both and that pluralism and co-existence more accurately describe contemporary societies.