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ABSTRACT
Anthropologists and sociologists explore dance as a political and cultural performance to express beliefs, ideologies and social ideas. This article examines the impact of Israeli folk dance on the socialisation and integration, of Jewish newcomers (Olim) from Turkey into contemporary Israeli society. Based on in-depth interviews, questionnaires, and spontaneous conversations, as well as auto-ethnographic writings, the article clarifies how, by dancing Israeli folk dance, and particularly through participation in the Israeli folk dance troupe, Olim manage diverse social interactions and cultural negotiations within Israeli society, construct their national identity and shed light on tensions and changes regarding homeland, immigration, and Jewish peoplehood. It argues that Israeli folk dance is an important channel in their process of Israelization. On the one hand, it connects them to Israeli culture and strengthens their Jewish pride; on the other, it clarifies the distinction between life in the diaspora and life in an ethno-national space, expressing otherness while encouraging them to bring their own traditions to an Israeli stage.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Correction Statement
This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
Notes
1. Armstrong, “Immigration to Israel.”
2. Raijman and Kemp, “The New Immigration”; Leibovitz, Three Generations; and Moreno, “Beyond the Nation-State,” 23.
3. Berry, “A Psychology of Immigration.”
4. Tartakovsky and Schwartz, “Motivation for Emigration,” 95
5. Bowman and West, “Brexit.”
6. Ronen, Folk Dance in Israel.
7. Gerber, The Jews; Galanti, The Turks and the Jews; and Shaw, The Jews.
8. Aslan, “‘Citizen, Speak Turkish!’,” 256.
9. Neyzi, “Strong as Steel,” 186.
10. Aviv, Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism in Turkey.
11. Brink-Danan, Jewish Life in Twenty-First-Century Turkey.
12. Toktaş, “Cultural identity, Minority Position and Immigration,” 522
13. Toktaş, “Turkey’s Jews,” 513.
14. Aviv, “Turkish–Israeli Relations,” 695
15. Anouck Côrte-Real Pinto and David, “Choosing Second Citizenship,” 7
16. Roginsky, “Embodied Identification and Social Exchange.”
17. Ben-Lulu, “The Sacred Scroll and The Researcher’s Body,” 299; Ben-Lulu, “Dancing Steps of #WeToo Resistance,” 26; Thomas, Dance, Gender and Culture; and Giurchescu, “The Power of Dance,” 122.
18. Ramirez, “Social and Political Dimensions”; Mitchell, The Kalela Dance, 4–5; and Kaeppler, “Dance Ethnology.”
19. Kozel, “Dance, Modernity and Culture.”
20. Franko, “Dance and the Political,” 16: and Giurchescu, “The Power of Dance.”
21. Book Exodus, Chapter 15.
22. Rossen, Dancing Jewish, 3.
23. See note 6 above.
24. Ronen’s research discusses past and current sources of inspiration for folk dances creators in Israel, as well as the achievements of folk dances, alongside the difficulties and challenges they pose today and their future.
25. Roginsky, Performing Israeliness.
26. Avidan, Light blue and Crimson.
27. Holmes, “Israeli Folk Dance,” 36.
28. Yarber, “Embodied Activism.”
29. Spiegel, “The City as Subject and Stage.”
30. Schmidt, “Dance and Cultural Identity.”
31. Friedhaber, “The Development of Folk Dance,” 38.
32. As is a commonplace in qualitative research, all names in this ethnographic analysis have been pseudonymised to protect interviewees’ privacy.
33. Noy, “Sampling Knowledge.”
34. When researchers carry out auto-ethnographic writing, they retrospectively and selectively write about revelations that stem from, or are made possible by, being part of a culture and/or by possessing a particular cultural identity; this writing reflects upon their positionality in the field.
35. According to Delaney, a moustache in Turkey is not just a matter of fashion, but since the 1970s has become a symbolic badge of political identity. Certain styles of moustaches were classified as ‘leftist’ – especially those that were bushy and turned down on the side of the mouth. This style was known as Stalin biyigi (Stalin moustache). In contrast, those with the edges curved up recalled the styles of the Ottomans and were, at least in the 1960s, emblematic of the ‘rightist’ nationalists. Moustaches are occasionally tolerated in the army, only for officers, but they are not approved. In any case, they must be thin and neither cover the upper lip nor extend beyond it. Delaney, “Untangling the Meanings,” 168.
36. Lerner, Rapoport and Lomsky-Feder, “The Ethnic Script in Action.”
37. Turner, “Liminality and Communitas.”
38. In this context of the impact of the Jewish community’s size, Kravel-Tovi engaged in her anthropological work with the American Jewish community of its size – and narratives of smallness. The narrator himself tells a wide variety of interpretations about the Jewish present and future that North American Jews tell themselves and people; something that creates diverse effects of their Jewish identity constructions and experiences of belonging and otherness.
39. Author’s interview with Shlomo Maman, TAU Students Dance Company’s choreographer, January 2023.
40. Berry, “Contexts of Acculturation.”
41. See note 16 above.
42. Krumer-Nevo, “Ethnicity, Class and Gender.”
43. Kohavi, “Between Dance and Anthropology.”
44. Ophir, “Rerooted and Reimagined,” 1
45. Remennick and Prashizky, “Subversive Identity and Cultural Production.”
46. Bommes, “Transnationalism or Assimilation.”
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Elazar Ben-Lulu
Elazar Ben Lulu is a lecturer at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Ariel University, Israel