The Tikun Movement for the renewal of society and culture in Israel was founded by a group of some 100 Israeli leaders from academia, society, culture, and education. The movement is seeking to influence Israel’s agenda, to renew Jewish symbols and insert them into Israeli life through the voice of attentive traditional Judaism that is moderate and open and acts to promote Israeli society and social justice.
We believe that the unique challenges of Israel citizens and world Jewry present an opportunity to revive this Jewish heritage. Even though 30% of the Jewish public in Israel identify themselves as traditional, the voice of traditionalism is still missing from public discourse. The Tikun movement is therefore striving to strengthen the presence of traditionalism in the public and educational spheres.
The movement is striving for a renewal of society and culture in Israel through a traditional Judaism that is attentive to the challenges of Israeli society in particular, and the Jewish people in general. The Tikun movement seeks to promote the values of peace, justice, human dignity, mutual guarantee and democracy, from a standpoint that allows our heritage to resonate.
The movement has set a number of goals for Israeli public life:
- Developing a Jewish attention to the challenges of Israeli society.
- influencing the public agenda on issues of social justice.
- Building a shared society between Jews and Jews and between Jews and Arabs, while referencing the Jewish-Arab legacy.
- Building bridges to world Jewry in general, and to Mizrahi Jewry living in the West in particular.
The movement’s model of activity is composed of four main points:
- Influencing the influencers: a broad movement of volunteers – directors of organizations working for social change, academics, media figures, artists, musicians, and more.
- Building a network of partners: creating an extensive network of partnerships with civil society organizations to enhance the effectiveness of our messages.
- An incubator for developing ideas and thought: in-depth study, debate, and consolidation of the attitude of moderate traditionalist Jewry. Every year we will focus on a number of selected issues.
- Disseminating the traditionalist voice: through digital media, conferences, national media, and social organizations of Tikun movement members and their work in this field.
The highlight of Tikun activities is the Jerusalem Conference on Traditionalism that will take place next November for the second year running. During the conference there will be numerous debates and panels involving experts, philosophers, humanities scholars, and public figures in order to study, analyze, and fully understand the issues of traditionalism and its potential contribution to Israeli society.
The Tikun movement is headed by Prof. Meir Buzaglo, a member of the philosophy department of the Hebrew University, who is active in promoting equal education and disseminating the positive message of traditionalist Mizrahi Jewry among the Israeli public.