הסתגלות של הרוחניות היהודיות הצפון-אמריקנית בישראל

Abstract

This paper focuses on the cultural translation and adaptation of North American Jewish spirituality (JS) in Israel. JS emerged in North America in the late sixties and early seventies and absorbed the universalistic, open and inclusive approach typical of the counterculture and of the subsequent New Age forms of spirituality. When JS entered the Jewish Israeli scene in the late nineties it was adapted by two different socio-religious groups: secular New Age Israelis and the National-Religious public. As adopted by secular Jews who belong to the New Age spiritual milieu it retains (most) of the universal values that characterize the North American JS. At the same time, it reconstructs Jewish rituals in accordance with Israeli New Age aesthetics. When it is absorbed by Religious-Zionist Jews, its Jewish particularistic affinities are accentuated and the universal-cosmopolitan aspects are blurred, or even, in cases like that of R. Yitzchak Ginsburg, obliterated, creating a nationalistic version of JS.