Secular Bodies, Affects and Emotions by Monique Scheer;Nadia Fadil;Birgitte Schepelern Johansen;

Author:Monique Scheer;Nadia Fadil;Birgitte Schepelern Johansen;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury UK

Violence and the reasonable hiloni self

As other chapters in this volume have demonstrated, what constitutes the ‘secular’ is found within the emotional repertoires and performances within Jewish Israeli society. For example, the everyday rhythms of life in Tel Aviv, in Haifa and on some more hiloni kibbutzim and moshavim (types of rural settlements) – particularly on Shabbat – differ substantially from parts of the country where Orthodox or traditionist publics are the majority. Dress, food, movement around the home and across the community, celebration, even the experience of daylight and dark differ for these publics. What is ‘secular’, what is Orthodox, what is traditionist and the various gradations within and subtle and not-so-subtle differences between these categories are viscerally understood by those who participate in Jewish Israeli public and private life.

However, what differentiates this chapter from others in this book is its focus on the emotional phenomenology of violence. Kimmerling (1985) famously characterized Jewish Israeli society as a ‘chronically interrupted system’ which moves back and forth between war and peace. Plasse-Couture (2013) has argued that it makes little sense to differentiate peace from war; we should instead analyse the distribution and variable intensity of violence within Israel and the West Bank and the ways in which the Israeli government manages violence through neglect and strategic intervention against Palestinians. Lori Allen (2008) has pointed to the ‘normalization everyday violence’ which has come to define the complex relationships of resistance and occupation between Palestinians and Jewish Israelis since 1967. Allen (2012) also points to the ‘scalar politics’ of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which for Jewish Israelis makes it seem as though ‘war’ is anomalous, while for Palestinians the threat of violence is ever-present.

War is an emotionally intense arena of social practice. Against scholars who argue that war precipitates a radical break in social life, Lubkemann (2008) has argued that war does not suspend social processes but continues pre-existing dynamics, though sometimes temporarily altering aspects of these. Jewish Israelis’ increased feelings of love and solidarity among the group during what they consider wartime have been widely cited in the literature (cf. Weiss 1997). This is evident in the display of flags, parades and, more recently, commentary on social media, within Israel and the Jewish diaspora. The emotional economy of Zionism becomes particularly pronounced during periods of political violence, temporarily rendering moot distinctions between Jewish Israeli social groups, including distinctions between religiosity, ethnicity, geography and social class.

My young hiloni interlocutors noted that during the three Gaza wars since 2008, in which many of the young men interviewed fought, they felt a strong emotional connection to the Jewish people as nation, though not to Judaism as a religion per se. Such emphasis on Jewishness as culture/ethnicity/nationhood is a feature of the hiloni worldview. While hilonim seem at first glance to draw on what Asad calls the Western grammar of secularism to distinguish nationhood from religion, another dynamic is at work. They are merely placing emphasis on one aspect of the bivalent nature of Judaism which is simultaneously both religion and also culture/ethnicity/nation (Gitelman 2009).

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