Jewish Revival Inside Out (eBook)

Unravels the cultural tension inherent in projects of Jewish revival, renewal, and survival in the face of an uncertain future.Against the gloomy forecast of "e;The Vanishing Diaspora"e;, the end of the second millennium saw the global emergence of a dazzling array of Jewish cultural initiatives, institutional modalities, and individual practices. These "e;Jewish Revival"e; and "e;Jewish Renewal"e; projects are led by Jewish NGOs and philanthropic organizations, the Orthodox Teshuva (return to the fold) movement and its well-known emissary Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidism, and alternative cultural initiatives that promote what can be termed "e;lifestyle Judaism."e; This range between institutionalized revival movements and ephemeral event-driven projects circumscribes a diverse space of creative agency, which calls for a bottom-up empirical analysis of cultural creativity and the re-invention of Jewish tradition worldwide. Indeed, the trope of a "e;Jewish Renaissance"e; has become both a descriptive category of an increasingly popular and scholarly discourse across the globe, and a prescriptive model for social action. This volume explores the global transformations of contemporary Jewishness, which give renewed meaning to identity, tradition, and politics in our post secular world.