Literally, fellowship. Small groups of Jews who meet for study and fellowship, begun after the destruction of the Second Temple in the 1st century C.E. In the U.S. in the late 1960’s, because of their discontent with organized Jewish life and the alienation of individuals and families in society, Jews inside and outside the organized community formed such groups to revitalize the Jewish experience. Some of those Havurot have endured as a new expression of the grassroots American Jewish experience.