Constructing ethnic identities : : immigration, festivals and syncretism / / Rachel Sharaby ; translated by Lenn J. Schramm.

• Superior document: Jewish Identities in a Changing World
• VerfasserIn: Sharabi, Rachel,
• TeilnehmendeR: Schramm, Lenn,
• Place / Publishing House: Leiden, Netherlands ;, Boston, Massachusetts : : Brill,, [2022]; ©2022
• Year of Publication: 2022
• Language: English
• Series: Jewish Identities in a Changing World
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (377 pages)

"This book deals with how, starting in the 1960s, immigrant groups in Israel constructed their ethnic identity by reviving their ethnic festivals and turning them into part of Israeli society. For the immigrants, these festivals serve as a collective "definitional ceremony," with an intersection of ethnicity, culture, and identity. They also help them to develop cultural and religious syncretism. The discussion of their social and political leaders' ethnic activism provides important insights about the ways in which immigrant leaders employ their ethnic tradition as a resource for mobilizing cultural, social, and political capital that will facilitate their penetration of the cultural mainstream"-- Provided by publisher.

Table of Contents

General Introduction -- Center/Periphery and Patterns of Protest -- The Mimouna in North Africa: A Symmetry of Symbols -- The Mimouna in Israel-from a Sectoral Festivity to a National Holiday -- A Tradition and its Revival -- The Seharane Festival in Kurdistan: Closing a Ritual Circle -- Immigration and Settlement in Israel: The Loss of the Ethnic Identity -- The Attempts to Organize a National Seharane Festival in the 1970s --The First Public Seharane Festival and its Resemblance to the Tradition -- The 1980s: The Seharane as the Arena of Political Clashes -- The 1990s: A Return to Folk Traditions -- The New Millennium: An Internal and Ritual Split -- The Last Decade: Decline and Retrenchment -- Discussion: An Ethnic Festival that Transcends Social Boundaries -- Pilgrimage -- Community and Family Life in Ethiopia -- The Seged -- The Seged Ritual in Ethiopia -- Discussion -- Identities in the Postmodern Age -- The Immigration of Ethiopian Jews and their Absorption in Israel -- The 1980s: The Initial Model of the Seged in Israel -- The 1990s: A Constructed and Political Ritual -- The New Century: Cooperation among Organizations and the Campaign for Official Recognition of the Seged -- 2010-2020: The Seged as a National Holiday.