Ethical Complexity among Israeli Jews: Self-Fashioning, Religious-Nationalism and Tolerance

我的ESRC奖学金将通过发展出版物、网络、研究和专业技能来巩固我的博士学位。在以色列，与国家的面积相比，对佛教冥想练习的需求似乎是世界上最高的，而且这种练习目前正在被各种各样的犹太以色列人所采用。我在剑桥大学获得社会人类学博士学位的基础是14个多月的实地考察。它主要对新兴的伦理人类学研究领域做出了贡献，该领域分析人们对过好生活的比较尝试。在我的论文中，我研究了民族主义正统犹太人和左翼犹太人权活动家为追求各自的政治和宗教目标而采用佛教冥想技巧的各种方式。我的论文关注的是在我不同的对话者中，通过冥想的美德发展与多重且经常相互冲突的政治和宗教承诺所带来的困境相关联的方式。因此，这项研究有助于关于自我转化的人类学辩论，不同宗教传统之间的相遇以及伦理与政治之间的关系。我的奖学金将依赖于我博士田野调查的发现，但将侧重于超出我博士学位的主题。首先，它将分析个人自我完善、资本主义和弥赛亚犹太民族主义在当代宗教犹太复国主义者中的融合。自1967年以来，这一群体的成员一直站在以色列在被占领的西岸建立定居点项目的最前沿，这一项目对以色列-巴勒斯坦和更广泛的地区都产生了巨大的影响。此外，自20世纪70年代以来，随着以色列世俗和社会主义犹太“先驱”的影响力下降，宗教犹太复国主义者逐渐将自己确立为该国新的霸权集团。其次，我博士论文的一部分分析了主要是德系犹太人（欧洲犹太人）的左翼以色列活动家和他们的巴勒斯坦同行之间有限的文化共鸣。在我提议的项目中，我将把这些互动与Mizrahim（中东和北非犹太人）与巴勒斯坦人制定的非自由但有效的宽容模式进行比较，我也亲眼目睹了这一点。在这样的米兹拉-巴勒斯坦关系中，相互尊重地生活在一起依赖于保持坚定的民族-宗教界限。关于宽容的学术讨论倾向于做出自由主义的假设：他们假设，从普遍意义上理解，个体比群体关系更重要，并强调跨越国家和宗教界限。相反，社会科学家指出，从澳大利亚土著到拉脱维亚人，再到以色列人和巴勒斯坦人都对这种假设提出质疑，因此，自由主义宽容促进倡议往往是无效的。然而，对宽容的不同理解，即人们接受不同类型的“他者”的术语，还没有系统的比较研究。我的项目将激发一个新的跨学科研究领域，比较分析不同的宽容模型。此外，我将提供和解的见解，不像标准的，国际赞助的“和平进程”，在文化上与大多数以色列人和巴勒斯坦人产生共鸣。第三，我的博士学位包括了对犹太正统派（超正统派）犹太人采用从佛教借来的“外国”实践方式的研究。据报道，在以色列、美国和英国，哈雷丁教派因新冠肺炎的死亡率异常高。我将在我的研究结果的基础上，提供一些见解，说明在很大程度上，世俗社会可能以一种对宗教少数群体成员不那么令人生畏的方式与宗教少数群体交往，因此比通常情况下更有效。

My ESRC fellowship will consolidate my PhD through developing publications, networks, and research and professional skills. In Israel, the demand for meditation practices drawn from Buddhism appears to be among the highest in the world when compared to the size of the country, and such practices are currently being employed by a striking variety of Jewish Israelis. My PhD in Social Anthropology at Cambridge relies on over 14 months of fieldwork. It contributes primarily to the burgeoning research field of the anthropology of ethics, which analyses people's attempts to lead good lives comparatively. In my dissertation, I examine the diverse ways in which nationalist orthodox Jews, and left-wing Jewish activists for Palestinians' human rights, employ Buddhist meditation techniques for pursuing their respective political and religious goals. My dissertation focuses on the ways in which among my different interlocutors, the development of virtue through meditation is linked with the dilemmas entailed in having multiple, and often-conflicting, political and religious commitments. The study thereby contributes to anthropological debates concerning self-transformation, encounters between different religious traditions and the relationship between ethics and politics. My fellowship will rely on the findings of my doctoral fieldwork but will focus on themes that exceed those of my PhD. First, it will analyse the confluence of individual self-improvement, capitalism and messianic Jewish nationalism among contemporary religious Zionists. Members of this group have been at the forefront of Israel's settlement project in the occupied West bank since 1967, which has had dramatic consequences on both Israel-Palestine and the broader region. Moreover, following the declining influence of Israel's secular and socialist Jewish 'pioneers' since the 1970s, religious Zionists are gradually establishing themselves as the country's new hegemonic group. Second, a part of my PhD dissertation analyses the limited cultural resonance between predominantly Ashkenazi (European-Jewish) left-wing Israeli activists and their Palestinian counterparts. In my proposed project, I shall compare these interactions with the non-liberal yet effective models of tolerance that Mizrahim (Middle-Eastern and North-African Jews) enact with Palestinians, which I also witnessed. In such Mizrahi-Palestinian ties, living together respectfully relies on maintaining firm national-religious boundaries. Academic discussions of tolerance tend to make liberal assumptions: they presume that the individual, understood in universal terms, is more significant than their group affiliations, and valorise the crossing of national and religious confines. Conversely, social scientists have illustrated that people ranging from indigenous Australians, to Latvians, to Israelis and Palestinians contest such suppositions, and that consequently, liberal tolerance-promotion initiatives are often ineffective. And yet there is no systematic comparative study of different understandings of tolerance, namely people's terms for accepting 'otherness' of different kinds. My project will instigate a new interdisciplinary field of research that will comparatively analyse diverse tolerance models. Additionally, I will provide insights into reconciliation that unlike the standard, internationally-sponsored 'peace process', culturally resonate with most Israelis and Palestinians. Third, my PhD has included an examination of the ways in which Haredi (ultra-orthodox) Jews adopt 'foreign' practices borrowed from Buddhism. Haredim have reportedly suffered unusually high death rates from COVID-19 in Israel, the USA and the UK. I will build on my findings to provide insights concerning the ways in which largely-secular societies may engage with religious minority groups in a manner that is less intimidating for their members, and thus more efficacious, than is usually the case.