Bureaucratic gifts: Religious conversion, change, and exchange in Israel

Abstract

A B S T R A C TViewing religious conversion through the lens of exchange rather than change calls attention to the web of interactions, practices, and discourses that constitute conversion as a relational domain. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork that straddles the institutionalized interface of state-run Jewish conversion in Israel, I show how the conversion process constitutes a reciprocal transaction by which each party to the exchange-the state and its subjects-provides the other with national recognition while also receiving and thus validating its own national identity. I trace the historical and political circumstances that have entangled the Jewish state and a significant cohort of Jewish converts within this reciprocal relationship. In doing so, I identify the biopolitical, moral, and bureaucratic frameworks that bear on this institutional transaction. [conversion, reciprocity, exchange, biopolitics, bureaucracy, ethnography of the state, Jews, Israel]

Making a Difference: The Political Life of Religious Conversion

“…Converts emerge from anthropological scholarship as political subjects, usually citizens or immigrants, whose religious allegiances inevitably position them vis-à-vis the state-its constitutional discourses, governing administration, and underlying ideologies. This scholarly thread helps us to identify how religious change is embedded in political exchanges, effected by state aspiration and affecting the state project in return (Kravel-Tovi 2014, Miyazaki 2000. States have a variety of tools for defining the course, scope, and validity of the religious passages of both individuals and groups.…”

The Hybrid Researcher: Entering the Field, Ethnography and Research among Dutch Muslim Women from 2009 to 2019

“…With my Jewish, and especially Israeli identity, I felt like an inferior, or as a reluctant bridge builder. As an anthropologist who had learned from her teachers how important observations are (Brink-Danan 2010;El-Or 2006;Kravel-Tovi 2014Stadler 2007Stadler , 2009Stadler , 2013Stadler , 2015, especially in the context of understanding what religion means to people by attending rituals, I decided I must try to integrate participant observations, as I attended events, workshops and (Quranic) classes with my interlocutors.…”