In the United States The
baal teshuva movement began to appear as an identifiable movement in the United States in the 1960s, as a growing number of young Jews raised in non-religious homes in the United States started to develop a strong interest in becoming a part of observant Judaism; many of these people, in contrast to sociological expectations, became attracted to observant Judaism within Orthodoxy. The Baal teshuva movement was also inspired by the
sixties and seventies counterculture, especially the
counterculture of the 1960s and the
Hippie movement (Rabbi
Shlomo Carlebach tried to channel the counterculture and its music into a Jewish direction through his music and teachings), the
Woodstock Festival, the
drug subculture, the new interest in
Eastern religions (Rabbi
Aryeh Kaplan tried to channel that interest into a Jewish direction through his writings) and the spirit of youth rebellion that pervaded US high schools and college campuses. It was in recognition of this phenomenon and in response to it that the earliest
emissaries of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi
Menachem Mendel Schneerson, went out to connect with these people and "recruit" them to Judaism. According to Rabbi
Yosef Blau the
mashgiach ruchani of
Yeshiva University: Whereas early Baal teshuva trends were partly related to the prevailing anti-establishment atmosphere of the 1960s, an increase in Jewish pride in the wake of Israel's victory in 1967's
Six-Day War fueled and gave momentum to the beginnings of the
baal teshuva movement." Although the effects of
the Holocaust and the sway of the counterculture movement led many to abandon their religious upbringing, others were willing to experiment with alternate liberated lifestyles, and as part of this experimentation it was intriguing to them to explore Jewish
Sabbath observance, intensive
prayer, and deeper
Torah and
Talmud study. Many of these people adopted a fully Orthodox Jewish way of life, and although some eventually dropped out entirely or found their path within
Conservative Judaism or other streams of Judaism, or even joined other faiths, others chose to remain with Orthodoxy: In 1986,
New York magazine reported:
In the former Soviet Union The baal teshuva movement also appeared in the former
Soviet Union, which at that time had almost completely secularized its Jewish population. The rise of Jewish pride came in response to the growth of the State of
Israel, in reaction to the USSR's pro-
Arab and
anti-Zionist policies, and in reaction to USSR's
antisemitism. The Israeli victory in the Six-Day War in 1967 ignited the pride of Jews in the Soviet Union, particularly in Russia. Suddenly there were hundreds of thousands of Jews wanting to go to Israel, although they dared not express their desire too openly. Several thousand applied for exit visas to Israel and were instantly ostracized by government organizations including the
KGB. Many hundreds became
refuseniks (
otkazniks in Russian), willing to suffer jail time to demonstrate their new-found longing for
Zion. In the middle of this, there arose a new interest in learning about and practicing Judaism, an urge that the Communist government had long attempted to stamp out. Many Russian Jews began to study any Jewish texts they could lay their hands on. Foreign rabbis, often young students in Chabad
Yeshivot, came on visits in order to teach how to learn Torah and how to observe
Jewish law. Jewish ritual objects, such as
tefillin,
mezuzot,
siddurim, and even
matzah, were also smuggled into Russia. With the fall of the Communist regime, there is now a rich resource of Russian religious texts that flourishes and caters to Russian Jews living in Russia, America, and Israel. The return-to-Judaism movement was a spontaneous
grassroots movement from the ground up and was part of the refusenik movement; it came as a great surprise to the Soviet authorities, and even to the Jewish community outside the USSR and it eventually contributed to
Aliyah from the Soviet Union and post-Soviet states and the
collapse of the Soviet Union and emigration to Israel. Young leaders included
Yosef Mendelevich,
Eliyahu Essas (who eventually became a
rabbi),
Herman Branover, and Yitzchok Kogan, who all later
moved to Israel and are now actively teaching other Russian emigres in Israel, aside from Kogan, who leads a community in Moscow.
In Israel During the 1960s there was a movement among secular Israeli Jews that was essentially a search for spirituality. At the time, most Israeli parents were secular Zionists. While some Jews were hostile to traditional Judaism, a spiritual quest in the 1960s and 1970s caused some Israelis to seek answers in Jewish tradition. Rabbi
Aharon Feldman observes that: In Israel, special schools developed for the newly-religious, who came to be called "Baalei teshuva" (m. plural), "Baal teshuva" (m. singular), a "Baalat teshuva" refers to a female, and "chozeret biteshuva" in
Hebrew. Schools were established dedicated to the intensive
study of Torah specially designed for the newly religious students who wanted to devote time to intensive study of classical texts with the ancient rabbinic commentaries. These schools opened in the early 1970s, mainly based in
Jerusalem. Two significant institutions have been the
Aish HaTorah ("fire of Torah")
Yeshiva headed by Rabbi
Noach Weinberg, and the
Ohr Somayach Yeshiva headed by Rabbis
Nota Schiller and Mendel Weinbach. Both of these rabbis had degrees from American universities and were able to speak to the modern mind-set. See also
Diaspora Yeshiva,
Machon Meir.
Chabad Hasidism, with many
Chabad houses throughout Israel, and yeshiva programs for Israelis, Russians, French, and Americans, reach out to thousands. Followers of Chabad can be seen attending tefillin booths at the
Western Wall and
Ben Gurion International Airport as well as other public places, and distributing
Shabbat candles on Fridays. There are also Chabad houses in almost every location that Jews might be located, whether as permanent residents, on business, or tourists. Among
Sephardi and
Mizrahi Jews, Rabbi
Amnon Yitzhak and Rabbi
Reuven Elbaz are considered the leaders of the baal teshuva movement in Israel. ==Challenges, critiques and difficulties==