"To a Tanya Lesson in High-Heeled Shoes": Observance, Modernity and Deviance in the Moscow Chabad Community
Author(s)
Publication Date
Abstract
After the seventy-year break in religious life under the Soviet regime, Jewish communities in Russia revived and multiplied, now consisting mostly of new "returnees to the faith," ba'alei and ba'alot teshuvah. This article, based on biographical interviews and other sources, examines the outlook, self-image and everyday life of women "returnees," ba'alot teshuvah, in a contemporary community of Lubavitch Hasidim in Moscow. Chabad women's claims to modernity and their understanding of it, their view of their community and the social hierarchies in it, and their prioritizing of religious practice over meaning and of action over belief are examined in the contexts of women's religiosity in historical Hasidism, in present-day ultra-Orthodox communities in Israel and America, and in other traditional cultures (focusing on the "alternative modernity" of voluntarily traditional subjects) and in light of Lubavitch movement policies, late Soviet "authoritative discourse" and the current Russian move toward "conservative modernization."
Topics
Baal Teshuvah Jewish Revival Jewish Women Chabad-Lubavitch Main Topic: Other Religious Observance and Practice Orthodox Judaism
Genre
Geographic Coverage
Original Language
Volume/Issue
42
Page Number / Article Number
36-73
DOI
Link
Link to article (paywalled), "To a Tanya Lesson in High-Heeled Shoes": Observance, Modernity and Deviance in the Moscow Chabad Community
Bibliographic Information
"To a Tanya Lesson in High-Heeled Shoes": Observance, Modernity and Deviance in the Moscow Chabad Community. 2023: 36-73. https://archive.jpr.org.uk/10.2979/nsh.2023.a907304
