A New Trend among Secular Israelis

The common wisdom about Israeli Jews is that there are two kinds:  secular and religious.  If you’re a secular Israeli Jew, this line of thinking goes, you live in Tel Aviv, and have little connection to Jewish tradition:  Yom Kippur for secular Israelis means a day spent at the beach; Shabbat might include a family dinner, but singing blessings isn’t a part of it; when secular Israelis study the Bible in school-children, they primarily study the books telling about Joshua’s conquest of the land.  Religion among Israeli Jews, on the other hand, is usually stereotyped as Orthodox or ultra-Orthodox, isolated from modern society and rigidly halakhic (adhering to Jewish law).

     I discovered that some of these stereotypes are cracking in Israel today.  During my sabbatical, I experienced a number of very interesting spiritual communities and met their leaders who might describe themselves as religious, but also as secular – perhaps as somewhere in between these two poles.  Dozens of prayer communities have been formed to celebrate Shabbat evening, which do so in a creative, spiritually-attuned non-Orthodox way.  (This is beyond what the Israeli Reform movement has already created.)  One community, called Niggun HaLev (“melody of the heart”), meets in the social hall room at a secular moshav of Nahalal and 

Israeli musician Etti Ankri now sings about Jewish religious themes

uses instruments for beautiful music for Shabbat evening prayers each week; many of those in attendance would otherwise call themselves secular, but they are regular attendees at Kabbalat Shabbat services each Friday.  At least forty communities similar to this one have formed over the past decade.  One community, Beit Tefilah Yisraeli, meets on the Tel Aviv beach each Friday night for Shabbat services, and draws hundreds of people each week.

Tel Aviv's "Beit Tefilah Yisraeli": Shabbat services on the beach

      Another example:  I attended a dedication party / concert for a new Hebrew book of secular poems on prayer (!), called Kirvat Makom; in between readings of the poems, a major Israeli musician, formerly secular, named Etti Ankri came to the stage to perform her songs of the prayer-poetry of Spanish Jewish poet Yehuda HaLevi (12^th century).  I became friendly with a rabbi, formerly ultra-Orthodox, who now leads a creative Jewish renewal community on a moshav near Haifa, at Beit Oren, focusing on meditation and the human attribute of love and caring, whose Ark is in the shape of a teepee.  All throughout Israel, there is renewed interest in the spiritual teachings of Judaism, as they might apply to modern life for secular Israelis, and this phenomenon has been documented by Israeli scholar Yair Sheleg.  Perhaps soon these two dichotomous two terms, secular and religious, might one day be replaced with a new conceptual norm that will describe most Israelis: “incorporating Jewish tradition and spirituality into our daily lives.”

-       Rabbi Andy Vogel

Watch this YouTube clip of musicians from "Nava Tehilla" (a Jerusalem alternative synagogue) singing "L'cha Dodi": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhPLDLAMQLg&feature=related

Listen to this YouTube clip of "Niggun HaLev" community, on the Nahalal moshav, singing words from Psalm  98:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVO4KDDDDXI
Watch singer Etti Ankri sing her version of  Yehudah HaLevi's poem "B'chol Libi": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SK8d9gmap8M