The challenges and dilemmas of local translators of human rights: The case of disability rights among Jewish ultra-Orthodox communities

Abstract

Translators of global liberal human rights ideas into religious conservative communities are intermediaries who occupy a liminal position. They are located at a complex crossroad of incompatible values and norms. This article examines the translators’ challenges and dilemmas that stem from this position. The article focuses on translators of human rights of people with disabilities in Jewish ultra-Orthodox communities in Israel as a case study. The article analyzes the translators’ questions of identity and belonging, as well as their dilemmas and difficulties when there is a contradiction between the human rights discourse and the ultra-Orthodox discourse. It also illuminates the dilemmas that result from the tension between the state authorities’ perspective and the ultra-Orthodox perspective. These dilemmas differ from those discussed in the literature, which are usually related to choosing activist strategies. Furthermore, the findings suggest that, unlike previous studies that have portrayed human rights translators as actors with “double subjectivity” who can flexibly move between the global and the local moral worlds, the translators in this case are deeply entrenched in the local religious world. For them, localization is not merely an instrumental means to legitimize the global human rights principles but, rather, an essential way to settle their conflicting identities and beliefs.

Acknowledgments

The first author is deeply indebted to Nancy Scheper-Hughes, Karen Nakamura, and Daphna Golan for their advice and inspiration, and to the faculty and staff of UC Berkeley Department of Anthropology and Berkeley Center for Social Medicine for their helpful feedback and support. He also thanks Orit Sharoni for her excellent research assistance and his research seminar students for their help.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Israeli Council for Higher Education, The Minerva Center for Human Rights at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the Jerusalem College of Technology.

Notes on contributors

Zvika Orr

Zvika Orr is a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Life and Health Sciences at the Jerusalem College of Technology, where he also directs the Flagship Community Engagement Program. In 2019–2021 he is also an invited visiting scholar at Cermes3 research institute in Paris, France. He received his PhD in public policy from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 2017–2018 he was a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley Department of Anthropology and Berkeley Center for Social Medicine. Dr. Orr has published on the human rights movement in Israel, civil society organizations, organ trafficking, professions and professionalism, structural competency, community-engaged research, and university-community partnerships. Currently, he studies vernacular conceptions of human rights of people with disabilities in France. His professional experience includes public policy planning, analysis, and evaluation.

Shifra Unger

Shifra Unger is a lecturer in the Faculty of Life and Health Sciences at the Jerusalem College of Technology (JCT). She also leads JCT’s diversity and equality program. Her research focuses on people with disabilities, cultural and structural competency, social determinants of emergency department use, and emergency department experiences of care. Her research is inspired by her education in emergency nursing and public health.

Adi Finkelstein

Adi Finkelstein is a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Life and Health Sciences at the Jerusalem College of Technology (JCT). She completed her PhD in medical anthropology (Summa cum laude) at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2009). In 2012, she was awarded the Ginsberg Foundation Scholarship for her post-doctoral studies. She was a visiting fellow at UC Berkeley (2012–2013), where she was trained in disability studies. Dr. Finkelstein’s research focuses on the lived experience of people with chronic illness and their families, patient–doctor communication, gender and health, end-of-life care, and medical education. She published a book that was based on her pioneering work about the experience of women diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia in Israel. She is the co-founder (with Zvika Orr) of JCT’s Flagship Community Engagement Program.