Bulletin: Military and Soldiers

Articles

• Ben-Shalom, Uzi, and Yizhaq Benbenisty. “Coping Styles and Combat Motivation During Operations. An IDF Case Study.” Armed Forces and Society 42.4 (2016): 655-74.
• Lebel, Udi. “The ‘Immunized Integration’ of Religious-Zionists within Israeli Society: The Pre-Military Academy as an Institutional Model.” Social Identities 22.6 (2016): 642-60.
• Lomsky-Feder, Edna, and Orna Sasson-Levy. “The Effects of Military Service on Women’s Lives from the Narrative Perspective.” In Researching the Military (Cass Military Studies; ed. Helena Carrieras, Celso Castro, and Sabina Frederic; Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2016): 94ff.
• Rosman, Elisheva. “Toward a Classification of Managing Religious Diversity in the Ranks. The Case of the Turkish and Israeli Armed Forces.” Armed Forces and Society 42.4 (2016): 675-95.
• Shelef, Leah, Evyatar Ayzen, Nirit Yavnai, Eyal Fruchter, and Orly Sarid. “The Contribution of the Socio-Demographic Characteristics on Suicidal Ideation among Israeli Soldiers.” Disaster and Military Medicine 2.5 (2016).
• Simonetti, Ilaria. “Women’s Violence and Gender Relations in the Israeli Defence Forces.” In Gender and Conflict: Embodiments, Discourses and Symbolic Practices (ed. Georg Frerks, Annelou Ypeij, and Reinhilde Sotiria König; London and New York: Routledge, 2016): 67-90.

Lecture: Egorova, Bene Menashe Negotiations of Migration and Citizenship (SOAS London, Oct 28, 2015)

SOAS ANTHROPOLOGY 

DEPARTMENTAL SEMINAR

Race, Religion and the Lost Tribes of Israel:

Bene Menashe Negotiations of Migration and Citizenship

 

Dr. Yulia Egorova 

University of Durham

Wednesday, 28 Oct, 3:15-5 PM

SOAS Main Building, Ground Floor

Room 52 (to the left of the elevators)

Abstract: The Bene Menashe stem from a number of Christian groups of the Indo-Burmese borderland, some of whom back in the 1950s declared their descent from the Lost Tribes of Israel. In 2005 the Bene Menashe became recognized as people of Israelite descent by the then Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel, and in 2011 were allowed by Israeli government to continue their migration through conversion. The paper will use the example of the Bene Menashe migration to cast analytical light on different ways in which race and religion co-constitute each other in processes of transnational migration. To do so, I will focus on one specific aspect of the Bene Menashe migration – the way the community has to construct and enact their religious affiliation to be able to become Israeli citizens and to be considered part of the Jewish people by their ‘hosts’. The paper argues that in the case of the Bene Menashe race and religion co-produce each other in ways that reinforce racialized understandings of Judaism and Jewishness, and will suggest that what accounts for this phenomenon is that the opportunities that the Bene Menashe immigrants had in defining their religiosity in Israel were limited by the conditions of their migration, which developed against the backdrop of multiple colonial contexts. In the end, I will reflect on the situation of other ‘emerging’ Jewish communities in India who are in the process of organizing their migration to Israel.

 

About the speaker: Dr. Yulia Egorova is Reader in Anthropology and Director, Centre for the Study of Jewish Culture, Society and Politics at the University of Durham. Her research interests include Anthropology of Jewish communities, the social aspects of science and biotechnology, and the relationship between science and religion. She recently completed an AHRC-funded project devoted to the Indian Jewish community of the Bene Ephraim of Andhra Pradesh, and a cluster of studies exploring the socio-cultural implications of population genetics with particular reference to South Asia. She is presently developing a new project on Jewish-Muslim relations in the UK.

 

 

 

New Article: Sharaby and Kaplan, Rabbis of Ethiopian Immigrants in Israel

Sharaby, Rachel, and Aviva Kaplan. “Between the Hammer of the Religious Establishment and the Anvil of the Ethnic community. Rabbis of Ethiopian Immigrants in Israel.” Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 14.3 (2015): 482-500.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14725886.2015.1057995

 

Abstract

This article examines the ambivalent status of rabbis of communities of Ethiopian immigrants who serve within the framework of the religious establishment in Israel. On the one hand, they function in their communities as spiritual leaders who are committed to Jewish law and act as representatives of the religious establishment. On the other, they belong to an excluded ethnic community which perceives them as traitors. Our findings indicate that the marginal status of the Ethiopian rabbis prevents their inclusion and strengthens components of their ethnic identity. Thus, diverse behaviour patterns and various syncretic combinations between religious and cultural elements have been created in their identity.

Reviews: Hodes, From India to Israel

Hodes, Joseph. From India to Israel. Identity, Immigration, and the Struggle for Religious Equality. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2014.

 

 

Reviews

 

Roby, Bryan. “Review.” Middle Eastern Studies 51.4 (2015): 666-9.