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Modern Greek Jewish Women: Paths and Identities

Author(s): Sidiropoulou, Maria Ch.

Date: 2020

Topics: Jewish Identity, Jewish Women, Main Topic: Identity and Community

Abstract: Throughout their long-lasting presence in Greece, the Jewish Communities have monitored the political and social changes that are taking place in a gradually secularized and modernized Greek society. It is noteworthy that these communities are organized not on the basis of a religious institution (religion), but of a secular one (community). The identity of contemporary Jews is therefore secularized and their religious identification is actually expressed in a cultural manner, as the role of community eventually outplays the role of the synagogue. Jewish women in Thessaloniki, in this context, balance between tradition and modernity. On the one hand, they accept their full integration into the secular Greek society, while on the other, they are considered to be conveyors and maintainers of the traditional Jewish identity.

Elderly Swedish Jewish Men and Egalitarianism: A Narrative Study

Author(s): Punzi, Elisabeth

Date: 2015

Topics: Orthodox Judaism, Ageing and the Elderly, Interviews, Main Topic: Identity and Community

Abstract: This work is based on interviews with four elderly Jewish men, members of a Swedish congregation who advocate egalitarianism. A narrative analysis found that the participants’ perception of egalitarianism was connected to their own life experiences and to emotionally significant turning points in which the participants became aware how women were excluded. They perceived egalitarianism as a reassurance for a future Jewish life and described the development and preservation of traditions as intermingled rather than as opposed to each other. Gender equality in this study should not be viewed as specifically related to younger congregants and/or women but as connected to life experiences of the individual concerned.