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Georgian Israelites or Jews of Georgia: Religious and National Dimensions of the Georgian-Jewish Identity
Author(s): Kakitelashvili, Ketevan
Date: 2021
Topics: Jewish Identity, Main Topic: Identity and Community, National Identity, Nationalism
Abstract: The paper explores the evolution of Georgian-Jewish identity in different political, ideological, and cultural contexts from the late nineteenth to the early twenty-first centuries. It is focused on the beginning of the twentieth century when religious and national dimensions of Georgian-Jewish identity were developed as competing identity models. This paper addresses the impact of these identity models on contemporary Georgian-Jewish identity.
Ritual Slaughter, Animal Welfare and the Freedom of Religion: A Critical Discourse Analysis of a Fierce Debate in the Dutch Lower House
Author(s): Vellenga, Sipco
Date: 2015
Topics: Circumcision / Brit Milah, Main Topic: Other, Politics, Populism
Abstract: In 2011, the Dutch House of Representatives voted for the first time in its history for banning the practice of unstunned ritual slaughter in accordance to Jewish and Islamic rites. How should this remarkable vote be understood? In order to answer this question, a critical discourse analysis has been carried out. Three discourses are discerned in the debate: ‘unstunned ritual slaughter as an outdated practice,’ ‘ritual slaughter as a form of ritual torture’ and ‘unstunned ritual slaughter as a legitimate religious practice.’ The growing parliamentary support for the first two mentioned discourses is related to recent changes in the Dutch political landscape. In a wider context, it is related to a shift in the national self-conception of the Netherlands and, linked to that, to a change in the perceived position of traditional religious minorities within Dutch society in the aftermath of 9/11 and the ‘Fortuyn revolt.’
Synagogue as Infrastructure in Everyday Life of Batumi Jewish Community
Author(s): Abakelia, Nino
Date: 2021
Topics: Ethnography, Synagogues, Tourism, Jewish Space, Jewish Organisations, Sephardi Jews
Abstract: The subject under scrutiny is Sephardic and Ashkenazi synagogues in Batumi (the Black Sea Region of Georgia) that reveal both universal and culturally specific forms. The paper is based on ethnographic data gathered during fieldwork in Batumi, in 2019, and on the theoretical postulates of anthropology of infrastructure. The article argues that the Batumi synagogues could be viewed and understood as ‘infrastructure’ in their own right, as they serve as objects through which other objects, people, and ideas operate and function as a system. The paper attempts to demonstrate how the sacred edifices change their trajectory according to modern conditions and how the sacred place is inserted and coexists inside a network of touristic infrastructure.
Rites of Passage: Conversionary in-Marriages in the Finnish Jewish Communities
Author(s): Czimbalmos, Mercédesz
Date: 2021
Topics: Conversion, Intermarriage, Interviews, Jewish Identity, Main Topic: Identity and Community
Abstract: Debates over intermarriages and conversions are at the heart of Jewish concerns today. International studies outline a growing number of intermarriages or their considerations within several European countries and the United States. Yet, the Nordic context in general and the Finnish context specifically are understudied. The current study seeks to fill the gap in the existing research by contributing to the field of conversion studies in general and the research in Jewish intermarriages and conversions in particular in Europe and in Finland by analyzing newly gathered ethnographic materials from the years 2019–2020 through adapting Sylvia Barack Fishman’s typology on conversionary in-marriages to the Finnish context.
“Being Jew is like Travelling by Bus”: Constructing Jewish Identities in Spain between Individualisation and Group Belonging
Author(s): Martínez Ariño, Julia
Date: 2016
Topics: Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Identity, Minorities
Abstract: Individualisation theory has mainly focused on the deregulation of religion and dissolution of traditional majority churches, but there is less evidence of its appropriateness for religious minorities. In this paper I contribute to this debate by analysing how Jews in Spain construct their Jewish sense of belonging in the context of a diverse, traditionally Catholic society. My main argument is that Jews, as a small and invisible minority, confronted by the exigencies of a secular and plural context, combine notions of religious choice and ethnic ascription in narrating their individual and collective identities. Consequently, while the theory of individualisation partly accounts for this identity construction, the specificities of the context and the minority condition require additional conceptual tools about collective identities and symbolic boundaries.