ETD

• broken world
• contemporary Jewish history
• fix the world
• heal the world
• history of tikkun olam
• Jewish philanthropy
• Jewish utopia
• mend the world
• repairing the world
• tikkun
• tikkun olam
• tikun olam

The concept of Tikkun Olam, the Jewish idea of “repairing the world”, has increasingly become part of the mainstream cultural and political discourse. Yet Tikkun Olam seems to assume an ever-multiplying kaleidoscope of meanings and connotations. The aim of this thesis is to understand what Tikkun Olam truly signifies in the contemporary world, and how this concept can be useful in bringing about positive social change. There is a surprising lack of specific academic literature on the subject, and especially little that gives an overview of the topic from a historical perspective. This work aims to fill this gap and attempts to comprehend why Tikkun saw such a dramatic increase from the 1970s and particularly the 1980s onwards, and the reason it remains so popular with those that tend to disregard traditional forms of religion. The dissertation analyses both liberal and conservative Jewish sources, but also Jewish tradition and contemporary mainstream media and politics in order to understand how this concept has developed and how it can help improve society today. Its conclusion is that Tikkun Olam contains within itself the powerful notion that it is humanity’s responsibility to collaborate with the Divine in order to repair a broken world.