Krav maga and chicken soup: symbolic Jewish identities within and beyond the Jewish school

ABSTRACT

Faith schools may play an important role in reproducing ethnoreligious identities, yet research into Jewish schools has tended to overlook students’ personalised conceptualisations of faith. Instead, it has regularly utilised restrictive ‘indicators’ of ethnoreligious practice in order to gauge these institutions’ effectiveness in ‘strengthening’ Jewish identity and thus mitigating assimilation. In response, this article explores the ways in which students at a pluralist Jewish school negotiated and (re)shaped their Jewishness, and thus lived their identities in personally meaningful ways. Students articulated ‘symbolic’ forms of Jewishness, rooted in inclusive and often stereotypical cultural symbols rather than regular religious practice, and personalised their identities through the school’s amenability to diverse manifestations of faith. Consequently, the research illustrates the value of including young people’s perspectives of faith and faith schooling, with implications for understandings of ethnoreligious identity and practice in spaces beyond traditional religious sites such as places of worship.

KEYWORDS:

• Faith schools
• Jewish identity
• young people
• symbolic ethnicity

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Nichola Wood and Robert Vanderbeck for their regular advice and support, as well as the two anonymous referees for their valuable comments. Thank you also to JCoSS for allowing me to undertake fieldwork at the school, and to all of the students who participated in the study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Brimless skullcap.

2 Person of integrity.

3 Social justice.

4 Charity.

5 PSHE is not a mandatory subject, although maintained schools are legally required to teach a curriculum that is ‘balanced and broadly based’ (Education Act 2002, s.78(1)) and provides for students ‘spiritual, moral, social and cultural development’ as determined by the Chief Inspector (Education Act 2005, s.5(5B)). The Department for Education (2014, para. 2.5) thus recommends that ‘[a]ll schools make provisions for personal, social, health and economic education (PSHE)’, whilst being amenable to schools including ‘other subjects or topics of their choice in planning and designing their own programme of education’.

6 Sweating.

7 Although Rosh Chodesh is today often considered a women’s holiday (Alderman 2014), it represents a universal celebration at JCoSS, reflecting both its commitment to egalitarianism and perhaps the convenience of a monthly festival on which to centre attention.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by an ESRC Doctoral Studentship [no. ES/J500215/1].