This study focuses on the creative reconstruction of Jewish history via a spiritual New Age perspective. Using the case of the Jewish Spiritual Renewal (JSR) narrative of the past and the land, this article aims to shed light on some of the cultural transformations which are taking place in contemporary Israeli public discourse, especially the reconfiguration of the association between Jewish history, contemporary spirituality, and the land. The JSR narrative recovers, reinterprets and remolds Jewish history in order to legitimize the claim for a spiritual renewal of the present. By offering new perspectives on the Jewish past and history, the JSR attempts to validate its postmodern and spiritual version of Judaism as an original, uncorrupted form of Jewish thought and practice. The comparison of the JSR narrative with the classical Zionist and Canaanite narrative reveals that the JSR spiritual narrative replaces particularistic and nationalistic values regarding the land with universal and global values concerning nature and the environment, in order to create a universal Jewish spirituality that caters to the identity needs of contemporary non-Orthodox Jewish Israelis.
This article asks why middle-class Israeli seculars have recently begun to engage with Jewish religiosity. We use the case of the Jewish New Age (JNA) as an example of the middle class's turn from a nationalised to a spiritualised version of Judaism. We show, by bringing together the sociology of religion's interest in emerging spiritualities and cultural sociology's interest in social class, how after Judaism was deemed socially significant in identity-based struggles for recognition, Israeli New Agers started culturalising and individualising Jewish religiosity by constructing it in a spiritual, eclectic, emotional and experiential manner. We thus propose that what may be seen as cultural and religious pluralism is, in fact, part of a broader system of class reproduction.
In the last decade, one can note among secular Israelis the growing interest in Jewish texts and non-orthodox Jewish ritual. This interest is manifested in the increasing numbers of secular Batei-Midrash (Houses of Learning), Batei-Tfila (Houses of Prayer), and Jewish secular mass events taking place seasonally. Common to these grassroots activities is the attempt to reconstruct the Jewish secular identity and include new Jewish dimensions within it. These activities have been named by scholars, media and activists as the Jewish Renewal phenomenon: Hitchadshut Yehudit. In this paper, we propose that the various Jewish renewal activities lead to collective action that alters the conception of secular Jewish identity. Using the prism of the 'New Social Movements'(NSM) theory we argue that the Jewish Renewal Movement is a NSM with a shared narrative and vision. The paper will present the characteristics of the various Jewish Renewal organizations that identify them as a New Social Movement and the movement's historical development from the 1960's to the present.
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