Abstract: Исследование посвящено роли семейной памяти и семейной трансмиссии в построении идентичности русскоязычными евреями Франции и потомками иммигрантов из России первой половины ХХ в. (второе и третье поколение). Определенную сложность в изучении русскоязычной еврейской диаспоры во Франции всегда представляла гетерогенность и дисперсность общины [Gousseff 2001, 4–16]. Во Франции, где большинство современного еврейского населения, — сефарды, выходцы из североафриканских
стран, представляется интересным более подробно узнать варианты самопрезентации постсоветских еврейских иммигрантов: как еврея, русского/украинца/«советского человека», русского/украинского еврея, или через профессию, социальный статус, а также взаимоотношения с другими евреями Франции, религиозные практики, вопросы воспитания детей, в том числе двуязычие/трехъязычие,
семейные практики, брак и т.д. Мы также обращаем внимание на то, что семейная трансмиссия играет ключевую роль в построении информантами еврейской идентичности и проводим параллель между
понятием «йихес» и социологическими терминами «габитус», «социальный капитал», «культурный капитал», «первичная социализация». Каждое интервью состоит из двух частей. Первая часть — глубинное неформализованное интервью. Целью интервью является определение спонтанных, естественных репрезентаций. Именно
Abstract: In light of growing evidence of exogamy among Jews and diminishing levels of community engagement, the question of how to sustain and cultivate Jewish identity has become a major preoccupation in the Jewish world since the early 1990s. Among the numerous organisations, programmes and initiatives that have been established and studied in response, Limmud, a week-long annual festival of Jewish life and learning in the UK that attracts an estimated 2,500 people per annum and has been replicated throughout the world, remains decidedly under-researched. This study is designed to understand its educational philosophy. Based upon qualitative interviews with twenty Limmud leaders, and focus group sessions with Limmud participants, it seeks to explore the purposes of the event, its content, its social and educational processes, and contextual environment. It further explores the importance of relationships in Limmud's philosophy, and the place of social capital in its practice.
The study demonstrates that Limmud's educational philosophy is heavily grounded in the interaction of competing tensions, or polarities, on multiple levels. Major categorical distinctions drawn in educational philosophy and practice, and Jewish and general sociology, are both maintained and allowed to interact. This interaction takes place in a "hospitable and charged" environment – one that is simultaneously safe, respectful and comfortable, whilst also edgy, powerful and challenging - that allows the individual freedom to explore and navigate the contours of Jewish community, and the Jewish community opportunity to envelope and nurture the experience of the individual. The study suggests that the interaction of these competing forces, in the context of an intensive Jewish experience, may be an important feature of Jewish educational initiatives attempting to respond to the identity challenges described above. More generally, in detailing a contemporary educational model that sustains religious/ethnic identity whilst emphasising critical thought and openness to competing claims and ideas, it presents an approach that may be applicable in other religious and ethnic communities.
Abstract: Several reasons have been advanced to explain why well-educated, middle-class and often highly anglicized Manchester Jews continue to associate with other Jews. The forces that pull Jews towards each other are complex, but mostly have to do with a shared history, background, location and attitudes to life. These are powerful forces: they can embrace even the most secular of Jews. However, many of these 'associational' Jews may well be Jews whose links with the more formally organized community are somewhat tenuous and whose Jewishness is based on emotion more than belief or practice.
Will this situation continue? In general terms, most respondents thought it would. For a variety of reasons individual associations might grow or dwindle, but the overall impression is that informal recreational associations will continue to be important in Manchester's Jewish social life in the foreseeable future. Unquestionably, for many, belonging to Jewish associations is very important. For some, membership in a voluntary association has resulted in or cemented lifelong friendships. A significant number of Jews will continue to associate freely with other Jews in recreational settings. These associations provide unthreatening and non-judgemental places for Jews to meet, whatever their religious denomination or designation. Accordingly, they play a critical and underrated role in maintaining community cohesion.
Abstract: The Big Society, in its essence, is about communities providing services to the public out of a sense of
communal belonging and public duty, rather than Government providing services to everyone centrally.
The Big Society is made up of the combination and integration of small communities doing good things.
It is about small-scale diversity, understanding that different communities have different priorities. This
understanding of difference is at the heart of the idea of the Big Society, replacing a one-size-fits-all view
imposed by central Government. Different communities may have different ideas about crime, reflected
through an elected Police Commissioner. They may have different ideas about planning, given voice
through a neighbourhood-based planning system. They may have different ideas about the priorities of
their Local Authorities, more able to be enacted through the new Power of Competence, and they might
have different ideas about their schools, reflected through the Free Schools policy.
But there’s more than one sort of community. It is easy to narrowly imagine a community as essentially
geographical, and to see communities as identical with neighbourhoods. Ideally, neighbourhoods should
all be communities, but there are other sorts of communities too: communities of shared interests, shared
faith, shared culture and history.
People give time and money to their own communities out of a sense of identification and simple
self-interest, ensuring that their communities provide the sorts of services and voluntary organisations
that they want. For the Big Society to succeed, it has to harness all of these communities, together with
the energy and resources they contain, and to find a way to use people’s and communities’ self-interest
constructively, to provide the widest benefit possible for society as a wh
ole.
Of course, communities aren’t mutually exclusive. This idea belongs to the naïve multiculturalism typical
of the 1980s, which assumed everyone can be neatly put into only one box. In reality, people may have
several senses of belonging, several connected identities, and can be active in several different
communities.
This applies to British Jews as much as anyone else. This paper is specifically about British Jews as
members of the Jewish community. Of course, all British Jews are also a part of their local
neighbourhoods and other communities of interest or values, but this paper focuses on the Jewish
community.
It aims to show the sorts of social capital that the Jewish community generates in all areas of life and to
give some practical examples of how the vision of the Big Society can be realised. It will also note some
potential stumbling blocks to our community – and other communities of all types – in building the Big
Society for everyone.
