For an Israel beset by social and cultural challenges, an Israeli academic suggests a new emphasis on Jewish peoplehood and shared Jewish traditions and values.

But Meir Buzaglo is not speaking about a religious revival. Rather, the visiting professor at Rutgers University believes Jewish symbols should be reinterpreted in a way that binds Israel's secular and religious citizens as nationalism and Zionism once did.
"I'm not speaking of returning back to tradition, but reviving it in a way relevant to Israel's problems," explained Buzaglo, speaking at Rutgers' main campus in New Brunswick. "We must find ways of reinventing tradition."

Buzaglo spoke Oct. 8 at the Alexander Library at Nationalism, Tradition, and Jewish Revival in Israeli Society, a program sponsored by the Allen and Joan Bildner Center for the Study of Jewish Life.

He examined the range of spiritual and ideological leanings of Israeli Jews, from the fervently religious haredim to proponents of Reform Judaism, feminism, secularism, multiculturalism, and post-modernism, as well as the varied beliefs and practices of new immigrants.

According to Buzaglo, despite the disparate beliefs of Israel's melting pot of Arabs, Russians, Middle Eastern Jews, and others and a growing polarization separating the ultra-Orthodox and secular Israelis, some of the issues and problems facing Israeli society could be resolved by focusing on the concept of Jewish peoplehood and shared Jewish traditions and values.

"Halacha [Jewish law] is not enough, although it is important," said Buzaglo, the Schusterman Visiting Professor in Israel Studies at the Bildner Center. "We need a mega-idea because formal values do not suffice. Most formal Israeli values are secular, like tolerance, openness, multiculturalism. That is part of the framework of how we relate to each other but it doesn't speak of content. It cannot be my culture."

In Israel, Buzaglo, a professor in the Department of Philosophy at the Hebrew University and scholar of Jewish philosophy and logic, has been included among thinkers who are trying to promote a Jewish Israeli culture somewhere between "secularism" and "religiosity."

An example of old forms that can be interpreted in new ways, he said, is piyut, or Hebrew liturgical poetry. The study of piyutim, drawing on centuries of Jewish life in Israel and in the Diaspora, includes Hebrew language verse and culture, mysticism, prayer, legend, and philosophy as well as personal, family, and national stories and emotions. Unlike much of Israeli pop culture, which is largely influenced by American styles, piyutim can relate to the past history of Eretz Yisrael.

In fact, a Web site regarding piyutim, has been receiving 100,000 hits each month although it receives little support from Israeli mass media, according to Buzaglo.

Shabbat can be similarly experienced by enriching the symbolism surrounding it and other Jewish traditions. Such a project has been successfully undertaken before, he said. "We didn't have a Hebrew culture," said Buzaglo. "It was created with the establishment of Israel."

Conditions in Israel make such a cultural reclamation project critical, Buzaglo said.

"The public secular education system is near collapse," said Buzaglo. "It is a most terrible situation. There are problems with Hebrew, problems with mathematics. It is not only the poor neighborhoods; it is all of Israel. Every third child in Israel is below the line of poverty."

Some of the problems can be traced to Israel's statehood itself, he said. "Judaism was not prepared for the establishment of Israel," he said. "Zionism caught Judaism by surprise."

Nevertheless, he said, he believes Israel has the cure for what ails its soul.

"Don't save Judaism," said Buzaglo. "Let Judaism save you."