Jews and New Religious Movements: An Introductory Essay

Jews and New Religious Movements
An Introductory Essay
Yaakov Ariel
ABSTRACT: Throughout the modern era, Jews have established a series

of new religious movements that in general have represented the
influence of changing social and cultural realities on Jewish communal
expressions. Since the 1960s, a number of new Jewish movements have
utilized neo-Hasidic teachings to re-engage Jews in the spiritual elements
of their tradition. Many Jews have also shown interest in new religious
movements outside the Jewish fold, often playing a disproportionately
large role in such groups. Bringing certain preferences and sensitivities
with them, Jews who have joined such groups have often wished to retain
some of their Jewish heritage and opted to combine their Jewish identity
with their newly formed communities and practices. The Jewish venture
into new religious movements has ultimately expanded the boundaries
of Jewish life and the varieties of Jewish expressions, complicating
formerly perceived notions of Jewish choices and affiliations.
V
isitors to the New Goloka Temple in Hillsborough, North
Carolina, would immediately be struck by the ethnic diversity of
this thriving ISKCON community, which includes many devotees
not of South Asian origin. Less immediately apparent, and perhaps sur-
prising to discover, is that the ethnic-religious background of the indi-
viduals who founded and lead this community is Jewish. These Jewish
devotees to Lord Krishna are not unique. Since the turn of the twentieth
century, and especially following the tumultuous 1960s, Jews have played
a disproportionately large role in the life of numerous new religious
Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions, Volume 15, Issue 1, pages
5–21, ISSN 1092-6690 (print), 1541-8480 (electronic). © 2011 by The Regents of the
University of California. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to
photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press’s
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DOI: 10.1525/nr.2011.15.1.5
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Nova Religio
movements, ranging from Christian Science in the early twentieth cen-

tury to Western forms of Zen Buddhism in the later decades of the cen-
tury. Jews have also established a series of new movements within the
realm of the Jewish faith, thus diversifying and revitalizing the tradition.
Until the 1970s, most of the encounters between Jews and new reli-
gious movements took place in North America; since then, Jewish in-
volvement with new religious movements has spread to other countries,
including Britain and France. As in Europe, Israeli Jewish interest in
new religious movements started later than in America, with many of
the early groups arriving from the United States. Since the 1970s, how-
ever, Israelis have shown a growing interest in new forms of faith and
community, often outside the Jewish mainstream. Affiliation with new
religious movements increased, and by the 2000s new religious move-
ments had become an important part of the cultural scene in Israel.
This essay offers an introductory exploration of Jewish participation
in and reaction to new religious movements during the twentieth cen-
tury. Like the volume as a whole, this introduction demonstrates that
interactions between Jews and new religious movements have been ex-
tensive and diverse. Examining Jewish involvement with new religious
movements enhances our knowledge both of the dynamics of new reli-
gious movements and of Jewish life in the late modern era. It sheds light
on why new religious movements attracted members of some minority
groups more than others. In the case of Israel, we see that these move-
ments have proven especially attractive to the children of a disillusioned
elite. Jews have affected the movements they have joined, bringing cer-
tain preferences and sensitivities with them. Recognizing Jewish par-
ticipation in new religious movements expands our conception of the
varieties and nature of Jewish religious and cultural life in the twentieth
and twenty-first centuries, and complicates what have become standard
perspectives on Jewish choices and affiliations. For example, it shatters
the conventional tripartite division of American Jewry (Orthodox,
Conservative, and Reform) and the presumed bifurcation of Jewish
Israeli society (Orthodox versus secular). The encounter between Jews
and new religious movements proves to be a chronologically deep one,
predating by generations the “baby boomers” and their descendants.
Jews and New Religious Movements

before the 1960s
Judaism witnessed the rise of new movements in its midst even be-
fore the modern era. A striking example was Hasidism, which emerged
in the Ukraine in the mid-eighteenth century. A powerful movement
that swept through the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe, Hasidism
generated dozens of new groups emphasizing different aspects of Jewish
spirituality and charismatic leadership. Hasidic teachings and practices
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Ariel: Jews and New Religious Movements
have often served as a source of inspiration to new Jewish movements

that, in searching for spiritual roots, embraced mystical elements of
traditional forms of Judaism.1
Creating or joining new religious movements was not limited to tra-
ditional Jews in pre-modern settings. The obtaining of civil rights, ac-
culturation, and various forces of modernity in European and American
societies gave rise to a number of Jewish reforms and innovations, in-
cluding the creation of new doctrinal interpretations, modes of worship,
and communities.2 Traditional Judaism, too, produced new movements
and forms in reaction to modernist and reformist trends. In more so-
cially open environments, some Jews joined new cultural and religious
groups outside of their ancestral faith. In the twentieth century United
States Jews were increasingly influenced by broader cultural trends that
promoted the right of individuals to join, create, or reconstitute com-
munities of faith at will.
From the early decades of the twentieth century onward, American
Jews joined new religious movements outside the bounds of Judaism as
well as creating new movements within Judaism proper. At the turn of
the twentieth century, thousands of American Jews, especially young
educated women, flocked to the ranks of Christian Science. Like many
of their middle-class Protestant neighbors who were attracted to the
movement, these Jews found the messages of Christian Science empow-
ering and in tune with their understanding of the relationship between
spirit and matter. Christian Science was the first new religious move-
ment outside the boundaries of Judaism to attract sizable numbers of
Jews, causing Jewish leaders to react with alarm. A number of liberal
rabbis responded by creating Jewish Science, which amalgamated prin-
ciples taken from Christian Science with Jewish identity and practices.3
Jewish thinkers devised plans to strengthen Jewish commitment to
and engagement with their tradition by reconstructing the meaning of
Jewish heritage and community. One such thinker was Orthodox rabbi
Mordecai Kaplan (1881–1983). While leading a congregation on the
upper west side of Manhattan, Kaplan noted that most Jews in New York
city were no longer affiliated with the synagogue. They were struggling
to accommodate their quest for modernity and acculturation with
Jewish identity, traditional Jewish tenets of faith, and communal attach-
ments. Adopting a modernist-rationalist line, Kaplan conceived a recon-
stitution of Judaism with the goal of preserving Jewish identity and
doing justice to the actual convictions of Jews, which were, he believed,
turned away from the supernatural. Judaism, he insisted, should be
understood as a civilization, with the synagogue serving as the epicenter
for a cultural tradition that belongs to its people, and was theirs to
change and amend. He suggested giving up the idea of a personal God,
revelation, and the claim to be “the chosen people.”4 In effect, Kaplan
and his followers established a new movement in Judaism, with its own
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congregations, liturgy, and theology. Reconstructionists amended the

prayer book to suit their new, Spinozan understanding of god, the Jews,
and their relations with other peoples and faiths. The Reconstructionists
were the first to invite women to participate on an egalitarian basis in
synagogue services, reading from the Torah as men had traditionally
done, and they expressed a commitment to dialogue with and recogni-
tion of other faiths. Their departure from traditional theistic Judaism
provoked angry reactions in conservative sectors of Jewish American
society. In the 1940s, for instance, Orthodox activists burned a number
of Kaplan’s publications. While the Reconstructionist movement repre-
sented a radical embrace of modernist-rationalist principles within the
Jewish community, many of the new Jewish religious movements that
emerged in the second part of the twentieth century went in the op-
posite direction.
The Reconfiguration of a Hasidic Group:

Chabad as an Outreach Movement
In the 1950s and 1960s, the appearance of a Jewish outreach move-

ment surprised many Jews. For one thing, Jews had historically not en-
gaged in outreach, relying instead on an inherited sense of Jewish
identity and affiliation. In this respect, there is a great deal in common
between the modernist project of Reconstructionism and Chabad’s at-
tempt to inspire non-practicing Jews to become more committed to
Jewish observance. Both groups have been motivated by a sense that the
older paradigm, that presumed an almost automatic affinity for Jewish
tradition and identity for those individuals born ethnically Jewish, had
been seriously eroded if not fully eclipsed. As Judaism increasingly com-
peted in an open market of religions, some of its leaders saw a need to
take a proactive attitude, strengthening Jews’ enchantment with and
commitment toward the tradition of their ancestors. Chabad’s work was
revolutionary in more ways than one. Until the mid-twentieth century,
the tide ran mostly in one direction, with Jews moving from traditionally
observant ways of life to more secular or liberal choices. Now Chabad,
and other groups following its example, attempted to recruit non-ob-
servant Jews, striving to convince them of the spiritual merits of tradi-
tional Judaism.5 Many observers looked upon their attempts as a mere
curiosity. During the 1950s, the number of Jews interested in the spiri-
tual or supernatural elements of their tradition was relatively small.
Sociologists Will Herberg and Nathan Glazer, who studied religious life
during that period, pointed out that while the cold war enhanced an
atmosphere of conformity among America’s middle class, thus giving
rise to nominal growth in religious affiliation, this generation showed
little genuine interest in Jewish spirituality.6 Herbert Winer, who sur-
veyed the Israeli spiritual scene of the 1950s, reached a similar conclusion
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regarding that country’s middle class.7 Even observant Israelis, he dis-

covered, adhered to secular ideologies and were too preoccupied with
more practical concerns to take interest in the supernatural, although
he sensed a yearning for “something”. Jews of the Beat Generation who
searched for spiritual meaning in their lives, such as Allen Ginsberg,
often found it outside the confines of Judaism. As Gez points out in his
study in this collection, small numbers of Jews began joining Buddhist
groups in the 1950s and 1960s.
These circumstances did not deter the leaders of Chabad. The sixth
rebbe (master), Rebbe Joseph Isaac Schneersohn (1880–1950), inter-
preting the Holocaust as a sign that cosmic redemption was imminent,
decided in the late 1940s to dispatch outreach agents to secular and
liberal Jews. Both he and his successor, Menahem Mendel Schneerson
(1902–1994), were inspired by a messianic understanding of divine
economy and the unfolding of history. They believed that their group
of Hasidic Jews should help prepare the way for the messianic age by
promoting observance among Jews as well as encouraging non-Jews to
follow elementary, universal, Noahide laws.8 In the process, Chabad
transformed from a mystically oriented introspective Hasidic group,
whose devotees spent long hours each day praying and studying spiri-
tual or scholarly texts, into an order of missionaries who have estab-
lished an international network of outreach centers. Young Chabad
members, men and women, have come to see their vocation as out-
reach emissaries, serving in any outpost the group sends them to.
There men serve as small-scale rebbes, inviting interested Jews to spend
time in their homes, celebrate Shabbat and holidays, study Jewish texts,
and observe some of the mitzvot. Somewhat less officially, the wives of
such emisseries have carried out a similar mission among interested
young women.9
In the 1980s and 1990s, a more radical messianic group emerged
from within the ranks of Chabad. In the 1980s it became evident to his
followers that the seventh rebbe had no heir, and that with his death the
group would remain without a living leader. Some members of the
group began to speculate that the rebbe might not die and would soon
be revealed as the Messiah. A group developed within the Chabad
movement who openly proclaimed the messiahship of the rebbe, who
died in 1994. This movement within a movement of meshichistim
(Messianists) became particularly strong in Israel, where thousands of
Chabad Hasids hung yellow posters from their balconies or on their
cars with the late rebbe’s picture and the declaration, “Long live the king-
messiah.” Some leaders of Jewish Orthodoxy have turned a cold shoul-
der on Chabad; some have gone so far as to denounce it as a heterodox
movement.10 Simultaneously, however, many Orthodox groups have
followed Chabad’s example and entered the field of Jewish outreach,
although Chabad’s global network of emissaries remains unique. Other
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Orthodox groups established academies for those inquiring into

Judaism, known as “returnees-to-tradition” yeshivot (rabbinical educa-
tional institutions). Such campuses are intended for young people ex-
ploring Judaism over short or long periods of time, and aim to make
them acquainted with, and eventually committed to, life as observant
Jews in the Orthodox milieu.
From Hasidism to neo-Hasidism
Chabad has indirectly inspired outreach initiatives not only within

Orthodox Judaism but in liberal Jewish circles as well. Two of Chabad’s
early emissaries, Shlomo Carlebach (1925–1994) and Zalman Schachter
(1924–), helped develop liberal Hasidic-inspired and spiritually ori-
ented new Jewish movements. Both Schachter and Carlebach grew up
in central Europe in observant yet acculturated environments, obtained
a secular as well as Jewish education, and took interest in larger Jewish
culture in addition to pursuing rabbinical studies.11 Both chose, when
they were in their early twenties, the then mystical Hasidic movement
as their spiritual home, devoting much of their time to outreach. Each
had outgoing gregarious personalities, with the ability to engage people
they met in lively conversations, leave a lasting impression, and establish
friendly relationships. At that time, Chabad’s emissary program was not
yet systematized and bureaucratized, so the emissaries carried out their
work on their own, relying on their instincts and wit. The methods of
outreach they developed, which engaged men and women in an egali-
tarian fashion, did not always conform to the expectations of the rebbe
and his lieutenants. Carlebach and Schachter parted ways with Chabad
in the late 1950s and early 1960s, respectively. Working on their own
they could freely express their styles, values, and beliefs. Each helped to
create a movement that was inspired by Hasidic spirituality, lore, and
manners of worship, yet at the same time advocated values and customs
prevalent among liberal, often countercultural, Americans of the era.
The emissaries met dozens of Jews who, yearning for spirituality in
their lives, had joined American variants of Buddhist, Hindu, or Sufi
groups. Both Carlebach and Schachter befriended these “competitors,”
visiting the centers of various new religious movements, including
American forms of Asian religions, and dialoguing with their leaders.12
Both emissaries reached the conclusion that Judaism of the mid-twenti-
eth century was unable to offer its adherents a sense of joy and comfort,
partly because it represented a modernist, middle-class scene, devoid of
enthusiasm, and partly because the unhappy aspects of the history of
Jews as a persecuted minority, including the trauma of the Holocaust,
led many people to think of Judaism as a morbid joyless tradition. The
emissaries believed that a renewed version of Hasidic Judaism, modified
to the needs of the time, could instill joy, comfort, and a sense of
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elevation into an otherwise dull Jewish scene. Bringing the “fun” back
into Judaism became one of their aims.13 However, the two emissaries
developed somewhat different understandings of how to spiritually re-
vive Judaism. Carlebach believed that Hasidic teachings, modified to
the needs of contemporary culture, could offer everything needed to
enrich Judaism and inspire interest in it. He relied especially on the
teachings of Rabbi Nachman of Braslav, quoting freely from that early
nineteenth century mystic, whose writings, to that point, had received
little notice outside of the small Braslaver Hasidic group.14 Schachter,
too, cherished Hasidic teachings but also took keen interest in Asian
religious traditions, especially Sufism. He believed that Judaism could
adopt rites, techniques, and attitudes from Asian traditions, including
a love of God untainted by bitterness.15 Schachter’s and Carlebach’s
paths would diverge more dramatically in the 1970s, leading to differ-
ent interpretations of the neo-Hasidic agenda.16 Schachter and his
disciples blazed the more egalitarian road of Jewish Renewal, while
Carlebach’s followers created a more traditionally observant form of
neo-Hasidism.
In the late 1960s, the scope of the work undertaken by Chabad and
its former emissaries grew considerably with the rise of countercultur-
ism.17 Many young men and women were now more open to systems of
thought that were non-modernist and offered supernatural explana-
tions for the mechanics of the universe and human actions.18 Many took
interest in alternative, often non-Western, remedies and methods of
healing. More and more young people were searching for new religious
communities, prompting scholars of religion to later describe the baby
boomers as “a generation of seekers.”19 Aware of these cultural trends
and young Jews’ growing interest in new religious movements, some
Jewish reformers paid increased attention to the baby boomer genera-
tion. One concentrated initiative to bring members of the countercul-
ture into the Jewish fold was the establishment of a neo-Hasidic outreach
center combined with hippie culture, that operated in San Francisco
from 1967 until 1977.20 For a decade the House of Love and Prayer at-
tracted thousands of visitors, Jews and non-Jews. A core group of devo-
tees ran the center as a semi-commune, contributing their time, labor,
and income. Over the years, hundreds stayed there for short periods of
time, while many more attended Sabbath and holy day celebrations.
The House of Love and Prayer set many standards for neo-Hasidic
practice. The style it created in dress, cuisine, and music influenced the
culture of returnees to tradition for decades afterward. Especially notable
was the group’s music, which served as a means of attracting potential
inquirers and creating a young, contemporary environment. Carlebach ,
who served as the spiritual leader of the group, used these musical per-
formances to introduce the audience to his neo-Hasidic theology and to
stir a sense of enthusiasm for Jewish spirituality. In the culinary realm too,
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the House of Love and Prayer introduced new choices. Influenced by

northern Californian cooking of the period, members of the group cre-
ated a whole new Jewish cuisine, mostly vegetarian, often macrobiotic,
and eclectic in its choices of dishes.21 This allowed them to break bread
with ease and share meals with non-kosher-keeping vegetarians, Jewish
and non-Jewish, the number of whom was on the rise.
Another important realm in which the group set precedents was
sexuality. The group cut a compromise between the Victorian-style stric-
tures that prevailed in more conventional Orthodox communities and
the new sexual mores of the counterculture.22 Male and female mem-
bers of the group had already experienced intimate relationships. In
general, they continued courting and coupling while they assumed a
more observant way of life. In their compromise with Orthodox stan-
dards, they strived to build permanent and abiding relationships, marry,
and create new families.
From the Havurah and Renewal Movements

to Kabbalah-for-All
The House of Love and Prayer was not the only neo-Hasidic project
to emerge during the period of counterculturalism. Schachter founded
the first independent havurah (fellowship). Havurat Shalom was
launched in Sommerville, Massachusetts, in 1968, as a fellowship for
study and prayer. Among Havurat Shalom’s co-founders were Arthur
Green and Michael Fishbein, who later distinguished themselves as
scholars of Jewish thought and spirituality. The group wished to move
away from conventional synagogues, where rabbis, cantors, and choirs
often took over the act of prayer, leaving the laity as passive spectators.
The havurah prayed, without designated rabbis or cantors, in a simple
hall. Members sat in a circle and shared among themselves the tasks of
leading prayers and reading from the Jewish scriptures. Schachter influ-
enced the neo-Hasidic nature of the havurah and suggested some of its
innovations. Havurat Shalom served as an inspiration for a series of ad-
ditional independent havurot that also adopted neo-Hasidic styles.23
Schachter and his disciples began institutionalizing their liberal neo-
Hasidic teachings and practices, gradually establishing a movement of
Jewish Renewal with its own congregations, havurot, rabbinical program,
publications, and retreats. Renewal teachings also influenced members
of more established Jewish religious groups. Created in Philadelphia as
a center for promoting Jewish Renewal teachings, B’nai-Or (the Sons of
Light) soon changed its name, for egalitarian reasons, to P’nai-Or (the
Face of Light). In the 1980s, a group of younger colleagues carried on
Schachter’s work. Among these new activist rabbis were Arthur Waskaw
(1933–), who has emphasized environmental concerns, Goldie
Milgrom(1953–) and Shefa Gold, both feminists who have promoted
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egalitarian services and liturgical language. By that time, the Renewal

movement had become explicitly feminist-oriented and gay-friendly.
The movement was also concerned with environmental issues and social
and political justice.24 The Renewal movement has grown, attracting
many previously unaffiliated Jews and members of more mainstream syn-
agogues who take part in Renewal activities.
A movement that started within the confines of neo-Hasidism but
evolved into an international movement of Jewish-teachings-for-all is
the Kabbalah Center. Its founder, Philip Berg (1944–) started his work
in the 1970s in proximity to the Diaspora Yeshiva, the first outreach ye-
shiva associated with the neo-Hasidic teachings of Shlomo Carlebach.
Berg was also inspired by the teachings of a twentieth century Kabbalah
scholar, Yehuda Ashlag (1885–1954), who believed Kabbalah’s messages
were relevant for the current age. Berg built on the teachings of Ashlag
to offer an interpretation of Kabbalah not directed specifically at Jews.
Embracing this spiritual system does not entail study of the Jewish tradi-
tion as a whole or observance of Jewish rites.25 Starting his Kabbalah
work in Israel during the 1970s, Berg moved to the United States and
established centers there to promote his universalized brand of Jewish
mysticism. Following its success in America, the Kabbalah Center estab-
lished branches around the globe, including in Israel. Other groups
offering universal messages of Kabbalah appeared in the 1990s and
2000s. Altglas’ article examines the messages and operations of a neo-
Kabbalah center. Such centers tend to appeal to members of the com-
fortable middle classes. Besides seminars, they offer a large variety of
books, DVDs, online messages, and other means of disseminating their
teachings. Many of the messages focus on self-improvement and attain-
ing personal goals.26 Perhaps somewhat expectedly, the Kabbalah cen-
ters have become the most well known institutions of Jewish spiritual
renewal and the most attractive to world-famous celebrities.
New Sephardic Religious Movements
American middle-class Jews have not been alone in creating or join-

ing new religious movements in the last generation. New groups
emerged in other Jewish population centers, especially Israel. While
Jewish Israelis were often inspired by American models, Israel’s very
different political, social, and cultural history created a very different
environment for the rise of new religious movements. For example,
while in America Sephardic Jews are only a small percentage of the
larger Jewish community, in Israel they are roughly half of the Jewish
population, allowing them to exercise greater influence in the religious
and cultural sphere, including the arena of religious innovation. The
realities of Israeli life have also contributed to Israelis exploring, join-
ing, or creating new religious movements. In the early years of the
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country’s history, most middle-class Israelis were inspired by political

ideologies and nation-building. Two decades after the birth of the state,
many Israelis understood the outcome of the Six-Day War in June
1967 in messianic terms. Some of them, especially among the Modern
Orthodox, created new theologies and communities that have made
proactive attempts to inaugurate a Davidic commonwealth in the “en-
tire land of Israel.” Many children of the veteran secular elite began
searching outside politics and nation for meaning in their lives.
Sephardic Jews launched their own movement of return to tradition,
reinventing their tradition along the way. Had Herbert Weiner taken a
second tour in Israel half a century after his first trip, he would have
found a very different attitude among the Jewish Israeli population to-
wards the supernatural and the place of spirituality in their lives.27
In the 1980s and 1990s, Sephardic and Mizrahi28 leaders began their
own campaigns of return to tradition. A distinguishing trait of these
campaigns was that they encouraged commitment to reconstructed piety
as an expression of ethnic pride. Under the banner of taking pride in
their roots, many children of Jewish immigrants from Asian and African
countries rejected the patronizing secularization program of their
European brethren, which, they concluded, left them in a disadvantaged
position within Israeli society. Instead, Mizrahi piety legitimized the su-
pernatural in a variety of forms. Among such practices were visits to the
tombs of saints to ask the righteous deceased to intercede with God for
healing or other improvements in pilgrims’ lives. Devotees also paid
visits to the courts of living saintly men, who are believed to serve as in-
termediaries between God and humans. During the 1990s, one tzadik
(righteous one), the Jerusalemite mekubal (mystic), Rabbi Nisim Kaduri
was highly sought after for his supernatural powers. Among those who
eagerly came to obtain his blessings were many Israelis of European de-
scent, who were growing less committed to modern notions of rational-
ism, having been impacted by earlier Mizrahi practices. Soothsayers, too,
became fashionable. Israeli newspapers, magazines, radio stations, and
websites broadcast astrologers’ forecasts on a weekly or daily basis. Israeli
politicians and entertainers consulted horoscopes without embarrass-
ment. Numerology and tarot readings, previously unheard of in Israeli
culture, became popular as well. Shops opened in Israeli cities catering
to the new spiritual demand by selling amulets to protect homes or cars
against the evil eye, or photographs of tzadikim whose presumed super-
natural powers could provide protection.
Sephardic movements expressing Mizrahi piety and pride are per-
haps the largest new religious movements in contemporary Israel.
In the 1980s, SHAS, “Torah Observant Sephardim,” organized to po-
litically empower the Mizrahi observant community, enabling it to cre-
ate its own religious, educational, and communal infrastructures. Since
the late 1990s, SHAS has succeeded in obtaining 12–14% of the popular
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vote in the general election, has joined the coalition government, and
has obtained public funds to build its own school system, community
centers, synagogues, and yeshivot. The Orthodox Mizrahi have devel-
oped their own distinctive codes of dress, amalgamating formal Western
and Ultra-Orthodox fashions.
Joining Non-Jewish New Religious Movements
Jews have also shown great interest in non-Jewish new religious

movements. In fact, Jewish baby boomers in America took more inter-
est, proportionately, in new religious movements than their Christian
counterparts. For many Jews, exploring new meanings and communi-
ties represented a long-sought freedom in service of their individuality,
by contrast to the inherited choices of established expressions of Jewish
faith. As Schachter and Carlebach had observed, many Jews preferred
walking away from Jewish environments and memories in pursuit of
new ideas and communities. This did not mean, however, that these
Jewish seekers had fully turned their backs on their Jewish background.
The founders of ISKCON’s New Goloka Temple in North Carolina
identify as Jews, maintain a close relationship with Jewish relatives, oc-
casionally visit Jewish services, and travel to Israel as a symbol of interest
and attachment. Norman Fisher, a renowned Zen master, took a pil-
grimage to Jerusalem, where he reflected on the meaning of being
Jewish, a citizen of the world, and a Zen practitioner at the same time.29
Being Buddhist and Jewish seems to many a plausible option, as epito-
mized by the popularity of the term “JuBus” (or sometimes “BuJew.”)
Gez skillfully examines in his article such combined identities among
contemporary Jewish members of Buddhist groups.
During the 1970s–2000s, tens of thousands of Israelis have followed
the American Jewish example, joining non-Jewish religious movements,
or taking interest in their messages. Ranging from the Unification
Church to Transcendental Meditation, from Scientology to ISKCON,
such groups have often modified their messages and activities to accom-
modate themselves to the Jewish Israeli scene.
The appearance and success of new religious movements in Israel
was not always proportional to their size and presence in other coun-
tries. With its unique sensitivities, the Israeli milieu proved more hospi-
table to some groups than to others. In general, Israelis have taken
greater interest in movements that emphasize self-improvement and
spiritual well-being and have often shied away from traditions in which
there has been explicit worship of “alien deities,” such as various forms
of Hinduism. Until recently, most people joining new religious movements
in Israel have been middle-class Jews of European background. Lately
young Mizrahim have also explored and joined such groups. Almost no
Arab Israelis, however, have shown interest.
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Significantly, the first non-Jewish group to attract thousands of fol-

lowers in Israel was the Transcendental Meditation movement of
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. The promise of spiritual tranquility, peace of
mind, and a mental shelter from the growing tensions and frustrations
surrounding them in the wake of the Yom Kippur War (1973) appealed
to thousands of young educated Israelis. Many of those who became
members of the group served as soldiers during the war, including of-
ficers who fought in combat units.30 They saw nothing in the practices
of the new group that contradicted their secular Israeli Jewish identity,
and they found meaning and relief in the meditations they performed.
Transcendental Meditation, for its part, did not present itself as a reli-
gion but rather as a technique, a method of concentration and breath-
ing which positively affected bodies and souls. In effect, “modets,”31 as
members of the group called themselves, created a loosely attached
community, meeting in retreats and establishing social contacts among
themselves. A number of modets established their own village in Galilee,
in the late 1970s, as a suburban residential area for practitioners of
Transcendental Meditation. In the late 1970s, another group success-
fully appealed to young, middle-class Israelis, Erhard Seminar Training,
or est. Est appealed to a new brand of Israelis who rejected the quasi-
socialist Zionist values of their parents in favor of systems and tech-
niques that centered on individuals, their inner well-being, and the full
realization of their potential within an urban competitive environment.
Both Transcendental Meditation and est garnered a popularity in Israel
that exceeded their presence and influence in America. Groups such
as the Unification Church or ISKCON, on the other hand, gained far
fewer converts in Israel than in America. In spite of conducting their
evangelism carefully, dressing in plainclothes and not revealing their
full identities on first encounters with prospective converts, these
groups generated little interest. On the other hand, forms of Buddhism
became increasingly popular in Israel during the 1990s and 2000s, with
thousands of Israelis, both young and middle-aged, joining in various
activities. Israelis have accepted the notion, popular in the West, that
Buddhism is a deity-free philosophical system involving no worship.32
From the 1980s–2000s, tens of thousands of young Israelis visited
India for weeks or months at a time, sometimes staying in ashrams or
making pilgrimages to local temples. Travel to India almost became a
rite of passage for many Israelis in their early twenties. The effect on
their lives and minds has been enormous and many have come back
with new aesthetic and spiritual tastes. Very few, however, have estab-
lished or joined Indian religious groups of any kind. Instead, the Indian
experience has affected the way they relate to their own tradition, or it
has inspired a greater interest in spiritual matters that has led them to
participate in new religious movements that are not necessarily Indian.
These have included new forms of Judaism.
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An Unexpected Hybrid
One of the larger Jewish new religious movements in the last few
decades is Messianic Judaism, which has attempted the particularly chal-
lenging move of amalgamating Jewish identity with evangelical, often
charismatic, Christianity. Before the 1970s, there had been small com-
munities of Christian Jews, known as Hebrew Christians, often spon-
sored by Christian missions to the Jews. Especially after the 1960s, such
groups began to create a culture of their own that was assertively Jewish,
promoted faith in Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah, and embraced the
Old and New Testaments as God’s message to humanity.33 Messianic
Judaism is today composed of hundreds of congregations, each promot-
ing somewhat different choices regarding observance of Jewish rites and
customs as well as the inclusion of non-Jews in their communities.
Congregations also differ from each other as to their charismatic or non-
charismatic character. Power has skillfully analyzed some of the chal-
lenges and connections that such communities create in this volume.
Promoting a mixture of Jewish identity and evangelical Christian val-
ues and doctrines, Messianic Judaism grew by leaps and bounds from the
1970s into the 2000s, until it numbered in the tens of thousands
of adherents, the majority of them in America. Like neo-Hasidism,
Messianic Judaism represented a new generation of Jews who believed
that they could recreate their tradition as they wished. Their sense of
transcending old boundaries and amalgamating formerly alien traditions
has given Messianic Jews a sense of accomplishment and mission. Messianic
Jews consider themselves loyal and active Jews. They make a special point
of supporting Israel, promoting a messianic vision of that country’s
founding as an important development on the road to the second com-
ing of Jesus. They have created their own subculture straddling Judaism
and Christianity, complete with its own theological and liturgical litera-
ture and vocabulary. In the 1990s and 2000s, thousands of Jews in the
former Soviet Union and immigrants to Israel from the former Soviet
bloc and Ethiopia joined the ranks of Messianic Judaism, making the
movement multilingual and international in character.
Jewish responses to Messianic Judaism, as well as to other new reli-
gious movements operating among Jews, have not always been wel-
coming. Many Jewish leaders in America, Israel, and elsewhere, liberal
as well as Orthodox, have reacted with anger and alarm. In general,
Jewish criticisms of new religious movements resembled those lodged
by voices in the larger community, such as the American anti-cult
movement of the 1970s–2000s. Jewish leaders repeated claims that the
new movements were deceptive and manipulative. Messianic Judaism
in particular was denied legitimacy as an authentic Jewish movement.
“An Orwellian world of Jewish-Christian confusion, where things are
never as they ought to be and rarely as they seem,” was how one Jewish
17
NR1501_01.indd 17 27/06/11 9:51 AM

Nova Religio
observer described a Messianic Jewish congregation.”34 A number of

Jewish activists have styled themselves “cult-busters,” devoting their
time to “rescuing” Jews from what they see as the clutches of malevo-
lent predators. Yad L’ Achim (a Pillar for our Brethren), is probably
the largest Jewish anti-cult group, dedicated to fighting the influence
of new religious movements in the Jewish world.35 “We don’t give up
on even a single Jew,” the movement declares. While such hostility is
still prevalent in some Jewish circles, Jewish responses to Jews joining
new religious movements have not been uniform and have mellowed
over the years. Many mainstream Jews accept the interests that some
among them take in new religious movements and their teachings.
Conclusion
Jewish involvement with new religious movements often mirrors

larger trends in the growth and characteristics of new religious move-
ments, and in the interaction such movements have with the social and
cultural realities around them. New movements have both enriched
and challenged Jewish communities, generating more choices, free-
doms, and opportunities, as well as upsetting old paradigms and estab-
lishments. Such groups and their continuing appeal to Jews around the
globe has redrawn the Jewish cultural and religious map and trans-
formed the options available to Jews as they search for community and
meaning in their lives.
Jewish participants brought Jewish sensitivities to their quest for new
communities and systems of faith. They have often preferred groups
who do not present “foreign deities” as part of their spiritual messages.
Messianic Jews have adapted the Christian faith and its communal ex-
pressions to their sense of attachment to their Jewish heritage. The at-
tractions new religious movements have for some Jews betokens a lack
of sufficient or satisfactory options for spirituality and community
within the Jewish fold. It has also, however, demonstrated a trend
among educated liberal Jews to find the community and the cultural
and religious niche they believe best suits them. As such, new religious
movements represent a new era in Jewish life and opportunities. It is no
coincidence that, in Israel, new religious movements began to take hold
at the historical moment when children of the old elites no longer
found their purpose in nation-building and collective goals. They have
increasingly opted for the freedom to explore, join, or create new reli-
gious expressions based on their individual preferences and needs. New
religious movements have thus been agents of the democratic individu-
alistic West and its values.
While many Jews have reacted angrily to the presence of new groups,
the development of new specifically Jewish choices has enlarged and
diversified the Jewish tradition. Neo-Hasidism transformed traditional
18
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Judaism in America and elsewhere by amalgamating Jewish spirituality

with the values and styles of an age of increasing freedom and equality
for women. The Neo-Hasids’ conviction that without outreach and re-
newal, traditional Judaism would not survive as a vital and creative en-
tity, was probably correct. Amazingly, the field that was plowed and sown
by the sixth rebbe of Chabad and his emissaries was harvested not only
by traditionalist Jews but by liberal ones as well. Neo-Hasidism rein-
vented Judaism as a mixture of pre–World War II traditionalist Eastern
European Hasidic Judaism and American countercultural values and
styles. Its outreach had limited effect until the late 1960s, when larger
cultural developments allowed the movement to attract thousands of
young Jews interested in aspects of traditional Judaism. Thousands chose
liberal interpretations of neo-Hasidism, while thousands of others, more
moderately impressed, incorporated neo-Hasidic styles and manners into
their synagogues or havurot.
The agents of return to tradition and Renewal competed with non-
Jewish spiritual groups for Jewish souls. Simultaneously, they challenged
mainstream modernist modes of Jewish worship and community.
Representing new understandings of Judaism and its place in a postmod-
ern world, the new movements parted ways with older paradigms. Return
to tradition and Renewal, like Messianic Jews and JuBus, promoted the
right of Jews to create communities that amalgamated more than one
tradition, identity, or set of values. Renewal groups gave voice to a new
cohort of Jews who wished to connect to their heritage while at the same
time retaining their autonomy as independent persons, picking and
choosing their spiritual and cultural preferences. In their pioneering
way, neo-Hasids, as well as advocates of other new groups, were forerun-
ners of a postmodernist Judaism that does not rely on a tribal, inherited,
communal identity, but on individuals meshing their Judaism with other
identities, reinterpreting and recreating their tradition in the process.
Ultimately, new religious movements, whether inside or outside the Jewish
fold, exemplify cultural developments that have gradually affected all
Jewish communities by enriching, diversifying, and complicating Jewish
options and identities in an age of expanded freedoms and choices.
These movements have brought a more variegated and multifaceted
Judaism into the twenty-first century.
ENDNOTES
1 Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, Wrapped in the Holy Flame: Teachings and Tales of the
Hasidic Masters (Hoboken: Jossey-Bass, 2003), especially 1–88.
2 Michael A. Meyer, Response to Modernity: a History of the Reform Movement in
Judaism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 10–295.
19
NR1501_01.indd 19 27/06/11 9:51 AM

Nova Religio
3 Ellen M. Umansky, From Christian to Jewish Science: Spiritual Healing and American
Jews (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), especially 7–86.
4 Mordecai Kaplan, Judaism as a Civilization: Towards a Reconstruction of American-
Jewish Life (New York: Macmillan, 1934), 173–226; 303–408.

5 Herbert Danziger, Returning to Tradition: The Contemporary Revival of Orthodox
Judaism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 13–250; Lynn Davidman,
Tradition in a Rootless World: Women Turn to Orthodox Judaism (Berkeley University
of California Press, 1991), 1–25, 136–173.
6 Will Herberg, Protestant, Catholic, Jew (Garden City: Doubleday, 1960), 46–64;
Nathan Glazer, American Judaism (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1957),

106–128.
7 Herbert Weiner, The Wild Goats of Ein Gedi: A Journal of Religious Encounters in
the Holy Land (New York: Atheneum, 1970), 185–312.

8 Aviezer Ravitsky, “The Contemporary Lubavitch Hasidic Movement: Between
Conservatism and Messianism” in Accounting for Fundamentalism, edited by

Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1992), 303–324; Samuel Heilman and Menachem Friedman, The Rebbe: the Life
and Afterlife of Menachem Mendel Schneerson (New York: Princeton University
Press, 2010), 163–196.
9 Sue Fishkoff, The Rebbe’s Army: Inside the World of Chabad-Lubavitch (New York:
Schocken Books, 2003), 9–132; M. Avrum Ehrlich, The Messiah of Brooklyn:

Habad Hassidism from Schneerson to his Successors (New York: Ktav, 2004), 166–
214.
10 David Berger, The Rebbe, the Messiah, and the scandal of Orthodox Indifference
(London: Littman, 2001), especially 68–130.

11 On Carlebach see Eli Chaim Carlebach, “My Brother Shlomo as a Young
Man.” Message on the Reb Shlomo email list, 17 January 1998;Yitta Halberstam
Mandelbaum, Holy Brother: Inspiring Stories and Enchanted Tales About Rabbi Shlomo
Calrebach (Northvale, N.J.: Jason Aronson, 1997), especially xix–xxii; Dan
Shacham, “Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach—the Enfant Terrible of Religious Judaism
in America,” Our Israel, 8 March 1985, 29; M.H. Brand, Rabbi Shlomole [in
Hebrew] (Efrat: privately published, 1998); see also Shlomo Carlebach Nearprint
File, the Jacob Radar Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati,
Ohio; Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, Wrapped in a Holy Flame: Teaching and
Tales of the Hasidic Masters (San Francisco: Josey-Bass, 2003), 287–96. On Zalman
Schachter, see Zalman Schachter Nearprint File, the Jacob Radar Marcus Center of
the Amercan Jewish Archives; Paradigm Shift: From the Jewish Renewal Teaching of
Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, ed. Ellen Singer (Northvale, N.J.: Jason Aaronson,
1993), especially xvii–xxiv.
12 On such meetings and mutual projects, see The New Consciousness Sourcebook:
Spiritual Community Guide (Pomona: Arcline, 1978).

13 Cf. Schacham “Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach,” 29.
14 On Carlebach’s understanding of Rabbi Nahman of Braslav as a source of
inspiration, see “Shlomo Carlebach Live in Concert in Festival Arad, 1992,” an

audio cassette; Shacham, “Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach,” 29.
15 Judith Linzer, “Maurice Friedman and Zalman Schachter-Shalomi: Pilgrims
to the East,” Shofar Vol. 17, no. 3 (Spring 1999): 85–92.
20
NR1501_01.indd 20 27/06/11 9:51 AM

16 On the parting of ways, see audiocassette recoding of the conference in
Berkeley, August 1974.
17 On the 1960s in America, see Todd Gitlin, The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage
(New York: Bantam, 1987), 81–408.

18 On the Counterculture and the ideologies it promoted, see Gitlin, Ibid; Jay
Stevens, Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream (New York: Grove Press,
1987), 289–374; Timothy Miller, The 60s Communes: Hippies and Beyond (Syracuse:
Syracuse University Press, 1999), 1–91. On the religious dimension, see, Mark
Oppenheimer, Knocking on Heaven’s Door: American Religion in the Age of
Counterculture (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), especially 95–129.
19 See Wade Clark Roof, A Generation of Seekers: the Spiritual Journey of the Baby
Boom Generation (New York: Harper Collins, 1993).

20 On the House of Love and Prayer, see Yaakov Ariel, “Hasidism in the Age of
Aquarius: the House of Love and Prayer in San Francisco, 1967–1977” in Religion
and American Culture Vol. 13, No. 2 (Summer 2003): 139–166.
21 A popular cookbook at the House of Love and Prayer was that of a North
African Jewish vegetarian chef, Michel Abehsera, Zen Macrobiotic Cooking:

Oriental and Traditional Recipes (New York: Aron, 1970).
22 Yaakov Ariel, “Can Adam and Eve Reconcile: Gender and Sexuality in a New
Jewish Religious Movement” Nova Religion, Vol. 9, No. 4 (May 2006): 53–78.
23 Riv-Ellen Prell, Prayer and Community: the Havura in American Judaism (Detroit:
Wayne State University Press, 1989), 69–158.

24 https://www.aleph.org/renewal.htm
25 Boaz Huss, “’All You Need is LAV’: Madonna and Postmodern Kabbalah,” The
Jewish Quarterly Review 95 (2005): 611–624.

26 Cf. Yehuda Berg, The Power of Kabbalah: Technology for the Soul (Los Angeles:
The Kabbalah Centre, 2004), 113–226.

27 Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, Despair and Deliverance: Private Salvation in
Contemporary Israel (Albany: Suny, 1993).

28 The term Mizrahi came about in Israel of the 1970s, as a self-affirmative
designation for Jews from Asian and African countries.

29 Norman Fisher, Jerusalem Moonlight: an American Zen Teacher walks the Path of
his Ancestors (San Francisco: Clear Glass Press, 1995), 1–181.

30 On the successful career of Transcendental Meditation in Israel of the 1970s,
see Beit-Hallahmi, Despair and Deliverance, 30–55.

31 An Israeli term coined in the 1970s.
32 Donald Lopez, Prisoners of Shangri La: Tibetan Buddhism and the West (Chicago:
University of Chicago, 1998).

33 Yaakov Ariel, “Judaism and Christianity Unite!: the Unique Culture of
Messianic Judaism”, Introduction to New and Alternative Religions in America, vol. 2,

edited by Eugene V. Gallagher and W. Michael Ashcraft (Westport: Greenwood
Publishing Group, 2006), 191–222.
34 Michael Mach, “Their Mission: Converting Jews,” the Jewish Exponent, January
29, 1982, 45.

35 http://www.yadlachimusa.org.il/?CategoryID=188
21
NR1501_01.indd 21 27/06/11 9:51 AM


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movements, ranging from Christian Science in the early twentieth cen-