Secularity and Its Discontents: Religion and Cinema in Israel (CJS Seminar Series) - Yaron Peleg

Dates:	7 November 2013
Times:	16:00 - 17:30
What is it:	Seminar
Organiser:	School of Arts, Languages and Cultures
Who is it for:	University staff, Adults, Alumni, Current University students, General public
Speaker:	Yaron Peleg (Cambridge)

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Yaron Peleg (Cambridge) discusses a crucial theme in Israeli cinema. The third in the Centre for Jewish Studies Seminar Series. The lecture looks at the changing nature of Zionism and the place of Judaism or Jewishness within it by observing the ways it is reflected in Israeli films. The presentation follows the challenges to the secular nature of Zionism by looking at the development of different kinds of Judaisms or expressions of Jewish religiosity since the establishment of Israel in 1948 as part of the State's national culture. These challenges include three different strands or kinds of Judaisms, Ashkenazi, Mizrahi, and national. Ashkenazi Judaism refers to the evolution of the image of Ashkenazi orthodox Jews in Israeli popular culture and its migration from margin to center. Mizrahi Judaism refers to the development of traditionalism (????????) as one of the earliest legitimate forms of Jewish religiosity as part of secular, Israeli culture. National Judaism refers to the rise of political Judaism, usually identified with the settler community. These three strands or iterations of Jewish religiosity as part of contemporary Israeli culture challenge the secularity of Jewish nationalism as conceived by early Zionist thinkers, developed in Yishuv culture, and sanctioned by the early State in its cultivation and promotion of Statism.