Contemporary Jewries: Convergence and Divergence

Front Cover
Eliezer Ben Rafael, Yosef Gorni, Yaacov Ro'i
BRILL, Jan 1, 2003 - Social Science - 401 pages
This is a book about "Klal Yisrael," the worldwide commonwealth of the Jewish people. The main question asked, is whether one can still speak of 'one' Jewish people, encompassing all Jews in the world. The Jewish collective identity stands at new crossroads of multicultural ideologies and transnational diasporism. Jewry is experiencing an existential problem in today's changing society, shifting between convergence and unity on the one hand and divergence and division on the other hand. Quo vadis, O Jewish people? Rather than fully answering this question, researchers from Israel, the United States, Brazil, Argentina, Ukraine, Russia, France and Belgium try to open up the discussion in this book.
 

Contents

From Halakha to History
17
To be Jewish in Belgium These Days
18
Is the Jewish Diaspora Unique?
23
World Jewish Population at the Dawn of
45
The Meaning of JewishIsraeli Identity
65
ReligiousZionist Thought
78
IsraeliJewish Identities
93
The Significance of Israel in Modern Jewish Identities
118
The Meanings of Jewishness in Russia and Ukraine
201
Israel and Russia Compared
216
The Dilemma of RussianBorn Adolescents in Israel
235
The Changing French Jewish Identity
255
Is the French Model in Decline?
266
MAURICE KONOPNICKI
282
Israel in Jewish Communal LifeSouth America
291
Complementary
306

Between Two Zions
133
Unraveling the Ethnoreligious Package
143
Identity and Identification of Jewish Baby Boomers
151
Jewish Continuity from the ReformJudaism Perspective
161
Soviet Jewry from Identification to Identity
183
Argentine Jewry in a Period of Economic Crisis
335
The Space and Dilemmas of Contemporary
343
Glossary
360
Contributors
382
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