Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book aims to the relatively secluded sectors of ultra-Orthodox Jews. The ultra-Orthodox are restricted in their participation in the consumer market by religious dictates and by economic limitations, which derive primarily from the choice of many to attend institutions of religious learning rather than participate in the labor market. An account of consumption and market orientation in Israel can be indexed in dimensions, political-economic and sociocultural. The productivity and economies of scale of Israeli manufacturing and agribusiness as well as macroeconomic factors help account for the improved purchasing power of Israelis over this period. The rise of the Israeli-Jewish middle class has been traced to community-building in the pre-state era, and later to economic and political policies and ideologies of the 1950s–1970s.