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Redeeming marriage? Bittersweet intimacy and the dialectics of liberation among Haredi Jews in London
Author(s): Sheldon, Ruth; Frosh, Stephen; Vyrgioti, Marita
Date: 2024
Topics: Anthropology, Marriage, Family and Household, Food, Ritual, Ethnography, Haredi / Strictly Orthodox Jews, Main Topic: Other, Festivals and Holidays
Abstract: This article intervenes in feminist anthropological debates about marriage within Western cosmopolitan, ‘post-traditional’ contexts through a close ethnographic examination of food and ritualized meals among Haredi Jews in London. We focus on this diasporic religious Jewish minority, whose marital practices have been the object of debates over marriage, gender, and cultural difference in cosmopolitan London. Learning from ethnographic and conjugal instances of hunger around Haredi dining tables, we explore the broader question of how heterosexual marriages endure in the face of struggles for intimacy and freedom between different genders. By focusing on what can be learnt about marriage through mealtime rituals with religious significance, we develop a response rooted in a form of Jewish relational ethics that has been repressed within ‘Western’ liberal culture. This approach addresses some tenacious dualisms at play in the anthropology and politics of marriage and articulates a vernacular dialectical grammar of desire, tradition, freedom, and love.
Jews and Germans: an outdated binary? Jews, love, and relationships in contemporary Germany
Author(s): Schaum, Ina
Date: 2024
Topics: Jewish Identity, Family and Household, Marriage, Intermarriage, Singles, Main Topic: Other, Interviews, Jewish - Non - Jewish Relations
Abstract: This paper analyzes the seemingly outdated binary Jews and Germans on the level of power relations and lived experiences. By analyzing an in-depth interview, it shows how the violent past of National Socialism and the Shoah reaches into the present and into love relationships. The case study illustrates that the categories ‘Jews’ and ‘German’ are needed as analytical tools to understand these aftermaths. In conclusion, the contribution argues that while the categories can be appropriated and lived in an agentic way, the binary is useful to capture and analyze positionalities and power relations.
Love, Personality, Agency, Jews: Intimate Relationships of Jews in Germany post-1945
Author(s): Kranz, Dani
Date: 2024
Topics: Jewish Identity, Family and Household, Marriage, Intermarriage, Singles, Main Topic: Other, Interviews, Jewish - Non - Jewish Relations
Abstract: This paper is about Jewish experiences of marriage/partnership, family, and love, as much as it is about doing being Jewish, feeling Jewish, and expressing (Jewish) agency in post-1945 Germany. While ‘families’ are often approached in terms of social structures in social theory, this paper seeks to relate the experiences of Jews and their partnership/marriage and family forms to the broad concepts of love, agency, personality, and negotiations of Jewishness in the everyday.
The course of love in the migration process: Germans in Israel, and Israelis in Germany
Author(s): Kranz, Dani
Date: 2023
Topics: Israeli Expatriates, Israel-Diaspora Relations, Immigration, Migration, Main Topic: Other, Marriage
Abstract: Love, to a significant other, can be the motivation for migration, inform a migration trajectory, or provide reasons for remaining in situ. Even so, love remains in the undercurrents of migration research. It is not explicitly addressed, even though it underpins migration within the constellation of arranged marriage, or if the pursuit of love is limited by social structures, or law. This paper links the dynamics of agentic love and self-initiated migration by way of German (non-Jewish) and Israeli (Jewish) migrants in Israel and Germany, respectively. It highlights individual trajectories of love migrants, establishing that love within the area of migration studies needs to be conceptualised as multifaceted and complex, at times contradictory, and as part of an affective trajectory of the migration process; and that the ability to follow up on falling in love, and to actualise love, cannot be unhinged from privilege.
Marriage and Mobility of Moroccan Jews in Montreal and Paris
Author(s): Messika, Martin; Cohen, Yolande
Editor(s): Brym, Robert; Schnoor, Randal F.
Date: 2018
Topics: Marriage, North African Jewry, Sephardi Jews, Main Topic: Other, Immigration
Being and becoming Jewish: kinship, memory, and the politics of Jewishness in post-socialist Slovakia
Author(s): Ockova, Katarina
Date: 2020
Topics: Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Identity, Post-1989, Young Adults / Emerging Adulthood, Youth, Marriage, Age and Generational Issues
Abstract: This thesis, based on fourteen months of ethnographic fieldwork, examines the entanglement of kinship, religion and politics among Jews in Bratislava. It uses marriage as a lens to explore how young Jews identify with their often newlydiscovered Jewishness and secure its socio-cultural reproduction into the future. Studying the lived experience of three generations of Slovak Jews – Holocaust survivors, their children, and grandchildren – I describe the intergenerational transmission of knowledge about Jewishness and Jewish heritage, marital preferences and practices, and choices and decisions involved in the upbringing of children in the context of changing political regimes. I focus in particular on the generation of Jews who reached adulthood after the Velvet Revolution of 1989, and explore how their families’ memories and experiences of the Holocaust and Socialist persecution, as well as the current socio-political situation and rising extremism influence the ways young Jews navigate their Jewishness – both within the Jewish community, and in the unpredictable non-Jewish public sphere. To demonstrate their allegiance to this community while keeping it hidden from non-Jews, I argue, young Jews stretch and shrink the boundary between the ‘public’ and ‘private’, complicating the distinction between these categories, and allowing the emergence of new ‘publics’ and ‘privates’. The chronic uncertainty affecting Slovak Jews’ everyday lives exacerbates the fragility of trust, and underpins a constant need to negotiate their Jewishness across this elastic boundary, as well as within their intimate relations. The thesis sheds light on the role of social distinctions and processes of boundary-making and maintenance that characterise the politics of Jewishness in post-Socialist Slovakia. It shows how, for young Jews, discovering their Jewishness, demonstrating their devotion, and gaining recognition, is more a matter of becoming than of simply being Jewish
Dating experiences of Orthodox Jews in the shidduch system: a thematic analysis
Author(s): Golker, Chaim; Senior, Victoria
Date: 2021
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Mental Health, Marriage, Singles, Haredi / Strictly Orthodox Jews, Interviews
Abstract: Arranged dating approaches are common in numerous religious cultures, but the dating experiences of Orthodox Jews have been largely unexplored in the research. In this qualitative study, eight young adults from the London Orthodox Jewish community were interviewed about their dating experiences in the shidduch system using semi-structured interviews. The data was analysed using Thematic Analysis. Overall, participants believed that dating in the shidduch system was compatible with their religious and cultural needs. The shidduch system was conceptualised as an intellectual approach to dating that prioritised identifying a suitable spouse. Whilst this focus was appreciated by participants, they also identified challenges with this approach. However, the shidduch system was also recognised as increasingly flexible to meet individual needs in the modern world. Findings are considered in terms of their relevance to mental health professionals working with Orthodox Jewish singles as they navigate the shidduch system.
The Jewish Woman in Contemporary Society: Transitions and Traditions
Author(s): Baker, Adrienne
Date: 1993
Topics: Jewish Women, Feminism, Main Topic: Other, Marriage, Motherhood, Orthodox Judaism
Abstract: Across the religious/non-religious spectrum, Jewish women have been affected by the women's movement, the impact on some leading to a reassessment of the woman's role in Judaism, with its emphasis on family and home. Conversely, a small but significant minority have withdrawn into the safety of extreme Orthodoxy. In the centre, the majority are seeking a balance between the powerful internalized message of Judaism, extolling marriage and motherhood as woman's primary concern, and a changing perception of themselves.
«Мы никого не притесняли»: особенности кросс-культурных контактов в смешанных семьях (по материалам экспедиций в Приднестровье)
Translated Title: “We Didn’t Oppress Anyone”: Peculiarities of Cross-Cultural Contacts in Mixed Families (Based on the Field Material from the Expeditions to Transnistria)
Author(s): Киреева, Наталья Михайловна; Чиркина, Любовь Вячеславовна
Date: 2020
Topics: Marriage, Ritual, Main Topic: Other, Family and Household, Intermarriage, Religious Observance and Practice, Interviews
Abstract: Статья посвящена проблеме межэтнических брачных союзов, в основу исследования легли экспедиционные материалы, собранные в Приднестровье в 2017-2019 гг. В еврейской среде в советский период традиция смешанных браков получает широкое распространение, такие союзы приводят к трансформации классического определения еврейства, что в свою очередь оказывает влияние на представления партнеров о собственной идентичности. Авторами было собрано и проанализировано 29 интервью с информантами (евреями и неевреями), состоявшими в смешанных браках, и их детьми; были выделены три основных зоны напряжения в межэтнических семьях (восприятие данного союза окружающими, имянаречение ребенка и похороны) и три стратегии преодоления напряжения: выбор нейтральной и светской традиции; компромисс (сочетание двух традиций) и интеграция одного из партнеров в культуру другого. В качестве зоны кросс-культурного взаимодействия информанты выделяли праздники; связанные с ними традиции, как правило, были смешанными (например, Песах и Пасха). Авторы приходят к выводу, что описываемый синтез культур приводит к дрейфу идентичности информантов и трансформации представлений о «настоящем еврее», согласно которым знания о традиции или практические навыки становятся важнее принципов галахи.
Экономическая трансформация практики «ѓахнасат кала»: случай в общине Московской хоральной синагоги
Translated Title: Economic Transformation of “Hakhnasat Kala” Custom: a Case of Moscow Choral Synagogue Community
Author(s): Полян, Александра Леонидовна; Карасева, Екатерина Николаевна
Date: 2020
Topics: Marriage, Synagogues, Ritual, Economy, Finance, Main Topic: Other
Abstract: Статья посвящена трансформации, которую претерпел обычай «ѓахнасат кала» в современной российской еврейской общине. Заповедь «ѓахнасат кала» была впервые упомянута в талмудической литературе как
предписание увеселять жениха и невесту, однако позже, в XVII–XVIII вв., в Ашкеназе получила новое содержание: община должна была собирать на приданое бедным невестам, с тем чтобы они могли выйти замуж, – тем самым нищие девушки удерживались от социальной маргинализации или крещения. В современной российской еврейской общине (и, как выяснилось впоследствии, среди русскоязычных ультрарелигиозных евреев Израиля) это название стало употребляться по отношению к совершенно новой практике – сбору денег на организацию свадебной церемонии для жениха и невесты, уже выбравших друг друга, а нередко живших в гражданском браке и пришедших к иудаизму. В отличие от традиционной ситуации, когда стоимость свадебных расходов покрывается взносами гостей, в данном случае спонсорами свадьбы становятся пользователи интернета, сочувствующие данной паре, а бенефициарами – члены общины с высоким статусом. Таким образом, организация дорогой свадебной церемонии становится
для будущих супругов своего рода подтверждением их статуса в общине. Подробно анализируется один такой случай, произошедший в общине Московской хоральной синагоги в 2019 г. Делаются выводы о структуре общины, о ее экономике и роли краудфандинга в современной российской еврейской ортодоксии.
Position Paper on Forced Marriage Analysis of Arranged Marriage as Practiced in Jewish Communities
Author(s): Fletcher, Yehudis; Sacks, Eve
Date: 2021
Topics: Haredi / Strictly Orthodox Jews, Main Topic: Other, Marriage
Abstract: This paper examines the shidduch system of arranged marriages as practised in Charedi communities, in the context of the UK legislation and Government guidance on forced marriage. We conclude that some shidduch arrangements fall within the definition of forced marriage under UK law. This is largely due to the social coercion to marry, and the lack of personal autonomy that some Charedi young people have over their choice of marriage partner and circumstances of their marriage.
Does religion spoil your sex life? Exploring sexual satisfaction in the Jewish community
Author(s): Fromson, Hadassah
Date: 2018
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Marriage, Sexual Health, Surveys, Orthodox Judaism, Haredi / Strictly Orthodox Jews, Counseling, Psychotherapy / Psychoanalysis, Psychology/Psychiatry
Abstract: This thesis aimed to explore whether religion, sexual knowledge and sexual attitudes impact sexual satisfaction amongst Orthodox Jews. This thesis intended to address weaknesses of previous research by using robust multidimensional measures of religion and sexuality and focusing on a specific religious group. 515 participants completed measures circulated through an online survey. The measures used were: The New Sexual Satisfaction Scale; Centrality of Religiosity Scale (CRS); threes subscales of the Brief Sexual Attitudes Scale (Permissiveness, Communion and Instrumentality); and a new measure, the Brief Sexual Knowledge scale, developed for this study. Participants were also presented with optional open-ended questions that asked about their sexual expectations and sexual education. Religious level was categorised using self-defined groups for Religious Culture; Ultra-Orthodox, Modern-Orthodox and Non-Orthodox groups as well as CRS categories for Religious Practice; Highly Religious, Religious, Not Religious. The findings show significant differences in the sexual satisfaction between Religious Practice groups but not Religious Culture groups. Significant differences in sexual knowledge and sexual attitudes were found for both types of religious variables. A correlation analysis revealed that sexual satisfaction is positively correlated with CRS and Communion scores whilst negatively correlated with Sexual Knowledge, Permissiveness and Instrumentality scores. Communion and Sexual Knowledge were significant predictors of sexual satisfaction in a multiple regression analysis. The findings of this study enhance theoretical understanding of religion and sexuality and address gaps in the literature. Clinical implications for therapists working with Orthodox Jewish clients suffering from sexual dissatisfaction are discussed.
Demography: Soviet Union, the Russian Federation and other Successor States
Author(s): Tolts, Mark
Date: 2009
Topics: Main Topic: Demography and Migration, Jewish Women, Demography, Soviet Jewry, Censuses, Ageing and the Elderly, Emigration, Divorce, Marriage
Jews in couples: Marriage, intermarriage, cohabitation and divorce in Britain
Author(s): Graham, David
Date: 2016
Topics: Intermarriage, Divorce, Marriage, Main Topic: Demography and Migration
Abstract: Much of the debate about intermarriage in the UK has been based on American Jewish statistics, and an assumption that the situation either mirrors reality in Britain, or foretells the probable and almost inevitable future of the UK Jewish community.

This 2016 report is the first dedicated study of the topic in Britain. It estimates that the intermarriage rate in Britain in 2016 stands at 26%, which is dramatically lower than the equivalent figure of 58% for the United States. Nevertheless, it finds that, whereas more or less all children of in-married Jewish couples are raised as Jews, this is the case for only a third of the children of intermarried couples. It also demonstrates that intermarried Jews exhibit far weaker levels of Jewish practice than in-married Jews on all measures investigated.
Ритуалы в состоянии перемен: сватовство и брак у бухарских евреев
Translated Title: Rituals in Flux: Courtship and Marriage among Bukharan Jews
Author(s): Купер, Аланна Э.
Date: 2015
Topics: Bukharian Jews, Ethnography, Ritual, Marriage, Main Topic: Other
Abstract: Свадебные ритуалы бухарских евреев описываются в статье по материалам полевых исследований автора, проведенных в Узбекистане, Израиле и СȀА в период с 1991 года. Автор предлагает не столько законченный и самодостаточный монтаж, сколько многоплановые кадры из частной жизни, указывая на пересечения между социальной структурой и человеческой деятельностью, между унаследованными традициями и новаторскими изменениями. Рассматриваются шесть празд- неств из серии бухарско-еврейских свадебных практик: ши-ринхори - поедание сладостей, олицетворяющее помолвку; утвержденная советской властью гражданская свадебная цере-мония в ЗАГСе; кош-чинон - празднество, когда родственники невесты принимают участие в отдалении, пока происходит приведение в порядок волосков на ее лице; праздники кудо- бини и домот-дророн, которые проводятся во внутреннем дворе родительского дома невесты и означают приветствие жениха и его семьи в доме невесты; кидуш - религиозная свадебная церемония. Автор приходит к выводу, что не существует статичной базовой формы бухарско-еврейской культуры, отклонения от которой или изменения внутри которой могут быть опознаны.
Rituals in Flux: Courtship and Marriage among Bukharan Jews
Author(s): Cooper, Alanna E.
Editor(s): Baldauf, Ingeborg; Gammer, Moshe; Loy, Thomas
Date: 2008
Topics: Bukharian Jews, Ritual, Marriage, Diaspora, Ethnography, Main Topic: Other
Synagogue Marriages in Britain in the 1980s
Author(s): Schmool, Marlena
Date: 1991
Topics: Statistics, Marriage, Demography, Main Topic: Demography and Migration
Abstract:

Contemporary Trends in Family Formation among the Jews in Russia
Author(s): Tolts, Mark
Date: 2006
Topics: Demography, Main Topic: Demography and Migration, Marriage, Intermarriage, Birth, Family and Household, Censuses
Abstract:

This article examines the severe age-sex imbalance and the increasing incidence of mixed marriage on the basis of the results of the 2002 Russian census. The changing marriage pattern and fertility among the Jews are discussed as reflected in the data of this census and a special processing of the birth certificates of 2002. Contemporary trends in family formation as well as the mass emigration led to changes in the “enlarged” Jewish population, and for their assessment new estimates of its size and structure are prepared.
"הסיפור היהודי": משמעות הזהות היהודית והגורמים המעצבים אותה בקרב בני-נוער בטשקנט ובמכסיקו סיטי
Translated Title: “The Jewish Story”: The Meaning of Jewish Identity and the Factors Shaping it Among Jewish Youth in Mexico City and Tashkent
Author(s): Pereg, Dana; Mikulincer, Mario; Aksakalov, Maya
Date: 2003
Topics: Post-1989, Jewish Revival, Diaspora, Jewish Community, Festivals and Holidays, Bukharian Jews, Ethnography, Ritual, Marriage, Main Topic: Identity and Community
Abstract: מחקר זה משקף את ההבנה שאחת הדרכים לאפיין 'זהות אישית', היא להתייחס אליה כאל הסיפור שאדם מספר אודות עצמו, הן לעצמו והן לאחרים. הזהות היא סיפור היוצר זהות ומבטא זהות. סיפורי זהות שונים בין אנשים שונים, וכמובן בין קהילות או אזורים שונים. מודעות למגוון העצום המאפיין את הקיום היהודי בזמננו, מחייבת מודעות לגיוון העצום שבסיפורי הזהות האופייניים בקהילות יהודיות שונות ברחבי העולם. המחקר מתמקד בשתי קהילות יהודיות, אחת במקסיקו [מקסיקו סיטי] והאחרת באוזבקיסטן [טשקנט], המרוחקות זו מזו אלפים רבים של קילומטרים וממוקמות בסביבות חברתיות ותרבותיות שונות עד מאד. מטרת המחקר היא, עמידה על המאפיינים של הזהות היהודית בקרב בני נוער יהודיים בעולם, ועל הגורמים המעצימים והמחלישים זהות זו בשנות החיים בהן מתעצבת זהותו הבוגרת של האדם.
The social attitudes of unmarried young Jews in contemporary Britain
Author(s): Goldberg, Jacqueline; Kosmin, Barry
Date: 1997
Topics: Jewish Continuity, Singles, Marriage, Main Topic: Identity and Community
Abstract: The period between the completion of education and the settling down into married life was regarded by earlier generations as the 'single years'.

Today most British Jews are privileged members of the middle classes and attend institutions of higher education until about the age of 22. They are less likely than earlier generations to marry, and if they do it is generally at a later age, often in their thirties. Alternative lifestyles, including cohabitation and same-sex relationships, are also much more common nowadays. For most contemporary British Jews the 'single years' are the late twenties or early thirties; by the age of 40 the majority are married. These new patterns require new responses.
Fifty Years after the Holocaust: Building a New Jewish and Polish Memory
Author(s): Rosenson, Claire
Date: 1996
Topics: Jewish Revival, Marriage, Holocaust, Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial
Jewish Marriages in the USSR: A Demographic Analysis
Author(s): Tolts, Mark
Date: 1992
Topics: Marriage, Demography, Intermarriage, Main Topic: Demography and Migration
Lost Jews: The Struggle for Identity Today
Author(s): Klein, Emma
Date: 1995
Topics: Intermarriage, Jewish Status, Marriage, Assimilation, Affiliation and Belonging, Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Identity
Abstract: Against a background of continuing erosion of Jewish numbers, the book investigates the many facets of Jewish identity by throwing the spotlight on people of part-Jewish descent, on born Jews on the fringes of Jewish life and those who have sought alternative affiliations. Emma Klein also calls for a response from religious and lay leaders to parochial communal attitudes and the anomaly of the definition of Jewish status in Jewish law which may be seen to contribute to the erosion.
Britain’s Jewish Community Statistics 2010 
Author(s): Vulkan, Daniel
Date: 2012
Topics: Demography, Birth, Marriage, Denominations, Denominations: Statistics, Circumcision / Brit Milah, Statistics, Children, Death and Mourning, Main Topic: Demography and Migration
Abstract: Presents the latest data on births, marriages, religious divorces, and burials and cremations, in the UK Jewish community. The report confirms that the number of Jewish births each year now consistently exceeds the number of recorded Jewish burials and cremations, indicating that the community is experiencing a period of natural increase. It also makes clear that the growth of the strictly Orthodox community is the main factor in this growth, contributing a quarter of all Jewish marriages and at least 40% of births. 
Report of the Community Research Unit - Board of Deputies of British Jews - Britain's Jewish Community Statistics 2007 
Author(s): Vulkan, Daniel; Graham, David
Date: 2008
Topics: Demography, Birth, Marriage, Denominations, Denominations: Statistics, Circumcision / Brit Milah, Statistics, Children, Death and Mourning, Main Topic: Demography and Migration
Abstract: The following report presents data on community statistics for Britain’s Jewish
population compiled by the Community Research Unit (CRU) at the Board of
Deputies of British Jews.
These data are collected on behalf of the whole community. It is the only survey to do
this on an annual basis and therefore the data are unique in being able to show
changes over time. From the point of view of community planners, the data represent
the most up-to-date portrayal of the Jewish community in Britain.
Although they are indicative of actual demographic trends, they only represent those
Jews who have chosen, or whose families have chosen, to associate themselves with
the Jewish community through a formal Jewish act, i.e. circumcision, marriage in a
synagogue, dissolution of marriage by a Beth Din, or Jewish burial or cremation.
Consequently, Jews who have not chosen to identify in these ways do not appear in
this report.
Further, it should be recognised that these data are collected regardless of institutional
denomination. They therefore include some individuals who would not be recognised
as Jewish by all sections of the community.
Report of the Community Policy Research Group - Board of Deputies of British Jews - Britain's Jewish Community Statistics 2006 
Author(s): Vulkan, Daniel; Graham, David
Date: 2007
Topics: Demography, Birth, Marriage, Denominations, Denominations: Statistics, Circumcision / Brit Milah, Statistics, Children, Death and Mourning, Main Topic: Demography and Migration
Abstract: The following report presents data on community statistics for Britain’s Jewishpopulation compiled by the Community Policy Research Group (CPRG) at the Boardof Deputies of British Jews.These data are collected on behalf of the whole community. It is the only survey to dothis on an annual basis and therefore the data are unique in being able to showchanges over time. From the point of view of community planners the data representthe most up-to-date portrayal of the Jewish community in Britain.Although they are indicative of actual demographic trends, they only represent thoseJews who have chosen, or whose families have chosen, to associate themselves withthe Jewish community through a formal Jewish act, i.e. circumcision,1 marriage in asynagogue, dissolution of marriage by a Beth Din, Jewish burial or cremation.Consequently, Jews who have not chosen to identify in these ways do not appear inthis report.Further, it should be recognised that these data are collected regardless of institutionaldenomination. They therefore include some individuals who would not be recognisedas Jewish by all sections of the community. 
Report of the Community Policy Research Unit - Board of Deputies of British Jews - Community Statistics 2005 
Author(s): Graham, David; Vulkan, Daniel
Date: 2007
Topics: Demography, Birth, Marriage, Denominations, Denominations: Statistics, Circumcision / Brit Milah, Statistics, Children, Death and Mourning, Main Topic: Demography and Migration
Abstract: The following report presents the latest set of data on community statistics compiled