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Les jeunes, cœurs de cible et promoteurs d’une orthodoxie juive globalisée

Translated Title: Young people, the core target and promoters of a globalized Jewish orthodoxy

Author(s): Strack, Frédéric

Topics: Chabad-Lubavitch, Outreach, Orthodox Judaism, Main Topic: Other, Youth, Jewish Schools, Jewish Education

Abstract: Depuis les années 1970, s’observe une « orthodoxisation » de la judaïcité mondiale, notamment en France, au Royaume-Uni, aux États-Unis ou en Israël. Ce mouvement est d’abord porté par des jeunes. Or, jusqu’ici, les études n’ont pas suffisamment abordé la conjonction de la globalisation, de la jeunesse et de la religion dans cette évolution. Cet article étudie la globalisation d’un courant juif orthodoxe, le mouvement loubavitch. Comment insère-t-il les jeunes dans une stratégie de globalisation ? Quels en sont les effets sur leur pratique religieuse ? Cette ONG confessionnelle est un important vecteur d’une « orthodoxisation » chez les jeunes. Elle investit de manière prioritaire dans la jeunesse, notamment par un système éducatif spécifique : il vise à favoriser l’intégration à la communauté loubavitch, par le biais d’une formation orthodoxe standardisée. Mais au sein du mouvement, les jeunes sont aussi des agents : ils sont promoteurs d’une orthodoxie juive globalisée.

Fixity and flux: A critique of competing approaches to researching contemporary Jewish identities

Author(s): Samson, Maxim GM; Vanderbeck, Robert M; Wood, Nichola

Date: 2018

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

Abstract: Jewish identities are becoming increasingly pluralised due to internal dynamics within Judaism and wider social processes such as secularisation, globalisation and individualisation. However, empirical research on contemporary Jewish identities often continues to adopt restrictive methodological and conceptual approaches that reify Jewish identity and portray it as a ‘product’ for educational providers and others to pass to younger generations. Moreover, these approaches typically impose identities upon individuals, often as a form of collective affiliation, without addressing their personal significance. In response, this article argues for increased recognition of the multiple and fluid nature of personal identities in order to investigate the diverse ways in which Jews live and perform their Jewishness. Paying greater attention to personal identities facilitates recognition of the intersections between different forms of identity, enabling more complex understandings of the ways in which individuals both define their own identities and contribute to redefining the boundaries of Jewishness.

“Not Us, but You Have Changed!” Discourses of Difference and Belonging among Haredi Women

Author(s): Longman, Chia

Date: 2007

Topics: Main Topic: Identity and Community, Gender, Jewish Women, Haredi / Strictly Orthodox Jews, Baal Teshuvah

Abstract: Feminist research into the position and participation of women in contemporary fundamentalist and traditionalist identity movements shows how essentialist ideologies of sexual difference are often deployed in critique of western secular liberal feminism. In this article the author draws a comparison between discourses of belonging according to studies of ba'alot teshuvahin the USA (female “returnees” to an Orthodox Jewish lifestyle), and her own interviews with “frumfrom birth” women (raised as haredi) in the strictly Orthodox Jewish community of Antwerp, Belgium. Whereas for the former, a rhetoric of choice, essentialism, and religious ideologies of female superiority appeared important, for the frum-born women, gender is more a question of orthopraxis and religious role equivalence. Nevertheless, the author argues that for the strictly Orthodox Jewish diasporic community in question, an increase in gender conservatism, with particular notions of female sexuality and modesty, goes hand in hand with isolationism vis-à-vis the surrounding secular society.

Discontinuity, Tradition, and Innovation: Anthropological Reflections on Jewish Identity in Contemporary Hungary

Author(s): Mars, Leonard

Date: 1999

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

Abstract: Since the end of Communist rule Hungary has been re-examining its own national identity and so too have its Jewish citizens. The renegotiation and reconstruction of Jewish identity is characterized by the ability of individuals and groups to choose from a variety of identities. Choices, pace Giddens, are not made by some decontextualized individual in a quest for self-identity but rather in the context of social networks and resources. The choices are taken within a framework embracing the state, a mode of production and within the Jewish group which latter is not homogeneous. The author shows how internal and external links are mobilized and how cultural brokers act as agents in the development of new forms of Jewish identity.