Judaism 3.0 : Judaism’s Transformation To Zionism

by Gol Kalev

Israeli Jews connect to their Judaism through Zionism in two ways. One is in a passive way: The most Jewish-related experience for an Israeli, religious and secular alike, is his life in Israel.

Unlike the Diaspora Jew, the Israeli Jew is reminded every day and every hour of his Jewish affiliation through his interactions – from buying groceries in Hebrew, through having shops closed on Shabbat.

But there is also a more consciousness connection to Judaism.

Secular Israelis are passionate Jews

due to their connection through the Jewish state – due to Zionism.

in the last few years there has been the beginning of a reversal: a shift of power and narrative from Tel Aviv back to Jerusalem – back to Zion.

shift from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is also a reflection of the overall decline of the disproportionate power of the seculars (Tel Aviv), and the Ashkenazis (Tel Aviv), and the rising power of Haredis (Jerusalem), National-Religious (Jerusalem), and Sephardis (Jerusalem).

It is not just the intercity shift that provides tailwind to the transformation of Judaism, it is also the developments within those two cities.

young Israelis not only dream of living in Tel Aviv, they actually move to Tel Aviv, yet most are temporary migrants.

The insecure young migrant from the periphery seems to feel the need to prove to the real Tel Avivians that he is cool

This was manifested, amongst other examples, by such migrants mistakenly perceiving anti-religious behavior as posh. It also manifested itself in other “Tel Aviv checklist items” which included artificial rejection of ideology and cynicism towards Zionism.

By the early 2010s, Tel Aviv became an exaggerated...

broader counter-trend against what was previously viewed as the “State of Tel Aviv” and its exaggerated relation to the anti-religious culture. Also, a growing percentage of the migrants to Tel Aviv are religious-lites, as well as people from Jerusalem, Haifa and other cities where the culture is more moderate and polite.

The “adulting” of the 21st century migrants to Tel Aviv is occurring as the older population of Tel Aviv is dying or moving to assisted living facilities.

dramatic rise of synagogue attendance in Tel Aviv.

A primary contributor to this revival is the French immigration to Tel Aviv.

This paves the way for the domestic migrants to “come out” and do the same

Ultimately, the Israeli seeks to arrive at the “Promised Land” – get married, build a family and move out of Tel Aviv. Tel Aviv is for “when you are young and single,”

any perspective that Tel Aviv stands in the way of the strong embrace of Zionism is mitigated by the fact that, just like Uganda, it represents for many young Israelis a “phase,” not an “ideal.”

most Israelis maintain arms-length relations to Zion. They would rarely visit Jerusalem, and associate Jerusalem with terrorism, overt religiosity, the old, conflict and poverty. But things are changing in Jerusalem.

Hebrew University

Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design

top-notch museums, sold-out annual international art shows ...

infrastructure and urb...

Jerusalem of the 2020s is more accommodating to Israelis, young and old, than that of prior decades.

Shifting more of the Israeli narrative to Jerusalem (Zion) places a greater emphasis on the return to Zionism – the return to Judaism.

Jerusalem is the symbol of the half-full, while Tel Aviv tends to be perceived as the half-empty – complaints, cynicism, even negativity.

the shift to Jerusalem is a shift away from cynicism.

in recent years the periphery has been rising.

This provides further strength for the Jewish transformation because people in the periphery tend to be more idealistic, less susceptible to artificial anti-ideological fashion that exists in certain circles in Tel Aviv, and indeed tend to display their Zionism more overtly (similar to the situation in other places such as in the United States).

The increased exposure Israelis have to Jerusalem and the rise of the periphery also leads to a greater exposure to Arabs and the shedding of myths.

grown in recent years to admiration and consumption of Arab culture, including in music, art, language and cuisine.

there is no substantial “Yiddish-philia” in the Israeli general society – quite the opposite. This is a further indication that a transformation is taking place – the Israeli Jew’s conduit to his Jewish identity is through his national realities in the State of Israel, which naturally includes an element of Arab culture and not Eastern Europe culture.

The notion of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people

this narrative is more and more being accepted by the non-Jewish population of Israel as well, which comprises about 25% of the country’s population.

the Israeli Arabs’ connection to Judaism is external, and it is clearly channeled through the Jewish nation and not the Jewish religion.

But in the 70 years that have ensued, Israeli Arabs have developed a narrative that is distinct and different from that of the Palestinians.

Israeli Arabs are by now closer culturally to Israeli-Jews than they are to Palestinian Arabs living in the West Bank, Gaza or Jordan.

Israeli Arab society

ability to disconnect or suppress politics.

The old narrative of “Jews go back to Europe” is gone.

The 2018 Nation-State Bill that reaffirmed that Israel is the nation- state of the Jewish people was met with far more objection in the Israeli Jewish society than it did in the Arab society,

The interaction of Israeli Arabs is with the Jewish nation, not the Jewish religion.

The Israeli model of symbiotic particularity is indeed in sharp contrast to the European model of multiculturalism – parallel societies with no synergies and in competition with one another. But it is also different from the American model of cultural pluralism, where multiple cultural branches are anchored in a strong common trunk – Americanism, as Israeli Arabs are not Zionists.

what connects Israeli Russians, Jews and non-Jews alike, to Israel is not the Jewish religion (Judaism 2.0) – it is Zionism (Judaism 3.0).

African migrant workers. But unlike the African migrant to Europe, in Israel there is a degree of integration that occurs through the children. The children go to schools, speak Hebrew, are often given Hebrew names, and within a few years, a proud and even patriotic generation of African migrants has risen in Israel.

They are not Jewish, nor want to become Jewish. They do not seek to join the Jewish religion.

Like the Druze and other non-Jews in Israel, the foreign-workers’ community accepts and adopts Zionism as the organizing principle for their life in Israel (Judaism 3.0).

A contributing factor to the transformation is the general shift in Israeli cultural influence from Europe to America. This is in part due to a shift of power away from the Ashkenazi elite,

Another factor is the shift from socialism