Render Unto Caesar

Not long ago on the program a figure with the beard and clothes of the ultra-orthodox took his son to the zoo. They looked at various animals and then came to a cage in which a naked man sat reading a newspaper. ''What's that?'' the son asked. ''They used to be quite common,'' the father replied, ''but I think that is the only one left.'' The sign on the cage said: ''Secular Zionist.''

The joke was a bitter one for the non-orthodox majority of Israel's Jews. For it expressed the feeling of many that the rise of the ultra-orthodox in numbers and political power is hemming them in -- and changing the nature of Israeli society.

In the election last May the ultra-orthodox were a disciplined bloc that produced crucial votes for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. They have gained political influence accordingly. State subsidies to various orthodox sects for religious education and other purposes have grown. So has pressure to make the society as a whole conform to orthodox religious rules.

What most acutely worries less observant Jews is the sense that some elements among the ultra-orthodox, believing that the ultimate political authority is divine, do not accept the command of the democratic state. Ruth Gavison of the Hebrew University law faculty said: ''Israel today faces groups that don't believe in democracy, and they are growing stronger -- forces that say the ultimate source of authority in Israel is not democracy but halacha,'' Jewish religious law.

The assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin a year ago brought the fears to a head. Some rabbis had suggested that Mr. Rabin might deserve punishment as a traitor because he had agreed to give up Israeli control of part of the West Bank. His assassin, Yigal Amir, claimed after the event that he was fulfilling a religious duty.

After the assassination the tone of even extreme orthodox voices seemed to moderate. But more recently there have been fresh attacks: this time on the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Aharon Barak.

Several months ago an ultra-orthodox weekly paper published an article saying that the religious public had ''a dangerous enemy. He is called Aharon Barak.'' The paper said he was ''the driving force behind a sophisticated campaign against Jewish life in Israel.'' It urged readers ''not to waste our shells. The battle must be focused on this man.''

The attack on Justice Barak stemmed from a Supreme Court decision blocking an official order to close a major circumferential road in Jerusalem on the sabbath because it passes near an orthodox neighborhood. Security officials took the verbal attack seriously; Justice Barak has had a bodyguard since then. And many people saw the attack as part of an attempt to delegitimize the laws and institutions of the state.

The Rabin assassination was the subtext of an international conference in Jerusalem last week on the subject, Freedom of Speech and Incitement Against Democracy. The question in everyone's mind was whether Israel should have prosecuted those who sought to arouse hatred against Mr. Rabin, thus perhaps averting the assassination.

Most of the speakers thought it would have been unwise to act against the preachers of hate, among other reasons because it might have made them martyrs. But the seriousness of the concern was shown by recurring references to the fate of the Weimar Republic in Germany when it failed to prosecute Hitler and his Nazi colleagues for their inflammatory speeches.

A number of highly-respected Israelis spoke to me, with anxiety, about the widening split between the ultra-orthodox and others -- about the inability of the two sides even to communicate with each other. I think the problem is the most dangerous facing Israel. We know now that there are ways to resolve the conflict with the Palestinians. No one is sure how to bring the two sides in the internal conflict together.