The Nimrod Statue was also taken up as the emblem of a cultural-political movement known as "The Canaanites", which advocated the shrugging off of the Jewish religious tradition, cutting off relations with Diaspora Jews and their culture, and adopting in its place a "Hebrew Identity" based on ancient Semitic heroic myths – such as Nimrod's. Though never gaining mass support, the movement had a considerable influence on Israeli intellectuals in the 1940s and early 1950s.