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Will Israel Change Holidays?
Land Whence They Came May
Alter or Increase the List
by ADA OREN
(J.T.A. Correspondent)
Observant Jews in Israel, as
everywhere, preserve the tradition
al manner of celebrating Jewish
holidays, and since Orthodox Jews
in different countries sometimes
practice somewhat divergent rites,
holiday visits to the synagogues of
the various landsmannschaften in
such cities as Jerusalem are often
very interesting.
But the fact that precisely those
days which used to be hallowed are
now considered mainly in terms of
occasion for public meetings and all
forms of secular entertainment by
the non-Orthodox majority of Jews
in Israel is giving rise to an entire
ly new situation in the history of
Judaism, raising the problem of
suitable Jewish holiday rites of
spiritual value for non-religious
members of the Jewish people.
* * *
Although this state of affairs af
fects the greater part of the local
population in one form or another,
it is being tackled systematically
almost only by the small and high
ly organized agricultural kibbut
zim. These settlements generally
revive, to serve in place of prayer
services, ancient festivities con
nected with the farmer’s calendar
which receded into oblivion in the
generations of Ghetto dwellers, but
can be adapted to modern needs.
Most prominent are the cere
monies of the cutting of the Omer
on Passover Eve, Arbor Day on the
15th of Shevat, and the bringing of
first fruits at Succoth, which have
again become secular ceremonies
of great emotional power and the
last two of which, among other
things, help educate Jewish youth
to love of the land by suitable
pageantry.
Purim parties, Hanukkah and
Lag B’Omer, too, come natural to
local holiday workers, and so do
Oneg Shabbath meetings, while
most kibbutzim consider it neces
sary to draw up for every Passover
a special Haggada of their own
which reminds listeners also of
more recent deliverances of the
Jewish people. The wording is
strongly colored by traditional ele
ments rubbing shoulders with mod
ern choir singing and other inter
ludes. It is interesting to see how
the course of these experiments
has led even some extremely secu
larist settlements back to such tra
ditional acts as the lighting of can
dles on all possible occasions. All
children demand this when once
they have had a chance to witness
this act in a city home, and it is
often amusing to watch the parents
justify to themselves their giving
way to the obvious human need for
accepted ceremony in terms of
Marxist dialectics.
The problem of imparting some
thing of the traditional “higher
soul’’ to holidays in non-religious
Jewish working communities is
now considered so urgent by their
members that a special Histadrut
seminary is held from time to time
on this subject, dedicated to the
development of a practice which
began with the first Arbor Day and
First Fruits ceremonies originally
instituted by the J.N.F. As group
and other popular dances are an
important item on the syllabus, a
religious youth organization re
cently found it necessary to hold its
own course in group folk dances,
which were carefully screened so
as to come up to traditional stand
ards for mixed social gatherings.
* * •
All in all, there exist now side by
side, as a result of these diver
gencies, innumerable shades in the
manner of spending work-free days
and even High Holidays in Israel.
While the world-wide custom of
more than usually elaborate meals
and trappings of the table and of
inter-family visiting have remained
a common feature in all sectors of
the Jewish population, two entire
ly different standards for the per
meation of rest-days with spiritual
instpiration are being offered at the
same time by traditional Jewish
Orthodoxy and the secular agricul
tural settlements.
The general run of town and vil
lage dwellers are far less zealous
than either of these opposing
groups, generally mixing several
features from both sources in dif
ferent proportions and sometimes
drowning them all in general
apathy engendered by work-weari
ness and a demand for creature
comforts and “low-brow” enter
tainment. While the Orthodox and
the common town attitudes are
evident the world over, the experi
ments in secular spirituality now
being carried through by many
agricultural settlements in Israel
and introduced into towns by their
young pioneer reserves as a reac
tion against their former rejection
of all emotionally tinged holiday
observances, are probably unknown
in most countries of the Western
sphere of culture.
(.Copyright, 1949, J.T.A., Inc.)
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