ToC: Israel Studies 22.2 (2017)

Israel Studies 22.2 (2017)

Table of Contents

    Special Section: Religion And Ethnicity

•         Like a Phoenix: The Renaissance of Sephardic/Mizrahi Identity in Israel in the 1970s and 1980s / Avi Picard (pp. 1-25)
•         Philoumenos of Jacob’s Well: The Birth of a Contemporary Ritual Murder Narrative / David Gurevich and Yisca Harani (pp. 26-54)
•         William James in the Holy Land: Religious Experience and Secular-Believer Jewish Women in Israel / Hagar Lahav (pp. 55-77)
•         “Belfast Is Not Here”: The Israeli Press and the Good Friday Agreement / Aidan Beatty (pp. 78-95)

Articles

•         The Kibbutz and the Development Town: The Economic Dimension of Their Reciprocal Relations—The Case of the Hula Valley / Amir Goldstein (pp. 96-120)
•         Kibbutz Under Fire: Back to the Days of Sickle and Bayonet / Zeev Drory, Eyal Lewin and Eyal Ben-Ari (pp. 121-144)
•         The Fiscal Path to the State of Israel: Social Policy and State Building in the Yishuv during the Mandate / Michal Koreh and Daniel Béland (pp. 145-168)
•         What is Israeli in Israeli Art? A Psychoanalytic Solution / Efrat Biberman (pp. 169-187)

New Article: Lahav, What Do Secular-Believer Women in Israel Believe in?

Lahav, Hagar. “What Do Secular-Believer Women in Israel Believe in?” Journal of Contemporary Religion 31.1 (2016): 17-34.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13537903.2016.1109866

 

Extract

Secular-believers, who constitute about 25% of Israeli Jews, are self-identified secular people who believe in some kind of divinity. Based on in-depth interviews with secular-believer women, this study aims to reveal their theological assumptions and claims. It examines metaphors and images participants used to relate to the divine as well as the theological categories they emphasized. The study uncovers the pluralistic nature of secular-believers’ beliefs and the common tendency to address faith-related content in a positive light.

 

 

 

New Article: Lahav, Post-Secular Jewish Feminist Theology? The View from Israel

Lahav, Hagar. “Post-Secular Jewish Feminist Theology? The View from Israel.” Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 14.3 (2015): 355-72.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14725886.2015.1039313

 

Abstract

About 25% of the Jewish population in Israel consists of “secular believers.” They self-identify as secular but also believe in God or some kind of higher/deeper power(s). Their identity conflicts with the conventional identification of secularism with atheism, as do post-secular theologies, whose theological ideas reject traditional religion while adopting concepts of faith. Western feminism proved especially conducive to the development of post-secular theology. This study addresses both Israeli Judaism and feminist theology from a post-secular perspective. It analyses two academic fields of discourse—feminist Jewish theology and feminism in Israel—to determine whether, how and why they are developing a Jewish post-secular feminist theology. The study reveals that such theologies are rare and suggests that discursive field structure limits their development.