Strongholding the Synagogue to Stronghold the City: Urban‐Religious Configurations in an Israeli Mixed‐City

Abstract

This article explores the geopolitical significance of public religious institutions and the ways in which it has corresponded to changes in their urban environment. Based on a spatial analysis and ethnography of urban synagogues in the northern Israeli mixed city of Acre that were established and constructed by communities of Jewish immigrants from North African countries, we demonstrate how significant shifts in the city's demographic pattern and landscape have affected these institutions' ascribed functions and meanings. We theorise this dynamic as ‘strongholding’, or, more specifically, strongholding the synagogue as a means of strongholding the city. The formation of the synagogue as a stronghold is enacted through a dual configuration process by which the religious legitimacy, which the synagogue bestows on those who maintain it, is interwoven into a broader urban sociopolitical struggle to claim a presence in the city.

Sacred Rhythms and Political Frequencies: Reading Lefebvre in an Urban House of Prayer

“…Fourth, while conducting the ethnographic research, we also compiled a spatial analysis designed to reflect the spread and location of the city's synagogues (as presented in Map ). To this end, we mapped and documented the currently existing synagogues in Acre and analyzed their role vis‐à‐vis issues of internal ethnic migration and external immigration to the city (a thorough examination of this spatial analysis appears in Ram and Aharon Gutman ).…”

“…However, at the same time, the Palestinian population in this neighborhood has increased from 2,544 to 3,078, while the Jewish population has dropped from 14,436 to 9,722, resulting in a 10 percent shift in the ratio between Palestinian and Jewish residents (CBS , ). The sensation of (Jewish) absence in fact turns the synagogue into a place that cannot be abandoned by its congregants, a sort of perceived outpost of Jewish existence in the city (Ram and Aharon Gutman ).…”

A New Approach to the Spatialization of Religion: Changes in the Spatial Distribution of Religious Institutions in Debrecen (Hungary) between the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century and 2023

“…In the Middle Ages, no such central location could be observed in the case of the Jewish religion, mainly because its followers lived in segregated neighbourhoods due to their discrimination and frequent contempt. As a consequence, the primary sites of places of worship, the synagogues, were predominantly established in these neighbourhoods (Ram and Aharon-Gutman 2017).…”