Search Results (17)

Just as Israel brands itself as a progressive “Start-Up Nation”, Israeli citizens increasingly identify as religious. Religion plays an increasing role in intergroup tensions in Israel. Negative effects of religion and its public representations on intergroup attitudes are well researched, but little is known of its positive effects. We ask whether religion can also play a role in improving intergroup attitudes. This study explores the effects of three different public and media representations of shared identity and tolerance on interreligious prejudice among Israeli Muslim adolescents and young adults. The interventions included an interfaith similarities-based common ingroup identity (focusing on shared aspects of Judaism and Islam), a modern national universalistic approach (focusing on religious tolerance), and a modern academic technological identity (highlighting Israel as a “Start-Up Nation”). Findings indicate that the interfaith similarities-based intervention had the most substantial impact in reducing prejudice, specifically by decreasing stereotypes and increasing willingness for social encounters. In contrast, the national universalistic and technological identity interventions were less effective, and in some cases even increased perceived threat or failed to mitigate stereotypes. These findings highlight the potential for leveraging interfaith commonalities as a foundation for intergroup prejudice reduction. Full article

This article, Queering Militarism in Israeli Photography, examines Adi Nes’s Soldiers series, a body of work that interrogates the intersections of queerness, militarism, and nationalism within Israeli society. By employing a distinctive “military circus” aesthetic, Nes challenges the rigid heteronormative and hyper-masculine archetypes embedded in Israeli military identity. His staged photographs depict soldiers in circus-inspired performative poses, blending military discipline with elements of the carnivalesque to subvert conventional representations of military masculinity. This approach creates spaces where queerness, vulnerability, and fluid identity defy the rigid confines of nationalist narratives. Using queer studies frameworks, performance theory, and postcolonial critique, this article analyzes Nes’s depiction of soldiers as both military subjects and circus performers, examining how these representations disrupt the “naturalness” of gender, power, and identity within the Israeli national ethos. Through a close reading of key images—such as the fire-breathing soldier, the acrobat on a tightrope, and the strongman figure—this article argues that Nes critiques homonationalism and exposes the co-optation of LGBTQ+ identities into militaristic frameworks. His images juxtapose exaggerated masculinity with homoerotic and introspective vulnerability, positioning the queer body as both a participant in and a subverter of the national narrative. Drawing on contemporary queer theory—including José Esteban Muñoz’s concept of “disidentification”, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s theories of queer shame and performativity, and perspectives on temporality, failure, and counterpublics following Elizabeth Freeman, Jack Halberstam, Michael Warner, and Sara Ahmed—this article frames queerness as an active site of resistance and creative transformation within the Israeli military complex. The analysis reveals how Nes’s work disrupts Zionist masculinities and traditional militaristic structures through a hybrid aesthetic of military and circus life. By reimagining Israeli identity as an inclusive, multi-dimensional construct, Nes expands queer possibilities beyond heteronormative confines and homonationalist alignments. This merging of critical queer perspectives—from the destabilizing of discipline and shame to the public visibility of non-normative bodies—posits that queer identities can permeate and reshape state power itself, challenging not only the norms of militaristic nationalism but also the boundaries of Israeli selfhood. Full article

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

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

The power of the “moderate” branch of the Islamic Movement (Alharaka al-Islamiyya, subsequently referred to as IM) Southern Faction (IMSF) in Israel stems from its ability to adapt to different situations, reconcile with the complex reality of being an indigenous minority in a state that defines itself a “Jewish state”, and operate within the state structure accepting democratic processes that have long been debated to clash with Islamism. Besides being represented in the Israeli Knesset since 1996, the culmination of this adaptation was the joining of the movement to the short-lived Zionist coalition government on 2 June 2021 (the government collapsed in July 2022). This historic entry of an Arab Party into a Jewish/Zionist government coalition for the first time in Israel’s history was a shocking surprise to many, not only due to the IM being an Arab–Palestinian movement but also an Islamist movement. My analysis shows that despite this reconciliation, the IM continues to emphasize religiosity, binding it to the national political struggle and identity of Israel’s Palestinian minority. For its supporters, the IMSF is seen as a meeting point of spiritual/religious needs on the one hand and material needs in the social, political, and cultural spheres on the other. However, for its opponents, mainly from the other Arab political parties, the IM had deviated from the national consensus and accepted strategies and tools to deal with the challenges facing them as a minority in Israel. And, for some others, the IM had even deviated from Islam itself. I draw on a field study that spanned several years. It is based on qualitative, extensive interviews with senior Islamist and non-Islamist leaders in Israel, as well as primary sources of the IM, including publications, leaders’ speeches, and social media. All quotes in this article are based on the author’s interviews during 2022–2024. Interviews with the following leaders and activists: IM leader Abdul-Malik Dahamsheh, sheik Ibrahim Sarsour, former MK Muhammad Hasan Ken`an, Nosiba Darwish `Issa, IM MK Eman Yassin Khatib, NDA’ chairman Sami Abu Shehadeh, secretary general of Abnaa al-Balad (Sons of the Country) Muhammad Kana`neh, and with Kufr Qare` former mayor Zuhair Yahya were conducted by in-person or by phone during summer–fall 2023. The interviews with former IMNF activist Aisha Hajjar, activist Zuhriyyeh ‘Azab, journalist Abd el-Rahman Magadleh, and DFPE member Elias Abu Oksa were conducted via What’s App, Messenger, and e-mail in 2022. The interview with political analyst Ameer Makhoul was conducted in December 2023 via Messenger. Follow-up communication was mainly through What’s App to clarify certain points. The interview questions focused on the reasons for the Islamic Movement’s division into two wings, the religious and political justifications for entering the Knesset and the coalition, the relationship between the southern wing and the main Arab parties active in the Israeli Knesset, the experience of unity with them, and the experience of its members while in the Zionist coalition. This article examines how the Islamic Movement in Israel uses religion as a tool to influence the national, cultural, political, economic, and social lives of the Arab minority in Israel. It asks: How does the Islamic Movement, religiously and politically, justify its involvement in the political game and in a Zionist government coalition, and how do Arab parties perceive this involvement? Moreover, it raises an important question about the nature of the movement: to what extent is the Islamic Movement a political Islam movement, and whether it has abandoned the basic goals of political Islam for the sake of becoming a democratic Islamic party? This article will provide significant insight into crucial aspects of the IM that have been previously overlooked. While being in a Zionist coalition gave hardly any latitude in decision making about policies, budgets were an attractive avenue for the Islamic Movement to guide public opinion and gain political support. The article comes during the ongoing war on Gaza, which will undoubtedly cast a shadow on the political climate and the political map in Israel in general and on the political work of Arab parties and the Islamic Movement in particular. Although it is too early to predict the impact of this war on the Islamic Movement and its political future, it can be assumed that the impact will be profound. Full article

In its political ideology, large sectors of Israeli society hold the belief that only people who share its ethnocratic values can share the same hygiene identity with it, reflecting its self-perception as a pure national subject. This is the context in which scatological works based on radical materialism and ethical critique first appeared in Israeli performance and video art at the turn of the twenty-first century. The artworks under discussion seek to consider humankind as machines that produce waste, with an emphasis on the excess waste that separates those who are excluded from the dominant Israeli-nationalist-Zionist view or discourse. Some artists employ excrement as a tool to degrade power structures, while others see it as a source of creativity and an alternative way of material and ethical life. Performing feces, or being shit, constitutes a position of creation, observation, and being to which we should pay particular attention at this moment in time. Full article

The identity of Jewish-Israeli men of Ethiopian descent has undergone deep-seated changes in the last decade, as evident in visual representations created by contemporary black artists living in Israel. In recent years, a new generation of Ethiopian-Israeli artists has revitalized local art and engendered deep changes in discourse and public life. Ethiopian-Israelis, who comprise less than two percent of the total Jewish population in the country, suffers multiple forms of oppression, especially due to their religious status and given that their visibility—as black Jews—stands out in a society that is predominantly white. This article draws links between events of the past decade and the images of men produced by these artists. It argues that the political awareness of Jewish-Ethiopians artists, generated by long-term social activism as well as police violence against their community, has greatly impacted their artistic production, broadened its diversity, and contributed a wealth of artworks to Israeli culture as a whole. Using intersectional analysis and drawing on theories from gender, migration and cultural studies, the article aims to produce a nuanced understanding of black Jewish masculinity in the ethno-national context of the state of Israel. Full article

The purpose of this research is to present a new model for understanding ethnonationalism: the dynamic ethnonationalism model, which depicts ethnic nationalism as an entity comprised of inherited elements as well as selective and changing ones. According to this new concept, ethnic nationalism, which is usually thought of as a “closed” given kinship, also has a flexible and voluntary nature, similar yet not identical to civic nationalism. Ethnic nationalism is indeed based on inherited elements—innate religion, descent, language, territory, etc., that are not subject to individual choice. However, each ethnic and sub-ethnic group re-interpret and re-implement these elements differently according to changing circumstances, perceptions and competing interests. This theory is examined through changes in immigration and naturalization policies which occurred in various ethnic states. The de- and re-ethnicization processes, the inclusion and exclusion trends engendered by changing boundaries of the ethnic collective, analyzed in this research, serve to illustrate the dynamic construction of ethnonationalism, managed by its multiple interest groups and policy makers. Following a concise review of the connection between ethnonationalism and citizenship throughout the world, the research delves into the Israeli case. The evolving boundaries of the Jewish-Israeli collective and the dispute concerning its definitions (“Who is a Jew”) offer a detailed demonstration of the dynamic ethnonationalism model. The Jewish-Israeli case, which is usually viewed as the ultimate example of rigid ethnicity based on religious stringencies, exhibits how ethnicity contains competing subjective interpretations (“Sub-Jew-ctivity”) that are simultaneously exclusive and inclusive. Thus, the integration of contradictory ethnic definitions into Israel’s laws and policies exhibits a dynamic, hybrid and “soft” ethnic national identity. Full article

The story of Israel and its raison d’être are suffused by memories of the Holocaust, which construct the self-definition and identity of the state. This article examines works by three contemporary Israeli women artists—Dvora Morag, Miri Nishri, and Bracha Ettinger—who subvert the traditional telling of history and enable rethinking of the past as the basis for the individual’s existence in the nation state. Through the works of these artists, official memory disintegrates into fragments of personal memories of the artists’ mothers, enabling a new moral, historical perspective. The reconstruction of history through stories that pass from mother to daughter contrasts sharply with Jewish tradition in which the historical story passes from father to son. The yearly Passover retelling of the Exodus admonishes “Thou shalt tell thy son on that day to say, ‘It is because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt’”. The two narratives, the Exodus from Egypt and the Holocaust, are told as stories of redemption of the Jewish people—from ruin to resurrection. The art examined here reassesses the past, while unraveling parallels between the stories from a female perspective that reflects a personal moral stance. Full article

This article highlights the positive relations between the Jewish and the Kurdish nations, maintained mainly by Kurdistani Jews until their displacement to Israel in the mid-20th century. These positive relations have been transmitted through their oral traditions, documented by both communities and travelers to Kurdistan, and validated by several scholars who studied the Jews of the region, Kurdistan, and Jewish-Kurdish relations. The dearth of historical documentation of both societies has resulted in a ‘negative myth’ used by the enemies of the Kurds and the Jews to dehumanize them before the 20th century, and therefore delegitimizing their right to statehood in modern times. From the 16th century onward, there is more solid evidence about the Kurdistani Jews and their relations with Kurdish neighbors. There are considerable and certain parallels between the two nations in terms of their oral traditions as well as linguistic and literary practices. The historical ties between the Jews and their neighbors in Kurdistan formed a fruitful ground for the relations between the Jewish people of Israel and the Kurds since 1948. Despite the exodus of almost the entire Kurdistani Jewish population to the State of Israel, Kurdistani Jews have largely retained their identity, culture, and traditions and have effectively influenced Israel’s policy towards the Kurds. The often-secret relations between the Kurdish movement in Iraq and Israel since 1960 played an important role in the global security policy of the Jewish nation in the Middle East, and in effect served to keep Baghdad from becoming involved in the Arab-Israeli conflict on one hand, and allowed the Kurdish liberation movement in Southern/Iraqi Kurdistan to survive on the other. These ties were reinforced by the sense of a common fate and struggle for statehood, persecution and genocides, feeling of solidarity, mutual strategic interests, humanitarian and economic dimensions, in post-1988 Halabja Massacre, the operation of the US led coalition against Iraq in 1991, and 2003 Invasion of Iraq. Since the Arab Spring, the military interventions against the self-proclaimed caliphate, Islamic State (IS), and the referendum for an independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq in 2017, this relationship allegedly has extended to include the relationships between Israel and the Kurds in Western/Syrian and Eastern/Iranian Kurdistan as well. Notably, Israel was the only state that publicly supported the creation of an independent Kurdish state. With all the development the Kurdish question has paved in the 21st century, the article concludes that the majority of the Kurds of the 21st century can be described as a ‘pariah people’ in Max Weber’s definition and meditation of the term and Hannah Arendt’s ‘rightless’, who ‘no longer belong to any community’, while describing the different aspects of the political, economic, and cultural calamity of Jews, refugees, and stateless people at the beginning of the 20th century. Full article

Agunah activism, a flagship struggle of Religious-Zionist feminism, links gender politics, Jewish-Orthodox politics, and national Israeli politics. This qualitative study focuses on agunah activists’ strategies and conceptions of change, highlighting the complex ways religious women radically transform conservative contexts, complicated by intersections of religion, gender, and state. It examines dynamic boundary-work and how activists deploy the inner workings of “the Halakhic framework” to shift creatively between social positioning, ideological or cultural positioning, and a political positioning to create “change from within”. My case study troubles the premise that religion and feminism are antithetical, and that distinct identities or set social locations predetermine social movements’ frames or actions. I expand upon the term “tempered radicals” which challenges reformist/revolutionary and conservative/radical binaries. “Tempered radical” strategies are two-pronged: a tempered mode of modulation and moderation to rock the boat without falling out (avoid the red lines, find “the right way”) and a radical mode of stirring the sea and creating horizons (arrive there, one way or another). Dynamically holding both modes together, through a “multifocal lens”—the world-as-it-is and the world-as-it-should-be—enables their strategic maneuverings. They remain “within” while radically transforming individuals, communities, Jewish law, Orthodox society and the Israeli public sphere. This study demonstrates how religious and gendered structures are at once constitutive and mutable. Full article

In the wake of numerous terror attacks around the globe, academic and popular discourse on radicalization has witnessed exponential growth in publications that, sadly, have not resulted in a coherent or consensus definition of the concept, nor have they determined its causality and effects. In this article, we use the term three-pronged process of radicalization by narrative to denote an ongoing process of meaning-making, adaptation, and coping, and argue this process to be inherently linked with the social, cultural, and ideological construction and reconstruction of the identity arch-story of individual lives. We suggest that, in some cases, the ceaseless process of social interaction of identity narratives eventuates in what we define as the Shapeshifting Self, by coherently fusing stories of personal loss, rupture, or trauma together with the counterparts of movements and national stories of sociopolitical engagement. At the endpoint of the process, violent engagement is perceived by the self as legitimate and even necessary for the psychological well-being of the perpetrator. By applying this approach to the Jewish-Israeli context, we aim to illustrate the socioculturally situated contingencies associated with the process of radicalization by narrative. Full article

Based on the premise that hiking in Israel is strongly related to constructs of sense of place and place attachment, this study analyzes the motivations and experiences of hikers along the Israel National Trail. To this end, it employs diverse methods, including ethnographic methods such as participant observations and informal interviews, questionnaires, analysis of digital communications, diary analysis, and autoethnography. The findings indicate that the main motivations and experiences of Israeli hikers pertain to “getting to know” the Land of Israel “with their feet,” becoming connected to the land, and feeling a strong sense of Israeli identity. They also indicate that the current relationships among different concepts of “sense of place,” “place identity,” “place dependence,” and “place attachment” in the age of globalization and digitization are blurred and unclear, but that they nonetheless play a significant role in hiking in Israel and Israeli leisure activities in general. Full article

Military rabbis in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are an integral part of the army and currently posted in almost all army units. The role of the military rabbi has undergone fundamental changes since the founding of the State and the IDF, most notably in the past generation. While the formal definition of the military rabbi’s role has remained relatively stable; in practice it has undergone dramatic changes on the backdrop of processes in the IDF Military Rabbinate and in the religious-Zionist sector in Israel. Whereas in the past military rabbis were viewed as religious service providers, during the term of Chief Military Rabbi Rontzky (2010–2016) they viewed themselves in the role of a “Kohen anointed for war” (Meshuach Milchama). Harking back to the biblical description of the Kohanim who strengthen the people at a time of war, this military figure is entrusted with strengthening soldiers, morally and spiritually, before they go into battle. Nonetheless, a return to the religious services provider model can be discerned in recent years, mainly in response to the contention of religionization in the military. The article focuses on the changing role of the IDF military rabbi and identifies three major explanatory factors of these changes: (a) Differences between the formative period of the IDF Military Rabbinate and later periods; (b) Demographic changes in the composition of the IDF, mainly the growing number of soldiers from the national-religious sector; (c) The changing character of the Chief Military Rabbi’s background which affected the nature of the military rabbi’s role. The article aims to show that the Military Rabbinate has not been immune to the struggle over the collective Jewish identity of the State of Israel, and its underlying processes reflect the complexity and diversity of Israeli society. Full article

This article explores Jerusalem-based art practice from the 1930s to the 1960s, focusing particularly on the German immigrant artists that dominated this field in that period. I describe the distinct aesthetics of this art and explain its role in the Zionist nation-building project. Although Jerusalem’s art scene participated significantly in creating a Jewish–Israeli national identity, it has been accorded little or no place in the canon of national art. Adopting a historiographic approach, I focus on the artist Mordecai Ardon and the activities of the New Bezalel School and the Jerusalem Artists Society. Examining texts and artworks associated with these institutions through the prism of migratory aesthetics, I claim that the art made by Jerusalem’s artists was rooted in their diasporic identities as East or Central European Jews, some German-born, others having settled in Germany as children or young adults. These diasporic identities were formed through their everyday lives as members of a Jewish diaspora in a host country—whether that be the Russian Empire, Poland, or Germany. Under their arrival in Palestine, however, the diasporic Jewish identities of these immigrants (many of whom were not initially Zionists) clashed with the Zionist–Jewish identity that was hegemonic in the nascent field of Israeli art. Ultimately, this friction would exclude the immigrants’ art from being inducted into the national art canon. This is misrepresentative, for, in reality, these artists greatly influenced the Zionist nation-building project. Despite participating in a number of key Zionist endeavours—whether that of establishing practical professions or cementing the young nation’s collective consciousness through graphic propaganda—they were marginalized in the artistic field. This exclusion, I claim, is rooted in the dynamics of canon formation in modern Western art, the canon of Israeli national art being one instance of these wider trends. Diasporic imagery could not be admitted into the Israeli canon because that canon was intrinsically connected with modern nationalism. Full article