Performing National Emotions
Aesthetic Dimensions of the “Torch Lighting Ceremony” for Israel’s 70th Independence Day
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/Keywords:
political ceremony, Israel, ritual, power, aesthetics of religionAbstract
Political ceremonies are particularly suitable for examining the relationship between aesthetics, power, and religion. This article discusses the roles of religion and power in multimedia events that prominently involve sensual perception and emotions through the lens of the “Torch Lighting Ceremony” for the State of Israel’s 70th Independence Day in 2018. By use of a theoretical approach combining concepts of ritual, the body and materiality, the article aims to explore the dynamics of power in interaction with religious and aesthetical dimensions. It argues that both the emotionality of the event and references to religion within it decisively contribute to the legitimation of the performed narratives concerning Israeli national identity. With this approach, the contribution presents a study of religion and politics in the contemporary world that goes beyond the dichotomic accounts influenced by secularizing narratives and rather stresses the entanglement of both spheres.
References
Asad, Talal. 1993. Genealogies of Religion. Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Batnitzky, Leora. 2011. How Judaism Became a Religion. An Introduction to Modern Jewish Thought. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400839711
Bell, Catherine. 1992. Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ben-Porat, Guy. 2018. “Religion in Israeli Politics.” In Hazan, Re’uven Ya‘ir/Dowty, Alan/Hofnung, Menachem/Rahat, Gid’on (eds.). The Oxford handbook of Israeli politics and society. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190675585.013.33
Boivin, Nicole. 2009. “Grasping the Elusive and Unknowable: Material Culture in Ritual Practice.” Material Religion 5(3): 266–287. https://doi.org/10.2752/175183409X12550007729860
———. 2010. Material Cultures, Material Minds. The Impact of Things on Human Thought, Society, and Evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1977. “Symbolic power.” Translated by Colin Wringe. In Identity and Structure: Issues in the Sociology of Education, edited by Denis Gleeson, 112–119. Driffield: Nafferton Books.
Cohen, Stuart A. 2008. Israel and its Army: From Cohesion to Confusion. London: Routledge.
Cohen-Hattab, and Doron Bar. 2018. “From wailing to rebirth: The development of the Western Wall as an Israeli national symbol after the Six-Day War.” Contemporary Jewry 38: 281–300. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12397-0189251-z
Dubuisson, Daniel. 2003. The Western Construction of Religion. Myths, Knowledge, and Ideology. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Fine, Steven. 2016. The Menorah: From the Bible to Modern Israel. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674972537
Gotzmann, Andreas. 2001. “Zwischen Nation und Religion: Die deutschen Juden auf der Suche nach einer bürgerlichen Konfessionalität.” In Juden, Bürger, Deutsche. Zur Geschichte von Vielfalt und Differenz 1800–1933, edited by Andreas Gotzmann, Rainer Liedtke, and Till van Rahden, 241–261. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.
———. 2002. Eigenheit und Einheit: Modernisierungsdiskurse des deutschen Judentums der Emanzipationszeit. Leiden: Brill.
Handelman, Don. 1990. Models and Mirrors: Towards an Anthropology of Public Events. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Höhne, Florian and Torsten Meireis, eds. 2020. Religion and Neo-Nationalism in Europe. Baden-Baden: Nomos. https://doi.org/10.5771/9783748905059
Juhasz, Esther. 2012. “Menorah.” Encyclopedia of Jewish History and Culture Online, https://brill.com/view/db/ejhc?language=en
Kan Hadashot. 2018. “Hogegim 70: Tekes Hadlakat Hamasuot. Yom Ha’azmaut 2018.” Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHQLCV6xiOo
Kook, Rebecca. 2005. “Changing representations of national identity and political legitimacy. Independence Day celebrations in Israel, 1952–1998.” National Identities 7(2): 151–171. https://doi.org/10.1080/14608940500144096
Krieg, Lisa Jenny. 2012. “A fight for countermemory and counteridentity: The alternative ceremony of Independence Day in Israel.” Kroeber Anthropolotical Society 101(1): 33–48.
Lenhard, Philipp. 2014. Volk oder Religion? Die Entstehung moderner jüdischer Ethnizität in Frankreich und Deutschland 1782-1848. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
Liebman, Charles S. and Eliezer Don-Yehia. 1983. Civil Religion in Israel: Traditional Judaism and Political Culture in the Jewish State. Berkeley: University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520313019
Mahla, Daniel. 2020. “Israel als jüdischer Staat.” In Israel-Studien. Geschichte – Methoden – Paradigmen. edited by Johannes Becke, Daniel Mahla and Michael Brenner, 183–212. Göttingen: Wallstein.
Malji, Andrea. 2022. Religious Nationalism in Contemporary South Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108919050
Meyer, Birgit. 2008. “Religious sensations: Why media, aesthetics, and power matter in the study of contemporary religion.” In The Future of the Religious Past, edited by Hentde Vries, 704–723. New York: Fordham University Press.
Morgan, David. 2010. “Introduction: The matter of belief.” In Religion and Material Culture: The Matter of Belief. edited by David Morgan, 1–17. London: Routledge.
Nongbri, Brent. 2013. Before Religion. A History of a Modern Concept. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. https://doi.org/10.12987/yale/9780300154160.001.0001
Ohana, David. 2017. Nationalizing Judaism: Zionism as a Theological Ideology. Lanham: Lexington Books.
Pullan, Wendy. 2013. “Bible and gun: Militarism in Jerusalem’s holy places.” Space and Polity 17(3): 335–356. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562576.2013.853490
Ram, Uri. 2008. “Why secularism fails? Secular nationalism and religious revivalism in Israel.” International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society 21(1): 57–73. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10767-008-9039-3
Reckwitz, Andreas. 2012. “Affective spaces: A praxeological outlook.” Rethinking History 16(2): 241–258. https://doi.org/10.1080/13642529.2012.681193
Rieger, Jonathan. 2021. “The moment Chaim sang ‘Nishba’ there was an earthquake, we were shocked” [Hebrew]. https://www.mako.co.il/news-israel/2021_q1/Article-1072ee5058e9771026.htm
Shoham, Hizky. 2017. Israel celebrates: Jewish Holidays and Civic Culture in Israel. Leiden: Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004343870
Yadgar, Yaacov. 2017. Sovereign Jews: Israel, Zionism, and Judaism. Albany: State University of New York Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781438465357
———. 2020. Israel’s Jewish identity crisis. State and politics in the Middle East. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108773249
