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Articles

Kivrei tsadikim as holy places? The tsadikification process of Jewish cemeteries in the state of Israel

Pages 543-566 | Published online: 20 Feb 2023
 

ABSTRACT

This paper analyzes the major change in the Jewish sacred space in Israel. It demonstrates the distinct process wherein pilgrimages emphasizing ancient Jewish history are often replaced by visits at the tombs of venerated contemporary figures. In various places throughout Israel (and the Diaspora), a complex system of sacred tombs has developed comprising sites that are physically and symbolically distant from Jerusalem. In recent years, cemeteries throughout the State of Israel have been transformed from burial places serving the families of the deceased to pilgrimage destinations for visitors specifically seeking to prostrate themselves on the holy graves of rabbis, public figures, and leaders of communities and Hasidic dynasties, whether Mizrachi or Ashkenazi. This tsadikification process has developed almost without institutional or national political involvement, and is the result of the activities of individuals and families, non-profit organizations, Hasidic dynasties, and various organizations promoting the expansion of the map of Jewish sanctity.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Yoram Bilu, The Saints' Impresarios: Dreamers, Healers, and Holy Men in Israel's Urban Periphery (Boston, 2010).

2 Jamie Scott and Paul Simpson-Houseley, Sacred Places and Profane Spaces (New York: Greenwood Press, 1991); Simon Coleman and John Elsner, Pilgrimage: Past and Present (London, 1995); Robert H. Stoddard and Alan Morinis, eds., Sacred Places, Sacred Spaces: The Geography of Pilgrimages (Baton Rouge, La., 1997).

3 Ian Reader, "Pilgrimage Growth in the Modern World: Meanings and Implications," Religion 27.3 (2007): 210-229; S. Brent Plate, "Introduction: The Varieties of Contemporary Pilgrimage," Crosscurrents 59.3 (2009): 260-267; Simon Coleman, "Ritual Remains: Studying Contemporary Pilgrimage," in A Companion to the Anthropology of Religion, eds. J. Boddy and M. Lambeck (Oxford, 2013), 294-308.

4 Ian Reader, Pilgrimage: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2015), 1-19; Jens Kreinath, "The Seductiveness of Saints: Interreligious Pilgrimage Sites in Hatay and the Ritual Transformations of Agency," in The Seductions of Pilgrimage: Sacred Journeys Afar and Astray in the Western Religious Tradition, eds. M. A. Di Giovine and D. Picard (Farnham, Surrey, England, Burlington, VT, 2015), 121-143.

5 Robert H. Stoddard, "Defining and Classifying Pilgrimages," in Stoddard and Morinis, Sacred Places, Sacred Spaces, 41-60.

6 On "informal pilgrimage" see: Daniel H. Olsen, "Tourism and Informal Pilgrimage among the Latter-Day Saints," in Tourism, Religion and Spiritual Journeys, eds. T. J. Dallen and D. H. Olsen (London, 2006), 254-270; Hamlet Melkumyan, "Informal Shrines and Social Transformations: The Murids as New Religious Mediators among Yazidis in Armenia," in Sacred Places, Emerging Spaces: Religious Pluralism in the Post-Soviet Caucasus, eds. T. Derieva, F. Muhlfried, and Kevin Tuite (New York: Berghahn Books Informal, 2018), 177-202.

7 Alan Morinis, "Introduction: The Territory of the Anthropology of Pilgrimage," Sacred Journeys: The Anthropology of Pilgrimage, ed. A. Morinis (Westport, Ct., 1992), 14-15.

8 On the status of the cemetery in Jewish culture, see: Avriel Bar-Levav, "We are where we are not: The Cemetery in Jewish Culture," Jewish Studies 41 (2002): 15-46.

9 Elchanan Reiner, "From Joshua to Jesus – The Transformation of a Biblical Story to a Local Myth (A Chapter in the Religious Life of the Galilean Jew)" (Hebrew), Zion, 61.3 (1996): 281-317.

10 Miriam Frenkel, "Jewish Pilgrimage to Jerusalem in the Fatimid Period," in Ut Viadent et Contigant: Essays on Pilgrimage and Sacred Space in Honor of Ora Limor, eds. Y. Hen and I. Shagrir (Hebrew; Raanana, 2011), 134-156.

11 Elchanan Reiner, "A Jewish Response to the Crusades: The Dispute over Sacred Places in the Holy Land," in Juden und Christen zur Zeit der Kreuzzüge, ed. A. Haverkamp (Sigmaringen, 1999), 209-231.

12 Elchanan Reiner, "Traditions of Holy Places in Medieval Palestine – Oral versus Written," in Offerings from Jerusalem; Portrayals of Holy Places by Jewish Artists, ed. R. Sarfati (Jerusalem, 2002), 9-19.

13 See, for example, the Hebrew inscription accompanying the 19th-century series of panoramic maps of the Land of Israel and its holy places, which reads: "This painting shows the entirety of the Land of Israel and all those buried in its ground, resting in its dust, its prophets and saints, its holy men [tsadikim] and its righteous men, its Tannaim and its Amoraim, its wise men and its honest men, its priests and its ministers, its kings and its judges who are buried in the ground of its foundations." See Rehav Rubin, Portraying the Land, Hebrew Maps of the Land of Israel from Rashi to the Early 20th Century (Berlin, 2018), 204-220.‏ The maps indicate the burial places of Sages and Biblical figures only.

14 Josef W. Meri, The Cult of Saints Among Muslims and Jews in Medieval Syria (Oxford, 2002). Meshullam of Volterra, a Jewish pilgrim from Italy, reported in 1481 that "All around Jerusalem there are burial caves where countless righteous and holy men are buried, but we know not who they are, save those whose names have been recorded and the record passed down through the generations from ancient times and regarding the truth of which there is no doubt, and which the Ishmaelites also revere and have a record of, like we do, and of which they say to the Jews, why don’t you go visit the tomb of this tsadik or that great man." See Judah David Eisenstein, Otzar Masa'oth: an Anthology of Itineraries by Jewish Travelers to Palestine, Syria, Egypt and other Countries (Newark, 1926), 101.

15 Daphna Levin, "Can Two Walk Together, Except That They Agree? R. Isaac Luria’s Kabbalistic Initiation of R. Hayyim Vital," Daat: A Journal of Jewish Philosophy & Kabbalah 82 (2016): 211–250.

16 Reiner, "Traditions of Holy Places," 9-19.

17 Dotan Goren, A Redeemer will Come to Zion: Jewish Efforts to Obtain a Foothold in the Holy Places in Jerusalem and its Surroundings in the Late Ottoman Period (1840-1918) (Hebrew; Jerusalem, 2017).

18 Dotan Goren, "Ma'avak bein kodesh le-hol: li-sh'elat ha-baʽalut al kivrei ha-malakhim bi-Yerushalayim,"in E. H. Cohen, ed., French Jewry: Between Particularism and Universalism in Modern and Contemporary History (Ramat Gan, 2015), 43-53.

19 Doron Bar, Sanctifying a Land: The Jewish Holy Places in the State of Israel, 1948–1968 (Hebrew; Jerusalem, 2007), 129-149; Doron Bar, "Reconstructing the Past: The Creation of Jewish Sacred Space in the State of Israel, 1948–1967," Israel Studies 13.3 (2008): 1-21.

20 Mekomot kdoshim be-Eretz Israel (Jerusalem, 1975); Bar, Sanctifying a Land, 203-244. ???

21 The pilgrimage to Jerusalem closely corresponds with the concentric model of sanctity proposed by Mircea Eliade. According to the model, the pilgrim moves from the margins of the sacred space to its center, and from the profane daily space in which he lives to the center of his religion. He draws close to the sacred space that constitutes the center of the world – the axis mundi of his existence, which connects heaven and earth and allows the faithful to meet their god. See Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion (New York, 1959).

22 See, for example, Rachel Yanait Ben-Zvi, "ʽIm Zalman (Shazar) ʽal-yad ha-Kotel ha-Maʽaravi," Israel State Archives [ISA], P-5-2171.

23 Yigal Sarna, "Baba horeg: ʽal ha-tsadik ha-Tunisa'i Haim Huri mi-Be’er Sheva," Yedioth Ahronoth, May 23, 2006.

24 For a special perspective on this period, see W. P. Zenner, "Saints and Piecemeal Supernaturalism among the Jerusalem Sepharadim," Anthropological Quarterly, 38.4 (1965): 201-217. See also Doron Bar, "Mizrachim and the Development of Sacred Space in the State of Israel, 1948-1967," Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 8.3 (2009): 267-285.

25 Issachar Ben-Ami, Saint Veneration Among the Jews of Morocco (Hebrew; Jerusalem, 1984); Moshe Shokeid, "The Moroccan Jewish Cult of Saints in Israel Revisited," Israeli Sociology 1.1 (1998): 39–53; Yoram Bilu, "Moroccan Jews and the Shaping of Israel’s Sacred Geography," in Divergent Jewish Cultures: Israel and America, eds. D. D. Moore and S. I. Troen (New Haven, 2001): 72-86; Yoram Bilu, "Saint Worship in Israel – Tradition versus Modernity," in Israel and Modernity; Essays in Honor of Prof. Moshe Lissak, eds. U. Cohen et al. (Hebrew; Beer Sheva, 2006): 367-394.

26 Hadas Shadar, "The Poetics and the Politics of the Contemporary Sacred Place: Baba Sali's Grave Estate in Netivot, Israel," Buildings and Landscapes: Journal of the Vernacular Architecture Forum 16.2 (2009): 73-85; Haim Yacobi, "From State-Imposed Urban Planning to Israeli Diasporic Place: The Case of Netivot and the Grave of Baba Sali," in Jewish Topographies: Visions of Space, Tradition and Place, eds. J. Brauch, A. Lipphardt, and Alexandra Nocke (Aldershot, 2016), 63-80.

27 Ehud Michalson, Ha-shoshelet le-beit Pinto: Toldot rabanei ha-mishpaha ve-maʽasei mofet (Tel Aviv, 1992), 155-156.

28 Tsofia Hirschfeld, "Yivu ishi: 'atzmot krovim mi-Morocco," YNET, July 11, 2011.

29 Yechezkel Sh. Lichtenstein, "Prostration at the Graves of the Righteous," Daat: A Journal of Jewish Philosophy & Kabbalah 46 (2001): 81–97; for the halachic perspective see: Yaakov Shmuel Spiegel, "Reservations about Visiting Burial Grounds of the Righteous" (Hebrew), Shalem: Studies in the History of the Jews in Eretz-Israel 8 (2008), 327-385.

30 Shalom Oded, "Ba la-shkhunah tsadik hadash: ha-toshavim bi-shkhunat Nachlat Yitzhak zoʽamim ve-ovdei etsot," Yedioth Ahronoth, July 16, 2002.

31 An interesting case in point will be the grave of Rabbi Mordechai Yissachar Ber Leifer (the Admor of Pittsburgh), who died of COVID-19 in October 2020 and was buried, in accordance with his wish, in the Ashdod Cemetery’s "Pittsburgh Plot."

32 Yossi Katz, "Yavne’El, Breslov City: R. Eliezer Shlomo Schick (Mohorosh) and the Sanctification of Yavne’El in the Galilee," Daat: A Journal of Jewish Philosophy & Kabbalah, 82 (2016): 347-377; Eliezer Shlomo Schick, Sefer hishtatkhut ʽal kivrei tsadikim (Jerusalem, 2015).

33 David Rosoff, Kdoshim asher ba’aretz: Skira yihudit mi-kadmonim u-mi-gdolei Israel ha-tmunim bi-Yerushalayim u-Vnei Brak (Jerusalem, 5766 [2006]); Doron Bar, "Changes in Jerusalem's Jewish Holy Places: The Sanctification of Kivrei Tsaddiqim in Three of the City's Cemeteries, 1967-2017" (Hebrew), Association for Jewish Studies Review 45.1 (2021), 1-19.

34 Eidan Yosef, "Atraktsiah hadashha ba-Knesset: kever ha-Admor me-Zvhil," Be-Hadrei Haredim, accessed November 23, 2008, http://www.bhol.co.il/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=2523450&forum_id=771.

35 Seder segulah: she-'alafim badku ve-nisu al ha-tsion shel Rabbi Gedalyahu Moshe Ben Rabbi Shlomovhil (Jerusalem, 5770 [2010]); Seder ha-segulah sheni-hamishi-sheni: be-tsiono shel Rabbi Gedalyahu Moshe me-Zvhil (Jerusalem, 5775 [2015]); "Ha-segulah ha-bedukah al tsion ha-tsadik," Actualic, accessed November 4, 2015.

36 Kvod kedushat ha-Admor mi-Gur zekher tsadik u-kadosh li-vrakhah le-hayei ha-ʽolam: be-masʽa halvayah ʽanaki she-ha-arets terem ra’atah ke-dugmato huva li-menukhot bi-mromei Har ha-Zeitim (Jerusalem, 5737 [1977]).

37 Bezalel Kahan, "Alfei kvarim yeshukmu be-Har ha-Zeitim," Yated Ne’eman, March 24, 2006; Yehuda Koren, "Har ha-Zeitim yotse la-'or: proyekt shikumo shel Har ha-Zeitim yotse la-derekh," Yedioth Ahronoth, July 2, 1997.

38 Shivhei Rabbi Chaim ibn Attar: likrat hilulat ha-tsadik ha-kadosh Rabeinu Chaim ben Attar (Jerusalem, 575?? [199?]).

39 "Maran ha-kadosh ha-admor mi-Belz eineno, Rabbi Avraham Rokach zekher tsadik li-vrakhah nitbakesh le-yeshivah shel maʽalah, revavot livuhu li-mnuhot bi-Yerushalaim," Sheʽarim, August 19, 1957; Noah Zvuloni, "Ha-Rav Odesser (105), baʽal ha-segulah mi-hasidei Breslov, met bi-Yerushalaim," Davar, October 24, 1994; Yair Ettinger, "Tlulit he-ʽafar haitah la-kever ha-kadosh shel ha-rav: ke-revʽa million hilonim ve-datiyim hishtatfu be-masʽa ha-halvayah shel ha-Rav Kadouri, zkan ha-mekubalim," Ha’aretz, January 30, 2006.

40 "Shevʽa shanim le-ptirat ha-Rav Mordechai Eliyahu zekher tsadik u-kadosh li-vrakhah," Kikar HaShabbat, accessed June 14, 2017, https://www.kikar.co.il/235412.html; "Ha-yom yom ptiratah shel Miriam Ha-Koveset ha-tsadikah," Kikar HaShabbat, accessed January 1, 2019, https://www.kikar.co.il/302246.html; Asaf Nevo, "Mofʽa paytanim be-hilulat ‘Tsadik ha-Mezuzot’ bi-Yerushalaim," Mako, accessed July 22, 2012, https://www.mako.co.il/music-news/local/Article-fd8e971a30ea831006.htm; Tsadik ha-Mezuzot merape holim (n.p., 2013).

41 Noga Collins-Kreiner, "Graves as Attractions: Pilgrimage-Tourism to Jewish Holy Graves in Israel," Journal of Cultural Geography, 21.4 (2007): 67-89.

42 Eli Ashkenazi, "Me’ot alafim ba’u le-hilulat Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai," Haaretz, May 2, 2010; "Me’ot alafim be-Har Meron – halaylah hagigot hamoniot shel Lag BaOmer," Ma’ariv, May 18, 2014; Yair Krauss, "Rak 200 elef hagegu be-Meron, pahot mi-mahatsit mi-shanim kodmot," Makor Rishon, May 8, 2015.

43 Maayan Gimmon Salomon, "Jewish-Muslim Relations at Samuel’s Tomb – A Peaceful Coexistence, or a Preservation of Public Interests Through Relative Peace-Keeping?" (Hebrew) Israelis 5 (2013): 114-131[; Nir Hasson, "Ha-hayim ha-bilti efshariyim ba-gan ha-leumi be-Nebi Samuel," Haaretz, June 18, 2013.

44 Susan Sered Starr, "Rachel’s Tomb: The Development of a Cult," Jewish Studies Quarterly 2.2 (1995): 103-148; Yair Weinstock, Ima Rachel: sipurei yeshuʽot bnei zmaneinu be-kever Rachel imeinu (Jerusalem, 5770 [2010]); Leket tfilot li-yeshuʽah: leket tfilot ha-mesugalot li-yeshuʽah bekhol ʽet etsel Mame Rachel u-ve-khol ha-mekomot ha-kdushim (Jerusalem, 5777 [2017]); Yechiel Sever, "Hamonim yifkedu et kivrah shel Rachel Imeinu ʽaleihah ha-shalom be-motsei shabbat kodesh: Rachel mevakah ʽal baneihah … ," Yated Ne’eman, November 7, 2019; On Women's segregation in Jewish holy places see: Doron Bar, "From a Partition to a Barrier: The Separation of Men and Women in Israel’s Jewish Holy Places," Israel Studies Review (forthcoming)

45 See, for example: Avraham Yochanan Shoshan, Siah Tsadikim: ha-sefer le-kivrei tsadikim ba-tsafon: toldot hayeihem ʽal pi ha-mekorot – limud ve-tfilah leyad kol tsiyun – bakashot u-sgulot – mapot ha-drakhim – ha-mekorot le-'imut tsiyun ha-kvarim – tsiyun yamei ptirah (Tiberias, 5767 [2007]); Mekomot kdoshim ve-kivrei tsadikim ba-Galil: mehkar mekif al kivrei ha-Tannaim, Amoraim ve-ha-Rishonim ba-Galil u-ve-svivato (Jerusalem, 5781 [2021]).

47 See, for example: Israel Moskovitz, "Kever ha-Rambam kam le-thiyah," Yedioth Ahronoth, November 26, 2017; Eliav Taub and Avi Sasson, "Geographical and Bureaucratic Aspects Following the Establishment of ‘Tombs of Saints’" (Hebrew), Horizons in Geography, 81–82 (2012): 39-50.

48 Hadar Ravid, "Bikur rishon le-'or ha-yom shel shdulat Eretz Israel be-Kever Yosef: Ahrei 11 shanah," Makor Rishon, June 16, 2011; "30 avrekhim histanenu le-Kever Yosef le-lo 'ishur," Ma’ariv, October 19, 2015.

49 Nimrod Luz, "Materiality as an Agency of Knowledge: Competing Forms of Knowledge in Rachel's Tomb in Tiberias," Journeys 21.1 (2020): 63-84.

50 Avi Sasson, "From Unknown Saint to State Site: The Jewish Dimension in the Sanctification Process of Tombs in the State of Israel," in Sacred Space in Israel and Palestine; Religion and Politics, eds. M. J. Breger, Y. Reiter, and L. Hammer (New York, 2012), 82-102; Doron Bar, "Between Muslim and Jewish Sanctity: Judaizing Muslim Holy Places in the State of Israel, 1948-1967," Journal of Historical Geography 59 (2018) 68-76; Doron Bar, "Jewish State, Muslim Cemeteries: The Fate of Muslim Graveyards in the State of Israel, 1948–1967," Middle Eastern Studies 56.6 (2020), 925-936.

51 Shlomo Deshen, "Near the Jerba Beach: Tunisian Jews, an Anthropologist, and Other Visitors," Jewish Social Studies 3.2 (1997): 90–118; David M. Gitlitz and Linda Kay Davidson, Pilgrimage and the Jews (Westport, Ct., 2006); Hanane Sekkat, "Jewish Tourism in Morocco: ‘Hilloulot’ as a Case Study," European Judaism 52.2 (2019): 156-164.

52 See, for example: Sarah S. Soroudi, "Ha-mekomot ha-kdoshim shel Yehudei Paras," A. Netzer, ed., Yehudei Iran: avaram, morashtam u-zikatam le-Eretz Israel (Holon, 1988): 121-128; Avraham Ben Yaakov, Kvarim kdoshim be-Bavel: Ti'urim shel kivrei ishim mi-tkufat ha-Tanakh, ha-Talmud ve-ha-Geonim (Jerusalem, 1974).

53 Elliott S. Horowitz, "Speaking to the Dead: Cemetery Prayer in Medieval and Early Modern Jewry," Journal of Jewish Thought & Philosophy 8.2 (1999): 303-317; David Assaf, The Regal Way: the Life and Times of Rabbi Israel of Ruzhin (Hebrew; Jerusalem, 1997), 432-434; Ephraim Shoham-Steiner, "For Prayer in That Place Is Received Better – Jews, Holy Tombs and Petitions for Healing between the West and the East in the Middle Ages" (Hebrew), Pe'amim (2004): 38–66; Lucia Raspe, "Sacred Space, Local History, and Diasporic Identity: The Graves of the Righteous in Medieval and Early Modern Ashkenaz," Jewish Studies at the Crossroads of Anthropology and History, eds. R. S. Boustan, O. Kosansky, and M. Rustow (Philadelphia, 2011): 148-163; Arthur Green et al., "‘A Little Townlet on its Own’: The Hasidic Court and its Inhabitants," in Hasidism: A New History (Princeton, Oxford, 2018), 426-429.

54 See, for example: Yosef Chayim Greenwald, Sefer pardes ha-tsadikim: yalkut toldot ve-‘uvdin tovin, manhigey ha-dorot, meyuʽad le-'ele masaʽei Israel al kivrei tsadikim lefi seder mekomot ha-kdoshim, Ukraina: Medzibuz, Anipoli, Berditchev, Polonne, Yampol, Sassov, Premishlan: Polin: Crakow, Lizhensk, Rimenov, Tsanz, Sokolov, Kshanov: Ungarn: Ihel, Kaliv, Kerestir (Brooklyn, 2017); Mordechai Ben Chaim Meir Hager, Sefer be-darkei avot: toldot, hanhagot ve-ʽuvdot, sipurey kodesh ve-'imrot tehorot mi-kdoshim asher ba-'aretz hemah bi-mdinot Ukraina ve-Polin: yizkor ahavatam: seder ve-ʽinyanei hishtathut al kivrei tsadikim be-mishnat kvod kdushat maran admor zekher tsadik li-vrakha le-hayei ha-ʽolam ha-ba (Williamsburg, 2019).

55 See: Yona ben Moshe Chaim Landau, Kontras kivrei tsadikim be-'Artzot ha-Brit ve-Kanada: kalul be-tokho: ʽinyanim ve-ma'amarim be-ʽinyan nesiʽah el ha-kvarim, tovah sheʽosim kshe-holkhim lehishtateah ʽal kivrei tsadikim (Brooklyn, New York,5763 [2003]).

56 Sekkat, "Jewish Tourism in Morocco".

57 André Levy, "To Morocco and Back: Tourism and Pilgrimage among Moroccan-Born Israelis," in Grasping Land: Space and Place in Contemporary Israeli Discourse and Experience, Ed. E. Ben-Ari and Y. Bilu (Albany, 1997), 25-46.

58 Alla Maksimovna Marchenko, "Hasidic Pilgrimage as a Cultural Performance: The Case of Contemporary Ukraine," Judaica Ukrainica; Annual Journal of Jewish Studies, 3 (2014): 60-79; Eliezer Baumgarten, "Between Morocco and Uman: Ethnic Identities among Breslav Hassidim," (Hebrew), Pe'amim 131 (2012): 147–178. Shlomo Rosenfeld, "Tfilah al kivrei tsadikim u-vi-myuhad al kever Rabbi Nahman mi-Braslev," Asif – Talmud ve-Halakhah 1 (5774 [2014], 249-268.

59 Adam S. Ferziger, "Holocaust, Hurban, and Haredization: Pilgrimages to Eastern Europe and the Realignment of American Orthodoxy," Contemporary Jewry 31.1 (2011): 25–54.

60 For example: Kontras tsiyun le-nefesh: tsiyonei derekh ve-toldot shel raboteinu ha-kdoshim ve-ʽod tsadikim … ha-tmunim be-ʽarei Polin: ve-nosaf … ʽinyanei nesiʽa ve-hishtatkhut al kivrei tsadikim be-rahvei Ukraina (Bnei Brak, 2017); Shlomo Riskin, Kivrei tsadikim be-Ashkenaz (Tel Aviv, 2010).

61 For a comparison to Christian history and the use of martyrs’ graves as a means of sanctifying space, see: Richard Krautheimer, Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992, 1992), 30-37.

62 Central Bureau of Statistics, Notice to the Press: Israel’s Population on the Eve of 2021, December 31, 2020.

63 In Jerusalem this process is very conspicuous. In 1967, the city’s Jewish population was 266,300; by 2012 it had almost tripled, reaching 815,300. In parallel, a significant increase was reported in the proportion of religious and Haredi residents. In 2012, 31% of the city’s Jewish residents defined themselves as Haredi, alongside 21% who defined themselves as religious, 11% as traditional-religious, and 17% as traditional. This means that about 80% of Jerusalem’s Jewish population defined itself as religious in one way or another – a percentage that is twice that of religious residents in other parts of Israel. See: Maya Choshen et al. (eds.), Jerusalem Statistical Yearbook (Jerusalem, 2014), 53, 107.

64 Yoram Bilu and Zvi Mark, "Between Tsaddiq and Messiah – A Comparative Analysis of Chabad and Breslav Hasidic Groups," in After Spirituality: Studies in Mystical Traditions, eds. J. Garb and P. Wexler (New York, 2012), 47-78.

65 Zvi Mark, "Tsadik ha-natun be-loʽa ha-sitra ahra: ha-'adam ha-kadosh ve-ha-makom ha-tam'e: al haʽaliyah la-regel le-kever Rabbi Nachman mi-Breslov be-Uman be-Rosh Hashanah," Reshit: Iyunim be-Yahadut 2 (2010): 112-146.

66 Bar, Sanctifying a Land, 203-244.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Doron Bar

Doron Bar is a professor at the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem. As cultural historical geographer, he studies popular and civic holy places in the history of Palestine and the State of Israel. He has published articles on the history of Palestine during Late Antiquity and on pilgrimage to Palestine during late antiquity and the nineteenth century; he is also engaged in the research of Jewish holy places in the State of Israel and the development of national holy sites.

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