A quiet “Jewish renaissance” is happening in Israel and has been growing for the last ten to 15 years in ways that were “unexpected in form and size.”
So contended Rabbi Benjamin Segal, 67, former president of Melitz-the Centers for Jewish and Zionist Education in Israel and former chair of the Masorti [Conservative] Movement in Israel.
Segal told an audience of about 20 people at Lake Park Synagogue on Oct. 4 that Israelis all over the country are finding and creating ways to study Judaism and traditional Jewish texts.
But they are doing this in ways that are small, grassroots, local, and not under the control of — and that generally do not receive funding from — any “roof organization,” he said.
Moreover, these efforts do not demand that participants become observant in any particular way, “not one inch,” he said.
Rather, he said, they are the “expression of a hunger” among many supposedly “secular” Israelis that Judaism and Jewish texts “should be available to me.”
This phenomenon has become significant enough that a book in Hebrew was published about it last year, “The Jewish Renaissance in Israeli Society: The Emergence of a New Jew,” written by Yair Sheleg, a researcher at the Israel Democracy Institute.
And the phenomenon has been going on long enough for Sheleg to contend that it is “not a fad, but a fact,” said Segal.
“This did not exist 20 years ago,” said Segal. Moreover, at that time “no one would have predicted” that any such thing would happen, he added.
Segal said this renaissance manifests itself in many phenomena:
• Some 40 “Batei Midrash,” houses of study or “secular yeshivas” have appeared around Israel. Most of the participants come to them once a week, and their teaching staffs are either secular or mixed secular-religious.
• About 30 “kehillot lomdot” or “learning congregations” have arisen. Most of them exist just for members to gather and study – “they want to form community around learning” — though “a few of them have started to have services,” Segal said.
• Between 17 and 20 “mechinot” now exist. These are secular parallels to programs that allow religious young Israelis to study for a year before entering the Israel Defense Force for the mandatory military service. The difference is that the mechinot teach philosophy and contemporary Hebrew poetry as well as Jewish texts.
And the participants are “the best of the people. The future leaders of Israel are in these mechinot,” Segal said.
• Israelis are developing a variety of “alternative lifecycle ceremonies.” For example, Segal said he attended a “Jewish but not religious” wedding that took place under a canopy and that recited “seven blessings” that do not mention God. He said there are also alternative bar and bat mitzvah ceremonies and funeral services; and some Israelis have formed “secular prayer circles.”
• In formal education, “rising from the bottom” are efforts to “make secular schools more Jewish,” Segal said.
The biggest of these is called TALI (a Hebrew acronym of words that mean “more Jewish studies”), which is sponsored by the Conservative movement, but “doesn’t ask people to be Conservative.” It has more than 150 public schools in Israel, he said.
And there are others, such as ORT schools, which are bringing more Jewish study into their halls, Segal said.
• Israeli community centers “weren’t involved in Jewish culture 10, 15 years ago,” Segal said. Now they are hosting services. Some 85,000 people attended High Holiday services at community centers in 2008, and “these are people who don’t go to shul.”
In the same year, 250,000 Israelis attended Tu B’Shevat seders at community centers, he said. These people “wanted to be involved in this little corner” of Jewish observance, he said.
• In Israeli university-level Jewish studies are two trends. One is that formal academic study of the Bible and Talmud in the major institutions — The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the like —is declining, Segal said.
Nevertheless, many Israelis are seeking to obtain second degrees in Jewish studies from such institutions as the Hartmann Institute and the Solomon Schechter Institute, “the two that give advanced Jewish studies degrees that are relevant to teaching,” he said. “It’s all connected to doing things — take it into your classroom.
“People want it to live. They don’t want it as an academic pursuit.”
• “No one knows” the number of informal and free Torah portion of the week study groups that meet around Israel, Segal said. But they are attracting sometimes hundreds of Israelis, sometimes in audiences that are mixed religious and secular people, he said.
• Finally, Israelis all over the country in all kinds of settings, from homes to community centers, are in their own ways observing the custom of “tikkun leyl Shavuot” – studying all night during the evening of the holiday of Shavuot, Segal said.
Segal pointed out that this renaissance may have limitations and problems. Some of these efforts “scratch for money” privately, and that funding could run out.
Above all, “this does not mean observance. The people are accepted as who they are,” Segal said. “That allows these people to learn, and sometimes choose” among observances.
And this movement is “wildly opposed” to religious compulsion or privilege, the products of the long-time mixing of religion and state in Israel, he said.
Segal came from Philadelphia and has lived in Israel since 1973. He is retired and is currently doing research and writing, working now on a commentary on the book of Psalms.
He came to Milwaukee to serve as High Holidays cantor at Lake Park Synagogue, but was asked to give some talks on aspects of life in Israel.
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