When the State Winks : The Performance of Jewish Conversion in Israel / Michal Kravel-Tovi.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kravel-Tovi, Michal, author.

Series:

Religion, culture, and public life.

Religion, Culture, and Public Life

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Conversion--Judaism.

Conversion.

Jewish converts.

Jews--Identity.

Jews.

Zionism.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (327 pages).

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : Columbia University Press, [2018]

Language Note:

In English.

System Details:

text file

PDF

Summary:

Religious conversion is often associated with ideals of religious sincerity. But in a society in which religious belonging is entangled with ethnonational citizenship and confers political privilege, a convert might well have other motives. Over the last two decades, mass non-Jewish immigration to Israel, especially from the former Soviet Union, has sparked heated debates over the Jewish state's conversion policy and intensified suspicion of converts' sincerity. When the State Winks carefully traces the performance of state-endorsed Orthodox conversion to highlight the collaborative labor that goes into the making of the Israeli state and its Jewish citizens.In a rich ethnographic narrative based on fieldwork in conversion schools, rabbinic courts, and ritual bathhouses, Michal Kravel-Tovi follows conversion candidates-mostly secular young women from a former Soviet background-and state conversion agents caught between the contradictory demands of their nationalist and religious commitments. She complicates the popular perception that conversion is a "wink-wink" relationship in which both sides agree to treat the converts' pretenses of faith as real. Instead, she demonstrates how their interdependent performances blur any clear boundary between sincere and fraudulent conversions. Alongside detailed ethnography, Kravel-Tovi develops new ways to think about the complex connection between religious conversion and the nation-state. Kravel-Tovi emphasizes how state power is created and managed through "winking"-the subtle exchanges and performances that animate everyday encounters between state and citizen. In a country marked by tension between official religiosity and a predominantly secular Jewish population, winking permits the state to save its Jewish face.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Prologue. The Naked Truth on Tel Aviv's Beaches

Introduction. Taking Winking Seriously

PART 1. THE CONVERSION MISSION

ONE. National Mission

TWO. State Workers

PART 2. THE CONVERSION PERFORMANCE

THREE. Legible Signs

FOUR. Dramaturgical Entanglements

FIVE. Biographical Scripts

Epilogue. Winking Like a State

Glossary

Notes

References

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 24. Sep 2018)

ISBN:

9780231544818

0231544812

OCLC:

1054876307