Denial does not make the haredi body go away: ethnography of a disappearing(?) jewish phenomenon

The “Jewish Knight” of Slobodka honor culture and the image of the body in an Ultra-Orthodox Jewish context

“…This same Rabbi Yosel, vibrant and brave, subtle and devout, one of the most wonderful of Rabbi Israel Salanter's pupils, strove constantly to exalt the spiritual status of the human being, with storm and whirlwind, with holy audacity, devoting himself utterly to the cause, turning his back on the world and all its temptations, and all in order to bring the heights of spirituality to earth, and to draw to himself and raise up I believe that today the use by the rabbinic hegemony of image of the body in the Slobodka method is primarily as a foil against the image of the "Israeli Zionist body." Yeshiva students in Israel, who do not serve in the army and are not athletically active, recognize the "Zionist body" as a forbidden desire (Aran 2006;Hakak 2009;Stadler 2009). Stories from the pre-Holocaust Slobodka Yeshiva context constitute a kind of "proof" that "we could also create an image of an honorable body, if we wished to do so.…”

“…In Ultra-Orthodox mythology, maintaining Jewish characteristics of the body and of 8 For the concept of the body in traditional Jewish society and changes it has undergone, see Biale (1997), Gluzman (2007), Gilman (1991), andPresner (2007). For the image of the Haredi male body, see Hakak (2009), Aran (2006), and Stadler (2009. 9 I am aware that many scholars claim that it is not correct to use the term "Ultra-Orthodox" when referencing Jewish communities before the First World War.…”

“…This is reflected primarily in the fact that men are not exposed to general studies. Instead, they spend all of their youth and some years of their adulthood studying at yeshiva institutes focusing on the holy texts of the Talmud and its commentators (Hakak 2005;Aran 2006). 4 In addition, the Ultra-Orthodox society is the only Jewish society in the state of Israel which refuses to serve in the army, mainly because the rabbis of the Ultra-Orthodox society fear that during the military service the members will have to engage with the general Israeli population and will be exposed to Western culture (Hakak 2009).…”

Haredi Fundamentalism in the State of Israel

“…Also with the Jewish religious movement of ultra-Orthodoxy, which suffered horribly and was almost wiped out during the Shoah, a conscientious analysis is appropriate. Since the 1990s, a large amount of study on Haredism and on the analysis of its religious fundamentalist has been done (Friedman and Shelhav 1985;Friedman 1991;Heilman and Friedman 1994;Ravitzky 1996;Katz 1997;Hakak 2004;Samet 2005;Aran 2006;Baumel 2006;Spiegel 2011;Kaplan and Stadler 2012;Fisher 2016).…”

“…Critics reject the inflationary use of the term “fundamentalist” as a categorization criterion (Emerson and Hartman 2006 , p. 130–131) and caution against applying it too liberally to religious “groups we don’t like,” similar to the term “sect.” Also with the Jewish religious movement of ultra-Orthodoxy, which suffered horribly and was almost wiped out during the Shoah, a conscientious analysis is appropriate. Since the 1990s, a large amount of study on Haredism and on the analysis of its religious fundamentalist has been done (Friedman and Shelhav 1985 ; Friedman 1991 ; Heilman and Friedman 1994 ; Ravitzky 1996 ; Katz 1997 ; Hakak 2004 ; Samet 2005 ; Aran 2006 ; Baumel 2006 ; Spiegel 2011 ; Kaplan and Stadler 2012 ; Fisher 2016 ).…”