Jives, jeans and Jewishness? Moral geographies, atmospheres and the politics of mixing at the Jewish Lads’ Brigade & Club 1954–1969

Abstract

This paper examines a series of anxieties about mixing at the Jewish Lads’ Brigade and Club (JLB & C) in Manchester, UK during the 1950s and 1960s, primarily focused on inter-faith activities, relationships and marriages. This paper explores how a powerful moral geography of gender and religion came to be shaped, regulated and negotiated at this youth work space. The concerns expressed by some adults over teenage encounters in the post-war city were articulated and understood through the notion of ‘atmospheres’, and this paper suggests how this idea and language captured some of the anxieties and emotions surrounding cultures of leisure at this time. This paper contributes an in-depth and sustained focus on the moral geographies of the post-war city in relation to young people, as well as addressing an important gap in scholarship on Jewish youthful religiosities. Furthermore, it pushes at ideas about meaningful encounters through the consideration of the JLB & C as a meeting space and arena for visitors. Overall, the paper examines how the JLB & C acted as both a mirror to the wider social changes of the post-war era, while also being an active contributor in shaping those same processes of social change.

Questions of agency: Capacity, subjectivity, spatiality and temporality

“…Play, once again, provides a useful example. Encounter undoubtedly offers a vehicle through which we might study the emergence of young people's subjectivities, for example through a focus on street games in a neighbourhood, or an organized activity in a youth club (see Mills, 2016). However, if we are to understand societal-level shifts in the nature of play, we also need research which incorporates multiple spaces in order to investigate which children get to play where.…”

From Big Society to Shared Society? Geographies of social cohesion and encounter in the UK’s National Citizen Service

“…We argue that NCS provision is being stretched or re-imagined in this example, with the JLGB increasingly using discourses of (religious) mixing in their wider material, with a recent tweet stating they are 'inviting Muslim and Jewish to join together this summer'. This does not mean there are not Muslim and Jewish youth mixing within other NCS providers, but this infrastructure echoes wider debates about accommodating religious difference in youth work spaces (Mills 2016).…”

“…A number of urban sites and settings have been considered by geographers as arenas for encounters infused with the politics of multicultural difference. These studies have variously engaged with Amin's (2002) concept of 'micropublic' spaces and include research on public transport (Wilson 2011), places of worship (Andersson et al 2011), the school (Hemming 2011;Wilson 2014), playground (Wilson 2013b), University campus (Andersson, Sadgrove, and Valentine 2012), sports projects (Mayblin, Valentine, and Andersson 2016) and youth clubs (Mills 2016). Theories of urban encounter have been largely driven by questions of what constitutes meaningful contact and how this could potentially combat prejudice and improve social cohesion (e.g.…”

Competition or cooperation? Jewish day schools, synagogues and the (re)construction of young people’s Jewish identities in England

“…Schools represent important spaces where particular politics of representation and culture are lived and challenged through education (Mills and Kraftl 2016), whilst faith schools specifically can play a clear (and contested) role in shaping young people's ethnoreligious identities, values and behaviours (Kong 2013). Furthermore, even though geographies of education research has attended to diverse forms of identity, including class (Butler and Hamnett 2012), disability (Holt 2007), and gender and sexuality (Hyams 2000), Judaism and Jewish identities have received unexpectedly scant attention within geography more generally (see Mills 2016;exceptions include Valins 2003;Kudenko and Phillips 2010). In response, through exploring the relationship between Jewish schools and synagogues as sites of young people's identity construction, this article aims to contribute to internationally-significant (and necessarily cross-disciplinary) debates regarding faith schooling and the spatialities of ethnoreligious identities in secularising society, and the place of Jewish schools specifically within the larger Jewish community.…”