Search results for: Zionism

Israeli pre-military academies, which require army approval because the participants defer their military service by 12-to- 18 months, lovingly nurture future recruits’ minds, hearts, and souls. They are quintessentially Israeli: as undisciplined, untidy, and unmilitary as your favorite shwarma stand but as grounding, moving, and stimulating as “Hatikva.” The first mechina, B’nai David, began in 1987, as an alternative to hesder yeshivas, which rotate learning and serving. Hoping to encourage more religious officers, the mechina prepped for what the IDF calls “a full and meaningful army service.” The growth spurt came in 1995, following Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination. Educators added secular and mixed academies to encourage values-oriented learning in Israel, about Judaism, Zionism, Israel, and life.

Founded in 1935, Habonim Dror in North America – with its network of summer camps, local programming and Israel-based activities -- has directly touched on the order of 40,000 Jewish young people, but to date no social scientific survey has sought to understand the scope, depth and extent of its impact. This study, relying upon the responses of almost 2,000 Habonim Dror alumni, ages 18-83, represents a first attempt to assess the impact, and across a range of parameters.

Tel Aviv’s Museum of the Jewish Diaspora has announced that it will completely overhaul its exhibitions in an effort to update them to state-of-the-art museum technology with interactive displays and to put Diaspora Jews on an equal footing with those in Israel. The state-funded museum, which opened in 1978, will soon begin a $25 million project to expand its footprint, redevelop the exhibitions and reopen in 2012 with what essentially will be a new museum, including a new name: the Museum of the Jewish People.