Dynamic Belonging: Contemporary Jewish Collective Identities 9780857452580

Table of contents :
Contents
Tables and Figures
Preface
INTRODUCTION Dynamic Jewish Identities Insights from a Comparative View
SECTION I The Fluid Nature of Jewish Belonging
CHAPTER 1 Religion, Ethnic Identity, and the Sense of Belonging
CHAPTER 2 Conceptual and Pragmatic Aspects of Binarism Examples from Israeli Society
CHAPTER 3 From Security to Insecurity British Jewish Communal Leadership in the Context of Multiculturalism
CHAPTER 4 The Jewish Question Again From Collective Identity to Social Vitality
RESPONSE TO SECTION I Rethinking Categories and Challenging Futures
SECTION II Diverse Attempts at Constructing Jewish Sub-Cultures in Israel and the United States
CHAPTER 5 Fundamentalist or Romantic Nationalist? Israeli Modern Orthodoxy
CHAPTER 6 Jewish Identity, Gender, and Religion Masorti Women and the Feminist Challenge to Traditional Jewish Identity
CHAPTER 7 “Israeli Jews” vs. “Jewish Israelis” and the Ritual Connection to Diaspora Jewry
CHAPTER 8 Engaging the Next Generation of American Jews Distinguishing the In-Married, Intermarried, and Non-Married
RESPONSE TO SECTION II Dynamic Belongings of Younger Jews and the Transformation of the Jewish Self
SECTION III Diverse Ways of Connecting to the Jewish People
CHAPTER 9 Constructing Jewish Belonging through Mass Tourism Self-Narration in Israel Experience Programs
CHAPTER 10 A Jewish and Democratic State? How American Jews Discuss Israel’s Identity Dilemma
CHAPTER 11 In Search of Roots and Routes The Making and Remaking of the Diasporic Jewish Identity
RESPONSE TO SECTION III Hummus, Challah, and Gefi lte Fish Israel in Diaspora Jewish Culture
AFTERWORD “I’m a Gentile!” Border Dramas and Jewish Continuity
Bibliography
Notes on Contributors
Index

Citation preview

DYNAMIC BELONGING

j

Dynamic Belonging Contemporary Jewish Collective Identities

Edited By

Harvey E. Goldberg, Steven M. Cohen, and Ezra Kopelowitz

Berghahn Books New York • Oxford

Published in 2012 by Berghahn Books www.berghahnbooks.com ©2012 Harvey E. Goldberg, Steven M. Cohen, and Ezra Kopelowitz

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Dynamic belonging : contemporary Jewish collective identities / edited by Harvey E. Goldberg, Steven M. Cohen, and Ezra Kopelowitz. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-85745-257-3 (hardback : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-85745-258-0 (ebook) 1. Jews—Identity—Congresses. 2. Jews—United States—Identity—Congresses. 3. Jews—Israel—Identity—Congresses. 4. Israel and the Diaspora—Congresses. 5. Judaism—21st century—Congresses. I. Goldberg, Harvey E. II. Cohen, Steven Martin. III. Kopelowitz, Ezra. DS143.D96 2012 305.892’4--dc23 2011025035

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Printed in the United States on acid-free paper

ISBN 978-0-85745-257-3 (hardback) ISBN 978-0-85745-258-0 (ebook)

j Contents List of Tables and Figures

vii

Preface

viii

introduction

Dynamic Jewish Identities: Insights from a Comparative View Harvey E. Goldberg

1

Section I. The Fluid Nature of Jewish Belonging chapter 

Religion, Ethnic Identity, and the Sense of Belonging Stanley Brandes

31

chapter 

Conceptual and Pragmatic Aspects of Binarism: Examples from Israeli Society Harvey E. Goldberg

46

chapter 

From Security to Insecurity: British Jewish Communal Leadership in the Context of Multiculturalism Keith Kahn-Harris and Ben Gidley

65

chapter 

The Jewish Question Again: From Collective Identity to Social Vitality Philip Wexler

74

response to section i

Rethinking Categories and Challenging Futures Marcy Brink-Danan

83

Section II. Diverse Attempts at Constructing Jewish Sub-Cultures in Israel and the United States chapter 

Fundamentalist or Romantic Nationalist? Israeli Modern Orthodoxy Shlomo Fischer

91

vi | Dynamic Belonging

chapter 

Jewish Identity, Gender, and Religion: Masorti Women and the Feminist Challenge to Traditional Jewish Identity Yaacov Yadgar

112

chapter 

“Israeli Jews” vs. “Jewish Israelis” and the Ritual Connection to Diaspora Jewry Ezra Kopelowitz and Lior Rosenberg

136

chapter 

Engaging the Next Generation of American Jews: Distinguishing the In-Married, Intermarried, and Non-Married Steven M. Cohen

151

response to section ii

Dynamic Belongings of Younger Jews and the Transformation of the Jewish Self Rachel Werczberger

165

Section III. Diverse Ways of Connecting to the Jewish People chapter 

Constructing Jewish Belonging through Mass Tourism: Self-Narration in Israel Experience Programs Shaul Kelner

173

chapter 

A Jewish and Democratic State? How American Jews Discuss Israel’s Identity Dilemma Theodore Sasson

190

chapter 

In Search of Roots and Routes: The Making and Remaking of the Diasporic Jewish Identity Elan Ezrachi

206

response to section iii

Hummus, Challah, and Gefilte Fish: Israel in Diaspora Jewish Culture Sarah Bunin Benor

219

Afterword

“I’m a Gentile!” Border Dramas and Jewish Continuity Jack Kugelmass

223

Bibliography

237

Notes on Contributors

257

Index

263

j Tables and Figures Tables 7.1. Demographic characteristics of the three survey groups

138

7.2. Dimensions of the Jewish imagination

139

7.3. Comparison between “Born Abroad a Jew” and “Proud to be a Jew” questions*

144

7.4. Distribution of secular/religious by attitude toward kashrut

147

7.5. Percent of secular/religious who want to have been born abroad Jewish organized by attitude toward kashrut*

147

Figures 7.1. Connection between positive attitude toward kashrut ritual and desire to be born Jewish abroad

143

7.2. Connection between positive attitude toward kashrut ritual and desire to be born Jewish abroad—by group

148

j Preface T

his book calls for and embodies a much-needed approach to grappling with the meaning of Jewish life in contemporary times. As Harvey E. Goldberg writes in the introduction, we seek to grapple with the positive side of Jewish life in an open society. Much of the social scientific literature and popular discourse focuses on the dangers of assimilation. While in no way diminishing or dismissing those dangers, we also seek to draw analytic attention to its flip side: the many creative, novel, and dynamic responses of Jews across the ideological spectrum to the challenge of living in an open society. We had the luxury of exploring the topic of dynamic Jewish belonging in a research seminar, in the Spring of 2004, at the Advanced Institute of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The Advanced Institute also provided funding to support this anthology, for which we are grateful. The chapters of this book are written by members at that seminar, or guests who addressed the seminar over the course of the semester. Most essays in this volume were presented at a conference held at the end of the seminar. This anthology seeks to convey the vibrant and intensive nature of those discussions. Reflecting the ongoing and ever-evolving discourse, we invited comments from four scholars upon completion of the anthology. These appear as three sets of remarks following each section and an afterword.

j Dynamic Jewish Identities INTRODUCTION

Insights from a Comparative View Harvey E. Goldberg

The Jews were at once Sefrouis like any others, and resoundingly themselves. —Clifford Geertz, 1979

T

his statement by anthropologist Clifford Geertz, describing a community in the foothills of the Atlas Mountains, many of whose members had left for France or Israel, is emblematic of the ubiquitous riddle that arises when Jews strike local roots while maintaining and recreating their own traditions. In the settings of post-emancipation Europe and in America, which Jews entered from positions often depicted as “marginal,” they struggled with becoming part of nation-states that appeared to demand far-reaching conformity as a component of membership. In the course of the twentieth century, the outcomes of these struggles were various. In central Europe, Jews were conceptually eliminated from the Nazi state and physically extirpated and erased from lands under its control. In North America, they became full participants in the world’s (currently) most powerful state that claims to be open to individuals of any origin. In an area on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean that was the center of Jewish life in antiquity, they set up a state “of their own.” It is hardly surprising that the forms of Judaism that emerged in these settings diverged from one another, while in each instance Jews felt they were perpetuating themselves, their culture, and their religion. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the idea of the nation-state no longer provides an unchallenged framework for locating and focusing upon social and cultural trends. States in Europe and North America have become more ethnically and religiously diverse than once imagined possible. The rapid and broad movement of capital, people, ideas, and practices across national borders has yielded situations in which individuals and groups can continually fashion and refashion ideologies, forms of culture, and badges of identity while connecting themselves to trends of a global scope. The individual is both more free from the “givens” of his or her family, community, or religion of birth and

2 | Introduction

simultaneously ever more enmeshed in powerful global trends shaping his/her responses. Judaism, the smallest in population among what are considered the major “world religions,” and Jews, whose existence has always been conditioned by the realities of larger polities, obviously partake in these new realities. Jews everywhere are engaged in experimenting with new ways of “putting together” Judaism and Jewish communality, even in those cases where deep commitments to past norms are a significant part of the effort. In the context of Israeli life, the struggle over the meaning of Judaism and its translation into living forms carries the extra burden of bearing implications for non-Jews inside of Israel and the political relationships between the country and its Arab and Muslim neighbors. But the basic challenge of finding ways of “being Jewish” and “belonging Jewishly” in relation to a whole set of global pressures and currents is common to Jews wherever they reside. Facing such challenges must include a reflective and critical assessment of what “Jews are doing,” however the outcomes of such assessments might or might not fit the normative patterns and programs of action established in past generations. An appreciation of the dynamic nature of Jewish belonging must take into account a wide and comparative view of Jewish expressions, both within formally “religious” and wider cultural realms, independent of a prejudgment as to whether they are mainstream or marginal. Many Jews, particularly those who see themselves as bearing responsibility for the Jewish future, view recent changes and developments with alarm. The tracing of social and religious currents among contemporary Jews has long been directed toward questions of “Jewish continuity” in the Diaspora, or challenges of Jewish identity in Israel. Social research in the United States and elsewhere frequently highlights what are defined as negative forces: growing rates of intermarriage, increasing alienation of young Jews from established Jewish communities, and dropping rates of affiliation (see Keith Kahn-Harris and Ben Gidley in this volume). In Israel, the place of Jewishness in education and a decline in commitment to collective values are prominent concerns. In addition, many Jewish Israelis feel alienated from the state-supported religious establishment, while Orthodox spokesmen decry both secularism and the small but visible inroads that liberal forms of Judaism have made in the society. Beyond these country-specific phenomena is the gnawing question of “the Jewish people”: whether a sense of unity and shared future will be maintained or whether the coming decades portend the emergence of disconnected “Judaisms.”1 Negative emphases and the focus on conflict distract us from understanding the positive and culture-constructive aspects of Jewish responses to trends unfolding in the United States, Israel and elsewhere. The present book offers studies of processes that shape contemporary Jewish belonging. To grapple with questions like Jewish continuity, we must also delve into the processes

Introduction | 3

and content of recent and current approaches to being Jewish, recognizing their dynamic and transformative nature, including the ways they challenge former definitions and boundaries. We are convinced that what is taking place in both Israel and the Diaspora, while shaped by specific contexts, are worth putting into juxtaposition.

Background Factors: Analytic Dilemmas of Judaism and its Contexts A comparative look at ways of asserting Jewish belonging implies designating certain characteristics of Jewishness or Judaism and removing them, for purposes of discussion, from their immediate contexts. This appears as a natural move in North American settings where discourse assumes that religion resides in its own sphere, separate from other realms of society and culture. It seems less apropos to the Israeli milieu where the notion of religion (Judaism in this case) seems inextricably tied up with both politics and its putative opposite: secularism. It is our purpose to show, however, that within Israel as well as within Diaspora communities, there are dynamic Jewish trends that cannot be reduced to political explanations. Similarly, we do not feel it is productive to view religion and secularism as two opposing social and political camps, but as different cultural thrusts, often in tension, while they simultaneously may interact in various complex ways. To this end, we first turn to a brief overview of religion and politics in Israel, precisely to highlight developments that move beyond a paradigm that places their intertwining as the definitive issue for grasping Judaism in that society. Politics, in the sense of the nitty-gritty struggle for public resources, power, and influence, is an integral part of religious life in Israel in the form of organized religious parties (Deshen 1978; Liebman and Don Yehiya 1983a and b).2 The United States presents a radically different situation, where constitutionally, in both a legal sense and in terms of the ideas and institutions that make up society, religion and politics are relegated to separate spheres. At the same time, this very position is political at a more basic level, and such societalconstitutive notions have important implications for religion. This is evident in several ways. The diverse modern Judaic ideologies that emerged in Europe in the nineteenth century, and fed into what became Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox Judaism in the United States in the twentieth century, primarily emerged in Central Europe. There, a unified state crystallized much later than in France and England, for example. In those countries, a formally Orthodox public face of Judaism was maintained even as many Jews became more free or lax in religious observance. Another pattern, that of the growth of Jewish religious political parties per se, appeared further east in Europe, and this

4 | Introduction

explains their dominance in the Israeli setting. At the same time, the newness of this development in terms of Jewish history explains why they at first made little sense to newcomers to Israel from Middle Eastern countries. When a young man born in rural Tripolitania stated in an informal conversation in 1959 that “I am not dati [religious], I am Mapai [a political party, predecessor of today’s Labor party],” he should not be seen as “culturally ignorant,” as his interlocutors of eastern Europe provenance perceived him, but as reflecting a historically accurate grasp of the novel reality in modern Israel in which religion and formal political organization were linked. Just as this linkage stems from a particular and situated configuration of the interdigitation of religion and politics, we also should be alert to shifts in the relationship between these two sets of factors. This contingent relationship also becomes apparent when recalling the history of religious political parties in Israel and attending to their differences and some of the changes in which they have been enmeshed. The original world of Orthodoxy may sketchily be divided into two broad directions: ultra-Orthodoxy (haredi) that both ideologically opposed modernity and rejected Zionism as an attempt to end the divinely decreed exilic situation of the Jewish people (as a matter that should await the messianic era), and a modernizing stream known as dati leumi—religious while embracing Jewish nationalism. With roots in the nineteenth century, both took on political forms early in the twentieth century: ultra-Orthodoxy in the form of the Agudat Yisrael party in Poland (founded 1912) that opposed Zionsim, and the Mizrahi party (founded 1902) within the Zionist movement that took shape when it became clear that the World Zionist Organization would be dealing with the cultural and hence religious contours of a future Jewish polity, in addition to addressing the economic and political plight of oppressed Jews. Both parties eventually found themselves as political actors in the newly created state of Israel. They shared a deep concern over the place of Jewish religion in the state, while differing widely regarding how to formulate and promote that concern. Social science literature on modern Israel did not initially develop a basic ethnographic or theoretical curiosity regarding the variety of religious expressions in the society, but dealt with religious issues when they appeared as problematic. First, attention was paid to the issue of basic relations between religion and the state, with a focus on the haredi community that formally rejected Israel’s legitimacy in Jewish terms. The dati leumi community and ideology came under extensive social science scrutiny only later, with the emergence of radical ideologies moving this group to the political right in the wake of the 1967 war and Israel’s control over parts of Jordan, Syria, and Egypt, including what currently is envisioned as a future Palestinian state. This created a new configuration of religion and politics with implications that continue to be a matter of vigorous international contention today.

Introduction | 5

During the sixty-plus years of Israel’s existence, religion has at times played a dramatic role in Israel’s internal and external politics with direct reverberations among Jews in the United States. In the 1980s, pressure to revise laws limiting the recognition of conversions by rabbis who were not Orthodox (the “Who is a Jew” controversy; see Samet 1986), led leaders of non-Orthodox streams in the United States (representing the majority of Jews there) to get the message across to Israeli officials and members of Parliament that such a revision would constitute a deep breach in the relationship between the two communities.3 Today, as these lines are written, shortly after the speech of US President Obama in Cairo (4 June 2009), it appears that a policy by an Israeli government resisting a future Palestinian state, supported by religious ideologues and politics, also stands to test the strength and quality of the ties between many Jews in America and Israel. But the prominence of these political issues, and their seemingly one-dimensional character as they appear in the media, should not obscure the diverse levels and currents that run through both religion and politics and their complex intertwining in Israel. Some of the shifting contours in these realms may be highlighted by sketching developments within the three main political-religious streams in Israel, and then pointing to some of the cultural issues and dynamics they entail. The examples and related interpretations offered are not intended to cover any of the topics mentioned, but to challenge simple explanations of trends in terms of conventional religious-political rubrics. This includes taking for granted the very conceptual line separating “religious” (dati)4 phenomena and groups from other cultural commitments and initiatives in Israeli life. The three sketches relate to the two classic loci of organized religious life already cited (National Religious and haredi), and the expression of Sephardi haredi-ism in the form of the Shas party, appearing in the 1980s, that does not neatly fit either of the previously characterized political-religious phenomena. One development is the shrinkage and eventual formal disappearance of the National Religious Party (NRP) that was officially established in 1956 from a merger of the Mizrahi and socialist Poel Mizrahi parties.5 It was originally the seedbed from within which the extra-parliamentary Gush Emunim settlement movement grew (Aran 1991; Feige 2009), but from the 1980s it began to lose voters in several directions: to people moving in a more radical “Greater Land of Israel” ideology, to those attracted to a more haredi-like pattern of observance, and to the new religious Sephardi parties, Tami and then Shas (see below). The very success in establishing what appeared to be a bedrock association between commitment to religion and right-wing politics, which had not existed in the period of the “historic alliance” between the NRP and Mapai (Labor) up through the aftermath of the 1967 war, meant that this bundle diffused within the political system, providing former NRP voters with other options. The damper on the Greater Land of Israel vision stemming from the

6 | Introduction

1987 Palestinian uprising (intifada), the Oslo accords of 1993 that included the principle of a Palestinian state, and the shock in the wake of the assassination in 1995 of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by a person nurtured in that ideology, did not, however, put an end to religious creativity within subgroups and streams of National Religious culture. These have come to expression in educational efforts aimed at communicating with and/or influencing non-religious Israelis, in new experiments in cultural expression (see Shlomo Fischer in this volume), and in testing the borders of Orthodox life with feminist innovations in the study of texts and in ritual. In recent years, serialized television dramas have depicted trends and developments within National Religious communities, demonstrating a two-way street of interest by the Israeli public at the same time that outside cultural influences continue to be an inherent ingredient of that way of life. While general right-wing attitudes remain common within these circles, they also have their challengers, and this political orientation alone by no means encompasses the religious interests and dynamism of dati leumi groups. Religious developments within the haredi world are also more intricate than might be expected from a simple translation into practice of the ideology of keeping distance from modern culture and from the Zionist state, with the aim of preserving Judaism in a putatively unmodified form (Heilman and Friedman 1991; Friedman 1995). Education is crucial to the maintenance of a haredi way of life, and most ultra-Orthodox groups, characterized by high birth rates, gradually came to accept some government support of their growing school systems, particularly after Agudat Yisrael joined the coalition of the first Likud government in 1977. The ideal religious life for haredi men is to study Torah full time, and an exemption from military service given to yeshiva (religious academy) students as part of a compromise in the early years of the state now encompasses tens of thousands of young men. Here, too, success brings its own problems. It is neither reasonable nor realistic that so many accept a way of life devoted only to study, with no basis of income from work. Haredi society thus faces various challenges, including poverty and a growing number of young men who do not fit well into yeshiva frameworks. The latter’s unruly behavior, including violence in demonstrations, has ironically earned them the designation of shebab, a term from Arab society referring to young toughs whose comportment is only partially limited by communal and patriarchal control. Responses to these challenges have included a slowly increasing participation of haredi men in the work force and the voluntary enlistment of some in a special army unit tailored to their way of life. In addition, there have emerged other arenas in which the special religious and communal skills cultivated in haredi society have been harnessed so that they contribute to wider society, precisely on the basis of their rootedness in traditional practices and norms. One is a voluntary organization called ZAKA

Introduction | 7

which, driven by the concern that dismembered Jewish corpses receive a proper halakhic burial, specializes in assisting ambulance and rescue crews after terror attacks (Stadler 2008: 135–157). This organization, founded in 1990, was recognized by the government and has become a standard supportive presence in the painful scenes familiar to all Israelis during recent decades. Another realm in which some haredim have made a recognized contribution is in the development of voluntary organizations to feed needy people of varying backgrounds (Goldberg 2010). The Shas party formally falls under the haredi rubric because its ideology claims to accept totally the leadership of Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef. It emerged in the mid 1980s, partially reflecting the frustrated ambitions of Sephardi Jews within the haredi world (parallel to what gave rise to the short-lived Tami party a few years earlier, which defined itself as committed to “tradition,” and was not headed by a rabbi), and partially as a manipulation within the world of Ashkenazi haredi politics. Viewed at first by the general public as a political phenomenon, the social significance and cultural-historical roots of the party gradually have come to be understood (Caplan 2007). In 1988, Shas reached the point of gaining more votes than Ashkenazi haredi parties, or than the NRP. This success is linked, according to Nissim Leon (2007), to “Yosef ’s attitude and approach to the public … [expressed in] the concept of zikui ha-rabim, understood broadly as the conduct of activities that enable the masses to attain religious merit or virtue. … That concept constitutes the defining principle of Yosef ’s project of halakhic study, decision-making, and teaching” (153).6 Thus, while many Shas voters do not lead a haredi, or even “plain Orthodox” way of life, they are attracted to the preaching and the public image of Rabbi Yosef, who simultaneously addresses spiritual concerns and reflects their senses of social location and identity within Israeli society. This “religious activism” (Leon’s term) in relation to people who are not deeply observant draws upon the now appreciated reality that among Jews from the Middle East, becoming Israeli did not constitute a Zionism that rebelled against traditional Judaism, but that the former was an understandable outgrowth of the latter (cf., Peled 1998). Being Israeli did not stem from an ideology in the strict political sense of the term, and this may still be reflected in the attitudes of “traditional” Jews who feel that rabbis should not involve themselves with politics (cf., Yadgar 2010: 321–322). Sentiments like these may partially correspond with the situation of many Israeli Jews today, who are not identified with any defined religious-political perspective, but seek some spiritual or social rudders within the vast Judaic storehouse of history and culture, to help steer a course that makes sense in a diverse and demanding society that will not relinquish the notion that it is “Jewish.” These three glimpses into the main labeled configurations of Judaism cum politics make it clear that political factors alone do not suffice to interpret re-

8 | Introduction

cent trends within them. At the same time, all these directions reflect the evolution of wider, non-Orthodox, Israeli society, but also themselves have made impacts beyond their specific social-religious boundaries. Over the past generation, public discourse in Israel has increasingly grown aware that a simple division of Israeli Jews into the categories of “religious” and “secular” is inadequate, even when one adds a middle term—masorti or “traditional.”7 Growing religious diversity among Jews beyond established institutional categories has been evident in the United States since the 1960/70s, and such a process, with its own characteristics, is now underway in Israel. A major purpose of the present collection is to tap into these developments, while assuming that the Judaic worlds in Israeli society and the Diaspora, their differences notwithstanding, have in some ways become more relevant to one another. In outlining broader contexts for looking at Jewish religious trends, it is important to pay attention to developments outside of Judaism as well. Naama Azulay and Rachel Werczberger (2008) have discussed the emergence of “Jewish Renewal” within secular sectors of Israeli life, a phenomenon that bears the name of an identifiable Jewish direction within the United States (e.g., Weissler 2005), exhibiting features rooted in Israeli realities, but also at times turning to extra-Judaic sources of inspiration such as “New Age religion.” They suggest that this development be accorded the analytic status of a “new social movement,” a term used to characterize collective action driven by issues of culture and identity common in post-industrial society. This turn reflects a growing feeling among Israelis not defining themselves as dati that Judaism, or better, the vast storehouse of texts, symbols, and rituals threaded through Jewish history, should not be the monopoly of “the datiyim.” It is another phenomenon that challenges simple classifications of Judaic expression in contemporary Israel. These trends may be found among Israelis who are not satisfied with the existing labels, but also among some committed secularists—hiloniyim. Our collection does not highlight a study of an explicitly secular formulation of Judaic culture, but this does not imply that we deem this direction unimportant, or dismiss the significance of the self-definition of people presenting themselves in such terms.8 We do feel, however, that it is limiting to think of “secular” only as referring to a sphere of ideological content in relation to a given group; we view secularity as an aspect of all contemporary Jewish experience, including those explicitly identifying themselves as “religious.” A related perspective appears in some recent work on Muslim societies where secularity refers to a situation in which the state defines the boundaries of what is conceived as belonging to the religious sphere (Navaro-Yashin 2002, ch. 6; Rasanayagam 2010; Shryock 2010). Parallel to these views, and respectful of the right of any collectivity to determine and label the content of its beliefs and commitments, we suggest that any group turning energetically to scrutinize classic Jewish

Introduction | 9

texts and practices, runs the so-called risk of encountering religious meanings that have become attached to those sources and symbols over the ages.9 When such historic-cultural linkages enter the fluid fields of post-modernity, where the fragmentation of structures of signification and their potential recombination in myriad new forms is endemic, we are led to emphasize the processes involved rather than seek to understand groups in terms of pre-existing typologies.

From Collective Definitions to Individual Agency Having invoked post-modernism as a context for contemporary Jewish creativity, we also briefly place our approach in the context of various post-phenomena. The thrusts of deconstruction, post-modernism, post-colonialism, and, with specific reference to Israel, post-Zionism have yielded insights regarding significant aspects of contemporary society and culture, but mostly in terms of what has been weakened or left behind. Today, compared to half a century ago, we accept fewer master narratives, prefer decentralized authority, value ambiguity, and espouse both overlapping and shifting identities. The stress on what no longer reigns, however, should not draw attention away from the farranging ability of individuals to “put things together” in ways that make sense to them, and to utilize this capacity to forge new definitions and affiliations. The present volume claims that focusing on that which is emerging ought to go hand-in-hand with what is decomposing or shifting. Post-modernism has entered frameworks for discussing Jewish life only gradually. Jack Kugelmass (1988: 2) cited post-modernity as one of the contexts of identity construction among American Jews, and in the opening article of the renewed periodical Jewish Social Studies, Arnold Eisen (1994) suggested a rethinking of the meeting of Jews with modernity, while pointing to some challenges presented by post-modernity. He raised questions about a sharp distinction between these two phases, while Jonathan Boyarin (1996: 191– 200) engaged with theories that resonate with post-modernity, hinting that some of its positive features are adumbrated in the Yiddish past. In a study of contemporary Austria, Matti Bunzl (2004) has examined modernity and postmodernity, showing both breaks and continuities between them, in regard to the wider political and cultural contexts impinging on Jewish life. Examining trends both in the United States and Israel, Boaz Huss (2007) attributes the renewed interest in and re-formulations of Kabbalah—Jewish mysticism—as an expression of “post-modern spirituality.” Focusing on Israeli settings, Yossi Yonah and Yehudah Goodman (2004) see post-modernism, post-structuralism, and post-colonialism as analytic platforms from which to examine the power-infused fiction that Israeli Jews can

10 | Introduction

be divided into the rubrics of “religious” and “non-religious.” They, and the authors in their collection, point to religious developments challenging binary categorizations, showing that an unquestioned linkage of Jewish religion and nationalism is decreasingly relevant. Moshe Rosman (2005) has summarized a number of observable historical developments that characterize Jewish postmodernity on a global scale. He sees this trend beginning in the mid twentieth century after the Holocaust and the founding of the State of Israel, and appearing in various spheres including demographic stability (and even decline) with a rearranging of the geographic center of gravity of Jewish life to two national centers. Another development is the unprecedented ability of Jews to reach high echelons of power in democratic societies. In a more recent study, Rosman (2009) examines the relevance of post-modernist perspectives to various questions in Jewish history. Each of these post-movements is a complex issue that cannot be summarized in pithy phrases. They demand detailed description and contextualization in order to grasp their implications in specific cases. In addition, several other considerations must be kept in mind when viewing how Jews continue to be “themselves” while actively engaged in the labile social, political, and cultural fields that have been called post-modernity. One consideration is that while Jews were clearly attracted to and moved toward the promises of modernity, they also continually created expressions of hesitation, reservation, and outright critique regarding its implications. Whether in the form of alternative approaches to Jewish history that challenged the progress-infused model of “from the Bible to Christianity,” or in the humor of Jewish-American comedians who were sensitive to the ironies of becoming part of American society, or in the critique of European society that led Jewish intellectuals to a range of positions from internationalism to Zionism, or in the gut perception in the aftermath of the Holocaust that one of the most so-called advanced societies had produced the most base of human projects, Jews have been attuned to dilemmas of modernity and the nation-state even while they demonstrated considerable success in reaping its benefits. Thus, the critique implied in postmodern perspectives is not only a product of the late twentieth century, but also the fruition of perspectives, some of which had roots in the decades when Jews first encountered modernity on an extensive scale. This is one of the reasons that we feel more comfortable with the phrase “late modernity,” adopted by theorists who hold that the break with modernity has been overstated. With reference to recent developments within Jewish life, those who experiment with new forms can invoke a genealogy of more or less self-conscious attempts to re-form Judaism from the early nineteenth century onward. Most Jews owned up to the fact that they were participants in the wider society and were changing their received ways, even as they spoke and acted in the name of past norms and loyalties. One might even claim that post-

Introduction | 11

emancipation Jewry has forged a “tradition of invention” (Goldberg 1999). However, in at least one way, the late twentieth century produced emphases that were given little explicit expression before: there is now open recognition of the individual as a locus of creativity and authority in the chain of Jewish tradition and transmission. But this valuation of the individual is also hemmed in by circumstances originating beyond the single person. The very notion of Jewishness pushes toward some cognizance of a long-shared history and of a people that “hung together,” internal diversity and tension notwithstanding. And even though contemporary expressions of Judaism may be fine-tuned to the needs of specific individuals and groups, it is still difficult to totally unhinge the label “Jewish” from its broader connotations that bridge populations on different continents, encompass cognizance of the stormy state of Israel, and turn it into a focus of anti-Semitism. An individual entering an encounter with his or her Jewishness also invariably becomes entailed in new forms of affiliation that deserve understanding in greater depth. In the American context, informed by late-modern trends but also with roots in Protestantism, the contemporary locus of religion is the individual looking out. But in Israel, we are witnessing an opposite move—the weakening of collective imperatives and a groping toward the individual as a site of Jewish value. Zionism was a project based on defining Jews collectively, challenging trends toward assimilation as individuals into European societies. Groups and ideologies within the Zionist framework also took for granted, for a long time, that group placement shapes many aspects of personal life. For sure, the resonance of collective identities has by no means disappeared from Israeli life. But it is clear that Israelis now produce many personal and group expressions that do not take a given ideological or group affiliation as a starting point; rather, they carve out a place that is meaningful to individuals and their selected associates. Thus, some overlapping issues and challenges now face Jews both in Israel and in Diaspora centers. One such issue is post-Zionism, a term that may raise strong emotions, but can be understood in diverse ways. The Zionist movement successfully created a Jewish state, which is now a given fact—not a goal. Post-Zionism as political discourse may be seen as hostile to the Zionist ideal of a state defined by ethnic Jewishness, but the notion may also be understood as simply taking for granted Israel’s existence. Tension between its ethnic definition and norms of citizenship notwithstanding, many Jewish Israelis are now able to set large collective questions aside and relate to Jewishness in new modes beyond, or in addition to, a national narrative without necessarily eroding the latter. This latter process is encouraged by economic growth and the embourgoisement of large sections of Israel’s population, even while conflicts with Palestinian and Arab worlds do not allow collective identities to remain dormant for long and

12 | Introduction

keep full “normalization” as a yet-to-be-attained goal. But given the process, admittedly still limited, of loosening Jewishness from broad collective narratives, the option becomes available of accepting religious and cultural inspiration from elsewhere, including both general global trends and Jewish religious expressions first emerging in Diaspora settings. We thus see that both in the United States and in Israel, what may be viewed as a decline or crisis in Jewish commitment and affiliation coexists with new forms of identification and belonging. In both cases, the individual as a unit of religious agency is taking on new importance. Individuals, families, and groups have available to them a storehouse of symbols and accounts, of practices and texts, to draw upon in configuring contemporary versions of Judaism. Each national, communal, or ideological setting pulls to create the Judaism that shores up its own special worldview.

The Fluid Nature of Jewish Belonging To appreciate emerging forms of Jewish belonging, we need to see beyond the accepted and rigid categories through which the religious and cultural life of Jews has been viewed. In North America, the division into Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Judaism now provides a very partial orientation of what is significant to Jews. Each category is internally diverse, and movements interstitial to these “classic” positions have emerged (e.g., Reconstructionism, the Union of Traditional Judaism, and Jewish Renewal [Weissler 2005]). Most recently, there is a phenomenon of active and large congregations defining themselves as independent of any denomination (a Conservative background is prominent in a number of these cases). In addition, other sites that may partake of both religious and cultural/secular features have become central for the generation of Jewish meaning. Examples of this phenomenon include the growth of Jewish Studies programs on campuses, the Jewish Community Centers in the United States with an agglomerate membership of more than one million, or the engagement in organizations dealing with communal welfare. The latter entail cooperation among leaders of various religious bents. Relevant, too, are “third sector” organizations committed to global challenges—such as hunger, the environment, or assisting refugees—that define themselves as acting on the basis of Jewish values. These widening and flexible fields permit those who put together their own adaptations of traditional Jewish elements to do so in an atmosphere of openness. Somewhat parallel trends are now found in Israel, even though the cultural, political, and legal frameworks for religious action are very different there than in America. Only recently has some progress been made in mapping out new currents (Goodman and Fischer 2004). For example, there has

Introduction | 13

been minimal exploration of the various meanings and behavior correlates of the notion of masorti (traditional), which began as a residual category, but is now a term that is important to some as a self-description (see Shokeid 1984; Goldberg 1993; Yaacov Yadgar in this volume; and Yadgar 2010). An extensive survey of religious behaviors among Jews in Israel about fifteen years ago stimulated a vigorous debate about the appropriate lenses through which to view Israelis’ relation to tradition (Liebman and Katz 1997). In addition, there has been some growth in the consciousness of Israelis regarding the existence and features of the Conservative and Reform religious movements as judged by their appearance in printed and electronic media (Tabory 2004). Recent High Court decisions supporting greater rights for these movements suggest that this trend will continue.10 Among other factors, these developments reflect the implications of liberal voices for major questions in Israel, such as the potential conversion to Judaism by immigrants from the former Soviet Union (some of them are not formally Jews, and often encounter special problems when they wish to marry Israeli Jews or be buried in a standard Jewish cemetery). In general, the life cycle may prove to be a scene for the search for ritual alternatives (Goldberg 2003). An example is the phenomenon of Israelis marrying formally abroad and then choosing to have a ceremony led by a liberal rabbi, an individual representing secular Judaism, or a media celebrity bringing his own halo and worldview to the launching of the new couple (Prashizky 2005; Koren 2005). Global shifts in consciousness, such as feminism, have had an impact both upon secular and religious Israelis, with various outcomes. One interesting point among those in Israel who consider themselves religious feminists is that some openly state that they have been inspired by the models of religious Americans. In a previous era, to acknowledge that Diaspora Jewry has led the way in Judaic innovation was a kind of Zionist heresy. There has been a relative lack of attention to such phenomena in Israel, perhaps stemming from a feature that characterizes Israeli sociologists: a focus on groups espousing extreme religious positions and a tendency not to take an interest in the more mundane or normative expressions of Jewish life that are the focus of this volume (Kopelowitz and Israel 2005). To maintain such an emphasis in the light of a clear diversification of religious commitments and practice is to misread or overlook significant societal trends. In addition to allowing for a more nuanced view of Judaism, a second analytic tactic that would help to better grasp recent religious trends both in Israel and America is to focus on process. How do people experiment and even “play” with the cultural givens that stand at their disposal? How do they negotiate the tension between individual self-expression and gestures of group belonging? What are the various ways, to paraphrase the quote from Geertz, through which Jews manage to be “themselves,” and equally part of other cultural horizons? Exploring how people move through the phases of individual

14 | Introduction

lives is crucial here; it entails how people “exit” social roles and commitments along with how they take them on and integrate them. A third theme of analytic import is exploring ideas, activities, and people that cross the lines separating Jews in the United States (or other national settings) and Israel. These challenge accepted conceptual and religious notions. Programs that bring Diaspora youths to visit and study in Israel have existed since the 1950s, but the new emphasis on them over the last two decades shows their increasing importance as well as shifts in their emphases and messages. Fifty years ago it was assumed that Israelis were the “teachers” and those coming from abroad were the “pupils,” but more recent developments show greater recognition of the potential input of the latter (Kopelowitz 2003a). For example, a program initiated outside the framework of established educational institutions called “March of the Living,” which brings both American and Israeli youth to visit the sites of Nazi death camps (Stier 1995), has gained so much public attention that it is now attended by central Israeli figures. But while the Holocaust bears significance for Jews both in Israel and the Diaspora, visits may also be structured to convey significances resonating with the specific backgrounds of participants (Feldman 2008). Alongside such ritualized and media-infused events, specific religious concerns bearing on individual lives may bring together American and Israeli Jews and even partially bridge religious ideological divides. An example is the growing need for solutions to the crisis of women whose personal lives have been paralyzed by the halakhic status of agunah (cf., Haut 1994). This issue generates publications, networks, and meetings of women and men from all over the Jewish world. The increasing globalization of Jewish life has also produced unforeseen new convergences entailing both religious interest and financial support. As noted, liberal forms of Judaism in Israel enjoy only minimal governmental financing, and they therefore turn to sympathetic institutions and communities abroad to help maintain and expand their programs. While this is not surprising, the extensive support that is simultaneously financial, political, and spiritual extended to Israel by fundamentalist Christians from the United States now comprises an institutionalized and widely recognized presence. Usually associated with the espousal of right wing attitudes regarding Israel’s foreign policy, in recent years this support has helped a range of Diaspora Jews immigrate (“make aliyah”) to Israel. Both global and local perspectives recognize that an insightful approach to current cultural and religious developments among Jews must pay attention to everyday practice and to ritual. Eisen (1994) has claimed that the extensively researched topic of Jews vis-à-vis modernity lacks concrete accounts of what specific groups of Jews actually did in their daily and ceremonial lives. Without such data, general formulations of an ideological or sociological nature are not

Introduction | 15

sufficient to portray the meanings and complex networks within which the many faces of Jewry are now enmeshed. Depicting and accounting for Jewish “practice” means paying attention not only to what are conventionally viewed as mitzvot, but to social-intellectual activities such as text study, or to new forms of travel-pilgrimage that bring Jews together while generating meanings anchored both in the ancient past and the events of modern Jewish history. Developments in this area are constantly evolving, and may at times carry “Jewish” significance even when not placed under that rubric. Each year, some tens of thousands of young Israelis take post-army trips to faraway regions such as India or South America, a phenomenon that has been called an Israeli rite-of-passage. While doing so, it is not unusual for them to highlight their identities as Israeli Jews by marking Passover or the High Holidays in exotic Jewish settings, typically assisted by local representatives of the Chabad movement (Maoz and Bekerman 2009). In addition to physical travel, the digital advances that link different parts of the world are not only examples of technological progress, but can be incorporated into online rituals, an example of which is the linking of Jewish youths in Manchester, England, with those in Israel.11 These rituals form only a part of diverse and dynamic selves who are involved in many social scenes and cultural projects. Nonetheless, emerging ritual forms, as well as those harvested from the past, both point to Jewish content and serve to mark off specific configurations within Jewry. Lastly, the notion of a public sphere or spheres should be part of the focus on recent developments. The public sphere in Israel, suffused with Jewish and Zionist meanings, obviously differs from that of the United States, where Jews have had to promote their agendas within a formal separation of “church” from state, but such boundaries are challenged and innovative ways are found to bypass them. Well-known examples in the United States are the public placing of a large Hanukkah Lamp for all to see at Hanukkah (Christmas) time. The public sphere is open for negotiation in Israel too, as when a Druze woman was recently invited to ignite one of the torches at a national Independence Day ceremony. Sport is also an avenue that has widened the doors of inclusiveness in Israel with regard to the Arab minority (Sorek 2007). Beyond developments within each country, there is evidence of both shifting and contested public spheres. As in the case of global influences, other religions must be taken into account here too. The relationship of the Catholic Church to Auschwitz became a matter of controversy in the 1980s (Bartoszewski 1990), while more recently Jews have expressed satisfaction with international recognition and commemoration of the Holocaust. With reference to substantive links among Jews, we may be witnessing expanding and crystallizing public spheres in which Diaspora-Israel links are played out. One example relates to an identity-oriented Israel-trip program aimed at American college students called Taglit/Birthright-Israel that has existed for more than a decade.

16 | Introduction

The educational project has been widely discussed in the United States, while in Israel it is regularly advertised on the radio in order to gain attention and legitimacy within the Israeli public.12 While one cannot locate a single “IsraelDiaspora public sphere,” there may exist disparate islands of such spheres, which, depending on the cultural tides and political winds, appear as an archipelago with greater or lesser constancy. With these various thematic thrusts in mind, we turn to a section-by-section survey of the essays in this collection.

Themes of the Sections The categories we select and the analytical starting points we adopt shape both scholarly characterizations and the self-understanding of groups. Our first section, “The Fluid Nature of Jewish Belonging,” provides several broad perspectives within which to place the trends and lines of analysis that have been sketched. Stanley Brandes, citing Jewish experiences and those of other peoples, reminds us of basic categories through which groups define belonging (their own and others), such as territory, religion, language, and what people imagine to be race or some other substantive quality serving as a basis of distinction. All of these are widespread in human societies, but what creates the historical kaleidoscope is the different ways they may overlap and reinforce one another, or be separated and serve different purposes (Markowitz 2006). This strategy raises questions about the “naturalness” of any given configuration and interrogates its persuasiveness. Brandes shows how both Jews and a North American Indian group called the Yacquis long maintained a relation to their territory not by living upon a specific tract of land but by sacralizing it in rituals and beliefs. This comparative exercise points in directions parallel to the post-colonial critique of Yonah and Goodman (2004), which seeks to unravel the mutual embeddedness of religion and nationality in contemporary Israel. Another point in Brandes’s comparative view is the emergence of situations that seem to blend social categories widely seen as inimical to one another. Popular humor reacts to such situations (“some of our best ‘Friends’ are Jews”), probably—we suspect—before critical analysis exposes their challenging implications. The contemporary scene provides instances of how such category mixing may result in practical and policy dilemmas. With regard to the Jewish/ Christian divide, how is Israel to relate to the Ethiopian Falash Mura who converted to Christianity, or to immigrants from Russia who are not Jewish but merge into Jewish-Israeli life? And how should Jewish congregations in North America relate to synagogue families in which one spouse is not Jewish and has no interest in converting? Harvey Goldberg’s discussion of structuralism and binary categories in anthropological theory also raises questions about accepted religious categories

Introduction | 17

regarding Judaism in Israel. His emphasis differs somewhat from the contemporary stress on the power aspect of discourse based on simple bipolar categorizations that deny the existence of intermediate shades, and explores conceptual, denotative, and pragmatic features that allow binary categorization to work. The same cognitive mechanism can both strengthen and weaken certain groups. From the point of view of National Religious Jews, for example, their position may be bolstered by treating all non-Orthodox groups as the same (the erasure of Conservative Judaism by subsuming it under the rubric of Reform), but also may undermine their own ability to comprehend within their ranks individuals who “slide to the left.” Most generally, it should be recognized that binarism continues to operate in the discourse of “ordinary people” and academics alike, and that “moving beyond it” is not a one-time development but a continual challenge in understanding religious and other cultural phenomena. The chapter by Keith Kahn-Harris and Ben Gidley explores gaps between the public rhetoric among Jews in England and their sense of belonging to British Society. After World War II, their public discourse stressed the themes of fitting in and of security, even as Jews were still anxious about their acceptance in English society and culture. In the late twentieth century, after such acceptance was taken for granted, leaders of Jewry in Great Britain began to emphasize a lack of security regarding a clear Jewish future, and began to advocate the maintenance of difference. The authors outline the main assumptions entering into conceptions of Jewish continuity, notions that British Jewry share with communities in North America. At the same time, they make it clear that drawing the contours of a specifically Jewish future in England takes into account both the existence of Israel and recent multicultural trends within British society and politics. This discussion also illustrates the intimate connection that often exists between the sociological study of Jews and the concerns of Jewish communal leaders and educators. Historically, social science research focusing on Jews, from its inception, has been driven by the dilemmas of envisioning a Jewish future. Mitchell Hart (2000) points to the close link between the beginnings of “Jewish social science” and Zionism, while Amos Morris-Reich (2003) has demonstrated that assimilation, a direction advocated by many Jews at the turn of the twentieth century, was a theme that informed both sociology and anthropology in their formative years. It is futile today to maintain a claim that research can be completely free of the impact of values, most typically in the very formulation of the subject to be researched. Turning this problem into a resource, Philip Wexler seeks for productive links between social theory and Jewish concerns. In contrast to the first three chapters that illuminate dynamics of how Jewry and segments within it are imagined within fields of ethnic and religious cat-

18 | Introduction

egories, Wexler asks: “What are possible sources for rebuilding new forms of Jewish sociality?” There is a long and only partially charted set of relationships between the trajectories of modern Jewry and the development of social theory (Goldberg 2002), and Wexler shows that instances of congruence between these thrusts are worth exploring. He points out, for example, that the term hybrid, currently prominent in recent post-colonial theory, was applied to the Jews by Thorstein Veblen early in the twentieth century.13 More generally, he finds that the move from the sociology of modernity (reflected in the classic authors—Durkheim, Marx, Weber) to post-modern formulations that seek to grasp how social life may be positively constituted in conditions dominated by the fragmentation of collectivities and of consciousness parallels concerns that have been central to questions of Jewish “continuity.” He advocates mining the writings of thinkers like Georg Simmel and Martin Buber (at one time a student of Simmel), who stressed interactional modes of human sociality rather than taking collectivities as a starting point. This approach echoes the meditation by Israeli social scientists (Shamir and Avnun 1999) who wonder how sociology in Israel might have developed had it taken its models from Buber (who set up the first sociology department in the country at the Hebrew University), rather than stressing societal functioning that placed Zionist state-building as its center. Instead of politically oriented observations, Wexler directs us to purvey religious expressions inspired by models of revitalization of Jewish culture, such as forms of mysticism including Hasidism. Trends of this nature are now part of the religious scene both in the United States and in Israel.14 The second section, “Diverse Attempts to Construct Jewish Sub-Cultures in Israel and the United States,” presents studies anchored in the specific settings of Israel and the United States, with the assumption that it can be fruitful to examine themes that are common to the two even with their obvious differences. The challenges of reconfiguring Jewish identities and approaches to Jewish religion arose forcefully in post-Emancipation Europe. One simplistic assumption of political Zionism was that by solving the “problem of the Jews,” questions of Judaism would fall into place. It appears, however, that dilemmas of defining Judaism and Jewish peoplehood, and the translation of such notions into identity, beliefs, and practices, is an ongoing challenge both in the Diaspora and the Land of Israel. In the latter case, issues of territory and political boundaries have been added to the mix of personal behaviors and commitments. The essays in this section all indicate that holding on to a Jewish identity has never been just a question of preservation, but a series of dynamic projects reflected in daily choices that relate selectively to the past and maintain ongoing dialogues with cultural alternatives found among Jews and non-Jews alike. Some identity formations, particularly those deemed Orthodox, have included

Introduction | 19

efforts to deny the dynamic aspect of the self-construction of identity; but the recognition that other Jews, both locally and elsewhere, were forging different persuasive paths could not long be held at bay. The modern mode of consciousness allowed the pretense that new identities were solid and enduring; in late modernity, however, there is less of an ability to present a mode of Jewish commitment that ignores the possibility of tentativeness. This shift may erode certainties and require new configurations of belonging; but it also invites exploring new meanings and their infusion into older forms. The chapter by Shlomo Fischer analyzes movements within Religious Zionism that had and still exhibit strong components of romanticism. The version of Zionism expressed by the image of the “new Hebrew” (e.g., Peleg 2005) was eminently secular vis-à-vis rabbinic tradition, but Fischer shows that romantic ideologies can be woven into religious tapestries. His essay provides a reading of the “Kookist” culture (reflecting the influence of Rabbi A. I. Kook and his son) within religious Zionism, which became both prominent and influential after the 1967 and 1973 wars. Much as the ideology of this culture reverberates with Jewish religious associations, it also can be placed solidly within a stream of European political thought seeking to combine romantic peoplehood with notions of democracy. What appears to be a highly unique, internally Jewish/ Zionist phenomenon sits comprehensibly within a broad view of Western political and cultural developments from the nineteenth century to the present. Fischer’s outline of this specific configuration also allows him to identify a different more individualistic-based stream within Religious Zionism, which is found in Israel but is more characteristic of Modern Orthodoxy in the United States. Yaacov Yadgar explores a phenomenon emerging in post-state Israel that undermines the simple division into “religious” and “secular”: the prevalence of many Jews who define themselves as masorti, or “traditional.” The term first appeared as a “residual category,” perhaps receiving a boost from social science surveys that needed labels to describe a spectrum of religious practices and identities. It was seen as apt with regard to immigrants from Middle Eastern countries who found both “religious” and “secular” to be inappropriate labels.15 Yadgar shows how today the notion has been given content, based on individual choice, and can no longer be viewed as an unthinking or nostalgic attachment to “tradition.” Focusing on women who define themselves as masorti, he shows them to be conscious and active in placing themselves between, and different from, two other categories of women: those adhering closely to halakha on the one hand, and those following lifestyles in which a valuation of sexual modesty is not explicitly highlighted, on the other. Yadgar emphasizes, with reference to issues of feminism, the dynamism and negotiation entailed in marking out such a path. Most of his interviewees were reserved about full identification

20 | Introduction

with feminism, but quietly and clearly have incorporated some of its principles and practices (as have Orthodox Israeli women in various ways [El-Or 2002]). There have been few expressions of masorti sensibilities and behavior patterns in terms of ideological production or organizational initiatives (for an exception, see Buzaglo 2009), but this study shows the importance of tapping individual perceptions and behaviors that till now have evolved with minimum public expression.16 The research by Ezra Kopelowitz and Lior Rosenberg points to the interaction between public and private life in shaping the identity formation process. Kopelowitz and Rosenberg draw on the survey responses of “twenty-something” Israelis in educational settings to illustrate how individuals negotiate the complex interplay between private and public realms. They distinguish between two types of Jews living in Israel: the “Israeli-Jew” and “Jewish-Israeli.” Analyzing both public and private ritual behavior, they advance the notion that “‘Jewish-Israelis’ view the ‘Jewish’ component of their identity as autonomous from the fact that they live in Israel; they can readily imagine themselves living as Jews outside of Israel.” In contrast, they assert, “‘Israeli-Jews’ do not distinguish between the Jewish and Israeli components of their identities, viewing the fact that they are Jewish as one and the same as living in Israel. ” The Israeli-Jew is proud to be a Jew, according to their findings, but cannot conceive of living Jewishly outside of the Land of Israel. In addition, ‘JewishIsraelis’ tend to be self-identifying ‘traditionalist’ and ‘religious’ Jews, while the ‘Israeli-Jews’ more often identify themselves as ‘secular.’” A concrete example is found in the realm of kosher food. “Secular” Israelis often think it proper that public institutions, like the army, maintain kashrut, even though they do not observe it in their personal lives. This is a curious reversal of the experience of many Jews in modern times who migrated from traditional communities to open Western societies, and continued kashrut practices at home while abandoning the observance, to various degrees, when in public (for France, see Bahloul 1983). In the Israeli context, it appears that those who continued to insist upon ritual dietary restrictions in the intimacy of their homes are those who bear the strongest potential of identifying with an international Jewish collectivity. These findings, then, lead us to rethink the simple division into the “private” and the “public” with regard to Jewish life, and perhaps dovetail with the assertion of Dan Aviv (2005) that viewing food as central in Jewish culture can inspire Jewish education. The public sphere in the United States, of course, differs sharply from the situation in Israel. There, the separation of church and state has long made the individual the anchor point of religious meaning and action, allowing him or her to engage in communal initiatives that range widely in shape, strength, and duration. While the challenge in Israel has been for Jews to make room for the expression of varying private sphere identities, the challenge for Jewish lead-

Introduction | 21

ers in America has been to provide communal and educational frameworks adequate to maintaining the interest and loyalty of Jews who face a panoply of life options both within and outside of Jewish life. Without the statesponsored Jewish public sphere that binds Israeli Jews to a common framework, what then are the anchoring points that keep Jews thinking of one another as members of a common collective? Steven M. Cohen paints a broad canvas of developments among Jews in the United States. Dividing young American Jews into those married to other Jews, married to non-Jews, and not (yet) married, he provides a statistical and cultural portrait of their involvement with Jewish life. One trend is the growing disassociation of ethnicity from Judaism as religion. Along with this trend, nevertheless, those who remain engaged in Judaism, in whatever religious approach, do so with greater intensity and commitment. Linked to this are the diversity of paths to Jewish living, which often appear quite different from what the formerly comprehensive streams of Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform might imply. Perhaps most striking is a shift in what many Jews consider to be appropriate public spheres for enacting their Judaism. To quote other survey results, many organize “Jewish programs that draw into and welcome their non-Jewish friends,” and also “prefer events and programs that occur in bars, night clubs, concert halls, and performance spaces … [rather than] explicitly Jewish venues” (Cohen and Kelman 2005). Far from being an escape from the confines of Jewish life, this may be seen as an expansive move, perhaps adumbrated in the advertising campaign in the 1960s that portrayed an American Indian and announced: “You don’t have to be Jewish to enjoy Levy’s bread.” At the same time that such expansion, which some would see as leading to dilution, proceeds apace, Cohen notes the vast availability of Jewish materials on the internet, not to mention vigorous book publishing on Jewish topics. The “sovereign individual,” as Cohen characterizes American Jews today, is surrounded by kaleidoscopic cultural options and social opportunities, available on a global scale. A key feature of the expanding scale is greater exposure to Israel, whether through media or actual travel. The essays in the third section, “Diverse Ways of Connecting to the Jewish People,” move us beyond the conventional wisdom that the Judaisms of the United States and Israel are growing apart. There is much evidence to justify this statement, but we suggest that it is only part of the contemporary Jewish picture. Relying again on late-modern sensibility, this standard reading of the situation can be validated, while at the same time we observe the emerging of new and reformulated modes of mutual involvement and engaged understanding that link Jews in Israel and the Diaspora. After Zionism succeeded in establishing a Jewish state, its leaders took for granted that what went on in Israel would attract the attention of Jews everywhere. We have now reached a stage where at least some leaders and educators in Israel

22 | Introduction

are deeply convinced that Jews there must develop an active consciousness of positive attitudes toward, and constructive relationships with, Jewish life abroad. The essays herein present some facts and trends that characterize this mutuality, including theorizing about the idea of diaspora, exploring images of Israeli society among young Americans, and following the experience of programs that bring American Jews and life in Israel into proximity. Elan Ezrachi presents one view of an Israeli educator concerned with the Diaspora, integrating an assessment of current trends with his own pedagogical vision. He argues that a diasporic identity has long been at the heart of Jewish culture and is essential for maintaining Jews’ attachment to Israel and to a notion of Jewish peoplehood. At the same time, he maintains that American Jewish discourse, as well as that of other western diasporas, has not provided fertile ground for the development of a rich discussion on the meaning of diasporic identities. Ezrachi suggests that current scholarly literature on diasporas, or the impact of global travel, might stimulate the thinking of both Israelis and Jews abroad. An example of relevant analysis (in addition to those he mentions) is a recent collection on Homelands and Diasporas (Levy and Weingrod 2005) that places Israeli and Jewish matters in analytic proximity to other cases, including Palestinians within Israel and elsewhere. “Socialization to the Jewish collective,” Ezrachi asserts, “has to be broader than the sum total of local symbols and experiences.” In a more empirical vein, Ted Sasson delves into the dilemma of how American Jews, engaged in a political culture that has been consistently liberal, react to institutions and trends in Israel as a Jewish state. For American Jews, the Israeli governmental system appears to compromise democratic principles in two ways: by restricting the religious options of non-Orthodox Jews and by limiting the citizenship rights of Arabs. Based on focus-group discussions, whose participants represent a range of orientations from post-denominational humanistic Jews to Orthodoxy, Sasson shows how young people have some knowledge of the situation in Israel and its internal debates, although they typically are couched in terms drawn from American discourse. At the same time, their spread of attitudes parallels the associations familiar from Israel: those who are more Reform (roughly paralleling “secular” in Israel) are critical of these restrictions, while those closer to Orthodoxy are more understanding of the religious monopoly and of the privileging of Jews when it becomes a question of weakening the Jewish character of the state. Sasson notes that people often live with “cognitive dissonance” (in this case between liberal values as American Jews and tolerance for various non-liberal manifestations of Israeli society). Only certain life situations impel them to confront and to try to resolve social contradictions. Further research might seek to reveal with greater explicitness what are the contours and cultural valences of “Israel” in the life of different sorts of American Jews, and in which situations do these

Introduction | 23

aspects of their identities clash with self-definitions more intimately tied into their “home” experiences. Shaul Kelner’s ethnography of college-age American Jews traveling to Israel on a ten-day educational tour (Taglit), shows the dynamic integration of informational, narrative, ritual, and experiential factors in forging a coherent Jewish identity in a short period of time. He raises a challenging question: how can organized tourism, once charged as being made up of “pseudo-events,” contribute to establishing a meaningful sense of being self-oriented toward some collective identity with a future? His rich account shows how the intense period spent together, the exposure to a variety of stories highlighting both ancient Judaism and modern Israel, the engaged but non-imperious attitudes of the madrikhim (guides/counselors), and (perhaps above all) the opportunity given to participants to exchange among themselves their fragmented individual Jewish pasts while bouncing them off their shared touring experiences together, succeed in “temporarily encourage[ing] a sense that a unitary, transcendent, core self exists, and that this true self is a Jewish self.” An earlier study of an Israel-based program for young Americans, established by Orthodox educators but bearing the message that every person will take what s/he has learned and incorporate it into their own distinctive Jewish approach, showed that often this is exactly what happened (Shapiro 2001). At the same time, it is possible to view Taglit programming as a natural extension of an established pattern among Jews in America in which education toward identity has taken place in focused settings of concentrated interaction, such as summer camps or the Havura movement.17 One might also reflect that Israeli Jews of approximately the same age now widely take part in a kind of identity travel in the form of post-army trips to the Far East or South America, a practice now so established that many have called it an Israeli “rite of passage” (Maoz 2005; Noy 2007). Participants, while coming from and moving in very different directions, are engaged in complex processing of the links between collective images and personal experiences. The global and the intimate, the serious and the playful, as well as the modes of tourism and pilgrimage, seep into one another, resulting in identities for which formerly simple contrasts between “Jewish and universal,” and/or between “Jewish and Israeli” are no longer persuasive.

Concluding Reflections Do the rapidly evolving forms and modes of putting together Jewish culture and sociality, to which our chapters call attention, bear even a family resemblance to those of earlier settings and epochs? Or are they too recent and fleeting, and their participants too aware of having “made them up” (Moore and

24 | Introduction

Myerhoff 1977), to qualify as seriously Jewish in comparison to the textual and rabbinic-oriented models of the past that still resonate as sure signs of authenticity? Students of contemporary Jewry take different stances on this matter.18 Charles Liebman expresses the point of view that is skeptical about the lasting Jewish value of recent developments (1999). He notes that religion is increasingly becoming a “marketplace” or “consumer oriented,” in which the desire to increase numbers becomes dominant with consequent dangers. All of us have already internalized the advantages of the marketplace mentality. What we need to consider is its disadvantages. If we take Judaism seriously, it has to have some essence, and this has to mean that not everything that contributes to synagogue growth and member satisfaction is necessarily good. True, we cannot allow our own ideology and commitment to excuse our organizational failures, but we must also admit the likelihood that remaining faithful to what we believe will limit our capacity to attract large numbers of American Jews. (9) A parallel point of view might be that these recent developments are more an expression of their late modern milieu than they are of evolving Jewish tradition. The opposing stance would be unashamedly constructivist: Jewish life has always changed in response to historical situations, and anything done in the name of Judaism by people identifying themselves as Jews is now part of Jewish culture. But even those espousing such a seemingly unfettered position could find themselves debating issues that cannot totally be freed from historical associations. An example might be whether to include “Jews for Jesus” as an example of Jewish identity, or whether ethnographers of Jewish life ought to spend time recording and interpreting marriage ceremonies in which priests officiate alongside rabbis. The editors of this volume concur that a range of points of view are important in order to keep in-depth and productive discussions going. One can never fully expunge ideology from scholarly discourse, but it is precisely by encouraging exchange among a variety of positions, including perspectives that amplify voices from the past, that we allow essential criticism to emerge along with advances in understanding. These issues are not only relevant to research on contemporary phenomena, but have impact upon how historians look at earlier periods. This is evident in the title of volumes dealing with antiquity such as A Radical Jew: Paul and the Politics of Identity (Boyarin 1994), or The Beginning of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties (Cohen 1999). More recently, in his How Jewish is Jewish History? Rosman (2009) examines the implication of post-modern perspectives for researching the past(s) of Jews. It may not be easy to find studies of Jewish life today where boundaries between contemporary Jews and Muslims

Introduction | 25

are blurred, but there are ample cases of historical writing that stress the intertwining of these worlds; an example is how Abraham Maimonides, son of the renowned Moses Maimonides, actively sought to enrich Jewish life in Egypt by incorporating aspects of Sufi mysticism into Jewish pietism (Goitein 1988: 474–496; see also Cohen 1994). These topics are not only arcane matters. The methods and focus of intellectuals both reflect and inform broader approaches toward Jewish self-understanding and belonging. Witness the growing importance in the United States of university Jewish Studies programs as sites of imparting knowledge and providing material for identity work. In Israel, too, changes in the production of intellectuals and academics in the realms of Jewish studies and education provide an arena for rethinking and innovation among those working to move the society past a self-image anchored in rigid categories like “the secular” and “the religious.” The mutual relevance of (and differences between) the study of Judaism in the past and of Jews in the present has been around since the emergence of the social scientific study of Jewry. Martin Buber announced a difference between “the science of Judaism” and “Jewish science” (Hart 2000: 39); the former studied the religion of the past with detached analysis, while the latter was concerned with a living people and was designed to contribute to its revival. This disciplinary tension was not only a matter of debate with regard to Jews and Judaism. Though rarely discussed explicitly, the notion that ethnographic work might point to alternative and possibly future understandings with the potential of shaping Jewish collective identities has a respectable lineage in anthropology. Arnold Van Gennep, the “creator of French ethnography,” labored to establish the place and contribution of folklore vis-à-vis other disciplines, and insisted on a certain superiority of folklore over history. “Thus,” he writes, “folklore produces a feeling that the observed facts contain the seeds of future possibilities, whereas the historical fact makes one feel that all its possibilities have already been expressed” (Belmont 1979: 75). Our collection of essays and responses shares in this sense, expressed well by anthropologist Victor Turner who was inspired by Van Gennep. For Turner, “significant human contact and creativity flowed from the margins to the centers more often than the reverse” (Rosaldo, Lavie, and Narayan 1993: 2). We submit that today we are witnessing a range of new mixes and engagements of “central” and “marginal” Jewish creativity that calls for detailed attention and appreciation. Notes 1. Writing about “Judaisms” in contrast to “Judaism” has been advocated, for example, by Jacob Neusner (1995). The countervailing concern with Jewish peoplehood is exemplified in a collection by Revivi and Kopelowitz (2008).

26 | Introduction

2. The literature on religion and politics in Israel is extensive, both in broad terms and with reference to specific groups. In this introduction we can only supply a few references for initial orientation. 3. For a general discussion on divergences in Judaism between Israel and the United States, see Liebman and Cohen (1990). 4. In order to try to distinguish between an emphasis on “religious” as a way of life and “National-Religious” as a more organized and political phenomenon, I have rendered the first with a lower-case “d” (dati), and the latter with upper-case (Dati or Dati-Leumi). 5. A study of how socialism was combined with modern orthodoxy is found in Fishman (1992). The NRP was officially dissolved in November 2008. In the national elections following that, some of its leaders were elected to the Knesset in the framework of the new “Jewish Home” Party. 6. The importance of zikui ha-rabim in the religious lives of Sephardi Jews, beyond their place in a rabbinic program, is discussed extensively by Sharabi (2010). 7. This may be seen in academic writing (e.g., Liebman and Katz 1997), and in shifts in everyday speech. In a recent casual conversation with a friend from a North African family who has always lived in a masorti milieu, she at one point referred to herself as, “we the hiloniyim” when it was clear that she was contrasting herself with those who had become ultra-orthodox (a brother who had turned Haredi), and a moment later explained herself using the phrase ha-datiyim datiyim (the “really religious”), intimating that she also saw herself as dati to some extent. See also note 15 below and comments on shifting terminology in the chapter by Harvey E. Goldberg. 8. The responses to the three sections and the afterword include references to a range of cultural (i.e., not specifically religious) expressions of Jewish life. 9. The classic statement of this perspective is by Gershom Scholem in a letter to Franz Rosenzweig (Cutter 1990). 10. For example, in May 2009, The High Court ruled that the State must fund private conversion classes operated by the Reform and Conservative movements, in addition to the regular funding of private Orthodox institutions. 11. See the recent study of “e-rituals” by Eitan Eliram (2009). 12. See, for example, Laurie Goodstein, “To Bind the Faith, Free Trips to Israel for Diaspora Youth,” The New York Times, 16 November 1998, p. A7, and Cohen (2008) who discusses the program along with other youth educational trips to Israel. 13. In that historical context, speaking of the Jews probably still implied a notion that did not sharply distinguish culture from an idea of race. 14. Examples are found in Weissler (2005) regarding North America and in Huss (2007) and Garb (2009) more broadly. 15. See, for example, the example of Yaakov Guweta, from Benghazi: “Neither category made sense to him. He was not comfortable answering ‘dati,’ a term he perceived to mean that he was extremely pious, strictly following every detail of the commandments; but neither could he readily answer ‘lo-dati,’ as if he ate non-kosher food and separated himself from the life of the synagogue” (Goldberg 1996: 44). 16. Two public movements have adopted names based on the notion of masorti. One was the short-lived ethnic political movement in the 1980s, TAMI (Tnu`ah li-Msoret Yisrael), which at its maximum boasted three MPs, and the second is the Conservative Movement in Israel that calls itself the Masorti Movement, which, despite some suc-

Introduction | 27

cesses, is unfamiliar to the majority of Israelis. Yadgar’s recent book (2010) may be seen both as research, and also as placing a masorti set of perspectives into the public arena. 17. This pattern already emerged in nineteenth-century Europe, for example in the Orthodox educational program of S. R. Hirsch (Weissman 1993: 23, n44). 18. “Authenticity,” of course, is a notion that cannot be taken for granted. Charmé (2000) examines it with reference to current Jewish identities, and a recent article by Jay Michaelson of The Forward, carried on the internet edition of Haaretz, indicates the wider attention it attracts (“To be or not to be a real Jew, in the American imagination,” http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1138198.html, accessed 29 December 2009).

j The Fluid Nature SECTION I

of Jewish Belonging

j Religion, Ethnic Identity, CHAPTER 1

and the Sense of Belonging Stanley Brandes

I

would like to begin here with reflections on my own childhood, which we may take as a kind of ethnographic data. For most of my early childhood, I lived in a building of twenty-four one-bedroom apartments in the Mosholu Parkway area of the Bronx. All the residents were Jewish, except the superintendent and his family, who were Polish gentiles. At a tender age, I knew they were different from us only because they erected a Christmas tree every December. This family invited all the children in the building to see their tree and I remember looking forward to this exotic sight, just as I looked forward to the Hopi dance presentations, which came annually to our elementary school, P.S. 95. In those years—the late 1940s and early ‘50s—New York City schools were closed during the High Holidays. If P.S. 95 was at all representative, this was a sensible policy on the part of school administrators. At least at our school, there seemed to be only one gentile student in any given classroom. We Jewish children were aware of this circumstance, although it would have been difficult, if not impossible, for us to define the difference between that child and ourselves. We were also aware that the gentile was poorer than we—and, looking back objectively—I would say that we were hardly affluent, although we did not know it at the time. We knew, too, that the gentile in our class celebrated Christmas but not Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. That was about the extent of our awareness, except that we did know that there were different sorts of Jews. My best friend, Gerald Moore, was not preparing for a Bar Mitzvah, although, despite his surname, there could be no question that both his parents were Jewish and that he was, too. From a child’s perspective, we lived in a thoroughly Jewish world. At the very least, my personal experiences, if not my growing awareness of the Holocaust, led me to believe that we were a majority, not a minority, people. My unconsciousness of other religious communities got me into trouble with my first grade teacher. She, an Irish woman, called on each pupil to answer what in the US today would be an unthinkable question: “What is your religion?”

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I answered, “American.” She patiently explained that being American was a nationality, not a religion, and posed the question again. I thought for a bit and answered once more, “American.” I knew I was wrong. I also sensed that this was not a good question to be asking. But, honestly, no other response occurred to me. Annoyed, she moved on to the next student. Just after I turned twelve, things changed. Slightly upwardly mobile, we moved somewhat north to a two-bedroom apartment in Yonkers, where I became a seventh-grade student at Hawthorne Junior High School. On my first day, Walter Hlewicki, a classmate, was assigned to orient me to the institution. Since we were in the same grade, I asked him a logical question: “Were you Bar Mitzvahed yet?” (In New York, the noun Bar Mitzvah had become a fully conjugated English verb.) He stared at me blankly. I posed the question again and met the same response. It was then that I realized that he was like that superintendent’s family. Not only would he never become Bar Mitzvah but also he had not the slightest idea what I was talking about. In this half-Jewish, half-gentile school environment, I become fascinated by the religious identity of my fellow students and spent the rest of the day trying to figure out who was Jewish and who was not. I no longer remember the criteria I brought to this exercise. I do know, however, that on this first school day in Yonkers I discovered ethnic and religious difference, and came to the realization that Jews do not necessarily occupy the center of the universe. As a child in the 1940s, Mosholu Parkway was the center of my universe. As a place endowed with cultural meaning, residence there was virtually equivalent to being Jewish. “Place is security, space is freedom,” states geographer Yi-Fu Tuan; “we are attached to the one and long for the other” (1977: 3). The attachment of ethnic groups to particular neighborhoods was a circumstance that still persisted half a century ago, as before, in many cities across the United States. “Place exists at different scales,” says Tuan (1977: 149); “at one extreme a favorite armchair is a place, at the other extreme, the whole earth. Homeland is an important type of place at the medium scale. It is a region (city or countryside) large enough to support a people’s livelihood. Attachment to the homeland can be intense.” Attachment to one’s homeland—be it neighborhood, village, or nationstate—can prove particularly intense if that place is endowed with religious significance. Throughout Mediterranean Europe, places have for centuries been defined as distinctive devotional communities. Parishes not only bear discrete territorial boundaries, over which designated priests preside and within which parishioners reside. Parishes are also marked by veneration of particular saints—and particular images of particular saints. One of these saints is always the patron saint of a locale, a saint who is the physical embodiment of both spatial and sacred attachment to that place. Folk narratives abound regarding the process through which patron saints are selected. More often

Religion, Ethnic Identity, and the Sense of Belonging | 33

than not, these stories attribute primary responsibility to the saint, rather than to the parishioners. There are several highly stylized versions of these miracle tales, dating back to the Middle Ages, in which parishioners try to move saints’ images from one town, village, or resting spot to another. Despite numerous attempts, the image refuses to budge. Parishioners take this obstinacy as a sign that the saint has looked upon them with special favor and they adopt this saint as their patron. Patron saints define a space, a town or village, or other spatial entity. They even define a whole country, like Spain, whose patron saint is Santiago de Compostela, or Mexico, whose patron is the Virgin of Guadalupe. A people derives a sense of belonging from common veneration of a particular saint, or even an image of that saint. A high proportion of children in a town are named for the patron saint, which sometimes yields improbable naming patterns. In the Andalusian community of Cazorla, for example, numerous parishioners are called Conseulo after an image of Jesus called the Señor de Consuelo—Lord of Consolation—who is their holy patron. Throughout the Spanish-speaking world, Consuelo is a common woman’s name. But in Cazorla, many men are also baptized with that name. Possibly these men are the only male Consuelos in the world. A male Consuelo makes sense in the local context, but when these men leave town to serve in the army, for example, they become the butt of jokes, jokes which, when they return home, only serve to reinforce their identity with their patron saint and native town. In Spain, by virtue of being born in a particular town, village, or city, one becomes a hijo or hija—that is, son or daughter—of that place. Throughout life, when asked where you are from, the response is: “I am son (or daughter) of Valladolid, Granada, Bilbao” or wherever. This filial sentiment is largely religious in origin. Territory and religious community overlap, thereby transforming the bounded village, town, or nation from mere space or territory into a culturally significant place, imbued with sacred significance. The patron saint provides an enduring sense of belonging. He or she acts as a centripetal force, pulling “children” of the town back to the community at least once annually for the feast days that honor the image. The patron saint also acts centrifugally, inspiring immigrant communities comprised of “children” from the same town to maintain their special religious devotion and affiliation in the Diaspora—whether in Madrid, Barcelona, or some other city in Spain. On the much larger scale of the nation-state, the components of identity are becoming increasingly complex due to globalization and transnationalism. However, European nation-states have borne their own religious identities until recently. This is especially true of Eastern Orthodoxy, where church membership is closely linked to specific linguistic and national groups, such as the Greek Orthodox Church, Russian Orthodox Church, Romanian Orthodox Church, and the like. In the former Yugoslavia, which comprised a

34 | Dynamic Belonging

more or less uniform linguistic unit, religious affiliation provided the main source of belonging and it is largely, if not exclusively, along religious lines that the boundaries of the states that emerged from that now-defunct country are drawn. The United States manifests a very different texture. It is true that immigrant communities, with distinctive religious and ethnic affiliations might well band together territorially, especially in the first and second generation. Subsequently, however, the overlap between religious community and territory—be it neighborhood or, in the case of the Mormons, the state of Utah—initially blurs and then disintegrates, as income level, family status, or race become the prime determinants of residential patterns. In American cities, there are still some Jews who refuse to live further than walking distance from the synagogue, a pattern that long operated to produce a confluence of religious affiliation and territory. But today they constitute a rare exception, something akin to “The Miracle of Intervale Avenue,” as Jack Kugelmass put it (1996). In Europe, by contrast, people with a common ethnic identity, language, and religion tend to share a given territory. This circumstance provides a much-intensified sense of belonging compared to what normally prevails in the United States. It also imparts a materialist basis to rivalries among groups, who strive to preserve territory and resources and uphold religious principles and cultural attributes. The importance of territory to ethnic identity becomes easy to appreciate through comparative analyses carried out by the late Edward Spicer. Spicer, a specialist in Native Americans of the US southwest, extended his research to include ten groups that he called enduring peoples. They include, in the Americas, the Yaqui Indians (to whom he devoted his ethnographic career), the Cherokees, Hopis, Senecas, and lowland Mayas; from Europe, he selected Catalans, Basques, Welsh, and Irish; and then there were the Jews. Enduring peoples, to Spicer, are minority groups who have persisted over centuries while confronted with extreme adversity. They persist as peoples, despite “the threat of political domination and cultural absorption,” and they have “found the means … to maintain their own ways, if not politically at least culturally in the face of successive threats” (Spicer 1980: 333). Spicer contests the widespread belief that “enduring qualities depend on continuous possession of a homeland” (1980: 340). Among the ten groups he examines, only the Catalans conform to the stereotype. States Spicer, “the Catalans, in spite of Castilian cultural and political domination, have maintained a long-continued and intimate contact with all of their traditional territory” (1980: 341). In every other instance, the group’s lived relationship to its homeland has been seriously compromised. Nonetheless, these groups survived. In the case of the Yaquis, for example, Mexican occupation of their lands pushed them out of their native territory in 1897, when “new settlements far outside

Religion, Ethnic Identity, and the Sense of Belonging | 35

the Yaqui range were established in the United States” (ibid.). Spicer explains that “as the Yaquis adapted to the new conditions, the traditions of the homeland were not forgotten. The sacred peaks marking the tribal boundary, the Eight Towns on their sacred locations, the hills and canyons and other places where mythical and legendary events took place—these became part of the ritual language and were regularly referred to in sermons. The homeland continued to exist in the world of words and symbols” (1980: 342). In this respect, Spicer perceives an analogy between the Yaquis and the Jews. He observes that Continued residence in the homeland where crystallization of the Jewish people originally took place has not been a necessary condition for the maintenance of an intense sense of identity as a people. On the contrary the crystallization of Jewish identity has been an ongoing process in whatever lands groups of Jews have entered or been forced into. Undoubtedly the relationship of Jews to their one-time homeland has been important in this continuing process. For many centuries that homeland assumed a purely symbolic existence for Jews. The names of the places where the earliest recorded events of Jewish life occurred were permanently enshrined in the sacred books. … The places became sacred in Jewish memory as they were repeatedly named in religious rituals. What had been a living reality where Jews lived on the land itself became a realm of the imagination recalled through symbols. … The case of the Jews appears to be the extreme in the spiritualization or symbolization of a people’s land under the circumstances of loss of physical ties with that land. (1980: 342) Spicer concludes that the endurance of the Yaquis, Jews, and other peoples, like the Cherokees, depends as much on a mythical and spiritual connection to a homeland as on actual physical occupation of that space. Spicer emphasizes diaspora conditions, hence overlooks a continuous, if small, Jewish presence in the land we now know as Israel. For Spicer, it was the idea of the homeland and its symbolization in cosmology, mythology, and prayer, that helped both Yaqui and Jewish cultures to survive. The idea of the homeland together with something that Spicer overlooks—the collective yearning to return to that homeland—together imparts a sense of group belonging. Consider another condition leading to a people’s endurance: language. Spicer disputes the logical notion that “the long persistence of a people is somehow tied to their retention of a language, or at least that the loss of a language is likely to lead to the loss of distinctive qualities as a people” (1980: 343). Among Spicer’s illustrative groups, only the Catalans, Hopis, and lowland Mayas have maintained continued use of their language throughout a millennium or more. Members of the other seven groups have remained committed to their ethnic

36 | Dynamic Belonging

and religious communities, despite having lost use of a distinctive language. In some cases—the Irish, Basques, and Yaquis, for example—there is a strong movement toward language revival, after considerable loss. In other cases— the Welsh, Cherokees, and Seneca—it seems likely that use of the vernacular will entirely disappear. Because of its brevity, Spicer’s discussion of Jewish language use and identity lacks complexity and depth. He emphasizes, among Jews, the repeated loss of a common language (Hebrew, Aramaic, Yiddish, and Ladino, among others), adoption of the dominant language of countries in which they reside, together with a strong trend toward what he calls “replacement of former languages,” by which I suppose he means Hebrew (1980: 345). This picture ignores the retention of Hebrew and Aramaic in ritual and in study, keeping those languages available as sources of innovation in everyday contexts as well. Spicer’s simple conclusion is that “the case of the Jews makes clear what is suggested in six of the other instances, namely, that there is no necessary connection between retention of a particular language and capacity for persistence as a people” (1980: 345). And yet, before dismissing language as essential to a sense of belonging, we should recognize that linguistic competence is relative. A Jew need not possess full command of Yiddish, Hebrew, or Ladino to consider her or himself an integral member of the group. To achieve a sense of belonging, it is sufficient to know the Shema or to utter a few words of Yiddish—oy or gevalt would do—in order to express affiliation. Several decades ago, while attending a conference on humor in Tel Aviv, I delivered a scholarly paper on the topic of Jewish-American dialect jokes—that is, “jokes which are narrated in standard American English, but which incorporate Yiddish vocabulary, syntax, and/or intonation, thereby mimicking immigrant speech” (Brandes 1983: 233). To tell these kinds of humorous stories in a truly funny way, the narrator must deliver the main part of the tale in standard American English, while reserving an authentic Yiddish accent for the punch line. This feat requires that the narrator be a second- or third-generation American Jew, capable at once of speaking standard American English and of imitating first-generation immigrant speech. The imitation need not necessarily be authentic, from a phonological point of view. But it does have to be recognized as authentic by the JewishAmerican audience in order to do what a punch line is supposed to do. Here is an example, as reported by folklorist Richard Dorson (1960: 117): A young Jewish couple from New York decides they want to go to Florida for a vacation but the hotel they want to stay in is restricted. … The man tells his wife that he thinks it will work out and that they will be able to stay at the hotel just as long as she doesn’t open her mouth. … So they make the trip, and everything goes just fine. They check into the hotel, and the wife never opens her mouth. They go up

Religion, Ethnic Identity, and the Sense of Belonging | 37

to their room and pretty soon the wife decides she would like to take a swim. The husband tells her to go ahead, but reminds her not to say anything. So she goes down to the pool for her swim. She sticks her toes in the water and it is just terribly cold, and she yells out, “Oi vay!” Then looking around horrified, she adds, “Vat ever dat means.” For the joke to work, the narrator should possess excellent joke-telling skills and the ability to narrate in standard American English. Of equal importance, the joke’s success depends upon the narrator’s ability to imitate accurately the Yiddish vocabulary and accent of a first-generation immigrant. Moreover, the narrator should be identifiably Jewish. A non-Jewish narrator might be accused of anti-Semitism, while the Jewish narrator merely expresses what Irving Howe has identified as a Jewish tendency to self-mockery (1951: 211–212). It is best, too, if the audience is made up predominantly of Jews, those most capable of appreciating the narrative performance for its linguistic accuracy. For Jews, this story is like other dialect stories in that it originates basically from the Jewish American’s preoccupation with and insecurity about ethnic identity. In a non-threatening vein, Jewish-American dialect jokes “recount the linguistic tribulations, embarrassments, and triumphs of a people. … They are also tests and demonstrations of specialized knowledge … and thereby serve to reinforce ethnic unity” (Brandes 1983: 239). To both audience and narrator alike, they serve to symbolize group membership. Through the subtle manipulation of language, and the laughter they elicit from Jewish Americans, they enhance and reinforce the sense of belonging to the ethnic group. Over and above the relevance of language and homeland to the endurance of endangered peoples, Spicer considers another central consideration—that which, for lack of a single appropriate term, we might call race or biological affiliation. States Spicer, “the belief in racial explanations of resistance to cultural assimilation and for successful, long-continued confrontations crops up again and again.” “For Yaquis,” our author continues, “the terms Yoeme and Yori have served for several centuries as tools for emphasizing contrasts between the behavior of Mexicans and Yaquis, and these terms appear to have associations with skin color” (1980: 339). The Cherokees of Oklahoma, by contrast, seem to classify degrees of racial purity or difference based mainly on cultural, rather than biological, characteristics. Cherokees distinguish between “full-bloods” and “mixed-bloods.” “‘Fullbloods’ are those Cherokees who carry on the most distinctive of Cherokee behavior, such as using the Cherokee language and maintaining the rural values which have characterized Cherokee life since the 1830s. The ‘mixed-bloods’ on the other hand are generally more like the neighboring Anglo-Americans of the towns and cities in language and life style.” Biologically, however, “fullbloods show a wide range of physical characteristics, combining varieties of

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skin color from dark to light with hair forms from straight to wavy or curly, and eye color from brown to green and blue. There is no approximation to a single type and no clear predominance of what might be presumed to be a Cherokee aboriginal racial type” (Spicer 1980: 340). Among his ten representative peoples, Spicer singles out Jews, Irish, and Yaquis as stressing “a unique racial origin” (1980: 340), akin to what Clifford Geertz once called a “primordial sentiments system” (1963: 111). Belief in a unique racial origin, states Spicer, might well prove important “among peoples trying to validate their existence, but we cannot accept such beliefs as helpful in explaining either actual origins or persistence” (1980: 340). It is in this segment of his analysis, as much as anywhere, that Spicer shows his lack of appreciation for intracultural variation, in this case for the diversity of beliefs and assumptions represented among members of any named group. It is likely that many peoples, Jews included, embrace a mythology that traces their ultimate ancestry, at least in part, to an original founding pair. But there exists an enormous range of variation in the degree to which individuals within the group attribute their affiliation to blood relations of any sort (Herskovits 1949: 1158). Spicer’s model is confounded by many real-life circumstances, not the least of which is the phenomenon of religious conversion, a topic to which we turn shortly. Consider first, however, a case of ethnic identity from Catalonia, a region comprising the northwestern corner of the Iberian Peninsula, and spilling into several neighboring French “departments.” Catalans number more than six million. They speak their own language, possess a flourishing literary tradition that dates back to the Middle Ages, and have a distinctive sense of their own identity, apart from the Spaniards and French among whom they reside. (The thirteenth-century rabbi Nahmanides lived and worked in Girona, a major Catalan city.) One major element of Catalan folklore (or popular culture) is a highly stylized dance known as the sardana, which can be observed regularly in town and city plazas on Sunday and feast day mornings throughout the entire region. Most Catalans trace sardana origins to the remote reaches of time. In fact, the dance conforms perfectly to Hobsbawm and Ranger’s model of “invented traditions,” which, according to the authors, emerge as cultural anchors during periods of rapid socioeconomic or political change (1983: 4–5). The mid nineteenth century was such a period in rapidly urbanizing, industrializing Catalonia. And it was at this time that Josep Maria (“Pep”) Ventura i Casas produced a standardized version of what was then just a local dance restricted to several valleys in the Pyrenees. This dance, the sardana, expanded throughout Catalonia and soon became a recognizably Catalan folk item. Pep Ventura, for his part, became known as father of the modern sardana. Pep Ventura is a problematic figure for Catalan historians and musicologists, however, because his ethnic origins are questionable. His parents conceived him while

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living in Catalonia, but soon moved to Alcalá la Real, an Andalusian town in southern Spain, where he was actually born. When he was nearly three, his father, an army sergeant, was transferred to the Catalan city of Figueres. There Pep was reared and lived out the rest of his life. Because Spaniards ascribe ethnic membership primarily according to birthplace, Catalan nationalists need to justify Pep Ventura’s identity as a high-profile Catalan. After all, born in Alcalá la Real, he is a “son” of that town and therefore an Andalusian through and through. At least one historian deals with the problem by classifying Ventura as a Catalan because he was conceived in Catalonia of Catalan parents (Morant i Clanxet 1971: 57). Most Catalan historians, however, employ more complex combinations of ascribed and achieved characteristics for determining ethnicity. Consider, for example, Francesc Salvat’s assertions: Some have said that Pep Ventura became assimilated to our land. We reject this affirmation. … How could he have assimilated if he was always from the Empordá [a prototypical Catalan region]? If the blood in his veins also was? If the first words that he pronounced were in our father tongue. If the months that he lived away were those of the tender infant, unconscious and totally innocent … ? Ventura followed the same road that he would have followed if instead of being born in foreign territory he were born in the heart of the Empordá. His foreign birth did not change one iota the physiognomy of his soul. (1932: 3) Other historians—Aureli Capmany, for example—justify Ventura’s Catalan identity by virtue of his ànima, or soul (1948: 77). Objectively speaking, Pep Ventura has no intrinsic national identity. Ethnically, he is who people want him to be. And, the sardana, being the salient national symbol that it is, most Catalan historians and ethnomusicologists go to great lengths to disprove the idea that he had Andalusian roots. They therefore resort to criteria other than birthplace—including his bloodline, or where he was conceived, or where his parents were born, as well as the first language he spoke, and the composition of his soul. By all these measures he comes out Catalan. The idea of Pep Ventura possessing a Catalan soul is particularly revealing. The soul is an imaginary part of human constitution that at the same time contains something like cultural content—ideas, values, sentiments, and the like. Itself a cultural construct, the soul nonetheless combines ascribed and achieved characteristics. On the one hand, the soul adheres to an individual at birth. On the other, it gradually becomes imprinted through learning and exposure to the world around it. The soul is therefore a joint product of nature

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and nurture. As such, it provides a perfect rhetorical basis for classifying Pep Ventura as Catalan, for it expresses a combination of Castilian and Catalan criteria—of ascribed and achieved characteristics—that might be acceptable to any Spaniard but that no doubt especially appeals to Catalans, who speak and therefore think in terms of both Castilian and Catalan categories. Ventura’s soul is his ultimate defense against what some scholars would consider a tainted Andalusian birth. It is what justifies his status as Catalan national hero and ratifies the claim that he belongs to the group. The case of Pep Ventura demonstrates how nationalist scholars sometimes manipulate the criteria for group membership—criteria which are theoretically mutually exclusive—so as to include or exclude key historical figures. They transform these historical figures into cultural capital, thereby legitimizing the group’s claim to cultural distinctiveness and, at times, superiority. Religious conversion presents similar opportunities to blur and/or manipulate categories of group inclusion or exclusion. Consider the implications of the old Quaker proverb, “Some of our best Jews are Friends”—a transformation of the familiar patronizing gentile statement, which Jews themselves both ridicule and despise: “Some of my best friends are Jews.” The Quaker proverb seems to acknowledge overlapping membership in two religious communities—Jewish and Christian—a type of membership that many Jews and Christians would dispute but that Quakers of Jewish origin no doubt accept. The group known as Jews for Jesus actually institutionalizes this dual sense of belonging through the creation of a separate religious community, the legitimacy of which is disputed by Jews who—for lack of a better denotation—are not for Jesus. Consider the implications of the following well-known dialect joke: After many years of marriage, an Orthodox Jewish husband awakens one morning to tell his thoroughly observant wife that he had experienced a life-transforming dream. Jesus came to him and told him that he should convert and he believes he should. The wife is understandably upset, but after trying to convince her husband in vain that the dream was a figment of his imagination, she finally accedes to his wish. The man converts and becomes as fervent a Christian as he had been a Jew. One morning, the wife enters the bedroom to tell her husband that breakfast is ready. To her astonishment, she finds him putting on tefillin. “What are you doing, Benny?” she asks. “Don’t you remember? You’re a Christian.” The man is shaken suddenly into a state of awareness. Pounding his palm against his forehead in a gesture of recognition, he cries out to himself, “Of course! Goyische kopf!” Like most dialect jokes, this one only works if told by a Jew to other Jews. It seems to both acknowledge and undermine the possibility of simultaneous

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membership in two mutually exclusive religious communities. Much as he tries, the convert cannot escape his indelible Jewish identity. Anthropologist Peter Cahn (2003) recently published an instructive case study of evangelical converts in Catholic Mexico. Focusing on Tzintzuntzan and other towns around Lake Pátzcuaro in the west central highlands, he demonstrates that converts to Protestantism do not entirely abandon the Roman Catholicism of their birth and upbringing. For one thing, “the appearance and structure of evangelical services undermine the pastors’ attempts to disassociate their churches from the Catholic Church” (Cahn 2003: 122). The floral displays, wall decorations, seating arrangements, alms collections, musical accompaniments to prayer, and other aspects of the Protestant service all combine to make the sanctuary an entirely familiar place of worship. Converts also stay connected to Catholic rituals by attending the Mass in celebration of the life cycle rites of Catholic relatives and continuing to serve as ritual godparents. During Protestant services and in daily life, converts “frequently use the word ‘saint’ even though the rejection of saints forms a principal tenet of [evangelical] Protestant theology” (Cahn 2003: 124). Evangelicals in the Lake Pátzcuaro area even willingly participate in Catholic rituals like the Day of the Dead and other community festivals, to which they—like other citizens of their communities—contribute monetarily. In part, evangelicals sincerely enjoy participating in the religious traditions of their childhood. At times, their participation grows out of a “desire to maintain harmonious relations with the larger community” (Cahn 2003: 127). Whatever the motivation, there exists among evangelicals in this part of Mexico a de facto affiliation to two different religious communities simultaneously. This situation is far from universal within Mexico or elsewhere. In Chiapas, the southernmost state in the Republic, converts to Protestant evangelical churches have been dispossessed of their lands and expelled from Catholic communities. A series of bloody confrontations have ensued. A prime example comes from the enormous municipality of Chamula, where a well-entrenched hierarchy of Catholic cargo holders—or religious officials, selected for one or more years—maintains absolute political-religious authority, as well as a monopoly over the sale of liquor and other beverages. Many impoverished farmers, unable to bear the increasing cost of religious responsibilities, and debilitated by excessive drinking, have opted out of the system to become evangelical teetotalers. Religious officials rightly interpret the religious conversion of these farmers as a threat to their own political and economic power. But it is the religious argument above all that is invoked to justify the expulsions. One local judge defended the policy of expelling non-Catholics by stating, “Foreign religions are the disease of the Chamula, our number one enemy here. We expel families who no longer believe in the saints, who no longer want to use candles or incense” (Independent [London], 29 March 1989). Mexican political

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scientist Rodolfo Stavenhagen explains the matter succinctly: “It is a conflict about power in a community where the actors are identified by their religion. Clearly [conversion] pulls the rug out from under traditional community controls and power” (Los Angeles Times, 7 May 1992). In Chiapas, whatever the underlying cause for conflict, religious affiliation and difference is the primary boundary marker, as Fredrick Barth might put it (1969: 9–38). A similar circumstance prevails in the former Yugoslavia, where Catholic, Orthodox, and Muslim communities (with a few exceptions) now belong to separate independent republics. In Chiapas, where Catholics and Protestants alike speak Tzotzil, and in the former Yugoslavia, where SerboCroatian provides a unifying tongue, religion is the prime ethnic marker. In modern Spain, on the other hand, where Roman Catholicism is overwhelmingly dominant, language is a main boundary marker and sign of inclusiveness or exclusiveness, particularly among Catalans and Galicians, who prefer to speak their native tongues and only secondarily and when necessary utilize Spanish. The Basques are an exception. Although Basque is a unique language, related to no other known tongue, only a minority of people who consider themselves Basque actually speaks this language. Within this group, affiliation and the sense of belonging come more than anything through kinship, that is, through Basque ancestry—often but not always indicated by surname. Markers of affiliation and belonging vary from one social setting to another. Following Gerald Berreman (1981), we can distinguish between intrinsic and extrinsic criteria for group membership. Race and caste are the primary categories in which, as Berreman states, “membership is based on characteristics regarded as intrinsic to individuals comprising the stratum—features of ‘honor and privilege’ thought to inhere in people and therefore constituting the basis for the society’s judgments of what I call ‘differential intrinsic worth.’ These features are regarded by members of the society … as inevitable consequences of birth or ancestry, often described as God-given or genetic” (1981: 14). By contrast, social-class membership and rank, according to Berreman, are based “on attributes regarded as extrinsic to people who comprise the class. They are individually acquired or bestowed, individually manifest, socially shared, features. … In American society, for example, these include such features as source and amount of income, occupation, education, consumption patterns, and ‘life-style’ as these are used to rank people within a given racial or ethnic category” (1981: 15). Ethnicity, by Berreman’s estimation, occupies a middle ground. In the author’s words, ethnicity is based on shared cultural heritage, manifest in what Geertz … refers to as primordial sentiments. … They are defined by criteria of membership that are both extrinsic and intrinsic, in some crucial respects one, in other crucial respects the other. Cultural heritage is learned and

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is therefore extrinsic to the individual—it can be relinquished or not learned or unlearned (at least it can be after a generation or more). But cultural heritage also is the product of early socialization and constant reinforcement in the group, where it is often highly valued and therefore tenacious. In fact, it is a defining characteristic of ethnic group membership. It is therefore an intrinsic feature of ethnic group membership. So long as one identifies with, and is identified with, the ethnic group through exhibiting its culture … he or she shares its status. When one relinquishes or is denied ethnic group membership … he or she escapes its status. (1981:16) Where ethnicity is the ruling paradigm, a melting pot can occur, because affiliation with one group or another is mainly voluntary. Such is not the case where the criteria for race or caste membership prevail, because membership in a caste group is inescapable. Jews around the world share a history, religious tradition, and liturgical tongue that provide a sense of common ethnicity. In the multiple manifestations of Jewry, distinct ethnic categories (such as Ashkenazim, Sephardim, and Oriental Jews) coalesce around variants in religious beliefs and practice, festival foods, vernacular speech, and the like. Although different branches of Judaism define group membership according to distinct criteria, they often share a single racial or caste status (in Berreman’s terms) vis-à-vis the rest of the world. Jewish identity and sense of belonging depend not only on how Jews define themselves, but also, and of equal importance, on how others define Jews. A Jew who converts to Catholicism today might or might not still be considered a Jew according to the particular branch of Judaism that prevails in the determination of group membership. The affiliation of a man or women born of mixed Jewish-Christian parentage can only be resolved by accepting the dictates of one rabbi or another. These debates have significance within the world of Jewry. But throughout much of history, when viewed from outside the Jewish community, a Jew was a Jew, despite conversion. Once ancestry was revealed, the convert’s ethnicreligious identity was sealed, in the same way that an African-American who tried to pass as white could be publicly revealed as black through revelation of that person’s genealogy. Recalling the notion of bloodline in Spanish culture, discussed above, this concept was utilized to keep Muslim and Jewish converts to Catholicism from being accepted fully within the society. This is what made Jews a caste, in Berreman’s terms—a group defined according to intrinsic criteria. Neither conversion nor mixed ancestry would have been the cause for debate among Nazi henchmen. Liturgical, culinary, linguistic differences aside, Jews shared a single mutual destiny. This is what recently impelled newspaper columnist Roberta Spivak to write, “whenever I feel like becoming a Buddhist

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or Quaker—not from shame at my Jewishness but from difficulty in finding a spiritual home in patriarchal Judaism—the Holocaust stops me” (Philadelphia City Paper, 27 February–6 March 1997). Do intrinsic criteria still determine our identity to outsiders? Have modern-day Jews become a religious community like most others, free to belong or not, according to individual will? Recent political developments suggest that Jewish identity may be undergoing a radical change in this respect. Consider the case of Madeleine Albright, who, only months after being named secretary of state under President Bill Clinton, supposedly discovered that both her parents were born Czech Jews and converted to Catholicism in 1939. (I say “supposedly” because there was some doubt whether she had already known about it.) Albright reports that she received hate mail: “A lot of it was about me personally or my family,” she said. “Sometimes I had letters that would say that I’m Jewish attached with an ethnic slur. Some said I was a Jewish bitch” (January Magazine, 2003). At least one Egyptian columnist, Moustafa Amin, complained that, given her Jewish past, “the appointment of Albright will virtually make Tel Aviv the capital of the United States” (Institute for Historical Review, 14 October 2002). But most of the American public seemed to accept Albright for whom she claims to be: an occasionally practicing Episcopalian who converted upon marriage from the Catholicism of her childhood. Certainly none of her statements indicates that she feels any personal connection to Judaism. John Kerry, former presidential candidate, is another Christian with a Czech Jewish past. It was revealed late in the 2004 presidential campaign that his paternal grandfather, Frederick Kerry, was born Fritz Kohn. Kohn changed his name to Kerry, converted to Catholicism, and moved to Boston, where he met and married Ida Lowe, another Catholic convert from Judaism. When Kerry discovered that his grandmother’s siblings were killed in the Holocaust, he said, “I’m very touched by the knowledge that one of my relatives was in the Holocaust. It gives an even greater personal sense of connection [to the Holocaust] that is very real and touching” (Newsday, 1 March 2004). Some commentators claim that Kerry avoids open discussion of his Jewish past, not because of a possible anti-Semitic voter reaction, but rather because that playing a Jewish card to some audiences and not others might appear that he is trying to be all things to all people. Kerry’s mother’s roots go back to England, Scotland, and Ireland. When asked how he identifies ethnically, he responded to a Boston Globe reporter, “I’ve never really thought about it. I’m an American” (ibid.; this response seems to put John Kerry in the position I was in during first grade). In fact, the roster of presidential candidates during the 2004 election period suggests that racial categorizations are shifting. Aside from Kerry, the parade of presidential hopefuls included the incontrovertibly Jewish Joe Lieberman as well as Wesley Clark, who revealed during his unsuccessful campaign that

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he is descended from “generations of rabbis.” Only in the case of Lieberman has anyone suggested that Jewish ancestry might be a political liability—that Lieberman’s candidacy or conduct might arouse latent Jewish prejudice. For those of mixed descent, the revelation of Jewish blood comes across more as a curious footnote than an identity crisis. Certainly, the subjects themselves seem not to identify with Judaism. Despite ancestry, they claim to belong to another group, namely to one or another Christian denomination. It is still questionable whether or which American Jews claim politicians like Albright, Clark, and Kerry to be among their own. Embedded within the answers to that question are a host of meanings about what it means to be Jewish today.

j Conceptual and Pragmatic CHAPTER 2

Aspects of Binarism Examples from Israeli Society Harvey E. Goldberg

I

t has become a truism to state that Israeli society is split along a number of basic dimensions: politically, religiously, ethnically, and nationally. Typically, these splits are phrased in binary terms: political left vs. right, religious vs. secular, Jews from Europe vs. those from the Middle East, and Jews vs. Arabs. Discourse that accepts and uses these categories bridges everyday conversation, the various media, and academic discussion. At the same time, current academic writing is normally cautious and suspicious with regard to the binary depictions of social phenomena. A standard and generally accepted claim is that such classifications simultaneously hide variation and serve as mechanisms that perpetuate social inclusion/exclusion or valuation/devaluation. Well-known examples are speaking of the population of the United States as being divided up simply into “whites and blacks,” or the more recent challenges of binary gender classification (Butler 1999). The challenge of binary categories has now become common with reference to Israeli society (Hever, Shenhav, and Motzafi-Haller 2002; Yonah and Goodman 2004; Buzaglo 2009), even though it is not a simple matter for academic discourse to shed itself of modes of categorization that were taken for granted in the past (Goldberg and Bram 2007). In this recent writing on Israeli society, which bridges disciplinary perspectives, the stress has been on the social and political consequences of binary categories: inclusion and the maintenance of power among some groups while distancing and socially weakening others. Focusing on these sociopolitical concerns sometimes draws attention away from the conceptual, denotative, and pragmatic features that go into binarism. It is important to understand these conceptual and pragmatic dynamics, even when they operate in realms not normally associated with glaring disparities in social resources. In this chapter, some of the cognitive mechanics and other levels of meaning of binary classification are explored in an area that not all Israelis consider socially important: that of religion. This exploration of the dynamics of category formation and

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interaction in the realm of religion will be primarily conceptual, empirically backed by some well-recognized social realities and some anecdotal data. It may also provide insights into other realms of social life in which binary rhetoric remains prominent. Our exploration begins by recalling the tradition of binary categorization in the social sciences, especially in anthropology. Our discussion shows that issues which arose within and against this tradition are relevant not only to small-scale societies which were at the time the main object of anthropological research, but also to complex societies—in our case, Israel. The Israeli situation is explored with special reference to the realm of religion, but binarism in ethnicity and politics are also considered. Our discussion underlines the ongoing appeal of binary categorizations despite some of their obvious drawbacks in comprehending social processes in Israeli (or any) society.

Binarism in the Social and Cultural Sciences From the mid twentieth century, it is possible to trace a growing interest in and even enthusiasm for analyses based on binary classifications. A major factor in this development was the formulation of the mathematical theory of communication (Shannon and Weaver 1949), the ability to talk about “information” in precise, measurable terms, and the development of computing devices based on paradigms at whose bases were binary logical structures. Advances in these areas stimulated researchers in the social and cultural sciences to search for and formulate basic structural features that seemingly underlay varied and diverse phenomena. Indeed, the turn to binarism was viewed as a possible key to bridging the natural and human sciences. Examples of this trend appeared in various social sciences including psychology (Kelly 1955) and anthropology (Kluckhohn 1961: 15–16, 47–66), and notably in the structural anthropology of Claude Lévi-Strauss (1955; 1967a). Both Lévi-Strauss and Kluckhohn were also heavily influenced by the structural linguistics of Roman Jakobson (1938), which seemed to fit into the same pattern. This trend quickly resulted in a series of critiques. Some of them were directed at a more general phenomenon that was intertwined with the emergence of binarism, the tendency to view society primarily in cognitive terms (Geertz 1973; Cuddihy 1974; Goldberg 1983). This theme itself could be the subject of extended discussion, including the claim that formal classification contributed to the masking of power structures, but I confine this discussion to debates with regard to binarism more specifically. Even within the work of Lévi-Strauss, whose name became synonymous with structural analysis based on binary categorizations, questions can be raised concerning its correspondence to social reality. He pointed out that in societies which sometimes were

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represented in terms of binary categories, supposedly of equivalent value, this binary presentation often papered over both greater cognitive complexity along with social ranking and other forms of inequality (Lévi-Strauss 1967b). Thus, structural pairs such as the sun and the moon, right and left, or “nature” and “culture,” which could give the impression that they are balanced opposites if presented in diagrammatic form, when examined from the point of view of the social forms with which they resonate were found to code social inequalities—an example being “men” and “women” (Ortner 1974). In addition, even when binary divisions did appear within the conceptual apparatus of a society, they did not necessarily go along with the social features implied by classic structural analysis (Ortiz 1969). Part of the process of examining binary contrasts was an examination of their logical features. Binary terms often imply the existence of an unstressed third category. Thus the sun and the moon share (at least) one other substantive feature—they both are heavenly luminaries. This implies another contrast: “heavenly luminaries” vs. “non-heavenly luminaries.” From this point of view, the only true binary contrast may be between “A” and “not-A,” perhaps paralleling the social contrast between “self ” (either individual or collective) and “other.” This phenomenological contrast lumps together the whole complex social world outside of ego (the person-based center of a social world), and may be another reason to suspect that binary descriptions are at best partial representations of social reality. As already indicated, it is not only a question of binary descriptions portraying reality poorly. The particular terms expressed often entail socioeconomic interest, and/or they are exercises of power. If Israeli society is frequently discussed in terms of Ashkenazim and Sephardim, or European and Mizrahi Jews, one implication of the constant repetition of these paired categories is to distance non-Jews (most notably Arabs) from effective cognitive (and correspondingly, social) inclusion in social processes. Another level of exclusion derives from the very assumption that the stuff that is expressed in categories is inherently or naturally binary in its make-up. Judith Butler (1999) has explored in depth the cultural assumptions that go into the categories “male” and “female” when they are treated as biological givens. Among the phenomena excluded by these assumptions are forms of gender, sex identity, or behaviors that challenge these binary categories by linking them or by sharing in both of them. Thus the exploration of topics such as homosexuality or transsexuality reveals elements of power embedded in the conventional binary division that, Butler argues, imprints meaning on biological and sensual processes as much as it encodes them. In regard to the content of religion, or even the social organization of religious commitments, it is difficult to envision an “empirical” or “natural” realm giving rise to conceptual organization, so that in this sphere the power-en-

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dowing features of acts of categorization are even more salient. One aspect of Butler’s problematic that is worth pressing further in discussing binarism is that “female” and “male” are categories that imply links to one another. Applying a parallel critique to Israeli culture brings to mind the distinction between “religious” (dati) and “non-religious” (hiloni or secular), which is taken as obvious and self-explanatory to many Israelis, despite growing evidence that many members of the society do not fit into that conceptual opposition in terms of their actions or how they view themselves. Two questions to be addressed, therefore, are: who gains what (and who loses) by the maintenance of this binary conceptual structure, and to what extent are such processes tied to relationships between the categories or groups? At one level, both groups may gain (and also simultaneously lose). It is worth noting that Edward Said’s now canonical Orientalism (1978) may be viewed as the study of the evolution and impact of a binary contrast: East vs. West. Said does not dwell on the fact that the object of his study is a binary categorization (although the emotive persuasiveness of his analysis may benefit from that fact),1 but he focuses on the historical evolution of the binary pair and its implication in discourse and power of the “West” over the “East.” With reference to the pair “religious” vs. “secular” in Israeli society, there are certain ways that each side may be viewed as having (or claiming to have) more power (or perhaps cultural capital) than the other. What both sides gain in this situation of mutual interdependence is what Said stresses only with regard to the “West”—self-definition by placing itself in contrast with the “East.” In Israel, it may be argued, both religious and secular appear to gain from the assumption that there is a starkly “other” category that, if permanently allowed to gain the upper hand, would spell disaster (Yonah and Goodman 2004). Thus, the question of what interest a group or groups may have in maintaining a binary structure first and foremost deserves elucidation at the level of concepts and taken-for-granted assumptions within a society, and consequently how it is embedded in structures of communication, influence, and power that affect all involved.2 With these various perspectives on binarism in mind, we turn to a discussion of some issues in Israeli society.

Binarism and the Absent Religious “Middle” An example of the dynamics of exclusion by binarism in Israeli society is also found internally within the category of religion itself. A case in point is provided by Conservative Judaism (known in Israel as Masorti, or Traditional Judaism), one of the two main non-Orthodox religious movements (along with Reform Judaism—known in Israel as Mitqademet or Progressive). This case illustrates a more general issue in the society—the dilemmas and weakness

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of the religious “middle.” The following discussion is not based on systematic collection of data, but reflects my continued attention to the topic from the time that I moved to Israel in 1972 and became involved in various aspects of religious life as a Jew whose education had largely been in the framework of Conservative institutions. From the point of view of the Orthodox religious-political establishment, any sort of liberal Judaism was an anathema. As for secular Israelis, most of them had no idea of the differences between the Conservative and Reform movements—either with regard to their origins in nineteenth-century Central Europe or the way they later developed in North America. With reference to Israel today, both movements are still very small in scope, and the situation thirty years ago might be described as “infinitesimal.” What struck me in the 1970s was that in public discourse, the category of Conservative Judaism always seemed less prominent than, or subordinate to, Reform Judaism. For example, among Orthodox politicians and rabbis, if any mention was made at all to non-Orthodox versions of Jewish life, liberal Judaism was almost always portrayed negatively and called “Reform.” This term was applied to synagogues, rabbis, and activities linked to both the Reform and Conservative movements. If both groups were mentioned, even in so-called objective accounts such as in the press, the order of mention was almost always Reform (first) and Conservative (second). Empirically, there were somewhat more people in the country who could be considered practicing Conservative Jews than there were practicing Reform Jews, but this had little relation to the fact that the binary concept, defining anything not Orthodox as “Reform,” virtually erased the public presence of Conservative Judaism. Examples of the media highlighting of the Reform category in comparison to Conservative are presented in the appendix. In reflecting upon this absence, a number of thoughts came to mind, several with a historical side. I mused that overlooking Conservative Judaism might reflect the situation in nineteenth-century Europe (where both Orthodoxy and Reform first evolved) and still perpetuated in Israeli society that ignored significant aspects of American Jewish experience. In the European setting, all attempts to innovate in the realm of religion were referred to as “reform,” both generically (with a lower case r) and in terms of an organized movement (Reform). What became the ideological bases of Conservative Judaism in America emerged somewhat later, partially as a reaction against the reforms (and the Reform movement) that were moving too quickly and were too extreme. This reaction also originated in nineteenth-century Europe, but the term Conservative Judaism was coined in America and became sociologically prominent there in the middle decades of the twentieth century.3 This historical explanation of the absence of “Conservative Judaism” in Israeli public awareness may

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carry some weight, but as a social scientist, I could not assume that developments more than a century old could adequately themselves explain the social power of current categorizations in Israeli society. This explanation became further suspect in my mind as I considered that at least some prominent figures in religious life in Israel were quite cognizant of contemporary trends in world Jewry. An example is Yosef Burg (1909–1999), a leading politician within the Orthodox National Religious stream, who had a broad European education and held portfolios in many Israeli cabinets during his tenure as a member of Knesset from 1949 until 1988. A colleague (and fellow Knesset member) of Burg’s, Yitzhak Rafael (1914–1999), had in fact earned a doctorate of Hebrew Letters at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTSA), the rabbinical seminary standing at the head of the Conservative movement. Also, in the post–World War I period, leaders of the Conservative movement in the United States became involved in some religious and cultural projects in Palestine, which included the building of the Yeshurun Synagogue in the Rehavia neighborhood of Jerusalem with the idea that it would be an American-style congregation (Cohen 1997: 138). The building was only completed after World War II, when Yeshurun became affiliated with mainstream Religious Zionism, but these examples show that the erasure of Conservative Judaism through the use of binary categories does not reflect only ignorance, or lack of exposure. It was a motivated erasure. The motivation in question, I suggest, reflects the possibility that Conservative Judaism was a potential rival to the National Religious movement on an ideological plane. In addition to the fact that, politically, it was easier to have one “enemy” (Reform), who could be clearly delineated in its contrast to Orthodoxy, the Conservative approach might theoretically pose an alternative and therefore a threat to National Religious ideology. Both movements purported to represent a balance and synthesis between the claims of Jewish tradition and full participation in the modern world. Both recognize, in principle at least, the demands of halakhah (rabbinic law). In addition, leaders like Burg, Rafael, and some younger figures knew that there were rabbinic scholars associated with the JTSA who could stand shoulder to shoulder with those who inspired National Religious Jewry (Shapiro 2006). One major difference was that the ideology of Conservative Judaism was more willing to highlight the factor of historical development and change in halakhah than was Orthodox ideology (Gillman 1993). In addition, in practice, individuals connected to Conservative religious institutions were (and are) less observant than typical Orthodox Jews. Still, at some conceptual level, both ideologies shared the same set of concerns and were competing in the same ideological field. Thus, Conservative Judaism, while not constituting a clear and present rival to Orthodoxy in Israel, was a potentially serious competitor in the ideational realm;

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leaders of Orthodoxy, at some level, recognized the importance of warding off its potential influence.4 Some hints that the substance of ideological arguments of Conservative (and Reform) Judaism were a concern to leaders of Orthodoxy are provided by discussions relating to variation in customs and language (the pronunciation of Hebrew in the liturgy) that distinguished Jews originating from Middle Eastern countries from those of European (Ashkenazi) provenance.5 The differing practices among Ashkenazim, Sephardim, and Yemenite Jews—all considered legitimate expressions of “Orthodox” behavior—implied that historical changes had taken place in different communities and had received the approval of rabbis in diverse regions. Delving into this issue could lead to conceding that the premise of reforming streams of Judaism, that religious norms changed historically, was valid. This led some modern Orthodox halakhic authorities to be very cautious about any hint of change, such as Ashkenazi Jews beginning to pray in the “Sephardi” version of Hebrew that emerged in contemporary Palestine/Israel (Arusi 1986: 71–81). From this point of view, too, the non-visibility of Conservative Judaism, whose ideology stressed historical change, was very convenient for Orthodox Jews. They had every reason to be satisfied with, and encourage, a portrait of religious life that recognized only two alternatives: either Orthodoxy or Reform. In the context of Israeli society, all the cultural “cards” were stacked in favor of the former. The situation described above was never simple or static (Tabory 1985; 2000). On certain occasions, when specific issues concerning Conservative Jews arose, Orthodox leaders opted to refer to them openly in an attempt to oppose them. One case was the exhortation directed toward residents of the French Hill neighborhood in Jerusalem not to pray at the Conservative synagogue built there in the late 1970s. A more recent series of incidents concerns the attacks against Masorti Jews approaching the Western Wall area in 1997 who were physically accosted by haredi Jews trying to stop them (Yedioth Ahronoth [Tel Aviv], 8 August 1997).6 Thus, over time, Conservative Jewry has gained more of a specific profile in the media, perhaps particularly in Jerusalem, where there is a concentration of its followers and institutions.7 Still, I continue to meet “ordinary Israelis” who casually refer to a specific synagogue they may have by chance attended as “Reform” when I know it to be a Conservative congregation, and a colleague/friend recently told me that she knows that the labels Masorti and Mitqademet are used to refer to Conservative and Reform Judaism, but she never remembers what term goes with which. It should be obvious that Israeli discourse is not homogeneous over all locales of category production, but within the existing variation, the cloaking or hiding of Masorti Judaism as a distinguishable approach to religion is still built into many social-linguistic situations.8

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Dilemmas of the National-Religious “Middle” In the context of Israeli society, all groups defining themselves as dati/Orthodox have been relatively successful in setting themselves off from their religiously “stark opposite,” while devaluating that position (Reform). But the dati world is itself internally complex and differentiated, so that issues of religious content and contestation within it also are reflected in boundary maintenance mechanisms and their dilemmas. The strategy of distancing from and seeking to delegitimate close competitors by creating seemingly clear boundaries between “us” and “them” may thus be seen in aspects of the relationship between National Religious Judaism (alternatively: Religious Zionism) and the ultraOrthodox (haredi) world. It might be argued that, on a logical plane, there are ways that National Religious Judaism shares with Conservative Judaism some “dilemmas of the middle,” for it claims to be loyal to historical rabbinic tradition while participating in the modern (implying secular) world. The conceptual challenge entailed in this bridging stance may take on social prominence in specific locales, like Jerusalem, where haredi Jews are numerically strong and politically influential. In this situation, haredim seem to have a cognitive advantage of being able to present their vocabulary as being clear and unequivocal, while the burden falls on the shoulders of conceptually “adulterated” Religious Zionism (in haredi terms, religion and Zionism are inherently opposed commitments) to highlight its approach to religion and demonstrate its legitimate status. Beyond that, in social and cultural reality, many lines of continuity link the National Religious and haredi worlds. Can we identify strategies, in this setting, through which Religious Zionism succeeds in foregrounding its presence and message while lowering the conceptual profile of its more strictly religiously observant competitors? There is no way that a strategy of erasure through binarism could work effectively vis-à-vis the large and active haredi communities that compete with the National Religious way of life (as it does vis-à-vis Conservative Judaism). It is not only that the worlds are linked, but I have the impression from listening to the speech of non-religious Israelis in recent years that over time, the word dati (“religious”) has increasingly been used to refer to haredi Jews, rather than being applied to those affiliated with National Religious ideology and practice, as was common in the past. Similarly, with reference to Jerusalem, it has been remarked that the city is regularly described as divided into haredim, hiloniyim (secular), and Arabs, a division that ignores the religiously moderate groupings in the city: Religious Zionists and masortiyim (traditional Jews).9 Both these categories are lumped together with the secular population.10 The fact that Religious Zionists are sometimes placed under the rubric of hiloniyim undoubtedly reflects

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a victory for the haredi perspective, particularly when there are significant areas of overlapping and blurring of the two worlds. It is perhaps because of this blurring that the adjective “black” (shahor) as a way of globally characterizing the haredi world (assumedly because men typically dress in a variety of black hats and garb) has emerged within Israeli sociolinguistic culture. If informal historical accounts presented to me are correct, the term first arose within National Religious circles and only later became common in wider Israeli parlance directed at the ultra-Orthodox. Use of the appellation “black” by Religious Zionists to refer to the gamut of haredi lifestyles might be considered to be a symbolic or emotive binarism, seeking to create a sense of border and distance in a context where cognitive binarism (such as directed toward nonOrthodox categories) has little chance of succeeding. If this analysis is correct, we have identified different rhetorical strategies by which an inherently continuous, hybrid, or blurry position aims to create for itself a clearly bounded profile vis-à-vis competing positions. This was done by including both cognitive and symbolic-emotive processes in the analysis as they interlace with different aspects of the sociocultural field within which religious positions and the terms by which they are identified are at play. Another sign of the continuous and hybrid qualities of Religious Zionist ideological positions is found in some of their sociological and terminological offshoots. As noted, these appear both to the “right” (religiously more strict) and to the “left” (religiously more flexible). In the past decades, particularly after the Six-Day War, there became evident within the Religious Zionist world a significant trend of greater religious punctiliousness that appeared to incorporate norms of the haredi world, including stricter (more modest) dress codes and rules limiting contact between men and women. Those following this trend, however, retained their commitment to Zionism, and there emerged a religious sector now commonly referred to as haredi le’umi or nationalist haredi (which in a previous generation would have been an oxymoron).11 This phenomenon became common and prominent enough that an acronym emerged based on the two terms—HaRDaLim.12 I speculate that the creation of this acronym may originally have been seen as a cute or humorous (and perhaps ironically self-reflective) neologism, but it eventually became a standard way of speaking about this religious trend and its followers (Sheleg 2000). No directly comparable social phenomenon exists to the left of the National Religious community. However, I have encountered individuals, intellectually informed about religious matters, who have described their own religious worldview as “Conservadox,” placing themselves somewhere between Orthodox and Conservative Judaism. The fact that this is not a known term in the broader religious landscape in Israel shows that while it carries a comprehensible logic among certain audiences, the neologism has little wider sociological significance.13 It is also worth noting that “Hardal” grows out of a

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Hebrew language milieu, while “Conservadox” draws upon English semantic associations. Taken alone, the limited numbers of individuals to whom a term like “Conservadox” is meaningful is hardly more than a curiosity. Placed into a wider terminological and socioreligious context, however, it helps illuminate the dynamics and dilemmas of religious binarism in Israeli society. It is by now a commonplace that the hardening of social categories on the part of a given group may serve to exclude or weaken a competing collectivity. Thus, National Religious Judaism, in its political, educational, and other institutions, is much more established within the Israeli setting than is Conservative (or any non-Orthodox) Judaism, and some of its actions are aimed to maintain that dominance. I suggest, however, that in addition to its effect on other categories and associated structures, the strict logical exclusion can also have a weakening effect on the user, that is, on National Religious Judaism itself. The historical development of National Religious Judaism, ideologically and institutionally, is a complex story (see the essay by Fischer in this volume), and in the post-State period it is impossible to divorce this history from developments subsequent to the 1967 Six-Day War. But ignoring, for our purposes, the political side of these developments, many observers agree that one significant trend in the post-1967 generation was a movement toward religious strictness (as mentioned above), highlighted, for example, in National Religious schools and the Bnei Akiva youth movement. To some, this was seen as a threat because it seemed to reflect a weakening of National Religious ideology vis-à-vis the attraction of haredi (ultra-Orthodox, which in principle rejects modernity) ideology. In addition to various political and social reasons that might account for this apparent erosion of a National Religious stance, the logical dynamics of binarism may also be at work. If an ideology and the social groups aligned to it are defined by a “red line” principle (for example: only a person who accepts the Shulhan Arukh [Caro’s code of Jewish Law] can be considered a religious Jew), a predictable dynamic takes place. Within any functioning community, it is normal that there will appear variation away from the central trend in a variety of directions, both to the right and to the left, to speak in simplified terms.14 A strict “red-line” strategy, utilized by most forms of Jewish Orthodoxy, has meant that those moving toward laxness in religious observance are labeled deviant, as falling into the abyss of secularism. They no longer can be counted among “the religious.” Those changing by becoming more religiously strict, on the other hand, even in incremental steps, are still viewed as part of the community. Over time (and all other factors being held equal), such a community will move slowly but consistently in an ever-more “Orthodoxizing” path. A second possible outcome stemming from the same logic is the loss of members of a community to religious worldviews and groups that in principle are stricter than their original home setting.15 Thus, the

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strategy of binarism used by Orthodox groups against those who would seem to challenge their boundaries may evolve into a dilemma-inducing mode of logic reflecting back against its users.

Other Aspects and Examples of Binarism The previous discussion shows that much as binary categories are typically presented as clear-cut and stable, they in fact shift with time and are constantly in dynamic interaction with their cognitive and terminological environments. The inadequacy of binary categories to represent and/or explain society was reflected in the intellectual developments that came to be called “post-structuralism.” I prefer the phrase “late structuralism” (just as some theorists prefer “late modern” over “post-modern”) because post-structural analyses often built upon the basic insights of structuralism, and (more importantly for our purpose) aspects of “classic” structural analysis may be helpful in understanding cognitive and symbolic dynamics within industrial societies, along with cultural processes “beyond” structural analysis. The preceding section demonstrates how a structural analysis can be relevant to one level of comprehension of cultural processes in Israeli society, without claiming to yield an exhaustive understanding of the issues entailed. We therefore briefly turn to other realms in which binary structures appear in Israeli culture, including some that overlap or interact with those in the sphere of religion already discussed. The classic structural analysis of societies initiated by Lévi-Strauss often pointed to a series of parallel binary contrasts that seem to overlap and thus reinforce one another (1967b). The overlapping and reinforcing were intended to lend persuasiveness to the series of contrasts (although there may be a lack of clarity, or debate, about who was supposed to be persuaded—the members of the society, outside analysts, or both). Such mechanisms are not absent from complex societies characterized by literacy and modern media. This may be illustrated by showing how religious binary categories structurally and rhetorically overlap with other major categories in Israeli society. One basic cognitive opposition in modern Israeli (and Zionist) culture is the distinction between ha’aretz (the Land of Israel) and hutz la’aretz (everywhere outside of the Land of Israel) as a way of separating what is truly local/Israeli/ Jewish as opposed to what characterizes life abroad. A common way that Israelis reject the validity of forms of Judaic practice that challenge Orthodoxy is by saying that they are foreign to Israeli culture, that their origin is in hutz la’aretz. This accusation has been directed to the liberal religious movements as well as to other recent phenomena, like women demanding the right to worship at the Western Wall (Sered 1997).16 There definitely is an empirical basis for such

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a claim, but the rhetorical creation of a structural equation—Orthodoxy is to Non-Orthodoxy as ha’aretz is to hutz la’aretz—can only partially be viewed as a sound argument. It stands on a hidden, but dubious (and non-critiqued), assumption that other forms of Israeli religiosity (one example: the Chabad movement which enjoyed special favor in Israel for a while in the 1980s) are dyed-in-the-wool “Israeli” in their origin. This is clearly not the case if one examines the history of most of Israel’s religious traditions and movements,17 but it provides another example of how binarism and its rhetorical use is very much a feature of contemporary cultural dynamics. Another example appears in the realm of internal Jewish ethnicity, which is frequently represented by two major categories: Jews coming from Europe vs. those whose origins are in the Middle East. This topic deserves a long discussion (e.g., Goldberg and Bram 2007; Goldberg 2008), but I will just make several points that highlight the arbitrariness of the binary distinction. One is the long list of alternate binary contrasts that have been presented as (supposedly objectively) packaging such a contrast, such as: Ashkenazim vs. Sephardim, Jews from Asia/Africa vs. those from Europe/America, European Jews vs. those from Muslim countries, or Ashkenazim vs. Mizrahim. Each of these sets of terms has its drawbacks in terms of the way they represent historical and social reality. In addition, the very fact of multiplicity and the shifting use of such paired terms show that they must be understood in terms of their sociocultural motivations as much as constituting adequate sociohistorical portraits.18 Some recent ethnographic and historical work has highlighted the way the binary assumptions of Israeli society have forced diverse ethnic phenomenon into conceptual and social straightjackets. For example, Ephrat Rosen-Lapidot (2005) has shown how Israeli society’s cognitive rejection of the historically significant impact that French culture had upon Jews in Tunisia allows them to more easily be placed into a simple scheme of East vs. West. Chen Bram (2003) indicates the lack of clarity in defining immigrants to Israel from the Caucasus region of the former Soviet Union, and the social consequences of that fuzziness both in the way they were treated by Israeli bureaucracy and in their evolving self-images. In a different realm, it may be noted that the way Israeli academe approached the study of Jews in Ethiopia was by linking them to the broad category of “Eastern Jewry,” although from many historical points of view, this makes little sense (Ethiopia is an African and a Christian country, and the Jews there did not share a language with any other Middle Eastern group; see Salamon and Kaplan 1998). All these examples take for granted a basic contrast that perhaps can be characterized as “European Jews” vs. “all others” (Elazar 1989). Use of the word other, of course, suggests that all groups falling under that unnamed rubric are less socially valued; the term implies an imposition of groups with more social power upon those with less. In Israel of today, how-

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ever, there are also situations in which some Jews of Middle Eastern origin insist on being lumped together, such as in the growing use and acceptance of the term Mizrahim, which is seen as reinforcing the protest against inequality. What is significant, from the perspective of this analysis, is the very persistence of binary categorization in contexts where it is both clear that a two-way conceptual split is historically misleading, and when intermarriage rates have created a situation in which a large percentage of Israelis cannot easily be placed in one category or another (Okun 2001). The maintenance of binarism within social discourse in this realm therefore requires explanation, but will not be pursued here. For the purpose of this chapter, having established the salience of binarism in the ethnic realm, I wish to consider aspects of its overlap with the binarism in the sphere of religion. As stated, it would not appear improbable to present Israeli society as organized around a series of parallel structural contrasts internal to its Jewish majority: Right vs. Left,19 Mizrahim vs. Ashkenazim, Religious vs. Secular. The difference between this statement and the remarks at the beginning of this chapter is two-fold. First, it should by now be apparent that we are not speaking about an empirically correct image of Israeli society (although some “kernel of truth” may be part of what makes such images plausible), but of a simplification that is appealing and persuasive and enters into discourse cutting across various realms. Second, viewed as a series of binary structures, such a model implies that the parallelism carries with it mutual reinforcement: being right wing politically goes with being Mizrahi and being “religious,” and it is the combined packaging of the series of contrasts that makes the linkage stronger than any one empirical or conceptual association taken alone. In terms of “objective reality,” it is important to note both that there are statistical correlations in these directions, and at the same time, that this picture overwrites many important exceptions such as religious Ashkenazim, Mizrahim associated with the political left, and so forth. But what is at issue here is how easy it is to accept such a picture, particularly when it works itself into the fabric of everyday life and becomes a taken-for-granted set of givens. In addition, one other feature of the overlap between the Eastern/Western split and dati vs. hiloni on the plane of religion must be noted. In many ways, Israeli society as a whole still values that which is labeled “Western” and looks down upon “the Orient”; at some level, however, there is a growing association of Middle Eastern Israeli Jews and their culture with what is at the heart of Israeli society—Jewishness and Judaism. One small (but unexpected and therefore telling) indication of this tendency is the way the khamsa (“hand of Fatima”) decorative motif has come to symbolize Jewish tradition and content. Given the past (and also concurrent) association of this visual image with Oriental superstition, it is striking that it now also appears as representing Judaism proper, such as its use in the material advertising an annually orga-

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nized springtime festival that presents diverse ways of studying Jewish texts. Indeed, the khamsa has become a standard symbol of being Israeli, irrespective of the provenance of one’s forbears. Shalom Sabar (2003) has pointed out that in terms of popular art, Israel may stand second only to Morocco in the use of the khamsa. Thus, a symbol once associated only with the undervalued East has moved into the center of Israeli self-definition. As our general consideration of binary structures suggests, that process of self-definition is an energetically contested one. The power of the symbolic package consisting of the three overlapping categories cited (religion, politics, and ethnicity) was highlighted in some of the political events in Israel in July 2004. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had been taking decisive steps to push along his dramatic new policy of evacuating Jewish settlements from the Gaza Strip, and was opposed by many members of his government and by members of Parliament, both outside and within his own right-wing Likud party. Political pressures reached a point in which Sharon was in active coalition negotiations with the center-left Labor party in order to keep his government from falling. Negotiations advanced to the extent that there was a serious possibility that a new government would be formed based on the Likud, Labor, and the Shinui party (already in the government coalition), which clearly was associated with middle-class interests and Ashkenazi ethnicity. Silvan Shalom (who was foreign minister at the time, and was born in Tunisia), a leader of the Likud in competition with Sharon, publicly commented that such a government would be an impossibility from the point of view of the Likud because it would be too tsfoni. The vernacular ethnic-labeling term tsfoni, technically translated “northern,” derives from the image of North Tel Aviv and carries associations of social class, ethnic residential exclusiveness, Ashkenazim vs. Mizrahim, and “universalist secularism” vs. “Jewish tradition.” Shalom was widely criticized for injecting ethnic divisiveness into the political debate, but he expressed a sentiment widely felt within members of the Likud Central Committee: that for Likud to lead a government in which its only partners would be Shinui and Labor would be a serious blow to its selfimage and its standing in the eyes of its voters. A more reasoned way of making the same general point (i.e., based on more consensual values) that emerged in the debate following upon Shalom’s initial remark, was that the government had to have at least some “Jewish flavor.” Because of the political program that Sharon was pushing, it was almost certain that the National Religious Party would eventually leave the coalition, so that some other religious party, either United Torah Judaism (representing Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodoxy), ShaS (representing Sephardi tradition and religiosity), or both, had to be part of a Likud-led coalition. To those unfamiliar with Israeli political vocabulary, it may seem astounding that Israeli rhetoric could imply that the Labor Party or Shinui were not

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“Jewish.” Without attempting to explain the evolution of this political language, we note how the crisis initiated by Sharon’s political turnabout forced the society, and in particular the Likud party (which at the time had twice the number of Knesset members than any other party), to directly and clearly formulate its self-defining notions and symbols and the conceptual-ideological elements that gave it its special contours. This reaction seemed to say: “We stand for something in which an ideology of the Right, a salience of Middle Eastern Jews, and religiosity or tradition are all included; if we drop any one of these elements we would not be ourselves.” The point, again, is not how correct the links between these elements are from a logical or correlational point of view, but rather how compelling the total picture is based on the three implied and interwoven binary contrasts. These political protests produced a portrait of a Likud “self ” (which they claimed also represented the whole society) that was almost Lévi-Straussian in its binary assumptions and structure.20

Concluding Remarks When structuralism first began to make a broad impact on anthropology (the period bridging the 1950s–60s) one question was: what is the empirical and epistemological status of structural models (binary and other) of societies (Schneider 1965)? Do they represent only the observer’s constructs, those of the members of the society in question, or—in some manner—both? Related to this was the issue of what was the connection (if any) between models built by an anthropologist and/or those held in the minds of members of a group, and empirical patterns of behavior on the ground? The debates surrounding these issues took place on a background of the assumption that members of the societies that anthropologists studied were not participants in these discussions. Today, we are in a very different situation. It is appreciated that analytic notions like “discourse,” and the empirical penetration of modern media to all spheres of life, pierce holes in and even melt boundaries that formerly seemed to separate observer from observed. All putatively clear conceptual borders have become suspect. This appreciation, however, does not place structural binarism behind us. While its limitations as an analytic (“objective”) tool are now better understood, it continues to be a device utilized by people in making sense of their worlds and in seeking to preserve them. The analysis of such schema and the demonstration that they are misleading portraits of social reality is only a first step. Just as the demonstration that a simple division of humankind into races (three or otherwise) was “bad science” (Harrison 1998) did not make “race” disappear as a socially significant construct, so it is worth taking into account the dynamics of binary systems, even when one is mainly interested in deconstructing them.

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I do not claim that binary structures are the only or even the main way that societies picture or conceive of themselves; given their existence and use, however, it is worth speculating what their social-cognitive roles might be. At one level, binary structures may serve as the most easily processed mental structure, a conceptual default option, or perhaps a useful way of summing up the social world when nothing much is at stake. In such instances, to take one of the examples discussed, most Israelis might begin to be interested in a range of religious options only when the division into secular/religious appears to present some personal or family problem, as in the case of various lifecycle events. Alternatively, binary structures may appear useful precisely as components of a worldview are contested. In the modern Israeli context, such structures may be underlined by the conjoined force of the media and politics, arguably the most salient realm of sociocultural existence in the society, while the latter realm thrusts its long arm into the realm of religion. In Israeli political rhetoric in recent years, the right often speaks of itself as the le’umi (“national”) camp, a term that conjures up the tripartite package of right-wing politics/attachment to Judaism/Middle Eastern ethnicity that stands in supposed opposition to those who are “left,” “more cosmopolitan than Jewish,” or “European” in their orientation. Simplified characterizations are also not absent from purportedly more sober assessments of tensions in Israel, such as those phrased in terms of “civil” as opposed to “primordial” images of what the society should be. Whatever the context, binary images are an active feature of cultural life and deserve careful scrutiny both by analysts of society and by participants.

Appendix Illustrations of the Highlighting of “Reform” in relation to “Conservative” Judaism in the Written Media during the 1980s–90s. This list is illustrative and not based on formal sampling, but from the writer’s experience, the examples herein represent the most common modes of newspaper representation of the two religious movements. • Ha’aretz 4 November 1988, B4. Mordecai Artzieli interviews Leah Shakdiel, the first woman to be elected to a municipal Religious Council. She expresses the hope that her daughter will have an aliyah and read from the Torah, doing this as an Orthodox Jew. In defining herself thus, “Reform” and “Conservative” are mentioned in the same breath: Kol ha-nisyonot … lomar alai she-ani yehudiah reformit o konservativit—lo yo’ilu. • Ha’aretz 7 April 1998, A6. Shahar Ilan discusses the new institute for religious conversion that is to include instruction by all religious streams,

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•

•

•

•

referring to their leaders and mentioning “Reform” first: Rashei ha-tenuot ha-reformit ve-ha-konservativit … Ha’aretz 21 April 1998. Moshe Reinfeld discusses a court case seeking recognition for the conversion of adopted children, a case initiated by the Conservative movement and joined by petitioners from the Reform movement. The Reform Rabbi is mentioned first: Ha-rav ha-reformi Michael Boiden ve ha-rav ha-konservativi Reuven Hammer … Ha’aretz 5 June 1998, A3. Shahar Ilan and Shlomo Shamir discuss the demands of the liberal movements to be able to pray at the Western Wall. Both the headline and the opening sentence mention Reform first: Hareformim ve-ha-konservativim … (headline); Rashei ha-reformim ve-hakonservativim … (lead sentence). Ha’aretz 5 June 1998, A4. Shahar Ilan on access to the Western Wall, Reform is mentioned first: be-nisayon le-ater rehava qetana she-teshamesh li-tefilat neshot ha-kotel, ha-reformim ve-ha-konservativim … Ma’ariv 21 July 1999, 23, a column listing brief news items. A headline reads: “[Interior Minister] Ben-Ami to the Reformim: Don’t Pray at the Wall on Tish’ah Be’av.” The notice starts out by describing Ben-Ami’s request to the “heads of the konservativim and reformim” most likely reflecting the fact that the incidents at the Wall on the fast of Tish`ah Be-Av first began with attacks on Conservative worshipers. It seems that the headlines editor, pressed for space, used reformim to represent both groups.

Notes This chapter has benefited from comments by Ephraim Tabory and Shlomo Fischer. It was initially formulated while the author was a Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and reflects research support from the Israel Science Foundation, grant # 907/02, and the Silbert L. Silver Center for Israel Studies. 1. Some discussions of his thesis take note of the fact that Said’s critique seems at times to reinforce the binary distinction he wished to unravel (e.g., Halliday 1993: 148). 2. For an initial formulation of this issue, see Goldberg (1987). 3. These developments are presented concisely in Gillman (1993). 4. There are other examples of shared interests between and mutual attention to the two movements, particularly at the levels of the scholarly intellectual leadership. Shlomo Fischer pointed out to me that the first two people to pay scholarly attention to the writings of Rabbi A. I. Kook, in 1938 and 1940, were the Conservative Rabbis BenZion Bokser and Jacob Agus. 5. Malka Katz, personal communication, suggested this line of analysis. 6. See also some of the references in the appendix. 7. This is part of a gradual process in which the non-Orthodox movements have gained some degree of recognition and legitimization (Sawicki 1996; Tabory 2000).

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8. It might be productive to continue this analysis through a comparison with that put forth by Yehouda Shenhav (2003), when he calls upon Bruno Latour’s (1993) notion of the “purification” of hybrid categories and applies this to concepts of religion and nationality within Israeli culture. 9. Here, we focus on the varied religious patterns of those identifying with religious Zionism (Sheleg 2000), in contrast to their political views that often are far from moderate. With regard to the term masorti (pl. masortiyim), as mentioned in the introduction to this volume, it arose to characterize Jews who did not see themselves as datiyim, but describe themselves as practicing and/or committed to aspects of Jewish tradition. Many, but not all of them, came from Middle Eastern backgrounds. The term seems to have emerged from popular usage, but was quickly picked up in social research. It did not initially aim to present an ideology as was the case when it was adopted by the Conservative Movement. See the chapter by Yaakov Yadgar in this volume. 10. See Elazar (1998), who claims that “Jerusalem is regularly described as divided into Haredim, Hilonim, and Arabs … totally ignoring the two moderate groupings in the city: the datiim, or Religious Zionists, and the masortiim (traditional) … who … because they are not Orthodox in observance are lumped with the secular population. In fact, the Religious Zionists are also included as Hilonim in this shorthand manner of reporting, despite the fact that their patterns of observance and their justification for those patterns are far closer to the fervently Orthodox.” 11. More punctilious religious behavior among Religious Zionists after 1967 is a phenomenon that has been widely noted. However, this does not necessary imply the adoption of Haredi ideology, but is often connected to the ongoing elaboration of the worldview of Zionist Rabbi A. I. Kook. I am indebted to Shlomo Fischer for this point. 12. The acronym HaRDaL is homophonic with a prosaic Hebrew noun, hardal, meaning “mustard.” 13. During the 1980s, in the United States, an organization arose representing an “orthodoxizing” approach within the Conservative movement. Called the Union for Traditional Conservative Judaism (UTCJ), its formation was stimulated by the decision of the JTSA to ordain women rabbis. It later dropped the term “Conservative” from its title and attracted a few Orthodox rabbis who disagreed with “right-wing” trends within Modern Orthodoxy. The UTJ, however, did not achieve widespread appeal. 14. I use the terms right and left as code-words (correspondingly) for more strict and less strict interpretation and observance of Jewish law. This usage is more common among American Jews concerned with halakhah, and is not common in the Israeli setting where “right” and left” saliently invoke the political realm (see note 19, below). 15. See the discussion, in the introduction, of the weakening of the National Religious Party. 16. Another example is found in El-Or and Aran (1995: 76 n8). 17. Of the current religious parties within the Israeli political landscape, the only one that arose within the context of the new state is Shas. 18. See, for example, the discussions concerning the categories of “Arab” and “the East” with respect to Jews in Shenhav (2003) and Eyal (2006). 19. An initial attempt to provide a cultural analysis of “left” and “right” in Israeli politics is found in Dominguez (1989). 20. The awareness of politicians of the persuasive power of binary categories continued through the 2006 election campaign that grew out of Sharon’s new policy. At the end

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of 2005, he decided to leave the Likud and set up a new centrist party, Kadima, that attracted politicians from the Likud, from the then-extant centrist Shinui party, and from the Labor party. During the election, both Likud and Labor attacked Kadima, claiming that Kadima is “really” part of the “opposite” camp (the Left or the Right, respectively). Thus, attempts to benefit from the traditional binary split were maintained in the face of evidence that the electorate in Israel felt it was losing its relevance.

j From Security to Insecurity CHAPTER 3

British Jewish Communal Leadership in the Context of Multiculturalism Keith Kahn-Harris and Ben Gidley

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n 1 September 1991, Britain’s new chief rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, delivered an impassioned induction address in front of a packed congregation (and TV cameras) at St John’s Wood synagogue in London. Much of the address was dominated by a rhetoric of crisis. While Sacks emphasized that Jews were “one people,” he argued that “[they] are more deeply divided than at almost any time in [their] history” and that “these are fundamental rifts which threaten the very integrity of Jewry as am echad, as a single people.” He concluded that “the Jewish people, am Yisrael, has lost its way.” As well as being divided, the very survival of Jewry in the UK was in doubt: “We are [a] declining and aging community, we are in the midst of a recession, we have to work with limited resources, there are in our community attitudes and divisions which will take a long time to change” (Sacks 1991). The crisis rhetoric in Sacks’s induction address represented the most prominent public crystallization of concerns that had been expressed increasingly loudly by British Jewish communal leaders over the preceding decades. At the heart of these concerns was a paradoxical concern: as life for Jews in the UK became ever more secure, the future of Anglo-Jewry was becoming ever less secure.

From Security to Insecurity Concerns for Jewish survival are nothing new. In a classic paper, Simon Rawidowicz (1974) characterizes the Jews as the “ever-dying people,” a people who throughout history have frequently seen themselves as the final or penultimate generation of Jews. Much of this concern has focused on the threats of anti-Jewish violence, forced conversion, or expulsion, but physical survival is only one aspect of the Jewish concern for survival. The more amorphous threats of loss of identity and assimilation also come increasingly to the fore in modernity. The European Enlightenment allowed Jews to become full citizens of their host societies. With this openness came an apparent guarantee of Jew-

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ish physical survival, but it also increased possibilities for Jewish assimilation and disappearance. Of course, the Holocaust demonstrated that modernity’s guarantee of physical survival was not as absolute everywhere as might have appeared in the nineteenth century. But in the English-speaking world, certainly, Jews were progressively offered full civil rights as citizens, with only occasional and isolated violent backlashes; in Britain, anti-Semitism has not primarily taken a destructive form, nor has it prevented the Jewish advance toward full equality. By the end of the Second World War, Jews faced practically no legal or constitutional obstacles to participation in wider society. In the post-war period, the majority of Jews in the UK and other English-speaking countries gradually joined the ranks of the middle classes and came to be classified as “white,” with anti-Semitism becoming a marginal phenomenon. In the UK, the Jewish communal leadership helped facilitate this process of upward mobility through what we call a “public strategy of security.” The Board of Deputies and the Chief Rabbinate worked to persuade non-Jews that British Jews were loyal hard-working subjects and to persuade Jews themselves that they should show the appropriate gratitude to Britain. Jewish communal leaders were concerned about the influx of poor Eastern European Jews at the end of the nineteenth century, in some instances even lobbying government to restrict that immigration (Fishman 1975). The Board of Deputies encouraged Jews to keep a low profile, faced with the threat of Mosley-ite fascism (Romain 2006; Rosenberg 1985). Much of the communal leadership was hostile or ambivalent toward Zionism until the post-war period (Renton 2007; Cohen 1986). The British Jewish community built institutions that reflected British institutions—the Chief Rabbinate was explicitly modelled on the Church of England, even down to the wearing of canonical dress and the appointment of “reverends” (rather than rabbis) to synagogues. Jewish schools and youth clubs instructed the children of immigrants in the ways of British society. In public, the Jewish communal leadership stressed security. But the strategy was actually predicated on a private feeling of insecurity, reflecting a deepseated fear that the gains that Jews had made in the UK could easily be reversed. Security in the UK had to be achieved through a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy, stressing the secure position of UK Jewry in order to make it so. This strategy of security was overwhelmingly successful. By the post-war period, the British Jewish community was English-speaking, settled and secure in the UK, and largely eschewed the more troublesome public articulations of difference. The problem: if the principal aim of Anglo-Jewry was to demonstrate their security in Britain rather than to demonstrate forms of difference that would be troubling to the native population, what type of Jewish difference would be left? The communal leadership was not assimilationist in a more radical sense. Although it was rare for its lay leadership to be Orthodox-

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practicing, neither did they advocate the disappearance of Jewish difference. Rather, they sought to make Judaism largely private, a religious rather than an ethnic matter. Jewish observance would take place at home and in the synagogue—with British decorum and solemnity, rather than eastern fervor. The first turning point in this strategy of security was the 1967 Six-Day War (Cohen and Fein 1985). The war brought to the fore fears for Jewish survival, with Nasser seen as a new Hitler who aimed to annihilate the Jews. The swiftness of the Israeli victory, the significant territories gained, and, above all, the reunification of Jerusalem were seen by many as almost miraculous. Zionism became a kind of consensus that bound much of the British Jewish community together. In the post-1967 period, a paradoxical kind of Jewish politics has become increasingly influential in Jewish communities worldwide. This is a politics based on a strategy of insecurity that stresses the insecurity of Jews. It is influenced by the development, since the 1960s, of forms of identity politics, especially anti-racist politics. Drawing attention to the insecurity and the oppression of one’s community now pays greater political dividends than was previously the case. Furthermore, drawing attention to difference has become increasingly acceptable culturally, socially, and politically. The private articulation of religious difference that dominated earlier models advocated by Jewish communal leaders has become increasingly anachronistic since the 1960s. Paradoxically, the period in which Jewish physical survival was assured and in which Jews had achieved unprecedented access to political power was also the period in which Jewish weakness and insecurity became increasingly emphasized in public Jewish political discourse. A new strategy of insecurity grew alongside the preexisting public strategy of security. Whereas the Jewish communal leadership had previously emphasized Jewish security in public as a consequence of their private fears that Anglo-Jewry was not secure, in the post-1967 period, the community’s increased security made it possible for the leadership to stress the insecurity of Anglo-Jewry. Beginning in the late 1960s, Jewish communal organizations became more publicly politically active. Activism and fundraising on behalf of Israel became a mainstream activity. Campaigning for Soviet Jews also became an important communal priority. Memorializing the Holocaust became an increased preoccupation. All of these campaigns stressed the vulnerability to which Jews had been and were still subject, but all of them were also predicated on a Jewish community confident enough to express their fears in public without fear of reprisal. Yet whereas the strategy of insecurity enabled the public mobilization of the Jewish community and its leadership over certain perceived external threats, the strategy of security was still the dominant strategy in other kinds of communal discourse. The greater readiness to draw attention to external threats generally did not extend to drawing attention to internal ones.

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The Politics of Jewish Demography The Jewish population of the UK was at its highest following the influx of refugees after the Second World War. The size of the community was probably between four and five hundred thousand Jews. In the post-war period, it became clear that without new influxes of immigration, Anglo-Jewry would at best stay static and at worst decline in numbers. As a prescient 1955 study concludes: “The processes of absorption and assimilation are likely to continue unabated. The proportion of Jews in the general population will presumably fall steadily while those Jews who remain will be more and more integrated into the majority group. Thus, after the passage of some time, little may be left that is distinctively Jewish in this country” (Neustatter 1955). By 1977, it was abundantly clear that the UK Jewish community was aging, its births failing to keep up with deaths (Lipman and Lipman 1981). Periodic cumulative reports have emphasised this decline (Waterman and Kosmin 1986; Schmool and Cohen, 1998). Although recent statistics have shown an increase in births and marriages, this appears to be due to growth in the ultra-Orthodox section of the community (Vulcan and Graham 2008). Analysis of the 2001 census—the first to include a (voluntary) question on religious affiliation—tallied fairly closely with the estimate of slightly fewer than three hundred thousand Anglo-Jews (Graham et al. 2007). At least as far back as the 1970s, there was widespread awareness of the numerical decline of Anglo-Jewry. However, there was resistance to making too much of these findings. In the mid 1980s, there was a battle within the Board of Deputies over the size of Anglo-Jewry between then-President Grenville Janner and the head of the board’s community research unit, Barry Kosmin. According to a private interview with Kosmin (10 December 2007), Janner argued that he needed for there to be a million Jews in the UK in order to be able to represent Anglo-Jewry effectively to government (Alderman 1998: 321–322). While public Jewish insecurity in the face of external threats had become a potent form of political currency, there was a powerful faction with the communal leadership that felt that wider awareness of the internal threats to Jewish security would undermine the Jewish community. By 1991, when Jonathan Sacks took the office of chief rabbi, this view had become increasingly unpopular. Sacks’s induction speech pulled no punches in its diagnosis of communal decline and was not criticized within the Jewish community for doing so. Sacks had ushered in a new strategy of insecurity in which the Jewish community was seen as being under threat from assimilation and intermarriage. What had changed to enable this strategy, in part, was the emergence of a new generation of Jewish leaders, born in the UK, who were secure enough to see external threats to Jewish survival in the UK as low enough to enable an honest discussion about internal threats. The development of this

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strategy of insecurity in the UK also owed much to developments within the American Jewish community. For a number of decades, American researchers and communal leaders had become increasingly concerned about the survival of the Jewish community within American society. The culmination of this concern was the publication of the 1990 National Jewish Population Survey, which created considerable disquiet in the American Jewish community with its finding of an “intermarriage rate” of 52 percent (i.e., over half of the Jews in America were married to non-Jews) (Kosmin 1991).1 The survey raised anxieties in the UK, too, and its findings were assumed also to apply in the UK.

Jewish Continuity Concerns for Jewish survival in America led to the development of the concept of Jewish continuity, both a practice and a goal for ensuring the long-term future of American Jewry. By the early 1990s, American Jewish communal leaders had begun to mobilize around the Jewish continuity agenda that was predicated on a diagnosis of crisis. As the 1990 report of the Commission on Jewish Education in North America put it: “The Jewish community of North America is facing a crisis of major proportions” (1990: 15). The continuity agenda was a strategy of insecurity that sought to raise awareness among both leaders and grassroots community members of the danger of communal disappearance. While the continuity agenda was expressed in different ways by different opinion formers, most of its formulations contained the following core assumptions: 1. The Jewish community needs to survive. In particular, parts of the community other than the ultra-Orthodox (whose survival appears to be assured) need to survive. 2. Jewish continuity is threatened in contexts such as America and the UK where Jews face limited external threats, nor is it guaranteed in Israel. 3. Jewish communal survival requires continuity of Jewish community, not simply just the survival of “feelings of Jewishness.” The community must continue through generations of Jewish practices and communal institutions. 4. Jewish continuity requires Jewish families: intermarriage mortally threatens Jewish continuity, at least within a generation or two. 5. Jewish continuity requires the development of particular kinds of Jewish identities that are robust enough to survive within modern society.

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6. The principal means of ensuring the nurturing of such identities is through education, broadly defined. 7. Jewish institutions need to be comprehensively renewed and reinvigorated to ensure that they are up to the challenge of safeguarding Jewish continuity. In the UK, the induction of Jonathan Sacks provided the catalyst for the development of the Jewish continuity agenda in the UK. At the close of his induction speech, he issued a call to action: “Let us work together to plan and create a decade of renewal of Jewish leadership, of Jewish education, of Jewish spirituality.” In Will We Have Jewish Grandchildren? Sacks outlined his argument as follows: We are entering a new era in modern Jewish history. The past two hundred years have been dominated, for Jews, by two concerns: integration into the societies of Europe and America, and survival against the onslaughts of antisemitism and the Holocaust. The 1990’s will be seen in retrospect as the beginning of a new phase, one in which the predominant concern became the continuity of Jewish identity against the background of assimilation and intermarriage in the diaspora and secularization in the State of Israel. (Sacks 1994: 3) Sacks was unambiguous that the present situation of Anglo-Jewry should be described as a “crisis” and that “American Jewry knows it faces a crisis of continuity. We do not, and that is the crisis” (1994: 19). For Sacks, to a large extent, the crisis of continuity consists of a problem of intermarriage in which “more than half of young Jews are not marrying other Jews,” (1994: 18) resulting in a situation in which “we are losing the collective will to live as Jews” (1994: 2). Against this crisis, Sacks makes a passionate case against intermarriage: To be a Jew is to be a member of the people of the covenant, an heir to one of the world’s most ancient, enduring and awe-inspiring faiths. It is to inherit a way of life which has earned the admiration of the world for its love of family, its devotion to education, its philanthropy, its social justice and its infinitely loyal dedication to a unique destiny. It is to know that this way of life, passed on from parents to children since the days of Abraham and Sarah can only be sustained through the Jewish family; and knowing this, it is to choose to continue it by creating a Jewish home and having Jewish children. No one who has been touched by Judaism’s wings of eternity would willingly break the link between the past and the Jewish future. This and only this will ensure that we have Jewish grandchildren. (1994: 102)

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Sacks attacked the low priority that the Anglo-Jewish community afforded to education, outlining the structure of a new organization, called Jewish Continuity, that would seek “to secure the future of Anglo-Jewry by creating a vibrant community of proud, knowledgeable and committed Jews” (1994: 107). The organization was launched at the end of 1993 with an advertisement in the Jewish Chronicle that features a succession of Jews falling into an abyss, with the caption “Today we’ll lose another ten Jews” (Jewish Chronicle, 17 December 1992, 8–9). The text of the advertisement pulls no punches in its warnings. After detailing the demographic evidence for the decline in British Jewry, it asks: “Is this the end then? Having survived exile expulsion, pogroms and genocide, are those the last throes of the Jewish people in the diaspora?” The advertisement concludes: “This is the moment of truth. Do we simply stand by and watch the gradual disintegration of the community? Or do we join battle to do more than just survive, but to thrive? We do have a future. Believe that. Let’s fight for it.”2 This almost apocalyptic tone was widely used across the community. Sir Stanley Kalms’s publicly circulated 1992 report on the future of the United Synagogue, the largest synagogue umbrella body in the UK, argues that the organization “has lost its way”: The United Synagogue is losing members, far more rapidly than any other synagogue organisation. Twenty-five years ago it represented three-quarters of affiliated Jews, today little more than half. The high age profile of its members indicates that it is failing to attract the young. Our market research has uncovered widespread dissatisfaction with what is seen as a remote and profligate head office, cold and unwelcoming communities and a drift away from the United Synagogue’s tolerant religious ethos. (1992: 97) The 1995 report of the Reform synagogue working group on young adults highlights what they call a “missing generation” who were alienated from Jewish life (Bronzite et al. 1995). The 1994 “Women in the Jewish Community” review notes the failures of much of the Jewish community in attending to the needs of its female members (Goodkin and Citron 1994).

The Development of Jewish Insecurity The relentless self-criticism of the early 1990s led to some dramatic changes in the institutional life of the community. More Jewish schools developed; educational standards were raised dramatically; Jewish adult education and cultural activities became extremely popular.

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Today, the use of the internal strategy of insecurity is less widespread than before. However, the start of the second intifada in autumn 2000 revived insecurity as a motivating tool for external political action. Concerns for Israel’s well-being led to large solidarity rallies in 2002 and 2006. Jewish communal institutions and opinion formers have complained very publicly against what they call the “new anti-Semitism” (Iganski and Kosmin 2003) and what is seen as media bias against the Jewish state. As before, vigorous public political action by Jewish communal bodies emphasized the insecurity of Jews both in the UK and in Israel—but this action was predicated on the community’s being secure.

Jewish Insecurity in a Multicultural Context What is interesting about the development of strategies of insecurity in the British Jewish community since the 1960s is that they were simultaneously part of and out of step with developments in multicultural discourse and practice in the UK. On the one hand, the development of greater public self-assertion of the Jewish institutions that claim to represent the Jewish community entirely fits the growth in the significance of the representative bodies of other ethnic and religious groups. By the 1980s and 1990s, such representative bodies had become an increased part of the British political process. The multicultural society that Britain had become allowed the public articulation of concerns by minorities to be an everyday occurrence. The articulation of internal Jewish concerns that began in the early 1990s prefigured the increasing concerns about multiculturalism that have developed in the last several years. The self-critical tendency in Anglo-Jewry in the 1990s was predicated on the weakening of the desire to keep a united front for the outside world. The increased public criticism of communal leadership within other minority groups also exists within the Jewish community (Karpf et al. 2008). While the Jewish community may have followed or prefigured the trajectories of other minority communities within multicultural Britain, to some extent, this change has not been matched by a concomitant participation in multicultural thinking. The development of multicultural theory and ethnic and racial studies in the UK have proceeded largely without consideration of the British Jewish situation. The British Jewish communal leadership has mainly avoided participation in these kinds of discussions. Indeed, the Jewish continuity agenda was dramatically out of step with the cutting edge of multicultural thought. Whereas scholars in the 1980s and beyond began to undermine essentialist notions of identity and to valorize hybridity and difference, the Jewish continuity agenda sought to create unambiguously Jewish identities.

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This disjunction between prevalent discourses on race, ethnicity, and multiculturalism on the one hand and the Jewish community on the other makes it difficult for Jews to learn from the experience of other minorities, and vice versa. One of Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’s most recent books, The Home We Build Together (2007), is based on a rejection of what he sees as multiculturalism. While he does not reject multicultural society—indeed, in The Dignity of Difference (2003) he explicitly valorizes the diversity of the UK—he takes issue with what he sees as multiculturalism’s tendency to undermine the collectivity of the national home and the cohesiveness of society in favour of Balkanised, mutually exclusive identity politics. Sacks exemplifies a widespread tendency within Anglo-Jewry to emphasize the importance of Britain as a home and an object of loyalty. The strategy of security endures in Sacks’s work and in the practice of other Jewish communal leaders in a fundamental commitment to the idea of Britain as a place of safety where Jews can flourish. British Jewish strategies of insecurity cannot undermine this commitment. Throughout, Britain remains home. Notes The arguments presented in this chapter are developed in greater detail in the authors’ Turbulent Times: The British Jewish Community Today (Kahn-Harris and Gidley 2010). 1. There was some debate over the exact figure, with Steven M. Cohen, among others, arguing that the rate was around 10 percent lower. 2. Jewish Continuity was to run into serious difficulties that arose in part due to Sacks’s ambiguous attitude toward pluralism and difference within the Jewish community. It was merged into the Joint Israel Appeal to create the United Jewish Israel Appeal in 1997.

j The Jewish Question Again CHAPTER 4

From Collective Identity to Social Vitality Philip Wexler

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o examine the meaning of Jewish collective identity would require nothing less than a history of civilization. Fortunately, I am limited to a few comments about the modern sociological tradition and its potential contribution to understanding Jewish identity. The following remarks indicate some current issues in analyzing collective identities, pointing both to continuities with older concerns and recent refinements. I then consider convergences between these trends and concerns from within Jewish life and religion. This leads to ideas about the development of a “Jewish sociology,” in contrast to a “sociology of Judaism.” In 1919, Thorstein Veblen asserted: “No unbiased ethnologist will question the fact that the Jewish people are a nation of hybrids. … Evidence of their hybrid descent is written all over them” (1964: 223). Veblen observes that the “gifted Jew” is a “hyphenate,” and because of that “he comes into his own as a creative leader in the world’s intellectual enterprise” (1964: 226). By virtue of this social identity, he “is a skeptic by force of circumstances,” and it is precisely this “skeptical frame of mind” that is needed by modern science, and which contributes to what he referred to as “The Intellectual Pre-Eminence of Jews in Modern Europe.” If Zionism succeeds and the “Chosen People [are] domiciled once more in the Chosen Land,” he wrote, “there should be some loss to Christendom at large, and there might be some gain to the repatriated Children of Israel” (1964: 231). Writing a few years earlier, Georg Simmel (1950: 402–408) saw European Jews as the “classical example” of the social type that he called “the stranger.” The stranger, like the hybrid, is simultaneously within and outside of the prevailing collective identity, and “embodies the synthesis of nearness and distance which constitutes the formal position of the stranger” (1950: 404). This position confers objectivity and freedom on the stranger/Jew: “he is freer, practically and theoretically; he surveys conditions with less prejudice; his criteria for them are more general and objective; he is not tied down by habit, piety, and precedent” (1950: 405). Here too, Jewish identity is at once marginal and intellectually advantageous.

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Collective Identity: Some Current Dilemmas In the current era, conceptions of identity navigate between collective and individualistic poles. We value a multiplicity of identities, and post-colonial theory has valorized hybridity, but the nature of the collective identity that we seek is not a divided or fragmented allegiance, or a marginalized position, but an integrated identity, defined by social membership, real or imagined. Nor is a “pure” selfhood of radical individualism adequate to the age. The paradigmatic individualism heralded by Romanticism is one where individual identity becomes a creative refuge, apart, against, and in reaction to the outer social world. Contemporary identity is increasingly defined less by the inner, private dimensions of revolutionary consciousness, imagination, and cognition. Rather, it is outer, social, or, as Manuel Castells defines it, a “construction of meaning on the basis of a cultural attribute” (1997: 6) After the heyday of individualism, new identities, I suggest, can no longer be defined solely by individual consciousness, but require the stamp of social membership. The apparent openness of multiculturalism and the concomitant rhetoric of personal preference deflect attention from the extent to which individualism has been replaced by new forms of collectivism. Within this contemporary striving for an integrated, social “collective identity,” we can see a confluence, or symmetry, between sociological theorizing and Jewish interests. Part of this confluence is that both Jewish and general emphases on collective identity are of a defensive character. We already know how centrally Jewish social institutions and cultural representations aim to insure “continuity,” and how much they justify themselves, as David Schoem (1988) put it (in one of the relatively few case studies of Jewish education), as “anti-anti-Semitism.” The deliberate sociocultural production of Jewish identity is lauded as a defense against intermarriage and anti-Semitism. “Jewish continuity” is the positive resolution of a field of forces threatening the dissolution of the bonds of social membership. Contemporary social theory joins the fear-inspired practices of organized Jewish life in its view that identity is an expression of “communal resistance” in the network society, against the destabilizing flow of information technology. The shared fear is of disintegration. The shared first solution is a defensive “resistance identity” of “cultural communes” as conceived by Castells. He states: “The search for meaning takes place then in the reconstruction of defensive identities around communal principles. Most of social action becomes organized in the opposition between unidentified flows and secluded identities … subjects, if and when constructed, are not built any longer on the basis of civil societies, that are in the process of disintegration, but as prolongation of communal resistance” (Castells 1997: 11).

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Sociological Dualism: An Ongoing Pattern and Recent Refinements Castells’s social imaginary of collective identity as defense against macrosocial forces of destruction and disintegration is continuous with the visions of classical sociology. Karl Marx’s “alienation” represents the destruction of the potential of individual identity by new productive forces, and his evolutionary consummation of the long disintegrative process is a reintegration in the form of communist society. Émile Durkheim’s dynamic of collective identity is the dynamic of normative dissolution and reconstruction, expressly under the banner of social integration. His “anomie” represents a structurally based weakening of normative regulation, harmful to identity, but potentially countered by new forms of collective identity, built around the new emblem of individualism but with the integrative social form of the cult. Weber was no more sanguine about the rationalized bureaucratic apparatus’s destruction of shared culture, and his hopes for a new “cultivation,” a coherent cultural identity, are deferred to an uncertain future—beyond the present triumphalism of the “senseless”, heartless “specialists without spirit.” From the springboard of this deep-structure of thinking about society, it is at least consistent that sociologists of Judaism should ask questions about collective identity that not only follow Jewish organizational concerns, but that also mirror the classical sociological commitment to models of social integration. “Collective identity” belongs to this tradition of understanding the relation between the individual and the social as a fractured one, as a natural harmony disturbed by the course of evolutionary complexity, and as setting the stage for the reconstruction of shared practices and meanings that will lead to societal reintegration. Durkheim’s is the most evident instance of a structuralist, positivist, integrativist sociology. But Marx, too, is understood as a structuralist, of an organized exploitation, and of social structural, positional bases for the social reproduction of power and for reconstitutive class-action-yielding counter collectives. Weber is still taught as the seer of bureaucracy, advocate of value neutrality, and analyst of rationalization and demagnification. They are prophets all, perhaps, in the modern portrayal of social disintegration and in the formation of new identities as part and parcel of the wider structural process of social reintegration. There is, however, another side to Talcott Parsons’s (1937) rendering of Durkheim as a structural-functionalist—a rendering that sets the terms of the inclusion of the individual in a structural, systemic integration through processes of socialization. The other side is the Durkheim who announces in L’Annee Sociologique (1898) that religion is the basic social phenomenon, the grounds for almost all other aspects of social life. This is the Durkheim who

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writes to his colleagues about this new emphasis as “revelation,” and this is the Durkheim who, in his later essays, quotes not Comte, but Pascal. In other words, this is the Durkheim of The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1995), for whom the central question becomes the analysis of the creation of social energy by collective assembly in the performance of shared rituals. Robert Bellah (1973) has consistently recognized this Durkheim of “collective effervescence,” of a depth sociology, a social unconscious, a social existential substratum beneath the more evident socialized, normative integration. More recently, Roy Rappaport (1999) develops the Durkheimian emphasis on representation and ritual, and also at least acknowledges Durkheim’s affinity to the religious, experiential views of William James and Rudolph Otto. The analog to this “other side” of Durkheim—his critical focus on the collective creation of social energy, social dynamism—is Marx’s non-structuralism, his insistence not on reintegration, but on the causal priority of movement. This is expressed in his notion of “mors immortalis”: “There is a continuous movement of growth of the productive forces, of destruction of social relations, of formation of ideas; nothing is immutable but the abstract movement—mors immortalis” (Bottomore and Rubel 1956: 95). Contemporary efforts to salvage critical social structuralism by adding a complementary “agency,” as Barry Barnes (2001: 346) puts it in his discussion of Giddens’s approach, “makes the account look very like the outmoded functionalism of Parsons, wherein the reproduction of the status quo was also linked to ‘forms of normative regulation.’” Weber’s “other side,” argued persuasively by Arthur Mitzman’s (1970) description of his “retreat from ascetic rationalism,” is that “charisma” is the revolutionary force in history, and that the dynamic of rationalization is enacted on the field of various religious “paths to salvation,” or in the “pianissimo” of personal life. All these positions describe and struggle with the end of social energy: Marx’s alienating capitalism and its assault on the senses and potential of species being; Durkheim’s anomie that lets society run “cold” with its threat to the “mystical mechanics” of the “electricity” of sacred assemblies by secular individualism; Weber’s “petrification” of being under the yoke of the apparatus of rationalization, of the “specialists without spirit,” and of a culture animated only by the ghosts of religious inspiration. Taken together, they represent a death of individual, and of social and cultural energy, respectively.

Contemporary Social Theory: The Search for Revitalization This shadow narrative of classical, modern social theory represents the aspiration for revitalization: a revitalization of human beings by the abolition of an exploitative division of labor; a revitalization of solidarity by a “warmer” social

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practice of collective sacredness in performative ritual; and a revitalization of the cultural paths to salvation, in a reawakening of heroic charisma from its dormant hiding in private, intimate life. Such modern wishes for a pre-modern “return” are now rearticulated in post-modern, theoretical desire. With Alain Touraine (1988), there is a proclamation of the “return of the actor,” against a social understanding based on a system without actors. Perhaps, Touraine observes (1988: xxv), he should have even spoken of a “return of the subject.” In Rappaport’s (1999) canonical theory of ritual, Catherine Bell’s (1992) synthesis of a field of ritual analysis, and in the everyday practices (McGuire 1994) of ritual healing and the “New Age” (Heelas 1996), there is a return to sacred practice as the heart of collective life and social morality (Wuthnow 1998). There is now some declaration of a “re-enchantment” (Berman 1981), and the evidence of spiritual and mystical interests (Wexler 2000), as well as spiritual seeking as a way of life (Wuthnow 1998). These are expressions of a return to a living cultural core of social life, against the sober, modern conclusion of an inescapable “iron cage” of “mechanical petrification.” Contemporary social theorists also begin with destruction, and like the mainstream face of classical sociology, find in collective identity and reintegration an alternative social solution. But now the reintegration is more complex and multivocal, and the structural integration allows for more heterogeneity. According to Touraine (1988: 78), it is the extent of destruction in earlier modernity or, as he puts it, “domination,” that leads to a new cultural emphasis, a new cultural orientation, and by implication, a new or returned theoretical interest: “And so the defensive efforts appeal more and more to that which is least social in human beings. They call on nature, in the collective sphere, and on the body, the unconscious, interpersonal relation, desire in the individual sphere.” As we have seen, Castells (1997) also sees the destruction, though for him it is the technology of the information age that destroys older, anchoring conceptions of time and space, and creates the basis for new or revived social forms. “Community” returns, as a defensive community of identity, and with strong inclinations to accept the harder codes of fundamentalist reaction to a technologically based social destabilization. Alberto Melucci (1996a) sees the defensive identity move less as a communal reaction with strong fundamentalist tendencies, and more as a spur to the construction of new meaning to counter the social control, domination, and “ceaseless flow of messages.” Creation of meaning becomes a core method of integrating identity, as “wisdom” or integral knowledge struggles against the digitalizing disintegration of cultural meaning. In Melucci’s work, we find the end point of a more flexible model of the relation between the individual and the social. Here, there is an attempt to

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understand social structure and its stability as a temporary crystallization, as a process of collective action, of social movement, in which collective identity is a phase of social mobilization, albeit toward a new, more polycentric and heterogeneous integration. Along with a regime of flexible accumulation (Harvey 1989), we now have a regime of defensive, flexible integration.

Vitality and Interaction: Beyond Integration Against the classical models of integration, and the post-modern spin of flexible integration, I want to call attention to an alternative model, one that emphasizes vitality and interaction. In my account so far, I see a traditional theoretical basis for this work in classical sociology’s shadow, or “other side.” Certainly, there is more synthetic work to be done with Marx’s eternal mutability, Durkheim’s sacred effervescence, and Weber’s magically awakening heroic pneuma. But there are additional elements in an alternative social model that would ground the social interpretation of identity: not in the divided allegiance or the unification of distance and nearness that results in stranger-ness; nor in classical models of a socialized (“over-socialized”) integrated individual-collective relation; nor in a post-modern version of flexible integration and a collective identity formed as a defensive response to otherwise personally threatening and unmanageable social change. One such additional element can be found in the revival of interest in a figure of classical social theory who was notably excluded from Parsons’s (1937) watershed presentation of European social theory and that served as the basis for his social system approach. In her recent review of Georg Simmel’s work, Birgitta Nedelmann (2001: 66–78) draws attention to precisely the interactional, relational, and processual orientation that characterizes Simmel’s sociology, in contrast to those aspects of the European tradition that Parsons chose to meld into his social systems analysis. According to Nedelmann (2001: 68): “For Simmel, the conception of ‘Wechselwirkung’ stands for his rejection of reification and mystification of supra individual social units (GSG: 5: 225) and his commitment to process analysis. In sum, relationality, self-reflexivity, and process analysis are the main imperatives for sociological research implied in the concept of interaction as a guiding principle of sociology.” Simmel’s own writings underline not only the interactional distrust of the dualism of atomism and structuralism, or reification, but the view of society as sociation and dynamic energy, or “life force.” What he calls “The Conflict in Modern Culture” (1968: 11–26) is the conflict between the various forms that culture takes and “the flow of life” itself: the conflict between “freedom and order.” The “old struggle” of culture is “a struggle of life against the form as such, against the principle of form” (1968: 12). In his analysis of expressionist art as

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a cultural form, Simmel discusses the centrality of creativity in social life: “The creative act represents the struggle of life for self-identity. … Life, in its flow, is not determined by a goal but driven by a force. … Originality reassures us that life is pure, that it has not diluted itself by absorbing extrinsic, objectified rigidified forms into its flow” (1968: 12–13, 18). In his lesser known studies of mysticism and love, Simmel portrays the unmediated interaction of emotion and desire in relation, in the unmediated “vitality” of what he calls the “I and Thou”: “this stratum is vitalized and transfused by the entire unobstructed flow of the dynamic of life” (1984: 153–193). “Life, incessantly productive and incessantly prolific … between withdrawal into the self and the desire for fusion, a contradiction in the process between the I and the Thou … diverse relationships in which individuality and the life of the species are interwoven in love” (1984: 171–172). The name “Simmel” locates a point in a broader historical nexus of vitalist social theory. Here, I am not yet developing a portrait of the entire nexus, though we can see the connection between Simmel and the Nietzchean emphasis on vitality and the creative abundance that he calls “Dionysus” (Eilon 2001: 200–221). Even more apparent is the connection forward to Simmel’s sociology student Martin Buber, not only in the “I and Thou,” but in the centrality of relational interaction that Buber called “dialogue” (1958; 1965). What we have are the outlines of an alternative social model, where structure gives way to interaction; “collective identity” succumbs to a person who lives beyond individualism and collectivism; the language of power—that has successfully reproduced itself, through Foucault, into the discursive age—is replaced by a search for the sources and results of social and individual life energy; and beyond, in the supplanting of mechanism by an anti-positivist willingness to risk the dangers of a renewed engagement with Vitalism as the foundation for an alternative social model, and, therefore, of an alternative approach to identity which is beyond hybridism, integration, and flexibility. Among contemporary social theorists, Michel Maffesoli (1996) best represents the Nietszchean and Simmelian line of vitalist social interaction. We are living, he proclaims, “in the twilight of organizational models and ways of thinking about the world” (1996: 90). Maffesoli is not reticent to appropriate the everyday terms of flow, energy, relationship, freedom, passion, and even “life” for purposes of social interpretation. We are, he argues, living in “the time of the tribes,” in which “affectual tribes” replace contractual groups, persons succeed individuals, and the political economic organization is superseded by the “masses,” who demonstrate their “social perdurability” by combining hedonism and aloofness, in Simmel-like fashion. “Sociality,” rather than “the social,” better represents “the efflorescence and the recurring hodgepodge of a vitalism that is battling with the anguish of death in a cyclical, selfperpetuating way” (1996: 6–7). Social history makes possible not a destruction

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that calls for reintegration, but “the emergence of a vital instinct, which is itself far from exhausted … for the multiple explosions of vitality which are coming from those groups or tribes in constant fermentation. They are taking personal responsibility for multiple aspects of their collective existence: this can truly be called polytheism” (1996: 33). This is the social time of Dionysus, where “puissance,” a forceful energy, replaces power in everyday social life. “The role of ‘puissance’ is continually at work. . . . When it is not expressing itself in one of its effervescent forms such as revolts, festivals, uprisings and other heated moments of human history, it is hyper-concentrated in the secretive world of sects and the avant-garde, in whatever form these may take, or hypo-concentrated in communities, networks and tribes” (1996: 32). The working out of a social vitalist interactional model back into its theoretical sources—for example to Bergson, and even to Bergson’s place as a Jewish thinker—and forward, not only to Buber’s analyses of dialogical interaction and teaching, but also to a more general study of everyday life, lags ineluctably behind the everyday itself. Maffesoli puts it less delicately: “The intellectuals, and more precisely the sociologists, will only comprehend this post festum!” (1996: 33).

Jewish Sociology We have already seen signs that it is possible to specify this social vitalism by building on sociology’s “other side,” in its less salient canonical figures, and by poetic, sociologically daring appropriations of contemporary everyday life. What I suggested in Mystical Society (Wexler 2000), however, was that the resources for a renewal of social understanding can be found in the religious traditions of which social science is a secularized and limited version. For example, I described how the work of William James and the American nature religion offers an inner worldly mysticism that is also the basis for a theory of social interaction. Likewise within Hinduism, as can be seen, for example, in David White’s (1996) study of the complexity of social interchanges that he describes as an “alchemical body.” Needless to say, Buber’s view (1958: 54) that “if a culture ceases to be centered in the living and continually renewed relational event then it hardens into the world of It” represents the same vitalist and interactional assumption of his philosophical and sociological forbears, as well as of his still more Nietzschean, post-modern, sociological successors. Moreover, both in Mystical Society and more recently (Wexler 2002), I have argued that the cultural resacralization that stirs interest in religious social thought, beyond the commodification of the New Age, carries with it new possibilities for social analysis. Not only Jamesian transcendentalism or Hindu theories of the interactional transformations of energy, but also Jewish mysticism and Ha-

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sidism contain vitalist theories of social interaction: “While [Moshe] Idel and [Gershom] Scholem may disagree about causal frame and priorities, historical antecedents and consequences, and even whether to think about explanations of Hasidism in comparable metalanguages, they both see it as a bringing of the vitalizing power of mysticism into the social world” (2002: 24). By this example, I want to indicate a reversal of the relation between sociology and Judaism. Of course it is worthwhile and interesting to develop a sociology of Jewish life, and I have indicated here several social models for understanding Jewish identity. The “other side” of this relation, however, is the development of a Jewish sociology—sociology derived from the assumptions about person, relation, totality, and cosmos from within the tradition of Jewish sources. The work of a sociology of Judaism is hardly complete. For example, in the field of my own interest, there is an enormous outpouring of interest in Jewish mysticism at every level, but only an infinitesimal amount of sociological analyses and research on Jewish mysticism actually exists. The question that this reversal raises is whether in addition to understanding Jewish identity socially, as hybridized or integrated or flexibly integrated, we might also ask a different sort of question. That question would not be about how to produce a Jewish collective identity. At the practical and even instrumental level, the question’s focus changes instead to: What are the social sources of Jewish vitality? As Michael Fishbane (2002) reads Buber, with respect to the question of “continuity” as the preservation of Jewish truth: “It cannot be preserved (bewahrt) but only put to the proof in action (bewährt)” (2002: 122). Fishbane interprets: “Rather, he said, truth is a vital force realized in and through the actions of individuals and communities who put their lives to the proof ” (2002: 123). The paradox of Jewish continuity is that it is not a socialization in functionalist terms, or a reproduction in Marxist terms. Rather, it is an immediacy and an insistence on personal existence in the here and now. We might say that “collective identity” means inclusion. Of inclusion, Buber writes: “It is the extension of one’s own concreteness, the fulfillment of the actual situation of life, the complete presence of the reality in which one participates” (1965: 97). And Buber is an heir to vitalist social interactionism, both sociological and Hasidic. Note This chapter is a revised version of: copyright 2007, Cherub Press, from Mystical Interactions: Sociology, Jewish Mysticism and Education, by Philip Wexler. Los Angeles: Cherub Press, 2007, pp. 97–108. Published by permission of the publisher: www.cherub-press.com.

j Rethinking Categories RESPONSE TO SECTION I

and Challenging Futures Marcy Brink-Danan

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lthough we can think about Jewish affiliation (i.e., belonging) as the stuff of emotion or as relating to family and friends (which it sometime is), the essays in this section explore the historical and social processes that order and break Jewish ties. In the spirit of “rethinking categories,” this overview considers the theoretical and methodological models that have shaped our understanding of Jewish groups, their internal divisions, and their external limits. I see the issue of categorization as a fundamentally ontological problem: what are the ontologies—the categories of being—that drive Jewish belonging in such a dynamic way? This focus raises the question of how to study ontology, as Ann Stoler writes: The ascribed being or essence of things, the categories of things that are thought to exist or can exist in any specific domain, and the specific attributes assigned to them. Ontologies, as Ian Hacking writes, refer to “what comes into existence with the historical dynamics of naming.” Pursuing an “historical ontology,” then, demands something that philosophical study of ontology tout court might pursue but more often does not: identification of mutating assignments of essence and its predicates in specific time and place. (2008: 4, emphasis in original) Each of the chapters in this section raises the issue of ontological processes in different ways. As Fran Markowitz (2006) has described in comparative perspective, and as Brandes reiterates in his discussion of shifting American definitions of “who is a Jew,” classifications of what counts as “Jewish” vary both internally and externally, over time, and across contexts. As I argue elsewhere: “When we ask Jews themselves to define Judaism, the categories of nation, practice, culture, society, class, peoplehood, language (as well as blood and soul) all emerge as meaningful ways—at times metaphorical—to understand membership” (Brink-Danan 2008: 681). There are ascribed and achieved forms of Jewish belonging and, as Brandes notes (using Clifford Geertz’s terms), intrinsic and extrinsic ones.

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Brandes relates that as a child growing up in New York City, he perceived his world to be a Jewish one; this fantasy was rudely interrupted upon his family’s relocation to Yonkers, where, for example, one could not assume that one’s classmate was having a bar mitzvah. This anecdote, and his larger treatment of ethnic groups with perceived relationships to distant people and homelands, underscores the fact that location—and the relationship between locations— plays a central role in shaping ontologies of Jewish belonging and exclusion. These discussions often (although not exclusively) focus on questions of the relationship between Israel and Diaspora. Works by Joëlle Bahloul (1992), Caryn Aviv and David Shneer (2005), Daniel Boyarin and Jonathan Boyarin (1993), Moshe Shokeid (1988), André Levy and Alex Weingrod (2005), and others reveal that the relationship between place, space, and Jewish meaning is no simple matter. A memorable quote from one of André Levy’s interviewees: “One should live in Morocco and die and be buried in Israel!” (2001: 245). Can one argue that this woman belongs, in any simple ontological classificatory scheme, to one place or people? Levy’s ethnographic evidence points to the complex and shifting terms of affiliation between Jewishness, Israeliness, and the Diaspora, a topic addressed more fully later in this collection. I would suggest, however, that in addition to focusing on ideas about home and Diaspora, as Brandes does, contemporary Jewish self-understanding hinges on the global spread of discourses about belonging and their ontological implications. To use an example from my own ethnographic research: once, while walking with a Jewish high school girl in Istanbul, I found myself at a loss for words when asked: “Marcy, when is he coming?” At first I did not know to whom she was referring—until she clarified: “Moshiah!” This same girl had once greeted me with the Yiddish phrase “gut shabbos,” despite the fact that her family is Sephardic and knows few Yiddish speakers other than Istanbul’s one Chabad rabbi. Not many of the Jews I met during my time in Istanbul kept kosher, followed the strictures of the Sabbath, or observed other holidays. However, a small yet growing group strictly observed the “Torah laws,” clustered around the friendly Chabadnik and his wife (see also Buckser 2005). Chabad’s influence was especially strong among the middle–lower class Jews whom I met, following a worldwide trend: Chabad’s free or low-cost programs and education have a competitive advantage over the high tuition of local Jewish schools, attracting non-Chabad families, students, and travelers in places as distinct as Bangalore and Brooklyn (see also Maoz and Bekerman 2009). Chabad’s savvy use of new technologies also makes their ideas about Judaism, and therefore Jewish ontologies, increasingly available to a global audience. Turkish Jews access websites created by (largely) Ashkenazi Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox groups, rather than seeking knowledge from local Turkish rabbis.

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When I asked a local Turkish-Jewish educator whether he was worried about the power of Chabad to change things in the community, he replied: “If one person can change our community, maybe the community needs changing.” I would argue that rather than just being “one person,” the Chabad rabbi in Istanbul is an emissary of one of the most powerful Jewish organizations in the world, one which sees as its purpose the imposition of its particular values and interpretations of Jewish law on all Jews worldwide. It is clear that the same sort of conversations that Turkish Jews have about Judaism happen in locales far beyond these local municipalities. Chabad’s circulating discourses are only one phenomenon which we should examine if we want to explore how mediated ideas about Jewishness travel (see Shandler 2009), are translated, picked up, turned around, and sent back into the atmosphere (or, more likely these days, the blogosphere). The mobility of Jewish discourses, albeit less historically deep, proliferates now through new technologies; what seems less clear is what processes of translation occur when discourses about Jewishness travel. Anthropologists have found that ontologies are products of ideological processes that erase their own histories (Gal and Irvine 1995). The onus is upon us to reconsider how Jewish ontologies can be understood as part of a historical and contextual process of formation and reformation, while at the same time appearing natural and self-evident. Goldberg’s chapter here argues that present-day Israeli classifications of religious affiliation are the result of ideologically driven erasure of the existence of Conservative Judaism as a recognized (i.e., legitimate) category for Jewish practice. One way in which Israeli Orthodox Jews have delegitimized the Conservative movement is by arguing that its ideas “came from the Diaspora” instead of being “native to Israel.” Although this is historically specious, especially when the vast majority of practices legitimized in Israel bear some roots outside the land, as a rhetorical strategy, it seems to indicate an ontological border between “authentic” and “non-authentic” Judaism that holds much political currency in Israel today. When you peruse the chapters in this section, keep in mind the following questions: Which ontologies matter? Where do they matter? When do they matter? Building on this last question, I draw attention to the times when rhetoric is used to organize (and reorganize) ontological categories. The reorganization of the standard essential or natural categories of Jewish life would seem to breed crisis, as Kahn-Harris and Gidley note in their chapter on the rise of the British-Jewish security discourse. Security is a very provocative theme for studying global manifestations of Jewish life; it is at once a very old “Jewish” question, but one that also dovetails neatly with what has been sociologically marked as a broader obsession with security in “the risk society” (Beck 1992). Discussing security also raises the question of insecurity: what are the sources

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of Jewish insecurity? Are they locatable at the level of historical memory? Are they what inspire paranoia, especially if certain Jewish communities see themselves as “safer than ever?” Beyond the issue of physical, spiritual, and communal security is a question of representation and, in the British case specifically, self-representation. When taken in comparative terms, either historically or synchronically across contexts, when do discourses of security arise and when are they quelled? To what use are they put, by whom, and why? A comparative approach to these questions of the Jewish security discourse might either produce surprising results or confirm our worst fears, following Simon Rawidowicz’s suggestion (1974) that the Jews consider themselves the “ever-dying people,” an eternal and omnipresent trope, in better and worse times. In addition to asking historical or comparative questions regarding the rhetoric of security, the British case also raises concerns of public and private and the issue of audiences. Layered on the issue of when and why security rhetoric gains currency is the debate over who is privy to such discussion. Additionally, it raises the question of whether “insecurity” is a “word in motion” (Gluck and Tsing 2010), through which a particularly American Jewish demographic preoccupation travels to England to be picked up by the chief rabbi (and likely elsewhere) and put to local use. We consider in what ways does a question of demographic security translate from one community to another, be it in England, Turkey, or France—or in Israel, where the term “bitahon” may or may not mean something entirely different. In Goldberg’s case, what are the actual discursive and practical correspondences between the terms Conservative and masorti, Orthodox and dati, or secular and hiloni? What are their histories, and when are those histories deployed (or erased) toward the creation and rejection of ontological order? The language of Jewish ontological divisions, and the rhetoric that shapes and defines them, is a good place to dissect categories that have come to seem selfevident. As Wexler discusses in his chapter, the security discourse can overlap with ideologies of defensiveness that express themselves in the language of “continuity,” “anti-anti-Semitism” (Schoem 1988), or “communal resistance” (Castells 1997: 11). Does “security” feel the same when called by another name? Do these different terms describe varieties of the same Jewish concern, or are they important semantic shifts designating differences or changes in Jewish communities, their lives, and their organizations? The term “security,” and likely many others, may indicate how ontology develops through the historical linguistic practice of naming the group and its limits and defining its Others. Analysis of what is alternatively called “ideology,” “discourse,” “rhetoric,” or “narrative” recurs through essays in this section that examine how Jewish identity is discussed, raising the methodological and theoretical question of how to study Jews’ own language about salient ontological categories. The

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linguistic distinction between emic (intrinsic) and etic (extrinsic) terms, for example, can be very useful when attempting to understand whose red line should be used in distinguishing between dati and hiloni, Ashkenazi and Mizrahi, and so forth. Future work might draw more explicitly on theories and methods emerging from disciplines such as linguistic anthropology, sociolinguistics, discourse studies, rhetoric, and communication studies to do the work of parsing the language of ontological reason. Methods for studying ontological language can include archival research, interviews, participant-observation, textual and media analysis, survey, and others. Regardless of method, Goldberg’s essay here reiterates a long-standing concern for social scientists: the danger of reproducing, through our research questions and analyses, the ontological binaries that are so central to those we study. As anthropologist Yael Navaro-Yashin writes, intellectual “discursive categories . . . are not useful if they have the consequence of reproducing already existing terms of difference in state societies” (2002: 77). Looking clearly at the overlapping ontological assumptions employed by the researcher and by those we study allows us to step back from naturalized (and often intellectually limiting) categories of belonging. Or is there another way, as Wexler here suggests, in which a researcher can adopt a theoretical orientation that does not stand objectively above those studied by using an outsider’s look, but draws from the very same sources—ontologies and all—for interpretive strategies? In either case, the more aware we become about the classificatory logic at work in disciplinary boundaries, in academic research, in the shaping of our intellectual questions, the better attuned we can be to Jewish ontologies we observe in the media, in literature, and in what anthropologists and other social scientists term “the field.” In conclusion, I quote Michael Herzfeld, who argues: “Questions of ontology are socially as consequential as gossip. In saying this, I do not mean to belittle them but, on the contrary, to emphasize their pervasive ubiquity and importance. Paradoxically, however, it is that ubiquity that all too often reduces them to a banal and unthinking obviousness: the relationship between experienced reality and the discourses that render it palpable have often—like gossip—escaped critical attention” (2002: 186). Although many might imagine that societies, peoples, and other collectivities are divided and bounded at the state and international level, if we accept the premise of its ubiquity, ontology can be found at any level of society. While we might observe ontological boundaries drawn through a practice as classical as a demographic survey, we also see them in casual remarks made by people on the street, in their homes, and in political platforms about who and what is a Jew. Taken in total, the chapters in this section invite a new generation to embrace the study of Jewish ontology (or, more likely, ontologies) as a critical part of its research objectives and designs.

j Diverse Attempts at SECTION II

Constructing Jewish Sub-Cultures in Israel and the United States

j Fundamentalist or CHAPTER 5

Romantic Nationalist? Israeli Modern Orthodoxy Shlomo Fischer

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n the past generation or so, social scientists have placed resurgent religion, and especially religion with a political and/or totalistic character, in a central place in their research agendas. Various writers, such as Emmanuel Sivan (1995), Nancy Ammerman (1987), and Lynn Davidman (1991), have stressed that this form of religion involves a duality in its relationship to modern Western culture. On the one hand, it involves a far-reaching rejection of this culture. According to this argument, much resurgent religion either actively constructs enclaves or zones of purity from which Western values and culture have been banished or attempts to gain control of the public arena and order it solely according to religious laws or principles. Often, terms such as fundamentalist or enclavist have been used to denote such religions. These terms refer to a mode of life in which religious leaders and religious texts are the sole ultimate sources of authority and in which religion makes normative claims regarding the totality of personal and social life. On the other hand, modern fundamentalism has also incorporated elements of modern consciousness. These analyses have highlighted how these religious movements involve self-conscious choice on the part of their adherents and self-conscious ideological struggle against modern Western culture. I seek to go beyond these insights, arguing that, in certain cases at least, the content of the religion itself, and not only the mode of adhering to it, incorporates modern themes and cultural values. The benefits of a more nuanced view of radical, political, and totalistic religion will be illustrated by analyzing the Israeli radical religious Zionist community or as they call themselves, the Emuni community,1 literally “of the faith.” This community initiated and led the settlement movement on the West Bank and in Gaza for close to two generations, and has been analyzed by political scientists and sociologists in terms of the fundamentalist conceptual framework. I argue that this framework does not satisfactorily account for important aspects of the movement, especially those that have developed in the past ten or fifteen years. Instead,

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I propose a different framework: that of organic, romantic nationalism with a strong expressive dimension. This nationalism incorporates significant aspects of modern Western cultural themes and orientations.

The Character and Influence of Emuni Ideology The Emuni ideology emerged as the hegemonic force in the National Religious (also called religious Zionist) community beginning in the 1970s. This is the ideology that has been associated with the religious academy Yeshivat Merkaz Harav2 and its satellites, with Gush Emunim (Bloc of the Faithful), and with the settlement movement in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) and Gaza.3 Ultimately it became dominant in the National Religious Party (NRP= MaFDaL) and in the various factions and parties that split off from it (HaTichiya, HaIchud HaLeumi, and, contemporaneously, the Manhigut Yehudit faction in the Likud).4 It also became dominant in the Bnei Akiva youth movement and its cognates and split-offs (Ezra and Ariel),5 as well as in much of National Religious secondary and even primary education. Over the years, with increasing institutionalization and hegemony that gave it a more routine and taken-forgranted character, the ideology has become pluralized and variegated and its institutional loci have changed and shifted somewhat. Its basic identity has remained the same, however, both to adherents and to outside observers. What characterizes Emuni ideology and the wing of religious Zionism that adheres to it? First and foremost is the attachment to the idea of the Greater Land of Israel—that the Jewish state must exercise sovereignty over and settle the whole of the Biblical Land of Israel. Accordingly, it has initiated and led the settlement movement in the West Bank and Gaza that today numbers three hundred thousand settlers.6 This ideology is evident in the very name of the organization that led the settlers’ movement in the 1970s–80s: Gush Emunim. It exhibited evidence of its commitment to the Greater Land of Israel in mobilizing the Emuni camp for the referendum of Likud party members in May 2004 over unilateral withdrawal from Gaza. Emuni settlers and their allies organized and canvassed every single member of the Likud, soliciting votes against withdrawal. This dedication, with concomitant organizational skills, gained them victory in this matter over then–Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. A second distinguishing trait has been a level of religiosity much higher than that which characterized the religious Zionist community in the first decades of the state. Every observer of this community, scholarly or journalistic, has noted changes in dress, especially women’s dress, which has accompanied the adoption of Emuni culture and joining the Emuni community. Starting in the 1970s, young married religious Zionist women began to cover their hair and made sure that their sleeves reached their elbows. They stopped wearing

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slacks and adopted hemlines covering their knees. Other changes affected patterns of higher education. Many young men began preferring higher yeshiva (religious academy) education to studies in the university. Similarly, there were changes in army service. Until the 1970s, most men did regular IDF service for two-and-a-half or three years, or served in the nahal framework (combining kibbutz work with military service), while the late 1960s witnessed the increasing popularity of the new yeshivot hesder that combine army service with religious studies. Above all, Emuni neighborhoods and communities began to exhibit intensified religious ambience and new patterns of leisure. Torah classes for adults in the evening replaced more “secular” forms of leisure consumption, there was greater observance of synagogue and communal prayer, and, in some communities, televisions started to disappear from homes. Researchers since the late 1970s and early 1980s have been grappling with how to make sense of all of these changes. Is it a religious phenomenon or a political one? Is the Emuni phenomenon to be described as a group of Orthodox Jews who somehow have developed a commitment to right-wing politics, or are we witnessing a renewed commitment to an increased religiosity, perhaps a new fundamentalism? If it is a commitment to an increased religiosity, how could we describe such a religiosity? Is it the same as haredi (ultraOrthodoxy), traditional religiosity with a flavor of Eretz Yisrael, or is it an entirely different development? These questions have been partially answered by several studies. Charles Liebman and Eliezer Don Yehiya (1983a and b) prefer to view it as a fundamentalist phenomenon. Don Yehiya (1998) claims that the guiding orientation of the Emuni group is strict observance of the Torah law. The commitment to the Greater Land of Israel has arisen because radical religious Zionism views Jewish sovereignty and settlement as religious values that must be strictly fulfilled. Liebman and Don Yehiya argue that Emuni religious Zionism has adopted a fundamentalist strategy of expansionism vis-à-vis institutions and values of the modern world. It has interpreted these in such a manner that they can be brought under the domination of religion. Thus, a modern nation-state and its national territory have become components in the process of redemption. Gideon Aran, in a comprehensive study of Gush Emunim and its culture (1987), also argues that the radical wing of religious Zionism represents a farreaching intensification of religious commitment. He asserts that Emuni religious culture has a special character or nature of “Mystical Messianism,” and argues that the Land of Israel and the State of Israel derive their religious value from their place in the Mystical-Messianic vision. Aran encapsulates his understanding of Gush Emunim in the title of his study: From Religious Zionism to Zionist Religion (1987). By this he means to convey that whereas once religious Zionists were partners in the national and political project of building a modern nation state, in the Emuni radical version, building the Jewish state

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and settling the entire Biblical land of Israel serves a greater religious mystical and messianic project of redemption. Nevertheless, certain phenomena associated with radical religious Zionism, especially those emerging in the last ten to fifteen years, undermine this conceptualization of a fundamentalist religious movement. One is the persistent partnership with secular nationalist Jews. From its very inception, the Emuni wing has engaged in meaningful partnerships with secular Jews. The very first Emuni settlement, Keshet, founded by Yeshivat Merkaz Harav on the Golan Heights in the spring of 1974, was set up as a mixed settlement of Orthodox and secular Jews. Indeed, the warm meeting between R. Zvi Yehuda Kook, the aged charismatic leader of Merkaz Harav, and Yehuda Harel, the earthy secular kibbutznik, the meeting that resulted in the Golan Heights settlements, is now part of Gush Emunim mythology (Aran 1987: 355). Despite the tensions that ensued in the day-to-day life of Keshet, the deliberate attempt to construct joint secular-religious communities continued; today, important settlements such as Tekoa and Kfar Adumim are still deliberately mixed settlements. However the most important manifestation of religious-secular partnership has been political: Every one of the right-wing breakaway parties on the radical camp has involved meaningful partnership with secular Jews. These include HaTichiya, the important extreme right-wing party of the 1980s, and the Ichud HaLeumi party and the Manhigut Yehudit faction in the Likud today.7 Some of the figures most identified with intense and extreme religiosity, such as R. Waldman of Kiryat Arba, R. Benny Alon, and Hannan Porat, have been part of these mixed political groupings. These figures have consistently chosen not to set up sectarian, extreme religious groupings but broad political partnerships that, in their words, represent “the spirit of the nation.” In this respect, the icon of the Techiya party was especially significant: a heroic and handsome portrait of the late secular Hebrew poet, Yaacov Shabtai. The predictions on the part of social scientists such as Charles Liebman (1993) that the Emuni wing would become either more fundamentalist or more haredi have simply not been fulfilled. If anything, quite the opposite has happened. One of the most noteworthy developments in the past fifteen years has been the growth of the mechinot (sing. mechina, pre-army preparatory programs) at the expense of the yeshivot hesder. In the mechina program, unlike at yeshivat hesder, the students study for one or two years and then do full mandatory military service of three years or more. Again, unlike the hesder program, the curriculum of the mechina does not aim to imitate that of the classical East European yeshiva and does not place a heavy emphasis on Talmud. Rather the emphasis is on Kookist theology, the Bible, and halakhah. It includes and encourages physical exercise, such as hikes and trips, and some engagement with modern secular Israeli culture, in addition to purely theological components. The avowed aim is not to prepare scholars (talmidei hakhamim), but rather to prepare young men for leadership positions in the army and in society. Thus,

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most of the graduates are encouraged to enlist in elite units and to enter officers’ training courses. From modest beginnings fifteen years ago, there are today about thirty-four mechinot—seventeen religious schools for men and an equal number of more general mechinot of several types. They include “mixed” schools that admit both religious and secular students, mechinot in which the students are all secular, and a religious mechina for women (Knesset 2008). Today, the number of graduates of yeshiva high schools who attend mechinot and yeshivot hesder are of a similar order (thirteen hundred and nine hundred respectively).8 It should be stressed that the religious mechinot are part and parcel of the Emuni world. Almost all of them are located on religious settlements, and at the head of many of them stand leading Emuni rabbis such as Eli Sadan and Rafi Peretz, who are closely affiliated with Merkaz Harav and its breakaway yeshiva, Har HaMor.9 Within the yeshivot hesder, significant changes have occurred. Those yeshivot that had carried a haredi orientation (such as Yeshivat HaKotel, Kerem B’Yavneh, and Sha’alavim) were the least popular during their “haredi” periods, and had the fewest Israeli students.10 While strictly religious institutions, such as those affiliated with Merkaz Harav and Har HaMor, continue to exist and flourish, among the most burgeoning and popular yeshivot in recent years have been those that proclaim an openness to modern culture and enter into dialogue with it such as the yeshivat hesder of Otniel, Yeshivat Ahavat Yisrael in Netivot, the yeshivat hesder of Petach Tikva, the yeshivat hesder in Tekoa, and Yeshivat Siach Yitzchak in Efrat. Some of these yeshivot have adapted, to a certain extent, non-traditional methods of Talmud study. These include both academic and scientific methods and approaches that seek to uncover a “spiritual” or existential meaning (Sheleg 2000: 67–69). Connected to these changes in higher education is what has been called a crisis in the study of Talmud. It has been widely reported in the religious press and media that today’s national religious students do not want to study Talmud, and that they are not interested in it or proficient at it. This stereotype is applied to yeshiva high schools and even to the yeshivot hesder and has given rise to much consternation in Orthodox educational circles. It has become the focus of conferences and articles in Orthodox educational journals and even inspired an official government commission: the Ariel Commission (Administration of Religious Education 2004). Another significant development from this point of view has been the emergence of a new “spirit” or ambience in Yehuda and Shomron (the regions of new West Bank settlements). This might be characterized as a militantly nationalist bohemianism that has many manifestations and expressions. One is an efflorescence of creative arts as reflected in many workshops in poetry and creative writing being held in yeshiva high schools, and even more so in the yeshivot hesder and the settlements. Similarly, classes and workshops in sculpture, drama, and modern and creative dance also dot the settlements (Nekuda

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2006). Poetry journals and small arts magazines have also started to appear. In these works, religious people publicly explore some of the most sensitive themes concerning the body, erotic and sexual orientation, and personal identity (Cohen et al. 2005;11 Kaploon and Berkowitz 2000; Sheleg 2000: 59–63). Together with this surge in the creative arts, a new kind of settlement has begun to dot the landscape, especially in the inner hilltop reaches of the Shomron, deep in the densely populated Palestinian territory. These are the “illegal outposts” and farms that do not have formal approval from Israeli governmental authorities. These settlements are the result of personal initiative and are not linked to the sponsorship of the Regional Council of Judea and Samaria, the religious Zionist settlement organization (Amana), the Ministry of Agriculture, or the Jewish Agency, and they in large part do not receive subsidies from them. A good many of the younger members of these small settlements are alienated from the state and its symbols and structures, including the educational system and the IDF,12 and neither do they accept normative rabbinical authority. Many of these outposts are engaged in endemic violent conflict with their Palestinian neighbors, and violence is part of their ethos. The men and women of the outposts and illegal settlements exhibit a counter-cultural and anti-structural (in the sense used by Turner 1974) ambience. Many of them farm organically, wear homespun clothes noteworthy for their simplicity, and build their own homes from materials locally available. Very many of them eschew electrical sources of energy, using wind or solar power (Meir 2003). A few more established settlements, such as Bat Ayin, also interweave these themes of creative arts, counter-cultural ambience, ecology, and unmediated contact with nature, the earth and its elements, and violence (Lavie 2003). Some of these developments involve the younger generation, born since the 1970s, and reflect the processes of institutionalization both of the Emuni ideology and the settlements themselves. They clearly entail creativity and reinterpretation of Judaism and of the Emuni tradition. No creative process or reinterpretation takes place in a vacuum, however, leading to the question of whether an alternative conceptual framework could better make sense of Emuni religious Zionism as a whole. The alternative framework that I offer is that of expressivist Romantic nationalism. I first describe this framework as it characterizes the central stream of religious Zionism. In order to achieve greater clarity, I then contrast it with another, less prominent, religious Zionist stream that I call Liberal Nationalist. Radical religious Zionism is a resurgent religious movement. It is also part of the Jewish Zionist national movement. The link between religion and nationalism has resulted in a new transformed Jewish theology. At the center of this theology is the granting of religious meaning to the material, secular, mundane world and the bringing of this world under religious regulation. Initially, this meant the granting of religious meaning to the secular mundane realms of nation-building: politics, settlement, and economic and cultural production.

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In order to achieve this, the major stream of radical religious Zionist theology employed an intellectual structure that the philosopher Charles Taylor has called “expressivist” (Taylor 1977: 1–29, esp. 13 n. 1). Briefly stated, this structure consists of three leading ideas: • Spiritual phenomena find their most complete realization by being expressed in the material, mundane world. Another way of putting this is that all thought must be expressed in a material medium such as sounds and letters, paint, stone, or even social institutions. Only by such self-expression is the inner form realized; it becomes clarified to others and to the subject itself. • Conversely, phenomena of the material world find their most adequate self-realization when expressing their spiritual “inner form.” This idea incorporates the expressivist notion that thinking is embodied; it is carried by material, living beings with drives and impulses and hence must be recovered and achieved. Only when a material, living being recovers and expresses her inner spiritual thought or drive can she reach full self-realization (Taylor 1977: 80–84). • The unity of life and existence. Various dichotomies of human existence— matter and spirit, thought and feeling, reason and imagination, mind and body—are conceived as being integrated on both the individual and on the national level. An individual human being is not an animal with a mind attached; rather it is a totally different indivisible entity. Similarly, the individual human is organically united with both nature and the cosmos on the one side, and with the national community and humankind as a whole on the other (Taylor 1977: 1–29). Employing similar notions, R. Abraham Isaac Kook13 posits in his religious philosophy, which is the foundation of radical religious Zionist thought, that God expresses himself and achieves self-realization by creating the world and embodying his ideals in mundane material reality. This idea incorporates the expressivist notion that all thought must be expressed in a material medium. A second leading idea of R. Kook’s is the converse: the deepest will of every finite, created being, which must be recovered and realized, is to return to its source—to recognize itself as being of God. This idea incorporates the expressivist notion that thinking is embodied; it is carried by material living beings with drives and impulses and hence must be recovered and achieved. This implies a strong emphasis on the authenticity of the self and free self-expression (Fischer 2007: 75–126). These central theological ideas are connected, respectively, to equally central political-theological ideas that also have an expressivist character (Fischer 2007: 215–269). The first is connected to the apperception that the inner authentic will of each finite, material creature is to return to one’s source in God.

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R. Kook outlines several paths for recovering this will. As we shall see, this entails listening to the natural, spontaneous voice of conscience within, and fostering pure and simple faith. By recovering one’s own true and natural self and voice, the individual will be led to God. At this point in the discussion, however, I concentrate upon an alternative path: that the individual realizes his authentic self by identifying with the “universal generalness” or the general will of the collective-cosmic entities outside of him. In a manner reminiscent of Rousseau, one crucially important method of recovering this inner authentic will is by identifying with the general (or universal) collectivities of the Jewish people, humankind and the cosmos. In this path, one concentrates upon the inner will of the cosmic entities that are outside the individual. The aim of this effort is for every particular being to recognize and experience itself as belonging to the all-embracing, all-inclusive All, and to recognize the connection of the All with God. As every particular being overcomes its own particularity and partialness and identifies with the universal, it reveals its own inner will to identify with the universal and with God (D. Cohen 1963: 17–38): Man must always extricate himself from his individual confines, which fill his entire being, to the point that his thoughts always revolve around his personal fate, which reduces man to the depth of triviality, and to no end of material and spiritual sufferings, which result from this. But his designs and desires, and the foundation of his thinking must always be given to the universal, the universal totality of all, the universality of the cosmos, of man, the universal totality of Israel, of the entire universe. And from this his own individuality will also be established in the appropriate manner. (Kook 1963b: III, 147, emphasis in original) The will of each particular being to experience itself as part of the divinely rooted All is itself rooted in the inner will’s “spark” or a part of the cosmic general will (ha-ratson ha-kelali; Kook 1963b: III, 39; Cohen 1963: 29–30). For much of the history of the world, this inner will animating the world is “blind” and not conscious of itself and its origins (Strassberg-Dayan 1995: 136; Kook 1984: 29–31, 234–236). As the individual identifies with the generality, with the divine All of existence, he realizes and awakens his own inner will and the inner will of the cosmos as a whole. However, this is an arduous path that goes from the bottom up. One must identify in turn with the generality of each of the unified organic wholes that constitute the various levels of existence: the Jewish people, the human species, and the cosmos as a whole. The realization of the inner will of the finite elements is accomplished by action in the world. This is true on both the universal and on the national levels. On the universal level, as the world develops in law, mores, social institutions,

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literature, philosophy, and art and progresses towards the Good, the Moral, and the Beautiful, it realizes its unity with God and its rootedness in him. As the world progresses, it becomes increasingly conscious of this divine rootedness. (Strassberg-Dayan 1995: 137–138; Kook 1984: 243–245). Similarly, on the national level, the universal Whole of Israel achieves realization through the concrete activity of the national renaissance—nation building and territorial repatriation to the Land of Israel. The general/universal is realized in public-national activities relative to the nation as a whole and not to any particular individual or sector. It is through these activities, and the religious renaissance that is to accompany them, that consciousness of the Divine All and ultimately of Redemption is achieved (Kook 1963a: 104–117; Kook 1984: I, 29–31). The second central political-theological notion is that of the divine state. This idea derives from the notion that God fulfills himself by clothing and embodying his divine ideals in the mundane material world. In a manner very similar to Hegel’s political thought, R. Kook and his followers consider the (modern) state to be the most appropriate vehicle for the embodiment of divine ideals because it is the most all-inclusive, all-embracing human framework, and thus reflects the universal all-embracing nature of the divine. Because of the intimate relationship between Israel and God in Jewish theology, the Jewish state in particular is considered to be an emanation of God. R. Kook and his followers maintained that the frameworks of the Jewish state that organize the public collective life of the entire Jewish people represent the divine ideals embodying themselves in the material world. Thus, R. Kook considered this Jewish state to be the foundation of God’s throne in the world (1963a: 60). According to the notion of the divine state, it is the state itself that must embody the divine Ideals of peace, righteousness, and justice. In his writing, R. Kook contrasts the embodiment of these ideals in the being of the collective national body and its state with the morality of mere individuals, no matter how saintly. The collective national-political entity has a life and a being in its own right. In R. Kook’s ideal political community, “righteousness and justice” are embodied in the norms and mores of the community and constitute its animating spirit in which the individuals partake of and participate (as in Hegel’s conception, the individuals participate in the life of the community and its norms and mores). The individual righteousness of “the wise, the pious and the holy ascetics” is viewed by R. Kook as insufficient; the collective public life of the community must embody “righteousness and justice.” (Kook 1963a: 104; Fischer 2007: 228–234). As in the thought of Hegel, the creation of a public-statist organization of the collective life of the Jewish people that realizes divine ideals is the result of a complex dialectical historical process. Also, as in Hegel’s philosophy, human beings are actors in a drama that is not fully theirs, but belongs to God who fulfills himself by expressing and embodying his divine ideals in the material and mundane world. Thus human beings are not fully conscious of the

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meanings and ends of their own actions. With the exception of a few saintly mystics who can apprehend synoptically the entire historical process, humans will only understand the meaning of their history at its end, with the “fullness of time.” Then they will understand that they were the means by which God embodied his ideals in the mundane world and achieved self-realization.

The Application of Political Theological Ideas to Israeli Political Reality Before the state was established, R. Kook expressed these ideas in terms of abstract metaphysics. His disciples, especially his son R. Tzvi Yehuda, translated them into concrete Israeli political reality. R. Tzvi Yehuda designated the concrete, mundane, secular state of Israel to be the divine state, embodying the realization of the divine ideals in the kingdom of God. Thus, he and his followers accorded the Israeli state and its institutions great loyalty, honor, and obedience. Secondly, under R. Tzvi Yehuda’s leadership, R. Kook’s followers embarked upon the campaign to settle the greater Land of Israel (including the West Bank and Gaza) and incorporate it into the Israeli state, claiming that such a policy, like the Zionist movement itself was the general will of the Jewish people. According to R. Tzvi Yehuda, Jews from all walks of life and ideological orientations participated in the settlement movement—religious and secular, rightists and leftists (Fischer 2007: 235–269).14 R. Tzvi Yehuda and his followers, through the settlement attempts of the 1970s, assumed that the empirical, mundane activity of the divine state of Israel, representing God’s providence and the inner general will of the Jewish people, all worked toward the same end—the redemption. However, the peace agreement with Egypt in 1979 and the subsequent policy of the Israeli governments of relinquishing parts of the greater Land for Israel (the West Bank and Gaza), in the context of a peace agreement with neighboring Arab states or with the Palestinians, badly undermined such an assumption. When 140,000 people danced in the streets of Tel Aviv upon the signing of the peace agreement with Egypt, R. Tzvi Yehuda declared: “the people are not with us” (Segel 1987: 40). The adoption of this policy created a dilemma that is very familiar from European revolutionary politics: the divergence of the empirical will of the people from what is claimed to be the true, objective, inner general will (Talmon 1952: 86). Should one give preference to the inner, objective general will, or should one give preferred consideration to the empirical will of the publiccollective life of the Israeli polity at a given time? In accord with the two theological-political orientations listed above, two very general but contrasting approaches emerged. The first approach emphasized the inner, objective general will or the will of the nation. The second emphasized the idea of the divine state (Fischer 2007: 303-18).

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The General Will—Revolutionary Stream As I have mentioned, the term general will is used to describe the impulse to realize the divinity of the Jewish people and the cosmos as a whole. The revolutionary approach, based upon the general will, focuses on what ought to be. It is future-oriented and concentrates upon the ultimate religious, national, and cosmic redemption. Hence, on the level of principle (though not necessarily on the level of tactics and practical action), the present and the empirical will of the Jewish people of Israel is not of the greatest concern. The major thrust of this approach is to get beyond the present, to the ultimate realization. It focuses upon a certain objective truth beyond the mere count of votes or the play of democratic rules and procedures; it does not necessarily make the implementation of such truth dependent upon them. Its major spokesmen relate to the present state of Israel as merely a necessary stage, a step on the way to the final realization. As this approach developed from the 1980s through 2005, in connection with the Jewish Settlers’ Underground,15 the Oslo Peace Process,16 the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin (November 1995) and the Disengagement from Gaza and Northern Samaria (August 2005), it incorporated a number of significant additional themes. One of the most important is the religious authority of the revolutionary engagé activist pursuing the redemption. According to the theorists of the general will, the very engaged activism, the existential response to the inner call, provides the activist with a privileged epistemological position. From this position, the engaged activist knows the inner general will of the Jewish people—which is, in fact, the will of God. The knowledge that the activist achieves is inspired knowledge, and according to theorists in the 1980s constitutes the lower rung of prophecy (Etzion 1984, 1985a, 1985b; Fischer 2007: 328–340). Astonishingly enough, the provenance of this theory is not in religious ideas about prophecy, but in the theories of Max Weber and Friedrich Nietzsche, and also Fascist and Leninist theories of the revolutionary avant-garde. In our context, the key figure is the LeHI17 activist and theoretician Shabbtai Ben-Dov who attributed charisma to key activist figures in Jewish (and general) history, and held that such charisma in fact constitutes a low rung of Prophecy (BenDov 1960, 1979). Yair Shtern, Uri Tzvi Greenberg, and LeHI in general had important connections with avant-gardist Fascist and Leninist ideology (Heller 1989; Hever 2004). Ben-Dov combined his ideas about charisma with these revolutionary ideologies. Radical religious Zionist ideologists such as Yehuda Etzion from the Jewish Settlers’ Underground introduced Ben-Dov’s ideas into the revolutionary stream of radical religious Zionism (Fischer 2007: 328–340). The second related theme is that of inner autonomy and freedom. In Yehuda Etzion’s writing, the activist is described as possessing inner autonomy and freedom, answering only to the inner voice of God. He is not bound by

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convention, dogma, or authority. Indeed, Etzion himself exhibits these traits: on the basis of his own freedom of thought, he does not hesitate to criticize the Merkaz Harav yeshiva, R. Tzvi Yehuda, or R. Kook the elder himself (Etzion 1985b). In the 1990s, activists such as Moshe Faiglin combined these ideas with themes taken from the American protest and civil liberties tradition, especially those of opposition to and criticism of the government. Faiglin and the movement he founded, Zo Artzeinu (“This is our Land!”) engaged in non-violent disruptive activities inspired by the 1960s protest movements in America. By the turn of the twenty-first century, the ideal that emerged in the revolutionary, general will wing of radical religious Zionism is that of the nonconformist, independent-thinking revolutionary activist motivated solely by the voice of God within him (Fischer 2007: 365–366, 393–395).

The Divine State Stream The other approach tends to put its emphasis upon what is, not what ought to be. It tends to identify the modern state of Israel with the “foundation of the throne of God in the world” (yesod kise ha-shem ba-olam). In other words, in terms of its essential characteristics, the redemption is embodied by the state of Israel. This approach, whose origin in the thought of R. Tzvi Yehuda and his disciples (and whose resemblance to the thought of Hegel was discussed above) has attracted the Hebrew label mamlakhti (state-oriented, or valorizing the state), pronounced with the accent upon the second syllable (Sorek 2004).18 In contrast to the first approach, this one is focused upon cultivating and strengthening the current frameworks of the contemporary state of Israel. Hence, respect for the decisions of duly constituted government bodies is an extremely important consideration. Similarly, the empirical will of the Jewish people at a given point in time is of supreme concern. This stream emphasizes the idea that the collective-public life of the people of Israel as embodied in the frameworks of their state represents a divine emanation. Embodied in the allembracing frameworks of the state of Israel, the divine emanation (or as they refer to it, God’s spirit) works its way toward achieving and realizing the divine ideals in the mundane world. Thus, the empirical will of the public-collective life of the state of Israel at any given moment represents the will of the divine emanation (or divine spirit) at that stage in its path toward self-realization (Fischer 2007: 319–320, 340–357). As we have seen, in this ideology, God achieves his self-expression in the mundane world through a complex dialectical process. At the end of this process, the human beings who are his vehicles come to self-understanding. That is, they understand themselves as realizing divine ideals and, hence, as being vehicles of God actualizing his ideals in mundane reality. When this

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is accomplished, God, as it were, achieves full self-expression. As is the case in Hegel’s philosophy, human beings cannot “hurry history”: they cannot, by force, bring the public-collective life of Israel and the divine Spirit embodied in it to a higher stage than what was achieved by the gradual and natural maturing of the consciousness of the people of Israel toward their divine nature and destiny. This gradual maturing is brought about by the divine will acting dialectically in history. What one can do is to “work with God,” to participate with God in the process of helping the Jewish people, through education and enlightenment, to achieve self-understanding (Thau 1994–1995). In line with this approach, the mamlakhti adherents condemned both the Jewish Settlers’ Underground and the assassination of the prime minister in the strongest of terms. Since the divine will (to realize the divine ideals in the mundane world) actualizes itself through the natural, historical development of the public collective life of the Jewish people represented by the Jewish state, these attempts to “hurry history” and “force the end” are in fact not only revolts against the civil authority but revolts against the sovereignty of God and his providence (Thau 1996; Segel 1987: 216). Not only did the most prominent of mamlakhti spokesmen, R. Tzvi Thau, condemn such violent actions, but he condemned revolutionary avant-gardism per se, describing it in terms reminiscent of Dostoyevsky’s The Devils (Thau 1995: 122–146). In regard to the Oslo process and the disengagement, they also opposed all language and tactics that delegitimized the government and its representatives and they also opposed all disruptive tactics. In regard to the disengagement in particular, they did not endorse the explicit refusal of orders by soldiers who did not wish to carry out the evacuation of Jewish settlers from Gaza. At the very most, they allowed or encouraged soldiers to report sick. Some mamlakhti rabbis (e.g., R. Shlomo Aviner) explicitly permitted soldiers to participate actively in the evacuation if so ordered. Due to their statist orientation, settlers in Gush Katif, in particular, allowed themselves to be evacuated quietly without resistance (Fischer 2007: 396–399).

From the Collective to the Individual Initially, from the 1960s through the 1990s, this expressivist approach manifested itself mainly within collective political levels. Starting in the mid 1990s, the discourse shifted so as to also apply expressivist Romantic notions to the individual, private, and intimate planes. Religious thinkers, writers, and artists have emerged who seek to realize religious meaning and ideals in individual experience; in the routines and minutiae of everyday life; in the body, sexuality, and aggressive drives; in artistic creativity of all sorts; and in the free development of the personality through “open” education. The search for

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the realization of religious ideals in these spheres is parallel to the earlier emphasis on the realization of divine ideals in the Jewish state and in Jewish collective life. At the same time, Romantically oriented religious Zionists have also shifted their effort to uncover and express their authentic selves. In the earlier period, the effort concentrated upon uncovering the authentic self and inner will of the collectivity through radical, autonomous, charismatic political activism. In the last fifteen years or so it has concentrated upon authentic individual experiences of artistic creativity, interpersonal relations, religious existential encounters, whole and meaningful learning experiences, and even authentic expression of aggression and sexuality. These writers, thinkers, and artists speak about meeting their authentic selves as encounters with the divine (Jacobson 2011) As indicated above, these are not entirely new themes. R. Kook placed a great emphasis upon the individual self in addition to his concentration upon the collectivity (Fischer 2007: 115–119). He valued greatly the spontaneity of the “natural morality” of the individual. R. Kook held that the voice of God spoke from within one’s natural spontaneous morality, and hence listening to one’s inner moral voice had the quality of divine revelation. This affirmation, however, did not mean that R. Kook endorsed an autonomous liberal individual who can choose his own life plan and act upon it (Mill 1947: 58ff.). God is the source for morality, the benevolence that seeks the good and perfection for all. It radiates throughout the cosmos, nature and its laws (Kook 1963b: III, 4–5), as well as through the Torah. Under the guidance of the Torah and the life that it prescribes, as properly construed, one becomes an extension of the morality and benevolence that radiates throughout the cosmos. Natural morality (ha-musar ha-tiv`i) is for R. Kook a platform upon which the sanctification of man, and his ethical cultivation through the Torah, can occur. Thus, R. Kook engages in a modern discourse of the authentic self and its realization, but this realization is not an expression of the autonomous, differentiated liberal self. On the contrary, R. Kook referred to the idea of the limited, atomistic liberal self in critical ways, terming it, for example as a “false imagining” (Kook 1985: I, 174). R. Kook extends this discourse, which situates one’s authentic self in entities beyond the self such as “the General-Collectivity” of the Jewish people and the cosmic morality that courses throughout the universe, to the mitzvot (commanded deeds) of the Torah themselves. In his discussion of the topic of “the commandments will be voided in the [Messianic] future (mitzvot betelot le-`atid la-vo),”19 he makes it clear that the Jew finds his true self in the observance of the commandments. Thus, in the Messianic era, the commandments will not be abolished in the literal sense—they will not cease to exist. Rather, Jews will find that the commandments transparently express their true selves, and hence will perform them autonomously without requiring the heteronymous commandment from God. The mitzvot as commandments will cease to exist, but Jews will continue to perform them on their

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own accord, because through such performance they realize their true inner essence (Rosenak 2004: 107 ff.). Despite that in R. Kook’s thought, the authentic self is located “beyond” the individual, his writings nevertheless contain a significant stress on the individual and his experience. This is very evident from many passages in his spiritual diary, Shemona K’vatzim (Eight Notebooks). The individual that appears in these passages, however, is not the liberal autonomous individual, but rather what we might call the “inward individual.” This can be seen from the following lyrical passages that open the collection Chadarav (His Chambers): From within, from my own wellspring, here I must draw my hidden resources [lit. springs]. … I am constantly searching for what is inside my soul, but external enslavement is what distracts the mind from internal searching, [instead] searching in vain at the ends of the world for what cannot be found in the depths of the soul. How can I say anything to others, if I cannot say a thing to myself. How can I raise my mind toward the spiritual and material world, if I do not seek the key to these treasures hidden within myself. “Lift up your heads, O Gates!” (Psalms 21) I say to the chambers of my soul, to my heart, and to my mind. (Kook 1998: 18–19). The individualism, or rather individuality, that is presented in these passages, that are representative of R. Kook’s extensive writing on the subject, is an “inward” individuality. It consists of going “down” or “in” to one’s inner soul to draw upon one’s inner resources—one’s thoughts, sentiments, feelings, and yearnings. It is interested in the “inner man” and wishes to shut out the world and its influences (“external enslavement”—ha-`avodah ha-hitzonah). This individuality should be contrasted with the liberal autonomous individual. The individuality of the liberal autonomous individual expresses itself in action in the world. One chooses to be a writer or a businessman; one chooses whether to cooperate with the evils of this world—economic inequality, exploitation, racism, tyranny—or to oppose them. Thus, there seem to be two connected points of contrast between liberal individualism and R. Kook’s inward individuality. First, the face of the liberal individual is toward the world, while the face of inward individuality is toward the self, shutting out the world. Second, the liberal individual expresses himself in action. Inward individuality manifests itself in thought, feeling, and sentiment. The inward individual in R. Kook’s writing wishes to shut himself off from all external influences, which he calls “idolatry.” At the same time, this individual wishes to deepen his world of interiority. He intensely expresses the desire to “draw up treasures” from the depths of his soul, to deepen the “thought of his heart” (higayon ha-lev) and the “sentiments of his soul” (rahashei ha-neshamah), and to listen to his inner self: “I must insist on listening to myself, to

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attend to the intimate discourse of creation in its innermost chambers” (Kook 1998: 23). This inward individuality is congruent with the collectivist holism of R. Kook’s thought. He sees human beings as organically connected to all of existence and that Jews realize their authentic self when they identify with super-individual entities such as the whole of the Jewish people, divine-cosmic morality, and the Torah. This congruence takes place upon a number of levels. First, if in the external world, one is totally bound up with the group, then one can only be free and individualized in the internal, spiritual one. At the same time, freedom of thought, imagination, and sentiment does not interfere with one’s group commitments. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, in R. Kook’s inward individualism, it is strongly underlined that one finds God and the nation at the root of one’s soul (Fischer 2007: 118–119). The “individualist turn” in Emuni culture continues these themes of R. Kook. In this recent development, there is a great stress on self-expression and spontaneity and on the exploration of one’s own individuality; in general, this does not accompany a diminution of one’s collective commitments. There is a great deal of “cultural work”—writing, psychology, poetry, dance, film— but there is no serious challenge to prevailing right-wing nationalist political orientations. On the contrary, exploring the depth of one’s emotions, soul, and thoughts in literature, theology, and poetry seems to uncover the depth of one’s attachment to the Jewish nation and to God.

Emuni Ideology and Liberal Religious Zionism Among the various reasons for the shift from the collective to the individual within Emuni ideology, two appear central: (1) processes issuing from the institutionalization and routinization of the original Emuni vision in both the extraordinarily successful settlement project and in religious Zionist culture generally; and (2) the increased presence of Western individualist ideas in Israel at large. The emphasis on individual romantic self-expression explains many of the new phenomena described above: the interest in poetry and other creative arts, the counter-cultural ambience coexisting with the violent anarchism of some new farms and “outposts,” the desire for unmediated contact with nature, and the drive to express or realize the “natural” aspects of one’s own human existence—one’s body, sexuality, and aggression. The new interest that some new yeshivot have in dialogue with Western modern and post-modern culture is motivated, in large part, by their interest in Western techniques and motifs of self-expression. Within this broad orientation appear phenomena not yet mentioned, such as the travel of religious and even Emuni youth to India and Goa and the budding interest that Emuni educators have in open and Rogerian

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education (in the sense of Carl Rogers), which is perceived as providing existentially meaningful learning experiences (Rogers 1969). In order to further clarify the distinctiveness of Romantic religious Zionism, I briefly contrast it with the alternative stream of Israeli religious Zionism. This stream could be termed liberal. Since the early 1940s, it has adopted humanistic, liberal values and attempted to attribute to them religious value. Initially, this approach attempted to implement a sort of humanist religious socialism within kibbutz society, and humanist social democratic policy at the national level. Prominent people in this wing were located in the leadership of the Religious Kibbutz Federation illustrated by figures such as Moshe Unna,20 and in urban intellectual circles exemplified by Akiva Ernst Simon21 and Yeshayahu Leibowitz22 (until 1952), who drew inspiration from thinkers like Gustave Landauer and Martin Buber. To a certain extent, they envisioned a Torah regime in terms of social legislation stimulated or determined by the Torah. An example of such legislation is the Law for the Protection of Wages (1958), introduced by Moshe Unna, whose provisions were based upon Leviticus 19:13 and Deuteronomy 24: 14–15. Today, one of the major issues that this wing of religious Zionism addresses is that of feminism and gender equality. Those few synagogues, in Jerusalem and several other places, that grant leadership and liturgical roles to women, are firmly ensconced within this stream. Similarly, to the extent that “dovish” or “leftist” political orientations exist within the religious Zionist community, they are associated with members of this stream. The institutional loci of this orientation remain the Religious Kibbutz Federation, Ne`emanei Torah V’Avodah,23 the Meimad political party,24 and the Shalom Hartman Institute.25 In terms of its intellectual orientations, this stream supports open-mindedness and unrestricted contact and confrontation with modern Western culture and values and a continual synthesis of modern cultural and Torah values. Various observers and researchers, including ideological opponents, have characterized this stream as having adopted “modern ways of thinking” (Aviner 1979) or as having reinterpreted Judaism so as to adapt it to modern western ideas and values (Liebman and Don Yehiya 1983a: 185–213). More specifically, I would say that in contrast to the collective organization that characterizes the Emuni way of thinking, the liberal wing adopts a way of thinking that focuses upon the individual stressing his rights and benefits. Similarly, in contrast to the Emuni emphasis upon expressiveness and authenticity, the liberal wing emphasizes rationality and rational thinking. Thus, this wing perceives moral issues in terms of prevailing individualist, rationalist liberal ethos in the West. It approaches gender issues in terms of the rights of women and their claim to equality and not in terms of the “Good of the Nation” or the family (see Yehudit Shelat’s remarks in Haaretz, 11 June 2004 [Rotem 2004], regarding religious women who do not marry and have children through artificial insemination). Similarly, they approach the issue of the Land of Israel and the conflict with

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the Palestinians through the lenses of the security needs of the Israeli state and individual Israeli citizens and the desire to avoid bloodshed and the rights of the Palestinians, not through the lens of the realization of collective national destiny that is central in Emuni ideology. In recent years, the avant-garde stream of the Emuni community has appeared to somewhat resemble liberal, humanist religious Zionism. They too value the individual. Despite this, important differences remain. The Emuni avant-garde values the expressive individual while the liberal stream continues to endorse ideals of rationalist individualism. The difference between them appears in the following anecdote. There is a popular and important avant-garde Emuni yeshiva high school in the south of Israel. It encourages student choice and responsibility in students shaping and choosing their curriculum and in class attendance. Yet it has adopted a policy of banning all secular newspapers from the grounds of the yeshiva, including the dormitory. Such a development would be unthinkable in liberal religious Zionist educational institutions such as Pelech High School for girls or the Himmelfarb High School for boys in Jerusalem. These schools seek to develop the cognitive facility of contending with alternate points of view and sources of information. In contrast, the individualism emphasized in the Emuni yeshiva high school is expressive. It focuses on the individual student choosing a learning style and daily routine that suits the particularities of his personality and situation. This central difference is illustrated in the case of a student who was expelled from the Emuni school in the south. My interview with his parents revealed that he did not grasp the difference between expressive and rationalist individualism. While he was encouraged to create his own curriculum and even to choose his own level of religious observance, he was discouraged from critical thinking and taking issue on theological matters. When he persisted in expressing critical thinking, he was not allowed to continue in the school. In research on the Israeli religious Zionist community that utilizes a fundamentalist paradigm, its liberal wing is something of a residual category. To a certain extent, this paradigm entails Orientalist discourse. Labeling someone as “fundamentalist” portrays a person as irrational and fanatic (Fischer 2007a, 7–43; 2007b, 283–296). As a result, there is an assumed need to explain fundamentalism (hence the Chicago Fundamentalism project; Marty and Appleby 1991–1995), but no need to explain non-fundamentalist religion: it is viewed as “normal.” Instead of labeling one wing of religious Zionism “fundamentalist” and one wing “normal” or “Western,” I prefer to view both wings as incorporating dimensions of modern Western civilization. The liberal wing accepts the main theme of individualist rationalism that we associate with the Enlightenment. The Emuni wing has incorporated the Romantic critique of the Enlightenment; its thought and sensibilities have affinities with the writings of Rousseau, Herder, Hegel, and Marx on the one hand, and with that of Goethe, Wordsworth, Conrad, and D.H. Lawrence on the other.

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It is important to note that the two ideological streams portrayed are to a certain extent intellectual constructions; the boundaries between them are porous to various degrees. This is especially true in recent years, and for younger people. Despite differences, the adherents of expressive individualism and rationalist individualism often find common ground upon which to base mutual interaction.

Conclusion: Israeli and American Modern Orthodoxy I myself am of American Jewish Modern Orthodox background and have lived in Israel for over twenty-five years. Initially, I found liberal, rationalist, religious Zionism easy to understand and congenial. Indeed, it was close to my own religious and ideological orientations when I arrived in Israel. In contrast I found Romantic, nationalist, religious Zionism alien and opaque. I submit that this is not only an idiosyncratic matter. It reveals a cultural divide between American Jewish Modern Orthodoxy and Israeli Modern Orthodoxy that may be of general interest. The expressivist nationalist Emuni approach is, in a basic way, alien to American Jewish sensibilities and cultural premises. The prevalent American theory of the state (enshrined in Jefferson’s preamble to the Declaration of Independence) is highly individualistic and not organic-collective at all. The point of departure for the formation of society and state is the individual and his rights, and the machinery of the state is erected precisely to preserve those rights. Americans, including Jewish Americans, lack the underlying cultural assumptions to sympathize with, or even comprehend, Emuni Romantic nationalism. Furthermore in regard to the Jewish aspects of this issue, Romantic, integral nationalism, in the not so distant past, has been involved in the persecution and exclusion of Jews in Central and Eastern Europe (and even in Western Europe—the Dryefus Affair!). Even today, romantic nationalism that is heavily connected to religion, whether Polish Catholicism or Russian Orthodoxy, may carry anti-Semitic overtones. American Jewish culture, including American Orthodox culture, still leans toward the type of rationalist culture that characterized Jews for centuries as an urban minority specializing in commercial and financial occupations. American Orthodox Jewish life leaves little room to appreciate a culture emphasizing land, nature, and the spontaneous expression of natural feelings including aggression, revenge, and violence. It is true that within the American Orthodox community there is much support for right wing positions in Israeli politics. My impression however, is that this mainly stems from another source: the xenophobia found in some traditional Jewish communities (Katz 1962; and that also finds expression in the haredi world), rather than the sophisticated romanticism of the Emuni world view.

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Since the Emuni approach is by far the dominant one within Israeli modern Orthodoxy, relations between Israeli orthodoxy and American non-haredi orthodoxy are somewhat problematic. There is significant instrumental cooperation between the two sectors that prominently entails American financial and political support for their Israeli counterparts, but I suggest that the current form of Israeli religious Zionism is largely incomprehensible to Americans. This may be connected to the absence of American students in Israeli Zionist yeshiva institutions that are characteristically “Israeli” in student-body and atmosphere. Whether speaking about the ferociously religious and nationalist Har HaMor in which the spirit of the Merkaz Harav of the 1970s lives on, or in the more avant-garde institutions in Otniel, Tekoa, Petach Tikva or Ramat Gan, they include almost no American foreign students. American yeshiva students from Modern Orthodox backgrounds concentrate in the quasi-haredi schools of Kerem B’Yavne or Sha’alavim, in yeshiva programs designed especially for them, or in settings that are explicitly Haredi. The only exception is still Yeshivat Har Etzion where the comforting presence of R. Aaron Lichtenstein still continues to uphold the familiar intellectualistic cultural values characteristic of Diaspora Jewish culture. Thus, in addition to the familiar division between Haredi and Modern Orthodoxy, I maintain that we consider the difference between the rationalist orthodox culture of the American Jewish Diaspora, which in many ways continues the social and economic patterns of minority Jewish Diaspora life, and the Romantic expressivist nationalist religious culture of an orthodoxy that is part of a landed Jewish majority in a Jewish sovereign state, and which is engaged in bloody ethnic and territorial conflict. An appreciation of this division furthers our understanding of the variegated and dynamic nature of contemporary Jewish belonging. Notes 1. I use this term in its generic sense. I am not using it in the sense that Motti Karpel (2003) and his followers in Lechatchila use it, that is, as a label for their specific ideology. 2. The Rabbinical Academy founded by Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook (1865–1935), and headed by his son, R.Tzvi Yehuda Kook (1891–1982), that formulated and promulgated expressivist religious Zionist philosophy. In this essay, the former is referred to as R. Kook, and his son as R. Tzvi Yehuda. 3. In Hebrew: Yehudah, Shomron, and ‘Azah. 4. The parties called Renaissance and National Unity, and the Jewish Leadership faction. 5. Bnei Akiva (founded in 1929), is the leading Religious Zionist youth group. Ezra and Ariel are smaller, slightly more religious alternatives. 6. Excluding the Jerusalem neighborhoods on the former Jordanian side of the 1949 Cease Fire Line (the “Green Line”). 7. See note 2 above.

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8. Source: Iggud Yeshivot Hahesder. 9. In 1996, the Har HaMoR yeshiva split off from Merkaz Harav (M-o-R signifies an acronym for Merkaz HaRav). It is headed by R. Tzvi Yisrael Thau, R. Tzvi Yehuda’s chief disciple. 10. Yeshivat Hakotel and Kerem B’Yavneh have retreated from their former haredi orientations by appointing new heads of the Yeshiva very recently. The appointment of R. Motti Alon in Yeshivat HaKotel especially has drawn new students to the school. Sha’alavim continues to attract few Israeli students. 11. On this poetry journal see http//www.mashiv.org.il. 12. See the poem “The Creation” by Tzviel Shefer, a young radical religious Zionist poet. 13. In addition to founding the yeshiva, discussed above, R. Kook was chief rabbi of Jaffa and later the first Ashkenazic chief rabbi of Palestine/Eretz Yisrael. 14. Around 1970, this was a plausible claim, as Moshe Shamir, Naomi Shemer, Menahem Begin and other figures from both the Zionist Labor movement and the rightwing parties advocated settlement and annexation of the greater Land of Israel. Labor movement intellectuals and activists advocating the settlement and incorporation of the Greater Land of Israel published their broadside “For the Greater Land of Israel” in the summer of 1967. Menahem Begin and the Herut party issued their “Declaration of Rights” in June 1968 (Naor 2001: 49). 15. Apprehended by Israeli security forces in 1984. 16. The peace process between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization that was initiated by the signing of an initial accord between Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin of Israel and Chairman Yasser Arafat of the PLO in September 1993 in Washington. 17. LeHI is an acronym for Lohamei Herut Yisrael (Fighters for the Freedom of Israel), the most extreme of the dissident paramilitary groups during the Mandate period that advocated terror acts in the struggle for Jewish independence. 18. This is the Ashkenazic, yeshiva-style pronunciation, distinguished from the same standard Hebrew term, mamlakhti (or mamlakhtiut), pronounced with stress on the ultimate syllable. The latter terms denote “statism,” or “statist,” both as a secular ideology (à la Ben-Gurion) and in the sense of something that belongs to or pertains to the state. There are some points of contact between Ben-Gurion’s ideology and that of the Kookist mamlakhti. 19. BT Niddah 61a. 20. Moshe Unna was a founder of Kibbutz Tirat Tzvi (1938), and later a resident of Kibbutz Sdeh Eliyahu and Member of Knesset on behalf of the Poel HaMizrachi (Religious Zionist Workers Party). 21. Akiva Ernst Simon (1899–1998) was professor of Educational Philosophy at the Hebrew University. 22. Yeshayahu Leibowitz (1903–1994) was an Israeli philosopher and scientist known for his outspoken and often controversial opinions on Judaism, ethics, religion, and politics. 23. An ideological group dedicated to the engagement of religious Zionism with modernity and endorsing, for example, secular education and relative gender equality. 24. A small dovish religious Zionist party. 25. A liberal Orthodox research institute located in Jerusalem

j Jewish Identity, Gender, CHAPTER 6

and Religion Masorti Women and the Feminist Challenge to Traditional Jewish Identity Yaacov Yadgar

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he last one and a half decades have witnessed a dramatic increase in scholarly interest in issues of gender and religion, focusing in particular on feminism and religion. These rubrics, “gender and religion” and “feminism and religion,” encompass a wide range of issues that touch in one way or another upon the feminine experience in the world of religion. Without pretending to present an exhaustive review of the research field (for such a review, see Neitz 1993 and 2003; Castelli and Rodman 2001), it can be summarized as revolving mainly around the attempt to analyze, map, and understand (and sometimes also to dictate) the contact and intersection between “the feminine” (or feminist discourse) and “the religious” (as discourse and identity). Most important in this regard are the developments in feminist discourse (see Dietz 2003). In this framework, the relative success of feminist discourse in penetrating the public sphere demands a unique sensitivity to the presence and influence of this discourse. As formulated in the oft-quoted remark by Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards: “For anyone born after the early 1960s, the presence of feminism in our lives is taken for granted. For our generation, feminism is like fluoride. We scarcely notice that we have it—it’s simply in the water” (2000: 17). Even if somewhat overstated, this statement still captures a core element, or property, that every discussion on religious and feminine identities must take into account: important elements of feminist discourse and rhetoric have become widespread and acknowledged, although we are still far from witnessing the satisfactory implementation of feminism’s basic premises into the social, political, cultural, and even private spheres. Indeed, as the present study shows, the collision between the cultural prevalence of feminist-egalitarian rhetoric and actual political practices of discrimination is imminent. This collision highlights the interest in studying the varying ways in which women construct female identity in a context that is usually considered to be discriminatory against women by its very nature: traditional religion.

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One of the important implications of this omnipresence of feminist discourse is its percolation into and influence upon groups and individuals who do not consider themselves to be feminist (i.e., who do not identify with what are often seen as the radical political aims of the feminist movement). In fact, this is one of feminism’s biggest achievements as a social and political movement: its development into a present discourse whose arguments (even if corrupted and screened through distorting prisms that undermine its authentic shape and intentions) are echoed in cultural, social, and political discourses—as well as religious discourses—and are part of the toolkit used in the construction of self- and collective identity. I should reiterate here that this does not mean that the feminist movement has achieved its goals in full. Nevertheless, its relative success in penetrating public discourse sheds new light on the ways in which women—whether “feminist” or not—construct their identities. In scholarship, the projection of feminist discourse upon areas within the sociology of religion is aimed at making visible the women inside religious worlds, as well as those within the world of research on religion—inside the sociology of religion itself. In this context, gender has often been studied as kind of an intermediate variable that sheds light on varying phenomena in the field, such as degrees of religiousness, to give one prominent example (Miller and Hoffman 1995; Francis 1997; Miller and Stark 2002; Stark 2002). The study of women’s religious participation is exemplary in this regard. Here, issues of women’s self-empowerment inside the framework of a given religious world/structure, the attempts at reforming this structure to make it more egalitarian, and the renewed interest in religions that are considered more women-oriented were all prime subject matters for research (Davidman 1991; Wallace 1993; Davidman and Tenenbaum 1994; Ozorak 1996; Wallace 1997; Wallace 1999; Wallace 2000; Bayes and Tohidi 2001; Juschka 2001). An important focal point of this strand of research has dealt with the ways in which religion perpetuates traditional gender roles and inequality (Dhruvarajan 1988; Richardson 1988). The basic premise behind much of this research has been the notion that traditional, conservative religions, which have been historically patriarchal, are inherently contradictory to feminism’s basic premises of gender equality. Feminism and conservative religion have often been studied as composing a binary opposition that is usually seen as adjacent to similar distinctions between modern and traditional, secular and religious, and so on. Attempts at studying the ways in which women negotiate and mediate this apparent opposition between their feminine (and feminist) identities and their identities as members of a conservative religious group have stressed the need to problematize the different relevant categories, mainly those of “feminist” or “feminine” and “religious” (Dietz 2003; Neitz 2003). This new point of view is thought to be highly useful in understanding feminine religious experience in particular and the sociology of religion in more general terms. Accordingly, research has been refocused to deal with questions of religious practices instead

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of institutions, and with issues pertaining to the practitioner’s (actual) body, instead of the (metaphorical) body of religious institutions, organizations, and hierarchies (Davidman 1991; Dufour 2000; Falk and Gross 2001; Nason-Clark and Neitz 2001; Ecklund 2003). Exemplary in this regard is Sally Gallagher and C. Smith’s conclusion that “the majority of contemporary evangelicals hold to symbolic traditionalism and pragmatic egalitarianism,” a rather complex strategy that enables them to “maintain a sense of distinctiveness from the broader culture of which they are part” (1999: 211). Similarly, this article stresses the need to be attentive to the multi-vocality and nuanced nature of feminism and of women’s construction of their identity—not only as women, but also as members of sociocultural groups. This multi-vocality exposes feminism’s unique influence on the ways in which those women who refuse to accept such one-dimensional and dichotomous distinctions between “feminist and free” and “traditional and subordinate” construct and negotiate their identities both as women and as members of certain ethnic, national, and religious groups. As this chapter will show, such attentiveness demands that we refocus research to be concerned less with the formal, institutional, and official-ideological aspects of religion and more with the practical ways in which women and men understand and construct their identity, experiences, and practices as meaningful and value-laden. Thus, I ask how women who choose an identity that refuses to fall into a one-dimensional dichotomy that distinguishes between the category of the “secular-modern-feminist” and that of the “religious-traditional-subordinate” construct and negotiate their feminine identity, while exploring the varying ways in which this identity-construct interplays with these women’s identity as members of a distinct sociocultural group. More particularly, I explore the ways in which Jewish Israeli traditionalist women construct and negotiate their identities as women, feminists, traditionalists, and Israelis, in a context of predominant binary distinctions that separates the “religious” from the “secular,” the “modern” from the “traditional,” and more implicitly, the “feminist” (and free) from the “subordinate.” Such a new look, which abandons the binary and dichotomous Western-modern distinctions such as religious/secular or modern/traditional (Latour 1993; Eisenstadt 2000; Wittrock 2002), is necessary for understanding this case study of Israeli Jews who define themselves as “traditionalists” (masortim). In other words, I would like to take up a general issue—gender, feminism, and religion—through a case study of an identity that challenges rigid dichotomies, especially those distinguishing religious from secular, progressive from backward, and modern from traditional (Yadgar and Liebman 2009). A note on terminology here: as will be discussed shortly, labeling and identifying religiousness or religious identity in the Jewish Israeli context involves a unique adoption and interpretation of such prevalent terms as religious,

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secular, and traditional. These terms take on a different meaning in the Jewish Israeli context than they do in the North American context. In what follows, I present a short investigation into the meaning of one such Jewish Israeli term—traditionalist. This term is used here as a rather problematic translation of an already problematic term, masorti. This short discussion is followed by a study of the interplay between traditionalist women’s feminine identity and their traditionalism.

Traditionalist Israeli Jews: A Case of (Post-)Modern Identity People who, when asked to categorize their religious behavior, define themselves as “traditionalist” (masorti, pl. masortim)1 constitute about one-third of the Jewish Israeli population. By comparison, fewer than 20 percent of Israeli Jews define themselves as either “religious” (dati, a synonym for Orthodox in Israel) or “ultra-Orthodox” (haredi), while the remaining Israeli Jews define themselves as “secular” (hiloni). As survey data show, traditionalist identity also carries a heavy mark of ethnic identity: Mizrahim (Israeli-Jews who originate or whose families originate from predominantly Muslim societies) constitute the vast majority of the Israeli traditionalist population, while Ashkenazim (those who originate or whose families originate from predominantly Christian societies) constitute a small minority of this group. Similarly, 50 percent of all Israeli Mizrahim identify themselves as traditionalists, whereas only 19 percent of Ashkenazim do so (Levy, Levinsohn, and Katz 1993, 2002a). The meaning of these categories and the differences between the categories are not entirely clear, and the category traditionalist is the most enigmatic. Even among those who have stressed the demographic importance of this category, many have dismissed it as no more than an inconsistent cocktail of beliefs and practices characterized by its lack of clarity. Often, it is used as an intermediate category between the completely secular and the unquestionably religious, hence marked as a problematic form of identity. This use of the term renders traditionalism or traditionalist identity as a kind of artificial category located between two ideal types and thus lacking any meaning independent of these two other categories. However, contrary to this dismissive, if not belittling, use of the term, when studied empathically and closely, and located inside a “multiple modernities” paradigm (Eisenstadt 2000) that transcends the Western dualistic discourse and epistemology, traditionalist identity appears as a uniquely modern phenomena (Yadgar and Liebman 2009). One of the distinguishing characteristics of traditionalists seems to be their solution to the apparent tension between religion and modernity. Unlike the religious Orthodox—or scripturalists, to use Clifford Geertz’s (1968) term— who insist that all of life is governed by religious law that sacralizes every

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aspect of life, traditionalists incorporate that which they consider religious or holy into the regular pattern of their otherwise modern (“secular”) lives. A similar distinction is also drawn between the public and the private: one finds a great gap between observance within the home and the latitude traditionalists allow themselves outside the home. Examined more closely, the traditionalist code of behavior seems to be based not only on considerations of comfort, but also, if not primarily, on ethno-national identification. That is, the distinction between the religious commandments that are obeyed and those that are ignored is based not on the difficulty of the commandment at hand, but rather on the identification of these commandments as essential, basic, and central for one’s self- and collective identity and for its preservation. This distinction is a way of preserving what the traditionalist sees as the “essence” of Judaism, hence also the essence of her/his identity as a Jew, in the ever-changing setting of daily life. The most important respect in which traditionalism is a decidedly modern phenomenon is that the traditionalist consciously chooses to be identified as such. Traditionalism is not forced upon her/him, nor can traditional identity be taken for granted, in light of the pressures from both the secularists and the scripturalists. The traditionalist is quite familiar with the other, culturally dominant alternatives. S/he hears their demands, is aware of their system of values, and is conscious of the fact that both secularism and scripturalism offer what seems to be consistent ways of life that imbue the follower with a sense of confidence in his/her own identity—a quality that many of the traditionalists with whom I spoke admit they lack. Nonetheless, the traditionalist chooses to be traditionalist. S/he is conscious of her/his identity, of its special character, of its advantages (as s/he sees them, of course), and of its unique place in the map of sociopolitical identities in Israel. This property of choice is further accentuated in the case of traditionalist women, who choose an identity considered to be relatively conservative (hence presented by some as an identity that subordinates women and discriminates against them) in the context of the (at least apparent) cultural predominance of feminist discourse.

Methods My analysis is based on more than fifty in-depth interviews conducted with Jewish Israeli men and women who define themselves as traditionalist. Thirty of the interviewees were women. Interested in the ways that women construct and negotiate their self-identity, this essay will be mainly concerned with the women’s responses and will address men’s responses only when they shed light on relevant issues of women’s self-identity construction. The interviewees’ ages

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ranged between twenty-two and forty-five. All of them have high school education, and about half of them acquired college education. They live mostly in peripheral towns and neighborhoods of the wider Tel Aviv metropolitan area. All of them were born in Israel, and most of them—as is the case with Israeli traditionalists in general—are of Mizrahi origin. The interviews were openended, and were conducted by me, usually at the interviewee’s home. The interviews revolved around issues that were deemed important by me as well as by the women for understanding their identity as traditionalists. I conducted the interviews in Hebrew, and translated them into English, with the utmost attempt at preserving the relevant cultural nuances and contexts.

Feminine Traditionalist Identity and Feminism: Discourse and Practice In what follows, I offer an exploration and analysis of Jewish Israeli traditionalist women’s practice and discourse with regard to several basic issues or themes. These include: how traditionalist women negotiate and resolve the apparent tension between their choice of a “conservative” identity and the feminist discourse that highlights Jewish tradition’s subordination of women; issues of the body, which in the Jewish context focus on matters of dress and menstruation; family, spousal relations, and personal security in the family; sexuality and social conservatism; and last, the only issue that has a clear institutional nature, women’s place and status at the synagogue.

Traditionalist Identity and Feminist Discourse: Negotiating Conflicts regarding Women’s Status in Judaism One of the most intriguing issues in the context of religion, feminism, feminine identity, and modernity (or post-modernity) is the varying ways in which women reconcile the apparent conflicts between the religious restrictions, prohibitions, and behavioral dictates they take upon themselves and feminist discourse. The research field has identified several dominant discursive tactics women use in this regard, from denouncing feminist discourse to the presentation of the traditional religious discourse as being essentially feminist (on the Jewish context, see Davidman 1991; El-Or 1994, 2002; Sered 1997). The discursive tactic used by the traditionalist women I interviewed highlights the complexity of their identity, stemming from the fact that they explicitly acknowledge and accept (at least in principle) both of these competing and often conflicting discourses. To generalize, all women interviewees explicitly identified a subordinating element in religion and acknowledged the ways in

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which it hinders their freedom as women. In the vast majority of cases, they did not choose to deny altogether that there is a problem with religion from a feminist point of view; from their point of view as traditionalist women, they see an apparent conflict between their identities as women and their identities as Jews. The most common discursive tactic traditionalist women use to resolve this apparent conflict is the creation of a clear distinction between two categories of identity—traditionalist and Orthodox—and the distancing, almost to the point of estrangement, of the two from each other, so that traditionalist identity is rendered free from the discriminating and subordinating dictates of Jewish tradition. Traditionalist women present themselves as protecting themselves from the dangers of religiously based patriarchal subordination by the very choosing of a traditionalist identity over “more religious” (hence truly discriminating) identity options, while at the same time—as all traditionalists see themselves as doing—preserving what they deem to be the core elements that entitle one to see oneself as essentially Jewish.2 By doing so, they distance themselves from the “seculars,” who are viewed as too detached from Jewish tradition and identity. Their identity as traditionalist women is what gives them a protective sphere, a safe distance from the harmful elements in the Jewish religious discourse, without losing their tie to what they see as authentic Jewish identity.3 This distinction made by traditionalists (“I am not Orthodox nor am I secular”) highlights an important use they make of the two dominant alternative identities as reference points in the construction of their self-identity as both modern and Jewish. Currently, the image of the Orthodox plays a more important role, as it embodies the irreconcilable conflicts between feminist or feminine discourse and traditional Jewish discourse. It functions as a kind of reverse model against which the traditionalist woman identifies herself as a free, authentically Jewish woman. As we shall see below, the secular also functions as an important reference point in other issues relevant to feminine identity. It should be clear by now that many traditionalist women do define themselves as feminist. As Leora4 explained, there is no contradiction between a traditionalist identity and feminism or a feminist identity, while one can arguably claim that such a contradiction is the fate of Orthodox women: “I can keep on calling myself both a feminist and a traditionalist. … I believe that an Orthodox woman can [also] define herself as a feminist, but she is much more restricted in her feminist thought. … But traditionalism does not thwart feminine and feminist identity.” This view of the Orthodox, as well as the importance of choice in the construction of her identity as a traditionalist woman, was also expressed by Tikva when she discussed a friend who had recently become ultra-Orthodox (i.e., in the current vocabulary, voluntarily positioned herself in a subordinate position):

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When I visited my friend who became religious, I saw for the first time what the meaning of subordination is. She did not make her husband his desired meal, and he was giving her hell for that. I thought to myself: “just until a few years ago you were like me—you would not have let him treat you like that. You were not so submissive.” Q: Does Judaism subordinate women? A: It depends a lot on the woman. My friend was just like me. … She became ultra-Orthodox, and ever since then the husband runs her life. I will not accept this. I will not have my husband forcing anything on me. I am willing to do things out of full partnership. Q: Does the fact that you choose to be a traditionalist mean that you choose to hinder your independence and be subordinate in some sense? A: Maybe, but it is my choice. Not surprisingly, this element of positioning the Orthodox home as a model of traditional Jewish subordination of women and the clear marking of a distinction between the traditionalist and the Orthodox plays an important role among women who left the religious world and chose traditionalism (and not secularism) as their new identity. Carmit, who grew up in a religious family and left the religious world in her early twenties, “surely agrees” with the argument that Judaism discriminates against women: she is bothered by it and struggles against it. But as she put it: This problem exists among the Orthodox, not by me. I do not suffer from this discrimination, because I left Orthodoxy. Q: Does being traditionalist mean that you are free from discrimination? A: Not exactly. Being traditionalist means that I am safely distanced from the places where discrimination is manifested. … Traditionalism is kind of a shielding distancing from the discrimination against women that Judaism harbors. But traditionalism does not solve the principal problem of discrimination. Tamar was raised secular, became orthodox, and eventually chose traditionalism as a “middle path.” She formulated the argument regarding Orthodox subordination most bluntly. In the religious world, she told me: “Generally speaking, there’s a degrading attitude toward women. As a woman, it is a horror to be Orthodox. In the basic notion of religion, women are discriminated

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against … this is why I choose for myself the middle way. This is the traditionalist. If I were religious I would take upon myself all dictates and limitations. As a traditionalist, I only have to accept half [of those dictates].” Tamar also explained why she does take upon herself some of those religious dictates, exposing a core ingredient of traditionalist identity: a strong sense of guilt and self-reproach for not observing what they generally acknowledge to be the fully authentic Jewish way of life (basically meaning Orthodox Judaism). She accepts those religious restrictions, says Tamar: Because this is the right thing to do. This is the right way to live. It is a recipe of how to live—the Jewish 613 commandments. You have to live by it. If I were Orthodox, I would observe the whole 613. … I am aware that I do not do what I should do. You choose the middle, knowing that you might be punished for it sometime in the future. Q: Do you live with a constant feeling of guilt? A: Yes. … Because I have a problem of willpower. This acknowledgment of Orthodox authority, and the guilt component that accompanies it, stems from the fact that traditionalists openly choose not to live by what they generally accept as the authentic traditional Jewish way of life. This leads traditionalists to oppose and reject religious reform—unless the Orthodox religious leadership initiates it—even in cases when they view changes as needed and even appropriate in principle. In this spirit, some of my women interviewees presented themselves to be accepting things—that is, the discrimination against women that they view as inherent in Jewish tradition, and the discord between this tradition and the discourse of egalitarian and independent feminine identity—as a given fact, while presenting a high degree of self-reflection and criticism. The case of Liat is representative. Liat described scores of religiously oriented instances and situations in which she had been treated as inferior to men, and the humiliation she experienced in such instances. She is also closely aware of the much more respectful way in which women are treated in the egalitarian circles of Conservative Judaism, for example. But when asked whether she would like to change this situation in which she is subordinate as a woman, her reply is complex and self-reflective: “Yes and no. … Because of habit, and because of the installation of fear that is in religion. I am afraid of introducing reform [into religion], afraid to do what is prohibited. It is very intimidating to come and change things that religion obliges us to do. That’s how we were educated.” Another discursive tactic used by traditionalist women is to claim that there is no fundamental problem with Judaism’s treatment of women, but rather it is a practical issue of relations between individual couples. This discursive tactic

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can be viewed as a form of self-empowerment of traditionalist women, who view their way of life and their relations with their spouses as a practical solution to the possible conflict between feminist discourse and Jewish tradition. The case of Hanna is telling in this sense. While her husband (a traditionalist Jew himself) was adamantly proclaiming during a joint interview that the Jewish Torah is chauvinistic and discriminates against women, Hanna was just as adamantly negating this argument: “I don’t agree that observing the Jewish commandments puts me in a subordinate position. I do understand where my husband’s argument that the Torah is chauvinistic comes from, but I don’t feel humiliated or repressed.” It has to do, she explains, with the type of relations the couple has established: “A lot depends on your spouse. He might behave as if he is the dominant, in which case he will degrade the woman and hurt her. We don’t have such problem. Our relationship is more egalitarian.” Two distinctions come into play here: the distinction between the Orthodox (which has rules that enforce subordination of women) and the traditionalist (which represents the choice that protects the individual woman from such subordination); and the distinction between the public (where women are more inclined to suffer from discrimination against them) and the private (where the individual woman builds an egalitarian household with her spouse). Gila formulated a combination of these two distinctions: There are an awful lot of things that bother me [about Judaism’s attitude towards women]. I’m not at the level where I have to observe all of the commandments that relate to women. I don’t take the whole package. … The way of life that I chose for myself protects me from the gender discrimination of religion. I don’t feel this discrimination. I force my spouse to cook with me for Shabbat. We share the housework and the preparations for Shabbat. The discursive tactic of constructing the issue of women’s status as a practical issue of spousal relations rather than as a principal problem of Jewish religion is complemented by a focus on ultra-Orthodoxy as exemplifying the reverse option. Traditionalist women often describe the ultra-Orthodox as perpetuating an unequal and discriminating attitude toward women in their practice of spousal relations. Batia addressed this quite explicitly, as she was explaining why she does not feel that adopting a traditionalist identity (as she herself, who was raised as secular, did after marrying a traditionalist man) hindered her identity as a free and equal woman: Among the extreme religious Jews, the woman has to stay at home and raise the children. … Among the ultra-Orthodox, women suffer because there is no personal progress. They have to hide their self and their femininity, to suppress them. Ultra-Orthodox women accept

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this and say that it is their role as women. But inside, their feeling as human beings is that they are just the wife of- and the mother of-. In other words, there is a problem of women’s subordination, but this is a sociological and cultural problem, not a theological or essential one. This discrimination is a problem of the ultra-Orthodox. It is a distress caused by the social and cultural constructions that the ultra-Orthodox have built and adopted for themselves, not of Judaism in general or of women who observe the essence of Jewish tradition. Some of the women interviewed for this article also used a discursive tactic common among Orthodox women, namely, presenting Jewish tradition and religious dictates (that might, at first glance, look like subordinating women) as actually catering to the essential differences between men and women (Davidman 1991). However, traditionalist women continue to be attentive and sensitive to the conflicts between some Jewish practices and feminist discourse, even when they use this tactic. While this enables what could be criticized as an inconsistent argumentation, I maintain that this should be viewed as a case of a complex and dynamic construction of self- and collective identity against the background of competing and often conflicting dominant discourses. Leah was one of those who used the gender-difference discourse and addressed the issue of Jewish discrimination against women, while at the same time explicitly addressing the issue of women’s subordination: “Judaism delimits women into the home, restricts them, and in this it discriminates against women. But inside these limits, the woman is praised, she is glorified. She is the divine spirit [shekhina] of the home. She is the one who runs the home and dictates the atmosphere in it. The only discrimination is in the delimiting.” The conflict here is apparent. As such, it encourages guilt and self-reflection, thus perpetuating traditionalist identity as a choice being constantly made, remade, and reaffirmed. Keren addressed the connection between her identity as a woman and her identity as a traditionalist: “It puts me in a place of extra self-reflection and contemplation. … There is the question of how free and liberated I should be. … Judaism certainly limits me as a woman, but it also provides me with a space for raising questions and a constant clarification of where the border is.”

Sociology Getting Closer: Body and Dress As mentioned above, one of the major shifts of foci needed to formulate a new epistemology for the sociology of gender and religion is a shift from the symbolic and imaginary institutional “body” toward the real and material body of the individual. This complies with a general focusing of sociological interest

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in the body (Evans and Lee 2002), a focus that has special import for issues of gender. Dress, as a form of body expression, is one of traditionalist women’s means for constructing their identity as distinct from that of the Orthodox. They refuse to put on themselves what is considered to be a major public or external sign (and symbol) of Orthodox feminine identity. This insistence on not wearing what is termed by the Orthodox (as well as by traditionalists) as “modest dress”5 has two interrelating dimensions to it. First, it marks the traditionalist refusal to transmit a deceptive signal to the general public: they are cautious not to present themselves as observing what they see as required for an authentically Orthodox person. Secondly, and probably more importantly, it signals the traditionalist women’s refusal to mark themselves as entering the realm of religiosity, where they will be subject to subordination as women. Hence, the immense importance of dress. It functions as signaling freedom— the freedom to choose, a freedom for self-identification that is not dictated by religion—thus symbolizing traditionalist women’s privilege to enjoy an equal status, contrary to what they view as the subordinate status assigned to women in the Orthodox world. The importance of dress as an expression of traditionalist women’s refusal to take on the public mark of Orthodox identity supersedes actual practice in running a modest—or socially and sexually conservative—life. That is, traditionalist women often describe themselves as maintaining such a conservative way of life, while adamantly not portraying themselves as “modest” by way of dress.6 The distinction between what is manifested to the public and what is practiced in the private home is thus further emphasized, this time touching upon the body itself. As put by one woman: “Whatever [good deeds] I have, I do it at home, and the one above knows whatever I have at home.” This distinction was given a vivid expression by Liat. Liat portrayed herself as having a socially and sexually conservative life, describing this way of life as central to her identity as traditionalist. She discussed an encounter she had had with an Orthodox woman who encouraged her to commit to observing a new commandment as part of the atonement process of Yom Kippur. The Orthodox woman’s first suggestion related to dress—she suggested that Liat commit to not wearing pants, which are considered immodest by the Orthodox, and instead wear long skirts. For Liat this seemed to be going overboard: “I told her, ‘Listen, I can’t promise you something that I won’t be able to stand up to, so why don’t you offer me something easier to do?’” Eventually, Liat decided to commit to read chapters of the Book of Psalms daily. As discussed elsewhere (Yadgar and Liebman 2009), traditionalists live under constant cross-pressures with no supportive reinforcement outside their family or immediate circle of friends. The major source of pressure on traditionalist Israeli Jews is the demand for coherence and consistency. In the eyes

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of secular and Orthodox alike, traditionalist behavior seems inconsistent if not hypocritical. These cross-pressures manifest themselves around issues of body and dress. Here, issues of dress, fashion, and modesty are venues through which the larger groups (which are either secular or religious) demand from the traditionalist to identify with one or the other. Such pressures come not just from the Orthodox camp, which explicitly assigns a value-laden importance to dress. My interviewees recalled numerous instances in which a similar demand was made of them by secular friends. Tamar, who grew up secular, became Orthodox, and eventually chose to identify as a traditionalist, reported that dress was the signifier of her dynamic identity, and the surrounding society reacted accordingly. Tamar described the moment when she no longer identified as Orthodox: “It was when I started wearing pants again.” This move prompted immediate reaction from her Orthodox surroundings: “I was told that if I wear pants I’m not a real datiyah [Orthodox], so I said so be it, I’m good enough with marking myself as a traditionalist.” However, her secular friends and family presented her with a similar demand. As she described them, they would usually present the Orthodox dress code as oppressive toward women, and demanded that she abide by this code if she wished to identify herself as not secular: That’s exactly the criticism leveled against me on the issue of pants. When my family and my friends ask me, how come I suddenly wear pants? With the secular the world is very dichotomous—you are either secular or Orthodox. … From the secular point of view the argument against me was: “we already accepted you as religious and showed off our tolerance by presenting you as our religious friend … how come you back away?” It undermines their self-confidence. They don’t get it. The traditionalist attitude toward dress is another articulation of the basic premise of traditionalist Jewish practice—that is, the sense that traditionalist Israeli Jews practice what they consider as essential for Judaism, the “necessary minimum” one must practice in order to justifiably define oneself as Jewish. Dress is not seen as part of this minimum for the basic Jewish code. Hence the traditionalist’s readiness to denounce explicitly the Orthodox demand for a strict dress code. As formulated by one interviewee: “Shabbat is important for Judaism. Judaism has a basic code. Modest dress is not part of this basic code. The very marking of the Shabbat, kiddush, lighting the candles, a certain degree of kashrut [dietary laws], celebrating certain holidays, brit milah [circumcision], bar mitzvah—those stages of life. This is traditionalism. You can do more than that.” From a traditionalist point of view, you do not have to do more than that: one can be a real Jew without obeying the code of modest dress.

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As mentioned, Orthodox identity, culture, values, and understandings of Jewish Israeli identity are not the only reference points for the constant construction and articulation of traditionalist identity; secular identity has a similarly prominent role in this (re)construction. Issues of body and dress are no less important from this point of view as well. Here, the pressure exerted on traditionalists is the pressure of the seduction of fashion: traditionalists adhere to the secular (Westernized and commercialized) dictates of what is fashionable and desirable from a consumerist point of view. Thus, the bodies of traditionalist women become a venue for a struggle between the two dominant and competing cultures (religious and secular consumerist cultures). Leah’s case is exemplary. She described herself as someone who believes “very strongly” in God, but found it necessary to stress that “inside, deep in my heart, my belief is very strong,” even though she does not express it publicly in her outer appearance. Like other interviewees, she openly and explicitly discussed the difficulty of facing the seduction of secular culture and the temptation to be fashionable, up-to-date, and desired. Leah is a vivid personification of this difficult tension, since she carries on her body what became during the 1990s one of the more explicit signs of consumerist fashion’s invasion of the individual’s body—tattoos. (Jewish law forbids tattoos.) Leah shared her regrets for having these tattoos—not so much because they were a religious transgression, but rather for the false signal they transmit to others regarding her Jewish identity; she appears as secular because of them.

Menstruation The issue of menstruation captures the complex and intense contact between body, feminine identity, feminist discourse, Jewish law, and power in a unique way. No wonder it has captured both the interest of scholars and of champions of the feminist sociopolitical movement (Steinberg 1997; Wasserfall 1999). The vast majority of women interviewed for my research reported that they do observe the Jewish laws of menstruation and family purity (niddah and taharah)—or at least “the basics” of these laws. For traditionalist women, these laws are part of those basic principles of Judaism that are to be observed as part of maintaining the essence of Judaism and of Jewish identity. It is important to note that traditionalist men did not present niddah as such an essential matter (even though these rules have several aspects that relate to the relations between husband and wife). In a few cases, my interviewees reported that the wife was insisting on observing these rules, while the husband was indifferent to them. Such was the case of Hanna and Benny. When the two met, Benny was living what both of them described as a secular life. Hanna described how she

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presented Benny with a list of nonnegotiable conditions if they were to marry. Observing the laws of menstruation was one of these unquestionable conditions: “There are things that I will never compromise on, even if it hinders my comfort: the kashrut [dietary laws] of my home, taharah and niddah [laws of family purity and menstruation], separation of dairy and meat.” According to Hanna, these basic ingredients of Judaism identify her as Jewish, and distinguish her from the non-Jews: “We need something Jewish, something to separate ourselves from the gentiles. Because if I don’t observe niddah and taharah, then what is the difference between me and some Arab woman?” The traditionalist method or style of identifying what is essential and important for Judaism, and focusing on its strict observance while ignoring what is considered to be less essential, also manifests itself around the issue of menstruation. Avoiding sexual intercourse during menstruation is seen as the essence of niddah and therefore observed, while other related prohibitions (such as avoiding any touch between the couple during menstruation or ritually ending the period of niddah by performing a ritual bath) are not: those laws are treated in a more lenient way. Traditionalist women are also familiar with the discourse tactic of presenting the observance of laws of niddah as essentially feminist and sensitive to feminine identity. This rhetorical maneuver is widespread among Orthodox rabbis (as well as Orthodox women), who present Jewish laws of menstruation as attentive to the natural differences between man and woman and to the unique needs of women in marital life, thus in actuality benefitting the woman, rather than degrading her by presenting her as impure while menstruating (as sometimes is claimed). Reut was one of my interviewees who used this tactic, as she explained why those who think that Jewish law subordinates women and degrades them are wrong: Such a claim stems from certain ignorance. For example, the commandment of niddah is a strict law. Some claim that it hurts the woman, because it is as if she is impure [while menstruating]. Such an observation is one-sided. As a traditionalist, I look to see how Jewish law benefits me. I find that the niddah has a strong element of rejoining the husband and wife. The distancing [that the laws of niddah enforce on the couple] creates closeness. This is something very positive. It depends a lot on how you look at every single Jewish law. I believe that if you look for the deep meaning, then Jewish law strengthens the status of women. However, Reut makes it clear that she delimits the authority Jewish law has over her—even while she does acknowledge this authority. This view of authority enables her readiness to specify several rules of niddah and taharah that she does not intend to observe.

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Family and Security A recurrent theme in my interviews was the celebration of traditionalism as positively influencing women’s status by means of the family. Traditionalist women present traditionalism or “the traditionalist way of life” as creating a positive familial framework, in which the woman enjoys a larger measure of confidence and security in her status as a married woman as well as equal status vis-à-vis her husband. As in other contexts, self-defining as traditionalist in this area relies on a comparison between the traditionalist choice and other constructs of identities. While a comparison to “the Orthodox” was central for constructing traditionalist women’s formulation of their attitudes on issues of women’s status and feminist discourse, here—when the issue at hand is the woman’s confidence and security inside the family—“the secular” is of special importance as a reference point. The comparison of traditionalism to “the secular way of life” (or at least what traditionalist women portray as the secular way of life) highlights the traditionalist family’s properties of loyalty, security, and strength. Secular identity is constructed as a negative model of an undermined familial structure. Traditionalist women often present secular identity as encouraging promiscuity and allowing excessive freedom and a low level of commitment between the spouses, hence hindering the wife’s security and confidence in her partnership. In the somewhat cautious formulation of one interviewee, who was explaining her preference for traditionalist men: “That thing with security, against betrayal and disloyalty, this is part of the reason why I’m looking for a traditionalist man, so I could sleep a little better at night. It is not a complete protection, but this general impression is surely correct. Because this is tradition, and in tradition you struggle to preserve the family.” On the other side of this identity construct, a comparison with the Orthodox way of life also highlights the relative freedom and equality enjoyed by traditionalist women in their families. Traditionalist women, who view themselves as liberated from a long list of discriminating religious prohibitions and dictates regarding their status and their relations with men, describe themselves as demarcating a space of their own, a realm that is not too religious and strict, nor is it too liberal and promiscuous. Inside this space, they can both articulate their feminine identity and be confident in their partnership. The positioning of the traditionalist choice between these two extremes of the subjugating Orthodox and the promiscuous secular was given a vivid formulation by Sima, who left the Orthodox world (in which she was raised) and chose traditionalism (over secularism) as her new way of life. After enthusiastically acknowledging that her traditionalist way of life is far more egalitarian than her religious upbringing, she was cautious to note that secular women do not enjoy a higher measure of equality than she does:

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It is much harder to be a part of a couple in a secular society; it is much harder to preserve a normal intimate couple-hood, because that’s how this society is. Infidelity has become a norm, and they even give it an ideological legitimization, by saying that it invigorates your relation with your spouse. … As for the religious world, I believe that there are too many prohibitions there … they create inhumane situations. It is over-conservative and it creates a distancing between the spouses. … In this sense, I’m glad I no longer have limits.

Sexuality and Conservatism One of the prominent differences between traditionalist men and women yielded by the interviews was that among traditionalist women, conservative sexual and social behavior is usually seen as part and parcel of one’s identity as traditionalist, while men hardly addressed this issue when discussing the meaning of their traditionalist identity. When asked to discuss their identity as traditionalist Jews, women repeatedly addressed issues of dress, body, sexuality, and social mores and manners, while men focused on other, mostly ritualistic issues, while neglecting to mention sexual behavior or social manners as relevant to their traditionalist identity. Several women interviewees acknowledged this difference and were critical of it. For Tamar, for example, this difference is so prominent that if she were to formulate a valid, gender-neutral definition of traditionalism, she would have to leave modesty, sexuality, and social conservatism out of this definition. Although social-sexual conservatism and modesty are an element of being a traditionalist woman, she argued: These are not part of being a traditionalist Jew. There was a period when I met through dating websites many young men who defined themselves as traditionalists. They behaved like I did in my most promiscuous period, when I was secular. They had no limits. They observe the Shabbat, they might even wear a Kippah [the traditional Jewish head gear, which in Israeli society is a mark of religiosity], but they still don’t care about sexual conservatism. As far as their behavior with women in public goes, they behaved just like secular men, and they had the same expectations as secular men usually have. Not surprisingly, aspects of sexual behavior and modesty are where traditionalist women experience the strongest cross-pressures from their surrounding society. Dress is of special importance here: traditionalist women do not mark themselves as religious (by not observing what Orthodox Jews celebrate as a modest dress code), a fact that implicitly marks them as secular. This yields

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certain expectations from the surrounding society regarding their social and sexual mores and manners. These pressures appear to be rather explicit and intensive. Liat’s testimony was rather blunt on this matter. I asked her to explain her argument that “it is much easier to know that you are either secular or Orthodox. As a traditionalist, they don’t accept you properly in either side … you are a strange bird.” She began her explanation by discussing pressures from the Orthodox side, describing her feelings while visiting her relatives who had become Orthodox: “When I enter their house, I feel very strange. I wear pants. … They don’t make any comment, but I feel uncomfortable, and always try to adjust myself to the society that hosts me.” And on the other side, there are the pressures exerted by secular society (which is the dominant society within which Liat is located). Liat discussed her years in college, where most of her friends were “Ashkenazi, secular, from a high socioeconomic status, with their own worldviews, and I’m considered as a strange bird over there. For example, most of my friends from college, all of them have been having sexual relations from an early age. I’m twenty-four and still a virgin. For them it’s ‘wow!’ It’s incomprehensible. For me, it’s normal. I have no problem with it. It is related to my traditionalism, and it is a choice I made.” According to Liat, while Orthodox Jews understand her choice of abstinence until marriage and sympathize with it, secular Jews do not: “For them, it’s wrong. I tried to explain that it is out of a free choice. It doesn’t help.” In the context of a modernist-Western sociopolitical discourse, this sexually conservative and traditional behavior is viewed as “primitive.” Traditionalists often report that this pejorative term is used by secular Israelis to describe and address traditionalism. Reut, who described herself as “very conservative … I don’t believe in the promiscuous life style,” told me about numerous instances in which she was stigmatized as primitive. She nevertheless presented a firm stance against this secular criticism: “A guy at work says that I’m primitive because I guard my borders. I believe a woman should be with one man only. And my friends think I’m cuckoo. … When they say that my way of thought is primitive, I answer that secularism has not proved itself … that secular culture went bankrupt. It is an empty culture that lacks an essence.” It would be adequate to restate this chapter’s opening premise here about the omnipresent perpetuation of feminist discourse in Western or Westernized societies. Although it would be wrong to draw a one-dimensional and explicit correlation between feminism and liberal attitudes toward sexuality, it seems that for my respondents, the contrast between traditionalist identity and feminist discourse reaches a climax when it comes to issues of sexuality, social-sexual conservatism, modesty, and personal and social freedom. That traditionalism is an identity-construct based on a choice that is constantly made and remade is further emphasized here, as women describe themselves as accepting certain

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limitations pertaining to their social and sexual behavior, despite persistent pressures to change this behavior. Hila, a 25-year-old recently married woman who describes herself as conservative, discussed the temptation to be freer while addressing the complexity of living by a tradition that is both socially transmitted and constantly chosen: I met guys … and I also stopped myself from meeting guys, because I told myself that there is no chance it will work, so there is no reason to start it in the first place. But even when I did go out with men, I was always inhibited. I wasn’t free … I did not express myself. … It is something that is so deep-rooted; that it cannot be unraveled. … It is part of tradition, of home. But with the negative side, there’s also a very positive and warm and good side to it. … Tradition is part of me. I don’t know if it constructs me or maybe rather I constructed it as part of me. I conclude this discussion with a certain qualification of my argument regarding the difference between men and women on issues of sexual conservatism. As stated, the interviews upon which this article is based yield a distinct difference: women discuss such matters as an integral and essential part of their identity as traditionalist Jews, while men do not. This difference may be testimony of a difference in behavior, and apparently such a conclusion is not baseless. But it would be wrong to conclude that this is the sole explanation for this difference. Another complementary explanation touches upon the predominant discourse in which traditionalist identity forms itself, this time from the other side of feminist discourse’s omnipresence: the liberal Western modern discourse that presents sexual conquest as a major element of masculine identity. As one male interviewee put it: “For men, it is an embarrassment to be portrayed as being conservative sexually.”

Women in the Synagogue The synagogue has been one of the main arenas in which women’s struggle for equality has focused. It is a clearly articulated, institutional, formal framework for a feminist discourse in the context of Judaism. Given the discussion up to this point, it is not surprising that traditionalist women do not fit into this framework, and they usually do not see themselves as part of this formal, institutional issue. It is safe to generalize that the campaign for a formal, institutional equality for women in synagogue life is not of major interest for traditionalist women, and it fails to mobilize them, even when they sympathize with the religious feminist’s cause, its principles, the motives behind it, and its champions.

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Traditionalist women tend to take the position that gladly accepts the fact that Judaism exempts women from certain ritualistic and formal commandments (such as praying in synagogue, the ceremonial reading of a weekly portion of the Torah, and putting on tzitzit and tefillin)—rituals that have been heavily contested by feminist Jews vis-a-vis the Orthodox rabbinate. Traditionalist women simply do not seek to take these ritual commandments upon themselves. Leah described this ritualistic difference between men and women as a “bonus” that women were awarded, as she expressed her reluctance to let go of this bonus: “Traditionalism does not put me in a subordinate position. I feel good with the conditions it poses on me. Some will not accept these conditions. For me, it’s comfortable this way. I can study, work, and keep on with my plans. So I was awarded with a bonus in that I’m free from the obligations men have to live by.” Traditionalist women—just like most other Jewish Israeli traditionalists—usually affiliate with an Orthodox synagogue, where women are limited to a designated space separated from the main floor where the religious ritual takes place. Traditionalist women usually passively accept the lower status assigned to women in the synagogue, which they see themselves exempt from attending. Most traditionalist women do pray, but they do so alone, in their private realm. They usually do so without using a prayer book— that is, not according to the rabbinical dictations of the ritual. The traditionalcanonical text most women told me they read on a regular basis is the Book of Psalms. Many told me that they address God in a personal manner. The position traditionalist women take in regard to women’s status in synagogue gains a unique character for traditionalist women who “were exposed to” or participated in egalitarian services in Conservative or Reform synagogues. It is interesting to note that in most cases, such an encounter took place while they were visiting in the United States, rather than in Israel. The recurring theme in these cases is that although traditionalist women found the egalitarian services to be a positive experience, they believe these services to be “Jewishly wrong,” and do not approve of them—and they do not see themselves joining egalitarian synagogues. Liat, who shared her experience in a Conservative synagogue during a visit to Los Angeles, stressed that even though she finds the egalitarian style enjoyable to her as a woman, she would never consider joining such a congregation. She neglected to explain why, as her tone presented this as obvious. The reason for this refusal even to consider joining a non-Orthodox synagogue might be found in the words of Liat’s friend, Hila, who also shared with me a similar experience of her visit to a Conservative synagogue in Los Angeles. After explaining that she finds no problem with the gender separation in her synagogue in Israel (“I have no access to the Torah scrolls, and I have no problem with that”), Hila explained that for her, the presence of women on the main stage (bimah) of the synagogue, actively participating or even

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running the service, is wrong: “I’ve never seen anything like it, that a woman would stand on the bimah, and I don’t like it. Women should not be cantors and rabbis.” So does she consider herself as cooperating with the subjugation of women? “I don’t see this as subjugation. … If I lead the service now, it will not make me not-subjugated. Since we all read the same lines, it doesn’t matter if I’ll be the cantor or not.” A rather extreme formulation of the two characteristic attitudes discussed here—both the passive uneasiness about women’s status in the setting of an Orthodox synagogue and the negative attitude toward egalitarian Conservative and Reform services—was presented by Tamar. Tamar opened by saying that she does not attend her (Orthodox) synagogue on Saturdays, but rather prays alone, at home: “I don’t find myself connected to the whole synagogue thing. … I go there sometimes on holidays with my mother, but I don’t feel comfortable there, and I prefer to be outside, with the playing children.” Tamar explained that her uncomfortable feeling stems from the lower status assigned to women in the Orthodox world, which she criticized harshly. But, unlike what might be expected, she does not value the alternatives, exactly because of the status they assign to women. As she described her first (and last) encounter with a Reform service: I was simply shocked. I saw a woman called to the Torah. I am a feminist woman, but I found it very hard to accept it. It bothered me. I accept the spiritual idea that there is purity and impurity. When a woman is menstruating, she is niddah and impure. And if we look at the Torah as something holy that was written not by human beings, then the woman comes and desecrates the Torah. Only so you can say that you were called to the Torah? Only for raising a flag? This is not the idea. … When everybody [men and women] is demonstratively called to the Torah, it drives me nuts. It was a horrible declaration of “Let’s break the rules.” Tamar also offered what she views as the right way to bring about a change that would benefit women. It should not be done in a radical manner: “The opening up [of Orthodoxy toward women and egalitarianism] should be done in a much smarter way, and not by breaking the rules. Like all those feminists who try to conquer all strongholds acting irrationally. We [men and women] were born different. I don’t like the notion of breaking down everything and inventing it all anew from scratch.”

Conclusion A comparison of this chapter’s argument with that of contemporary evangelical Christians (Gallagher and Smith 1999; Bartkowski and Read 2003) could

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shed an interesting light on the ways in which the specific case of Jewish Israeli traditionalist women can inform our understanding of gender and religion. Like evangelicals, traditionalists also “present a case for which neither secularization nor accommodation theories nor subculture enclave theories of religion provide adequate explanation” (Gallagher and Smith 1999: 211). Moreover, it might very well be contended that like evangelical Christian women, Jewish Israeli traditionalist women present a complex strategy of mixing symbolic traditionalism (which can be interpreted as positioning them in subordination to men) with pragmatic egalitarianism (which, as my interviews show, is focused mainly on the personal level). Indeed, this comparison can also be extended to contend that like evangelicals, the way Jewish Israeli traditionalists construct their identities is also aimed at “mak[ing] sense of the larger social change and their place in it” (Gallagher and Smith 1999: 215). As John P. Bartkowski and Jen’nan Ghazal Read (2003: 86) show, this social change encourages conservative women to “articulate more guarded, measured viewpoints” that are surely attuned to feminist arguments regarding subordination of women. Nevertheless, two prominent points of difference between these two cases stand out as relevant for understanding the complex interplay between feminist discourse and traditionalist identity. First, on the more personal level, Jewish-Israeli traditionalist women, unlike evangelical women, do not adopt a discourse of a “natural” or “metaphysical” subordination of women to men, nor do they seem willing to adhere to such a predominant interpretation of religious discourse. On the contrary, as the data in this essay reveal, these women are actively aware of the varying manifestations of institutional and cultural discrimination against women and are critical of it. They see practices of women’s subordination as a malady of society at large, not necessarily specific to religious or traditional-conservative segments of society. They adopt what is essentially a feminist discourse of gender equality in their daily social life, while at the same time struggling to maintain their sense of adherence to the foundations of Jewish tradition as they see them. This necessitates abandoning the one-dimensional dichotomy between conservative-subordinated and secular-liberated. Thus, traditional women can also interpret their stand as individual women as being safer and more secure than that of secular women. Second, on a more general level, Jewish-Israeli traditionalism does not offer an institutional and ideological case. One of this traditionalism’s main premises is that traditionalist “lifestyle” is limited to practice, while Jewish ideology or theology and institutional interpretations of Judaism remain in the hands of the Orthodox rabbinate. As mentioned above, while they accept these interpretations as an authentic manifestation of “true Judaism,” traditionalists see themselves as exempt from practicing these Orthodox dicta in full. Thus, traditionalist women’s constructs of identity and social practices do not collide

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or interfere with a coherent and demanding ideology; this basic separation between rule (which is Orthodox or “religious”) and practice (which is “traditionalist”) is what preserves their ability to combine symbolic traditionalism with pragmatic egalitarianism. The case at hand further highlights the need to refocus research so it will be attentive to the private, personal realm and its complex relation to the public, institutional one. One of the recurring themes in traditionalist women’s (as well as men’s) experiences is the built-in schism between the secular messages they broadcast to the public (by way of dress, for example) and the conservative self-identification they construct for themselves and practice in their private realm.7 This schism is a testimony to a side effect of feminist discourse’s success. This discourse’s permeation into the public, institutional realm is usually accompanied by a rather narrow interpretation of it as calling for an overtly secularist, liberal, almost nihilistic (at least from my interviewees’ point of view) conduct. As attested to by my women interviewees, this interpretation necessarily collides with what they see as more nuanced, practical, context-, tradition-, and value-oriented personal discourses, narratives, and identities. What traditionalist women teach us is that such a collision gives rise to a wide variety of “feminisms,” or feminist-based discourses, which manage to be attentive to the complex nature of private and collective identities. This calls for a renewed search for a sociology of religion and gender focusing on levels other than the institutional and formal ones. As stated earlier, one realm where this search could begin is outside of the synagogue and formal dicta associated with it, and inside toward the private home, the body, and spousal relations. One consequence of such a search could be a reformulation of the political call to action associated with feminism. The case at hand suggests that while failing to actively mobilize traditionalist women on the formal, institutional level, feminist discourse does matter in those private, personal spheres. While they may refuse to carry the flag of what could be termed institutional feminism, traditionalist women are heavily influenced by feminism when constructing their personal identity and spousal relations. Such a reformulation of feminist discourse might hence benefit both sides, providing traditionalist women with a framework associating themselves with the political aims of feminism and remain “Jewishly comfortable,” as well as widening the scope of feminist discourse’s influence. Notes This chapter is an updated and revised version of an article that appeared as “Gender Religion and Feminism: The Case of Jewish Israeli Traditionalists,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, vol. 45(3), 2006. Used with permission of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion.

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This chapter is dedicated to the memory of my teacher and friend, the late Charles S. Liebman. It was written under the auspices of the Institute for Advanced Studies at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, as part of a research group on Dynamic Jewish Belonging. I am grateful to my colleagues in the research groups for their continuous help and support: Steven M. Cohen, Lynn Davidman, Zvi Gitelman, Harvey E. Goldberg, Sam Heilman, Shaul Kelner, Ezra Kopelowitz, and Yael Zerubavel. 1. I am using the noun form of masortim—which should be translated as “traditionalists”—instead of the adjective masortiyim (which would be translated as “traditional”). This is a small step in the direction of stressing that the label masorti signifies an identity category rather than a sociological property of being “premodern.” 2. Interestingly, while most traditionalists tend to present themselves as choosing their Jewish practice individually, based on some abstract criteria of “what befits me,” there seems to be a general agreement among traditionalists on the meaning and content of what constitutes the “essence” of Judaism, which they seek to preserve. For a more detailed presentation and analysis of the practices that constitute this essence, see Yadgar and Liebman (forthcoming). 3. It should be noted here that many of my women interviewees also mentioned the predicaments of women’s status in society irrespective of religion. This is the background against which they weigh the competing discourses. As one said, irrespective of traditionalism or religiousness: “One cannot say that today there is equality in Israeli society between men and women. There is much more work to be done in this field, to progress in the direction of equality. … I see myself as a woman against this background. There is discrimination against women, and I feel it. And this discrimination is not related to traditionalism. It is beyond religion and traditionalism.” 4. All names have been changed to protect the interviewees’ anonymity. 5. Prevalent orthodox norms demand that women wear long dresses or skirts and that their shirts cover (at least) their shoulders. Wearing pants is seen as immodest for women. 6. Compare this with Muslim women attitudes toward the wearing of veils. See, for example, Read and Bartkowski (2000), Killian (2003), Predelli (2004), and Marshall (2005). 7. For a discussion on the private/public distinction in the current context, see Stacey (1990) and Griffith (1997).

j “Israeli Jews” vs. “Jewish Israelis” CHAPTER 7

and the Ritual Connection to Diaspora Jewry Ezra Kopelowitz and Lior Rosenberg

H

ow do Israeli Jews understand and build the connection between themselves and Jews who live elsewhere? Data from the 2000 Guttman/AviChai survey (Levy, Levinsohn, and Katz 2002b), the only comprehensive national survey of the Jewish identity of Israeli Jews, show the complexity of the relationship between Jews who live in Israel and their relationship to Jews who live outside of Israel. On the one hand, Israeli Jews express a high level of Jewish identification. 82 percent of the Israeli Jewish public answered that given the chance, they would choose to have been born Jewish; 95 percent feel that they are part of the Jewish people; and 70 percent state that Jews in Israel and abroad have a shared destiny. However, 69 percent also answered that the Jewish people in Israel are a different people than Jews living abroad. This chapter draws on data from a survey of three groups of Israeli Jews in their twenties in order to deepen our understanding of the way that Israeli Jews understand their connection to Jews who live abroad. Similar to the Guttman survey, the respondents to our survey also express a high level of Jewish identification and at the same time express ambivalence about the nature of the connection to Jews living abroad.

Two Types of Israeli Jews We distinguish between two types of Jews who live in Israel: the “Jewish Israeli” and the “Israeli Jew.” Each profile represents a very different understanding of what it means to live as a Jew in Israel, with distinct consequences for the question of the relationship of Jews who live in Israel to Jews who live elsewhere. We will show that “Jewish Israelis” view the “Jewish” component of their identities as autonomous from their living in Israel, in that they are able to imagine themselves as living as Jews outside of Israel. In comparison, the people whom we label as “Israeli Jews” do not distinguish between the Jewish and

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Israeli components of their identities. They view their being Jewish as one and the same as living in Israel. The Israeli Jew is proud to be a Jew, but cannot conceive of living as a Jew outside of the Land of Israel. In the coming pages, we will develop the above argument and then focus on the fact that among our respondents, the Jewish Israelis tend to self-identify as “traditionalist” and “religious” Jews, while the Israeli Jews tend to identify themselves as “secular.” We will then offer an explanation for the correlations between secularity and the Israeli Jew and religiosity and traditionalism and the Jewish Israeli.

Three Groups of Israeli Jews in their Twenties Our survey covers three groups of Israeli Jews. The first group includes 335 summer camp counselors who were sent as shlichim (emissaries) by the Jewish Agency for Israel to work in North American Jewish summer camps in the summer of 2002.1 The second group includes 278 first- and second-year Behavioral Science and Business Administration students who are studying for BA degrees at Ruppin College (located in Emek Hefer).2 The third group includes 101 students who attend David Yellin Teachers College (located in Jerusalem). The groups were chosen as part of a research project that focused on the work of young Israelis in American Jewish summer camps (see Bram and Neria 2003; Kopelowitz 2003a). The Ruppin and Yellin students were chosen as control groups to understand the similarities and differences between the Jewish identities of those who work in the summer camps for the Jewish Agency and other groups within the Israeli Jewish population. Table 7.1 summarizes the demographic profile of each group. For the purposes of this article, we focus on the religious/traditional/secular composition of the groups. As table 7.1 shows, the Ruppin and Jewish Agency groups are predominantly self-identifying secular Jews, while the Yellin students tend to be religious and traditional. We will use the comparison between and across the groups in order to gain insight into how issues having to do with the religious-secular spectrum affect the relationship of Israeli Jews to Jews who live abroad.

Imagining Oneself as a Member of a Worldwide Jewish Community How does an Israeli Jew understand the connection between his or her “Jewishness” and the relationship to Jews who live outside of Israel? In his book Imagined Communities (1991), Benedict Anderson focused on the concept of “nation,” asking how people can identify with millions of others in a nation-

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Table 7.1. Demographic characteristics of the three survey groups Summer Shlichim

Ruppin

David Yellin

Gender

Female, 59.6 percent Male, 40.4 percent

Female, 67.5 percent Male, 32.5 percent

Female, 92.7 percent Male, 7.3 percent

Age

≤ 20, 33.5 percent 21–30, 66.4 percent

≤ 20, 1.5 percent 21–30, 91.9 percent 31–40, 4.8 percent 41–50, 1.8 percent

≤ 20, 0 percent 21–30, 49.5 percent 31–40, 18.8 percent 41–50, 19.8 percent 51 and more, 11.9 percent

Religious identity

Haredi, 0 percent Haredi, 0 percent National Religious, National Religious, 2.2 percent 9.1 percent Traditionalist, 6.2 percent Traditionalist, 7.4 percent Secular, observe ritual, Secular, observe ritual, 24.1 percent 26.7 percent Secular, 56.7 percent Secular, 56.7 percent Secular, anti-religious, Secular, anti-religious, 9.6 percent 1 percent Secular, supporting cultural change, 0.3 percent*

Haredi, 2.1 percent National Religious, 25.5 percent Traditionalist, 24.5 percent Secular, observe ritual, 24.5 percent Secular, 16 percent Secular, anti-religious, 2.1 percent Secular, supporting cultural change, 5.3 percent

Place of birth

Israel, 91.2 percent

Israel, 94 percent

Israel, 89.4 percent

Place of birth of Father’s father

Israel, 6.3 percent Europe/America, 63.9 percent Africa/Asia, 23.8 percent Other, 6 percent

Israel, 7.4 percent Europe/America, 60.1 percent Africa/Asia, 28.7 percent Other, 3.9 percent

Israel, 7.5 percent Europe/America, 36.6 percent Africa/Asia, 38.7 percent Other, 17.2 percent

Mother’s Elementary school, education 2 percent High school, 31.5 percent Studying for BA, 6.6 percent Finished BA, 39.3 percent MA and above, 20.7 percent

Elementary school, 4.7 percent High school, 52.5 percent Studying for BA, 6.2 percent Finished BA, 26.1 percent MA and above, 10.5 percent

Elementary school, 22.5 percent High school, 42.7 percent Studying for BA, 5.6 percent Finished BA, 23.6 percent MA and above, 5.6 percent

Father’s Elementary school, education 3.6 percent High school, 32 percent Studying for BA, 5 percent Finished BA, 32 percent MA and above, 27.4 percent

Elementary school, 9.4 percent High school, 53.9 percent Studying for BA, 5.5 percent Finished BA, 22.3 percent MA and above, 9 percent

Elementary school, 21.5 percent High school, 43 percent Studying for BA, 4.3 percent Finished BA, 22.6 percent MA and above, 8.6 percent

*“Secular, supporting cultural change” was only given as an option on the Summer Camp and Yellin surveys.

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state such as France or England without ever meeting face to face. Why would someone regard a total stranger as a fellow compatriot—a Frenchman or Englishman? We ask the same questions vis-à-vis a Jew who lives in Israel and his or her identification with Jews living elsewhere. How is it that an Israeli Jew might come to regard individuals living in other areas of the world, whom he or she may never meet in a face-to-face interaction, as members of a common ethnoreligious or ethnonational community (see also Kopelowitz 2002)? We begin by looking at the cognitive dimension of the “imagined community” thesis. How does an individual imagine in general terms his or her connection to other Jews? In the next section, we will look at the actual rituals that people perform in order to build the Jewish imagination. Table 7.2 shows each group’s average answer to five questions that touch on general dimensions of Jewish belonging (broadly defined). The comparison between the three survey groups reveals clear differences in their worldviews. In this analysis, we will focus on one aspect of the differences between the three groups: the difference that appears in how the members of the three groups answered the first four questions in the table in comparison to the final question that asks: “If you were born abroad, would you choose to be Jewish?” On the first four questions, there is always a positive majority in all the three groups. We see that a substantial majority of all three groups are proud to be Jewish and to varying degrees see themselves as Israelis, Zionists, and Jews. However, while the Yellin students are relatively consistent in their responses over all five questions, the Ruppin Students and the Jewish Agency Table 7.2. Dimensions of the Jewish imagination Ruppin Students

Jewish Agency Camp Counselors

Yellin Students

Are you proud to be a Jew?

74 percent

83 percent

88 percent

If you had the chance to be born again, would you want to be Jewish?

66 percent

53 percent

69 percent

Do you think of yourself as a Zionist?

50 percent

78 percent

83 percent

Does the fact that you are Israeli play an important role in your life?

64 percent

81 percent

60 percent

If you were born abroad, would you choose to be Jewish?

35 percent

33 percent

59 percent

*Table reports on percentage who chose options 5 (yes) and 6 (definitely yes) on a six-point scale.

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Camp Counselors are not. In comparison to their positive responses on the other questions, only 35 percent and 33 percent of the Ruppin and Summer Camp counselors, respectively, give an affirmative answer to the “born abroad” question. Our interpretation of the gap between the four questions that ask in a general way about being Jewish, Israeli, and Zionist and the fifth question that specifically focuses on being Jewish abroad is that a large percentage of the members of the Ruppin and Jewish Agency groups experience a disconnect between the idea of being Jewish in Israel and being Jewish out of Israel. They think of themselves as, and are proud to be, Jewish. However, for many that means to be “Jewish in Israel only.” They are proud to be Jewish, but cannot imagine being Jewish outside of Israel. As we mentioned in the introduction, we choose to label this group as “Israeli Jews.” In comparison, we see that the majority of the Yellin students identify as both Jewish in Israel and abroad. The fact that they are Jewish is not dependent on the fact that they live in Israel, and for this reason we call them “Jewish Israelis.” They are proud to be Jewish and can imagine living as a Jew outside of Israel. Of particular interest is the fact that the Ruppin and Jewish Agency groups are predominantly secular, in comparison to the more traditional and religious orientation of the Yellin students. In the coming pages we will compare between and across these three groups of Israelis to evaluate why the more secular respondents tend to be categorized as Israeli Jews, rather than Jewish Israelis.

The Ritual Basis for “Israeli-Jewish” vs. “Jewish-Israeli” Identity In the previous section, we began to flesh out the difference between the Jewish imagination of the Israeli Jew and the Jewish Israeli, in terms of the ability to imagine oneself living as a Jew outside of Israel. In this section, we ask: how do the two profiles correlate with the question of who the respondents are? As sociologists, we expect that the “Jewish imaginations” of the Israeli Jew and the Jewish Israeli must rest in the different lifestyles and social, political, and historical contexts within which the people in question live. We can use Benedict Anderson’s work in Imagined Communities as an example. Anderson claims that modern nationalism, the idea that an individual belongs to a “national community,” is rooted in a clear set of social practices that enable the “imagined national community.” Anderson points to the development of national languages that came about with the invention of the printing press. When people all over a country pick up the same morning newspaper, written in the same language, focusing on the same news stories and presented in the same format, they internalize a sense of involvement in a common group

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enterprise that did not previously exist. The important point is that a mundane action like reading a newspaper is also a cultural act that serves as an essential component in a national culture. Individuals connect in time and space, because they participate in a common activity with others whom they come to identify as members in a common social group, though they might never meet them. Anderson is building on the Durkheimian tradition in sociology that argues that mundane actions, like reading a newspaper, have ritual qualities that enable the connection to other members of a social group. In its most basic sense, ritual is an action performed repetitively in a predictable fashion. Benedict Anderson’s argument, as it is presented above, revolves around the morning newspaper as a cultural object. People handle the newspaper in a ritually predictable fashion and as a result create a symbolic connection to other members of the nation who read the morning paper at the same time and in the same way. From the example that Benedict Anderson provides, we learn that the ritual act involves three dimensions, which together generate collective or group identity (Marvin and Ingle 1999). The first dimension of ritual action is the presence of (1) a cultural object (the newspaper) which (2) turns certain things, places or times into a symbolic expression of the group for its members. The object becomes a symbolic expression of the group, to the extent that it is (3) handled in a ritually acceptable and symbolically recognizable fashion by members of the group (Durkheim 1965; Eriksen 1993). Carolyn Marvin and David Ingle (1999) use the American flag as an example of a cultural object in their analysis of the ritual and symbolic mechanisms Americans use to create a national identity. According to the authors, the flag is a cultural object that must be handled in a ritualized fashion that is highly regulated in American culture, and is thus an important means for creating a symbolic connection to the American national collective and for distinguishing insider from outsider. In the Jewish context, Ezra Kopelowitz (2002) looks at how Jews from different religious and cultural backgrounds create a normative and symbolic relationship to one another and to “the Jewish People” by treating biblical texts as a common cultural object. In the same vein, Shlomo Deshen (1998) analyzes the behavior of secular Israeli Jews on the Yom Kippur holiday by focusing on the ritual proscription against eating on Yom Kippur. Here, food is a cultural object to which all Israeli Jews grant special status on Yom Kippur (if simply by the fact that they have no choice but to relate to it). However, besides the mutual recognition of the common object, there is a tremendous variety of ways that people handle the object and imbue it with symbolic significance. For example, Deshen describes how some secular Israelis will purposefully eat in public on Yom Kippur, even to the extent of attending a beach party at which they eat non-kosher food.

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His argument (which we accept) is that by purposefully handling the cultural object in a sacrilegious way, this group of secular Israelis identify themselves as Jewish to themselves and others by imbuing a common object with symbolic significance—even if it occurs in the act of ritual violation. In order to intentionally violate the rules, one first has to know them and recognize them as significant enough to warrant violation.

Kosher Food as a Cultural Object in Five Social Contexts In the coming analysis of the ritual basis of the difference between the Jewish imaginations of Israeli Jews and Jewish Israelis, we focus on food as a cultural object that Jews share with one another. In the survey, we asked a number of questions regarding the handling of kosher food in different social contexts. The questions cover five specific contexts: the army, the university, the wedding, the restaurant, and home. The questions were: (1) Should the food in the Israeli army continue to be kosher? (2) Should the food in Israeli university cafeterias continue to be kosher? (3) Would you like to see kosher food at a Jewish wedding? (4) Do you only eat kosher food when eating at restaurants? (5) Should the food in your home be kosher?3 For each question, the person answered on a scale from 1 (definitely not) to 6 (definitely yes). Thus, just as Deshen explored the differences between types of secular Israeli Jews through an analysis of food as a common cultural object, we will now do the same vis-à-vis Israeli Jews and Jewish Israelis. Is there a difference between the ways that the two groups relate to the food-handling rituals in different contexts, and if so, what do we learn about the way that the relationship of Israeli Jews to Jews living outside of Israel is rooted in ritual behavior? Step One: The Connection Between a Positive Attitude toward Kosher Food and the Desire to Live as a Jew Outside of Israel We begin by showing that there is a connection between our ritual dimension (i.e., attitude toward the ritual handling of [kosher] food) and the ability to imagine oneself as a Jew living outside of Israel. In figure 7.1, we see a clear correlation between the attitude of the average respondent in all three survey groups towards kosher food and the desire to be born abroad as a Jew. The greater a person’s positive attitude toward food rituals in different social contexts, the more likely he or she is to want to have been born a Jew abroad. As we move along the ritual spectrum, we reach a high of 61 percent stating that they would want to have been born a Jew abroad among those who want to see kosher food in all five social contexts. In contrast, the more negative a person’s attitude toward kashrut rituals in different social contexts, the less likely it is

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Figure 7.1. Connection between positive attitude toward kashrut ritual and desire to be born Jewish abroad

that he or she would want to have been born as a Jew abroad. Among those respondents who do not wish to see kosher food in any of the social contexts, only 18 percent of the respondents stated that they would want to have been born a Jew outside of Israel. Step Two: The Public-Private Dimensions of Israeli-Jewish Identity In order to interpret the significance of the results in figure 7.1, we wish to point out that the order of the social contexts from army, university, wedding, restaurant, and home is an order that spans a spectrum from public through private contexts. By public and private, we refer to contexts in which the individuals have different degrees of authority to control the nature of a given social practice (Lyman and Scott 1967). The more public the context, the less control the individual has to determine how and if kashrut is observed. Thus, the army represents a pure public space in that the presence of kosher food is imposed by government mandate. Given the fact that a soldier must spend long periods of time in army institutions, he or she has zero ability to eat anything other than army food. The university is still a public institution in that the government also mandates the presence of kosher food, yet the individual only enters the institution for several hours at a time, increasing his or her control over the consumption of food (for example, it’s possible to bring a bag lunch). In comparison, at home the individual has complete control over the handling of kosher food, with the wedding and restaurant representing middle

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points in which the individual has some control over how he or she handles the cultural object. What we learn from figure 7.1 is that to the degree that a person supports kosher food in public and private spaces, we are also more likely to find him or her wanting to have been born as a Jew outside of Israel. Likewise, as one’s desire lessens to see kashrut in private and then to see kashrut in public, there is a steady drop in the desire to have been born Jewish. Using table 7.3, we compare the results of the “born abroad” and “proud to be Jewish” questions in order to understand the implications of locating a person at a particular point along the private-public spectrum. The comparison teaches us three lessons. The first lesson is that the degree to which people have a private component to their Jewish identity correlates with how proud they are to be a Jew, as well as whether they think of themselves as living outside of Israel as Jews. Thus to be a Jewish Israeli means that one must also want to see Jewish cultural objects (in our case food) in the social contexts in which the individual has some control (i.e., the private sphere). The second lesson that we learn is that to the extent that someone is an Israeli Jew, his or her Jewish identity rests on the presence and use of Jewish cultural objects in the public sphere only. We see from the comparison beTable 7.3. Comparison between “Born Abroad a Jew” and “Proud to be a Jew” questions* Contexts in which respondent feels kashrut should be observed None

Only Public

Public and Private

Army (N=78)

Army + University (N=152)

Army + Army + University + University + Wedding + Wedding Home (N=56) (N=37)

Army + University + Wedding + Restaurant + Home (N=160)

percent of Entire Population giving positive answer

23 percent

31 percent

39 percent

41 percent

61 percent

37 percent

2. Difference from mean –19 percent –14 percent –6 percent

2 percent

4 percent

24 percent

3. Is Proud to be a Jew

84 percent

97 percent

94 percent

4 percent

17 percent

14 percent

None (N=129)

1. Wants to have been born a Jew abroad 18 percent

53 percent

69 percent

84 percent

4. Difference from mean –27 percent –11 percent 4 percent

80 percent

*The data in lines 1 and 3 show the percentage of the respondents for each kashrut category who answered yes (5), or definitely yes (6) on a scale of 1–6 to the respective questions.

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tween lines one and three that those respondents who are proud to be Jewish, but are less likely to want to have been born abroad Jewish are also the people who are likely to endorse the presence of kosher food in the public sphere, but not in the private sphere. We also learn from figure 7.2 that the desire to see kosher food in both the army and university cafeteria is an important cut-off point. This is seen by comparing each sub-group to the mean on both the “born abroad” and “proud to be Jewish” questions. From line one, we learn that 37 percent of respondents from our three survey groups answered positively (choosing 5 or 6 on 1 to 6 scale) the question: “If you were born abroad, would you choose to be Jewish?” We also learn that those who want to see kosher food in public but not in private are 6 percent less likely than their fellows to give a positive response to the “born abroad” question. Yet this same sub-group stands 4 percent above the mean of the “proud to be a Jew” question. They might not want to have been born Jewish abroad, but they are proud to be Jewish. In comparison, those who want to see kosher food in the army, but not the university, or those who do not want to see kosher food at all fall below the mean on both the “born abroad” and “proud to be Jewish” questions. The conclusion is that the Israeli Jew, the person who is proud to be Jewish but cannot imagine him- or herself living as a Jew abroad, is a person who is in favor of seeing Jewish cultural objects in public contexts (i.e., kosher food in both army and university), but not in private contexts. The ritual basis of the Israeli Jews’ “Jewishness” is the result of a public, rather than private, orientation, which is the crucial variable for distinguishing this group from “Jewish Israelis.” The third lesson from table 7.3 is that a person who does not identify with the Jewishness of the Israeli public sphere (in our case, this is a person who does not want to see kosher food in at least the army) is also far less likely to be proud to be a Jew, falling 27 percent below the rest of the group on the question of Jewish pride. These respondents represent a third profile, namely the “Israeli,” who stands in contrast to the Israeli Jew and the Jewish Israeli. The “Israeli” teaches us that the Jewish component of the Israeli-Jewish identity is dependent on a positive attitude toward Jewishness of the public environment in Israel. Step Three: The Israeli Jew is a Secular Jew We learn from the above analysis that Israeli Jews are the product of the Israeli public sphere in that their Jewish pride correlates with a positive attitude toward kashrut rituals in public institutions and a negative attitude toward kashrut rituals in the private sphere. These people are Jewish in public contexts without feeling the need to do Jewish things (kashrut rituals) in their private lives.

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Comparative research by Steve Bruce (1996; 2000; 2002) and David Martin (1978) teach us that a similar phenomenon exists in European countries, which like Israel limit the freedom of individuals in the area of religious choice. In countries like Ireland and Poland, individuals are free to abstain from practicing religion in their everyday lives, but when they choose to perform a life-cycle ceremony (marriage, burial, divorce) according to religious tradition, the state grants authority to a state-sanctioned religious establishment to determine legitimate religious practice. The fact that the state bars religious innovation means that people tend to revert to a secular (“I am not religious”) identity, rather than developing alternative religious identities. In the Israeli case, this speaks to the fact that non-Orthodox Jews in Israel have never developed religious alternatives such as Reform or Conservative Judaism, but instead choose to define themselves in a negative fashion (i.e., secular), as standing against state-sponsored Orthodoxy (see Tabory 1991; Kopelowitz 2000). As in Israel, in Poland and Ireland we are likely to witness the existence of groups who identify as both secular and Christian. People regard themselves as secular because they do not practice ritual in their daily life; however, at the same time, they tend to support the Catholic character of their nation-state. Indeed, we think this describes the Israeli Jew. The Israeli Jew is a product of the Jewishness of the Israeli public sphere that is created from above, and not at the private initiative of the individual (for elaboration, see Kopelowitz and Israel 2005). Does this mean that the Israeli Jew is also a secular Jew? The data in table 7.4 indicate a clear positive answer to this question. We see that half of the people who chose to describe themselves in the survey as “secular” are located in the “army” or “army + university” categories. In comparison, among those who chose to describe themselves as “secular, but observe ritual,” there is a marked shift with only 22 percent located in the “army” or “army + university” categories and 44 percent located in categories with some significant degree of private initiative (wedding, restaurant, and home). Those who described themselves as Traditionalist or National Religious are concentrated almost entirely in the categories that include the private social contexts. The correlation between Israeli Jewishness and secularity is confirmed by table 7.5, which shows the interaction between the secular/religious spectrum and the public/private spectrum. As we saw in the previous section, with the additional distinction made here for the secular/religious identity of the respondents, the more likely one is to reject the presence of kosher ritual in the private sphere, the less likely one is to want to have been born abroad as a Jew. Finally, figure 7.2 offers a comparison across the three survey groups. The comparison shows a correlation between the religious/secular character of each group and the average relationship of its members to kosher food and the

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Table 7.4. Distribution of secular/religious by attitude toward kashrut Contexts in which the respondent wants to see kosher food Chose other combinations*

Army + University + Wedding + Restaurant + Home

Army + University + Wedding + Army + Home University

6 percent

0 percent

0 percent

16 percent 0 percent

13 percent 65 percent Secular, antireligious (n=31)

22 percent 2 percent

2 percent

33 percent 4 percent

16 percent 21 percent Secular (n=342)

29 percent 31 percent

12 percent

15 percent 1 percent

7 percent

5 percent

Secular, observe ritual (n=170)

12 percent 71 percent

10 percent

5 percent

0 percent

2 percent) 0 percent

Traditionalist (n=62)

8 percent

2 percent

0 percent

0 percent

0 percent

National Religious (n=58)

90 percent

Army

None

0 percent

Self Defined Religiosity

Wedding

*There were twenty-five possible combinations of the five kashrut variables. We did not include in the table any combination that had less than thirteen respondents from the entire population.

Table 7.5. Percent of secular/religious who want to have been born abroad Jewish organized by attitude toward kashrut* None

None

Secular Secular, observe ritual

Public Only

Army

Army + University

Private Only

Wedding

Private and Public Army + Army + University + University + Wedding Wedding + Home

Army + University + Wedding + Restaurant + Home

27 percent 27 percent 30 percent 50 percent 38 percent 23 percent 40 percent

64 percent

52 percent

58 percent

Traditionalist

68 percent

National Religious

58 percent

*The data show the percentage of the respondents, organized by their self-defined religiosity and attitude toward kashrut, who answered yes (5), or definitely yes (6) on a scale of 1–6 to the question of wanting to have been born abroad as a Jew. The empty cells indicate that no respondents or less than ten respondents in the particular subgroup supported the particular combination of kashrut ritual.

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Figure 7.2. Connection between positive attitude toward kashrut ritual and desire to be born Jewish abroad—by group

question of being born abroad Jewish. In table 7.1 (above) we learned that the Yellin students tend to identify as traditional or national religious, while the members of the other two groups tend to identify as secular. The comparison teaches that in all three groups, as we move to higher levels of supporting the presence of kosher food, the respondents are more likely to imagine themselves having been born abroad as Jews. However, the rise is far sharper for the traditionalist/religious Yellin students than for the other two groups. For example, among those who support the presence of kosher food in all five social contexts, 75 percent of the Yellin students can imagine themselves living abroad as Jews vis-à-vis 56 percent and 48 percent of the Ruppin and Jewish Agency groups. The significance of the results in figure 7.2 is that despite the ideological differences between the two secular groups, we still do not see a major difference in terms of their attitude toward kashrut and their relationship to the question of living as Jews abroad. In table 7.2, we saw that the camp counselors are far more likely to identify as Zionists—an ideological commitment we might expect after these individuals choose to undergo the Jewish Agency selection and training program and then to spend a summer working with Diaspora Jews. Yet, this does not affect their answer to the major question of the chapter—their relationship to Diaspora Jewry. The conclusion is that the secular character of the two groups is what counts.

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Conclusion In this essay, we learn that almost all the people covered by our survey express a high level of positive Jewish identification; yet there are two distinct approaches in the relationship of these “proud Jews” to Jews who live outside of Israel. There are Israeli Jews who understand the fact that they are Jewish as one and the same as living in Israel, and cannot imagine wanting to have been born as a Jew abroad. In contrast, there are Jewish Israelis who do not make the fact that they are Jewish dependent on living in Israel and can imagine themselves living as Jews abroad. These two forms of “Jewish imagination” are rooted in a clear set of public and private ritual practices that we explored by looking at attitudes toward performing kashrut ritual in five social contexts. We learned that to the degree that people add in a private component to their Jewish identity, they will also think of themselves as living outside of Israel as Jews. Likewise, to the extent that a person’s Jewish identity rests on the presence and use of Jewish cultural objects in the public sphere only, so he or she is less likely to want to have been born Jewish abroad. The profile of the Israeli Jew is thus a public profile. The fact of living in the Israeli public sphere and positively affirming its Jewish character seems to correlate with the strong sense of Jewish identification expressed by these Israelis. The Israeli Jew is proud to be a Jew, but is not Jewish due to any type of private initiative on his or her part. As discussed above, the profile of the Israeli Jew correlates with the secularity of a given population. The more secular the group, the more likely we are to find the presence of Israeli Jews who are proud to be Jewish, but do not imagine themselves having been born as Jews abroad. The result is that we gain insight into both the question of the relationship of Jews who live in Israel to Jews who live abroad, and to the question of the differences between secular, traditional, and religious Jews in Israel. The correlation between the secular and Israeli Jew on one side, and the inability to imagine oneself having been born abroad as a Jew on the other side, occurs because both forms of identity are dependent on the public institutions of Israeli society. For these respondents, their Jewishness is associated with the fact that they live in the Israeli public context, which is also a Jewish context. If they are taken out of the Israeli context, and placed in another country, then the public dimension of their Jewish identity disappears, leaving them no positive Jewish content in their private lives. In contrast, Jewish Israelis can take the private sphere dimension of their Jewish identity and transplant it anywhere. One does not need to live in Israel in order to practice religious ritual in the private sphere.

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Notes The authors wish to thank the Department for Jewish Zionist Education of the Jewish Agency for providing funding for this research. We wish to thank Steven M. Cohen and Pablo Markin for their feedback and ideas regarding the managing and presentation of data, and Pablo Markin, Keren Elkayam, Hadar Franco, Efrat Meir, and Biranit Meltzer for their assistance and input at different stages of the project. 1. The Summer Camp Counselor survey was conducted in April 2002. 2. The Ruppin survey was conducted in November 2001. 3. The reader should note that four of the five questions focus on the ideal: what type of ritual practice regarding kosher food a person would want to see. The question about the restaurant focuses on actual practice.

j Engaging the Next Generation CHAPTER 8

of American Jews Distinguishing the In-Married, Intermarried, and Non-Married Steven M. Cohen

“All Gaul is divided into three parts. . . . All these differ from each other in language, customs and laws.” —Julius Caesar, The Gallic Wars, 58 BC

W

hat Caesar said of Gaul may be said of today’s American Jews under the age of forty. Those “young adults” (as they are called by members of my now middle-aged generation) may be divided into three, each with their own characteristic patterns of Jewish engagement: • The in-married, • The intermarried, and • The non-married.

“All these differ from each other,” not quite in “language, customs, and laws,” but certainly with respect to Jewish affiliation, knowledge, and interest. As the Jewish engagement agenda (known alternately as “Jewish Continuity” or “Jewish Renaissance and Renewal”) has come to occupy center stage in the organized Jewish community, we would do well to more sharply distinguish among these groups than we generally do. For these three groups—with vastly different rates of institutional affiliation, informal connections, ritual observance, and simple Jewish passion—pose quite different challenges to the efforts of organized Jewry to engage them, and demand quite distinctive strategies and practices. Indeed, while not denying the diversity within these groups, they still generally abide very different approaches to the meaning of the terms Jewish, Jewish identity, Jewish community, and Jewish peoplehood.

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The In-Married, the Intermarried and the Non-Married Consider the following: Jewish engagement indicators vary widely among those who are intermarried parents, in-married parents, and non-married (all results taken from the 2000–2001 NJPS, for Jews age 25–39). Of in-married parents, as many as 96 percent celebrate a Passover Seder, as compared with just 46 percent of the intermarried parents, and 60 percent of the non-married. For High Holiday service attendance, we find a similar pattern (87 percent, 31 percent, 40 percent), as we do for fasting on Yom Kippur (85 percent, 39 percent, and 51 percent). The differences for synagogue membership are startling and indicative. Over 80 percent of in-married young parents belong to a congregation, as contrasted with just 19 percent of the intermarried, and slightly more (22 percent) among the non-married. Regarding contributing $100 to Jewish charities, the pattern repeats: 60 percent, 16 percent, 17 percent. In all ways, in-married parents are far more Jewishly engaged than their intermarried counterparts, with the non-married falling somewhere between these two populations, though generally closer to the intermarried. This pattern in the outward signs of Jewish engagement (ritual observance, communal affiliation) reflects not just the fact that Jewish rituals and institutions are so much better designed for conventional families than for other people (after all, for the most part, in-married parents are the ones who buy, build, and use congregations, schools, and JCCs). The patterns also reflect the inner feelings of these people toward being Jewish. Being Jewish is simply more important to in-married parents than to the other two groups—and they say so. As many as 66 percent of in-married parents say that being Jewish is “very important” to them, as contrasted with just 30 percent of the intermarried parents, and 36 percent of the non-married young adults. Why do we find these patterns? One reason is the impact of their childhood Jewish education and socialization (the home and community). Advocates of Jewish education have long claimed (with reason) that Jewish education, be it schooling, youth groups, camps, or Israel travel, “works” to reduce intermarriage, along with other salutary effects. And they’re right—the more Jewish education in childhood and adolescence, the more in-marriage years later. But Jewish education also, apparently, works, in conjunction with other factors, to increase more such traditional family patterns as marriage, early marriage, marital stability, and fertility. All over the world, more religious people, as compared with the less religious (and less religiously educated) are more likely to marry young, marry in their faith, stay married, and have children. Jews in the United States are no exception, as the following results suggest. Of in-married parents 25–39, 24 percent went to day school, as contrasted with just 2 percent of their intermarried counterparts, and 9 percent of the unmarried. If we take going to “Hebrew school” or more (i.e., twice a week

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Jewish school or day school) as a standard of more intensive education, the results form a similar pattern: 71 percent, 28 percent, and 39 percent for the un-married. In other words, by any reasonable standard, about three times as many in-married received a Jewish education as did the intermarried. These are, indeed, very different populations—with different Jewish histories, Jewish presents, and, I argue, Jewish futures as well. In short, as a group (individual exceptions aside), the in-married care more about being Jewish, in part because they have stronger Jewish backgrounds than do the intermarried, and the gaps are rather huge, if not colossal in size. The non-married, by similar logic, fall somewhere between these two populations. Of course, many single Jewish adults are destined to divide into the inmarried and intermarried at some point in the future. One more critical factor differentiates these three populations: the number of Jews who live in their household. As Robert Putnam reports in Bowling Alone (2000), a long line of research documents that people in larger households (i.e., with more people living with them) report higher rates of community involvement. Married parents are more active in all sorts of arenas than are couples with no children home, who, in turn participate in community life more than the non-married, be they single, divorced, or widowed. A similar logic applies to Jewish involvement. On average, in-married parents live in homes with over four Jews, as compared with 1.8 for the intermarried (one Jewish adult, and 0.8 Jewish children, on average), and 1.6 for the non-married (they often live with Jewish partners, or roommates). To the extent that other Jewish family members at home stimulate one’s own Jewish involvement, the in-married benefit from about four times as many living, at-home “reasons” (3.2 vs. 0.8) as do the intermarried to be involved in Jewish life.

Three Objectives for Three Very Different Groups “Engaging the unaffiliated” is the prevailing watchword among advocates of Jewish communal engagement. This rhetorical expression implies that: (1) the unaffiliated (in particular the largely unaffiliated intermarried) are the critical target group for engagement effort, and that (2) moving Jews from a state of no affiliation to some affiliation—any sort of affiliation—is the principal objective. Such a formulation ignores vast differences among the three young-adult population groups. In fact, since the in-married widely affiliate, a policy of merely aiming at affiliation ignores their Jewish potentialities and sells them short. Instead, practitioners and policy makers both do and should pursue different objectives with each population. For in-married parents, the prime objectives are, or ought to be, expanding their involvement in Jewish life and, in line with that, ensuring their children’s

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maximal participation in school and other forms of Jewish education. Their high rates of affiliation with synagogues, JCCs, and Jewish educational arenas make them identifiable and accessible, far more so than the other two groups. But their high rates of affiliation ought not be a signal for organized Jewry to, in effect, declare victory and go home. Affiliation, pure and simple, represents an opportunity for Jewish growth, and not its culmination. For the intermarried, engagement in Jewish life can best be achieved by bringing about the conversion of their non-Jewish spouses and, short of that, ensuring that their children be raised as Jews as their exclusive primary group identity. Current adults who are offspring of intermarried parents, but were raised by their parents outside of Judaism, hardly ever identify as Jews. Hence, efforts to engage the intermarried that fail to promote Jewish socialization of their children are unlikely to have much impact on the “Jewish continuity” of the next generation. For the non-married, we have (or, again, ought to have) two objectives. First, in light of the rather dismal levels of Jewish engagement among the intermarried, the Jewish community has a strong interest in encouraging inmarriage among those not (yet) married. Second, in light of that interest, and the under-affiliation of this group in synagogues and JCCs, the community has an interest in promoting alternative ways and venues where younger, largely unmarried Jews will congregate and express their Jewish engagement, such as it may be at that time of life. To be sure, the three groups merit varying degrees of attention, based in part on their sheer size in the population. The non-married, with 47 percent of those 25–39, represent the largest segment by far, followed in turn by the inmarried (29 percent), and the intermarried (24 percent). Alternatively, we may think of the number of Jews in these people’s homes as a measure of their relative importance to policy makers. By this measure, the largest group among households headed by someone 25–39 is the in-married, with 39 percent of the Jewish population, followed in turn by the non-married, with 36 percent, and the intermarried, at 25 percent. With either calculus, the intermarried constitute no more than a quarter of the relevant young-adult population, with far greater numbers associated with the in-married and non-married.

The In-Married: Promoting Engagement and Education Married Jews, by definition, are subject to the influence of their spouse. The very presence of a Jewish husband or wife, and the extent of the spouse’s Jewish engagement, clearly influences and interacts with one’s own level and manner of Jewish involvement. The arrival of children further stimulates ritual obser-

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vance and communal affiliation, if for no reason other than that Jewish childrearing is a Jewish act, and it brings with it other acts of Jewish affiliation, reflection, and involvement. The sheer presence of Jewish husbands, wives, and children help make the in-married the most Jewishly engaged of all three demographic segments under the age of forty. Yet another process contributes to their relatively high levels of engagement. As intermarriage has become more common, a countervailing trend has taken place among the in-married: They have become, as a group, relatively more engaged in Jewish life—more learned, more observant, and more communally active. The logic is quite straightforward. Those who marry out come from weaker Jewish backgrounds in terms of parental observance and Jewish education, as well as from those parts of the country with sparser and more recent Jewish settlement. The in-married, by definition, enjoy the opposing characteristics. When they were children, their parents were more observant; they experienced more extensive and more intensive Jewish educational experiences; and they lived in areas with more densely settled Jewish populations and longer histories of Jewish institutional development. In short, they come to their Jewish lives today with greater Jewish cultural, spiritual, and social capital. They and their offspring have spurred a major expansion in Jewish educational opportunities, with significant growth in Jewish preschools, day schools (both on the elementary and secondary school levels, among most Orthodox and many Conservative families), Israel travel, Jewish Studies courses, and adult Jewish education. In comparing the in-married who are 25–39 with those who are in-married and roughly their parents’ age (55–69), we find marked differences in day school attendance (29 percent vs. 12 percent), Israel travel in their youth (24 percent vs. 10 percent), Jewish camping (42 percent vs. 31 percent), and, if they attended college, taking courses in Jewish Studies (44 percent vs. 14 percent). In short, the in-married are far more Jewishly educated than were their counterparts thirty years ago. And signs point to an even further increase in the levels of their own children’s Jewish education. These signs suggest that the in-married are riding an inter-generational “up escalator” in Jewish education, if not Jewish engagement as well. For these families, the seemingly independent units of Jewish education have been working in concert to mutually mobilize and reinforce one another. Consider the following: • More engaged parents provide their children with more Jewish education • More engaged grandparents positively influence their grandchildren’s Jewish education • Children attending day schools provoke their mothers and grandmothers to engage in adult study (Grant et al. 2004)

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• Preschool attendance predicts day school enrollment, youth group participation, Jewish camping, and Israel travel • Youth group members more often do Jewish camping and Israel travel • All forms of Jewish education (except Sunday school) elevate adult Jewish engagement (and lower intermarriage) • Several Jewish educational experiences engender interactive and synergistic effects years later (1 + 1 + 1 = more than 3) These relationships, and more, point to an interactive Jewish educational system. The emerging challenge to policy makers and practitioners is no longer simply to expand available facilities and improve the quality of the experiences, as important as these continue to be. Rather, we must also attend to the linkages between the Jewish educational silos, to move people from one experience to another, both simultaneously and sequentially. Undoubtedly, other practical consequences flow from this analysis. But the key is not to focus merely on the minimalist goal of affiliation. Rather, we need to aim at the upside potential of enriched engagement among the many affiliated in-married, as well as those who are intermarried and non-married and, in contrast with others like them, do in fact affiliate with conventional religious and communal institutions.

The Intermarried: Beyond Welcoming As early as 1964, Look Magazine ran an article entitled, “The Vanishing American Jew,” predicting the demographic decline of American Jewry as a consequence of rising intermarriage. In 1991, analysts of the 1990 National Jewish Population Survey estimated recent (1985–1990) intermarriage rates at 52 percent (a figure challenged by some [Cohen 1994], and later revised downward to 43 percent [UJC 2002]), also documenting the large gaps in Jewish engagement between the in-married and the intermarried. As a result, intermarriage specifically, and Jewish continuity and Jewish education more generally, rose to greater prominence on the Jewish communal agenda, sparking efforts to “reach out” to the intermarried, welcome them into Jewish life, and extend the scope of Jewish education so as to stabilize if not diminish the intermarriage rate, among other objectives. Over the last fifteen years, it appears that neither has the gap in Jewish engagement between in-married and intermarried diminished, nor has the rate itself stabilized or declined. The 2000–2001 NJPS documented a slow rise in intermarriage (from 43 percent to 47 percent), owing largely to the increased number of Jewishly identifying children of interfaith unions marrying non-

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Jews in large number. The intermarriage rate of children with two Jewish parents held steady at the relatively low rate of 30 percent. Among those married, under the age of forty, the impact of parents’ in-marriage upon the chances of intermarrying is truly startling: as little as 25 percent intermarriage for those with two Jewish parents, versus as much as 85 percent for those with one Jewish and one non-Jewish parent. (The pattern resembles that found among other largely middle-class, white American ethnic groups.) In short, intermarriage is reproducing itself—intermarriage in one generation produces children with a much higher rate of intermarriage in the next generation. Intermarriage not only promotes eventual dissolution of individuals’ ties to the group, it also goes hand-in-hand with the dissolution of group ties. While measures of religious involvement have held steady over the years, and while measures of educational participation have grown, the same cannot be said for indicators of ethnic cohesion or collective identity. “Ethnicity” is a serious matter for Jews and Judaism. It refers to that aspect of being Jewish that extends beyond the matter of faith, worship, and theologically inspiring texts. It refers to the group character of Jews, Jewishness, and Judaism. It is why marriage, neighborhood, communal institutions, homeland, and peoplehood all hold a place of greater salience and centrality in Jewish life than they do for Christianity in America, which in some cases even lacks parallel concepts. We may compare Jews today with their counterparts ten, twenty, or thirty years ago, or we may compare younger Jews with their elders. Both sorts of comparisons point, directly or indirectly, at long-term trends. However we discern these trends, they point to the fact that fewer Jews are marrying other Jews; fewer Jews have Jewish friends; fewer have Jewish neighbors; fewer work with Jewish co-workers; fewer belong to Jewish institutions (save synagogues and JCCs); fewer feel attached to Israel; and fewer feel a commanding sense of Jewish peoplehood. All these trends are empirically and conceptually related, constituting what may be called the “ethnic scaffolding” of Jewish identity, starting with marriage and family, at the most intimate, and extending to Israel and peoplehood, at the most abstract. While the intermarried score lower than the in-married on indicators of religious involvement, they score lower still, by comparison, on indicators of Jewish ethnic involvement. The increase in intermarriage, and the decline in the commitment to endogamy both reflect and propel declines elsewhere in the ties that bind Jews to one another, and the sentiments that underlay Jewish collective identity. A recent study of the children of interfaith marriages sums up matters thusly: Fewer than one-quarter of the respondents described themselves as “religious.” When Jewish holidays are celebrated, the context is typically one devoid of religious content. Hanukkah, arguably the least

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“religious” Jewish holiday, is the most widely observed Jewish holiday among this cohort. Furthermore, there is little evidence that this population, in general, feels part of a larger Jewish community or feels connected to Jewish people around the world or in Israel. (Beck 2005, emphasis added) Clearly, the Jewish community has a great interest in addressing the steady rise in intermarriage and its adverse consequences for distinctive group identity. To date, the major effort of organized Jewry concerning the intermarried has focused on “welcoming.” The Jewish Outreach Institute (JOI), the leading advocacy organization in this area, articulates this approach clearly in its mission statement where “welcome” and “welcoming” appear repeatedly: The Jewish Outreach Institute seeks to empower and help the Jewish community welcome and fully embrace all members of interfaith families into Jewish life. … We seek to be a resource and advocate, dedicated to raising awareness in the Jewish community of opportunities inherent in welcoming individuals, couples and families impacted on by interfaith marriage. … We provide material, intellectual and moral support to Jewish communal institutions and professionals seeking to welcome interfaith couples. (www.joi.org; emphasis added) As do many others, JOI advocates that Jewish communal professionals should learn better skills to relate to the intermarried to make them feel more comfortable in Jewish settings, be they outside or (eventually) inside such conventional venues as the synagogue and JCC. Little of its material argues for advocating in-marriage, seeking conversion, or raising offspring as Jews and in no other faith tradition. One may surmise that, in their view, the clear advocacy of in-marriage, conversion to Judaism, and raising children exclusively as Jews may be seen as impeding “welcoming.” The practice of welcoming, at least as currently formulated, may well be undermining the articulation of a strong commitment to Jewish group cohesion. If welcoming were working, if it were provoking affiliation, observance, and learning, to say nothing of conversion and Jewish childrearing, then the relaxation of norms of ethnic solidarity might be a worthwhile price to pay. If insufficient welcoming were truly the obstacle to engagement of the intermarried, then one would expect large numbers of intermarried Jews to complain of feeling unaccepted by the Jewish community. In point of fact, the opposite is the case—just 21 percent say they feel either “not very” or “not at all accepted,” and these are disproportionately concentrated among the unaffiliated. Among intermarried Jews who are institutionally connected, about 90 percent feel “very” or “somewhat” accepted by the Jewish community. Contrary to the “welcoming hypothesis,” the intermarried have become widely accepted

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among American Jews and their institutions, if for no other reason that with a 47 percent intermarriage rate, the vast majority of American Jews are now related by marriage to non-Jews. The rising levels of acceptance cast doubt on whether lack of welcoming is the major impediment to enticing the intermarried to become active in Jewish life, to urge their spouses to convert, and to raise their children as Jews and in no other faith. For a good many years, parents, practitioners, and policy makers have all had a keen interest in engaging (or re-engaging) intermarried young adults and their families in Jewish life, be it at home or in the community. To date, these efforts have produced, at best, small and fleeting results. One could argue that more expanded and more energetic efforts in this direction will eventually produce the desired outcome, but the available evidence, in my view, fails to support such a claim. My sense is that the only strategy that holds out any hope of addressing the adverse implications of intermarriage for Jewish continuity is one that focuses upon conversion of the non-Jewish spouse (or better, fiancé). Even achieving the more modest goal of raising the children of interfaith marriages as Jews fails to substantially contribute to maintaining and sustaining attachment to the Jewish group, as so many Jewish-raised children of interfaith unions fail to marry Jews themselves. With respect to conversion, we have collected little systematic evidence on how and why people convert, and how rabbis, parents, and Jewish spouses can work effectively to encourage conversion, such as perhaps by a practice of universal rabbinic counseling of engaged couples. Until the Jewish community knows more and does more to successfully bring about conversion to Judaism, thereby changing intermarriages to in-marriages, the adverse demographic and cultural impact of intermarriage will likely continue unabated. In short, to be truly effective after intermarriage has taken place (or will soon take place), we need to move beyond the flawed strategy of welcoming to an effective practice of stimulating conversion to Judaism on the part of the nonJewish partner.

The Non-Married: Dealing with Diversity Non-married Jews, the largest of the three demographic groups among those 25–39, are the most diverse, at least with respect to the range of their Jewish education and upbringing. One reason is that the non-married have yet to “settle down” with respect to family—or, for that matter, often with respect to career and residence. So, too, have they yet to settle down with respect to their Jewish style of life. In interviews, they often portray their own lives as in transition, a kind of inter-regnum stage between the end of academic studies

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and the beginning of conventional family life. They believe that their decisions as to the person and Jew they will be for most of their lives depends in good measure upon the person they have yet to meet and marry. Other reasons account for their diversity with respect to Jewish engagement, especially as compared with the in-married and the intermarried. More than either group (whom most will at some point join, when they marry), the non-married display a wider range in their levels of Jewish socialization and education. Among the in-married, those with relatively strong Jewish upbringings sharply outnumber those with weak upbringings; for the intermarried, the reverse is the case. And the non-married comprise Jews with all levels of Jewish home and education experiences. The non-married, after all, is the group that has not yet undergone the sorting-out process in which Jews divide, in part according to levels of Jewish education and socialization, into the inmarried and the intermarried. The diversity among the non-married, though, goes beyond their widely disparate levels of Jewish education and the unsettledness of their lives. The non-married are so infrequently attached to conventional institutions, again, be it Jewish or otherwise. As such, they experience not only greater diversity with respect to their Jewish expression, but greater fluidity as well, moving in and out of episodic engagement with their Jewishness somewhat more readily and frequently than either their parents or their married friends. In research I am conducting with Ari Y. Kelman on behalf of the Andrea & Charles Bronfman Philanthropies and the National Foundation for Jewish Culture, we learn that a significant portion of the Jewish lives of the non-married is experienced and expressed outside of standard Jewish institutional locations. Beyond Jewish life in their parents’ families, they attend musical and other cultural events; they read books, magazines, and newspapers with Jewish import; some volunteer for community service; a few participate in salon or salon-like discussion groups; almost all use the Internet to connect with friends, events, information, and the news; and, some, generally the more well-educated Jewishly, participate now and then in congregations with a special appeal to people in their twenties and thirties. In due course, when they marry, and especially if they marry Jews, most will join synagogues, Jewish Community Centers, and/or Jewish philanthropic endeavors. But, for now, for the most part, they find their Jewish identity expressed elsewhere, outside the institutional network. They are drawn to “scenes” and like-minded “crowds,” but they have little need for conventional, formal institutions to express their Jewishness. The events, programs, and activities that seem to hold special appeal to nonmarried (and other) Jewish adults in their twenties and thirties share certain characteristics. These characteristics tell us something about the ways in which members of the next generation conceive of being Jewish, and by implication

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suggest the sorts of programs and endeavors with greater chances of appealing to younger adult non-married Jews, particularly in the large metropolitan areas where so many of them reside. Not long ago, Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett (2005) coined the term participatory journalism to refer to the practice of younger adult Jews creating and sharing their news reports via Jewish-oriented blogs and similar websites. Rather than receiving their news from a single source, these Jews are creating and exchanging their news of Jewish import, where the “readers and viewers” are also the “journalists.” Their experience (and her nomenclature) immediately suggests “participatory Judaism” as a useful and communicative soundbite-size way to characterize the current modalities in Jewish approach and expression among Jews under forty. Their Judaism is inventive, creative, contemporary, and social. They are engaging in the invention of new expressions of their Jewish commitment; they are blending received norms and cultural elements with contemporary aesthetics and current concerns; and they are exploiting the flexibility and freedom in innovating, inventing, and doing things Jewish. Expressing this freedom, as one interviewee told us, “If it’s not Jewish, you can make it Jewish.” To put this phenomenon in a larger context, cultural and social commentators have noted how contemporary Americans (and others in the West) are engaged in repeated acts of sampling from different cultures and assembling highly individualized cultural experiences and identities. They readily piece together music, symbols, texts, and other cultural elements from once-isolated if not disparate tradition, seeing the process as an act of creativity, and expressive of their own individuality. In similar fashion, younger adult Jews (and, of course, their elders, as well) feel inclined to sample and assemble traditions and representations from various Jewish sub-cultures (Israeli, Hassidic, Reform, etc.). Although Jews in the past, even in traditional times, inevitably absorbed the cultural aesthetic of their surrounding environments, the insular character of many such populations, in conjunction with somewhat effective rabbinic opposition, prevented the appropriation of identifiably “non-Jewish” cultural elements. Against that background, Jews may never before have been so enthusiastic about melding the distinctively Jewish with an aesthetic that is identifiably other. Music (or other art and entertainment forms) that is both Jewish and reggae, hip-hop, folk, gospel, Arabic, Sufi, Oriental, etc., exemplify what may be called cultural hybridity. Even fairly traditional Orthodox educators, performers, and artists are engaging in the process, lending a contemporary look and feel to traditional messages, and in the process, subtly changing the context and very meaning of “Jewish.” Their tastes in culture, which run to mixing diverse elements from within and outside the specific domain of Judaism, find a parallel in their tastes for

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people. Not long ago, a “Jewish” event or a “Jewish” crowd or a “Jewish” place was one where all or almost all the participants were Jewish. Hotels, summer camps, urban streets, law firms, and charitable or fraternal organizations that were identifiably “Jewish” met this condition of social exclusivity. Today’s younger Jewish adults define socially “Jewish” as places where most participants are Jewish, but where many are not. They often want environments where non-Jews can comfortably attend, regarding Jewishly exclusive environments with disdain, distaste, or both. They accept ethnic boundaries, but prefer porous boundaries to those that are hard and fast. They place a premium on “inclusiveness,” diversity, and comfort. And how can it be otherwise? With an intermarriage rate of 47 percent, with years of dating and cohabitation preceding marriage, we live in a world in which the vast majority of American Jews have been loved by and intimate with non-Jews, totally upending the experience of our grandparents’, or even parents’ generation, whose experience with family, love, and intimacy remained within Jewish confines. Related to the notion of porous boundaries is the primacy of place. We find young-adult participants in Jewish musical events who strongly prefer the same clearly Jewish program when it meets in downtown performance spaces to when it meets in a synagogue or a JCC. Many Jews engaged in social service are averse to volunteering under the auspice of Jewish agencies. In short, venue is important—where Jewish expression takes place is almost as critical as what sort of Jewish expression takes place, and many find specifically Jewish venues uncomfortable, simply because they are identifiably Jewish venues. Place and program are important, in part because of the people, or the “crowd” they draw. In short, people are important too. Younger adults judge the value and attractiveness of Jewish activity in terms of the types of people who are present, or expected to be present. Are they fashionable (“hip,” “cool”)—or stodgy, old-fashioned, materialist, and dogmatic? Are they from the right demographic (under forty, highly professionalized, socially progressive, non-parent)—or the “usual suspects” one anticipates at Jewish events? Are they a diverse group, consisting of Jews (and their non-Jewish friends and lovers) from varied backgrounds—or are they fairly routine and homogeneous? To these Jews under forty considering how to spend their time, more important than institutions and ideology are informal networks and style, or the “scene.” They remain suspicious of ideology, exclusiveness, agenda, any apparent judgmentalism, and are uncomfortable with an overt stress on politics, even on those issues with which they may share a consensus. In a vibrant and healthy culture, each generation invents new symbols, expressions and institutions. Innovation is inevitably suffused with distancing and differentiation, using critique, ambivalence, irreverence, irony, and ridicule to establish new patterns of Jewish behavior and expression. My own generation took aim at patriarchy in Jewish life, assimilationism in Jewish fed-

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erations, passivity in synagogues, ultra-nationalism in Israel, among other targets of our youthful critique. Today’s active younger Jewish adults are engaging in similar endeavors, albeit around different substantive and stylistic issues. At the heart of these efforts are several unusually creative cultural and social entrepreneurs. Typically, these are Jewishly educated individuals, generally in their early thirties. They have initiated a wide variety of endeavors in areas as diverse as music, film, drama, social service, spirituality, education, and, not least, the web, now home to millions of pages related to Jews, Judaism, Israel, and related matters. These entrepreneurs are notable for their dedication, persistence, passion, and conviction; notwithstanding their high levels of Jewish background and education, they resist being seen as too closely aligned with the conventional Jewish institutional infrastructure.

Implications for Policy Makers and Practitioners Three processes have characterized Jewish history since its inception: • change of Jewish religious, cultural, and social patterns over time, inevitably dividing the population into supporters and opponents of the old and the new; • assimilation of elements from other cultures and societies, with a potential for both enrichment or Jewish life and the dissolution of its boundaries; • diversity of approaches to being Jewish at any point in time, reflecting both healthy productivity and the possibility of fragmentation or schism. These processes, of course, continue in our own time, albeit at a far more rapid pace and with more sweeping effect than in the past. Jews in America— and elsewhere—continue to evolve, changing with the times, acquiring the forms, ideas, and aesthetics of their surrounding cultures, thereby producing a highly varied and hybrid culture that contends with the twin challenges of maintaining Jewish authenticity and modern relevance simultaneously. It is by now commonplace to observe that the world is marked by more rapid change, more frequent and intensive encounters of once-distinctive cultures, and by the wider production of greater diversity and individual idiosyncrasy. By extension, we may expect that Jewish life today is undergoing more rapid and thorough change, assimilation, and diversity than it has in the past—and that the pace and extent of change will continue and intensify. How are custodians of the Jewish community to respond to this circumstance? In writing about the adaptation of religious cultures to modernity, social theorist Peter Berger (1979) articulates three ideal-typical responses:

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• The Deductive Option, by which he means “deducing” or bringing down and standing firmly behind received religious traditions, and in so doing, to withstand, as best as possible, the challenge of potentially destructive and subversive changes in the larger society; • The Reductive Option, by which he means “reducing” the demands, sweep, and claims of the religious culture, so as to remain relevant to the public and resilient in the face of major social change; • The Inductive Option, by which he means “inducing” new responses that draw upon the authenticity of the old and the received, and, at the same time, comport with the newly emergent conditions. In point of fact, for Jews today, in America and elsewhere, the increasing pace of change, the extent of cultural assimilation (for well and for ill), and the depth of diversity will (and do) require a combination of all three approaches—deduction, reduction, and induction. We will need to know which standing truths and authentic traditions to preserve, which we can abandon with little harm to the Jewish body politic, and how to invent new ways of being Jewish that are both authentically tied to the past and compelling and relevant for the future. The proper mix of these approaches will differ from time to time, and community to community. Accordingly, Jewish communal policy makers and practitioners will need to contend with and adapt to a world that demands lines of action that are customized to circumstance, diverse in their approach, and shifting in their application. Notes This chapter is an updated and revised version of an article that appeared as “Engaging the Next Generation of American Jews: Distinguishing the In-Married, Inter-Married, and Non-Married,” Journal of Jewish Communal Service 81 (2005, no. 1–2): 43–52. Used with permission. Work on this chapter was supported by the Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies. My thanks, as well, to Marion Lev-Cohen and Ari Y. Kelman for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this chapter, as well as several conversations with Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett.

j Dynamic Belongings of RESPONSE TO SECTION II

Younger Jews and the Transformation of the Jewish Self Rachel Werczberger

T

he last one and a half decades have witnessed the development of new and creative collective forms of Jewish engagement on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. On the Israeli side, one notes the proliferation of activities related to the Jewish Renewal Movement, such as pluralistic batei midrash, secular batei tefilah, and the ordination of “secular rabbis” (Azulay and Tabory 2008; Azulay and Werczberger 2008); the upsurge of interest in traditional Jewish liturgy, like piyyutim; the establishment of Jewish Renewal communities intent on renewing Judaism by amalgamating a spiritual New Age perspective with Hasidic ethos (Werczberger 2011); and the emergence of a new expressive spirit or ambience among the West Bank radical religious Zionist youth (Fischer 2007). On the American side, scholars have noted the growth in membership of American Jewish Renewal communities (Weissler 2008); the emergence of the independent or post-denominational minyanim (Cohen et al. 2007); and the creative and innovative cultural forms in which young Jews currently engage (Cohen 2005). While the various chapters in this section do not discuss all of these developments, they share in these widespread phenomena. Each in their own fields of study, Kopelowitz and Rosenberg, Cohen, Fischer, and Yadgar all explore the contemporary transformations of Jewish collective identity and belonging occurring in the US and in Israel at the present sociocultural moment. The different cases examined in the four chapters reveal how Jewish identity, embedded in distinct social and cultural contexts, is reshaped and reconstructed through the influence of various local and global forces. These transformations occur against the backdrop of cultural change in the Western world in which autonomous individuals are increasingly expected to create clear well-defined identity anchors, some of which are drawn from their particular cultures (Melucci 1996b). In this brief response, I suggest that the current transformations of Jewish identity and collective belonging are related to the growing salience of the

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individual and the subjective self in lived religion. The expressive Jewish self searches for personal meaning within traditional Jewish social and cultural frameworks, often mixing them to create a spiritual, aesthetic, and moral blend that fits his or her personal sensibility (Cohen and Eisen 2000). What is interesting to note is that the emergence of the expressive Jewish self is also connected to the creation of new forms of Jewish communal belonging. The expressive individualism of the present era, as described by Robert Bellah et al. in Habits of the Heart (1985), does not necessary entail a narcissistic turn inward; instead it may affect the ways in which Jews of different affiliations form collective alliances via their expressive Jewish selves. Such is the case of the young Jewish singles, described in Steven M. Cohen’s chapter, who engage in the invention of new expressions of their Jewish commitments. In Cohen’s discussion about engaging the “next generation” of American Jews, Cohen distinguishes between three distinct groups: the in-married, the intermarried, and the non-married. From a cultural perspective, unmarried young adult Jews exhibit a distinct and innovative pattern of Jewish engagement. They blend received norms and cultural elements with contemporary aesthetics and concerns, and they fully engage with the cultural flexibility and freedom that contemporary society offers in order to innovate and invent in their Jewish practice. This group of young Jews is inclined to sample and assemble traditions and representations from various Jewish sub-cultures (Israeli, Hasidic, Reform, etc.). The lack of cultural hierarchy manifested in their cultural hybridity corresponds to another characteristic: the suspicion of ideology, exclusiveness, agenda, and apparent judgment. For this group, more important than institutions and ideology are informal networks and style—what they might call “the scene.” Cohen argues that by lending a contemporary look and feel to traditional messages and by eschewing traditional Jewish institutions, these young Jews subtly change the context and very meaning of being Jewish. The result is the creation of a Judaism that is inventive, creative, contemporary, and social. While Cohen’s young urban Jewish singles negotiate and reconstruct their Jewish identity within the framework of Western popular culture, Yaacov Yadgar’s Israeli masorti (traditional) women interviewees present a comparable case of feminist ideas and discourse percolating into and influencing the construction of self- and collective identity. Yadgar describes the various discursive strategies that these women employ to negotiate and resolve the apparent tension between their choice of a conservative identity and liberal feminist discourse. Although Yadgar’s interviewees refuse to carry the flag of what could be termed “institutional feminism,” his study reveals that that these women are heavily affected by feminism when constructing their personal identity and spousal relations. They adopt what is essentially a feminist discourse of gender equality in their daily social life, while at the same time struggling to maintain

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their sense of adherence to the foundations of Jewish tradition, as they see them. Yadgar argues persuasively that the traditional identity, as revealed in the case of the masorti women, is a complex strategy of mixing “symbolic traditionalism and pragmatic egalitarianism.” This distinctive approach reveals the complexity of living by a tradition that is socially transmitted and at the same time constantly chosen. The restructuring and the transformation of tradition is also at the center of Shlomo Fischer’s chapter. Fischer describes the emergence of a new “spirit” or ambience in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) among the young Emuni generation (one term for the radical religious Zionists), manifested by the growing engagement in poetry and other creative arts, the expressed desire for unmediated contact with nature (and I would add the divine), and the attempt to express or realize the natural aspects of one’s own human existence—body, sexuality, and aggression. Fischer notes that, among the younger generation of Emuni followers, this growing emphasis on self-expression and spontaneity and on the exploration of one’s own individuality is not followed by a decrease in collective commitments. On the contrary, he notes the increase in the number of illegal outposts and farms in the West Bank whose residents combine expressive and ecological notions and countercultural ambience with their violent radical romantic nationalist ideology. Drawing on the writings of the philosopher Charles Taylor, Fischer understands these recent trends within the conceptual frameworks of “expressivist romantic nationalism” and “authentic individualism.” He points to the expressive character embedded in the political theology of R. Abraham Isaac Kook, the religious Zionists’ leading theologian. This expressivist approach has directed the religious Zionists to uncover and express the “authentic self ” and the “inner will of the collectivity,” initially in collective political action—i.e., in the settlement project—and, beginning in the mid 1990s, in authentic individual experiences. While it is Fischer’s contention that these recent trends do not imply the creation of an autonomous religious liberal self among the young Emuni generation, he does posit that they demonstrate a significant measure of creativity in the reinterpretation of Judaism and the Emuni tradition. I argue that similar to Cohen’s non-affiliated single Jews, the endeavor of creative reinterpretation of tradition accompanied by a strong anti-institutional undercurrent is indeed a manifestation of at least a certain degree of autonomous expressive individuality. Moreover, like Yadgar’s masorti women, the present young Emuni generation, influenced by the increased presence of Western “expressive individualism” (Bellah et al. 1985), retains the symbolic discourse of a self subordinated to the collective ideology, while at the same time engaging autonomously in expressive constructive projects of the self. Ezra Kopelowitz and Lior Rosenberg’s research subjects, young Jewish Israelis, present a complementary picture to Fischer’s Emuni young adults.

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Based on data from a survey of three groups of Israeli Jews in their twenties, Kopelowitz and Rosenberg differentiate between two types of Jews who live in Israel: The “Jewish Israelis” and the “Israeli Jews.” The Jewish Israelis, who tend to identify themselves as “traditionalists” or “religious,” view the Jewish component of their identity as autonomous from their living in Israel: they are able to imagine themselves as living as Jews outside of Israel. In comparison, the Israeli Jews, self-identified as “secular,” do not distinguish between the Jewish and Israeli components of their identities. They view their being Jewish as the same as their living in Israel. The Israeli Jew is proud to be a Jew, but cannot conceive of living as a Jew outside of the Land of Israel. By comparing the two groups’ different answers to questions regarding the handling of kosher food in different public social contexts, Kopelowitz and Rosenberg depict the profiles of the Israeli Jew and the Jewish Israeli. They discover a correlation between the degree that a person supports serving kosher food in public and private spaces and the degree that s/he is able to imagine him/herself as living as a Jew outside of Israel. The religious/traditional JewishIsraeli tends to see Jewish ritual as a matter for both public and private spaces, while the secular Israeli Jew regards Jewish ritual as a matter concerning the public domain only. The Israeli Jew’s profile is therefore a public one. Kopelowitz and Rosenberg argue that in Israel, as in countries such as Poland and Ireland in which there is no separation between the state and the religious institutions, we are likely to witness the existence of groups who identify as both secular and Jewish (or Christian). People regard themselves as secular because they do not practice ritual in their daily life; at the same time, however, they tend to support the religious character of their nation-state. The fact that the state bars religious innovation means that people tend to revert to a secular identity (“I am not religious”), rather than developing alternative religious identities. In the Israeli case, Kopelowitz and Rosenberg claim, this helps explain why non-Orthodox Jews in Israel have not developed religious alternatives such as Reform or Conservative Judaism, but instead choose to define themselves in a negative fashion, as secularists standing against statesponsored Orthodoxy. However, based on my own study on Jewish Renewal in Israel and in the US, I contend that the recent developments in the Israeli Jewish secular sphere may attest to new social orientations (Azulay and Werczberger 2008; Werczberger forthcoming). It seems as if in the last fifteen years, the dominant normative non-religious perspective described by Kopelowitz and Rosenberg is being transformed by small trend-setting elites. Various groups who sociologically belong to the Israeli-secular sphere look for new definitions for their Jewish identity and create new frameworks for Jewish collective engagement. In these new modes of collective belonging, the self and expressive individuality hold salient positions.

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The members of the Jewish Renewal movement reject the hegemony of Orthodox interpretive frameworks and search for personal meanings within traditional Jewish social and cultural frameworks—through study of Jewish text and engagement with ritual. In so doing, they imbue Jewish texts and rituals with their own liberal and humanistic moral values (Azulay and Tabory 2008; Azulay and Werczberger 2008). In a similar manner, the secular participants in the Jewish Spiritual Renewal communities rework Jewish ritual and text with a New Age spiritual approach, stressing elements of individual expressivity (Werczberger 2011). These trends can also be linked to parallel inclinations in American Jewry. For instance, Steven Cohen et al. (2007) described the establishment of dozens of “emergent sacred communities” by younger adult Jews in North America starting in the late 1990s. While these new spiritual communities display considerable diversity in location, religious ideology, aesthetic style, mission, and constituency, they all tend to avoid the terms synagogue and congregation, thereby signaling interest in differentiating themselves from previous generations’ organized forms of local Jewish community. Moreover, these communities seek to create intentional, “authentic,” and spiritual experiences, whether defined in terms of greater liturgical virtuosity or in terms of deeper meaningfulness (Cohen et al. 2007). These sentiments expressed by the participants of the “sacred communities” are also shared by the young urban single Jews described by Cohen in this book and by the members of Jewish Renewal communities in the US. It is my contention that these phenomena attest to the growing role of the self and expressive individuality in present-day Jewish collective belonging. In this sense, the term sovereign self, coined by Cohen and Arnold Eisen (2000) to describe the Judaism of moderately affiliated American Jews, can be also applied to the cases studied in this book. In the case of Cohen’s Jewish singles, these young people allow themselves to choose autonomously from the wide array of diverse cultural practices, both Jewish and non-Jewish, in order to construct new and personally meaningful forms of Jewish engagement. Yadgar’s interviewees discursively negotiate choosing between traditional lifestyle and Orthodox identity on the one hand and liberal feminism on the other. Fischer’s young Emuni generation explicitly turns toward the self in search for personal meaning and an authentic religious experience. In contrast, Kopelowitz and Rosenberg’s discussion of the secular Israeli depicts an example in which “the Jewish expressive self ” is not apparent. This illustrates the significance of the growth of the particularly Jewish form of expressive individualism found among secular Israelis involved in Israeli Jewish Renewal groups. In conclusion, each case described in this section illuminates the extent to which there is room for autonomy in fashioning meaningful and self-centered Jewish identities within the historical frameworks and traditions of Jewish cul-

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ture and society—a phenomenon that is growing ever wider. This transformation has led to the development of new and creative forms of Jewish belonging. Within the global zeitgeist of “expressive individualism” (Bellah et al. 1985), Judaism across the world is being transformed. The acute variations between American and Israeli Jews notwithstanding, even in this aspect one can find a growing resemblance between the two largest national Jewish communities. By turning our gaze from the institutional aspects of Judaism toward the everyday lived practice and discourse of Jews, we can discover the contextualized social and cultural components by which contemporary collective Jewish identities and engagement are being reconstructed and transformed, both in the US and in Israel.

j Diverse Ways of Connecting SECTION III

to the Jewish People

j Constructing Jewish Belonging CHAPTER 9

through Mass Tourism Self-Narration in Israel Experience Programs Shaul Kelner

I am not a religious person / I was Bat Mitzvahed / I don’t attend Synagogue / I am half Israeli / I don’t speak Hebrew / I have never been to Israel. The trip / It’s free / Sure I’ll go / Sounds like fun / I signed up / I went. It was not until I was surrounded by 30 other Jewish young adults that I realized how much of me I kept hidden every single day of my life. It was not until my trip to Israel that I realized how much a part of me was Jewish.… I am Nurit and Nurit is Jewish and there is no way of separating the two. —From “I’m a Jew, Who are You?” by Taglit-Birthright Israel alumna Nurit Roded, posted to the program’s website.

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n the early 1990s, a tinderbox of American Jewish apprehensions over its collective future was set alight by a national Jewish population survey that found evidence of dissipating group cohesion. Spurred by a sense of crisis, leaders of communal institutions poured resources into a variety of educational endeavors to foster Jewish commitment. The most prominent of these interventions was Taglit-Birthright Israel, a large-scale effort to encourage Jewish affiliation in the Diaspora by sending hundreds of thousands of college-age Jews on all-expense-paid tours of Israel. Although the program was greeted with a certain amount of skepticism regarding the ability of a ten-day tour to produce meaningful change, a third-party evaluation commissioned by Birthright Israel has found a variety of program effects on the travelers’ self-understandings as Jews—effects that are consistent with those found in

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earlier research on “Israel experience travel” (Chazan 1997a; Saxe et al. 2000, 2002, 2004). The ability of tourism-based interventions such as Birthright Israel to intervene successfully in identity development is tied to particular characteristics of tourism as a mode of experience. A general accounting of these characteristics would address travelers’ symbolic encounters with place, their friendships with one another, their emotional identification with tour guides, and the embodied and experiential nature of travel, among other things (Kelner 2010). It would also examine program sponsors’ efforts to systematically develop latent potentials in tourism so that they might be put to identity-shaping use. In these pages, I focus on one important instance of the latter: Birthright Israel’s use of structured narration in a liminal group setting. This, I argue, plays a crucial role in encouraging among travelers a fleeting but powerful sense that a unitary, transcendent, core self exists—a core self that is understood to be Jewish, and also understood to have been hidden from them until the tour enabled them to discover themselves, as it were. It is precisely this sense of having discovered one’s true Jewish self that finds expression in the Birthright Israel alumna’s poem excerpted in the epigraph. The author’s unequivocal assertion of an essentialist identity begins with her title, “I’m a Jew, Who are You?” and builds through the assertions of self-revelation (“It was not until my trip to Israel that I realized how much a part of me was Jewish”), of primordial community (“I was immediately comfortable with these people that I had never known before in my life … because we were all Jewish”), and of liberating confession (“I have been … uncomfortable about showing my true Jewish self ”). It reaches its crescendo in the declaration, “I am Nurit and Nurit is Jewish and there is no way of separating the two” (Roded 2004). Established in response to a social context in which identifying as a Jew was only one of many possible self-definitions that people could adopt, Birthright Israel has sought to overcome the challenges that competing identities and feelings of belonging might pose to Jewish group loyalties. This objective, in many ways, runs counter to the contemporary tendency to affirm the idea of “multiple selves” (e.g., Fischer 1986; Giddens 1991; Mitchell 1993). Yet, in group tourism, program sponsors have discovered a medium whose ability to extract people from normal routines and place them en masse in explicitly narrated environments creates the potential to foster highly circumscribed self-understandings. In general (i.e., outside of the context of Israel experience programs), tourism’s potential for shaping the self through extraction, group process, and narration tends more often than not to go unrealized. In part, this is because tours vary greatly in the degree to which they remove people from their regular environments, place them in a group context or immerse them in the stories of a place. (Consider, for example, the differences between an afternoon trip to the local downtown versus a two week vacation overseas, or between a family cruise

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package versus a solo backpacking trek.) In part, though, it is also the result of a simple lack of effort. Most tours do not have as their goal the shaping of identity, and therefore do not try to mobilize the potentials of tourism to any such effect. Birthright Israel and its kindred programs are different. They are specifically designed to exploit these three characteristics of tourism—extraction, group process, and narration—in a coherent, mutually reinforcing manner in order to shape travelers’ identities as Jews. The trips are not merely tours; they are social interventions that deploy tourism as a strategy. The policy makers responsible for the trips attempt to maximize control over various facets of the touring process in order to influence processes of identity construction. What they typically succeed in producing is a social environment that temporarily marginalizes competing identities and encourages a unitary conception of a core self—a self that is centered on Jewish belonging, rooted in Jewish collective narratives, and affirmed by the interpersonal context.

Taglit-Birthright Israel: A Primer American Jewish organizations have been sponsoring youth trips to Israel since the Zionist youth group Young Judea introduced its “Summer Course” in 1951. Informed by an ideology of ritual hiking that Zionism earlier had adopted from the youth culture of pre-war Europe (Katriel 1995), and spurred by the technological and commercial developments that enabled an international tourism industry to emerge, the trips are better seen as an innovation of the modern era than a restoration of the Biblical-era tradition of Jewish pilgrimage. By the late 1990s, over one hundred thousand Diaspora Jews had visited Israel in the context of these “Israel experience programs”; thousands more were choosing from over one hundred such programs each summer; and the theory and practice underlying the tours had been refined through decades of experience. Just as Zionist educators concerned with nation-building in the pre-State era had argued that hiking was important to “educate towards a true attachment to the land of Israel as a concrete homeland” (Hershkowitz 1943, quoted in Katriel 1995: 7), Diaspora Jewish educators a half-century later advocated trips to Israel as “one of the most powerful resources that the North American Jewish Community has at its disposal to face the challenge of adult Jewish identity and involvement” (Chazan 1997a). They backed their claims by pointing to research demonstrating correlations between program participation and subsequent indicators of Jewish commitment (e.g., Bubis and Marks 1975; E. H. Cohen 1993, 1994, 1995a, b; S. M. Cohen 1991a, b; Israel and Mittelberg 1998; Kafka et al. 1990; London and Hirshfeld 1989; Mittelberg 1994; Rolnick 1965; Sales 1998).

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Participants tended to self-select from among those most involved in Jewish institutions. To use the programs to address North American Jewry’s so-called continuity crisis, a coalition of philanthropists led by Michael Steinhart and Charles Bronfman sought to create a new market for these programs among unaffiliated Jews. They decided to offer trips free of charge, emphasizing in advertising campaigns that the trips would be filled with fun, friends, and selfdiscovery. In English, they called the program “Birthright Israel,” implying that the right to visit the Jewish homeland belonged to the potential participants by virtue of genealogy, and setting the stage for the essentialist notions of identity that would be fostered on the program. For the program’s Hebrew name, they eschewed a literal translation of the English in favor of the term Taglit, which means “discovery.” Birthright Israel was launched in 1999 to provide free guided tours of Israel to college-age Diaspora Jewish youth. The ten-day trips have been run in winter and summer cohorts, timed to coincide not with the rhythms of the Jewish calendar but with university intersessions. Birthright Israel’s only eligibility requirements are that applicants consider themselves to be Jewish, fall between the ages of eighteen and twenty-six, and not have participated previously in a similar “peer educational program” in Israel. As of the time of this writing, over two-thirds of the 160,000 participants hailed from the United States and Canada. Birthright Israel does not operate tours. It is an umbrella organization that authorizes and coordinates the efforts of approximately thirty universitybased, community-based, religious, for-profit, and secular not-for-profit trip providers. Birthright Israel provides funding and support, and mandates curricular and logistical standards. In their Jewish upbringings, North American participants reflect the diversity of American and Canadian Jewry. Diverse and mixed motivations also characterize the participants. For example, although 72 percent of winter 2001 participants said in a pre-trip survey that always wanting to see Israel was an “extremely important” motivation for their decision to go on Birthright Israel, only 26 percent said that a desire to have a “spiritual experience” was extremely important, and 37 percent said that a desire to learn more about Judaism was. In contrast, 68 percent said that an extremely important motive was that they “thought it would be fun,” and 67 percent said the same of the fact that the trip was free. In short, while the participants had some inkling that this might end up being more meaningful than a typical vacation tour, they were more likely to approach the trip as open-minded tourists rather than committed pilgrims. On the trip itself, they easily slid back and forth across modes, usually following the tour guides’ cues. The tour takes visitors across Israel, passing through the West Bank but not stopping there for visits. The Gaza Strip, when it was still under Israeli con-

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trol, was avoided entirely. Each group of approximately forty people has its own itinerary, tour bus, driver, American staff (typically responsible for group building and chaperoning) and Israeli madrich/ah (“teacher-guide” [Katz 1985], charged with presenting a narrative about the sites). Itineraries are relatively standardized and include visits to Jewish holy sites, tours of ancient and modern historical areas, nature hikes, meetings with Israeli youth, social events, and guest lectures on a variety of topics regarding Israel and Judaism. Regularly scheduled group discussion sessions are crucial elements of the educational strategy, explicitly mandated by the sponsors. The discussion below is based on secondary analysis of data gathered in the context of a program evaluation of Birthright Israel conducted by Brandeis University’s Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies. In addition to fielding pre- and post-trip surveys of participants and control groups (Saxe et al. 2000, 2002, 2004), the Brandeis team, of which I was a part, also conducted participant observation on twenty Birthright Israel groups during the winter trips of 1999–2000 and 2000–2001 (Kelner et al. 2000). In each cohort, seven observers under my supervision each joined a different Birthright Israel group for the duration of the program. I was one of these seven observers in 2000–2001. In the previous year, I traveled among each of the groups under observation, while another researcher “floated” among an additional six Canadian groups. Groups were selected to reflect a diversity of sponsoring organizations and geographic regions.

The Liminal Context Indications that tourism might be harnessed to influence self-concept are apparent when one considers the basic act that all tours presume: travel. The act of leaving one place and moving physically to another is the essential context of everything that happens subsequently on a tour. By extracting individuals from their home environments and placing them in new settings with newly formed groups, tourism creates a liminal space. This alters the social conditions that ground identity, opening the possibility for existing self-definitions to be shed and alternative ones to be adopted. (On the character of liminal states and their relationship to pilgrimage, see Turner 1982, 1987; Turner and Turner 1978.) The people who signed up for Birthright Israel were English majors, choir members, teaching assistants, graduate students, securities analysts, daughters, boyfriends, roommates, friends, and more. But once they stepped onto the El Al jumbo jet, these identities were thrust into the background. For the ten days of the trip, the role most relevant to self-definition would be the temporary status of Birthright Israel participant. In this, all became equal. Little

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distinguished the status of one participant from another. Hotel rooms were shared. Dining was communal. Transportation was collective (those who happened to fly business class rather than coach simply benefited from the luck of the draw). The itinerary was standardized and binding on all. (One man who missed part of the Jerusalem tour in order to visit Israeli cousins was not refunded his $250 deposit on the grounds that he had not completed the program.) The only official line of hierarchy was the hard and fast line that subordinated participant to staff. Birthright Israel reflected perfectly the simplified social structure that Turner observed in the liminal states he studied. Of course, the withdrawal from the status hierarchies and social identities of home was never total. Identities constructed around gender and sexual orientation remained salient, particularly against the backdrop of the shipboard romances that were sought, shunned, assumed, or whispered about. Gendered identities were also encouraged by rooming assignments that were segregated by sex; in certain instances, religious activities were as well. An ethnic divide between Russian immigrants and native-born Americans sometimes emerged on certain buses, often to the disappointment of the staff. Overall, friendships tended to cross barriers of age, student status, and university (in the cases where several school groups traveled in one bus). Although an informal social status system emerged (i.e. popularity), this status system tended not to be formalized or translated into status distinctions on other dimensions. I was not aware of instances where a sub-group of participants received preferential treatment on the basis of status or role. Only the participant/staff distinction carried official weight. In this temporary reality that liberated people from social identities salient back home, Birthright Israel encouraged people to imagine themselves first and foremost as Jews. Such a self-image was not foreordained. The encounter with Israel could just as easily have sensitized the foreign tourists to the salience of their American or Canadian identities. But such a construction of self received only minimal support from the program. Even the encounter sessions with Israeli peers, which did remind tourists how much their North American context shaped them, were intended to overcome the national divide and foster a sense of Jewish unity that crossed borders. In Birthright Israel’s vision, Jewish identity was all. Jewishness was a shared category common to all participants and staff, it was the one that was associated with their eligibility to participate in the trip, and it was the one that could link them personally to the place they had chosen to visit. The program organizers sought to ensure that this link was made by weaving Israeli sites into a Jewish collective narrative while simultaneously urging participants to construct Jewish life stories of their own, mindful of the relationships these bore to the collective narratives.

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Narrated Sites Tourism is a particular way that people use space. When people act as tourists, they focus explicitly on observing the things around them in order to attribute meaning to what they see. John Urry labeled this “the tourist gaze” (1990). This entry into a semiotic relationship with one’s surroundings is the basic element differentiating tourism from the use of space in daily routine and in other forms of leisure travel, such as a beach vacation or camping trip. The tourist gaze implies that a site is not merely seen as it is. Instead, it is read as a symbol of something beyond itself. In Urry’s example, “When tourists see two people kissing in Paris what they capture in the gaze is ‘timeless romantic Paris.’” (1990: 3). Because meanings do not inhere in a site but are projected on it, they are neither fixed, uniform, nor foreordained. Those responsible for managing tourist sites construct them physically to encourage the attribution of certain sets of meanings rather than others (Katriel 1997; Zerubavel 1995), but ultimately, the visitors themselves wield the power to deny attention to these presentations (cf. Heilman 2002) or to read into the site alternative meanings of their own choosing (cf. Boyarin 1994; The Inner Tour 2001). Birthright Israel arranged its presentation of Israel in a way that encouraged tourists to project Jewish and Zionist meanings onto the sites. The educational guidelines (2001) articulated this intention by insisting that all trips address the following themes: (1) the nature of contemporary Israeli society, (2) meetings between young Israelis and Jews from abroad, (3) Jewish values, (4) Zionism then and now, (5) an overview of Jewish history, and (6) the Holocaust and Jewish life. To ensure that the travelers felt themselves personally implicated in the collective Jewish narratives that were being woven, the final theme listed was (7) “what it all means for us.” Birthright Israel was able to reconceive tourism as a strategy for intervening in the process of identity-formation because it recognized that the sites were important not in and of themselves, but as symbols of intangible concepts and themes. Viewing the sites as means to an end enabled Birthright Israel to move beyond thinking of an Israel tour as a laundry list of important sites to visit. It allowed program organizers to ask questions like, “If we wish to convey a certain theme, what sites are most amenable to symbolizing this theme? How might these sites be woven together in a way that will convey it most powerfully? Do logistics constrain the inclusion of other sites, and if so, how might these be thematically integrated, if at all?” In fact, much of this thinking had been done by Birthright Israel’s predecessors (see, e.g., Goldberg 2002a). I am likely overstating the degree of explicitness that went into the itinerary planning process. Much in the itineraries are the outcome of logistical

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constraints, inherited unreflective practice, and a desire to balance a variety of activities, some gaze-oriented and others not. Thus, even in cases where strategic thought was applied, the itineraries were not closed systems. As Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett (2002) has written, “an itinerary is not a textbook;” it is, “by necessity, determined by spatial relationships” and must take into account not only thematic coherence, but also “considerations such as variety, contrast, balance, weather and fatigue.” So although Taglit (2001) recommended that tour organizers teach about “choices made at turning points in Jewish history” by combining a visit to Masada with a trip to the Dead Sea Scroll caves at Qumran, most groups concluded their encounters with Masada’s story of struggle and suicide by heading to the beach. On the shores of the Dead Sea, travelers smeared their bodies with rejuvenating mud and bathed in the mineral-rich water. Such “surreal juxtapositions,” Kirshenblatt-Gimblett teaches us, are a hallmark of tourism and “contribute much to the interest and pleasure of the trip and to the sense of its fullness and completeness” (2002: 302). The madrichim themselves often initiated the thematic weaving together of sites. In addition to choosing how to present narratives about the places they were scheduled to visit, they also had some ability to determine (within the general confines of the itinerary) which sites would be visited and in what order. In an ethnographic study of four Birthright Israel madrichim, Clare Goldwater (2002), herself an Israeli-licensed tour-educator, detailed the processes by which the guides structured the narrated movement through sites in order to convey a theme. For example, one madrichah who sought to communicate that “Jerusalem is central to Jews and Jewish history” did so by bringing the group first to a nature reserve outside the city and then to a promenade inside modern Jerusalem with a view of the ancient walled city. The centrality of Jerusalem was communicated in the movement from a periphery that anticipated Jerusalem and served as a venue to introduce a narrative about Jerusalem’s importance during Israel’s 1948 War of Independence, to the center, where Jerusalem’s Old City and its Temple Mount would be seen and celebrated in song and blessings. But for the narrative about Jerusalem that the guide used to link the two sites, the linkage between a mountain nature reserve and an urban promenade would have made little sense (2002: 47–50). The other instances Goldwater analyzed also followed a pattern of “site sacralization” that tied narrative development to movement from a periphery toward a center (see also Fine and Haskell Speer 1985; MacCannell 1989). Beginning on the outskirts of a site, guides presented facts and stories that tied Jewish collective memory to transcendent human ideals, and built to a crescendo with an explicit, emotional charge at the site’s center. By using narrative to inscribe upon these places layers of meaning that were not selfevident, the guides transformed the sites so that they were not what they seemed at first glance. The archeological excavation at Beit Guvrin was not a

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place where tourists merely dug for pottery, but a place where they recovered their roots and communed with Bar Kochba’s struggle for freedom. The Kinneret cemetery near the Sea of Galilee was not just a place to see graves, but a place to commit oneself to change the world like the Zionist pioneers. The Masrek nature reserve outside Jerusalem was not simply a lovely spot to enjoy a nature hike, but hallowed ground where a Jew could affirm Jerusalem’s centrality by following in the footsteps of the Palmach (Goldwater 2002: 43– 58). For those participating in Birthright Israel, the constituting act of the tour was to gaze upon a place and to hear it interpreted as being significant in Jewish terms. This behavior established the paradigm for self-reflection that the program sought to encourage among the young travelers. If the program “worked” as intended, the tourists would gaze not only outward upon Israel, but inward upon themselves, interpreting the significance of their own past, present, and future; values, hopes, and dreams, in Jewish terms. Collective Jewish narratives offered frames to situate not only the place, but also the self.

Narrated Lives A typical tourist site, if it is arranged with some thought to presentation, constructs its official meaning through the structuring and marking of the physical environment. Perhaps orienting words offered by live people will be a part of this marking, perhaps not (Katriel 1997). But the presenting agency’s control over the messages communicated more often than not is limited to controlling the means of message formulation, encoding, and transmission. Visitors retain substantial autonomy in their personal use of the touring aids that are provided—whether, how, to what effect, etc. So too, visitors’ reactions after the fact, if any, are their own and not subject to the oversight of the site managers. In seeing tourism as an instrument for shaping identity, the organizers of Birthright Israel sought to expand their scope of influence. Not satisfied to focus only on message formulation, encoding, and transmission, they devoted as much attention to structuring reception, decoding, and processing. The mechanism of choice was the group discussion circle. Birthright Israel’s advantage was that it had access to the tourists before, during, and after each visit to a particular site. It tried to capitalize on this to do preparatory and follow-up work with the group: not for every site, and not to the same extent in every group, but at least to a degree. The codified policy was explicit: “All programs must include at least three group tie-in/discussion sessions. These tie-in discussions should be conducted every few days. Their aim is to enable participants to reflect on and process experiences they are having, and to link them to their own lives. These sessions need to be led by

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staff skilled in the area of group dynamics and inter-active discussion” (Taglit 2001:2). The frequency and level of formality of these discussion sessions varied. Some groups limited themselves to personal reactions to the places visited. Hillel, the Jewish campus organization and largest operator of Birthright Israel trips, preferred using the discussions to address thematic issues that were sometimes related to the itinerary and sometimes not. Its formal curriculum, entitled “The Seven Conversations,” was billed as “The Educational Model for Our Ten-Day Experience” (Hillel 2000). Staff and participants were provided with background material for “Conversations” on seven titled topics: (1) “My Connection to Jewish Memory”; (2) “Jews and Gentiles”; (3) “How I Relate to Israel—How Israel Relates to Me”; (4) “Special or Normal: You Choose”; (5) “Spirituality: Wrestling with God”; (6) “Israelis and Arabs: An Exploration of the Political Situation”; and (7) “My Connection to the Jewish People.” The staff manual included readings that had also been provided to the students, as well as guidelines for facilitating discussions, including suggested introductory lines, specific talking points, open-ended questions, and advice for the structuring of the conversations. The readings, sixty-six in all, ranged from one sentence to one page in length and were taken from traditional sources like the Bible and the Talmud, as well as from an array of individuals, including the eighteenth-century Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav, Theodor Herzl, Mark Twain, Elie Wiesel, the Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai, and the comedian Lenny Bruce. Like the Birthright Israel guidelines, Hillel’s staff manual also emphasized the importance of linking the experiences, themes, and concepts that were being introduced on the trip to the participants’ own lives. First: “introduce the conversation by asking personal questions of the participants.” Second: “use that knowledge of individual experiences and apply it to the collective experience of the Jewish people.” Third: “bring that experience back to the participants to help individuals articulate where they stand in this new context” (Hillel 2000: 72). Explicit personalization was an attempt to overcome the “problem” (from Birthright Israel’s point of view) that participants would treat what they learned about Israel as relating only to Israel and not also to themselves. Birthright Israel resolved the dilemma by asserting through its various mouthpieces that the tourists and the toured were linked by their shared Jewishness, and by encouraging participants to come to this realization themselves. And so, before the pre-dawn hike up Masada, participants in one group I traveled with were collected to offer their own views about the decision to choose suicide as free Jews over life as Roman slaves. They were reconvened a few hours later atop the desert plateau, having just witnessed a glorious sunrise over the Dead Sea, to discuss what “spirituality” meant to them and how Israel and Judaism related

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to it. After a silence-inducing visit to the Tel Aviv street corner where Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated, they were asked to open up and share their emotions with the group. At the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, they were prompted to engage the question of whether an event like the Holocaust could happen again, in North America or elsewhere in the world. In addition to eliciting reactions to the sites or meditations upon themes that the trip organizers sought to associate with them, the group discussions were also used to elicit autobiographical excerpts and to explicitly link them to collective Jewish and Zionist narratives. Just as the presentation of place would construct Jewish narratives, the presentations of self would be structured to the same end. The degree of narrative coherence in these personal stories varied greatly. Much depended on the way in which the staff person structured the discussions. In some cases, participants were asked to locate their personal and family histories in the historical contexts shown on the tour. The discussions following visits to Yad Vashem, for example, typically made mention of the way the Holocaust had touched participants’ families—who had survived, who did not, who fled in time, who spoke of it, who kept silent. In other instances, there were specific requests to link together a number of elements that had occurred across an expanse of time. For example, one rabbi asked the members of the group with whom she was meeting to introduce themselves and tell where they and their families were from. The narratives she evoked were thin, formulaic, and reliant on labeling and categorizing—a ritualized performance of autobiographical narration. Most of the speakers identified their grandparents’ countries of origin, commented on their parents’ religious affiliations and organizational involvements, made some personal statement of their own past Jewish commitment, and offered an expression of hope or expectation for their Jewish future. In one of the groups with which I traveled, the presentation of Jewish backgrounds did not adhere to such a structured narrative form. For our first group conversation, held in a Jerusalem hotel, we had gathered in a windowless meeting room, heavy with forest green and earth tones. A hundred or so chairs had been set up auditorium style, but we pushed these against the walls so that we might sit on the floor in a large circle. It was the first night of the trip, after a full day of touring that began immediately upon our arrival to the country. Straight from the plane to the bus to the tour of King David’s Tomb, the Jewish Quarter, and the Western Wall. It had been a long twenty-four hours. Some people leaned back, stretching their legs out straight. It felt good to sit, but the prospect of a group program was daunting to many of us, myself included, exhausted from the flight and the day’s activities. The conversation began with a staff person introducing the discussion and asking us about our expectations for the trip. People at first answered the ques-

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tion directly.1 Beth, whom a social network analysis later revealed to be the most widely liked woman in the group, responded first. “I have no expectation, no clue about what this will mean,” she said. “I will change in many ways. … I’m open-minded.” The young man next to her—a complex character whose concern for looking marvelous and keeping people laughing often masked the intelligent and soulful human being beneath—echoed the sentiment. “I have a lot of friends who came back transformed,” Sam said. “I’m open-minded, not trying to force anything.” Jewish backgrounds were largely irrelevant to this discussion, except for one woman who said, “My mom lost her religion. I want to see how I respond.” As the conversation wandered away from its initiating question, one woman who later displayed much more interest in her clique than in the tour expressed chagrin with her inability to understand what she saw. “The Hebrew is so frustrating. We can’t understand anything.” This comment opened the floodgates for a mixture of Jewish autobiography and armchair sociology. Sam piped up immediately. “Our elders did a piss-poor job of passing down the culture. Who speaks Yiddish?! I feel cheated!” Others picked up on this, shifting the conversation to focus on people’s relationships with Jewish heritage. In one of the few times he contributed something to any of the group discussions, Evan, one of my key informants, confessed, “I feel this pressure to dilute myself. Maybe it’s just not really understanding my relationship to it [Jewish heritage].” No details, just a hint that there was a story he was not telling. No one picked up on it. Another hand was raised and the string of two-sentence monologues continued. Mickey decided to tell about his “path to being the type of Jew” that he had become. He spoke in denominational labels. “I mean, I was raised Reformed [sic]. I’d like to leave here with a fuller Jewish identity. I’m definitely not Reformed. I’d like to move up to Conservative.” Then for the first time, the participants directly engaged each other. Mickey asked, “I’m curious what everyone’s level of Judaism is? [Someone] asked me, ‘How do you know the Shehechyanu?’ and I was like, ‘Are you kidding?!’” Ellen (Yelena) explained Mickey’s Hebrew reference. “Its purpose is whenever you do something new,” neglecting to mention the important facts that Mickey was referring to a prayer and that its name came from one of the Hebrew words in it. In what would become a recurring pattern in the group, Ellen was ignored. Eliza jumped in and engaged Mickey directly. “Not to pick on you,” she said, “but ‘moving up’ [in Judaism]. … We should be careful with the terms we use.” Eliza struck me as one of the most intelligent people in the group, speaking rarely but almost always thoughtfully and to the point. She criticized Mickey’s use of colloquial American Jewish language that ranks the denominations from “least Jewish” to “most Jewish,” measured in terms of adherence

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to Eastern European traditions and Talmudic law. On this scale, Reform, Conservativism, and Orthodoxy constitute rank-ordered “levels of Judaism,” to use Mickey’s term. Mickey’s terminology was not picked up by others, but the discussion, or series of semi-connected statements, did respond to the line of questioning he initiated. More and more people began speaking about their Jewish backgrounds: Male:2 “I want to experience my culture. My parents are not religious but my grandmother is.” Female: “I don’t know what I’m going to get. In Hebrew school, I never had the drive. [It was] forced. [Now, I’m] looking for something to believe in.” Female: “[I have a] strong religious background. I knew that I would [eventually go to Israel], but I wasn’t ready. Women’s studies and Judaism opened my eyes.” Some presentations that indicated knowledge or previous Jewish experiences led a number of others to assert that they felt at a disadvantage. Misha’s comment at the end of this conversational thread suggests a competition to be the one with the least Jewish background. Nell: I’m sure I’m not at the level you guys are at. Evan: I don’t want to sound like a traitor but I have a lot of … ambivalence. Lindsey: I don’t have the Jewish background a lot of you guys have. Misha: Out of all of you, I have no idea what’s going on. I have no idea because I grew up in a communist country. This was followed by a string of comments that defined Jewish background in terms of educational experiences: Male: [I took] Intro to Judaism [in college]. I thought it would be an easy class. I learned more in one semester than in all my years of Hebrew school. Male: [I was in a] horrible Hebrew school. Most of the teachers were witches. They turned me and my friends off to Judaism from the getgo. [I’d like to] find out why [other people] are so passionate about it. Mickey: Confusing. … [I was raised in] an Orthodox school, and a Reform home. I’d like to celebrate Sukkot, celebrate Purim, becoming more religious. Hundreds of thousands of Jews risked their lives [for being Jewish].

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The final word went to Andrew, who distinguished himself from the crowd in many ways during the trip, here included. Where the others were focusing on themselves as Jews, Andrew begged to differ. “I wasn’t Jewish,” he said. “I was the little white boy.” Andrew’s option—to define himself according to criteria that he chose, and not in the Jewish terms that the formal program and informal group dynamic demanded—was available to everyone. Few chose to exercise it. None of these were elaborate autobiographical constructions. The group discussions, after all, did not allow for extended storytelling. But they did provide repeated opportunities for one or two elements of people’s Jewish pasts to be recalled and invoked. The result over the ten days of the tour was an extended exchange that centered on presentations of Jewish selves. In other group conversations, fragments of memory were retrieved and related not as one-minute life histories, nor as selected vignettes, but rather as snippets extracted from some larger episode that was only hinted at. Consider, for example, some of the responses to a staff person’s question, “What are your Jewish memories?” asked during a conversation in the same group several days after the discussion described above: Isabel: After my brother was born, watching him grow up and be all into Hebrew and Judaism. Ron: Matzo ball soup. Whenever [my mom] made that, it was for something Jewish. Mark: My grandparents. They were members of B’nai B’rith, always. I remember when [my grandfather] passed. … That was the most intense. I am eternally grateful to him. Beth: When I did the semester abroad, and I was abroad for Passover, we prepared a large seder. Jeff: The movie Independence Day. In the end they’re praying. And also when Will Smith says, “I’m not Jewish,” and Jeff Goldblum says, “Nobody’s perfect,” and nobody in the theater was laughing except me. Lindsey: I went to a boarding school that had a very small Jewish population. Every year there was an international fair, but there was never anything Jewish. I thought there should be Jewish food. I got all the recipes and spent all day cooking. The examples are typical in their sparseness. Staff did not ask for a life history, but for selected memories. Beth and Lindsey spoke of specific episodes preparing Jewish food for specific events—Passover in one instance, an international fair in another. Ron remembered Jewish food not from any specific episode in his life, but as a theme recurring again and again at holiday time.

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The Jewish memories were retrieved deliberately at the request of a Birthright Israel representative who asked participants to think back only to specific aspects of their lives. Participants were not asked to reflect on their histories or memories as Americans, as men or women, as consumers, or anything else. They were asked only to select those elements of their lives that had something to do with being Jewish. What was not germane to this construction was treated as irrelevant. The group conversations elicited memories or imaginings of people’s Jewish pasts, presents and futures. During any one discussion session, the opportunity to construct a full-blown Jewish autobiography was minimal. Rather, each and every instance provided another chance to retrieve elements that could be pieced together into a larger narrative, and that for a fleeting moment signified the possibility of such a narrative construction. Often, these were linked with collective Jewish narratives that were also themes of site visits. Always, they were done in the presence of one’s peers, so that each person modeled the appropriate behavior for everyone else. The repeated focus on Jewish memories filtered out or subordinated other aspects of people’s lives so that the narratives that were signified had Jewishness as their unifying theme.

Conclusion: Coherent Selves On an average day, life typically flows by in a stream of semi-related experiences and abrupt transitions, as we move from place to place, task to task, role to role. We approach the physical and social spaces of our inhabitance in an instrumental manner, as materials that we use to enable us to go about our daily lives. No acute sense of life coherence emerges from this routine existence. Nor does our daily experience convey to us the sort of narrative closure that makes the lives of characters in films and novels so compelling. A sense of coherence is achieved only by filtering the continuous flow of life through some narrative framework that deems some pieces important and others irrelevant, and that slices the endless stream of experience into ordered periods with clearly demarcated beginnings and ends. The use of narrative to reduce the welter of human activity into a meaningful, thematized arrangement is the essence of literature (Bruner 1986; Polkinghorne 1988; Ricoeur 1984), historiography and collective memory (Zerubavel 1995), and ultimately, human authenticity in a certain sense. In one succinct formulation, “An authentic life is a storied or emplotted life” (Handler and Saxton 1988: 250). The act of narration requires one to step out of the moment and reflect, to select and arrange material in a way that creates meaning and coherence. Tourism is an activity premised on these foundations precisely, as the tourist steps out of the moment and reflects upon the objects of his or her gaze. Tour-

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ism thus has the potential to become a narrative moment par excellence, one that immerses the entire body in a lived experience radically different from the unreflective, uncontextualized flow of daily living. The organizers of Birthright Israel implicitly recognized this potential in tourism, and mobilized it to serve the organization’s ends. Birthright Israel encouraged the young travelers to gaze both upon Israel and upon themselves, and to place what they saw in the context of a collective narrative about the Jewish experience through history. This deliberate effort at contextualization took the disconnected and mundane realities that the tourists saw around them and that they recalled in their own lives, and transformed them into something more coherent and more meaningful. Because the same collective narratives framed both the toured country and the touring persons, the two stories became woven into one. Before they arrived in Israel on the social experiment-cum-tour, Birthright Israel participants juggled the multiple identities, roles, and responsibilities that are part and parcel of ordinary life. Birthright Israel offered a time-out-oftime experience in which it structured a social environment that encouraged people to overlook the complexities of identity and instead to construct a radically simplified conception of who they were. When all was said and done, the program suggested, they were Jews. Period. This is why they came to Israel. This is what bound them together as a group. This is what tied them to the land they were walking on. Anything else was secondary. This inevitably ignored or downplayed other self-definitions—a fact that bestowed upon this sense of Jewish self both its potency and its fragility. The power of this construction derived in large measure from the sense of coherence it granted. It provided internal coherence, as other self-definitions were disentangled and the plot line of life was simplified to a single theme, as well as external coherence, as each traveler’s individual life story was audibly echoed in the stories of his or her peers, and as the individual’s narrative was grounded in the collective’s. The construction of these internally and externally coherent selves was often experienced phenomenologically as a “discovery” of a hidden self—as if the travelers had been strangers to themselves before the tour enabled them to see clearly who they “truly” were. The feelings of self-revelation that attended the emergence of coherent identities on the tour only served to heighten the compelling power of these new self-definitions. Compelling, yet fragile. Upon the dismantling of the liminal environment and re-entry into life’s routine, the alternative self-definitions that had been temporarily submerged inevitably resurface. In this altered social context, the sense of core Jewish self that the trip fostered has to ground itself anew or wither. And so, accommodations are found. Some deem the notions of self promoted on the trip as chimerical, and leave them to rest as something appropriate for a time and place that have passed. Others continue to embrace

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this unitary construction of identity and seek environments that provide ongoing support for it. They return to Israel. They immerse themselves in Jewish communities in North America. They withdraw from relationships that do not support their new self-definition and replace them with relationships that do. Yet most travelers probably choose neither of these extremes. Instead, they attempt to integrate a Jewish conception of self alongside other self-definitions, as one meaningful identity among many. Neither willing nor able to escape the post-modern condition, they find their middle ground and they inhabit it. Notes 1. To preserve the flow of the group conversation, I present the responses in the order they were given. Not all responses are included here. All quotations are based upon written notes because, at the request of the staff person, the conversations were not tape recorded. All names are pseudonyms. 2. Because it was the first day of the trip, I still had not learned everyone’s name.

j A Jewish and Democratic State? CHAPTER 10

How American Jews Discuss Israel’s Identity Dilemma Theodore Sasson

T

he issue of Israel’s character as a Jewish and democratic state has come to the fore in Israeli political discourse. Indeed, most observers agree that were it not for the struggle with the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, Israel would be thoroughly preoccupied with battles over the proper relationship between religion and state and the rights of Israel’s Arab minorities. These battles create a fascinating dilemma for those American Jews who are attentive to developments in Israel: On the one hand, it is only insofar as Israel remains a Jewish state that American Jews will feel a special connection. On the other hand, American Jewish political culture is profoundly liberal with regard to minority rights, rule of law, and separation of state and religion. How do American Jews negotiate their Jewish and democratic identities in regard to the debate over Israel’s democratic character? This chapter addresses this question in relation to a sample of focus group conversations among American Jews. We begin with general background on the public discussion of Israel’s Jewish and democratic character.

The Democratic Character of Israel as an Emerging Social Problem There is nothing inevitable about the debate over Israel’s status as both a Jewish and a democratic state. Indeed, for some analysts, the combination suggests little if any contradiction, and certainly does not imply the existence of an insurmountable problem. In the sociological study of social problems, however, the dominant tendency is to treat problems not as objectively real but as the products of claims-making activities of social actors (Spector and Kitsuse 2000). Social problems, from this standpoint, exist only insofar as claims makers (including journalists, scholars, public officials, and activists) succeed in their efforts to construct them. Claims and counterclaims concerning the existence and nature of problems and over what should be done in relation

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to them are the core stuff of politics. Such contests shape the way elites and regular people interpret the social world, influencing their views on specific issues as well as the moral qualities of leaders and groups (Edelman 1988). For our purposes, the democratic and Jewish character of the state is problematic because social actors in Israel have succeeded in defining it as such. The key claims makers in this case are Israeli academics and journalists. In the academic discourse, the problematic marriage of a Jewish and democratic state is a central concern of those self-defining as critical sociologists, new historians, and post-Zionists. In a wide-ranging literature that dates back to the mid 1980s, these writers cast doubt on the democratic character of the state. In Israel, these writers contend, the rights of Jews are defined both individually and collectively, whereas the rights of non-Jews are defined only individually. “That is, they lack rights to common goods of the collectivity such as land, water, collective symbols, holidays, anniversaries, and commemorations. This differentiation between private and collective rights … makes Israel an ethnocracy rather than the ‘Jewish and democratic’ society it proclaims itself to be” (Kimmerling 2001: 230). In addition, exclusive religious jurisdiction over marriage, divorce, and conversion violates the central democratic principle that religion and state should be kept separate. Insofar as Israel limits religious freedom and imposes Jewish national priorities and symbols on its nonJewish minority, it does not qualify as a full-fledged democracy (Shafir and Peled 2002; Pappe 2003; Kimmerling 2001). Other scholars considered as reflecting the mainstream reject claims of Israeli exceptionalism. Alexander Yakobson (2008), for example, contends that many Western democracies have national minorities but state emblems (flag, anthem) that reflect the majority culture. Moreover, in several democratic nation-states (including modern Germany, Greece, Finland, and Ireland), diaspora populations of founding ethnic groups have a right of return that is comparable to Israel’s. In some such states (e.g., Greece, England), special status is also accorded to the religion of the founding group. The proponents of this viewpoint maintain that the balance in Israel between majority and minority rights and the role of religion in society might require recalibration, but such adjustments can and should be undertaken within the parameters of a political and social system that is both Jewish and democratic. (The debate over Israel’s democratic character reflects a broader philosophical debate over the nature of democracy and democratic regimes; for an overview, see Peleg 2007.) In the mass media, as in the academic discourse, the debate is sometimes framed in terms that link issues of religion and state and issues of minority rights. More frequently, however, the public debates concern a bundle of less explicitly linked issues. With respect to religion and state, the most significant controversies have concerned the jurisdiction of the Orthodox rabbinate

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over personal status issues pertaining to Jews, especially marriage, conversion, and divorce. Recurrent occasions for news and commentary include stories of Russian and Ethiopian immigrants unable to marry due to doubts concerning their status as Jews under Orthodox religious law; the large number of new immigrants and others waiting to convert but unable to satisfy strict rabbinic requirements; the growing number of Israelis either going abroad to marry or choosing to live as couples out of wedlock; the hardships faced by agunot— women unable to obtain a legal divorce and therefore forbidden to remarry; and the legal and political clashes over official recognition of life-cycle rituals conducted by non-Orthodox rabbis in Israel and abroad. In the media commentary on these issues, journalists sometimes declare that Israeli laws and practices in these domains are undemocratic. In a normal democracy, they contend, marriage and divorce would be regulated by secular authorities, and conversion would entail no civil benefits. Other commentators (including representatives of the Orthodox rabbinate) defend existing practices as the only mechanism for ensuring that all Jews will be able to intermarry, and for ensuring the Jewish character of the state. The issue of Arab Israeli civil rights has also received heightened attention in recent years. In the much publicized Ka’adan vs. Israel Lands Authority decision handed down in March 2000, the Israeli Supreme Court, sitting as the High Court of Justice, ruled that the state could not exclude an Arab couple from purchasing a home in a Jewish settlement, declaring that “any differential treatment on the basis of religion or nationality is suspect and prima facie discriminatory.” Several months later, during the early weeks of the second intifada, the shooting deaths of twelve Israeli Arabs triggered both extensive media commentary and the formation of a national commission of inquiry. The release of the subsequent Or Commission report three years later renewed public debate over treatment of Israel’s largest minority. The report, which also received widespread media attention, declared that “government handling of the Arab sector has been primarily neglectful and discriminatory” (“The Or Commission Report,” Ha’aretz, 2 September 2003). The report focused special attention on discrimination in policing tactics, housing, education, infrastructure, and land use. Finally, the early 2004 remark by then-Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israeli Arabs constitute a more serious demographic threat to the country than do Palestinians living in the occupied territories (who do not hold Israeli citizenship), triggered a new wave of media attention. In the ongoing debates, advocates for equal rights declare that Israel must “democratize” and become a “state of all of its citizens.” In response, defenders of existing practices deny the existence of serious discrimination, suggest that Israeli Arabs constitute a real threat to the state that must be confronted, and/or declare that Israel must remain first and foremost a state for the Jewish people worldwide.

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Liberalism and Zionism in American Jewish Political Culture American Jews interpret developments in Israel through the lens of their political culture. In the view of many scholars of American Jewry, the defining feature of that culture is its political liberalism. American Jews express strong support for the classic components of liberalism, including individualism, minority rights, the rule of law, and separation of religion and state. These convictions are evident in Jewish voting practices, with large majorities voting Democrat in national elections, as well as in the overrepresentation of Jews in social movements of the liberal-left (Smith 2005). They are also evident in the public intellectual contributions of American Jews, in campaign contributions, and in contributions to causes of the liberal-left. Indeed, when measured in terms of voting practices, the liberalism of American Jews exceeds what one might expect on the basis of their average educational attainment, and has for the most part withstood decades of prognostications of a rightward turn. To be sure, by and large American Jewish liberalism is more moderate than radical, more committed to strengthening the universal rules of the game than to supporting initiatives aimed at redressing social injustice. The activist left has always been a minority in the American Jewish community, and its strength may have eroded in recent decades. American Jewish liberalism, moreover, tends to increase as one moves leftward across denominations, with the Orthodox expressing the least liberal outlook, and Reform and unaffiliated Jews expressing the most pronounced liberal outlook. Several scholars contrast American Jewish and Israeli political cultures, noting that the former tends to emphasize universalism, voluntarism, and rule of law, whereas the latter emphasizes particularism, traditionalism, and legal pragmatism (Rosenthal 2001; Cohen and Liebman 1990). In a paper comparing the political cultures of American and Israeli Jews of Ashkenazic descent, Daniel Elazar (2001) suggests that these basic differences reflect divergent historical contexts: fighting for inclusion, American Jews emphasized equality, social justice, and other universal values; struggling against external enemies, Israeli Jews emphasized national solidarity and parochialism. The resulting liberalism among American Jews shapes not only their politics but also their interpretation of Judaism. Indeed, for most of the last century, Reform Jews treated the social-justice visions of the Biblical Prophets as Judaism’s core message and tikkun olam (social-justice activism) as its core practical commandment. The “universalist impulse is ubiquitous among most non-Orthodox American Jews” write Bernard Susser and Charles Liebman. “It saturates their political rhetoric as well as their theology” (1999: 72–73). So strong are the democratic and liberal themes in Jewish political culture that historically Zionism has had to accommodate them. In the 1930s, American Jews “projected their American liberal values on to their ideal Jew-

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ish state. … [Supreme Court Justice] Louis Brandeis’s vision of a Jewish state as a laboratory for social democracy bespoke an idiom and commitment to ideas that were rooted in American liberal practices” (N. Cohen 1996: 321). In the post–World War II period, American Jews “took pride in portraying the Jewish state as the bastion of democracy in the Middle East. … Indeed, the Cold War reinforced the Zionist assumption that a common set of liberal values linked the American and Israeli communities” (N. Cohen 1996: 322). Thus, throughout the period that stretched between World War II and the mid 1980s, Zionism and Americanism were depicted as perfectly compatible. Indeed, the seemingly natural combination of the two peaked during and in the aftermath of the Six Day War, an event that triggered a “profound reorientation in the American Jewish psyche, one that was increasingly political, assertive, and pro-Israel” (S. M. Cohen 1996: 357). The unified and romantic pro-Israel sentiments among American Jews began fragmenting in the 1980s and 1990s in reaction to a series of events, developments, and controversies. Among the more divisive issues were the Jonathan Pollard espionage affair (1986), the first Palestinian uprising (the intifada, late 1980s), the Oslo peace process (1990s), and the recurrent attempts in the Knesset to institutionalize the Orthodox definition of a Jew (1988, 1995). Today, American Jewish organizations on the political left and right openly criticize Israeli government initiatives with which they disagree (Rosenthal 2001; Freedman 2001). Although no consistent survey evidence shows American Jewish disengagement from Israel (Sasson, Kadushin, and Saxe 2008), political differences over the peace process and relationship between religion and state appear to have deepened and become more salient.

The Focus Group Discussions How do American Jews attentive to Israel make sense of the dilemma of a state that defines itself as both Jewish and democratic? To what extent do such individuals experience their own personal identities as Americans committed to liberal values to be in conflict with their identities as Jews and supporters of the Jewish state? This research examines twenty focus group conversations among affiliated Jews in the Boston area. The focus group discussions were held in 2004–2006 in synagogues and day schools from across the spectrum of denominations, and also in private homes. The discussion groups tended to be internally homogenous with respect to Jewish denominational affiliation, with most participants belonging to the same synagogue or sending their children to the same day school.1 Each group included between four and seven participants, almost all of whom were between the ages of thirty and sixty. The participants tended to be typical of the core members of metropolitan area

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synagogues in the United States; they work in the professions and business, report upper–middle class incomes, and most hold at least one graduate degree. As a consequence of the voluntary nature of participation in the study, most participants report a level of interest in and involvement with Israel that sets them apart from most of their American Jewish counterparts. They have typically visited Israel on two or more occasions (in some cases for a year or more) and almost all report following news of Israel closely. The discussions explored a number of issues, including the PalestinianIsraeli conflict, religious pluralism in Israel, and Arab-Israeli civil rights. During the interview, each issue was first raised with a general question and then with statements aimed at evoking the core cleavages evident in the public discourse. The discussions were moderated by a “virtual insider” (a researcher familiar with the subcultures of Orthodox and non-Orthodox American Jews; see Gamson 1992, Sasson 1995). The discussions lasted approximately one hour each, and were taped and transcribed for analysis. The balance of this chapter examines the participants’ discourse in response to the questions concerning religious pluralism in Israel and Arab-Israeli civil rights—the two questions that touch most directly on the dilemma of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. In the analysis that follows, the unit of analysis tends to be the group discussion as a whole, rather than the contributions of individual members. I treat the group’s conversation as a product of the collective—a social fact in the Durkheimian sense—and I take it to be indicative of the discourses in circulation within the participants’ subcultural environment.

Discourse on Religious Pluralism We asked the discussion participants the following question: “Leaders in the Israeli Conservative and Reform movements complain that Israel’s recognition of only Orthodox weddings, conversions, and divorces amounts to religious discrimination against non-Orthodox Jews. The country’s Orthodox authorities counter that recognizing non-Orthodox weddings, conversions, and divorces will lead to a split in the Jewish people. In your view, how serious a problem is this, and what if anything should be done about it?” The participants varied in their assessments of the seriousness of the problem, with several saying it will ironically worsen as Israel’s security situation improves. Others described such conflicts as “domestic squabbles” to be handled when Israelis have the “luxury of looking inward.” Over the course of the conversations, however, participants in all but one group urged either recognition of the non-Orthodox movements or an American-style separation of church and state (“shul and state,” as members of one group put it). This was true even for most of the Orthodox groups: “I would let it be like in America,”

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said one member of an Orthodox group. “Let the congregations be supported by their congregants and let the rabbis act like rabbis rather than civil servants.” In the non-Orthodox groups, the sentiments in favor of a secular state were far stronger: Group: Jenny’s Friends2 Denomination: Mixed Conservative and Reform Susan: If Israel is going to try to be a democracy and a Jewish—you know, you can be both, but you can’t limit—if you’re going to be a democracy you can’t limit how people practice certain things. I just think it’s awful. It’s a terrible precedent. Bill: It’s a secular country. I think that’s what we’d all prefer for it. A secular democracy where Jews are safe to go there regardless of whether they wear “black hats” or don’t. John: And it’s for that reason I think it is a serious problem. … It’s a threat to democracy, because if the Orthodox view prevails, then you have a country in which the state is driven by religious, uh, you know, by religious scriptures. And that’s not good. Alex: Taking the comment one step further, I’ll go ahead and assert that if Israel devolves to the point of maybe not being a theocratic body, but nevertheless behaving as one, then the conversation about “what to do about the Palestinians?” is moot. Israel will cease to exist as a modern state. And the assertion comes from the recognition that if we’ve accomplished anything in the last three hundred years of history, it is the separation of the religious push for dominance of a particular religion from the governance of a people, such that people can govern themselves and they can resolve their conflicts without resorting to jihad, without resorting to extremism, without resorting to crusades, um, and if the religious orthodoxy within Israel surmounts the state, and the ability of the state to run itself and resolve its own conflicts, then surely we will drive ourselves into the ocean. In these conversations, the participants expressed no awareness of contradiction between the Jewish and democratic requirements of the state. For these American Jews, the state of Israel was meant to be a “modern, secular democracy” rather than a “theocracy.” The essence of a modern state, moreover, is the “separation of … a particular religion from the governance of a people, such that the people can govern themselves.” What then does it mean to say that Israel is Jewish state? For these conversation participants, it means that Israel ought to be a democracy in which the majority of voters are Jewish. As

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a democracy, moreover, Israel ought to guarantee the religious freedoms of all of its citizens, including its non-Orthodox Jewish citizens. The one exception to this pattern occurred in one of the Orthodox groups. In their conversation, the participants expressly defined Israel, not as a liberal democracy, but as a Jewish religious state. “The democracy in Israel does not mirror in any regards the democracy in the United States,” explained one group member. “There is not a separation of church and state.” Unlike their counterparts in the other discussions, moreover, members of this group directly confronted the contradictions between the requirements of democracy and their conception of the Jewishness of the state. In their lengthy exchange on the topic they argued, for example, that Orthodox religious standards, because they are the most stringent, are in actuality the most inclusive: where Orthodox standards apply, all Jews will be able to “choose” (in a democratic fashion) whether or not to embrace Orthodoxy. In addition, they repeatedly noted that this is an issue for the Israelis to decide. “It’s a democracy,” one group member declared, “they can vote what they want.” In short, members of this group worried about the implications for Israeli democracy of their definition of the state as “religious” rather than “modern” and “secular,” and they took pains to reconcile their democratic impulses with their beliefs about the Jewishness of the state.

Discourse on Arab Civil Rights We asked the discussion participants the following question: “Advocates for equal rights for Israel’s Arab minority contend that as a democracy Israel must become a ‘state of all of its citizens.’ Others respond that Israel is first and foremost the state of the Jewish People, and that too much emphasis on equal rights will in the long run undermine Israel’s Jewish character. What do you think? Can Israel be both a democratic state of all of its citizens and at the same time a state of the Jewish people?”3 In a handful of groups, this question generated little if any debate. Members of a few (but not all) of the Orthodox groups denied the existence of any contradiction between the notion of a democratic and a Jewish state: Group: Shaar Shamayim Denomination: Orthodox Perry: You can be a Jewish state in the same way that Italy is Catholic. Or Vienna or Austria. … The Queen of England is the head of the Church of England. Janet: Whatever that means.

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Perry: She’s the head of the Church of England and Britain is an Anglican state. But it’s a free state. It has a democracy. Jennifer: Israel already has in its religious affairs department, a Muslim affairs department. Christian affairs. Perry: Remember, it has Arabs in the government. There are Arab MPs. Janet: And Arabic is the national language. I mean show me one Arabic country where you have Hebrew as the national language. Perry: Show me one Arabic country with an elected government! Janet: It’s a Jewish state and that’s it and if the Arabs like it, you know, they enjoy lots of freedom, you know, you can be here if you wanna, or if you wanna try and sabotage and kill us you can leave. Perry: Uhuh. Janet: I think we have to have laws that limit their amount, their ability to become a majority in parliament and I think we have to have laws to protect ourselves. ‘Cuz there’s one Jewish state, there’s twentytwo Arab states. That’s it. We’re the little David, they’re the Goliath, and you know, if you look at, if you pan out and you look at the whole region, that’s it. We have to protect ourselves. In this extract, we see the apparently contradictory strategy pursued in these discussions of the political right. On the one hand, the participants rejected the notion that Arab Israelis experience discrimination. On the other hand, they stated their readiness to support laws that would limit the rights of Arab citizens of Israel (in this case, laws that “limit … their ability to become a majority in parliament”). One interpretation is that, in relation to this issue, these discussion participants prioritized their Jewish nationalist over their democratic identities; they were thus able to ignore the apparent contradictions in their various claims. At the opposite end of the political and religious spectrum, most members of a group from a post-denominational congregation rejected the principle that Israel ought to define itself as a Jewish state: Group: Shir L’Shalom Denomination: Post Denominational—Humanist Joan: I think the question gets to a bigger question of Israel being a Jewish state, and how Israelis respond to that. You know, I know it’s not a popular position … but I think that there’s a slew of issues that come up like this one because Israel is identified as a Jewish state, and

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not a state. Y’know, an independent state where a majority of—and not always a majority of—the inhabitants are Jewish. In this group, participants insisted that Israel extend full equality to all of its citizens without regard for the impact on the Jewish character of the state. “If it can’t manage to be a democracy and not primarily a Jewish state,” explained another member of this group, “then I’m going to give up.” If in the right-wing groups, participants prioritized their commitment to Jewish nationalism, then in this left-wing group they engaged in the opposite practice. In this group, participants prioritized their identities as liberal democrats to the exclusion of Jewish nationalist sentiments. In most of the groups, however, the question on Arab Israeli civil rights proved challenging, triggering debate and discussion in which members alternatively foregrounded their Jewish and democratic sensibilities. In all of these groups of the religious and political center (including all of the Reform and Conservative groups and a few of the others) members began with arguments to the effect that Israel should extend equal rights to its Arab citizens; in several cases they argued that Israel’s failure to do so is profoundly un-Jewish: Group: Temple Beth David Denomination: Reform David: I think this is a big blemish in the history of Israel, the way it has treated its Arab minority. … They neglected to bring up the Arab minority to the same standard of living as the rest of Israel and have done so callously. I feel very strongly about this issue and, umm, I criticize Israel for the way it has treated its Arab minority, and they need to reverse the trend and reverse it very, very quickly. It’s funny that Sharon with his latest talk of unilateral steps here and there even proposed taking some of these towns and shoving them over to the West Bank! As “land exchange”! I’m saying it glibly, but I think the political echelon is recognizing what a “hot potato” they have on their hands. Rebecca: I cannot understand—it seemed, once I was old enough to understand that it was happening that way—because when I was a child, all the stories about Israel was the, you know: “the Jews and the Arabs are living in harmony” and I remember that there was a “Miss Israel” once in a beauty contest and she was Arab, an Arab Israeli and everybody was very proud of this and this was very nice. But we’re talking, you know, late fifties, early sixties or something like that. … And when I was old enough to realize that they really were a mistreated minority in terms of, you know, government goods and

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services, I’ve never understood why. It seemed to me so “un-Jewish,” and was it just cynical, political, “we spend money on the people who keep us in power” or what? In the preceding extract, the participants opened their discussion with criticism of Israel for discrimination against its Arab minority. Over the course of the conversation, however, the participants in this and most of the other groups shifted their attention to what they regarded as the problematic implications of democracy for Israel’s future as a Jewish state. They worried, for example, that the growing Arab-Israeli minority might eventually constitute a majority, or that Arab Israelis might become a hostile internal adversary. Finally, some also expressed concern regarding the durability of the state’s “Jewish character.” Consider the following exchange from a different group: Group: Jenny’s Friends Denomination: Mixed Conservative and Reform Barry: The people that are the minorities in Israel are generally from hostile environments. And by bringing those hostile environments and creating those subcultures within the State of Israel—I mean, it sort of takes you back to the whole immigration issue that we’re having here in this country—I mean, further down the pike in their history, Israel is going to become, you know, Israeli Jews will eventually become a minority or head towards becoming a minority or have so many different subcultures within the country that they will, over generations, lose track of their Judaism. You know, this country [the United States] was established as a place where people from all different ethnic backgrounds and religious beliefs and practices could find a home and a place. Where they had been persecuted elsewhere, they could come to this place and practice the different “peoples” that they were. Very different than the purpose of Israel as a country and why it was established, and it sort of flies in the face of the whole discussion that we had about the rabbis and the secular Jews, but that is within Judaism in general and I think that once you start to establish an opening for all of these different groups especially in that part of the world, where there is so much hostility, then you slowly start to erode the foundation of what the State was built to do. Sara: Well, you know that is kind of at the deepest level of the conflict because it’s sort of a schizophrenic and very complicated position to take. In a way you inadvertently are sort of supporting the notion that there’s—that the State of Israel, the idea of a State of Israel—in a way is ill-conceived. And I’m not saying that I support that notion at all,

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but it really gets at the core of the problem. I think it’s a really serious and difficult thing to come to grips with, because on the one hand, you are talking about these theocratic things all around Israel and fundamentalist religions taking over governments. And on the other hand, you’re talking about the State of Israel’s need to maintain and preserve its Judaism. And whether it’s Orthodox or it isn’t Orthodox, when you talk about being exclusive to one way of thinking, um, as a way of preserving—it may preserve it but it may not, but it may also be unfeasible to preserve that in a democratic way. Because what are you going to do? Are you going to push everybody who is not the same out? And are you going to push the Jews who evolve in their way of understanding Judaism to the point that may not look “Jewish enough?” At what point do you draw the line? These are really pretty tough issues. In this exchange, Barry and Sara identify an apparent inconsistency in the group’s deliberations. In the earlier discussion, they recall having insisted that Israel ought to embrace strict democratic principles in relation to the question of Jewish religious pluralism. Now, confronted with a question concerning the rights of Arab Israelis, Barry hesitates. Affirming the principle of full equality for Arab Israelis, Barry is thinking, might entail destroying the “foundation of what the state was built to do.” In most of the other discussions, the participants similarly confronted contradictions between their Jewish and democratic sensibilities. In the conversations that ensued, the participants tried to reconcile their democratic and Jewish commitments, or to smooth over possible contradictions between the two. To this end, the most common discursive strategy they employed, by far, was to exempt the “Law of Return” and the state’s Jewish nationalist symbols from democratic evaluation. Bill’s comments, in the following extract, are typical. Group: Jenny’s Friends Denomination: Conservative and Reform Bill: I think it is a tough issue. To me, Israel can look like a democracy in most regards but it can’t offer all the same rights to non-Jewish citizens as it does to Jewish citizens. In order for it to be a “Jewish State” it has to do at least one thing: it has to offer the “Right of Return” to Jews and not offer it to non-Jews. Because it if offers it to non-Jews, then it soon loses its character as a Jewish State. And if it stops offering it to Jews, then it loses its capacity to protect Jewish communities that are in danger around the world, which is, I think, why Diaspora Jews need Israel in order to survive in the long run. So, let’s admit: it

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can’t really be a true democracy, because a true democracy offers the same rights to all of its citizens, regardless of their religion! Israel can’t do that. In this extract, Bill views the Law of Return as potentially undemocratic but insists on its necessity. Without the Law of Return, Israel cannot perform its most basic function, to serve as a “safe haven” for Jews fleeing persecution. Participants in the other discussions made similar points in relation to the Law of Return: Israel can be “mostly democratic” declared a member of another discussion group; it can provide its citizens with equal rights in every respect except immigration. Notably, the Law of Return, which these American Jews regard as non-negotiable, is among the principle institutional links that binds them to the Jewish State. Another common strategy employed by the discussion participants to reconcile democratic and Jewish sensibilities is to defer democratization to a more peaceful time in the future. In the extract below, Robert, a member of the Temple Beth David group, points out that the United States is still in the process of overcoming its racist past. “We live in a country where, by law, we have equality and equal treatment and by history, for many, many decades— centuries—we’re still struggling with that. And so, I can see how and why it can happen, but it is disheartening and it seems to be a contradiction when we talk about Israel being the only democracy in the Middle East and how free it is. You have to qualify that.” In this and other conversations, participants expressed the expectation that Israel will be better able to provide equal rights for all of its citizens in a future time of peace than under present conditions of occupation and terror. Finally, in a few groups, a few discussion participants defined an absolute limit beyond which democratic norms must not apply. Should Israel ever face a situation in which its identity as a Jewish state, and a safe haven for Jews worldwide, should be threatened, it might find it necessary to expel Israeli Arabs. (Notably, this discourse followed closely after Israeli historian Benny Morris’s much publicized declaration to similar effect.4) Bill: I think the other hard thing, the other hard truth is that if we agree that we need, that the world needs a Jewish State to offer protection to Jews around the world who sorely need it given the history of the last 2000 years, [that] there may come a time when the non-Jewish percentage of the population is such that the Jews that are left have to take some action to push them out, to change the mix again, to maintain, forever, a Jewish population, a Jewish majority, so that there is still a Jewish country.

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It would be a mistake, though, to give these undemocratic sentiments the last word. In the discussions of the religious and political center, most participants expressed a strong desire to see Israel treat its Arab and Jewish citizens equally. However, they also wanted Israel to remain forever a state of the Jewish people. As a measure of the anxieties brought into play by this topic, participants in six of the ten discussions made various references either to South Africa, Japanese internment camps, and/or black Americans. These references were typically dismissed or ignored, but their presence suggests considerable unease on the part of the discussion participants with the question of Arab civil rights.

Negotiating Contradictions When, during the conversations about religious pluralism, the study participants criticized Israel for intolerance toward non-Orthodox Jews, they did so without a hint of ambivalence. On this topic, they expressed themselves as both liberals and as Jews. In their view, the Zionist project was aimed at creating a secular democratic state that would ensure equal rights for all of its citizens. When criticizing Israel for its deference to Orthodox rabbinical authority in matters of personal status, they experienced no more identity conflict than might advocates of civil rights in the United States. In the latter case, even the harshest critics of racial discrimination in the United States deliver their message in the name of American values of equality and justice. In the same sense, Jews who criticize Israel for its religious intolerance can do so without a hint of internal conflict or ambivalence. Their criticism is at once Jewish, Zionist, and democratic. This cannot be the case, however, when the topic turns to civil rights for Israel’s Arab minority. As most groups constructed the issue, full equality between Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs might in the long run threaten Israel’s essential character as a Jewish state. On this issue, then, the participants’ political identities, as Jews and as liberals, came into mutual conflict. As a result of this conflict, the participants expressed a greater or lesser degree of ambivalence. To be sure, few participants contested the claim that Israel ought to confer equal rights on all of its citizens. Over the course of the discussions, however, they expressed reservations about the implications of what they regard as democracy for the Jewish character of the state. They worried, for example, that Arab Israelis will one day outnumber Jewish Israelis, or that they will constitute a hostile “fifth column” within the country. They also hastened to mention what they take to be necessary limitations to abstract democratic principles: the Law of Return and the Jewish symbols of the state must be

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preserved, and if necessary full democratization can be deferred to a more peaceful time. Why did the participants express ambivalence with respect to democracy when discussing the civil rights of Arab Israelis but not when discussing the topic of Jewish religious pluralism? For the Jews of the political and religious center—including in this case almost all of the participants in the Reform and Conservative discussion groups and some of the others as well—Israel is meant to be a Jewish democracy, by which they do not mean a state governed by Jewish religious law but instead a state governed by its majority Jewish citizens. The question of Jewish religious pluralism was thus an easy one: the Jewish state belongs to all Jews and therefore must respect their rights, choices, and viewpoints. The question of Arab civil rights, however, proved much more difficult. If Israel’s Jewishness derives from the composition of its citizenry, then the growing presence of an Arab minority with full citizenship rights threatens the state’s future as a Jewish democracy. The discussion participants recognized this dynamic and felt caught between their Jewish and democratic sensibilities. In their rhetorical responses to the dilemma, the participants sought to accommodate democracy and Jewish nationalism. Specifically, they recommended efforts to provide greater equality to Israeli Arabs, but not where those efforts threatened future Jewish sovereignty or even the symbolic trappings of sovereignty. The Law of Return and the symbols of the state are sacred, even for most of the more liberal study participants, and the concept of democracy is a sufficiently flexible to allow a bit of room for maneuver. What might be the significance of this issue’s rising salience among American Jews in the years to come? Much will depend on future political and demographic trends in Israel and the Middle East. If Israel reaches an accord with the Palestinians to establish a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, then the demographic and security issues that strain the liberal commitments of American Jews will be greatly reduced. If, on the other hand, negotiations toward a two-state solution fail, such strains may increase. In a 2007 interview, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert commented that if peace talks fail, “the day will come when the two-state solution collapses and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights.” Under such a scenario, continued Olmert, “the Jewish organizations, which were our power base in America, will be the first to come out against us, because they will say they cannot support a state that does not support democracy and equal voting rights for all its residents” (CBSNews.com/stories/2007/11/29/world; accessed 22 June 2008). The discussions presented here could be interpreted as evidence both for and against Olmert’s warning. On the one hand, liberal American Jews expressed distress regarding reports of discrimination and inequitable citizenship in Israel. On the other, they clearly were not eager to set aside their commitment to

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Israel as a state of the Jewish people to satisfy their liberal democratic convictions. Like their Israeli counterparts, most American Jews have a strong stake in a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that increases the possibility of a Jewish majority state that is also democratic. Precisely how the interplay between developments in Israel and the Middle East and American Jewish opinion will play out in the coming years is impossible to tell. However, with a degree of confidence, we can conclude that American Jews will do what they can, intellectually and politically, to avoid a final showdown between two sets of values they hold dear. Notes The research reported in this chapter is part of a larger collaborative project (with Professor Ephraim Tabory) that includes a parallel sample of focus group discussions among Israeli Jews. The research is supported by a grant from the Middlebury College Long Term Faculty Development Fund. The author gratefully acknowledges the helpful comments of Ephraim Tabory, Lisa Grant, Steven Bayme, Bill Gamson, Robert Schine, and the contributors to this volume. 1. Five of the discussions were held in modern Orthodox, seven in Reform, and four in Conservative synagogues. Two of the discussions were among “post-denominational” or Reconstructionist Jews, and two were mixed, non-Orthodox groups. 2. All names are pseudonyms. 3. Approximately two-thirds the way through each conversation, the facilitator read the following trigger statements. The analysis presented in this section includes responses to these statements: “Because Arab Israelis now comprise roughly one fifth of Israel’s citizenry, the Israeli government should consider eliminating special preferences Jews receive in areas such as immigration, housing, education and employment. It should also consider revising national symbols, such as the flag and the national anthem, to make them more representative of Israel’s diversity.” “Because of the growing Arab minority, the Israeli government should step up its efforts to promote aliyah. It should also encourage the settlement of Jews in areas within Israel that have a high concentration of Israeli Arabs, such as the Galilee and the Negev.” 4. See interview with Morris, Ha’aretz, 9 January 2004: 14.

j In Search of Roots and Routes CHAPTER 11

The Making and Remaking of the Diasporic Jewish Identity Elan Ezrachi

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he discourse in the American Jewish community, as well as in other western Jewish Diasporas, has not developed a rich discussion on the meaning of contemporary diasporic identity. A sustainable diasporic identity is essential for relationships with Jews around the world and with the State of Israel. A diasporic identity must assume integration of Jewish symbols and experiences from other locales as part of its self-definition. Socialization to the Jewish collective has to be broader than the sum total of local symbols and experiences. Most Jews, and particularly the younger generation, lack such images; their ability to imagine themselves as global Jews is therefore limited. Jewish identity is far beyond membership in a local faith-based community. It is about belonging to a collective whose parts are scattered around the world, with multiple common sets of values, symbols, and practices. The term Diaspora is commonly used as a tenet of Jewish life. Diaspora, in its Jewish meaning, is an ancient condition with broad theological, sociological, and cultural aspects. Diaspora can be traced all the way back to biblical times, as early as the book of Deuteronomy, when two and a half tribes decide to remain in the trans-Jordan hills and refrain from crossing the Jordan river. At that moment, the first Jewish Diaspora is established. Ever since, the Jewish people has been a diasporic group, at times with an active homeland and at other times with the yearning to return to the homeland. In all cases, the diasporic condition, known also as exile, is an organizing principle in Jewish life, albeit with different explanations about the essence of this condition and the need to change it. With the emergence of modern nation-states, Jews around the world entered a new phase. Jewish communities have constructed a place for themselves in their countries of residence. In many cases, this transformation happened in the context of immigration from one diaspora to the other. At the same time, the State of Israel became a Jewish nation-state, and as a result, Jews around the world are defined by Israelis and Zionists as its diaspora. This is a recent historical development that requires careful analysis. Jews in the Diaspora are

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not a typical diaspora, when compared with other diasporic groups. Jews in western counties today are neither the extension of the centuries-old classical Jewish Diaspora, nor are they like other contemporary diasporas that can be found around the world. Current trends in Jewish identity research indicate that many Jews construct their identities in a way where Israel and global Jewry are not central. The concept of Jewish peoplehood is distant and vague to the vast majority of Diaspora Jews whose identities reflect the culture of their respective nationstates. In this chapter, I examine the ways Jews around the world construct their identities as Diaspora communities and how they relate to the concepts of “homeland” and “Jewish peoplehood” as part of their identities as Jews in America/Canada/France/Argentina/etc. Based on this discussion I suggest a strategy for education toward a global Jewish identity. It is my belief that in order to sustain Jewish unity and solidarity, Jews around the world must develop a “sense of Diaspora” as part of their self-identity as Jews. While “diaspora” is typically a given condition of people who were dispersed from their homeland, and with the passing of time this condition is expected to fade, in the Jewish case, Diaspora appears to be an invented or acquired identity that needs to be sustained over time.

Diaspora Jewish Education as Socialization to the Local Jewish Community Jewish education entails socialization at many levels. Socialization is the process by which individuals learn values, attitudes, and behaviors that later become part of their personality. Socialization is not only the formal teaching of content or ideology. It is first and foremost “the process by which we learn the ways of a given society or social group so we can function within it” (Elkin and Handel 1984). What is that “given society or social group” as far as Diaspora Jews are concerned? What are the boundaries of Diaspora Jews’ group affiliations, and are they defined by the boundaries of the societies in which they reside? Is there a place for “other” Jewish experiences in the self-identity of Diaspora Jews? Does the homeland have a presence in the diasporic identity? Today’s Jews are largely acculturated and assimilated citizens of their counties. In most countries, young Jews are primarily third- and fourth-generation citizens. Jewish education is expected to operate within this reality (Keysar, Kosmin, and Schekner 2000). Jewish education in its broadest sense is, therefore, a mechanism for teaching and socializing the next generation to become Jews in the context of their local community. Jewish identity education asks questions that stem from the fundamentals of the narrative of the specific community (e.g., French Jewry). Such questions revolve around: the boundaries

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between the Jewish and the secular domains; the use of Hebrew language (as a sacred language or as the language of the State of Israel) in relation to the local language; denominational identifications as opposed to a broad communal identity; separation in education and communal life as opposed to social and cultural integration; Jewish unity in the context of great diversity; the place of Israel and world Jewry in public and private domains; and others. These are all questions of Jewish identity that reflect the experience of Diaspora Jews and as such can be defined as local and context-driven. The narratives of Diaspora Jewish communities are a mixture of the specific story of each community (such as when the first synagogue in that community was built) and the relations to greater Jewish experiences beyond the local experience (such as political and financial support for Israel). Three themes in Jewish diasporic narratives relate to areas beyond the experience of the current country of residence: immigration, the Holocaust, and Israel. First, the story of immigration to the country of residence is a theme that enables most members of the Diaspora to trace their personal histories to an “old country” that they left behind. In most cases, the experience in the country prior to immigration is viewed primarily as negative. For Jews in the West, the current country of residence is viewed as a haven that enabled them to leave behind the miserable places where they dwelled for centuries. Life in the “old country” is perceived as negative, even as Jews are encouraged to connect to the folkways of Jewish life that are worthy of preservation, through family customs, Jewish museums, stories, and art. Implicitly, Jewish authenticity lies in the memories of Jewish life in the “old country.” Second, the Holocaust narrative, as a prominent motif in Diaspora Jewish education and identity, stresses both the treasures of the lost Jewish culture in Europe as well as learning about the horrific crimes done to the Jewish people. Here, the Diaspora Jewish community has developed a wide array of expressions: memorials, museums, ceremonies, curricula, and trips to Poland. Both the immigration stories and the Holocaust highlight the value of the new diasporic experience. Finally, there is Israel. Historically, the Western Diaspora was a competing narrative to the Zionist movement: Jews who immigrated to Western countries chose a different solution than what Zionism had to offer. However, eventually it became evident that the Zionist endeavor and the State of Israel hold a special place in the diasporic Jewish imagination. Alon Gal describes the American Jewish community and its relation to Israel after 1948 by saying: “After the establishment of Israel in May 1948 and especially after the Six Day War in June 1967, philo-Israelism persistently expanded. … Since then, virtually all American Jewish community organizations have become supporters of the Jewish State and have developed some variation of the ‘vision of Israel’” (1996: 13). Similarly in other western Jewish communities, the public expression of pro-Israelism became prevalent.

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Unlike the memories of displacement and the trauma of the Holocaust that are based in the past and are negative and problematic, Israel is a living category that for the most part is associated with positive attributes. A relationship with Israel is focused in the present or even the future. Israel (and world Jewry) are living social and cultural categories that cannot be negotiated only through symbolic expressions. The reality of Israel provides conflicting images that shape the Diaspora Jewish awareness: a mixture of pride and critique, closeness, and estrangement. For the vast majority of Diaspora Jews, no personal memories are associated with Israel. Most Diaspora Jews did not live in Israel prior to their immigration to the current place. For them, Israel is not the “old country,” but rather a symbolic homeland. As a result, Israel appears in the lives of Diaspora Jews through metaphorical and symbolic images more frequently than in concrete and tangible forms. Jonathan Sarna summarized the pro-Israel position of American Jews: “The Israel of American Jews—the Zion that they imagined in their minds, dreamed about, and wrote about— was for centuries a mythical Zion, a Zion that revealed more about American Jewish ideals than about the realities of Eretz Israel” (Sarna 1996: 41). In addition to the awareness of Israel, does the identity of Diaspora Jews have a space for other Jewish experiences outside their local Jewish experience? What are the representations of contemporary world Jewish experiences in the lives of Diaspora Jews? What kind of educational strategies need to be employed in order to bring the next generation to a Jewish identity that includes a relationship to the Jewish people?

Jewish Identity between Local and Global There have been many attempts to define Jewish identity in the Diaspora using several social and psychological disciplines (Phillips 1991; Horowitz 1999). One needs to look at those theories of identity that shed light on affiliations with social and cultural groups. In this regard, the question Jews ask is not only what is the content of their Jewishness, but rather, to whom do they feel aligned with or marked off from. Diaspora Jews have been a minority group who see themselves as marked off from the majority society (Herman 1977). Similarly, they are aligned with other members of their own group with a sense of interdependence. But developments in Western Jewish identity indicate that the ethnic fiber is becoming increasingly looser, that alignment with a group along ethnic lines is no longer a central motif in many Diaspora Jewish communities (Cohen 1998). Accordingly, the term symbolic ethnicity has come to replace the traditional ethnicity that is based on physical proximity and familiarity (Gans 1979). Recent studies of American Jewish identity are moving away from inquiries of group definitions that require normative criteria into the exploration of the

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ways individuals actually construct their Jewishness (Cohen and Eisen 2000; Horowitz 2000). Bethamie Horowitz describes this move as an inquiry “into the relationship between having an ethnic ancestry and the meaning of that for the individual … the relationship between a person’s Jewish background and the extent to which this is psychologically central or an integrated component of a person’s identity” (1999: 27). Horowitz proposes four indicators of Jewish identity that should inform contemporary research: individual identity, social cohesion, structural indicators, and the changing relationship between “the Jewish” and the “American.” Almost all indicators relate to the American experience. For example, only one out of seven elements that comprise her individual Jewish identity list asks the question: “To what extent, if any, does a person feel a connection to other Jews across time and space? Is there a sense of interdependence of fate with other Jews or with Jewish history?” (1999: 41). Clearly, the important missing element in the discourse around American Jewish identity is the connection between being an American Jew and being part of the Jewish people. This is an area that requires an empirical investigation. Do Diaspora Jews view themselves as being part of a global collective in ways that complement their being members of a specific community?1 What is the meaning of “membership” in the Jewish people, from the standpoint of Jewish identity? How is being a global Jew expressed in behavioral and attitudinal terms? Do Diaspora Jews have sufficient experiences that inform their Jewish identities with the necessary cognitive elements that make up such global awareness? Is there a systematic educational process toward Jewish peoplehood? The notion of Jewish peoplehood, while a fundamental component in Jewish tradition and theology, lacks grounding in contemporary Jewish experience and discourse.

The Jewish Diasporic Experience The term Diaspora is commonly used to characterize the experience of Jews throughout history in the context of exile, homelessness, and dispersion from their historical homeland.2 But the contemporary experiences of Jews in western countries today entail different narratives. In its historical sense, the exilic term Diaspora conflicts with the narratives of integrated Western Jewish Diasporas. This is particularly true in the American case. Leading Jewish thinkers in America reject the classical Jewish narrative of Diaspora. They reject as well the notion of Israel as a “homeland,” regarding Israel in purely symbolic terms (Eisen 1986). Michael Galchinsky argues, instead, for a renewed focus on Diaspora. He seeks to broaden the range of discourse on the meaning of Diaspora and to embrace more universal and contemporary criteria. Galchinsky argues

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that American Jewish intellectuals are opting out of a lively discourse on contemporary diasporas by defining the Jewish experience as unique (1998). In so doing, he points to an interesting and potentially fruitful shift in the very notion of “Diaspora.” The 1990s saw the development of a new (post-colonial) discourse that imbued the concept of diaspora with a new understanding. The classical approach was to view diaspora as part of the sociology of immigration, namely, as a one-way process of displacement, relocation, and acculturation. Recent discourse, though, highlights the multidimensional nature of the diasporic experience. Immigrants are no longer involved in a one-way transition that tears them away from their homelands. New developments based in modern technology provide opportunities for maintaining contact with the home country. The nation-state at the end of the twentieth century is much more open to accepting the existence of groups in a multicultural society who wish to maintain their relations to the homeland and choose to be an active diaspora. James Clifford provides a broad definition of contemporary diasporas: “The main features of Diaspora: a history of dispersal, myth/memories of the homeland, alienation in the host country, desire for eventual return, ongoing support of the homeland, and a collective identity importantly defined by this relationship” (1994: 305; Safran 1991: 83–99). Galchinsky argues that by participating in the new diaspora discourse, American Jews will find that they are not all that different from others. Many analogies can be found between the Jewish community in America and other diasporas. The new discourse is less hierarchical and proposes a model that is more pluralistic and equal between homeland and diaspora. With this new discourse, American Jews can find a more appropriate set of terms to define their diasporic experience. As Galchinsky argues: The Diaspora’s relationship to the homeland is not imagined as a sinful community’s repentant desire for a prior sacred place but as a living and ongoing exchange of information, financial and political support, contractual obligations, and above all affection. … American Jews stand to gain much by adapting this vision to their peculiar needs. By carrying out comparative analysis, Jews may discover practical strategies for supporting Israel as well as a model for emotional attitudes toward it appropriate to the statehood era, which is exceptional in Jewish history. (1998: 208) Yossi Shain frames these phenomena in the broader context of political involvement of diaspora groups within their homelands. He focuses his analysis on the American context, a place where diaspora communities are entitled to operate on behalf of their homelands as part of their being good Americans. This basic American feature has intensified in recent years as a result of the development of transnationalism, a new trend in immigration. Shain defines the

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new immigrants as people who “keep one foot in their home country and the other in the United States” (1999: 5). In the post–Cold War era, transnational groups are more influential in American politics: “diasporic groups which are intensely involved in prolonged conflicts over their kin country and/or communities muster considerable political influence over their host governments, redefine their national interests, and affect perceptions of identity in both their old and new countries of origin” (1999: 7). The organized American Jewish community has been functioning as a politically mobilized diaspora for decades. However, the politics of the American Jewish Diaspora were limited to the protection of Israel’s interests in the international arena and rescue and relief for Jews in distress. This highly effective performance stopped short of an American Jewish communal effort to play a role in shaping the public agenda of Israeli society and culture. Only in recent years have we witnessed a greater American Jewish involvement in internal Israeli affairs, promoting liberal pluralistic causes, as well as right-wing politics and Orthodox religious institutions, through philanthropy and advocacy (Tabory 2000; Ezrachi 2001). In this regard, American Jews and other diasporas are not exploiting the vast possibilities that the current diaspora discourse allows for. Steven M. Cohen formulated this pattern of holding back from a greater involvement. He argued that Israel is: “virtually absent from the private sphere. For American Jews pro-Israelism is all political, it is neither cultural nor spiritual; … American Jewish involvement with Israel is far more bound up with fear and danger than with hope and opportunity” (1991: 119). American Jewish identity did not develop as a transnational identity that encourages individuals to engage in active relationships with Jewish communities outside the United States in areas such as advocacy and defense, international political engagement, and intercultural dialogue and exchange.

Diaspora Identity I will now explore the term diaspora from the perspective of identity. The concept of diaspora is a group category, but does it play itself out on the individual level? What is a diasporic identity? Steven Vertovec, for one, discusses the notion of diaspora as a state of mind and a sense of identity. “Diaspora consciousness is a particular kind of awareness said to be generated among contemporary transnational communities” (1997: 281; Weil 1999). Diaspora consciousness involves an awareness of multilocality that “stimulates the need to conceptually connect oneself with others, both ‘here’ and ‘there’ who share the same ‘roots’ and ‘routes’” (Vertovec 1997: 282).3 This is a starting point for a new personal imagination that connects

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individuals to fellow members of their group, even without a concrete immigration experience or personal memory of displacement. The separation of the diaspora consciousness from the personal memory of displacement and immigration can create “fractured” and even multiple memories, but at the same time can serve as a source of identity and meaning after the “real” memory had faded. All diaspora groups are bound to suffer from this syndrome at some point in their development. However, the Jewish Diaspora in the West is in a more difficult situation as the relation to the “homeland” (Israel) is not reinforced by personal memories. Even so, Steven M. Cohen and Arnold Eisen argue that American Jews retain some elements of a diaspora consciousness: “Most moderately affiliated Jews also continue to think of their relationship to other Jews as a matter of belonging to a group that extends ‘vertically’ through time and ‘horizontally’ through space.” They coin the term transcended belonging which is a “feeling of deep connection to previous generations and future generations as well as to Jews of today who are scattered around the globe” (2000: 114). They cite various examples in which their subjects reflect on the connection to the Jewish people as a significant element in their lives. Looking at their findings, there seems to be more references to the vertical (historical) dimension of Jewish peoplehood than to the horizontal (contemporary Jewry and Israel),and most of the horizontal references pertain to issues relating to the choice of friends, neighborhoods and romantic relationships, all within the American context. While the vertical connection can be negotiated through rich assortment of symbolic rituals and religious practices, the options for expressions of horizontal connections are more limited. Typically, American Jews are attuned to helping Jews in distress in places associated with crisis and need, and thus the category of “helping Jews in need” typically serves as the main American expression of Jewish peoplehood. The focus on helping other Jews as an expression of commitment to Jewish peoplehood has served as the core of the American Jewish involvement in world Jewish affairs. The most notable in recent times are the support of the State of Israel and the rescue of Soviet and Ethiopian Jewry. Once the perception becomes that the need is taken care of, the interest in the matter subsides. Cohen and Eisen, among other American Jewish scholars, are aware that the heyday of support to Jews in need is over.

The Making of a New Diasporic Jewish Identity As time goes by, most Jews in the Diaspora will not have personal memories of displacement and immigration as the foundation of their identities. Nor will they be able to relate to the Holocaust and the founding of the State of Israel as

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concrete and personal memories. Jewish education will continue to do its best to reproduce more American/Canadian/French Jews as the struggle to retain meaning and structure continues. It is here that the idea of Jewish peoplehood needs to be nurtured. Assuming that world Jewish demographic trends will continue as they are today, the numbers of Jews who are natives of their countries of birth will increase. Agencies of Jewish peoplehood need to provide a conceptual framework as well as a set of experiences that will expose young Jews to Jewish life outside of their immediate environments. Jewish education needs to develop awareness of the multilocality of Jewish life as part of the identity development process. This awareness has to be multidimensional, inviting young Diaspora Jews to negotiate their specific identities with the “otherhood” of Jewish life. This end demands an appropriate educational strategy for Jewish peoplehood that may be divided into two parts. First is the educational work that needs to be done locally. Second are the actual experiences that expose the next generation to the “otherness” of the Jewish people. A deliberate effort has to take place in order to incorporate a global motif to all aspects of Diaspora Jewish education. This is a broad-based discussion that covers the gamut of curriculum, implicit and explicit teaching, cognitive, affective, and behavioral aspects of education as well as communal support, ability to train the educators as role models, and providing appropriate resources. The ultimate goal of this educational process is to create a readiness for a global Jewish identity that will later be reinforced by a set of life experiences. The place of Modern Hebrew in the life of Diaspora Jews provides a case in point. Should and can Hebrew be a component of global Jewish identity? Language instruction is a major undertaking that has to begin early in the educational process, and thus the place of Hebrew has to be seriously discussed.4 Another way of addressing this issue would be to ask: what is the language of communication among Jews across the globe? Does Jewish Peoplehood awareness require a specific language? Modern Hebrew is the language of Israelis (the homeland), and as such is not spoken actively by Jews outside Israel. Is Modern Hebrew a local language of Israelis and Israeli culture, or should it be regarded as the global language of all Jews? This is not just a simple matter of communication. Language holds a special meaning in ethnic identity, and any type of linguistic strategy entails an emotional and political significance. Language competence is a source of power in any kind of interaction between groups. As Stephen P. Cohen observes: “English is the language of Jewish universal discourse.” He adds that because Americans tend to be monolingual and Israelis bilingual, the natural inclination is to conduct practically all Jewish discourse in English (1993; Schiff 1996). Aside from a few rare examples around the world, most Jews do not speak, read, or write in Hebrew. If Di-

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aspora Jews are unlikely to improve their literacy and competence in Modern Hebrew, we need to assess the consequences of this reality in terms of the creation of a hybrid diasporic Jewish identity. Realistically, the language of international Jewish interactions is unlikely only to be Hebrew, but a mixture of English, French, Spanish, Russian, and Hebrew, with recognition of the linguistic complications that are associated with translation and intercultural communication (Argyle 1982). Philosophically, Jewish education has to handle a complicated duality. On the one hand, children are told that the Jewish people is a worldwide group united by a common heritage and fate. The Jewish tradition is full of references to the oneness of Jewish existence, and this message is also reinforced in contemporary rhetoric. But at the same time, it is assumed that Jews are culturally diverse, living in different countries, speaking different languages, and constructing their Jewishness in different ways. This duality needs to be negotiated in the process of Jewish educational discourse.

From “Learning About” to Living Experiences: Travel and Contact In this particular area of identity development, “learning about” the Jewish people is not enough. The most effective agents of Jewish peoplehood education are to be found within the informal educational process.5 As mentioned earlier, the cultural effects of globalization open up new possibilities for experience and growth. This is a great window of opportunity for Jewish education. In terms of Jewish peoplehood education, the flow of cultural elements that can serve the educational process is currently achieved through two main activities: travel and contact. Historically, travel was associated with either mass migration or with the ability of elite individuals to move around. The common folk did not have an opportunity to see the world for the purpose of learning and growth. Only in recent decades has travel become one of the most popular forms of experience and learning. Travel has become a growth opportunity as “it combines the pleasure of displacement with the enjoyable role of ethnographer/consumer and the position of heightened authority which accompany the power to totalize and appropriate, engaged in an outsiderly process of judgment and comparison” (Curtis and Pajaczkowska 1994). Travel can be a transformative experience and is recognized as an important tool in human development. In recent decades, the western world has developed a wide range of tourism industries: study abroad, exploration, service corps, and so forth. The Jewish community has been quick to discover the power of travel and created a variety of educational Jewish travel models. Most “Jewish Travel” is

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associated with Israel. Young Jews are encouraged to travel to Israel for brief pilgrimages or long-term immersion and study programs. Several studies have indicated that travel experience to Israel is an effective form of Jewish identity development (Chazan 1997a; Cohen and Cohen 2000). The communal leadership of the North American Jewish community embraced the idea of travel to Israel and gave it a very high profile. Most notable is the “Birthright Israel” initiative that enables thousands of Jewish young adults from all over the world to travel to Israel for free ten-day programs.6 A review of the literature about the “Israel experience” reveals that the philosophical and scholarly emphasis is on issues of recruitment/motivation, creating meaningful Jewish experiences that feed into the Diaspora Jewish narrative, and the potential for follow-up programs. Relatively little is said about the function of travel to Israel as a way to develop a relationship with Israeli culture and society. There is little evidence about the impact of the Israel visit as a building block for global Jewish awareness. Moreover, most Diaspora Jews refrain from travel to Israel altogether. For example, organized Jewish travel to Israel covers only around one quarter of American Jews under the age of twenty-six (Chazan and Cohen 2000). Nor is there significant organized travel to other “Jewish” sites outside Israel.7 It is therefore important to invest intellectual and advocacy efforts to develop a relevant narrative that will position travel to Israel and other Jewish locales as important building blocks of Jewish life. Questions that need to be addressed are: Is travel to Israel similar or different from contemporary trends of travel? Is Israel a foreign country or a homeland? Should an experience in Israel be considered “normative,” a prerequisite for a full Jewish life in the Diaspora? What kinds of growth experiences can be gained in Israel and other Jewish locales? Travel is not only about moving from one locale to the other. This movement involves contact with people of other cultures. Clifford argues that while the world still employs the language of boundaries and passages, the reality is that “cultural action, the making and remaking of identities, takes place in the contact zones” (1997: 7). Contact with representations of other cultures is another feature of the modern world, particularly in the twenty-first century. Individuals are exposed to people of other cultures through a variety of venues, both within their nation-state experience and in the international arena. Intercultural contact is a common feature of today’s human growth experience (Bochner 1982).8 Through encountering people of other cultures, individuals can learn about themselves and develop multicultural identities. Intercultural contact can be a natural occurrence or a carefully planned educational activity, in the form of a mifgash on an Israel trip or a dialogue. In each case, the potential for learning and establishing a relationship is high, as is the risk that increasing familiarity may breed lack of interest or even contempt.

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The combination of travel to and contact with other places and people is a powerful agency for Jewish peoplehood education leading to life experiences that will exemplify the notion of Jewish peoplehood.

Conclusion: Diaspora Jewish Education and the Idea of Peoplehood As Jews become increasingly rooted in their countries of residence and exposed to global influences, their self-image as members of the Jewish people is in danger of weakening. Fewer Jews grow up with a global Jewish awareness. Such awareness is difficult to acquire in the context of contemporary Jewish life, of open and welcoming cultures. Most Jews in the Diaspora do not have sufficient exposure to educational moments and meaningful experiences that can breed this kind of response. Jews’ diasporic identities around the world are unique, as they combine their personal memories of their countries of origin and the symbolic identification with modern Israel. The western Jewish experience is a story of remarkable success and cultural integration associated with the erosion of identification with Jewish expressions outside the local domain. As time passes, the significance of the ancestral and the symbolic homeland narrows and the localization of Jewish identity intensifies. Proponents of the idea of Jewish peoplehood should be concerned. We live in an era that enables us to renew the idea of Jewish peoplehood in new and exciting ways, using instant communication, easy travel, and diminishing boundaries. Educators working for Jewish peoplehood can marvel at the possibilities that the new world offers. In fact, there is an opportunity to develop an idea of peoplehood that is new and innovative, far beyond the restoration of ancient ideals. The precondition for this strategy is the willingness of Jews around the world to define themselves as part of the Diaspora, exhibiting the willingness to generate a sense of belonging and responsibilities toward other Jews around the globe. This chapter is based mostly on the American Jewish perspective, and there is a need to look at the question of global Jewish identity through the eyes of other Jewish communities as well. First and foremost are Israelis. The development of Israeli Jewish identity is an important factor in the making of a global Jewish identity. The classic Zionist narrative painted the Diaspora, and particularly the western Diaspora, in negative colors. Israeli educational discourse now needs to do its share to create an appropriate articulation of Jewish peoplehood and diasporic existence. The same is true with other Jewish communities around the world. The important message of this work is to remember that each and every national Jewish experience might have a differ-

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ent exposition of the idea of peoplehood, reflecting the experience in the host country. It is within this multiplicity of experiences that the richness of Jewish peoplehood should be cultivated. Notes 1. For a discussion on the ways American Jews negotiate the “American-Jewish hyphen,” see Sylvia Barack Fishman’s Negotiating Both Sides of the Hyphen (1996). 2. Daniel and Jonathan Boyarin go out further and characterize the “Diaspora” as the essence of Judaism and the State of Israel as the deviation from it (Boyarin and Boyarin 1993). 3. The play of words “roots and routes” is found in the literature of cultural studies. 4. I am not referring here to that part of Hebrew language instruction that is essential for competency in prayer and study of sacred texts. 5. One important exception to this distinction is the exposure that Jewish students have in their home communities to Jews of other cultures, primarily immigrants from Israel and the former Soviet Union. The integration of these populations within the mainstream American Jewish community is an opportunity for getting a sense of the multilocality of Jewish life. See Ezrachi and Sutnick 1997. 6. “Birthright Israel” is a large-scale initiative led by philanthropists, the government of Israel, and Jewish communities around the world. It began in the year 2000 and has managed to bring thousands of Jewish youth to Israel. See the chapter by Shaul Kelner in this volume. 7. An important exception is the “March of the Living,” a ritual-based trip for Jewish youth to Poland to visit sites of concentration camps (Stier 1995).

j Hummus, Challah, and Gefilte Fish RESPONSE TO SECTION III

Israel in Diaspora Jewish Culture Sarah Bunin Benor

T

he essays in this section, two descriptive and one prescriptive, discuss the relationship between American Jews and contemporary Israel. Kelner shows how the American Jewish community uses Israel to help young American Jews understand who they are as Jews. Through a “time-out-of-time” experience combined with opportunities for reflection, the leaders of Birthright Israel trips give Jews in a prime period of identity formation the tools to place themselves inside the collective Jewish narrative. Sasson looks at an older population and shows that many American Jews of diverse denominational affiliations are knowledgeable about Israel and its internal issues. The Jews who took part in his study expressed nuanced views about the dilemma of Israel being both a Jewish state and a democracy, especially regarding the ethical issues surrounding Israel’s Arab minority. Ezrachi takes a different approach, arguing that contemporary Diaspora Jews do not feel a sufficiently strong sense of connection to Jews in Israel and around the world. To fill this gap, he suggests that Jewish institutions should intervene with formal and informal Jewish educational experiences that go deeper than Birthright programming, including travel and meetings with Jews in other countries. These three essays demonstrate a growing concern among American Jewish leaders and researchers about the place of Israel in the lives of American Jews. It is clear from these chapters and from previous research (e.g., Cohen and Kelman 2007) that Israel is less important for many young American Jews than it was for their parents. At the same time, many young Jews who are highly engaged in religious life have very strong connections to Israel. In this brief response, I highlight the importance of Israel for these highly engaged Jews in two areas: the common practice of spending a year in Israel before, during, or after college; and the impact of Israel in the cultural realm. If ten days in Israel, when organized by experienced professionals with wellconceived programming, has such a major impact on rank-and-file American Jews, imagine what impact a year in Israel has on the religious elite. A large per-

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centage of Orthodox Jews spend a year in Israel after high school, as do a small but growing number of non-Orthodox Jews.1 In addition, a small percentage of non-Orthodox Jews spend a semester or year during or after college studying in an Israeli university, or learning to deal in depth with texts at Pardes, the Conservative Yeshiva, or another religious institution in Israel. I would argue that these young Jews accrue valuable “Jewish social capital” (Cousens 2008), including access to elite social networks and exposure to intensive religious engagement. Upon their return, many become leaders of American Jewish religious life, especially independent (non-denominational) minyanim. One study found that over half of the independent minyan members polled had spent over four months in Israel (Cohen et al. 2007), a much higher percentage than among similar members of mainstream congregations. I illustrate the impact of a year in Israel with a personal anecdote: after graduating from college, I spent a year in Israel as a participant in the Dorot Fellowship, a program run by an American philanthropic foundation that emphasizes knowledge of and participation in Israeli society, Jewish learning, and self-reflection during and after the fellowship experience. When I began the program in July, I knew one or two Americans spending time in Israel. By Sukkot, I knew at least fifty American Jews well enough to invite them to a party. While a few of my new friends had made aliyah, most were studying in seminaries and universities, some as part of graduate training programs in Jewish Studies or the rabbinate. Most were non-Orthodox Jews in their twenties who were committed to Jewish life and would later hold leadership roles in American congregations, organizations, universities, and especially minyanim. I believe that many of these young Jews had their religious and communal preferences influenced by their time in Jerusalem, attending Shabbat meals at friends’ homes and services at innovative congregations like Yakar, Kol HaNeshama, and (later) Shira Hadasha. Upon their return from Israel, the religious, social, and cultural capital these Jews acquired manifests not only in their involvement in new religious communities but also in their cultural practices. For example, as Steven M. Cohen and I found in our “Survey of American Jewish Language and Identity” (Benor and Cohen 2009; Benor and Cohen 2011; Benor 2011), time spent in Israel has an independent effect on Jews’ likelihood to use not only Israeli Hebrew words such as yofi (nice!) and balagan (mess, bedlam), but also Yiddish words in the religious sphere, such as bentsh (bless, say Grace After Meals) and leyn (read Torah). Apparently, it is not just exposure to Hebrew-speaking Israelis that influences these Jews’ language but also their interactions with other American Jews spending time in Israel. Spending time in Israel also has an impact on cultural practices beyond language. During extended sojourns in Israel, many people become fond of Israeli music, film, and foods. They may add Arik Einstein, Noa, and Hadag Nahash

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to their iPod playlists and Israeli films to their Netflix queues. Many American Shabbat tables of all denominations enhance their American-Ashkenazi meals with Israeli (or Middle Eastern) side dishes like hummus and Israeli salad (finely chopped raw tomatoes and cucumbers). In fact, I recently saw a minyan potluck sign-up list that included both “salads” (American vegetable mixes) and “salatim” (the aforementioned Israeli side dishes). Of course, Israel-influenced cultural practices are not limited to the religious elite. Falafel, pita, and hummus are staples of Jewish schools, synagogues, and organizations. Tourists to Israel, including the Birthright participants Kelner describes, often return home wearing Hebrew t-shirts or necklaces with a Jewish star, a hamsa (heart-shaped amulet), or their Hebrew name. And other than in some Orthodox settings, Hebrew instructors in Jewish day and supplementary schools teach a Hebrew pronunciation close to Israeli Hebrew. At the same time as these essays indicate the importance of Israel in Diaspora Jewish identities, they also point to Jews’ rootedness in their current lands of residence (see also Aviv and Shneer 2005), as well as the role of preimmigration lands in contemporary Jewish identities. Kelner mentions that some of the Birthright participants’ Jewish memories incorporate Eastern European cuisine, such as matzo ball soup. Ezrachi argues that contemporary Jews look to the “old country” not only as the place of persecution that triggered emigration but also as a source of folkways and notions of authentic Jewishness. Indeed, in my sociolinguistic research, I have found that Eastern Europe, the region to which most American Jews trace their recent ancestry, plays a major role in American Jewish language. In an era of “postvernacular Yiddish” (Shandler 2005), the English of American Jews is peppered with Yiddish words, phrases, and grammatical constructions (Benor 2004; Benor 2011), and many older Jews and Orthodox Jews still pronounce Hebrew according to Ashkenazic norms. These Yiddish influences, which have even permeated non-Ashkenazic communities, coexist alongside influences from the Hebrew/Aramaic of biblical and rabbinic texts (with expressions such as brachah [blessing], al regel achat [on one foot, off-the-cuff ], bekitzur [briefly]) and influences from Israeli Hebrew (mentioned above), all of which help to distinguish the speech of American Jews from that of their non-Jewish neighbors (Benor 2009). In short, while most American Jews speak English, the language of the land, they distinguish their English by drawing on three sources of distinction: the religious (textual) tradition, Eastern Europe, and Israel. I argue that the notion of these three sources of cultural distinction also applies outside of the linguistic domain: while Jews largely resemble their nonJewish neighbors, they differentiate themselves culturally in several spheres, including home decoration, dress and bodily ornamentation, and culinary and musical practices. The distinctive elements of their culture stem from their religious tradition, from their ancestral pre-immigration cultures, and from the

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modern state of Israel. For example, many Jewish homes feature artistic renditions of Jerusalem landscapes (Israeli) alongside Chagall prints (ancestral) and menorahs (religious). In the US, Canada, Mexico, England, and France, I have been served Shabbat lunches containing challah (religious), gefilte fish (ancestral), and hummus and baba ganoush (Israeli). And while contemporary Hasidic men wear tzitzit (religious) and Polish-origin caftans (ancestral), the young non-Orthodox American Jews discussed above adorn their trendy outfits with Hebrew name necklaces, hamsas, and Israeli tourist t-shirts (Israeli). The three sources of cultural distinction are important in the construction of Diaspora Jewish identities. Different Jews make differential use of them: Jews with strong ties to Israel may use more Hebrew words and Israeli cultural practices, while Jews with strong ties to Eastern Europe may use more Yiddish words and pronunciation and Ashkenazic cultural practices. The amount of influence from the three sources of cultural distinction also changes over time. With some significant exceptions, the current trend seems to be away from Yiddish and Eastern European influence and toward Israeli influence (see Benor 2011; Benor and Cohen 2009, 2011). Studies of behaviors and attitudes like the ones in this volume tell us a good deal about how contemporary Diaspora Jews understand themselves in relation to Israel. In addition, I call for further research on the cultural domain: while they share most features of cultural life with their non-Jewish neighbors, how do Diaspora Jews differentiate themselves by the music they listen to, the foods they eat, and the ways they decorate their homes? Diverse Jews look differentially to the religious tradition, the recent ancestral past, and the contemporary tourist-based Israeli milieu as they construct their identities as Jews and citizens of their lands. By investigating cultural variation between and within communities, we can better understand contemporary Diaspora Jews and their relationships to Israel. Notes 1. http://www.masaisrael.org/Masa/English/News+and+Events/Gap+year+numbers+ rise

 “I’m a Gentile!” AFTERWORD

Border Dramas and Jewish Continuity Jack Kugelmass

ITEM: Growing up in Fredericksburg, VA, Todd Gray said, he could count all his town’s Jewish residents on one hand. So when Mr. Gray, the chef and owner of Equinox Restaurant in Washington, down the street from the White House, became engaged to Ellen Kassoff in 1994, her father decided to acquaint him with Jewish culture in a way they could both relate to—through food. They traveled from Washington to New York, where they ate pastrami, corned beef, gefilte fish and herring at Katz’s, the Second Avenue Deli, and the Carnegie Deli. “They bonded over food,” said Ms. Kassoff, now Mr. Gray’s wife and business partner. “I think chefs have more of an appreciation of Jewish culture than most intermarried couples. Since we live and breathe food all the time, my dad isn’t so mad I didn’t marry a Jewish guy.”1 ITEM: Our company came to be when a Jewish boy and a Chinese girl began talking about a common interest: cooking. We soon realized that by combining the best of our families’ cooking secrets, we could create new and unique tastes. The result—Soy Vay! Our first product, the original Soy Vay Chinese Marinade, quickly gained a large following of fans.2 ITEM: Utopia Bagels in Queens is known for its bacon-flecked egg bagel. In Manhattan, the restaurant JoeDoe boasts a sandwich called the “Conflicted Jew”—a concoction made with a bacon, challah, and chopped liver. During Hanukkah, the website YumSugar suggested frying latkes in bacon fat. And, last year Top Chef winner Ilan Hall opened his Los Angeles restaurant, The Gorbals, and made a splash with bacon-wrapped matzo balls, pork belly braised in Manischewitz, and Israeli couscous pudding with bacon brittle.3

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ITEM: The most difficult—and most important—issue for Ms. Jett is the feelings of her mother, Patricia, who owns enough ornaments to decorate five trees and typically has her home in Plano, TX, festooned with collections of snowmen and Santas. The elder Ms. Jett, who said she is fully supportive of her daughter’s decision to become Jewish, has in recent years become very active in the Methodist church. “The thing is that I don’t want her to feel abandoned,” Ms. Jett said of her mother. “I am trying to make sure I respect her. Honoring your parents is a central part of Judaism too.” Though Ms. Jett usually goes to her mother’s house for Christmas, this year, her mother came to New York instead, and Ms. Jett and Mr. Silver decided to invite several friends—they affectionately called them “Jewish orphans”—over for dinner. They planned a traditional Christmas menu of bourbon-glazed ham, mashed potatoes, roasted broccoli, Brussels sprouts, green beans, and yams, cooked by Mr. Silver, who works for a real estate investment firm and is the designated chef in the relationship.4 Through a compelling set of rhetorical questions, Harvey E. Goldberg asks in his essay in this volume: “How do people experiment and even ‘play’ with the cultural givens that stand at their disposal? What tensions and coalescence arise between the individual self-expression and gestures of group belonging? What are the various ways, to paraphrase the quote from Geertz, through which Jews manage to be ‘themselves’ as Jews, and equally part of other cultural horizons?” Goldberg asserts that while Israel’s challenge is in allowing individual and group identities outside of those prescribed by a once-dominant statist ideology, the challenge for Jews living outside of Israel is in establishing communal structures in the context of an open society with an endless array of choices. Perhaps no choice has had a greater impact on contemporary secular Diaspora Jewry than that of whom to marry. Commenting on the current intermarriage rate of 47 percent, Steven M. Cohen notes in his essay that “we live in a world in which the vast majority of American Jews have been loved by and intimate with non-Jews, totally upending the experience of our grandparents’ or even parents’ generation, whose experience with family, love and intimacy remained within a totally Jewish confine.” Consequently, although American Jews accept the idea of ethnic boundaries, their preference is for those that are porous rather than rigid, for inclusiveness and diversity. Goldberg and Cohen’s assertions resonate profoundly with the overall thrust of the book and highlight the volume’s significance beyond the case studies presented. In this regard, I argue that as social scientists, following the work of Fredrik Barth (who does not discuss Jews per se), we understand Jews

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as an ethnic group defined less by cultural content than by the boundaries that either they set between themselves and the non-Jewish world or that the social worlds in which they are situated set for them (Barth 1969: 9–38). If this is the case, then relevant social research ought to be situated directly on how Jews and non-Jews negotiate that boundary: strategies for transgressing it such as passing (disguising one’s identity), masquerade (where both Jews and nonJews know the background of the transgressor but do not mention it; see Rogin 1996), or border jumping, flaunting, or exaggerating difference in defiance of the dominant cultural hierarchy (a common trope of ethnic humor); the etiquette of contact, including how to speak and behave in the company of the Other (as evidenced by the “Vat ever dat means” joke from Stanley Brandes’s essay in this volume; see Katz 1991); the cultural hierarchy of difference and the possibilities and/or probabilities of boundary transgression within it; how region and settlement type affect these boundaries; the questions of class and gender, which (together with region) generate a proliferation of further boundaries and collective identities; and the progression of time, including growing and receding economies and the concomitant changing social and political alignments. All these call out for a concerted research agenda that incorporates time, space, and ethnicity. I add one more thought: the idea of border drama—something only possible, it seems to me, through fear and evidence of boundary violations. States suffer from this concern, in the face of waning economies and especially in situations of ongoing conflict and external threat. A common example is that of captured soldiers or those missing in action, with the drama surrounding their fates and the efforts at repatriation. But, any social group can experience this drama. Consider the matter of intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews and the response to it, a border drama that demands defensive action, collective repatriation, although it is unclear whether such action can effectively control the social and cultural processes that make intermarriage possible. Indeed, such processes often compel border crossings, partly as a younger generation’s assault on the social constraints imposed by an older one (a phenomenon hardly unique to any particular group in the world of consumer culture—the social transgression of intermarriage cuts two ways). Another type of border drama occurs during any historical process of ethnic migration in which the receiving group feels its turf endangered and considers the migration a border transgression. It responds either by moving to less porous areas or by adopting various mechanisms to secure the border, even if this means accepting individuals from a previously shunned group as neighborhood co-residents, and perhaps ultimately as suitable for family alliances through marriage. Since any line of demarcation has a certain degree of porousness, the questions that should interest ethnographers are: whether the boundaries are visible or invisible, the latter perhaps being more difficult to cross (Gans 1992: xiv); who can

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transgress; how does this dynamic change over time; who are the gatekeepers and what can they tell us about the lived experience of transgression. In this afterword, I consider several texts that directly discuss the issue of borders and transgression. The first, Leon the Pig Farmer, is a British Jewish film produced in 1993. Although I regard it as a very clever and culturally astute picture, curiously, many of the critics have been considerably less enthusiastic. One reviewer felt the film is “really one attenuated Jewish joke”; despite its witty moments, it “is far from uproarious because of the deadpan absurdist style in which it is told.”5 Another referred to it as “not a great movie,” and the only thing he found praiseworthy was that it was “made not that long ago for about $320,000.”6 A third reviewer, who liked the film overall, called it “(for want of a better term) ideologically incoherent, or at least unreadable.”7 The Los Angeles Times reviewer was even more negative. He said the film was “of limited interest that could just as easily have been set in America with virtually no changes. … The filmmakers resort to a silly gimmick that is supposed to spin a moral and tie everything up but that instead bulldozes a comedy already strained and overly familiar.”8 Equally unimpressed, Paul Brenner, writing for Critic’s Choice, saw the film as an ethnic comedy “hampered by a weak script and uneven pacing,” whose Jew/gentile jokes constitute the bulk of the film and “wear out their welcome fast.”9 Although there were some positive reviews, even those critics missed the significance of the text—they saw it as a mild-to-good British comedy rather than the Jewish tragicomedy I believe it to be. Indeed, this film struggles with an issue having no comparable degree of resonance beyond its Jewish subject: the threat to group continuity. And because of it, the movie is a nice example of a narrative whose dramatic tension is built entirely upon border drama. The second text, which I suspect was influenced by the first, is an episode of the off-beat American television series, Curb Your Enthusiasm, ostensibly based (as is most of his work) on the real-life experiences of Larry David, the co-creator of Seinfeld, with David playing himself. The show received fairly wide acclaim as “the best new comedy of the season” when it premiered in 2001, despite, as one reviewer noted, that “Mr. David’s humor is not for everyone.”10 Another critic suggested that much like the divide in the 1960s between Beatles and Stones fans, the divide today is between Seinfeld and the astringent humor of Curb. By the end of its third season, the show was reaching 4.5 million viewers, and much like Seinfeld fans used to do, regular viewers of Curb exchange jokes and plotlines following each episode.11 On this latter point, I can add anecdotal evidence of my own. Perhaps it speaks to how Jewish culture has become normative in America today that, unlike the response to Leon the Pig Farmer, most reviewers are nonplussed by Curb Your Enthusiasm’s Jewish provincialism. An exception to the rapturous postings on the HBO website: at least one dissenting voice asks

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the network to “please retire this program . . . a bunch of screaming Jews apparently ad-libbing it is not funny.”12 With an eighth season now completed, HBO evidently disagrees with the suggestion. The series has had a number of guest appearances from Hollywood stars, not all of whom are Jewish—and all apparently fans of the show. The one scathing critique I found appeared in The New Republic, which mentions nothing about its Jewish content but focuses rather on the object of David’s wit; according to the reviewer, the show makes the little guy the object of the humor. This structure contrasts with what classical comedy did so well, puncturing the infuriating and sometimes harmful pretenses of those with money or power, and thus resting the moral order with the big guy on the bottom, the little guy on top. In contrast: “For perhaps the first time in the history of the genre, he [David] has put comedy on the side of the big guy.”13 The critique is a bit harsh and its negative assessment is the exception among reviews, but it does reveal the fact that in the world of entertainment little guys can become big guys—very big guys. Perhaps one reason why the show’s reception has been so positive is because the most provincial theme of all—Jewish continuity—lies reasonably hidden here beneath the surface. The theme remains buried because intermarriage is assumed—the show feels like a generation after Leon, in terms of class status and Jewish integration into mainstream society. David’s prime concern is not his Jewishness, but rather the insincerity of the social life whose etiquette he continually violates. “Larry [David] is a truth seeker,” writes one reviewer, “who gets in trouble for saying out loud what most people think privately.”14 A friend of that reviewer refers to David’s candor as “honesty Tourette’s.”15 Indeed, some of the show’s humor stems from David’s exposing the frayed seams that hold together the social fabric, whether concerning gender, class, race, or ethnicity. It is the latter theme that most interests us here. Interestingly, the recurrent Jewish issues within the series—whether a person with a tattoo must be buried in a special section of a Jewish cemetery; the special status of Holocaust survivors; synagogue membership; Passover seders, mezuzahs, and bat mitzvahs; arcane rituals of kashering dishes that have been used for treyf; the prophylactic phrases used by Orthodox Jews that in one episode David pretends to mumble—indicate that David carries a great deal of cultural baggage that he readily puts on display for its comic value. The show does share another concern with Leon the Pig Farmer, namely, the question of Jewish indigenousness or lack thereof. Both shows exhibit a pervasive sense of being out of place: the very strong sense that as Jews, We are different from Them. But if in Leon the boundary is explicit, in Curb it is implicit, though powerful nonetheless. A word about the significance of texts for social analysis: elsewhere, I suggest the term key texts to describe cultural productions that may not merit inclusion in a literary canon, but which are richly interpolated with social, eco-

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nomic, political, and cultural significance for a particular historical moment. A critical analysis of such texts tells us less about their artistic virtuosity than about the social and cultural imaginary at the time of their creation: “Canonical texts, as Robert Alter points out, do not present ‘a timeless inscription of fixed meanings.’ By contrast, key texts are entirely bound by their historicity. Their meanings are fixed by the particular social circumstances in which they are generated” (Kugelmass 2003: 4). The texts presented here very much have that quality, and it behooves us to examine them closely for what they tell us about Jews and Judaism in late modernity.

Text 1: Leon the Pig Farmer Leon the Pig Farmer tells the story of a young North London Jew working as a realtor. Leon is insecure, still rather tied to his middle-class parents and their way of life. Though apparently secular, he is bound by Jewish dietary traditions and circumscribed by the Jewish social world. While he loyally works for a Jewish firm, his conscience forbids him from finalizing a deal that would violate British heritage laws: selling a home to a developer that had once belonged to Charles Dickens. The would-be purchaser is an Italian-surnamed entrepreneur intent on transforming the property into some sort of leisure emporium, together with the adjoining buildings. When Leon resigns from his job, his well-meaning but overbearing relatives suggest a variety of new trades; his mother then decrees that he is to work for her as a delivery boy and waiter in her kosher catering business. When he delivers food to a sex clinic and sperm bank, the receptionist assumes he is there for treatment and types his name into the registry. The family name is on file, and Leon learns that his father suffers from a low sperm count and Leon’s birth came about through the help of modern science. Leon confronts his parents, asking why he was never told; his mother replies that they had planned to do so on his bar mitzvah but had forgotten. Concerned about his own fertility, Leon produces a sperm specimen for testing; upon his return to hear the results, the head clinician reports that he is fertile. However, not all the news is good. The clinician has discovered that there had been a slight mix-up at the time of his conception, and that his mother had been fertilized not with his father’s sperm, but with that of a Yorkshire pig farmer. Leon leaves the clinic in a daze, and while driving, he lightly hits a young woman crossing in front of the car on a bicycle. The woman suffers only a scrape; after he drives her home, she invites him in for tea, where he learns that she is an artist who makes stained-glass windows for churches. Determined to impress her, Leon claims to be a sculptor (when she asks what medium he works in, his answer is food—not a lie, perhaps, given the proclivity that kosher

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caterers have for constructing sculpted mounds of chopped liver for wedding and bar-mitzvah receptions), but he is unable to hold his own in a conversation about art. When the two later go to an elegant restaurant, she dismisses the menus and orders “the special” for both of them. Already disturbed by a Greek chorus of fellow Jewish diners critical of his dating a non-Jew (the film uses this technique several times),16 Leon is horrified when the waiter presents him with a freshly cooked lobster. He tries to eat it, but chokes at the first bite and has no choice but to confess to his woman friend that he is Jewish. She responds by declaring, “Daddy hates Jews,” which apparently makes Leon all the more attractive; she proceeds to embrace him passionately and takes him to bed. The romance continues until Leon’s ex-colleague tries to get a piece of the action by posing for her on a cross. Through the colleague, she learns that Leon is not the sculptor he had claimed to be, but something she loathes—a realtor. With the relationship over and nothing more keeping him in North London, Leon travels to Yorkshire to meet the man whose sperm had fertilized his mother. Leon, the middle-class Jew from North London, is taken aback by the Yorkshire family’s lack of modesty and unsuccessfully tries to retreat to the privacy of the bathroom. The audience is left to imagine his reaction when he is introduced to dinner guests, most of whom have traded spouses and are now there with their current and former mates. The family is delighted by Leon— disappointed as they are with their timid son and his ambitions to study at a French culinary institute—and they do all they can to make Leon feel at home: they remove the mounted pig’s head that ornaments the living room wall; switch their cuisine to traditional Jewish foods; and introduce Yiddish words, intonations, Jewish preoccupations, and sensibilities into family speech and etiquette. The mother no longer allows the father into “her kitchen” with dirty boots, and she reads aloud to him the local engagement and marriage column while he studies The Joys of Yiddish; the grown-up son reads Portnoy’s Complaint while lying in bed. In the meantime, Leon is assigned a role in the family business, and he assists the veterinarian who comes to fertilize the animals. But when the man prepares one for insemination and asks Leon to reach into his bag for the specimen, Leon uses a syringe with sheep rather than pig semen. The resulting monstrous birth causes an uproar. When his biological father decides it is best to destroy the animal, Leon runs off with it to North London. Back at his home, Leon has to break the news to his parents about his second family in Yorkshire. The pig farmers, meanwhile, are determined to get their new son back and they, too, head to London for a conversation with Leon’s parents. Anticipating their arrival, Leon’s family rehearses proper speech, affects upper-class mannerisms, and considers what alcohol is most fitting to present to their son’s non-Jewish foster parents. In contrast, the Yorkshire family speaks with distinctly Jewish intonations and a Yiddish-peppered lexicon. While the two sets of parents argue over ownership of Leon, he flees with the

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animal. Traveling in one car, the two families are united in their attempt to catch up with him. Just as Leon releases the animal in the wild, the two families reach him, and they all reconcile over a celebratory meal at a Jewish deli—a locale preserved by the unscrupulous developer of Leon’s heritage property because of his love of Jewish food. The film concludes with a romantic encounter between Leon and his former Jewish love interest—a woman who had scorned him because she preferred to be with someone more exciting and daring than a middle-class Jewish realtor. Some brief observations before I move on to the second text. The contrast the film makes is between Leon as one who is Jewish by culture and socialization, and Leon as one questionably Jewish by genetics or race. If Leon is genetically Other, he does not belong in North London but in the country where his own people reside. There, he will presumably accommodate to local customs and behavior, although they may seem strange at first. The humor here rests on his Yorkshire family’s apparent conflation of Jewishness with urbaneness and a kind of upward mobility that they admire. They want this well-bred, seemingly ambitious son, and they do what they believe he needs to make him feel at home. But while Leon is a genetic hybrid, he is thoroughly culturally Jewish. His identity is so completely situated within the bounds of middle-class Jewish North London that the only accommodation he makes to his new environment is working for the family business. In Yorkshire, Leon is a stranger in a strange land. By contrast, consider the next text.

Text 2: Curb Your Enthusiasm In the concluding episode of the fifth season of the HBO series Curb Your Enthusiasm,17 the protagonist Larry David receives a call from his attorney, informing him that he now knows for certain that David was adopted. The lawyer has learned the identity of the birth parents: they reside in Bisby, AZ,18 and are expecting a call from their son. Stunned by the information, David boards a flight to Arizona, in which he irritates a stewardess by asking to be moved from an emergency row on the grounds that he would be useless in the case of a disaster. She tries to calm him by offering him a drink, but he refuses, claiming not to indulge. In Bisby, he meets his birth parents, who explain to him the circumstances of their romance and unplanned pregnancy—the husband had just been released from the navy, and the two met in Times Square. When they reveal their Midwestern and Southern backgrounds, and the father relates his deep American and British Isles roots, it suddenly occurs to David to ask how they spell their surname. Discovering that they are “Cones,” rather

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than “Cohens,” he blurts out almost in horror, “I’m a gentile!” as the camera zooms in on a facsimile painting of Jesus on the living-room wall. Later, when out for a walk, the Cones introduce their newfound son to fellow townspeople. David sees a sign in a car window, advertising the asking price for a vehicle identical to the one he had just sold to his agent and closest friend, and asks the owner how he arrived at the figure. The man tells him that his price is straight out of the Blue Book. David realizes that his friend significantly misrepresented the worth of the car when making his offer. Upon seeing David’s distress, his birth mother tells him that he must do as Jesus would, understand and forgive—advice he accepts. The episode continues by showing David’s assimilation into his new world. He indulges in goyim nakhes, whacking the heads of freshly caught fish, shooting ducks, even attempting roof and auto repair. (Compare the scene of the non-Jewish David’s balancing on the roof with the Jewish David’s nervousness about sitting in an emergency exit row on the airplane.) The repair images seem drawn right out of Jackie Mason’s “The World According to Me”—what kind of Jew knows how to fix a car? And in this scene, David is lying face up on a dolly, working with a monkey wrench underneath the chassis, his face covered in black grease. He even drinks milk with a meat meal and downs shots with beer chasers at a local bar while his birth father urges him on. (The Jewish David had claimed to be a teetotaler while on the flight to Bisby.) In church, David sits with his parents and listens attentively to a sermon on friendship. Moved by what he hears, he tells his parents in the middle of the homily that he must leave immediately because he now knows what he has to do. Returning to Los Angeles, David visits his friend Richard Lewis, who is dying from kidney failure. David offers to donate his kidney—something he had previously been reluctant to do. As the two embrace, David eyes a golf club identical to one he had used recently with great success. The club is apparently not for sale anywhere and is no longer made. David asks if he can borrow it, but Lewis refuses, explaining that over the years, he had lent out too many clubs that were never returned. Initially taken aback, David quickly shrugs off the refusal, returning home to the embrace of Cheryl, his wife, and tells her of his sudden desire to have children and his renewed commitment to his friend. In the hospital, a black male nurse prepares David for surgery, assuring him that by donating an organ to a friend, he gains a virtual slave for life: whatever David wants, the friend will gladly give. Surprised, David mentions the incident with the golf club. While the nurse responds that that’s “fucked up,” David insists on forgiveness. The two men are then wheeled to the operating room side by side. As Lewis reiterates how thankful he is to David, the black male nurse brings up the issue of the golf club. Lewis feels betrayed by the

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disclosure, but David dismisses it as meaningless. Suddenly, David’s attorney appears, saying that he has new information that David was not adopted. No longer a Cone, David sees no more reason to show love and forgiveness; but when he tries unsuccessfully to flee, he is held down and wheeled into the operating room. The surgery is a great success for Lewis, but not so for David. Two months later, while a cocktail-sipping Lewis courts a bikini-clad young woman on a tropical beach, family, friends, and rabbi are gathered around David’s hospital bed, all trying to comfort the dying man. David is unwilling to ask forgiveness from those he might have harmed, despite his rabbi’s encouragement. As friends and family bicker over money, David’s soul leaves his body and heads heavenward, where he encounters his deceased mother. She is furious with him: “What kind of a shmuck gives away a kidney!” Nor is she pleased about his happiness at the idea of his having been adopted. He also meets his two spirit guides, played by Sacha Baron Cohen and Dustin Hoffman, who inform him of the various personalities anxious to meet him, including the Seinfeld fan Marilyn Monroe. David is particularly delighted with this bit of information. Just before expiring, he had asked for and received Cheryl’s permission to “fool around,” since it would be some time before the couple would be reunited. Earlier in the episode, David had quarreled with Cheryl about the proper place for storing empty DVD containers while viewing a movie. David now asks the guardian angels their opinion on the quarrel, and he and Dustin Hoffman argue vehemently about their varying techniques. The argument degenerates into shouts and curses. Exasperated with David, the two spirit guides confer and decide that David is not yet ready for the afterlife—and so they return him to earth.

Analysis Despite the apparent thematic similarity between the two narratives— identity switch and the sense of displacement and being an outsider (secular diasporic concerns par excellence)—there are some notable differences, perhaps the most critical concerning marriage and procreation. David’s marriage is a childless one; he wed relatively late in life, and the subject of children only arises after he has discovered his gentile identity. Since they have no offspring and none planned, the relationship between David and wife is highly libidinal, with repeated references to the couple’s sexuality throughout the show. By contrast, the latent subtext of Leon the Pig Farmer concerns sex—or more precisely, Jewish sex—strictly for the sake of procreation. Early in the film, Leon’s Jewish love interest refuses to sleep with him because he is not wild enough (i.e., he is too Jewish), as if to do so would be to engage in something

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incestuous. In contrast, for the non-Jew Leon dates, his Jewishness invokes the wildness she craves—albeit only as long as he passes himself off as a sculptor. (In a very amusing scene in the film when she learns that he’s not an artist but a realtor, she confronts him accusingly: “I bet you’re not really a Jew, too!”) But even as one narrative motor of Leon the Pig Farmer is the apparent abhorrence of sexual contact between Jews, it resolves this apparent taboo by substituting mating and family in place of sexuality. This it does by invoking an even greater abhorrence. Indeed, the intellectual thrust of the film legitimizes interethnic sexuality but analogizes interethnic procreation to cross-species reproduction: Jews and non-Jews can breed together about as well as sheep and pigs. Any creature that results from such mixing would be as much of an anomaly as Leon. What to do with the animal bred in this way? While the pig farmer says to kill it (reminiscent of Douglas 1966), Leon prefers to protect and release it—the animal, after all, is himself. And what to do with Leon? While he may not be wild enough for his non-Jewish love interest, he has become just wild enough for his Jewish love interest now that she is ready to marry and procreate. Their coupling ends the film and we assume leads to marriage and children. The narrative motor of the Curb Your Enthusiasm episode hinges entirely on the subjunctive. Larry effectively asks: “What would I be like, had I been born a gentile? Would I be funny? Irritable? A father rather than a lover? Would I trust my agent?”—numerous questions that revolve around culture and personality. The episode makes clear that the gentile David is a different beast than the Jewish David. And when his Jewish identity is reconfirmed, the old David returns unchanged, despite the momentary experience of himself as Other. What most intrigues me about this episode is the presumed innateness of Jewishness. In the nature vs. nurture debate, the episode stands entirely on the side of the former. If David was born to gentile parents, he thus must act gentile, just as the half-gentile Leon must move to Yorkshire and become a pig farmer. Despite David’s being married to a non-Jewish woman, the hybridity that often ensues from such unions is here completely absent. The cultural border holds fast and firm: They know nothing about Us, and We are ever different from Them. Indeed, in two other episodes, the rigidity of the border is made even clearer. In one, Cheryl cooks for a Passover seder with recipes borrowed from David’s agent’s wife; she knows nothing about the significance of the food, however, and David either cannot or chooses not to explain anything to her. The meal is not seen as a communion of mutual understanding or deep dialogue, but as something improvised for an elderly father-in-law. In another episode, Cheryl’s visiting parents sing Christmas carols, much to David’s chagrin. As he tries to read in bed, he has a Scrooge-like disdain for the noise and merriment. When the family leaves in the morning, David eats

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a few of the just-baked Christmas cookies, including one shaped like the baby Jesus—a crime later discovered by his wife’s family. His mortified sister-in-law shouts at him: “You swallowed our Lord and Savior!” David’s excuse was that it looked like an animal cookie: “I thought it was a monkey.”19 He tries to make amends by contracting a group he spots performing a nativity scene in front of a church to do the same outside his house—but utter travesty results when David makes a comment to “Joseph” that “Mary” (who happens to be his wife) is quite a looker. This lack of hybridity makes a good deal of sense. While Leon plays with the theme of hybridity to humorous effect, that film’s narrative motor is actually the dialectic of Self and Other—a dialectic that has no possible synthesis. The dialectic or border drama may have tremendous comic value in a romance, but it plays out as tragedy as a tale about progeny. (An exception might be the Judaization of the majority in Fran Drescher’s sitcom The Nanny, perhaps possible in this case because the children are not her own, but her employer’s.) A similar example comes from Israel: while intermarriage may be rare in that society, the theme does appear in Sayed Kashua’s hit sitcom Avodah Aravit in the subplot of romance between Amal, the feminist Palestinian Israeli, and her secular Jewish Israeli suitor, Meir. In the series, the often-clumsy interaction between the Ashkenazi Jews and the Palestinian family whose principal member is determined to conform constitutes the foundation for the show’s humor and the resulting hybridity in speech, food, and love. But when courtship moves toward marriage and procreation, hybridity loses its comic dimension and gets displaced by tragedy: it foreshadows the end of a people—in this case, two peoples. It is apparently this tragic dimension that haunts the second season: Amal gets pregnant and the relationship eventually falls apart.20 This discussion brings us back to Steven M. Cohen’s remark about American Jews accepting the principle of ethnic boundaries, even as porous ones. Although some might be wary of placing too much sociological weight on authored texts such as these, the theme of crossing boundaries and the dislocated self has such strong presence in Jewish and other minority writing that it would be hard to dismiss its significance. The same is true for the presumed racial or biological immutability of the Jew, even in the midst of class mobility and acculturation. In particular, one can note the persistence of the immigrant Jewish language, as seen in the speech patterns and the ubiquitous Yiddish glossary as tropes in Jewish comedy—the triumphant return of the repressed. American Jewish humor retains an attenuated link to a Jewish Otherness, a link that does not accord with the contemporary social reality.21 Perhaps texts such as the ones discussed here speak less to how secular Jews in the Diaspora behave or to what we assume to be their objective social reality and more to how they experience that reality. As Max Weber and Clifford Geertz have argued, humans “are animals suspended in webs of significance”

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that they themselves have spun (Geertz 1973: 5). The ways that Jews think about their social universe, something we could call the Jewish cultural imaginary, may be as important as what we take to be their objective experience. One might be surprised to learn how parochially many Jews continue to see the world they inhabit, long after most indicators suggest the opposite. In a sense, conceptual borders—the ones that are hardly visible—may constitute a significant counterpoint to the porous and inclusive boundaries that Cohen argues that American Jews prefer. Part of the work of these borders is to assert difference in the face of the opposite, a way of resolving the tension that Goldberg describes as “between individual self-expression and gestures of group belonging.” Such distinctions may be little more than what Freud referred to as “a narcissism of minor difference” (1961: 61), easily transgressed behaviorally, yet they remain conceptually formidable—in my view, a cornerstone of a kind of fortress that secular Jews have built to reassure themselves of group continuity. Notes I’d like to thank the editors of this volume for patience and excellent suggestions and especially to Harvey Goldberg for several readings and comments. I gratefully acknowledge the resources of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center and the endowment of the Melton Legislative Professorship at the Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Florida for making this research possible. 1. Joan Nathan, “At Hanukkah, Chefs Make Kitchen Conversions,” New York Times, 9 December 2009. 2. From the label of a bottle of Soy Vay Chinese Marinade. 3. Lisa Keys, “High on the Hog: The national infatuation with pork has reached Jewish cuisine, prohibitions notwithstanding.” Tablet Magazine, 7 February 2010. http://www .tabletmag.com/life-and-religion/25147/high-on-the-hog/. 4. Jennifer Medina, “Why Is This Christmas Different From All Others?” New York Times, 25 December 2009. 5. Stephen Holden, “Leon the Pig Farmer,” New York Times, 10 September 1993. 6. Ken Hanke, “Leon the Pig Farmer,” Mountain Xpress, 21 May 2008. 7. GA, Time Out Film Guide. http://www.timeout.com/film/newyork/reviews/80308/ leon-the-pig-farmer. 8. Kevin Thomas, “‘Pig Farmer’ Larded with Contrivances,” Los Angeles Times, 21 September 1994. 9. http://kindred.thegothproject.com/mfrankel.html 10. Jim Rutenberg, “Basking in the Buzz,” New York Times, 17 January 2001. 11. Alessandra Stanley, “Rough-Edged Cultural Touchstone,” The New York Times, 16 November 2002. 12. James Kaplan, “Angry Middle-Aged Man,” The New Yorker, 19 January 2004, p. 66. 13. Lee Siegel, “The Little Things: The Significance of Larry David,” The New Republic, 13 January 2003, p. 24. 14. Stanley, “Rough-Edged Cultural Touchstone.”

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15. Stanley, “Rough-Edged Cultural Touchstone.” 16. The technique was apparently borrowed from the 1965 British film, The Knack . . . and How to Get It, according to Ken Hanke in “Leon the Pig Farmer.” 17. The episode is the tenth of that season and aired 4 December 2005. 18. I assume the Arizona town was chosen as a conveniently located middle-America counterpoint and foil to multiethnic and Jewish LA. It works as an extension of the famous Lenny Bruce routine “What’s Jewish, What’s Goyish”—California is Jewish, Arizona very goyish. In one rendition—and there are several—the routine goes as follows: Now I neologize Jewish and goyish. Dig: I’m Jewish. Count Basie’s Jewish. Ray Charles is Jewish. Eddie Cantor’s goyish. B’nai Brith is goyish; Hadassah, Jewish. Marine corps—heavy goyim, dangerous. Kool-Aid is goyish. All Drake’s cakes are goyish. Pumpernickel is Jewish, and, as you know, white bread is very goyish. Instant potatoes—goyish. Black cherry soda’s very Jewish. Macaroons are very Jewish—very Jewish cake. Fruit salad is Jewish. Lime jello is goyish. Lime soda is very goyish. Trailer parks are so goyish that Jews won’t go near them. Jack Paar Show is very goyish. Underwear is definitely goyish. Balls are goyish. Titties are Jewish. Mouths are Jewish. All Italians are Jewish. Greeks are goyish—bad sauce. http://www.myjewishlearning.com/culture/2/Humor/History/In_America/Wizard sofWit/A_Humor_Perspective/jewishandgoyish.shtml 19. Stanley, “Rough-Edged Cultural Touchstone.” 20. Personal conversation with Sayed Kashua. When I discussed my argument with him, he indicated that while there are some comic elements to the pregnancy, such as Meir’s fantasizing himself as the father of an Arab, he agrees with my assessment. 21. This current American reality includes: a Christian former president who turns to the Reform Jewish prayerbook Gates of Prayer to find solace and express contrition; a newly elected African-American president who joins his staff in a White House Passover seder; and a prominent arch-conservative Republican senator and religious Mormon who composes Hanukkah songs. Even outside the philo-Semitism of the US, we see this reality in the Vatican preacher who defends the Pope’s handling of sexual abuse within the church by comparing the accusers to anti-Semites.

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j Notes on Contributors Sarah Bunin Benor is associate professor of Contemporary Jewish Studies at Hebrew Union College—Jewish Institute of Religion (Los Angeles campus) and adjunct associate professor in the University of Southern California Linguistics Department. She received her PhD from Stanford University in Linguistics in 2004. She has published several papers about Jewish languages, linguistics, Yiddish and American Jews. Her book, Becoming Frum: How Newcomers Learn the Language and Culture of Orthodox Judaism, is forthcoming with Rutgers University Press. Dr. Benor edits the Jewish Language Research Website (http://www.jewish-languages.org) and moderates the Jewish Languages Mailing List, both of which she founded. Stanley Brandes holds an AB in History from the University of Chicago (1964) and a PhD in Anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley (1971). Since 1974 he has taught in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, where he served seven years as department chair. For nearly four decades, Brandes has been immersed in the study of European and Latin American ethnography and folklore. His work has focused on peoples of Spain and Latin America, in both rural and urban settings. His most recent books are Staying Sober in Mexico City (2002) and Skulls to the Living, Bread to the Dead: The Day of the Dead in Mexico and Beyond (2006). Brandes recently received a Guggenheim Fellowship for historical and anthropological research related to the place of pets in American family life. Marcy Brink-Danan is assistant professor of Anthropology and Judaic Studies at Brown University. A sociocultural anthropologist specializing in minority affairs, her publications include “Anthropological Perspectives on Judaism” in Religion Compass (2008); “Exhibiting Tolerance: Difference and Doubt in a Turkish Museum” in Benbassa (ed.), Itinéraires sépharades: Complexité et diversité des identités (2010); “‘I Vote, Therefore I am’: Rituals of Democracy and the Turkish Chief Rabbi” in Political and Legal Anthropology Review (2009); and “Names that show time: Turkish Jews as ‘strangers’ and the semiotics of reclassification” in American Anthropologist (2010). Brink-Danan’s ethnographic study, Jewish Life in Twenty-First-Century Turkey, is forthcoming with Indiana University Press.

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Steven M. Cohen is research professor of Jewish Social Policy at Hebrew Union College—Jewish Institute of Religion and director of the Berman Jewish Policy Archive @ NYU Wagner. In the past, he served as professor at The Melton Centre for Jewish Education at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and at Queens College, CUNY. He has also been a visiting professor at Brandeis University, Yale University, and the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. Cohen has written or edited a dozen books and hundreds of scholarly articles and reports on such issues as Jewish community, Jewish identity, and Jewish education. With Arnold Eisen, he wrote The Jew Within: Self, Family and Community in America (2000). Steven is also the co-author with Charles Liebman of Two Worlds of Judaism: The Israeli and American Experiences (1990), as well as Cosmopolitans and Parochials: Modern Orthodox Jews in America (1989), with Samuel C. Heilman. His earlier books include American Modernity & Jewish Identity (1983), and American Assimilation or Jewish Revival? (1988). He also co-authored A Journey of Heart and Mind: Transformative Jewish Learning in Adulthood (2004), a monograph on Jewish identities of Great Britain, and, most recently, Sacred Strategies: Transforming Synagogues from Functional to Visionary (2010), winner of a National Jewish Book Award in 2011. His current research interests extend to emerging forms of Jewish community and identity among younger Jews in the United States. He serves as director of the Synagogue Studies Institute of Synagogue 3000 and as director of the Florence G. Heller—JCCA Research Center. In 2011, he received an honorary doctorate from the Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies. In 2010, he received the Marshall Sklare Award of the Association for the Social Scientific Study of Jewry. Elan Ezrachi is a founding fellow of the Center for Jewish Peoplehood Education in Jerusalem at Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi. Since the 1980s, he has been involved in a variety of educational initiatives that link Jewish communities around the world to Israel and Israeli culture. During these years he was the director of the Charles Bronfman Mifgashim Center, head of the Division of Educational Programs and Israel Experiences at the Jewish Agency, and executive director of Masa–Israel Journey, the umbrella organization for long-term programs in Israel for Jewish young adults. Ezrachi received his PhD form the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York in 1993. His dissertation topic was: “The Dynamics of Interaction between American Jews and Israelis.” Shlomo Fischer is a fellow in the Jewish People Policy Institute in Jerusalem. He teaches in the department of Sociology and Anthropology at Tel Aviv University and in the School of Education of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He was awarded his PhD in 2007 from the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the Hebrew University. His edited book (together with Adam Seligman) The Burden of Tolerance: Religious Traditions and the Challenge of

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Pluralism was published (in Hebrew) by the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute and HaKibbutz HaMeuchad (2007). Fischer has worked in the field of education for the past twenty-five years. From 1996–2007, he was the founder and executive director of Yesodot—Center for Torah and Democracy, which works to advance education for democracy in the State religious school sector. Ben Gidley is a senior researcher at the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS) at the University of Oxford, where he is working on a number of research projects around multiculturalism, integration, diaspora, and urbanism, mainly focused on London where he lives. His PhD research was on East London Jewish radicals in the early twentieth century, and he has recently returned to this topic in a collaborative research project examining diasporic and faith-based associational politics in the East London over the last century. Previously, he was based at the Centre for Urban and Community Research at Goldsmiths, University of London. Among his activities there were coorganizing (with James Renton) a conference on comparisons and contrasts between anti-Semitism and Islamophobia (some of the papers forthcoming in an edited collection with Indiana University Press), ethnographic research in multicultural London, and work on the history of anti-racism. His most recent publication (co-authored with Keith Kahn-Harris) is Turbulent Times: The British Jewish Community Today (2010). Harvey E. Goldberg is Sarah Allen Shaine Chair in Sociology and Anthropology emeritus at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has been visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley and at Boğaziçi University, Istanbul; visiting lecturer at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Science Sociale, Paris; and fellow at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies and at the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. His books include Jewish Life in Muslim Libya: Rivals and Relatives (1990) and the recent Jewish Passages: Cycles of Jewish Life (2003). He has also edited Sephardi and Middle Eastern Jewries (1996), The Life of Judaism (2001), and coauthored The Israel Experience: Studies in Youth Travel and Jewish Identity (2002), with Samuel C. Heilman and Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett. Goldberg’s research has focused on Jewish culture in the Middle East and the interaction of ethnic and religious identities in Israeli society, and in general has been informed by attempts to utilize insights from anthropology in historical and contemporary Jewish Studies. Keith Kahn-Harris lives and grew up in London. Whilst a graduate student, he worked as a researcher for Jewish Continuity and the United Jewish Israel Appeal and edited the collection New Voices in Jewish Thought, vol. 2. He completed his PhD in the sociology of the global extreme metal scene in 2001

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(based in part on research conducted in Israel) and has, ever since, juggled his research and publication interests in Jews and in popular music. From 2001–2002 he was a Jerusalem fellow at the Mandel School, Jerusalem. He has been visiting fellow and lecturer at universities in Israel, Sweden, Finland, and Germany. He is currently honorary research fellow at the Centre for Religion and Contemporary Society at Birkbeck College, University of London. He has also conducted research for a number of Jewish organizations in the UK and internationally. He is the co-founder and convener of the New Jewish Thought project, which seeks to develop dialogue between Jews with different backgrounds and opinions. His most recent publication (co-authored with Ben Gidley) is Turbulent Times: The British Jewish Community Today (2010). He writes for a variety of Jewish and non-Jewish publications, listed at his website, www.kahn-harris.org. Shaul Kelner is assistant professor of Sociology and Jewish Studies at Vanderbilt University. He is the author of Tours that Bind: Diaspora, Pilgrimage and Israeli Birthright Tourism (2010). Ezra Kopelowitz is a sociologist specializing in Israel-Diaspora relations and issues of Jewish identity, education, and religion in Israel and the United States. Ezra is CEO of Research Success Technologies Ltd. (http://www.researchsuccess.com), a Jerusalem company specializing in research and evaluation for Jewish organizations. He is also a senior fellow at the Center for Jewish Peoplehood Education (http://www.jpeoplehood.org). Ezra is currently working on a book with Lisa Grant on Israel Education. His recent publications include Cultural Education-Cultural Sustainability: Minority, Diaspora, Indigenous and Ethno-Religious Groups in Multicultural Societies (co-editor, 2008) and Jewish Peoplehood: Change and Challenge (co-editor, 2008). He lectures and publishes on topics touching on Jewish community, education, and strategic thinking. From 2000–2003, Kopelowitz served as director of the Research Activities of the Department of Jewish Education of the Jewish Agency for Israel, and in 2004 was a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies at The Hebrew University. Jack Kugelmass is professor of Anthropology and the Sam Melton Professor and director of the Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Florida. He received a BA from McGill University and an MA and PhD from the New School for Social Research. He previously taught at the Max Weinreich Center for Advanced Jewish Studies and at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he directed the Folklore Program. He is the editor of Jews, Sports and the Rites of Citizenship (2006) and Key Texts in American Jewish Culture (2003), author of The Miracle of Intervale Avenue: The Story of a Jewish Congregation

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in the South Bronx (1996), and co-author of From A Ruined Garden: The Memorial Books of Polish Jewry (1998). He is currently working on a book on twentieth-century Yiddish travelogues. He was the editor for two terms of City & Society, the journal of the Society for Urban, National, Transnational, and Global Anthropology. Lior Rosenberg is a political-sociologist specializing on rural China. He has a MA from the Hebrew University in Sociology and Anthropology with specialization in Organizational Studies. He is currently a PhD student at the Contemporary China Center at the Australian National University. In the last few years, he has worked at the Myers-JDC-Brookdale Institute and at the Research and Development Unit of the Department of Education at the Jewish Agency for Israel. Theodore Sasson is associate professor of International Studies at Middlebury College and visiting research professor in the Sociology Department at Brandeis University. He is also senior research scientist at the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies and the Steinhardt Social Research Institute, Brandeis University. Author of several books and numerous scholarly articles in the fields of political sociology and criminology, Sasson’s current work examines Israeli political culture and Israel-Diaspora relations. His recent articles include “Mass Mobilization to Direct Engagement: American Jews’ Changing Relationship to Israel” in Israel Studies (2010) and “Converging Political Cultures: How Globalization is Shaping the Discourses of Israeli and American Jews” (with Ephraim Tabory) in Nationalism and Ethnic Politics (2010). Philip Wexler is professor of Sociology of Education and Bella and Israel Unterberg Chair of Jewish Social and Educational History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is the author of papers and books in the areas of social theory, sociology of education, and the intersection of social theory and Jewish mysticism. His recent books include: Mystical Society (English and Hebrew versions, 2000); Mystical Interactions: Sociology, Jewish Mysticism and Education (2007); and Symbolic Movement: Critique and Spirituality in Sociology of Education (2008). Prior to moving to Israel, Wexler was Scandling Professor of Education and Sociology and dean at the University of Rochester. He served as editor of the journal Sociology of Education and serves on editorial boards of academic journals internationally. Rachel Werczberger recently completed her PhD on Jewish Spiritual Renewal communities in Israel in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her research interests include the sociology and anthropology of contemporary Judaism, New Age spirituality, and

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gender and religion. Her recent articles include “Memory, Land and Identity: Visions of the Past and the Land in the Jewish Spiritual Renewal Movement in Israel” in Journal of Contemporary Religion (2011), and “The Jewish Renewal Movement in Israeli Secular Society” in Contemporary Jewry (co-authored with Na’ama Azulay, 2011). Yaacov Yadgar teaches at the Department of Political Studies, Bar-Ilan University. His most recent book, in which he further develops several of the main themes discussed in his chapter in this volume, is Secularism and Religion in Jewish-Israeli Politics: Traditionists and Modernity (2011).

j Index A African-American, 43, 236 Agudat Yisrael, 4, 6 Alcalá la Real, 39 aliyah, 14, 61, 205, 220 America, 1, 5, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 21, 23, 26, 50, 51, 57, 69, 70, 102, 138, 157, 163, 164, 169, 183, 189, 196, 204, 207, 210, 211, 226, 236 American Jewry, 69, 70, 156, 169, 176, 193 American Jews, 9, 21, 22, 23, 24, 45, 63, 151, 153, 155, 157, 159, 161, 162, 163, 164, 166, 169, 190, 193, 194, 195, 196, 202, 204, 205, 209, 211, 212, 213, 216, 218, 219, 220, 221, 222, 224, 235 Amichai,Yehuda, 182 Amin, Moustafa, 44 Anderson, Benedict, 137, 140, 141 Anglo-Americans, 37 Anglo-Jewry, 66, 67, 68, 70, 71, 72, 73 anti-Semitism, 11, 37, 66, 72, 75, 86 Arabs, 22, 46, 48, 53, 63, 182, 192, 198, 199, 202, 203, 204, 205 Aramaic, 36, 221 army, 6, 15, 20, 23, 33, 39, 93, 94, 142, 143, 145, 146 assimilation, 11, 17, 37, 65, 66, 68, 70, 163, 164, 231 Avodah Aravit, 234 B Bar Kochba, 181 Bar Mitzvah, 31, 32 Barth, Fredrik, 224 Basques, 34, 36, 42 Beit Guvrin, 180 Berreman, Gerald, 42, 43

Bible, the, 10, 94, 182 binary categories, 46, 48, 51, 56, 63 in anthroplogy, 16 Birthright Israel, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 188, 216, 218, 219 Board of Deputies of British Jews, 66, 68 border drama, 223, 225, 226, 234 Boston, 44, 194 Boston Globe, 44 boundaries, 3, 8, 15, 18, 24, 32, 34, 53, 56, 60, 87, 109, 162, 163, 207, 216, 217, 224, 225, 234, 235 Brandes, Stanley, 16, 31, 225 Brenner, Paul, 226 Bronfman, Charles, 176 Bronx, 31 Bruce, Lenny, 182, 236 Bruce, Steve, 146 Buber, Martin, 18, 25, 80, 81, 82, 107 Buddhist, 43 Burg, Yosef, 51 C Cahn, Peter, 41 Capmany, Aureli, 39 caste, 42, 43 Catalans, 34, 35, 38, 40, 42 Catholicism, 41, 42, 43, 44, 109 Cazorla, 33 Chabad, 15, 57, 84, 85 Chamula, 41 Cherokees, 34, 35, 36, 37 Chief Rabbinate, 66 Christians, 14, 40, 132 Clark, 45 Clark, Wesley, 44

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Clifford , James, 211, 216 Clinton, Bill, 44 Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies (at Brandeis University), 177 Cohen, Steven M., 21, 73, 135, 150, 151, 166, 213, 220, 224, 234 Cohen, Steven P., 214 collective identity, 23, 74, 75, 76, 78, 79, 80, 82, 113, 116, 122, 157, 165, 166, 211, See group identity Commission on Jewish Education in North America, 69 community ethnoreligious/ethnonational, 139 national, 97, 140 Conservative Judaism, 17, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 63, 85, 120, 146, 168 contact, 215, 216, 217 continuity, 2, 17, 18, 53, 69, 70, 72, 75, 82, 86, 154, 156, 159, 226, 227, 235 continuity crisis, 176 conversion, 5, 13, 26, 38, 40, 41, 42, 43, 61, 62, 65, 154, 158, 159, 191, 192, 195 core self, 23, 174, 175 cultural capital, 40, 49, 220 cultural distinction, sources of, 221, 222 cultural object, 141, 142, 144 cultural variation, 222 Curb Your Enthusiasm, 226, 230, 233 D dati, 4, 5, 6, 8, 26, 49, 53, 58, 63, 86, 87, 115, 124 David Yellin Teachers College, 137, 138, 139, 140, 148 David, Larry, 226, 230, 235 Day of the Dead, 41 Dead Sea, 180, 182 Dead Sea Scroll caves, 180 Demography. See Jewish population Deshen, Shlomo, 3, 141, 142 Diaspora diasporic identity, 22, 206, 207, 212 diasporic Jewish identity, 206, 213 Jewry, 13, 136, 148 Jews, 14, 148, 175, 201, 207, 208, 209, 210, 214, 216, 219, 222

Dorson, Richard, 36 drinking, 41 Durkheim, Emile, 18, 76, 77, 79, 141 Durkheimian, 141, 195 E Eastern Orthodoxy, 33 education, Jewish, 69, 207, 217 Eisen, Arnold, 9, 14, 166, 169, 210, 213 El Al, 177 Empordá. See Catalans, Spain Emuni, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 167, 169 engagement, Jewish, 151, 152, 154, 155, 156, 165, 169 England, 3, 15, 17, 44, 66, 86, 139, 191, 197, 198, 222 Enlightenment, 65, 108 ethnicity, 21, 42, 43, 57, 59, 61, 73, 209, 225, 227 ethnography, 23, 25 Europe, 1, 3, 4, 18, 27, 32, 34, 46, 50, 57, 70, 74, 109, 138, 175, 208, 221, 222 exile, 71, 206, 210 F Falash Mura. See Jews, Ethiopian feminism, 13, 19, 20, 107, 112, 113, 114, 117, 118, 129, 134, 166, 169 Figueres, 39 film, 106, 163, 220, 226, 229, 230, 232, 233, 234, 235, 236 food, cuisine, 20, 26, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 150, 168, 186, 223, 228, 230, 233, 234, 235 kosher, 145 France, 1, 3, 20, 86, 139, 207, 222 G Gal, Alon, 208 Galchinky, Michael, 210, 211 Galicians, 42 Gaza, 59, 91, 92, 100, 101, 103, 176, 190, 204 Gaza Strip, 59, 176 Geertz, Clifford, 1, 13, 38, 42, 47, 83, 115, 224, 234, 235

Index | 265

gender, 46, 48, 107, 111, 112, 113, 114, 121, 122, 123, 128, 131, 133, 134, 166, 178, 225, 227 general will, 98, 100, 101, 102 genetics, 230 gentiles, 31, 126 Girona, 38 Goldberg, Harvey E., 1, 7, 11, 13, 16, 18, 26, 46, 47, 57, 62, 85, 86, 87, 135, 179, 224, 235 Goldwater, Clare, 180, 181 group discussions, 22, 183, 186, 194, 205 group identity. See collective identity Gush Emunim, 5, 92, 93, 94 Guttman/Avi-Chai survey, 136 H halakha, 19 Hanukkah, 15, 157, 223, 235, 236 Havura movement, 23 Hebrew, 55 Hebrew school, 152, 185 Hebrew University, 62, 135 Herskovits, Melville, 38 Herzl, Theodor, 182 High Holidays, 31 Hillel, 182 hiloni, 49, 58, 86, 87, 115 Hobsbawm, Eric, 38 Holocaust, 10, 14, 15, 44, 66, 67, 70, 179, 183, 208, 209, 213, 227 homeland, 32, 34, 35, 37, 157, 175, 176, 206, 207, 209, 210, 211, 213, 214, 216 Hopis, 34, 35 Horowitz, Bethamie, 209, 210 humor, 10, 16, 36, 225, 226, 227, 230, 234 hybrid, hybridity, 18, 54, 63, 74, 163, 215, 230 I Iberian Peninsula. See Europe, Spain identity ethnic, 34, 38, 115, 214 Jewish, 2, 18, 23, 24, 35, 41, 43, 44, 70, 74, 75, 82, 118, 125, 136, 144, 145, 149, 151, 157, 160, 165, 166, 168, 175, 178, 184, 206, 207, 208,

209, 210, 212, 214, 215, 216, 217, 233 identity politics, 67, 73 Imagined Communities, 137, 140 in-married, the, 151, 152, 154, 164 intermarriage, 2, 58, 68, 69, 70, 75, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 162, 225, 227, 234 Intermarried, the, 151, 152, 156 inward individuality, 105, 106 Ireland, 44, 146, 168, 191 Israel Land of, 5, 18, 20, 56, 92, 93, 99, 100, 107, 111, 137, 168 Israeli Hebrew, 220, 221 Israeli Jews, 7, 8, 9, 13, 14, 15, 21, 23, 58, 114, 115, 123, 124, 136, 137, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 145, 147, 149, 168, 170, 193, 200, 203, 205 Istanbul, 84, 85 Itineraries, 177 J Janner, Grenville, 68 Jerusalem, 51, 52, 53, 62, 63, 67, 107, 108, 110, 111, 135, 137, 178, 180, 181, 183, 220, 222 Jesus, 24, 33, 40, 231, 234 Jewish Agency, 96, 137, 139, 140, 148, 150 Jewish belonging, 2, 3, 12, 83, 84, 110, 139, 170, 175 Jewish Chronicle, 71 Jewish Home (party), 26 Jewish population. See demography Jewish Quarter, the, 183 Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 51 Jewishness, 2, 3, 11, 12, 24, 44, 58, 69, 84, 85, 145, 146, 149, 157, 160, 178, 182, 187, 197, 204, 209, 210, 215, 221, 227, 230, 233 Jews American, 37, 109 Ethiopian, 16, 192, 213 haredi, 52, 53 in the Diaspora, 206, 213, 217 Masorti, 52 Middle Eastern, 60

266 | Index

non-Jews, 2, 18, 21, 48, 66, 69, 126, 159, 162, 191, 201, 224, 225, 233 Oriental, 43 Orthodox, 22, 51, 52, 85, 128, 129, 146, 168, 195, 203, 220, 221, 227 religious, 17 secular, 94, 129, 137, 200, 234, 235 Sephardi, Sephardim, 5, 7, 26, 52, 59 traditional, 53 ultra-Orthodox, 6, 53, 54, 55, 68, 69, 84, 115, 118, 119, 121, 122 Yemenite, 52 jokes, humor, comedy, 33, 36, 37, 40, 226 K Kabbalah, 9 Kadima (party), 64 Kalms, Stanley, 71 kashrut, 20, 124, 126, 142, 143, 144, 145, 147, 148, 149 Kerry, John, 44, 45 key texts, 227, 228 King David’s Tomb, 183 kinship, 42 Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara, 161, 164, 180 Knesset, 26, 51, 60, 95, 111, 194 Kook, Abraham Isaac, 19, 62, 63, 97, 98, 99, 100, 102, 104, 105, 106, 110, 111, 167 Kook, Zvi Yehuda, 94 Kosmin, Barry, 68, 69, 72, 207 Kugelmass, Jack, 223 L Ladino, 36 Lake Pátzcuaro, 41 language, 16, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 42, 52, 55, 57, 80, 83, 86, 87, 103, 140, 151, 184, 198, 208, 214, 215, 216, 218, 220, 221, 234 Leon the Pig Farmer, 226, 227, 228, 232, 233, 235, 236 Lieberman, Joe, 44, 45 life cycle, 13, 41 Likud (party), 6, 59, 60, 64, 92, 94

liminality, 174, 177, 178, 188 linguistics, 47, 87 love interest, 230, 232, 233 with non-Jews, 233 Lowe, Ida, 44 M madrichim (tour guides), 180 Maimonides, 25 Mapai (party), 4, 5 marriage, 24, 40, 44, 129, 146, 152, 154, 157, 158, 159, 162, 191, 192, 224, 225, 229, 232, 233 Martin, David, 146 Masada, 180, 182 Mason, Jackie, 231 masorti, 8, 13, 19, 20, 26, 27, 63, 86, 115, 135, 166, 167 Masorti Movement. See Conservative Judaism Masrek nature reserve, 181 Mayas, 34, 35 meditation, 18, 183 Methods (research), 87 Mexico, 33, 41, 222 mifgash, 216 military service, 6, 93, 94 minyan, 165, 220, 221 miracle tales, 33 Mitqademet. See Reform Judaism Mizrahi (party), 4, 5 Mizrahim, 57, 58, 59, 115 Modern Orthodoxy, 19, 63, 91, 109 modernity, 4, 9, 10, 14, 18, 19, 55, 65, 66, 115, 117, 163, 228 postmodernity, 9, 117 Morant i Clanxet, Jordi, 39 Mormons, 34 Morocco, 59, 84 multiculturalism, 72, 73, 75 music, 161, 163, 220, 222 Muslim, 2, 8, 42, 43, 57, 115, 135 N Nachman of Bratslav, Rabbi, 182 Nahmanides, 38

Index | 267

naming, 33, 83, 86 narrative, 11, 23, 37, 77, 86, 177, 178, 180, 183, 187, 188, 207, 208, 210, 216, 217, 219, 226, 233, 234 National Jewish Population Survey, 69, 156 nationalism, 4, 10, 92, 109, 140, 163, 167, 199, 204 Nazi (Nazism), 1, 14, 43 New Age religion, 8 new anti-Semitism, 72, See anti-Semitism Newsday, 44 North America, 1, 69 O Oklahoma, 37 Old City, 180 ontology, 83, 86, 87 Orthodox Judaism, 3 Orthodoxy, 4, 22, 50, 51, 52, 55, 56, 57, 59, 93, 109, 110, 119, 121, 132, 146, 168, 185, 197 otherness, 214 P Palmach, 181 Passover, 15, 152, 186, 227, 233 People, Jewish, 21, 141, 171, 182, 197 peoplehood, 18, 19, 22, 25, 83, 151, 157, 207, 210, 213, 214, 215, 217, 218 pilgrimage, 15, 23, 177 Poel Mizrahi (party), 5 population, Jewish, 137, 154, 173, 186, 202 post-structuralism, 9 Protestantism, 11, 41 Protestants. See Mormons, Quakers Purim, 185 Pyrenees, 38 Q Quakers, 40 R Rabin, Yitzhak, 6, 101, 111, 183 race, 16, 26, 34, 37, 42, 60, 73, 227, 230 Radwidowicz, Simon, 65, 86

Rafael, Yitshak, 51 Ranger, Terrence, 38 Reform Judaism, 12, 49, 52 religious elite, 219, 221 Renewal, Jewish, 12, 165, 168, 169 rhetoric, 59, 65, 75, 86, 112, 193, 215 romanticism, 19, 109 Rosh Ha-shanah. See High Holidays Ruppin College, 137, 138, 139, 140, 148, 150 S Sacks, Jonathan, 65, 68, 70, 71, 73 saints, 32, 33, 41 Salvat, Francesc, 39 sardana, 38, 39 Sarna, Jonathan, 209 Scotland, 44 Sea of Galilee, 181 second intifada, 72, 192 secularism, 2, 3, 55, 59, 116, 119, 127, 129 secularity, 8, 137, 146 security, 17, 32, 66, 67, 68, 72, 73, 85, 86, 108, 111, 117, 127, 195, 204 Seinfeld, 226, 232 self-definitions, 23, 174, 177, 188, 189 self-identification, 20, 123, 134, 137 Seneca, 36 Sephardi. See Jews Serbo-Croatian, 42 sex, sexuality, sexual contact, reproduction, 48, 178, 228, 232 Shain, Yossi, 211 Shalom, Silvan, 59 Sharon, Ariel, 59, 60, 63, 92, 199 ShaS (party), 59 Shehechyanu, 184 Shema, 36 Shinui (party), 59, 64 shlichim (emissaries), 137 Six-Day War (1967 war), 4, 5, 54, 55, 67 social capital, 155, 220 Socialization, 22, 206, 207 sociologists, 13, 76, 81, 91, 140, 191 sociology, 17, 18, 74, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 113, 122, 134, 141, 184, 211

268 | Index

soul, 39, 40, 83, 105, 106, 232 Soviet Union, 13, 57, 218 Spain, 33, 39, 42 speech, 5, 26, 36, 43, 53, 68, 70, 221, 229, 234 sphere, private, 20, 144, 145, 146, 149, 212 sphere, public, 15, 16, 20, 21, 112, 144, 145, 146, 149 Spicer, Edward, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38 spirituality, 9, 70, 163, 182 Spivak, Roberta, 43 Stavenhagen, Rodolfo, 42 Steinhart, Michael, 176 Studies, Jewish, 12, 25, 155, 220, 235 Sukkot, 185, 220 summer camp, 137

Urry, John, 179 Utah, 34

T Taglit-Birthright Israel, 173 Talmud, the, 94, 95, 182 Talmudic law, 185 Tami (party), 5, 7 Tel Aviv, 36, 44, 52, 59, 100, 117, 183 Temple Mount, 180 territory, 16, 18, 33, 34, 39, 93, 96 The Home We Build Together, 73 The Nanny, 234 tourism, 23, 174, 175, 177, 179, 180, 181, 188, 215 tourist gaze, 179 travel, 15, 21, 22, 23, 85, 106, 152, 155, 156, 174, 177, 179, 215, 216, 217, 219 Tuan, Yi-Fu, 32 Turkey, 86 Turner, Victor, 25, 96, 177, 178 Twain, Mark, 182 Tzotzil, 42

Y Yacquis, 16 YadVashem Holocaust memorial, 183 Yaquis, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38 yeshiva, 6, 93, 94, 95, 102, 108, 110, 111 Yiddish, 9, 36, 37, 84, 184, 220, 221, 222, 229, 234 postvernacular, 221 Yom Kippur. See High Holidays Yonkers, 32, 84 Yosef, Ovadiah, 7 Young Judea, 175

U United States, 2, 3, 5, 8, 9, 12, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 25, 26, 32, 34, 35, 44, 46, 51, 63, 89, 131, 152, 176, 195, 197, 200, 202, 203, 212 United Synagogue, 71

V Ventura i Casas, Josep Maria (Pep), 38 Vertovec, Steven, 212 W War of Independence, 180 Weber, Max, 18, 76, 77, 79, 101, 234 welcoming, 158, 159, 217 West Bank, 91, 92, 95, 100, 165, 167, 176, 190, 199, 204 Western Wall, 52, 56, 62, 183 Wiesel, Elie, 182 Will We Have Jewish Grandchildren?, 70

Z Zionism, 7, 10, 11, 17, 18, 19, 21, 51, 53, 54, 66, 67, 74, 92, 93, 96, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 175, 193, 194, 208 post-Zionism, 9, 11 radical religious, 93, 94, 96, 101, 102 religious, 19, 109 Romantic religious, 107 Zionist, 4, 6, 11, 13, 15, 18, 19, 54, 56, 63, 91, 92, 93, 96, 97, 100, 101, 106, 107, 108, 110, 111, 139, 140, 150, 165, 175, 179, 181, 183, 194, 203, 208, 217