Ethical Complexity among Israeli Jews: Self-Fashioning, Religious-Nationalism and Tolerance

以色列犹太人的道德复杂性：自我塑造、宗教民族主义和宽容

基本信息

批准号：
ES/W006030/1
负责人：
Ori Mautner
金额：
$ 12.59万
依托单位：
University of Cambridge
依托单位国家：
英国
项目类别：
Fellowship
财政年份：
2021
资助国家：
英国
起止时间：
2021 至无数据
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FW006030%2F1
关键词：
Ethical Complexity among Israeli Jews

项目摘要

My ESRC fellowship will consolidate my PhD through developing publications, networks, and research and professional skills. In Israel, the demand for meditation practices drawn from Buddhism appears to be among the highest in the world when compared to the size of the country, and such practices are currently being employed by a striking variety of Jewish Israelis. My PhD in Social Anthropology at Cambridge relies on over 14 months of fieldwork. It contributes primarily to the burgeoning research field of the anthropology of ethics, which analyses people's attempts to lead good lives comparatively. In my dissertation, I examine the diverse ways in which nationalist orthodox Jews, and left-wing Jewish activists for Palestinians' human rights, employ Buddhist meditation techniques for pursuing their respective political and religious goals. My dissertation focuses on the ways in which among my different interlocutors, the development of virtue through meditation is linked with the dilemmas entailed in having multiple, and often-conflicting, political and religious commitments. The study thereby contributes to anthropological debates concerning self-transformation, encounters between different religious traditions and the relationship between ethics and politics. My fellowship will rely on the findings of my doctoral fieldwork but will focus on themes that exceed those of my PhD. First, it will analyse the confluence of individual self-improvement, capitalism and messianic Jewish nationalism among contemporary religious Zionists. Members of this group have been at the forefront of Israel's settlement project in the occupied West bank since 1967, which has had dramatic consequences on both Israel-Palestine and the broader region. Moreover, following the declining influence of Israel's secular and socialist Jewish 'pioneers' since the 1970s, religious Zionists are gradually establishing themselves as the country's new hegemonic group. Second, a part of my PhD dissertation analyses the limited cultural resonance between predominantly Ashkenazi (European-Jewish) left-wing Israeli activists and their Palestinian counterparts. In my proposed project, I shall compare these interactions with the non-liberal yet effective models of tolerance that Mizrahim (Middle-Eastern and North-African Jews) enact with Palestinians, which I also witnessed. In such Mizrahi-Palestinian ties, living together respectfully relies on maintaining firm national-religious boundaries. Academic discussions of tolerance tend to make liberal assumptions: they presume that the individual, understood in universal terms, is more significant than their group affiliations, and valorise the crossing of national and religious confines. Conversely, social scientists have illustrated that people ranging from indigenous Australians, to Latvians, to Israelis and Palestinians contest such suppositions, and that consequently, liberal tolerance-promotion initiatives are often ineffective. And yet there is no systematic comparative study of different understandings of tolerance, namely people's terms for accepting 'otherness' of different kinds. My project will instigate a new interdisciplinary field of research that will comparatively analyse diverse tolerance models. Additionally, I will provide insights into reconciliation that unlike the standard, internationally-sponsored 'peace process', culturally resonate with most Israelis and Palestinians. Third, my PhD has included an examination of the ways in which Haredi (ultra-orthodox) Jews adopt 'foreign' practices borrowed from Buddhism. Haredim have reportedly suffered unusually high death rates from COVID-19 in Israel, the USA and the UK. I will build on my findings to provide insights concerning the ways in which largely-secular societies may engage with religious minority groups in a manner that is less intimidating for their members, and thus more efficacious, than is usually the case.

我的ESRC奖学金将通过发展的出版物，网络以及研究和专业技能来巩固我的博士学位。在以色列，与国家规模相比，从佛教中提取的冥想实践的需求似乎是世界上最高的之一，目前，这种做法正在受到各种犹太以色列人的惊人。我在剑桥的社会人类学博士学位依靠14个月的现场工作。它主要促进了道德人类学人类学的新兴研究领域，该研究分析了人们相对地过着良好生活的尝试。在我的论文中，我研究了民族主义者东正教犹太人以及左翼犹太活动家的多种方式，以实现巴勒斯坦人的人权，采用佛教冥想技巧来追求各自的政治和宗教目标。我的论文重点是在我不同的对话者中，通过冥想发展的美德与有多种且经常冲突，政治和宗教承诺所带来的困境有关。该研究因此有助于人类学的辩论，涉及自我转变，不同的宗教传统与伦理与政治之间的关系之间的相遇。我的奖学金将依靠我的博士实地调查结果，但专注于超出我博士学位的主题。首先，它将分析当代宗教犹太复国主义者个人自我完善，资本主义和弥赛亚犹太民族主义的融合。自1967年以来，该小组的成员一直处于以色列在被占领的西岸定居项目的最前沿，这对以色列 - 帕勒斯坦和更广泛的地区都产生了巨大的后果。此外，在1970年代以来以色列世俗和社会主义犹太人的“先驱者”的影响下，宗教犹太复国主义者逐渐将自己确立为该国的新霸权组织。其次，我的博士学位论文的一部分分析了主要是阿什凯纳齐（欧洲犹太人）左翼以色列激进主义者和他们的巴勒斯坦同行之间的文化共鸣。在我提出的项目中，我将将这些互动与米兹拉希姆（中东和北非犹太人）与巴勒斯坦人颁布的非自由主义而有效的宽容模式进行比较，我也见证了这一点。在这种米兹拉希 - 帕勒斯坦的关系中，共同生活在尊重的是维持国家宗教界限。关于宽容的学术讨论倾向于做出自由的假设：他们认为，从普遍的角度来理解的个人比他们的群体隶属关系更为重要，并使民族和宗教范围的越野越过。相反，社会科学家表明，从澳大利亚土著人，拉脱维亚人，以色列人和巴勒斯坦人都竞争这样的假设，因此，自由宽容促进倡议通常是无效的。然而，没有对宽容的不同理解的系统比较研究，即人们接受不同种类的“其他”条款。我的项目将促进一个新的跨学科研究领域，该领域将比较分析各种容忍模型。此外，我将提供对和解的见解，与国际赞助的“和平进程”不同，在文化上与大多数以色列人和巴勒斯坦人产生了共鸣。第三，我的博士学位包括对Haredi（超正统）犹太人采用从佛教借来的“外国”实践的方式的研究。据报道，哈雷迪姆（Haredim）的死亡率异常高，与19日在以色列，美国和英国的死亡率相差很高。我将基于自己的发现，以提供有关在很大程度上可以以宗教社会与宗教少数群体互动的方式的见解，而这种方式对其成员的恐吓率较小，因此比通常情况更有效。