In this article, I’ve first coined the category “Jew Age” that interconnects “Jew” and “New Age”.
What’s unique in the Israeli-Jewish New Age, in comparison with the global arena of New Age? It is a society in which the central religion is Judaism, while in the western worls the main religion is Christianity (indeed, it is mainly a “secular” society in both cases, but it’s hard to classify a spiritual sector as “secular”…).
In order to study this significant difference, and reveal the unique Israel-Jewish coping eith the values of the new and global alternative spirituality, we’ve focused on a major difference between Judaism and Christianity – the issue of Halakha (law, praxis), the practical execution of commandments.
The article presents the glocal (global+local) character of New Age in Israel, and the New-Ageization processes which Judaism and Halakha undergo.
The article (some 13,000 words) in Journal of Alternative Spiritualities and New Age Studies, in an issue dedicated to the subject of globalisation. JASANAS was one of the first journals that dealt with contemporary alternative spiritualities, and was published by the Open University of Britain.
A similar article was published in Hebrew, and this research subject was also presented at conferences. See links below.
Abstract
New Age phenomena are increasingly present and legitimated in Israel, although quantitative data are sparse. The origins of New Age phenomena in Israel may be located along an axis, ranging from shared global (western ) forms to home-grown cultural products. Analyses of selected qualitative data at the local level explore the various relational approaches between New Age and traditional Jewish praxis along a secondary axis, ranging from indifference and opposition to adaptation and preservation. Indicative examples from the field suggest that, at the margins of established Israeli identities, a new minority group identity, that is of a unique local character, is distinguishable: what may be termed “Jew Age”.
Academic/Non-academic
Academic item
Bibliographical citation
Ruah-Midbar, Marianna, and Klin Oron, Adam, “Jew Age: Jewish Praxis in Israeli New Age Discourse”, in Journal of Alternative Spiritualities and New Age Studies 5 (2010): 33-63.
