Editing Baal teshuva (section)

===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:
{{blockquote|Decades of indoctrination by the secular school systems and the media in Israel have failed to have any effect on the sense of identity which most Jews feel with Judaism—as recent surveys have shown. The masses have become aware of the emptiness—and the terror—of a purposeless, consumerist culture. As a result, among the grassroots levels there is a deep yearning for spiritual values. <u>This yearning has taken on massive proportions as expressed in the baal teshuva movement.</u> The secret is out that Jews believe in God and that they have a Torah.<ref>{{cite web|work=Jerusalem Letter |title=Why the Secular Left Hates Judaism |url=http://www.jerusalemletter.co.il/archives/Feb4,1998/why.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/19981203104335/http://www.jerusalemletter.co.il/archives/Feb4%2C1998/why.htm |archive-date=December 3, 1998 }}</ref>}}

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 language|Hebrew]]. Schools were established dedicated to the intensive [[Torah study|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, Jerusalem|Ohr Somayach]] Yeshiva headed by Rabbis [[Nota Schiller]] and Mendel Weinbach.<ref>{{cite web|publisher=ohr.edu |title=Rabbi Nota Schiller ("credited with being one of the visionary leaders of the Baal teshuva movement") |url=http://ohr.edu/tapes/speaker.php?id=13 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040409133704/http://ohr.edu/tapes/speaker.php?id=13 |archive-date=April 9, 2004 }}</ref> 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]] [[Hasidic Judaism|Hasidism]], with many [[Chabad house]]s 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 Jews|Sephardi]] and [[Mizrahi Jews]], Rabbi [[Amnon Yitzhak]] and Rabbi [[Reuven Elbaz]] are considered the leaders of the baal teshuva movement in Israel.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=M8KODwAAQBAJ&pg=PA78|title=Site of Amnesia: The Lost Historical Consciousness of Mizrahi Jewry|first=Yvonne |last=Kozlovsky Golan|publisher=BRILL|year=2019|isbn=9789004395626|page=78}}</ref>