Religions

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5 pages, 214 KiB

Open AccessEditorial

Diasporas and Religious Identities: Insights from Anthropological Perspectives

by André Levy

Religions 2024, 15(11), 1381; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15111381 - 14 Nov 2024

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Abstract

For many years, anthropology contributed significantly to the reinforcement of “dominant notions of culture and identity as being closely tied to specific territories” (Jansen and Löfving 2009, p [...] Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Anthropological Perspectives on Diaspora and Religious Identities)

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17 pages, 683 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Rebranding God: The Jewish Revival Movement between Homeland and Diaspora

by Rachel Werczberger and Daniel Monterescu

Religions 2024, 15(10), 1255; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15101255 - 16 Oct 2024

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Abstract

Against the gloomy forecast of “The Vanishing Diaspora”, the end of the second millennium saw the global emergence of a dazzling array of Jewish cultural initiatives, institutional modalities, and individual practices. These “Jewish Revival” and “Jewish Renewal” projects are led by Jewish NGOs [...] Read more.

Against the gloomy forecast of “The Vanishing Diaspora”, the end of the second millennium saw the global emergence of a dazzling array of Jewish cultural initiatives, institutional modalities, and individual practices. These “Jewish Revival” and “Jewish Renewal” projects are led by Jewish NGOs and philanthropic organizations, the Orthodox Teshuva (return to the fold) movement and its well-known emissary Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidism, and alternative cultural initiatives that promote what can be termed “lifestyle Judaism”. This range between institutionalized revival movements and ephemeral event-driven projects circumscribes a diverse space of creative agency. Indeed, the trope of a “Jewish Renaissance” has become both a descriptive category of an increasingly popular and scholarly discourse across the globe, and a prescriptive model for social action. This article explores the global transformations of contemporary Jewishness, which give renewed meaning to identity, tradition, and politics in our post-secular world in two different sociopolitical contexts. Drawing on long-term ethnographic research, we interrogate the relations between “diaspora” and “homeland” by analyzing two case studies: the Jewish revival movement in Budapest, Hungary, and the Jewish renewal initiatives in Israel. While the first instantiates a diasporic movement anchored in a post-denominational and post-secular attempt to reclaim Jewish tradition for a new generation of Jew-llennials (Millennial Jews), the second group operates against the Orthodox hegemony of the institutional Rabbinate by revisiting religious ritual and textual study. By proposing new cultural repertoires, these movements highlight the dialectic exchange between center and periphery. The ethnography of religious revival decenters the Israeli Orthodoxy as “the homeland” and positions the diaspora at the core of a network of cultural creativity and renewal, while remaining in constant dialog with Israel and other diasporic communities. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Anthropological Perspectives on Diaspora and Religious Identities)

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23 pages, 643 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Selkea! Memories of Eating Non-Kosher Food among the Spanish–Moroccan Jewish Diaspora in Israel

by Angy Cohen and Aviad Moreno

Religions 2024, 15(10), 1171; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15101171 - 26 Sep 2024

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Abstract

Drawing on life-story interviews and ethnography conducted in Israel from 2009 to 2023, this article examines how members of the Spanish-speaking Moroccan–Jewish diaspora in Israel recalled their habits of eating non-kosher food in Morocco. We explore how these memories emerged in response to [...] Read more.

Drawing on life-story interviews and ethnography conducted in Israel from 2009 to 2023, this article examines how members of the Spanish-speaking Moroccan–Jewish diaspora in Israel recalled their habits of eating non-kosher food in Morocco. We explore how these memories emerged in response to commonplace discourses that depict Moroccan Jews as a distinctly religious-traditional ethnic group, untouched by European secular influences, and dichotomous to modern secular cultures in Israel. Contrary to this image, members of the community whom we interviewed highlighted a Jewish Moroccan life that was deeply connected to Spanish colonialism and the broader Hispanic and Sephardi worlds. We focus specifically on the concept of selkear, a Haketia (Judeo-Spanish) term meaning to let something go, make an exception, or turn a blind eye. Our analysis of our participants’ memories provides a nuanced understanding of Jewish religiosity in the context of colonialism and of how Mizrahi–Sephardi immigrants in Israel reclaimed their Judaism. Highlighting the practice of eating non-kosher food is thus a strategy used to challenge dominant notions of rigid religious commitment within the Sephardi diaspora and their interpretation in Israel. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Anthropological Perspectives on Diaspora and Religious Identities)

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16 pages, 283 KiB

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Narrating Diasporic Religion and Postsecular Identity in Tahar Ben Jelloun’s A Palace in the Old Village

by Abdelaziz El Amrani

Religions 2024, 15(9), 1038; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15091038 - 27 Aug 2024

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Abstract

Inspired by Western secular literary tradition, many diasporic writers in the Maghreb in general and in Morocco in particular did not include religious or spiritual themes in their literary works, as compared to the valorized ones of race, class and gender. Much of [...] Read more.

Inspired by Western secular literary tradition, many diasporic writers in the Maghreb in general and in Morocco in particular did not include religious or spiritual themes in their literary works, as compared to the valorized ones of race, class and gender. Much of Maghrebian fiction, primarily written by immigrant writers of Islamic background who adopt secular perspectives that are often critical of Islam, has depicted religion, especially Islam, in negative terms. Tahar Ben Jelloun is one of those writers who are criticized for being self-orientalizing authors who ‘prostitute’ their works to their Western audience. But, Tahar Ben Jelloun is misunderstood by the majority of his readers. In this article, using postsecularism and secular spirituality as analytical tools, I will explore the postsecular identity and diasporic religion in Tahar Ben Jelloun’s A Palace in the Old Village. Reading the novel from a postsecular perspective and more specifically from a secular spiritual perspective, I will show that Tahar Ben Jelloun is neither self-orientalizing Islam nor celebrating French secularism. Instead, he is upholding postsecular values and diasporic consciousness by negotiating instances of extremism and communalism that mark the failures of both organized religion and Eurocentric secularism. Indeed, Ben Jelloun presents Islam as faith, as a spiritual practice; a diasporic religiosity which is not associated with any political doctrine or organization. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Anthropological Perspectives on Diaspora and Religious Identities)

19 pages, 2651 KiB

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Disappearing Diaspora: Deterioration and Restoration of Marrakech’s Lazama Synagogue

by Andre Levy

Religions 2024, 15(8), 945; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15080945 - 5 Aug 2024

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Abstract

This paper examines circumstances where religious practices challenge the survival of tiny diasporic communities. The persistence of such diasporic communities might be undermined by the need to fulfill religious practices that are insurmountable due to their small size. Using microscopic anthropological lenses, the [...] Read more.

This paper examines circumstances where religious practices challenge the survival of tiny diasporic communities. The persistence of such diasporic communities might be undermined by the need to fulfill religious practices that are insurmountable due to their small size. Using microscopic anthropological lenses, the paper focuses on a specific synagogue in Marrakech that innovatively mutates in its functioning to persevere and overcome the hurdles posed by religious practices. Practically, the synagogue let into its space non-Jews, by offering them varied services. Although that act of crossing community boundaries seems to undermine the local singular character of the community, the fact that it invokes shared cultural intimacy with Muslims attenuates these threats. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Anthropological Perspectives on Diaspora and Religious Identities)

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32 pages, 1087 KiB

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“We Became Religious to Protect Our Children”: Diasporic Religiosity among Moroccan Jewish Families in France and Israel

by Yona Elfassi Abeddour

Religions 2024, 15(5), 587; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15050587 - 10 May 2024

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2092

Abstract

This article explores the formation and preservation of a distinctive “Moroccan Judaism” ethos, rooted in a connection to the homeland and an idealized Moroccan past. Through an examination of secularism, traditionalism, and modernity in Israel and France, alongside the resurgence of religiosity in [...] Read more.

This article explores the formation and preservation of a distinctive “Moroccan Judaism” ethos, rooted in a connection to the homeland and an idealized Moroccan past. Through an examination of secularism, traditionalism, and modernity in Israel and France, alongside the resurgence of religiosity in secular societies, it assesses the impact of diasporic experiences on the religious practices of Moroccan-origin families in these countries. The argument posits that diasporic sentiments and the allure of Moroccan heritage significantly influence the negotiation and affirmation of religious identities within these families. Rituals and religious practices serve as expressions of this identity, undergoing adaptation and transformation both in Morocco and abroad. Consequently, “Israeli” and “French” approaches to Moroccan Jewish observance reflect distinct socio-political and historical contexts. The analysis draws from five family cases, illustrating a range of experiences within national and transnational frameworks, enriching our understanding of the dynamic interplay between personal narratives and broader social and historical landscapes. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Anthropological Perspectives on Diaspora and Religious Identities)

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17 pages, 2280 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Celebrating Fifty Years of Jewish Pride: An Autoethnographic View on Queerness, Diaspora and Homeland in an American Gay Synagogue

by Elazar Ben-Lulu

Religions 2024, 15(5), 550; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15050550 - 29 Apr 2024

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1639

Abstract

Anthropologists of religion are preoccupied with questions of identity, community, performance and representation. One way they cope with these concerns is through a reflexive examination of their ethnographic positionality in the field. This provides an opportunity to engage not only with “the other”, [...] Read more.

Anthropologists of religion are preoccupied with questions of identity, community, performance and representation. One way they cope with these concerns is through a reflexive examination of their ethnographic positionality in the field. This provides an opportunity to engage not only with “the other”, but also to explore their own identities and background. This article presents an autoethnographic analysis of Pride Shabbat, a special service held in June to celebrate the intersection of Judaism and queerness. The service took place at Congregation Beit Simchat Torah (CBST) as part of their 50th-anniversary celebration. Since the 1970s, CBST has been known as the largest gay synagogue in the world and provided diverse religious and spiritual services to the Jewish LGBTQ+ community. Based on my participation in this specific event in June 2023, I draw distinct differences between the Israeli Jewish LGBTQ community and the American Jewish LGBTQ community, such as issues related to ageism and multigenerational perceptions within the gay community, the internal dynamic for gender dominance, as well as diverse trajectories of queerness, religiosity and nationality. Symbolically, contrary to the common perception that the diaspora looks to the state of Israel for symbolic and actual existence, this inquiry sheds light on the opposite perspective; the homeland (represented by the ethnographer) absorbs and learns from the queer Jewish practices and experiences taking place within the diaspora (the American Jewish LGBTQ community). This is an opposite movement which reveals the cracks in the perception of the gay community as a transnational community, as well as the tense power relations between Israel and American Jewry. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Anthropological Perspectives on Diaspora and Religious Identities)

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Review

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9 pages, 232 KiB

Open AccessReview

The Religious Which Is Political: Revisiting Pnina Werbner’s Imagined Diasporas and Beyond

by Claudia Liebelt

Religions 2024, 15(3), 319; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15030319 - 6 Mar 2024

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1678

Abstract

Dedicated to the memory of Pnina Werbner, this essay revisits Werbner’s ethnographic and conceptual work on the relationship between diaspora and religion through a close reading of her book on Imagined Diasporas among Manchester Muslims and her later engagements with the concept of [...] Read more.

Dedicated to the memory of Pnina Werbner, this essay revisits Werbner’s ethnographic and conceptual work on the relationship between diaspora and religion through a close reading of her book on Imagined Diasporas among Manchester Muslims and her later engagements with the concept of diaspora with respect to religion and the background of her work on African and Filipino labour diasporas in the West. It argues that many of Werbner’s insights remain pertinent today, not least because in many European contexts Muslim-background citizens and non-citizens remain excluded from full belonging and are still forced to engage in constant perspectival manoeuvring similar to Werbner’s earlier interlocutors. While the notion of diaspora has lost much of its earlier conceptual verve, in its Werbnerian reading, I argue, it may still offer a scholarly tool for analysing the multiple imaginations, belongings, and ambiguities of migrants’ and religious minorities’ self-representations and complex lives. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Anthropological Perspectives on Diaspora and Religious Identities)

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