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The Sacred and Its Scholars
This volume of essays is devoted to a careful examination of the importance of methodology in the study of primary religious data. The essays focus on the 'Sacred' as an ultimate object of descriptive analysis and critical scrutiny on the part of a select number of North American and European methodologists in the study and teaching of the history of religions and its allied disciplines. The central question to which the contributors respond are these: What is the Sacred? Is it a being or a concept of a being; is it a mental state or an objective reality or something else entirely? Can the Sacred be described as an empirical fact, or as a formal rule for religious inquiry? If the Sacred is a valid category in the study and teaching of religion, then what can be said about the antithesis of the sacred, namely the profane or the secular? This volume probes these questions with great care in order to justify a number of ways the Sacred can be construed as an indispensable notion for the study and teaching of religion.
Spirit Possession in Judaism
This extraordinary collection of essays is the first to approach the phenomenon of spirit possession among Jews from a multidisciplinary perspective. What beliefs have Jews held about spirit possession? Have Jewish people believed themselves to be possessed by spirits? If so, what sorts of spirits were they? Have Jews' conceptions of possession been the same as those of their Christian and Muslim neighbors? These are some of the questions addressed in these thirteen essays, which together explore spirit possession in a wide range of temporal and geographic contexts. The phenomena known as spirit possession are both very widespread and very difficult to explain. The late Raphael Patai initiat...
With Us More Than Ever
Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson was the charismatic leader of the Chabad Hasidic movement and its designated Messiah. Yet when he died in 1994, the messianic fervor he inspired did not subside. Through traditional means and digital technologies, a group of radical Hasidim, the Meshichistim, still keep the Rebbe palpably close—engaging in ongoing dialogue, participating in specific rituals, and developing an ever-expanding visual culture of portraits and videos. With Us More Than Ever focuses on this group to explore how religious practice can sustain the belief that a messianic figure is both present and accessible. Yoram Bilu documents a unique religious experience that is distinctly mod...
Without Bounds
Without Bounds illuminates the life of the mysterious Rabbi Ya'aqov Wazana, a great Jewish healer who worked in the Western High Atlas region in southern Morocco and died there in the early 1950s. Wazana is remembered by Moroccan Jews now living in Israel's urban and rural peripheries. Impressed by his healing powers and shamanic virtuosity, they are intrigued by his lifestyle and contacts with the Muslim and the demonic worlds that dangerously blurred his jewish identity. Based on interviews with Moroccan Jews conducted in the late l980s, Without Bounds proposes multiple readings of Wazana's life. Yoram Bilu recreates the influences and important moments in Wazana's life and evaluates his character from psychological and anthropological perspectives. Human and demon-bound, holy and impure, Jew and Muslim, old and young, Rabbi Ya'aqov Wazana dissolved the boundaries of the major social categories in Morocco and integrated them into his identity. Without Bounds will fascinate the lay reader interested in mysticism as well as scholars of anthropology, comparative religion, Judaism, and contemporary Jewish and Israeli history.
The Military and Militarism in Israeli Society
The Military and Militarism in Israeli Society systematically examines the cultural and social construction of 'things military' within Israel. Contributors from comparative literature, film studies, sociology, anthropology, geography, history, and cultural studies explore the arenas in which the centrality of military matters are produced and reproduced by the state and by other public bodies. Analysis is presented using three perspectives: the production and reproduction of collective representations; the dynamics of gender, voice, and resistance; and the construction of individual life-worlds.
Toward an Anthropology of Nation Building and Unbuilding in Israel
"Toward an Anthropology of Nation Building and Unbuilding in Israel presents twenty-two original essays offering a critical survey of the anthropology of Israel inspired by Alex Weingrod, emeritus professor and pioneering scholar of Israeli anthropology. In the late 1950s Weingrod's groundbreaking ethnographic research of Israel's underpopulated south complicated the dominant social science discourse and government policy of the day by focusing on the ironies inherent in the project of Israeli nation building and on the process of migration prompted by social change. Drawing from Weingrod's perspective, this collection considers the gaps, ruptures, and juxtapositions in Israeli society and the cultural categories undergirding and subverting these divisions. Organized into four parts, the volume examines our understanding of Israel as a place of difference, the disruptions and integrations of diaspora, the various permutations of Judaism, and the role of symbol in the national landscape and in Middle Eastern studies considered from a comparative perspective. These essays illuminate the key issues pervading, motivating, and frustrating Israel's complex ethnoscape. "--
The Shaping of Israeli Identity
A dozen essays document the evolution of national myths in Israel as the heroic figures and events of independence and survival transmute into blind fanaticism, great-power manipulation, and traditional colonialism and genocide. Without passing any judgement on the changes, they delve into the meani
The Visual Culture of Chabad
This book is the first full-length study of a complex visual tradition associated with the Hasidic movement of Chabad.
Physician of the Soul, Healer of the Cosmos
Isaac Luria (1534-1572) is one of the most extraordinary and influential mystical figures in the history of Judaism, a visionary teacher who helped shape the course of nearly all subsequent Jewish mysticism. Given his importance, it is remarkable that this is the first scholarly work on him in English. Most studies of Lurianic Kabbalah focus on Luria’s mythic and speculative ideas or on the ritual and contemplative practices he taught. The central premise of this book is that Lurianic Kabbalah was first and foremost a lived and living phenomenon in an actual social world. Thus the book focuses on Luria the person and on his relationship to his disciples. What attracted Luria’s students to him? How did they react to his inspired and charismatic behavior? And what roles did Luria and his students see themselves playing in their collective quest for repair of the cosmos and messianic redemption?
Jewish Studies at the Crossroads of Anthropology and History
Over the past several decades, the field of Jewish studies has expanded to encompass an unprecedented range of research topics, historical periods, geographic regions, and analytical approaches. Yet there have been few systematic efforts to trace these developments, to consider their implications, and to generate new concepts appropriate to a more inclusive view of Jewish culture and society. Jewish Studies at the Crossroads of Anthropology and History brings together scholars in anthropology, history, religious studies, comparative literature, and other fields to chart new directions in Jewish studies across the disciplines. This groundbreaking volume explores forms of Jewish experience tha...
