Affective trouble: a Jewish/Palestinian heterosexual wedding threatening the Israeli nation-state?

Abstract

The aim of this article is to analyze the reactions of some mainstream Israeli politicians to a celebrity marriage between Tzahi Halevi, a Jewish Israeli actor, and Lucy Aharish, a Palestinian Israeli TV personality. Drawing upon the notion of stance, we unveil the affective trouble generated by this heterosexual union vis-à-vis the Israeli national project. More specifically, we tease out the kaleidoscopic collage of politicians' affective (dis)attachments in relation to Halevi, Aharish and a variety of socioculturally relevant categories such as the Israeli nation. This affective patchwork, we argue, is itself the product of a tension that is at the very heart of the Israeli nation-state, that between the policing of Jewishness as the defining principle of the Israeli national imagined community, on the one hand, and the upholding of the democratic imperative to equal treatment and recognition, on the other.

Review forum of Tamar Katriel’s book Defiant Discourse

“…There is no doubt that Defiant Discourse is saturated with strong emotions. One could as go as far as argue that Katriel paints yet another compelling section of the affective landscape of Israeli political discourse (see also Gafter and Milani, 2021; Milani et al, 2019). Although the work of Margaret Wetherell and other leading affect theorists is not cited in the book, Defiant Discourse clearly demonstrates ‘the irreducible entanglement of thinking and feeling, knowing that and knowing how, propositional and non-propositional knowledge’ (Zerilli, 2015: 266).…”

Cinta dan Identitas Agama: Tinjauan Konsep Cinta Erich Fromm dalam Novel Fi Qalbi Untsa ‘Ibriyyah

“…Kejadian tersebut merupakan kecolongan sangat besar bagi Yahudi Israel dan menuai protes keras yang dilakukan oleh Lehava yang merupakan sebuah kelompok ekstrim kanan Yahudi. 29 Pernikahan antaragama terutama bagi Yahudi yang hidup di perantauan, meskipun diperbolehkan dalam Yahudi, namun mereka berusaha menghindarinya dengan kekhawatiran akan terkikisnya etnis mereka dan terancamnya nilai-nilai adat kekeluargaan yang disucikan. 30 Kristen yang merupakan agama yang kini dianut sebagian besar penduduk bumi memiliki pandangan pentingnya membangun hidup damai berdampingan dengan agama lain.…”

Introduction: language, work and affective capitalism

“…The discursive and the social are also at the centre of the approach of Sara Ahmed, in whose work the focus shifts from the "embodied meaning making" (Wetherell 2012: 4) to the "emotionality of texts," the movement, circulation and aggregation of affects and bodies, and the performative force of affects/emotions in the cultural politics of world making (Ahmed 2004). Taking up the view of affect and language as inherently intertwined, a growing number of scholars of language and society has explored in recent years the ways in which "affect 'circulates' through semiosis" (Milani and Richardson 2021: 671) and contributes to producing, reproducing and challenging power relations in the realms of political discourse (Borba 2021;Gafter and Milani 2021;Tebaldi 2021), popular and consumer culture (Casey 2018;Dlaske 2017;Thurlow 2020), education (Pratt 2021;Ng 2019) and work (Barakos 2022;Flubacher 2020;Lorente 2017), to give but a few examples.…”