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" Anglo-jewry and authenticity, British Jewish youth movements, informal education and the communal contestation over authentic Judaism "
Abramson, Sarah J.
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Latin Dissertation
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| Record Number
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1098187
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TLets534669
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| Main Entry
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Abramson, Sarah J.
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| Title & Author
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Anglo-jewry and authenticity, British Jewish youth movements, informal education and the communal contestation over authentic Judaism\ Abramson, Sarah J.
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| College
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London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London)
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| Date
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2010
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2010
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| Degree
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Ph.D.
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| Abstract
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This dissertation is an exploration of the ways in which Jewish youth movements create,recreate and re-envision wider Jewish communal norms relating to authenticity, or what itmeans to be a `real' or `legitimate' Jew. The culmination of thirteen months participant observationfieldwork within one Jewish youth movement, as well as interviews with otheryouth movement leaders and archival research of one prominent British Jewish newspaper, Iargue that the modem Orthodox Jewish Establishment in the United Kingdom has a stronggrip on the concept of authenticity. The stakes for maintaining control over the boundarybetween the authentic and the inauthentic are high, as British Jewry is shrinking rapidly andeducation has been identified as the primary means by which to secure communal continuity.Consequently, Jewish formal education often supports particular (Orthodox) interpretationsof Jewish authenticity, specifically in relation to communal pluralism, appropriate genderidentifications and relationships with Zionism. However, these Orthodox expectations ofauthenticity are often incompatible with how many young British Jews today lead their lives.Youth movements are key sites in which the battle for continuity is being waged; BritishJewish youth movements aim to create informal education agendas that inspire young peopleto create lifelong affiliations with Judaism. I contend that informal education has thenecessary flexibility to disrupt (and thus redefine) the boundaries of Jewish authenticity.Specifically, the very pillars of Orthodox authenticity (pluralism, gender and Zionism) arebeginning to be (re)- constructed in new and innovative ways by some movements. It is inthis space, created through the negotiation of a movement's ethos and its simultaneousobligation to, or disregard for, communal (Orthodox) expectations, that the validation of`alternative' performances of Judaism is possible. In turn, such validation helps to associateauthenticity with a fluid and context- dependent belief system that is more likely to securecommunal continuity than the exclusive Orthodox system currently so predominant.
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London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London)
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