Abstract
Czech Jewish community has been traditionally well assimilated. The trends towards assimilation and secularization have been reinforced by forty years of communist totalitarian regime with its anti-Zionist agenda, that silenced Jewish identity in the majority of Czech Jews.
The fall of Berlin Wall brought certain revival of Jewish life, however, Czech Jewish youth organizations are still struggling with low membership base and Jewish identity of young Jews remains weak, privatized, concentrated on their grandparents' traumatic holocaust experiences. Unlike local Jewish youth organizations, Taglit trips gained widespread popularity and were able to reach out to those who did not participate in institutionalized Jewish life.
Participants report heightened attention to Israel issues, reconnecting to their relatives in Israel, finding Israeli and Jewish friends, will to explore their Jewish identity as well as Israel. However, Taglit experience did not change institutional landscape of Czech Jewish Youth life and it did not reflect in numbers of new members of Czech Jewish youth organizations in a significant way.
Based on qualitative ethnographic research done in the course of three years on Taglit trips, MASA programmes, among young Czech immigrants to Israel, both usually former Taglit's participants, as well as among young Czech Jews living in the Czech Republic, my analysis will focus on 3 main issues: 1. What are seemingly intangible impacts of Taglit trips on recostruction of young Czech Jews identity? How is the experience of Israel incorporated into their biographies, connected to their family memory? 2.
How is the Taglit experience turned into social action and what kind of action is it? 3. Is there a new kind of transnational Jewish space emerging from the Taglit experience?