Tel Aviv’s 'HaMakom' Draws Young Adults Seeking Jewish Roots and Community

Young Tel Aviv residents are increasingly choosing to spend their evenings at HaMakom, a Jewish study and community space, instead of bars. The article says the venue has become a place where secular and religious participants meet to study, connect and explore Jewish identity after travel and years of searching for meaning. One veteran participant, Shay, says only someone who has actually experienced the atmosphere can understand it.

Avi, who grew up with a traditional Friday kiddush at home, says his curiosity about Judaism deepened after military service and later, while studying at Reichman University, then known as the Interdisciplinary Center. He arrived expecting to mock the program, but after 15 minutes, he says, he was won over by the people, the teaching and the openness. He now studies weekly with a former army comrade and says the learning has made him less impulsive and changed his views on giving, patience, marriage and Kabbalah.

The article also highlights weekly study partnerships between women from different backgrounds. Lior, an engineer from central Tel Aviv, studies once a week with Shira, who comes from Samaria, and both describe the sessions as a rare and deeply personal friendship. Shira says the meetings reveal “something that belongs to both of us,” while Lior says they address what happens in her life during the week and give her answers she did not know existed.

Maya, an artist, says Tel Aviv is demanding and that outside HaMakom she is trapped in an exhausting race for success, status and self-presentation. She says the space lets her relax, remove the mask and find answers that make sense, first through Yimima teachings and later through other classes. She says the history and Jewish texts feel relevant to her life now, and that the center has become her home. Shay says she attends twice a week, while Or, a student in her late twenties, says it was the first place where she could encounter Judaism without fear. Rabbi Ariel Dorfman says the center meets “thousands of Tel Aviv residents” who want to know Judaism as a source of meaning, connection and hope.