The Rituals Center is a joint initiative of the Hartman Institute, the Zion Community, and Beit Tefilah Israeli, and operates with the support of the Sapir Center and the Aviv Foundation. The center was established out of a belief that people seek to imbue their lives with meaningful values and spiritual significance, and that rituals are one of the leading tools via which these values and meanings can be marked, celebrated and experienced. Throughout history, Jewish culture has developed diverse rituals that expressed meaning and granted significance, a tradition that must be continued, developed and connected to the Israel-ness and Israelis of today.
The core of the rituals center is an accessible and user-friendly website which features a diverse variety of Jewish worldviews, allowing everyone to choose the ritual that represents the most precise meaning for them
Objectives:
- 1. To influence the nature of Jewish culture in Israeli society by expanding the possibilities of ritual celebration of lifecycle events.
- To enhance Israeli society’s access to the field of rituals (technically, programmatically, and ethically)
- To create a language, methodology and ethics for renewing rituals and for leading ceremonies.
- Study and conceptualization of principles and possible meanings of rituals and of leading ceremonies
Over the past year:
The rituals center engaged in building the first section – the weddings section. The work on this section included gathering content, its cataloguing and organization, and design and building of an accessible website, while maintaining an ongoing dialogue with organizations and wedding officiants, to tailor the content to a wide audience.
After the events of October 7, it was decided to create a website that features content adapted to different ceremonies held during the past months – prayers, elegies and mourning, and content related to consolation content.
Out of an understanding that Israeli society has a need for words and rituals to mark Jewish holidays, the team gathered and created content that connects the values of the holidays and the current painful reality. In total, over 200 texts related to of prayer, poetry and grieving were created and gathered from a range of Jewish-Israeli perspectives.
During the first six months the website was online, it attracted approximately 55,000 users, and more than 70,000 interactions to posts on social media.
Alongside work on content related to the ‘Swords of Iron’ War, the team continued to build the weddings section that is scheduled to go online in the summer of 2024.