Abstract
Jewish migration to Israel from former Czechoslovakia has always been among traditionally well assimilated Jews of Czechoslovakia driven more by necessity than by Zionist persuasion. The significant waves of migration always coincided with dramatic political changes.
The fall of communism in 1989 ended the long-standing official hostility towards Israel of a regime that masked its antisemitism as anti-Zionism. Political changes not only allowed for free expression of Jewish identity, but Judaism, Jewishness, and Jewish culture became trendy.
Along with popularisation of Jewish culture attempts to revive Jewish community have been going on. It did not only come from inside of the community, but also from the outside, namely from international Jewish organisations.
The Jewish Agency, semi-state body of Israeli state, established in 1948 with the aim to facilitate migration to the state of Israel, with its youth travel programmes to Israel aimed at Jewish youth, took on a leading role. Travelling to Israel on organised tours, experiencing the country as the "core" of Jewish culture gave Jewish youth deeper sense of authenticity of their Jewish identity and belonging to Jewish ethnicity than newly visible Jewish life based on the traditions of existing Jewish community of their forebearers.
In my contribution, I am going to sum up findings of my research on impacts of organised Jewish youth travel on young Jewish migration, that became after 1989 matter of choice, not necessity, on creating transnational ties broken for more than half a century of totalitarian regimes rule, on creating and maintaining imaginary communities of diaspora and its core based on collective memory resurrected and reinterpreted through youth travels and enabled by new geopolitical situation as well as globalisation.