Renewal, Innovation, and Transformation: The Changing Face of Judaism in Modern Times

Dear Colleagues,

The decades following World War II have witnessed momentous changes in the character of Judaism, in the variety of its groups, and their interactions with larger cultural trends. This has been demonstrated in the formations of numerous new movements, spiritualities, modes of prayer, leadership patterns, and educational or outreach venues.  These transformations have affected all segments of Jewry, at times unwittingly.

Many have noticed the growth in numbers, firmness, and political clout of anti-modernist Ultra-Orthodox groups, including yeshivot, Hasidic courts, and Ultra-Orthodox towns and neighborhoods. Hardalim amalgamated Ultra Nationalism with Ultra-Orthodoxy. The movement, which emerged in the 1980s‒1990s currently makes up the bulk of the ideologically committed settlers in the West Bank. Ultra-Orthodox Jews have also come up with outreach venues attempting to bring non-observant Jews to ‘Return to Tradition’. Many have paid attention to Chabad, formerly a mystical Hasidic group, that has turned into an outreach order with thousands of Jewish evangelists. However, non-Hasidic Orthodox activists have also come to engage in evangelism, inventing outreach yeshivot. Both progressive and traditionalist Jewish feminists turned many synagogues into more egalitarian spaces, allowing women greater access to Jewish spirituality, learning, and rabbinical leadership. The Renewal movement, which came out of New-Hasidism, amalgamated Hasidic practices with the values and tastes of the counterculture. Gay congregations, women’s minyanim, secular yeshivot, and Kabbalah centers are but a few examples of the numerous new groups or venues that have come to characterize Judaism in the last generation. A category of their own, even more challenging to older definitions of Judaism, have been the new borderline communities that have attracted relatively large numbers of Jews in the last decades. Messianic Jewish congregations, Jewish Buddhists, and Hebrew Catholics amalgamate Jewish identity with practices and elements of faith that previous generations have considered incompatible with the Jewish tradition. 

The new Jewish spiritual and communal landscapes and their new or renewed movements and trends call for new examination and evaluation of the definition of Judaism in our generation and the many expressions it has taken. It is the aim of this Issue to offer an opportunity for scholars to share their explorations of these themes.

Prof. Dr. Yaakov Ariel
Guest Editor

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