Ephraim Elimelech Urbach and the Movement for Torah’s Judaism 1966–1975—An Attempt to Reestablish the Breslau School in Israel

In 1966, Ephraim Elimelech Urbach and a group of religious intellectual figures established the Movement for Torah’s Judaism, in order to change some elements in the religious life in Israel. The hegemony of religion in Israel belonged at that time to Orthodox Judaism and its political parties, especially the Lithuanian Yeshivot circles. The new movement challenged the “gap between the people and the Torah and the gap between the halacha and the political, economic and social reality”, and called “to revive the halacha through the clear assumption, that the problems of the State are included again in the field of Torah”. Urbach’s movement was an attempt to establish a Jewish “midstream movement”, and actually to reestablish the Breslau School, in Israel. The movement opposed the domination of Lithuanian orthodoxy in Israel’s religious life, as well as the very way of neo-orthodoxy, which represented the idea of “a technologist with the permission of the Torah”. They were also opposed to Reform Judaism. Although they opposed the secular way, they were obligated to cooperate with the secular majority in all the national-public missions. Their three main motions for the agenda were: the method of ruling halacha ; changing problematic prayers; and establishing a modern rabbinical seminary. After the establishment of the movement, only a few hundred members joined it. The movement did not succeed in influencing large audiences. The movement also failed in establishing the rabbinical seminary. After a decade, the movement ceased its activities.