Lecture: “And the Canaanite was then in the land” – Local Deities from Ba’al to Mother Earth in the Last Century

In the past century, two movements have glorified pagan mythology in the Land of Israel – the Canaanites, who first formed in the 1940s, and the Neopagans, who have been active since the late 20th century. Both movements opposed the conventional form of “Judaism” in Israel, while reviving and appropriating ancient traditions. However, despite this similarity – their concept of divinity is different (as well as a various other characteristics).
While the Canaanite movement referred to ancient local gods, the neo-pagans in Israel refer to deities from various cultures. The Canaanites worked mainly in the theoretical-literary field, in which they described the worship of nature and the gods, that is, the gods were mainly an idea, a symbol and an expression of values. In contrast, the neo-pagans work through ritualistic vanues and actually go out into nature, alongside their writings. Both movements have secular outlines, but are not really “secular”: the Canaanites ranged between atheism and plain belief, while the neo-pagans psychologize the deity in different ways, while also conduct magic and turn to the goddess.
Other differences concern gender and politics – although the goddess is resurrected in both movements, the initial Canaanite emphasis was on the power of YHWH and his awakening as a symbol of militancy and conflict, out of a nationalist ideology, expressed in male symbols. In contrast, the neo-pagans emphasize the goddess as a symbol of peace and harmony, from a universalist approach, and an emphasis on female symbolism.