Abstract: The paper sets out how a small religion-based sub-population based in a UK city, Liverpool Jewry, underpinned its planning for the future in the light of its reducing size and the consequent strain on the community’s infrastructure and resources. This was achieved by carrying out a voluntary census to provide information on the community’s current size (about 1800 individuals living in 900 households) and its age profile, household types and other characteristics. The census questions were designed to provide data that allowed future population projections to be developed. The low number of births in the community necessitated the devising of a novel approach to the fertility assessment, though mortality rates were derived in a traditional way. In particular, the various elements of migration were investigated via historical information and stated preference responses. The analysis facilitated the estimation of levels of future demand for educational, youth, cultural, religious, welfare and burial services, and the community’s ability to continue to provide those services. Whilst the subject of this paper is the Jewish community in the city of Liverpool, the approach set out here could be adopted by other minority groups, whether shrinking, growing or stable, in other localities and in other countries.
Abstract: In recent years, Berlin has witnessed an ever-growing internationalization, predominantly through migration flows from all over the world. Its Jewish population has equally diversified: Berlin is now populated by Jews from the Americas, Europe and also by young Israelis who permanently live in the city. The migrant group of ‘Israelis in Berlin’ has attracted significant media attention in Germany, Israel and beyond and has often been portrayed as detached from the existing local Jewish community. My thesis interrogates this assumption and presents an ethnography which shows diverse and complex affiliations and Jewishness(es) entangled with nationality, ethnicity, religion, gender and sexuality. Through the immersion in ‘Jewish’ and ‘Hebrew’ Berlin, I span an interrelated ethnographic field which I construe as a scene. Focusing on a choir, and its connections to a synagogue and a queer Shabbat event, I investigate ‘how the scene constitutes itself as Jewish’. Combining ethnography with biographical-narrative interviews, I present how this scene is enacted and performed, embedded in the respective historical and socio-political contexts, and constituting itself by migration and conversion. By way of mirroring the biographies of migrants and converts, I argue that Jewishness in the scene is constituted by complexity rather than unity, ambivalence rather than certainty and contestation rather than agreement. The influence of Israeli migration to Berlin and the presence of Hebrew engenders the emergence of new ways of ‘being Jewish’. Under the specific representations of Jewishness in Germany, ‘being Jewish’ is always co-constructed alongside the negotiation over ‘being German’. Thus, by way of mapping trajectories of conversion and migration and their embeddedness in their respective socio-political contexts, I analyse processes of ‘becoming Jewish’ and their impact on this urban scene. In the framework of urban scenes, diaspora and secularism, I describe transformations towards new forms of urban (religious) socialities and aesthetics (music) and show how biographical research and the study of urban scenes offer profound insights towards new understandings of contemporary societies in the light of global transformations.
Abstract: This thesis argues that British orthodox Jewish women (BOJW) generate spaces within the British orthodox religious community to practice piety in a non-conformist fashion. The spaces they generate both enable BOJW to perform these interventions, as well as reflect back on the normative practices of the British orthodox community. In this way these pious practices inform, influence and shift what constitutes normative practice going forward. I ask what sort of agency accounts for these practices, and how these particular practices inform wider questions of agency. Some theories of agency have rendered the religious subject as repressed, and religious women as voiceless, sometimes invisible. Many religious subjects reject this traducing of their choices, and, instead celebrate opportunities for personal and communal religious agency and alternative performances. I consider these pious interventions through the ethnographic examination of three crucial areas of orthodox religious life: education, ritual participation and issues of leadership and authority. These three areas of investigation represent the most significant arenas of religious life within which BOJW negotiate their identities. During the eight months of fieldwork, I conducted twenty-one qualitative in-depth interviews; additionally, I examined material from local communal websites, synagogue-community mailings and advertising. My findings suggest that intelligibility, as a function of identity, plays a vital role in the ways in which BOJW navigate their way through their religious lives in their homes, communities and workplaces – such that it functions as sacred edifice, restrictive restraint as well as avenue for creativity. Contemporaneously, some of the BOJW interviewed stated that although there has been some shift in normative religious practice in their local synagogue-community, they also experienced backlash from local religious authorities who construed their performances as meta-acts of communal, political and social transgression, rather than acts of religious piety – precisely because they were pious acts performed by women.
Abstract: Entwined Homelands, Empowered Diasporas explores how the 30,000 Jews in northern Morocco developed a sense of kinship with modern Spain, medieval Sepharad, and the broader Hispanophone world that was unlike anything experienced elsewhere. The Hispanic Moroccan Jewish diaspora, as this group is often called by its scholars and its community leaders, also became one of the most mobile and globally dispersed North African groups in the twentieth century, with major hubs in Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Spain, Israel, Canada, France, and the US, among others.
Drawing on an array of communal sources from across this diaspora, Aviad Moreno explores how narratives of ancestry in Spain, Israel, Morocco, and several Latin American countries interconnected the diaspora, empowering its hubs across the globe throughout the twentieth century and beyond.
By investigating these mechanisms of diaspora formation in a small community that once shared the same space in Morocco, Entwined Homelands, Empowered Diasporas challenges national accounts of the broader Jewish diasporas and adds complexity to the annals of multilayered ethnic communities on the move.
Abstract: In this report:
This landmark report looks at how the October 7 attacks on Israel and the war in Gaza have impacted the British Jewish community one year on. The report demonstrates the profound impact the events of the last year have had on Jews in the UK by analysing the responses of over 4,500 adult British Jews to the JPR Jewish Current Affairs Survey in July 2024 – the largest survey of British Jews since October 7, 2023.
Among other things, the report explores how the original Hamas attack and the subsequent war have affected how British Jews view Israel politically, how the public reaction to the conflict has affected Jews’ sense of security and trust in critical organisations in the UK, and how the conflict has impacted the Jewish lives of British Jews – their connections to Israel and the Jewish community. The findings also form the basis for the second series of the JPR/JW3 “Jews Do Count” podcast, available on the JPR website and all major platforms.
Some of the key findings in this report:
British Jews express far more concern today about the state of Israel’s democracy than they did fifteen or so years ago. Nevertheless, more still believe it to be alive and well today than do not, by 52% to 38%.
British Jews are more likely to agree than to disagree that the IDF is acting morally and according to international law, though we see much division in the responses. 50% of British Jews feel that the IDF military action against Hamas since October 7 has been unsuccessful
For all the division and criticism, British Jews are still more likely to have felt proud of Israel than ashamed since October 7.
Just 54% of Jews in the UK agree that a two-state solution is the only way Israel will achieve peace with its neighbours, compared to 77% who did so in 2010. Only about one in four (26%) British Jews think that most Palestinians want peace with Israel, compared to nearly half (47%) in 2010.
Nearly four in five British Jews say that they often feel that they are being held responsible by non-Jews for the actions of Israel’s government, with 43% ‘strongly agreeing’ with this statement.
Nearly half of British Jews (46%) say that antisemitism is ‘a very big problem’ in the UK today, compared to 28% in 2018 and only 11% in 2012. In total, 83% of British define antisemitism as a problem in Britain, the highest proportion found since records began over a decade ago.
Nearly three in four respondents say they feel less safe as a Jewish person living in the UK, and almost two in three adult British Jews said they feel less confident displaying their Jewishness since the October 7 attacks.
Although most British Jews report no overall change in this regard, substantial proportions of British Jews say that they feel closer to their Jewish friends since October 7 (39%) and less close to their non-Jewish friends (24%). The findings also suggest a notable increase in levels of attachment to their local Jewish community.
Attachment levels of British Jews to Israel were steady before October 7 but have risen significantly since then, with half of British Jews saying they are ‘very’ attached to Israel today (up from 40% in 2022).
About two in three British Jews (65%) identify as Zionist, up slightly compared to before October 7. 10% identify as anti-Zionist, also up slightly.
Levels of anxiety among British Jews are higher than they were before October 7 and are notably higher than they are among the general population of Britain.
There is no evidence to indicate Jews are leaving the UK in elevated numbers in the past year – on the contrary, emigration levels are generally low and stable and have been for several decades. At the same time, a slight change in sentiment around this issue has occurred over the past year, with many moving up one notch from wherever they were on it before October 7.
Abstract: The Sixth Survey of European Jewish Community Leaders and Professionals, 2024, presents the results of an online survey offered in 10 languages and administered to 879 respondents in 31 countries. Conducted every three years using the same format, the survey seeks to identify trends and their evolution over time.
The 2024 survey came during a historically fraught moment for the Jewish people globally. The impact of the horrific October 7th attacks and the subsequent war in Israel cannot be understated. How is this affecting Jewish leadership and Jewish communal life? Therefore, in addition to the regular topics covered by the survey (community priorities, threats, security concerns, attitudes towards Europe and Israel), this edition included a special section designed to understand the impact of October 7th on Jewish life in Europe.
That October 7th has profoundly affected Jewish Europe is evident across multiple sections throughout the survey. Concern about antisemitism and the threat of physical attack has intensified. A large majority of 78% feel less safe living as Jews in their cities than they did before the Hamas attack, and respondents are more cautious about how they identify themselves as Jews. They are also more distant from their wider environments, with 38% reporting they have become more distant from non-Jewish friends.
The respondents were comprised of presidents and chairpersons of nationwide “umbrella organizations” or Federations; presidents and executive directors of private Jewish foundations, charities, and other privately funded initiatives; presidents and main representatives of Jewish communities that are organized at a city level; executive directors and programme coordinators, as well as current and former board members of Jewish organizations; among others
Abstract: This thesis centres the lived experiences of eighteen queer Jews in postsecular Britain. In situating my work between postsecular geographies of lived religion and the anthropology of experience, I present rituals as the technologies by which things are brought into being. By foregrounding rituals, I critically outline the haptic, politically conscious, and symbolic acts queer Jews mobilise in the (trans)formation of selves, spaces, and others. My findings are grounded in fourteen months of virtual narrative ethnography. My focus is on the stories participants told, the memories they recalled, and the queered ethnoreligious worlds they (trans)formed through unstructured life story interviews, semi-structured interviews, and participant observation. Considering this, I conducted my research in collaboration with the Council of Christians and Jews – a nationwide forum for interfaith engagement – as part of their ongoing LGBT+ initiative. Throughout this thesis, I illustrate the ritual performances latent in participants’ selfactualisation. First, I explore the role of heritage and memory in participants’ selfconstrual. I find that rituals are pivotal in actualising ties to an imagined community or symbolic peoplehood – an affective, (im)material, and fundamentally social entity (trans)formed through the narration of history and recollection of memory. Second, I focus on participants’ extrasensory perception of the spatialised power relations they are subjected to, subject others to, and subject themselves to. Here, I find that rituals represent key place-making practices – the tools by which selves, spaces, and others are differentiated as such through the active, agential, and creative (re)aggregation of spatial configurations. Third, I emphasise the actualising power of ritual performance through the ethnographic vignette of Buttmitzvah. I demonstrate how ritual – alongside liminality and communitas – actualises the process of self (trans)formation in a queer Jewish rite of passage that is at once spatially bound and diffused, temporally fixed and transcendent. In doing so, I trace the complicated and often contradictory relationship between structure and anti-structure, communitas and commerciality, ritual and resistance. I conclude by arguing that rituals are more than indexical phenomena, they are the tools by which things are brought into being, worlds constructed, and subjectivities (trans)formed.
Abstract: For some, the early hours of the morning are a time when few are awake, the city quiet, and the streets empty. In London’s East End, however, the dimly lit alleyways are teaming with late- night revelers. Historically characterized as largely working- class neighborhoods, districts like Bethnal Green, Shoreditch, and Whitechapel have undergone a rapid process of gentrification in recent years and are now synonymous with trendy clubs, pubs, and wine bars.1 The Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club, located just off Pollard Square, has been a cultural, political, and social hub of the East End since 1887. In recent years, the venue has become popular among students at the nearby Queen Mary, University of London, and a new wave of young urban professionals who are spatially segregated from the club regulars: Downstairs, the octogenarians still have their cards and gambling machine. But upstairs, the space is used for concerts, burlesque shows, voga (a dynamic fusion of yoga and vogueing), a pop- up Chinese restaurant and . . . “wild, unhinged good times.”2 Now and again, the walkways crossing Weavers Fields and the A1209 from the Bethnal Green Underground Station become a threshold to the United 148 Matthew Richardson Kingdom’s first queer Jewish club night. Organized around special and transitory dates in the Hebraic calendar, Buttmitzvah is a camp, erotic, playful, and satirical celebration of queer Jewish identities in postsecular Britain. The evening is centered around the backstory of the Rimmer family, pun intended, hosting their daughter Becky’s Bat Mitzvah. Facilitated by a troupe of dedicated actors, dancers, and drag kings and queens, the night is more than just a raunchy get-together. In this chapter, I explore the Bethnal Green Buttmitzvah as an ethnographic case study to argue that the evening functions as an aspirational and motivational platform from which partygoers construct, demarcate, and celebrate an affirming identity politics. To do so, I use Turnerian anthropology of experience as a key analytical , methodological, and theoretical heuristic tool to explore the affective , anti- structural, collectivizing, and subversive qualities of the Bethnal Green Buttmitzvah. First, I situate Buttmitzvah in the socio- cultural- geographic context of postsecular Bethnal Green and identify it as liminal space providing the ideal settings for the generation of communitas, a special type of ritualized space- time whereby all those present enjoy an intense sense of belonging and identification with each other. Next, I explore the ritualization needed to generate this social state of communitas by drawing on what I call the ritual complex, an intricate system involving myths, symbols, and rituals functioning as media through which selves and others are formed, mobilized, and resisted. Finally, I unpack the anti- structural qualities of communitas by characterizing Buttmitzvah as a liminoid phenomenon in a liminal space, providing those in attendance with a platform for subverting antisemitic, heterosexist, and postsecular social structures. As such, I argue that religious life is life together because it is only when people come together and generate the collective electricity of communitas that the aspirational and motivational forces for constructing, demarcating, and celebrating religious selves and others becomes possible. It is through ritual performance, in other words, that an imagined community is actualized in an intense emotional state of social belonging. I conclude this chapter by highlighting the benefits of engaging with Turnerian anthropology of experience when researching alongside minoritized religious communities in postsecular contexts. The findings in this chapter are grounded in fifteen months of narrative ethnographic research (April 2020 to July 2021) with eighteen queer Religious Life Is Life Together 149 Jews who were living, or had previously lived, in postsecular Britain (their selected profiles are included in the appendix for context).
Abstract: The purpose of this study is to compare two groups of Jewish women, native-born and migrants, who reside in Brussels regarding their social integration into native-born Jewish and non-Jewish communities and the acculturation strategies they employ. It seems that Brussels is not as socially and culturally open, as perceived by the interviewees. Hence, the social networks of women in our study, as well as their acculturation patterns, differ in degree of separation between native-born Jewish women, non-Israeli immigrants and Israeli immigrants. The former maintain social networks characterized by fluid boundaries between them and the majority society, whereas non-Israeli immigrants are characterized by shared, not very dense networks with the native-born Jewish community and diasporic networks. Finally, Israeli women are characterized by almost completely closed social networks, which can be defined as a distinct “Israeli bubble.” As for their acculturation strategies, native-born women are those who are more integrated among non-Jews and native-born Jews, as expected from their familiarity with the culture and their long-term interactions, despite being partially marginalized as minority. Migrant women are less integrated and more separated from both native-born Jews and – to a larger extent – from non-Jews; so are Israelis. Social networks which gradually become communities are mainly created by women and maintained by them over the years. Therefore, the study of social networks, their structure and construction through daily interactions, and their contribution to the ethnic-diasporic community building have become the source of women’s strength in the host country – as immigrants and as a native-born minority group.
Topics: Family and Household, Main Topic: Other, Jewish Continuity, Anthropology, Ethnography, Intermarriage, Intermarriage: Children of Intermarried Couples, Conversion, Gender, Jewish Women, Religious Observance and Practice, Jewish Community
Abstract: There are less than 1300 Jews living in Finland who are members in the two officially Orthodox Jewish communities in Helsinki and in Turku. After the Civil Marriage Act was put in effect by the Finnish Parliament in 1917 the number of intermarriages between Jews and non-Jews started rising in the communities. Most of these marriages were officiated between Jewish men and non-Jewish women. In the beginning, the non-Jewish spouses kept their respective religious affiliations, but in many cases, their halachically non-Jewish children converted to Judaism. In the 1970s, adulthood conversions to Judaism became far more frequent in the communities—especially in the Jewish Community of Helsinki. Today, most of these individuals and their families concerned are still active members of the Jewish congregation. The high number of intermarriages and the conversions to Judaism have had a crucial impact on the development of the religious customs of local Jewry. Through the analysis of archival sources and new ethnographic material derived from semi-structured qualitative interviews, this case study investigates how intermarriages formed the traditions and habits in the families and in the communities. By relating the topic of intermarriage to the question of conversion, the study sheds light on institutional changes within the Jewish Community of Helsinki, and analyzes how women, who converted to Judaism in 1977, articulate and perform their religious practices, identities, and agencies when consciously aiming at building Jewish families.
Abstract: Of about a million Jews that arrived to Israel from the (former) USSR after 1989 some 12% left the country by the end of 2017. It is estimated that about a half of them left "back" for the FSU, and the rest for the USA, Canada and the Western Europe. The book provides a comprehensive analysis of this specific Jewish Israeli Diaspora group through cutting-edge approaches in the social sciences, and examines the settlement patterns of Israeli Russian-speaking emigrants, their identity, social demographic profile, reasons of emigration, their economic achievements, identification, and status vis-à-vis host Jewish and non-Jewish environment, vision of Israel, migration interests and behavior, as well as their social and community networks, elites and institutions. Vladimir Ze’ev Khanin makes a significant contribution to migration theory, academic understanding of transnational Diasporas, and sheds a new light on the identity and structure of contemporary Israeli society. The book is based on the unique statistics from Israeli and other Government sources and sociological information obtained from the author’s first of this kind on-going study of Israeli Russian-speaking emigrant communities in different regions of the world.
Abstract: The subjects of Jewish identity and Jewish communal vitality, and how they may be conceptualized and measured, are the topics of lively debate among scholars of contemporary Jewry (DellaPergola 2015, 2020; Kosmin 2022; Pew Research Center 2021; Phillips 2022). Complicating matters, there appears to be a disconnect between the broadly accepted claim that comparative analysis yields richer understanding of Jewish communities (Cooperman 2016; Weinfeld 2020) and the reality that the preponderance of that research focuses on discrete communities.
This paper examines the five largest English-speaking Jewish communities in the diaspora: the United States of America (US) (population 6,000,000), Canada (population 393,500), the United Kingdom (UK) (population 292,000), Australia (population 118,000), and South Africa (population 52,000) (DellaPergola 2022). A comparison of the five communities’ levels of Jewish engagement, and the identification of factors shaping these differences, are the main objectives of this paper. The paper first outlines conceptual and methodological issues involved in the study of contemporary Jewry; hierarchical linear modeling is proposed as the suitable statistical approach for this analysis, and ethnocultural and religious capital are promoted as suitable measures for studying Jewish engagement. Secondly, a contextualizing historical and sociodemographic overview of the five communities is presented, highlighting attributes which the communities have in common, and those which differentiate them. Statistical methods are then utilized to develop measures of Jewish capital, and to identify explanatory factors shaping the differences between these five communities in these measures of Jewish capital. To further the research agenda of communal and transnational research, this paper concludes by identifying questions that are unique to the individual communities studied, with a brief exploration of subjects that Jewish communities often neglect to examine and are encouraged to consider. This paper demonstrates the merits of comparative analysis and highlights practical and conceptual implications for future Jewish communal research.
Abstract: This chapter examines the connection between Jewish identity and place in a Jewish community. The focus is on the Jewish cemetery in Trondheim, in the central part of Norway, and the aim is to explore how Jewish identity affects preferences for cemetery space. Against the backdrop of a larger ethnographic study and national research project, this study tracks narratives about burial decisions, illuminating the confluence of Jewish identity and Jewish burial space. The way the Jewish cemetery may mobilize or immobilize Jewish identity and belonging to the Jewish community is a multifaceted subject that relates to such wider experiences as mobility, relations to places of origin and Jewish networks. As discussed in the chapter, several aspects, religion, the Holocaust, and their Jewish kin relations, are in play for the participants and contribute to negotiating their burial decision.
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Jewish Community, Jewish Organisations, Strategic Planning, Policy, Demography, Haredi / Strictly Orthodox Jews, Care and Welfare, Health, Children, Youth, Poverty, Housing, Elderly Care, Age and Generational Issues
Abstract: At 28,075 Jewish people, Greater Manchester recorded the largest Jewish population in the UK
outside of London and adjacent Hertfordshire. At first sight, it appears to have grown by 12%
between 2011 and 2021, most likely driven largely by high birth-rates among the strictly Orthodox
community. Similarly, if the data eventually proves to be accurate, this constitutes a growth of 29%
over the twenty years between 2001 and 2021. Provisional estimates of the Haredi community
based on other data sources (such as Manchester Connections) suggest that the Haredi community
could be as large as 22,778 but, again, further analysis is needed before any firm conclusions can be
drawn. Whatever the final numbers, it is clear that Greater Manchester, which includes the largest
Eruv in the UK with a perimeter of more than 13 miles, covering parts of Prestwich, Crumpsall and
Higher Broughton, is an important and growing centre of Jewish life.
This report was commissioned by Jewish Representative Council of Greater Manchester & Regions
(GMJRC) to research and analyse community strengths and provide a mapping of Jewish
organisations in the Greater Manchester area. It was overseen by the GMJRC strategic group – a
group that was formed of Councils and organisations across the Jewish religious spectrum as a
response to the pandemic. It reviews services in seven themes: Children & Young People; Adult
Services; Older People; Health; Employment; Emergency Response; and Housing. As well as looking
at delivery, governance, leadership, and building assets, it also tries to understand where the gaps
and support needs are. As the demographics and relative sizes of the mainstream and strictly
Orthodox Jewish populations continue to change, this study represents an important examination
of both the challenges and opportunities of how the respective communities work together. As
these populations change across the UK, and beyond, the study will have significance to other cities
where these Jewish communities exist side by side.
The Institute of Jewish Policy Research (JPR) used a variety of data sources to identify organisations
delivering in each theme and built maps of that data which can be seen throughout this report.
Mobilise Public Ltd use several methods to gather data from these organisations in each theme.
The main approach was qualitative, using stakeholder interviews and focus group discussions with a
purposely selected sample of these organisations, and the evidence collected was supplemented
with a short survey which was issued to a larger number of organisations. The research was
coproduced with a subset of the strategic group through a series of facilitated sessions and was
designed to build a good understanding of delivery in each theme as well as an understanding of
challenges and opportunities in readiness for the strategic group to develop a more integrated
strategy for the Greater Manchester Jewish community
Abstract: Against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, which lasted more than two years and included several waves, the present study focused on Jewish communities around the world, in order to understand the role of community during the pandemic. This study focused on the community mechanisms that helped community members to cope with the pandemic. To that end, between October 2021 and July 2022, in-person interviews were conducted with leaders and members of the following communities: Budapest, Hungary; Subotica, Serbia; Vienna, Austria; Bratislava, Slovakia; Vilna, Lithuania; Buenos Aires, Rosario, Salta, and Ushuaia in Argentina; and Mexico City and Cancun in Mexico. Each interview lasted between 45 min and 1.5 h. All of the interviews were audio-recorded and transcripts of those recordings were prepared. Three major themes emerged from the interviews: challenges, coping, and opportunities. Most of these themes were common to the different communities around the world. The findings of this work are discussed in terms of the concept of sense of community and resiliency theories.
Abstract: The purpose of this study is to compare native-born and immigrant Jewish people from North African roots who reside in greater Paris regarding their multiple identities: ethnic-religious, as Jewish people; national, as French citizens; and transnational, as migrants and ‘citizens of the world’. This study employed the correlative quantitative method using survey questionnaires (N = 145) combined with qualitative semi-structured interviews. The main results indicate that both groups have strong Jewish and religious identities. However, while immigrants had fewer opportunities for upward mobility and were more committed to national integration, the younger second-generation have higher socio-economic status and more choices regarding their identities in contemporary France. In conclusion, even among people of the same North African origin, there are inter-generational differences in several dimensions of identity and identification which stem from being native-born or from their experience as immigrants. Different social and political circumstances offer different integration opportunities and thus, over the years, dynamically construct identities among North African Jewish people as minorities. Nonetheless, the Jewish community in Paris is not passive; it has its own strength, cohesiveness, vitality and resilience which are expressed not only in economic but also in social and religious prosperity of Jewish organizations shared by both the native-born and immigrants, who can be considered a ‘privileged’ minority.
Abstract: This paper analyses how the Jewish community in Bratislava dealt with the first and second waves of the COVID-19 pandemic that took place between the 1st March 2020 and 30 May 2021. Because the public health measures in force at the time rendered traditional ethnological research methods inapplicable, the author’s main source of information was the online communication of the leadership and administration of the Bratislava Jewish Religious Community (JRC) with its members. On the 9th March 2020, the government implemented the first battery of public health measures. Already on the same day, the JRC released a newsletter encouraging its members to observe the authorities’ guidance. It also cancelled all of its scheduled activities. The leadership would go on to distribute masks and hygiene supplies to the oldest members of the community, facilitate the vaccination of Holocaust survivors. Part of Slovak society compared restrictions on social contacts, a mask mandate, and a limitation on free movement to the suffering of the Jews in the Wartime Slovak State, highlighting this supposed parallel by wearing yellow stars. The effective limits on social contacts brought communal life within the community to a standstill, which had a particular effect on the older generations. The pandemic also inevitably led to a ban on communal worship and necessitated adjustments in the observance of traditional Jewish holidays, particularly Pesach. In many families, the communal Seder supper was held online via Zoom or Skype. The community had also to improvise during Hannukah, with an Orthodox or liberal rabbi assisting in the lighting of candles in the homes of members who requested it.
Abstract: ο ανά χείρας βιβλίο συνιστά μια απόπειρα διερεύνησης της ελληνο-εβραϊκής ταυτοτικής αναφοράς στο πλαίσιο της σύγχρονης ελληνικής κοινωνίας, αφού η μοντέρνα εκδοχή της εβραϊκότητας ξεδιπλώνεται με ορόσημο την νεωτερικότητα. Μέσα από την εκπόνηση μιας επιτόπιας εμπειρικής έρευνας επιδιώκεται η διερεύνηση, αφενός του τρόπου με τον οποίο οι Έλληνες/δες Εβραίοι/ες αυτο-προσδιορίζονται, όσον αφορά την ατομική και συλλογική διάσταση της εθνικής, εθνοτικής και θρησκευτικής τους ταυτότητας, αφετέρου του τρόπου με τον οποίο διακλαδώνονται και συμπλέκονται οι μεταλλαγές και οι μεταμορφώσεις αυτής της ταυτότητας με ορόσημο το Β' Παγκόσμιο πόλεμο.
Η έρευνα εστιάζει συγκριτικά, στις Ισραηλιτικές Κοινότητες των Αθηνών, της Θεσσαλονίκης, της Λάρισας και του Βόλου, και επιχειρεί να απαντήσει στα ακόλουθα ερωτήματα. Πως βλέπουν τον εαυτό τους οι Έλληνες/δες Εβραίοι/ες: ως θρησκευτική μειονότητα, ως εθνοτική ομάδα ή απλώς ως κανονικά και πλήρη μέλη της ελληνικής κοινωνίας; Πως αντιλαμβάνονται την ιουδαϊκή τους ταυτότητα: ως θρησκευτική πίστη ή ένταξη, ως τήρηση των ιουδαϊκών τελετουργικών και εθίμων ή ως εθνο-πολιτισμική παράδοση; Ποιες είναι οι επιρροές της μεταβαλλόμενης (εκκοσμικευόμενης) ελληνικής κοινωνίας στην ελληνο-εβραϊκή ταυτότητα; Ποιο ρόλο παίζει το Ισραήλ στην ταυτοτική τους αναφορά; Πως βλέπουν τους μη Εβραίους, Έλληνες συμπολίτες; Με τη χρήση ποιοτικών και ποσοτικών μεθοδολογικών εργαλείων, μέσα από μια συγκριτική προοπτική τριών γενεών από το τραυματικό γεγονός του Ολοκαυτώματος, εξετάζονται οι εκφράσεις και οι συνιστώσες, οι υποδηλώσεις και οι συνισταμένες, οι διαφοροποιήσεις και οι περιδινήσεις του ταυτοτικού αυτο-προσδιορισμού των Ελλήνων/δων Εβραίων, στη συνεχώς μεταβαλλόμενη και κατά επίπεδα εκκοσμικευμένη, ελληνική κοινωνική πραγματικότητα. (Από την παρουσίαση στο οπισθόφυλλο του βιβλίου)
