1 Commensality and De-Othering: Muslims

Commensality And de-Othering: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Dialogue Through Foodways

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Authors Power, Brittany

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COMMENSALITY AND DE-OTHERING: MUSLIMS, CHRISTIANS, AND JEWS IN DIALOGUE THROUGH FOODWAYS by Brittany Elizabeth Power

A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the

SCHOOL OF MIDDLE EASTERN AND NORTH AFRICAN STUDIES

In Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements

For the Degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

In the Graduate College

THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA

2018

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am so grateful to so many people whom without the help and support of this thesis would never have come to fruition. At the top, I must thank my graduate adviser and mentor

Dr. Leila Hudson for guiding me toward the shape and form of this work so artfully and deftly.

Thank you to my committee members Dr. Maha Nasaar and Dr. Amy Newhall. Dr. Nassar for being there to answer questions and provide direction, as well as, aiding me in the conception of this project. And Dr. Newhall for her inspiring teaching and sound advice toward revising this work.

I would like to thank all the faculty and staff in the School of Middle Eastern and North

African Studies with whom I have had the pleasure to study and work these past three years.

Thank you to Dr. Yaseen Noorani, Dr. Ben Fortna, Dr. Samira Farwana, Dr. Austin O’Malley, and Dr. Anne Betteridge. All of you are worthy scholars and I have gained much from knowing and working with each of you. I would like to thank Marriam Hawatmah the most able program coordinator, as well as our dedicated and most competent administrative assistant

Eldon Vita. I would have been utterly lost without you both and I am proud to count you among my friends.

Of course, I must especially thank my interlocutors, for without them there would have been nothing to put down on these pages. I thank you all for taking the time out of your busy lives to spend the hours with me that you did, as well as for the unique experience each of you made of this project. It is always a little scary and somewhat uncomfortable to come together with people you do not know to share, disclose, and to reveal and I am so appreciative of your willingness to do that.

I would like to offer a most heartfelt gratitude to my graduate colleagues here at MENAS.

Pouye Koshkhoo, John Perugini, Atacan Atakan, Tatiana Rabinavitch, Abbas Braham, David

Koopman, Saffo Papantanopolou, Kyle Jones, Mojtba Ebrahimian, Robbie Nixon, Zoe Kossof,

Feras Klenk, and Alye Mehin. You have all been help and support to me through this process in too many ways to mention. I thank you all.

To my family and friends outside of the academy I must also express special thanks. To my

Mother and father for their love, as well as physical and financial support, my deepest gratitude. To my sisters Stephanie Power-Thomason, Cynthia Power-Dowdy, and Susan

Power-Shaffer Your words, your love, and your myriad kindnesses along this journey have meant so much to me. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you to my dear friends

Geri Greggory and J B Sampson for all the many long conversations, the hospitality and the purest friendship that has gone so far in helping me to get through this arduous but rewarding process.

Finally, I must thank three very special people who have each played such a key role in my development as a person and as a scholar. First, Deborah Moon, my teacher, mentor, and dear friend, I would not have had the foundation or the depth of theoretical knowledge that I needed to be successful in this undertaking with out your expert and loving guidance, I owe you much my friend. Second, to Will Robertson, also a friend and mentor, I would never have had the courage, the competence, or the ability to take a chance on a graduate career at this late stage in life if you had not taken me under your wing and “shown me the ropes” as it were. Thank you so much. Third and finally, to my best friend and closest colleague at the University of Arizona and MENAS, Lara Tarantini. Well, without you I may have lost my mind. You propped me up so many times and you talked me through so many barely formed ideas and helped me give them shape and substance. You have been my rock and my gratitude runs eternal.

This thesis is dedicated to the loving memory of my mother

Barbara Anne McCauley Power

Table of Contents ABSTRACT ...... 7 Introduction: The Prologue ...... 8 Relevant Background: Why these Questions ...... 8 Literature Review: Theories of subject formation and agency and power relationships ...... 12 So, what about food and the children of Abraham/Ibrahim? ...... 13 Commensality: Eating, drinking and talking together at the same table ...... 16 Theoretical Frame ...... 17 Intersecting disciplines ...... 17 Methods ...... 21 Putting it all together ...... 21 Recruitment and Consenting Process ...... 22 Analysis: A Lesson, a Meal, and a Conversation ...... 24 The Original Research Question: ...... 24 The Monotheistic Tradition ...... 28 Act I: The Lesson ...... 34 The Abrahamic/Ibrahimic Faith Context ...... 37 Act II: The Meal ...... 53 Act III: A Conversation ...... 62 Discussion: Why Commensality? ...... 73 Conclusion: The Big Picture ...... 79 Appendix A: Priori and Emergent codes and their Number of Occurrences ...... 83 Appendix B: Group Activities Chart ...... 85 Bibliography ...... 86

ABSTRACT

This research constitutes a qualitative participatory action project in which I interrogate the role of foodways among Muslims, Christians, and Jews in the production of group subject formation and intergroup perceptions. The impetus for this project is based on an interest in sustainable peace building and conflict management in a Middle Eastern and North African context. The question that predicated the research project is: Will recognition of shared aspects of religio-cultural symbolism and ritual centered on food in an Abrahamic context facilitate de- othering processes among Muslims, Christians and Jews? Further, this research operationalizes commensality as a lens through which the efficacy of exposure to the shared ritual and symbolic aspects of foodways in the context of the relatedness of the Abrahamic faiths might be assessed.

The finding of this research shows that it is commensality and the affective and effective processes inherent in it that is productive and efficacious. Commensality may be defined as the act of people sharing food and drink together at the same table. It seems that it is through the affect of the dialogic, performative phenomenon of sharing food, drink, and talk, together that de-othering processes were effectuated among the Muslim, Christian, and Jewish interlocutors that participated in this project.

Introduction: The Prologue

How might the sharing of food and drink at a communal table by Muslims, Christians, and Jews engender an intersubjective experience of relatedness? This research attends to the facilitation of an understanding of such a process by examining the performativity of dialogue in a commensal context. To that end two questions need to be answered, “Does the shared food symbolism of the three major Abrahamic faiths affect the potential for Muslims, Jews, and

Christians to recognize their historical relatedness?” and, “Will exposure to knowledge regarding the related food symbols and ritual practices of the three major Abrahamic religions produce an understanding of the historical relatedness of these religio-cultural groups?” These are the questions which formed the hypothesis that predicated this research as well as informed the research approach used for this project.

The project examined here constitutes a qualitative participatory action project in which I interrogate the role of foodways among Muslims, Christians, and Jews in the production of group subject formation and intergroup perceptions within a framework based on the historical relatedness of the “Children of Abraham/Ibrahim” and a research approach that is pedagogically operationalized. My thesis will demonstrate whether the hypothesis represented by the latter of the two questions above is likely to stand up to scrutiny or not.

Relevant Background: Why these Questions Islam, Christianity, and Judaism which together are known as the Abrahamic/Ibrahimic faiths emerged over the last five thousand or so years in the region of the world we call the Middle

East. Food has been employed among Muslims, Christians and Jews as symbols of difference and food has been used as a rhetorical weapon in the discourses of conflict and cultural appropriation that have become ubiquitous in our highly politically sectarian society.

Prior to the establishment of the Israeli state in 1948, Zionist “pioneers” mobilized the whole category of food as “symbolic of the right of return”, seeking to produce “Hebrew” food as part and parcel of the identity of the “new Jew.” In other words, one who belonged to the land by biblical mandate, and for whom diaspora was foreign, even alien, to her Jewish experience (Li

2015: p. 2) (Sertebulut 2012: p. 54). It was in this light that pre-state Zionist Jews of the first

Aliyah strove to emulate the culinary culture of the indigenous Palestinian population (Li 2015: p.3, 4). I would mention here that while, at this time, the population of pre- state Israel was majority Arab, there had always been Jews living there. With the arrival of the Jews of the second Aliyah and the establishment of the Jewish Israeli state there seems to have been perceived a notion that the “new Jew” and the “old-new” Jewish Israeli state should be distanced from the Arab identity of Palestine. Thus, a de-Palestinianization effort ensued. It was an effort to rid Israel of any association with any identity that was not “Hebrew”, “Jewish” or, in a word,

Israeli

(Li 2015: p. 7).

Over the last thirty years, or so, Israel has sought to establish itself as a center of diverse culinary production, especially for the benefit of the global audience. The discourse has been ever increasingly one of multi-ethnic, multi-cultural pluralism. With Israeli cookbooks and television cooking shows presenting what is supposed to represent an organically emerging blend of European and Middle Eastern cuisine that is of Jewish and Arab origin

(Sertebulut 2012: pp. 49, 50).

Of course, Jews and Arabs do not always agree about the origins of food items which both claim as their own. There has been much attention paid to issues of culinary appropriation

by Israel of Palestine’s culinary culture, of note have been hummus and falafel. Ari Ariel notes that when you, “Google “hummus, Israel, Lebanon” …your search returns an array of bizarre articles and blogs referring to Middle Eastern foods as “the Middle East’s new weapons of mass consumption” and “the latest conﬂict cooking” (2012: p. 34). Dafna Hirsch (2011), points out in her article Hummus Is Best When It Is Fresh and Made by Arabs, that hummus, falafel, and gefilte fish have all been hailed as the Israeli national dish at different times with little or no ambivalence about the contradictory element of these claims; as for Israelis falafel and hummus represent Mizrahi origin and gefilte fish, of course, Ashkenazi origin (2011: p. 619). This proclaiming dishes to be the “national” dishes of Israel during the post-state 1950s well into the

1980s, more than the consumption of “native” or local Palestinian food stuffs and dishes by

Jewish Israelis is what Palestinians object to so intensely. Palestinian Arabs understood this practice as a European style colonialist imposition and deliberate erasure and denial of Arab identity and agency in the region (Sertebulut 2012: p. 60).

One can think of food symbolism in Israel/Palestine in a context of conflict which develops alongside the broader Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Through a series of historical shifts that move the Jewish/ Arab relationship with food from one of symbiosis to complete rejection by each of the “Others” to one in which claims of multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, European,

Mizrahi, and Sephardi Jewish influences exist along beside Arab influences; according to the

Israeli narrative. And in the Palestinian narrative, the long history, since the 1950s, of appropriation of Arab food culture and the erasure of Arab identity through the employment of

Israeli political hegemony.

These two historical culinary narratives in the Israel/Palestine region set the “stage”, if you will, for being able to understand how food and foodways have been employed discursively

to highlight difference among Muslim and Christian Arabs and Jews in the contemporary Middle

East. As well, the equal, but again different, cosmopolitanisms for Muslim and Christian Arabs and Jews in the region has been demonstrated through such discourses. What I mean to convey by the usage of equal but different cosmopolitanisms here is specific for, but related to, each party. For Jews, it means showing the world that Jewish food represents thoroughly modern, highly sophisticated trans-continental (European, Asian, African, and American) cuisine, even in the interpretation of “street foods” such as falafel, worthy of modern, sophisticated palates like their own. For Muslim and Christian Arabs, cosmopolitanism means showing the world that

Arab cuisine is just as modern and sophisticated as Jewish cuisine, and that it is “authentically” a product of the Middle East and North Africa.

The concepts of cosmopolitanism are specific to the social contexts of Muslim and

Christian Arab’s and Jew’s lived experiences, yet each is equally valid as an expression and representation of the cosmopolitan. These competing historical narratives also reveal the necessity of nationalist imperatives, such as illustrating biblical authority as the source of geographical and cultural legitimacy and demonstrating a “normalized” culinary relationship with Muslim and Christian Arabs for Jews; and a depiction as “tied” to, or “rooted” in the land and resistance of Israeli hegemony for Muslim and Christian Arabs.

In light of this history, the framing of relatedness within the context of the “Children of

Abraham/Ibrahim” as one that is tied to the historical religio-cultural context of Muslims,

Christians, and Jews as the “children” of the “patriarch” of the “Holy Land” as a geo-cultural region seems appropriate. Food as a site of subject formation and social interaction for all people informed its selection as the operationalizing lens for this project.

Literature Review: Theories of subject formation and agency and power relationships For this research it is necessary to examine the theoretical frameworks of positionality and power (Merriam et al. 2001), identity formation (Wendt 1994), as well as discussions of foodways and politics of food (Hinrichs 2003). The efficacy of foodways discourses as a facilitator of subject positioning is closely aligned with these topics. The concept of positionality, or the self-understanding and self-awareness of the researcher and of the interlocutors, for example, is grounded in theorizations of “subjectivity” and “othering” (Ortner 2006).

This research utilizes positioning to consider how people, as members of groups, approach interactions from any number of stances based on the worldviews of all parties engaged in mutual projects. The goal of positionality as a strategy is to diminish the effect of” othering”, which I hypothesize is an important aspect of conceptualizing “belonging” in the Levant among

Arab Muslims and Christians as well as Jews.

Other pertinent theoretical focuses for the scope of this project include power and positionality as theorized by Meriam et al (2001) in Power and Positionality: Negotiating

Insider/Outsider Status Within and Across Cultures. In this work, the relationship between the researcher and her interlocutors is examined. The concept of insider/outsider is used as a unit of analysis for assessing reflexive work on the part of the researcher. Of course, identity formation is a key theoretical concept for this research. Alexander Wendt (1994) in his work Collective

Identity Formation and the International State provides a theory of collective identity formation which explains how state identities and interests are constructed, Second, how collective identity among states could emerge at the systemic level, Third, how this process transforms systemic anarchy into international states. Liora Gvion (2005) in her work, Cuisines of Poverty: Arab

Food in Israel tells us that the home kitchen is the most important site of early identity formation

and that religio-cultural foodways constitute the vehicle through which agentive actors decide to

what degree they will participate in exogenous and endogenous cultural systems.

So, what about food and the children of Abraham/Ibrahim?

The current literature pertaining to Levantine foodways can be divided, generally, into two

categories. The first category constitutes the literature on foodways that addresses cultural

difference. The second category addresses identity formation. Identity formation tends to be

treated in terms of relgio- cultural and political difference. The commonalities between

Levantine religio-cultural groups have been largely neglected. That said, the existing literature

does offer glimpses into the spaces where commonality among Muslim and Christian Arabs, and

Jews resides. In the discussion of the divisiveness caused by “battles” over national or cultural

“ownership” of dishes, and subject formation and maintenance produced by the relationship

between foodways and political discourses; one recognizes that located within aspects of those

same conditions is the potential for foodways to act as a unifying element between Muslim and

Christian Arabs and Jews in the Levant (Ariel 2012, Gvion 2005).

Liora Gvion in Cuisines of Poverty (2005), asserts that “Cuisines of poverty reveal the interplay of three complementary discourses – a discourse on domesticity, a discourse of culture and a political discourse – which emphasize the inevitable relationship between culinary knowledge and an ideology of resistance.” While discussing the complexities of the nationalist contestations concerning hummus between Israel and Lebanon, Ariel (2012) points out that even as Lebanon claims “ownership” over hummus its legal representatives “acknowledge that the dish is Levantine, and thus part of the national cuisines of Syria and Palestine.” In her explanation of the “inter-connectedness” of discourses on domesticity, culture and politics,

Gvion (2005) tells us that “as agents of identity creation, the practices of cuisines of poverty,

either out of necessity or choice, allow practitioners to choose forms or degrees of participation in the dominant culture.”

It is clear from an examination of the literature on foodways in the Levant that the contours of the dynamics between politics and culture underpinning the structure of the divisionist discourses are highly nuanced. When one attends to these nuances the subtle implications that foodways may represent a unifying element for the different religio-ethnic groups of the Levant becomes apparent. Brian Silverstein (2010) in an article concerning the reform of government in Turkey, as a result of liberalization, discusses the concept of “supra” and “sub” identities. According to Silverstein (2010), “supra” identity is an overarching subject category construction that stresses membership in a meta-group; and as such the “supra” identity recognizes membership in religio-cultural groups as legitimate “sub” or secondary subjectivities.

I argue that foodways among Muslims, Christians, and Jews in the Levant represent a cultural element with the potential to facilitate a “supra-Levantine” geo-cultural subject position for the “sub” religio-cultural groups of that region.

The academic work that has been done on the cooking of Muslim and Christian Arabs and Jews in the Levant has been sectarian in its focus. When one reads, closely, these scholarly works on sectarian foodways in the Levant, again glimpses of commonality may be found. Susan

Staar Sered (1988), writes in her essay Food and Holiness: Cooking as a Sacred Act Among

Middle Eastern Jewish Women, that a number of studies have been done on the foodways of

Jews and the very important contribution of Jewish women to Jewish subject formation through the preparation of food. The article seeks to describe the foodways of Middle Eastern Jewish women in sectarian terms that define these women’s Jewish subjectivities as discreet and somehow separate from their Middle Eastern origin. Yet, Starr tells us “The approach of these

scholars…has been to show that the individual forms his or her deepest attachment to tradition in the domestic sphere. It is primarily in the kitchen that the child internalizes his or her identity as belonging to a certain group with its particular beliefs, history, and customs.” Sered’s (1988) remarks here echo Gvion’s (2005) statements about Palestinian subject formation in Cuisines of

Poverty.

Sally M. Baho’s (2013) article How Christian Fasting Practices Affect Levantine

Cuisine, concerns the ways in which Levantine Christians have modified classical Levantine dishes to render them suitable for certain religious observances throughout the Christian yearly calendar, with an emphasis on Easter and Lent. Baho (2013) explains, “Present day observations of these fasts vary, but generally, meat and animal products are forbidden during these periods.

[This is unlike the Muslim fasting tradition of Ramadan, where all food is forbidden during the daylight hours, but is permissible at night, once the fast is broken.] Thus, common dishes were altered to accommodate the meatless days.”."

Here the author makes a point of distinguishing between the fasting practices of Muslims and Christians as a way of emphasizing the sectarian focus of the work. Baho (2013) also tells us that “recently, and with the luxury of an abundance of food, societies have been able to develop cuisines (i.e., dishes) that are characteristic of their unique countries or regions of the world. Cuisine is influenced by a variety of factors, including geography, politics, and interactions with other people groups, cultures, and religions.” While Baho attends to cultural and religious difference in her article; she is also consequently making a statement about the general adoption of variations on classical Levantine dishes which originated among the

Christian population. It is clear from the literature on Levantine foodways, which tend to take a

decidedly sectarian approach, that if one reads closely one will find evidentiary references to regional commonality and subject formation.

Commensality: Eating, drinking and talking together at the same table The literature on commensality addresses the social importance of food and eating.

Claude Fischler (2011), a French sociologist and eminent foodways scholar in Commensality,

Society and Culture tells us,

The founding fathers of the social sciences recognized commensality as a major issue but considered it mostly in a religious, sacrificial, ritualistic context…. Commensality produces bonding. In apparently all cultures, eating the same food is equated with producing the same flesh and blood, thus making commensals more alike and bringing them closer to each other. The perception that ‘you are what you eat’ seems universal. It holds that, when absorbing a food, a subject absorbs at the same time salient features of the food (Fischler, 1988; Murcott, 1986; Rozin, Millman & Nemeroff, 1986). If eating a food makes one become more like that food, then those sharing the same food become more like each other (2011: 627, 533). Further in his work Food, Self and Identity, Fischler (1988) explains that, Food is central to our sense of identity. The way any given human group eats helps it assert its diversity, hierarchy and organization, but also, at the same time, both its oneness and the otherness of whoever eats differently. Food is also central to individual identity, in that any given human individual is constructed, biologically, psychologically and socially by the foods he/she chooses to incorporate (275). From Fischler’s (1988) (2011) discourse on commensality, food and identity formation one can

see that foodways and commensality are affective and effective processes of the performative

processes of constructing “us” and “them” for people groups.

In Commensality: From Everyday Food to Feasts, a collection of essays representing a

cross-cultural, global perspective on commensality in all its manifestations from the mundane, to

the sacred, to the spectacular presents an “understanding of commensality's role as a social and

political tool, integral to the formation of personal and national identities” (Kerner et. al. 2015).

Dr, Christy Shields-Argeles (2016), in a piece written for Savage Minds: Queries in

Anthropology states,

Anthropologists have long studied commensality as a means to gain insight into the life ways and worldviews of others. Sitting at another’s table, mastering their etiquette and incorporating their cuisine are powerful ways to encounter and learn about other societies. It is for this reason that I have long used commensal events as teaching tools in my anthropology classes at the American University of Paris (1). Lima and Ferreira (2015), in their article, Food and Culture: The Exercise of Commensality, discuss the processes of the historical and social development of people groups and the relationship to commensality. As well, the relationship between contemporary dietary habits and commensality with concepts of tradition and modernity is examined (507).

Taken as a whole, these sources represent an overview of the current body of knowledge produced that bears on my research concept and construction. The theoretical concerns, the critical gaps that currently exist, and the relevant discourses to be considered are all present in this body of resources.

Theoretical Frame Intersecting disciplines Middle Eastern and North African Area Studies is, by definition, multidisciplinary as

“Area” is implicated in myriad disciplinary contexts. Cultural studies, linguistics, geography, history, sociology, anthropology, political science, literary studies and many others focus on area in various contexts. This project brings together the intersections of anthropology, sociolinguistics, critical theory, education, literary, psychology, and cultural studies to examine the role of foodways in the formation of group identities particularly in the production of “us” and “them” and the historical Discourses which shape such subject formations.

From the disciplines of psychology and cultural studies, particularly intercultural relations, comes the theoretical description of the process known as common ingroup production

(Gaertner, Dovidio 1996). In the process of common ingroup production, it is understood that the production of a group- self involves cognitive processes that bring group members closer together through producing positive feeling around practices and values associated with being part of the group. Such a circumstance “enhances” evaluation of the group- self rather than de- valuation of “others”. However, in such a circumstance, the distance between the group-self and

“others”, or out-groups, remains constant (Gaertner, Dovidio 1996). It is also held that intergroup contact can through a realignment of these same cognitive processes reduce that distance. According to Gaertner and Dovidio (1996), the reduction of distance between a group- self and a perceived “other” occurs when the “conditions of contact” work to facilitate the production of a “dual” group identity. This is similar to another theoretical framework articulated by Silverstein (2010) which is mentioned above, in which the production of “supra” and “sub” national identities are produced in the context of neoliberal governance in Turkey.

Silverstein (2010) suggests that under the neoliberal regime of governance in Turkey a “supra identity” of Turkish is advocated as paramount while allowing for simultaneous and concurrent

“sub-identities” such as Jewish, Kurdish, or Armenian to be held by the neoliberal Turkish national subject.

According to the principles of common ingroup identity production the production of a

“dual” identity is manifest in the simultaneous occupation of a “superordinate” identity that correlates to membership in some overarching, inclusive category and a secondary “primary identity” as it were. Such overarching categories might be sports team fans, employees of corporations, or regional and national affiliations, while the secondary “primary identity” is

generally situated within racial, ethnic, and religious/cultural categorical ontologies (Gaertner,

Dovidio 1996). For the “dual” identity to be possible there are, according to the common ingroup model, certain conditions that must be in place. These conditions include similar status, egalitarian norms, cooperative interdependence, and self-revealing interactions. Gaertner and

Dovidio (1996) tell us that,

cooperative interdependence concretely redefines the functional relations between groups, whereas the other features (e.g., egalitarian norms) may influence a common identity through more subtle, perceptual or contextual factors (274). The process of common ingroup identity production and its extension to “dual” identities is an affective and effective process based in the dialogic context of “us and “them” and the possibility of the transformation to “we”.

The context of “us” and “them” is one that is produced and reproduced through dialogue between various historical Discourses and their discursive effects on people groups. Another dialogic relationship that is central to this analysis is that of Discourse and discourse.

Sociolinguist James Paul Gee (2015) explains,

The notion of “Big ‘D’ Discourse” (“Discourse” spelled with a capital “D”) is meant to capture the ways in which people enact and recognize socially and historically significant identities or “kinds of people” through well-integrated combinations of language, actions, interactions, objects, tools, technologies, beliefs, and values. The notion stresses how “discourse” (language in use among people) is always also a “conversation” among different historically formed Discourses (that is, a “conversation” among different socially and historically significant kinds of people or social groups). The notion of “Big ‘D’ Discourse” sets a larger context for the analysis of “discourse” (with a little “d”), that is, the analysis of language in use (1). The relationship between Discourse and discourse is dialogic and performative. Performative here, references the Butlerian sense. Butler (1997) in her piece, Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative, tells us that speech “acts”. Utterances constitute being, utterances effect the

“form” of things and individual beings. In this sense language is (per)formative (1). Language is

both verbal and embodied. Communication of an utterance can be effectuated through verbal and gestural means. This means that not only words but physical bodily gestures and proxemics, or spatial distance and nearness, between people also (per)form meanings and enact states of being.

It is through these dialogic aspects of Discourse and discourse that foodways, in particular commensal relationality, are affective and effective performatively. Fischler (2011), notes the importance of commensality as “social attachment”. Commensality effects the conditions of similar status, egalitarian norms, cooperative interdependence, and self-revealing interactions

(Gaertner and Dovidio 1996). As mentioned above, Fischler (2011) also tells us that

the perception that ‘you are what you eat’ seems universal. It holds that, when absorbing a food, a subject absorbs at the same time salient features of the food (Fischler, 1988; Murcott, 1986; Rozin, Millman & Nemeroff, 1986). If eating a food makes one become more like that food, then those sharing the same food become more like each other (2011: 627, 533). When this assertion is viewed through the lens of Bultlerian performativity and Gee’s perspective on Discourse and discourse the affective and effective dialogical attributes of commensality become apparent.

Bakhtin’s dialogism, as described in Holquist’s (1981) The Dialogic Imagination, is key to operationalizing the affective and effective performativity of the processes of commensality as efficacious in a de-othering context. The Bakhtinian concept of dialogism is characterized by

“its enabling a priori, an almost Manichean sense of opposition and struggle at the heart of existence, a ceaseless battle between centrifugal forces that seek to keep things apart, and centripetal forces that strive to make things cohere.” In other words, the dialogue between historical Discourse and human discourse effects the production of human identities both individually and as members of social groups.

Finally, this research is employed from an anthropologically applied perspective, interrogating through a pedagogically centered participatory action project, productions of intersubjectivity among Muslims, Christians and Jews. Through guided open-ended discussion and the sharing of food and drink the efficacy of the recognition of shared foodways and commensal processes in facilitating processes of de-othering are assessed.

Methods Putting it all together The specific aim of this research is to make a preliminary determination as to the

extent that Muslims, Jews and Christians will or will not recognize the relatedness of

their religious and socio-cultural food practices through mutual engagement in learning

activities and the consumption of meal that is representative of observances which occur

in each of their religious and cultural practices. And to determine whether such a

recognition, if there is one, will lead to the development of an understanding of

significant social and cultural similarity, or conversely, re-enforce ideas of separateness

and difference.

Thirdly, the possibility that such involvement may yield no discernable outcome

either way may be determined. By making such a determination, the viability of a larger a

research approach based on these premises will be assessed. The actual methods used for

this research consist of these components:

1.A pre-survey to collect information from participants concerning their knowledge about

Abrahamic religious symbols, foods, etc., as well as demographic info.

2. A lesson after the pre- survey, which engages in a pedagogical exercise to establish

baseline knowledge of Abrahamic religious terminology and a “culture” definition.

Terminating in group activities designed to expose participants to shared religio-cultural

symbols associated with food rituals among Muslims, Christians and Jews.

3. Engagement in a commensal experience of consuming a meal that will be representative of

three thematically related observances (1) Easter, (2) ‘Eid Al-Adha, and (3) Passover during

which discussion of recognized, or not, relationships will be noted.

4. A Post activity focus group to examine and assess interpretations of a meal designed to

represent observances associated with all three Abrahamic religions.

Recruitment and Consenting Process Working with a contact in Hillel as well as colleagues in the School of Middle Eastern

and North African Studies interlocutors were recruited from University of Arizona Hillel

organization and the general student body from the discussion sections taught by my

colleagues. The inclusion criteria included the conditions that an interlocutor be eighteen

years of age or older and identified as a Muslim, a Christian, or as a Jew. A recruitment

questionnaire was used to screen and select qualified interlocutors. All recruitment took place

on campus. All potential interlocutors were approached in person and some contact initially

took place via email. Recruitment occurred over a six-week period up to one week prior to

the date of the group research event.

The lesson and the meal event occurred consecutively on the same evening and the focus

group event occurred exactly one week later. Both events were audio-video recorded. The

recordings were transcribed and coded using grounded theory. Using grounded theory for

analyzing qualitative data involves beginning with a set of a priori codes based on the general

parameters of the research project and its theoretical frame (qualres.org 2017). During the

application of the a priori codes to the transcript of the audio-video recordings nuances are

noted which constitute emergent codes (qualres.org 2017).

The codes and their numbers of occurrence which were used for this analysis may be found in the appendix. These codes were used to structure and focus the dialogical elements of the analysis which follows in the next section. Excerpts from the transcript while being mostly chronological were selected and prioritized to large degree based on the occurrences of these thematic codes.

Analysis: A Lesson, a Meal, and a Conversation

The Original Research Question: Does the shared food symbolism of the three major Abrahamic faiths affect the potential for

Muslims, Jews, and Christians to recognize their historical relatedness and does exposure to the knowledge of Abrahamic ritual practice among the three major groups of monotheists related to food produce de-othering effects or reproduce othering effects among these groups?

Originally, I set out to examine whether the recognition of historical relatedness through discovery of the cultural convergence that resides in the related symbolism and ritual practices around foodways that are relative to Muslims, Christians, and Jews in the region of the origin of these three religio-cultural traditions would produce a de-othering effect. I now think it to be the case that such a discovery has potential to do exactly that, but that potential is significantly enhanced through the dialogic performative processes of commensality.1 I assert that due to the food centric nature of the project it can be regarded as a commensal experience and my analysis will proceed with the goal of examining the performative and commensal aspects of dialogue in such a setting.

To begin, I need to set the stage here. The format of this analysis will feature the presentation of “dialogue” in the form of a television dramatic screenplay script.

(Richardson 2010)

Scene Setting: On the evening of the first two parts of the project, the lesson, and the meal, the PI and project participants join in a collaborative learning experience that culminates in sharing a meal. There are six participants who have joined the PI. Find the six participant characters’ stage names under: The Cast.2 The Cast:

1 Commensality refers to the act of eating together at the same table, Fischler, 2011: 627, 533 2 The names of the participants have been changed to ensure their anonymity

PI: Primary Investigator- Primary Investigator represents the author. Ahmad: Muslim- Ahmad is Saudi, his father is Saudi, and his mother is Jordanian, but Ahmad does not consider himself religious, rather, he identifies as a cultural Muslim3. Avi: Jewish- of Mizrachi origin, Persian and Ukrainian Seth: Jewish- of Sephardi/Ashkenazi origin, but practices the Sephardi rite Yael: Jewish- of Mizrachi origin, Moroccan-Israeli Salim: Muslim- never disclosed to what degree he considered himself to be religious or observant but identifies as Muslim Lariana: Christian- she is an international student from Mexico and identifies as Christian and of Roman Catholic denomination. Lariana, in her own words is “very interested” in Islam, Arabic language, and Middle Eastern culture.

This project involves a lesson comprised of a pedagogical experience and a collaborative learning experience as one part, a meal as another part and a focus group conversation one week after the first two parts as the final piece. The Lesson involved a pedagogical moment in which I and the participants engaged together in defining a suite of concepts and terms. Included was a working definition of culture which we defined as “the characteristics and knowledge of a particular group of people defined by everything from language, religion, cuisine, social habits, music and art.”4

Another definition we agreed upon was that of a Food Ritual, which we first defined informally ,with Aviv’s help, as “A type of ritual involving food, where food is given symbolic meaning to complete the action of the ritual” and more formally as “the feasting and fasting practices connecting praxis to symbolism referencing precepts, rules for regulating behavior or thought, and events of a particular religion or belief system”.5 The terms which we focused on

3 The writer and Islam expert Malise Ruthven has compared this kind of cultural Muslim to a secular Jew, someone who “takes on his or her parents’ confessional identity without necessarily subscribing to the beliefs and practices associated with the faith.” https://newhumanist.org.uk/articles/4145/whats-a-cultural-muslim by Saif Rahman

4 www.nationalgeographic.org/activity/culture-and-food-and-ritual-oh-my/ 5 ibid

centered on three religious observances of Muslims, Christians and Jews which are based on the concept of sacrifice. Those observances are Eid al Adha or Feast of the Sacrifice, Easter, and

Pesach, or Passover. The terms include: Haj or Pilgrimage, Maundy Thursday or the Last

Supper, and Seder or Order.

This project was conceptualized as an interactive and collaborative learning experience centered on the concept of the historical relatedness of Muslims, Christians and Jews within a

“Children of Abraham (Ibrahim in the Quran)” framework. Such a framework brings socio- historical discourses regarding the religious and cultural relationship among Muslims, Christians, and Jews together in a context of socio-religious-cultural kinship (Peters 2004). F.E. Peters in his book Children of Abraham: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, opens the introduction to the book with this passage,

The three great faiths called Judaism, Christianity, and Islam were born of an event which each remembers as a moment in history, when the One True God appeared to an Iron Age sheikh named Abram and bound him in a covenant forever. Abram, later Abraham, is the father of all believers and the linchpin of the faith, and indeed the theology, from which the three communities of that God’s worshipers emerged. The history of monotheism had begun (15). This passage offered by Peters in the introduction to his book about the Children of Abraham shows the kin relationship of Muslims, Christians, and Jews through the collective memory of a shared father. But who was this father Abraham/Ibrahim; and how did he become father to all three of the “great” monotheistic faiths? The answer to this question is alluded to in the status of the Levantine city of Jerusalem for Muslims, Christians, and Jews. It is there, on Mt. Moriah, the

Temple Mount, Haram al-Sharif, in that city, Jerusalem, which these three monotheistic traditions hold as one of the holiest places on earth, that Abraham/Ibrahim presented his son for sacrifice to God (Peters 2004:20). In the Torah or the first five books of Moses from the Jewish

Hebrew bible, known in the context of the Old Testament to Christians, Isaac is the name of the

son which Abraham/Ibrahim presents to God for sacrifice. In the Quran it is not clear which son is laid upon the altar, but the Islamic tradition holds that it is Ismail. In both stories God calls out to Abraham/Ibrahim and commands him to halt, to not lay a hand upon his son.

Abraham/Ibrahim’s god tells him that by his willingness to make a sacrifice of his son he has proven his loyalty and the absolute level of his love and esteem for God. As a reward, God tells Abraham/Ibrahim that this son will be the father of a great nation. In the moment immediately following the interruption of Isaac/Ismail’s slaughter as a sacrifice to God, a ram appears trapped in some brambles and God tells Abraham/Ibrahim and his son to make a holy sacrifice with this animal in the son’s stead (20). It is from this story, also, that the salience of the paschal, or sacrificial lamb, emerges in the monotheistic tradition.

But how is it that Abraham/Ibrahim finds himself as a servant of the “One True God” in the first place? The answer to this question can be found in the Torahic, Biblical, Quranic, as well as apocryphal texts of all three monotheistic traditions (Mirza 2005: 414-429)

(britanica.com/Judaism/Islam/Christianity 2018: 37-53). The story shared by all three faiths includes these narrative elements: Abram, later Abraham/Ibrahim, becomes aware of the singularity and incorporeality of God, and as a result Abram takes on the role of iconoclast, smashing the idols that his father sells as a merchant of such things, Abram calls upon the people of his town, Ur, to reject idolatry, and then, God commands Abram to leave his town and to settle in Canaan, later Palestine, as the patriarch of a tribe , or an extended family, who follow the “One True God” (Peters 2004: 19) (britanica.com/Judaism/Islam/Christianity 2018:37). This is the legacy of the father of the three “great” monotheistic faiths, the iconoclast, and first believer in the “One Tue God”, Abraham/Ibrahim. This is the frame of the concept of “the

Children of Abraham/Ibrahim” and it is within this contextual framework that this project was conceived.

The Monotheistic Tradition The salience of the monotheistic tradition of the paschal lamb arises out of the scriptural stories of Abraham/Ibrahim and his sons Isaac and Ismail which are shared among the holy texts of

Muslims, Christians, and Jews. For this reason, I chose the theme of the sacrificial lamb to anchor the pedagogical piece of this project’s Abrahamic faith framework. In the context of the sacrificial lamb I chose three holidays, or observances, of Muslims, Christian’s and Jews which feature this element in the symbolism underpinning them. These three observances are the

Islamic Feast of the Sacrifice or Eid al-Adha, Easter or the Christian celebration of the resurrection, and Pesach or the Jewish observance of Passover. I will give a brief overview of these holidays/observances, and the food rituals associated with them, as context for the description and analysis of this project; which will follow.

‘Eid al-Adha or the Feast of the Sacrifice, which is associated with the Haj or pilgrimage to Mecca that every Muslim is enjoined to make if she is able at least once in her lifetime. This observance is tied to the story of the “Binding” which is shared among all three faith traditions.

The “Binding” refers to the story of how Abraham/Ibrahim was called by his god to sacrifice his

“only son, the son he loves” and of God’s intervention and sparing of Abraham/Ibrahim’s son in the very last moment (english.alarabiya.net/en/special-reports/hajj 2018) (Peters 2004: 90-91)

(dos.cornell.edu 2018). As the common plot of the story goes, upon God’s staying the hand of

Abraham/Ibrahim and preventing Isaac/Ismail’s slaughter a sheep appears trapped within a tangle of thorns and shrubbery (Peters 2004: 20). This aspect of the story provides a common referent and symbol in the lamb as sacrifice. It is also in this context that an animal is ritually

sacrificed for Eid al-Adha (Firestone 1990: 118). Muslim families who have access to livestock or funds enough to purchase an appropriate animal will slaughter or have the animal slaughtered according to Islamic prescriptions and reserve a portion of the animal for their own consumption while distributing the remaining meat to poorer families. This is how Muslims commemorate the binding of Ismail, at the end of the yearly Haj, or pilgrimage, associated with the narrative of

Ibrahim’s time with Hagar and Ismail in Mecca. In the Christian tradition of the resurrection of

Jesus, Jesus is associated with the paschal or sacrificial lamb as it is believed that his trial and death through crucifixion is equivalent to paschal sacrifice. In the case of Jesus, the sacrifice was made for the redemption of all humanity, if indeed all of humanity were to accept and believe in the divinity of Jesus as God incarnate.

This, of course, being the meaning underpinning the Easter holiday or observance for

Christians (Carrey 1981: 100-103). In the case of Easter, there is also the fast associated with lent, which is the forty days, or so, leading up to Easter day; the day that commemorates the resurrection of Jesus’s body and his ascension to heaven shortly thereafter. During lent, it is the

Christian practice to “give up” some comfort or enjoyment such as a favorite food or entertainment, or recreation, as well as, for many, the abstinence from meat on Fridays. These acts of abstinence represent a “sacrifice” and are bound up with the symbolism of Jesus as the sacrificial lamb. Christine Dadoub Nasser tells us in her cookbook Classic Palestinian Cuisine, that, “Lamb holds a place of honor at every festive occasion”, including, “the celebrations of

Easter and Adha, two major feasts based on the concept of sacrifice for Christians and Muslims alike” (Nasser 2013). According to an online article hosted by Bethlehem University the classic food for Easter celebrations in the city of Jesus’s birth is stuffed lamb (bethlehem.edu 2018).

Finally, Pesach or Passover, in the Jewish tradition remembers the “exodus” of the Hebrew or

Israelite slaves from Egypt.

The story tells of ten plagues that are visited on Egypt as punishment by El, god of Israel, for the

Egyptian Pharaohs’ refusal to release the Israelites from their bondage. As the Biblical story goes, the tenth and final plague is brought about by Pharaoh himself when he curses the first born of the Israelites with death. Moses tells Pharaoh that God will bring this very punishment upon Egypt and even the house of Pharaoh. Moses instructs the Israelites to paint the blood of a sacrificed lamb upon their doorposts as a sign so that the Angel of Death will pass over their houses and their first born will be spared. Of course, the first born of Egypt, down to the son of

Pharaoh, succumb to the Angel of Death and for Pharaoh this is the turning point.

According to the biblical story, Pharaoh now realizes the power of the god of Israel and sets the

Israelites free. It is thought that the reason that it is the blood of the lamb that is featured in this story is to tie it symbolically to the story of the “Binding” in which El stays Abraham’s hand and thus Isaac is spared from slaughter (Carey 1981:103). The Torahic prescription for the observance of Pesach requires the sacrifice of a kosher, or unblemished, lamb or kid at the temple in Jerusalem by each Jewish household in the land of Israel. Post temple rabbinic sages replaced the temple sacrifice with the symbolic use of the roasted shank bone of a kosher lamb or kid in the Seder meal. The roasted lamb features prominently in many Seder meals, but almost exclusively in those of the Mizrachi (Eastern) and Sephardi (Spanish) Jews.

Turning now to the analysis of the project’s proceedings. In order to engage the reader with the analysis, provided here is the theoretical framework for it. During the transcription and review process of the content of the data I have collected, which is captured on audio-video

recordings, it became clear that what was happening would best be described as the emergence of a performative dialogical process.

Performative here refers to the effective Butlerian sense of the word and not the dramaturgical sense, such as is used by Raviv (2015). Butler (1988) tells us that, “social agents constitute social reality through language, gesture, and all manner of symbolism and sign” (519).

Stated in another way, the act of speech produces the effect of ways of being in the world.

Performative acts of speech include verbal language as well as embodied communication expressed through physical gestures and the enactment of proxemic relationships (Hall 1963).

This performativity is being employed in a dialogical mode. I am referring to the dialogism of

Bakhtin (ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/in-theory-bakhtin-1 2011). Holquist (1981) in his introduction to the Dialogic Imagination, a collection of four essays by Bakhtin which employ his dialogic theory, states:

At the heart of everything Bakhtin ever did, from what we know of his very earliest manuscripts to the very latest still unpublished work, is a highly distinctive concept of language. The conception has as its enabling a priori an almost Manichean sense of opposition and struggle at the heart of existence, a ceaseless battle between centrifugal forces that seek to keep things apart, and centripetal forces that strive to make things cohere. This Zoroastrian clash is present in culture as well as nature, and in the specificity of individual consciousness; it is at work in the even greater particularity of individual utterances. The most complete and complex reflection of these forces is found in human language (1981: xviii). In other words, Bakhtin understands language to operate in dialogue with forces of conceptual conservation which endeavor to hold meaning in a sort of stasis of ideological purity on the one hand and to affect convergence on the other. Bakhtin borrows, from music theory, the term polyphony, which, means two or more melodies are occurring simultaneously. In this context,

Bakhtin utilizes polyphony to signify the multi-vocal nature of dialogue which has a performative effect in that it produces a complex subject position of the speaker in the space of

conversational discourse (ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/in-theory-bakhtin-1 2018). One of the important features of polyphony is that it allows speakers to “shock and subvert” producing a multi sited context of viewpoints that are not part of a “single objective world”, but rather a world produced within a “plurality of consciousness” (ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/in-theory- bakhtin-1 2018).

There is yet another element to the performative dialogical frame that I am employing in this analysis and that element is the concept of commensality. I am utilizing the Kerner et al. definition of commensality, the authors tell us that:

Eating and drinking at the same table - is a fundamental social activity, which creates and cements relationships. It also sets boundaries, including or excluding people according to a set of criteria defined by the society.

As this project is constituted through a set of interactions, pedagogical, collaborative, and conversational, centered on foodways, I assert that we can extend the Kerner et al. definition to all these aspects of this project (Kerner et al. 2015).

I introduce this section in the context of setting the stage as a playful hint to the reader that this content will be presented as if it were a dramatic script. While working with the material aspects of my data6, the sense that I was watching a “show” persisted for me. I will be presenting the excerpts of the dialogue I will be engaging for analysis in the style of “television dialogue”

(Richardson 2010:1-26). The dialogue analysis will be presented from a sociolinguistic stance of social interaction. Kay Richardson in chapter six of her work, Television Dramatic Dialogue: A

Sociolinguistic Study, addresses the treatment of social interaction this way:

The most directly sociolinguistic chapter in this book… follows the example of previous writers such as Vimala Herman in applying methods and approaches from the study of

6 Refers to the audio-video recordings and transcripts used for this analysis

naturally occurring conversation to the study of television dramatic dialogue. This includes the ethnography of speaking, conversation analysis, interactional sociolinguistics, and pragmatics, including the study of politeness and impoliteness. It includes a discussion of the kind of sociolinguistic naiveté that is required in order to treat characters as people for the purposes of analysis (2010:1). As, indeed, the characters are real people engaged in actual conversations, I argue that the

dialogue analysis ought to conform to modes of studying “naturally occurring conversation”

therefore the element of naivete in this context is not relevant, but the dialogue will appear on the

page as if it were a dramatic script for television. I will be commenting on the dialogue from a

social interaction perspective. Richardson contextualizes this perspective, thus:

One of the functions of language in everyday life is the management of social relationships in face‐to‐face interaction. People talk to one another, and as they do so they adjust their expressions to display their understanding of previous contributions, to fit in or stand out, to convey deference or dominance, to form bonds of solidarity or resist and challenge such bonds, within the scope of contextual constraints, their own repertoires of performance, and their interactional goals in terms of sharing information and coordinating action (2010: 1). In the commentary on the excerpts of dialogue that will be presented for analysis I will engage

with these social interactions from the perspective of commensality as a performative

manifestation of communication informed and shaped by ideas and practices associated with

sharing food and drink as a dialogic expression and production of self. The language choices,

tonality and proxemic interactions7 of the participants will be presented as they relate to the

“conveyance of deference or dominance, the formation of bonds of solidarity or their resistance,

contexts of politeness and impoliteness”, as well as self- revelation or disclosure. The

intersections of subjectivity among the participants assuredly colors and nuances their

7 A System for the Notation of Proxemic Behavior Author(s): Edward T. Hall Source: American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 65, No. 5, Selected Papers in Method and Technique (Oct. 1963), pp. 1003- 1026

performativity and, in the discussion, I will address in some detail the ways in which the intersectionality of the participants’ subjectivities may affect their interactions. What this may mean for this research going forward will be addressed in the discussion section that will follow this analysis as well. Within this framework, in this analysis, I will reveal the potential that engaging dialogue in a commensal context has for brining parties who historically “perceive themselves as distant and different from one another politically, culturally, and economically” to the table, as it were (Gvion 2012).

Act I: The Lesson Turning now to the analysis of the lesson, the dialogue of the participants will be engaged in both the pedagogical and the collaborative learning modes of this event. I will employ a mostly chronological presentation of the dialogue as it will be mimicking the structure of a dramatic script for television, as stated above.

Haj, or the pilgrimage, was discussed as being the ritual journey made by every Muslim, if able, once in her life to Mecca. Maundy Thursday was discussed as the Thursday preceding

Easter day at which time it is believed by Christians that the “Last Supper” took place. Finally,

Seder or “Order” was discussed as the ritual re-telling of the “Exodus” of the Hebrew slaves from Egypt as is believed to have happened by religious Jews. This part of the project opens with a discussion around prior knowledge held by the participants regarding the Abrahamic religions.

This is the first segment of the lesson. The second segment involves semi-guided collaborative learning activities. The first activity was undertaken by all the participants together. In this activity the participants were shown different photos related to the three Abrahamic faith observances we had defined, and the participants were asked to work together to decipher what was going on in the photo or why the photo was included. The second activity involved pairing

the participants. One pairing was comprised of a Muslim and a Jew and focused on Christian food rituals, another pair was comprised of a Christian and a Muslim and focused on Jewish food rituals, and yet, another pair was comprised of two Jews and focused on Islamic food rituals. The specific rituals addressed were those associated with Eid al-Adha, Easter and Pesach.

Here, I will share moments of dialogue from the lesson and focus on the patterns which emerged during this part of the project. As I show above, PI will stand for primary investigator and will refer to my voice. For the participant’s voices I will utilize the character names listed above.

Scene I: Prior Knowledge- The PI and the six participants are gathered in a small lecture or conference room. The PI is seated beside a podium which the PI is using the cubby of for supporting a laptop and various handouts for the collaborative learning part that will come later. In front of the PI there are approximately four rows of long tables and office style chairs which span the width of the room. The participants have taken random places as they filtered into the room before the project began. Ahmad is sitting right up front directly in front of the PI in the very first row. He is the only participant in the front. The rest of the participants are seated in the second and the fourth rows. The P I opened the lesson by asking the participants to each share with everyone what she knew about the two major monotheistic religions other than the one with which she personally identified. The first thing that was mentioned by a participant was the connection through Abraham. At this point, the PI had not mentioned Abraham, however, it should be mentioned that the Abrahamic tradition was asked about in the pre-survey: PI: I would like to start out by finding out what each of you knows about the three Abrahamic religions. First, I want to ask you what you know about the other religions beside the one that you identify with. In other words, if you are Jewish, what do you know about Christianity and Islam, and if you are Muslim what do you know about Judaism and Christianity and if you are Christian, what about Judaism and Islam do you know? So, who wants to start, okay, (indicating Ahmad with a nod of the head) sure go ahead. Ahmad: I guess the main thing is that they are all opposite of paganism, you know the worship of idols and what was going on in the Middle East before Abraham came along and destroyed the idols. I guess that was like the sequence that started it all. I mean with Judaism being the oldest one and all. You know Moses came with the Torah. Then Jesus came like 700 years afterward with the bible, and then Muhammad came around another 1300 years.

Here Ahmad is speaking exclusively to me. He doesn’t look around the room he is making constant eye contact with me. The moment very much has the feel of a formal class room setting.

And Ahmad, by being the only participant sitting in the front row and slightly anticipating my question, is very much performing the role of eager student. The proxemic arrangement of the participants, with Ahmad up front and on his own and the other participants seated behind him closer to the back wall of the room, invokes a sense of a leader and of followers. This sense of leading and following will shift among the participants many times as the movement of the project unfolds. The second presentation of the Abrahamic theme came from Yael in her response to the same question,

PI: Yes, uh huh, okay Yael Yael: Uhm, I don’t know a lot, I know that they are Abrahamic religions and that they also believe in one God, and that Islam was created, founded through like the Abraham and Hagar story because I grew up learning it. Ah, I know a little bit about Christianity and following Jesus, but I only really know about Judaism. This is the first time that Yael speaks. She is making fidgety gestures with her right hand in which she holds a pen and her chin rests in her right hand. At this moment she is only making intermittent eye contact with me. Yael arrived a little late and she was still working on completing the pre-survey. She seemed somewhat shy yet and a bit taken by surprise that I asked her to speak so soon. As soon as she finishes answering she lowers her eyes back to the survey. It might be that part of her apparent discomfort was due to not feeling ready to speak, while part of it might have been being one of only two women participants, this is certainly a possible explanation. Yael does know the other two Jewish participants, all three are active in the Hillel on campus. Still, she was outnumbered, especially since she did not know Lariana, the only other woman participant, hence, the proposal of the possible explanation above.

In these two pieces of the dialogue during the lesson, two themes emerge which occur several times during the project. Both themes are directly related to the concept of Abrahamic faiths and their epistemological and cultural relatedness. These themes are the belief in one God shared by all three faith traditions and the tradition of descent of the adherents of these faiths from Abraham/Ibrahim and his sons Isaac and Ismail.

The Abrahamic/Ibrahimic Faith Context Within the Abrahamic Faith context, paganism is employed as a marker of opposition to monotheism by my interlocutors.

Scene II: The Monotheists- Paganism is employed as a marker of opposition to monotheism. The visibility of this occurrence emerges from the Abrahamic Faith context. In these initial statements from the participants there is not yet any discernable intercommunication going on between the participants that don’t already know one another. The only participants at this point that are engaging with one another are Avi and Yael, who apparently have a close friendship already. Avi and Yael are sitting next to each other and when one speaks each makes frequent eye contact with the other one. This is not occurring between any other participants at this stage. Ahmad: (Has just said) The main thing is that they are all opposite of paganism, you know the worship of idols and what was going on in the Middle East before Abraham came along and destroyed the idols. Avi: In terms of Christianity, they believe that Jesus is actually God, or the trinity or something like that. They celebrate birth and rebirth, and uh, I guess there are some pagan roots in Christianity? Seth: Islam has a very strict idea of monotheism and that translates into a lot of differences about how you can show Muhammad or not show him, there are a lot of issues around that. Any depiction of potential idols is forbidden that’s like the most important thing” Even in this moment when the participants have not begun to bond, the dialogic process is very much evident. Polyphony is emerging at this nascent stage of the conversation. Each different voice is engaging to produce a “multi sited context of viewpoints” which do not reflect a “single objective world.” “Plurality of consciousness” is emerging, what has not begun to emerge yet is the effect of commensality. When Ahmad, Avi, and Seth speak here each is attempting to

express and reveal something about what he knows and thinks to me. They do this in a way very similar to that of a student trying to impress a teacher with what he already knows about the subject at hand. None of the three are making eye contact with anyone of the other three. They are addressing me. They are demonstrating their awareness of and comprehension of the relative aspects of the Abrahamic faiths, but not yet acknowledging the others in the room.

This discourse around paganism and pagan idols marks a separation between adherents of the Abrahamic faiths as monotheists and the polytheists. The marking of that separation indicates a perception of epistemological and cultural relatedness between Muslims, Christians, and Jews by the participants as constituted by the connection to the Abrahamic tradition. This brings us to an interesting scene.

Scene III: An Amusing Moment- One of the participants confused a story from his own tradition with that of one of the other two. The dialogue goes like this: PI: Okay, the haj, Lariana mentioned pilgrimage, so what is that? Yes, okay Avi. Avi: So, it’s the pilgrimage to Mecca and there’s that black statue, uh, black building and there’s a rock in there? Or maybe it’s Muhammad’s body, I’m not sure what’s in there, but didn’t like Muhammad hit the rock and water came out? PI: Okay, {chuckle} you’re getting your two religions a little mixed up right here, no Moses hit the rock and the water came out. (everybody laughs) Ahmad: I think he’s thinking about the asteroid, an asteroid hit the building, yeah, it’s in the corner of it. Avi: Oh, I don’t really know. Aside from the humorous nature of this moment, I mention this exchange to illustrate the entanglement of these traditions in the minds of Muslims, Christians and Jews that is usually not exposed. Why is this sort of mental blending of monotheistic mythology usually not exposed? I assert that it is due to the rarity of interactions and conversations such as this. Perhaps, imams, rabbis, Christian clergy, Middle East area specialists, and comparative religion studies scholars

are aware of this kind of “blending” or “confusion”, but certainly not Muslims, Christians, and

Jews at large. I see this as evidence of an historical religious/cultural relatedness that makes such

“blending” or “confusion” possible. This is also an interesting moment because this is the moment that engagement with knowledge and Ideas begins to be an intersubjective encounter for the participants, a foreshadowing, as it were, of the commensal experience that will emerge later.

There are also some interesting performative dialogical processes going on here. Avi and Ahmad have become the most verbally involved of the six participants and each is eager to reveal his prior knowledge at every opportunity.

There is also an element of respect growing between the two. This respect seems to be based in an admiration by each for the other’s ability to significantly engage the developing dialogue. One sees how this respect is manifest in attitudes of support and deference that are emerging between them. When Avi’s account is questioned Ahmad comes to his defense with an explanation that is meant to mitigate the perception, which, quite frankly, was produced by me, that Avi had his “facts” wrong. Avi defers to Ahmad’s explication by stating that he “doesn’t really know.”

All this discourse around Abraham arises in the context of “prior knowledge of relatedness” and “revealing” which emerged as I viewed and reviewed the recordings during transcription. As mentioned in the introductory section of this work the prior knowledge of relatedness code occurs eighteen times and the revealing code occurs twenty-six times. Prior knowledge of relatedness is defined as discourses which demonstrate prior knowledge of related religious/cultural symbols or food rituals of Muslims, Christians, and Jews. Revealing, is defined as exposition of an aspect of a participant’s own tradition. It is clear to me from the frequency with which statements and questions posed and uttered by the participants occur within the

context of these categories that both hearing and being heard is of primary, and virtually equal, importance to the participants.

These two performative categories occur throughout all parts of this project, and I will address them as we progress through the parts of the project, but they are defined here to preface and contextualize these next excerpts of dialogue.

Scene IV: Kosher and Halal At this point in the lesson there is a transition from the introductory segment into the discussion of the three observances and rituals associated with them. The PI has read a “working definition” of culture mentioned above for the participants to bear in mind and has introduced the observance of Passover to the participants. PI: Let’s see, who knows what kosher is? Ahmad: Kosher is basically a set of rules of how to slaughter an animal, first of all the animal has to be slaughtered with a sharp knife by a Jew, and a couple of other things that escape me right now. PI: Okay, so that is just one tiny piece of what kosher is Ahmad: Oh, yeah, so it’s also like no pork or shell fish and maybe like no eggs? PI: Okay, so what about ‘Eid al- Adha, Ahmad you be quiet for minute and let’s see who might know what ‘Eid al- Adha is? So, ‘Eid al- Adha? Lariana: Is that the first or second one because there are two ‘eids? PI: Yeah, so it’s the one that is associated with the haj. Lariana: ‘eid is a celebration and haj is the pilgrimage PI: Yes right, so ‘Eid al- Adha is the feast of the sacrifice (Looking at Ahmad and gesturing with hand toward him) would you say that’s a good translation Ahmad: yeah Avi: Isn’t that when they sacrifice the lamb, I think at the mosque PI: Yes, it’s the paschal lamb. So, it’s the Feast of the Sacrifice, the paschal lamb is central to the symbolism and to the praxis associated with that observance, so who knows what we mean by Halal? Lariana: It’s what’s permitted in Islam PI: Yes, it’s what is permitted. So, how does that relate to food?

Seth: So, it’s like the opposite of haram, so it’s what is fit and decent to eat, haram is the opposite of that and it’s the equivalent of kosher, or what’s fit and proper to eat. PI: Okay, haram is a very complicated term, and you are not wrong about halal, neither are you Lariana, but haram is a complicated term with many nuanced meanings. How would you, Ahmad, describe halal? Ahmad: Are we talking about halal meat, or halal in general? PI: You can start with halal as a concept and then we can talk about halal food Ahmad: Actually, anything is halal in Islam and we are talking any action any food, unless it was specifically classified haram in the Quran and the teachings of Muhamad. This is going to everything, worshiping or what have you, and then going to food, ah we’re not as strict as kosher, I was actually very surprised by this, kosher is very strict. In Islam we have to slaughter the animal in a specific way and there are a couple of prayers said before hand and you have to face the direction of Mecca, Mecca is basically the center of the Islamic world. I know that we can eat kosher and halal, but it’s not the other way around, is that right? PI; (directed toward Seth) Is that? I don’t think that’s the case. Seth: No PI: I think what you might be thinking of is the idea, and I can’t think of the term, help me Seth, what is the Hebrew term for when non- Jews cook for Jews, is it, yeah, it’s bishul akul Avi: Oh, when a Jew lights the flame then Jews can eat it PI: Yes, according to some sages, but it actually gets quite muddy, there are different minhagim, uhm minhagim are local customs Ahmad: I’m out of my depth here (everyone chuckles). In this exchange, Ahmad begins by sharing prior knowledge of prescriptions regarding Kashrut or the system of ritually fit observance in Judaism, most well known in its foodways context. As with many instances of prior knowledge of systems outside those in which the subject holding that knowledge grew up some details were not accurate. We then discussed the complexity of the

Jewish system of kashrut to fill in the gaps, so to speak.

What Ahmad knew was for the most part correct, and he is also demonstrating new knowledge here in his comments about being surprised by how strict kashrut is. My explication primarily addressed the facets of Kashrut of which Ahmad was unaware.

Likewise, I asked Ahmad to clarify halal and haram to fill in the blanks for the non-

Muslims in the room. What this exchange shows is that all the participants came to the table with prior knowledge of the Abrahamic faiths as culturally and religiously related. It also shows that it is very important to the participants that their particular traditions be understood by others. I think it is in these two performative conditions of dialogue that the possibility for the recognition of others as members of related groups, as part of a discourse of “us” instead of “them,” is located.

Another performative element must be present to operationalize such a recognition; and that element is commensality as we shall see. I should also mention here that I am aware that my use of the Hebrew word mihagim was performatively exclusionary. I became aware of it in the moment that I uttered it and I addressed it and apologized to the participants immediately. There were instances during the project where I also made references to Jews and Judaism using the discourse of “we” and “ours”.

In nearly every case, I changed the language to Jews or Jewish tradition, or Judaism and the like. I am not sure to what extent those performative speech acts affected the perceptions of my positionality or determined the framing of the discourses of my participants. I can only acknowledge that I am aware that it must have had some effect and proceed with my analysis based upon the content of the data.

Moving now to the collaborative part of the lesson, it is this part of the project where the element of commensality first comes into play.

Scene VI: Collaboration At this point the PI instructs the participants to sit together as a group and has Ahmad distribute a set of photographs to all the participants. Also, at this point another participant arrives. His name is Salim and he is Muslim. Salim was running late. PI tells him to go ahead and just jump in and PI asks the group to catch him up. Seth takes on that responsibility. Also, I should mention that Yael was a little late as well, so both filled out the survey when they arrived. PI: Alright, so, what I want y’all to do is to look at these pictures and if there are people in them and things going on I want you to guess at what you think the context of the sociality is, and if you think there is ritualization happening. If there are not people, then I want you to talk amongst you selves about why you think that photo is included, I will give you a few minutes to think and talk about the photos and then we’ll discuss some more. {Approximately twelve minutes pass} PI: So, do y’all think you’ve had enough time with each photo? (positive response) Okay, so why do y’all think I included this photo? Ahmad: Is it fish or meat, we’re debating. PI: It’s a roasted leg of lamb. Salim: Is it included in like all three meals? PI: Yeah, that’s one of the reasons. The lamb is central to all three of these observances. The lamb is representative of sacrifice and sacrifice is central to each one of these observances. {another photo is selected by PI} PI: So, what do y’all think of this photo? Avi: You can’t tell what it is, I mean which religion it is. Yael: It’s not Judaism Salim: It could be Christian, because Lebanese people eat dolma too and a lot of them are Christian. PI: So, this is a meal that is actually for an “Eid al Adha feast. {PI selects another photo} So, what about this one Ahmad: Those are Arabs, Muslims, yeah, the turbans and everything. Seth: They’re Muslims. Ahmad: Yeah Muslims

Yael: Yeah, but there are Arab Jews that look just like that. PI: Like…. Yemenite Jews maybe? Yael: Yeah, and Moroccan, Jews. I asked the participants to get together in a group. Seth and Ahmad joined Lariana, Yael, and Avi at the back table. Ahmad was at the end of the table farthest from the doorway sitting directly across from Yael and Avi. Seth and Lariana were seated directly across from one another. When Salim entered the room, he sat next to Lariana and across from Seth at the end of the table closest to the doorway.

In effect, two groups of three were formed, Ahmad, Yael, and Avi at the far end and Seth,

Lariana, and Salim at the other end. There was some exchange between the two groups with Yael and Lariana passing photos back and forth between the two groups, but the collaborative discussion was occurring within the two sets of three mostly separately.

As I viewed the recording of this moment, I noticed that while Avi and Yael were engaging with Ahmad, and to some extent with the group, they often would lean in toward each other and whisper. In this “group” of three, Ahmad takes the lead conversationally directing the attention to aspects of consideration for each photo they are examining. Yael spends a great deal of time looking intently at each photo. She leans in deep to look at each photo and does not make eye contact with Ahmad. In terms of proxemics, she maintains distance from Ahmad, even though they are already separated by the table itself, by leaning back in her chair except for when she examines the photos. The bady language and the aversion of her eyes suggests that she is considering and questioning Ahmad’s interpretations. Ahmad attempts to engage Yael in some

“extracurricular” conversation; while Yael doesn’t outright ignore these attempts, she is very dispassionate in her responses and she keeps her eyes averted. When Ahmad asserts that the people in one of the photos are Arabs and that they are Muslims and Seth concurs with him, Yael

speaks up and says that there are Arab Jews that look just like that. Avi is mostly just observing the interactions between Yael and Ahmad, interjecting only on points of interpretation about the photos. It is shortly after this exchange that the whispering between Avi and Yael begins.

Looking to the other end of the table, as mentioned above Seth took the responsibility of filling in Salim on what had been covered before Salim entered the room.

Seth and Salim almost immediately launched into conversation about similarities and differences between the Jewish and Islamic food traditions. Salim was expressing his interest in how observances such as these changed over time and stating that he was sure that over time they had changed significantly. Lariana seemed to be occupying an in between space in terms of proxemics as well as participatorily. Lariana would offer clarification on Islamic observance to

Seth when it seemed he didn’t quite “get it” or he specifically asks a question.

This moment reveals the social interactive modes of ‘conveyance of deference and dominance, the formation of bonds of solidarity and their resistance, the performance of politeness”, as well as self- revelation or disclosure (Richardson 2010).

The, mostly non-verbal, and verbal interactions between Yael and Ahmad can be seen as representative of resistance both in terms of dominance and deference. Yael and Avi’s whispering is can be seen as indicative of a bond of solidarity. It is quite possible that this bond is based on their subjectivity as Mizrachim and is resisting what might be understood as the hegemony of Arab Muslim discourse from Ahmad and European Jewish discourse from Seth.

Salim and Seth are involved in acts of disclosure around foodways which I argue represents commensal performativity, if not an emergent bond of solidarity, certainly the potentiality of such a bond.

Lariana, by sharing her knowledge of Islamic traditions, is both demonstrating a bond of solidarity with the Muslims in the room and an openness to extending that bond to the Jews in the room as well. Lariana is also enacting politeness by acting as an “interpreter for Seth. This moment shows how the dialogic principle of polyphony works performatively through multiple utterances from multiple voices to produce a “plurality of consciousness” that constructs a

“plural inter-subjective world” which I assert is strengthened by the complimentary performative effects of commensality.

Scene VII: Emergent Commensality- PI: Okay, now I want you to define for me what a food ritual is. Avi: A type of ritual involving food, where food is given symbolic meaning to complete the action of the ritual? PI: Okay, yeah, I think that is a good working definition, that’s a really good sort of lay answer, if you will. So, we will define a food ritual as the feasting and fasting practices connecting praxis to symbolism referencing precepts, rules for regulating behavior or thought, and events of a particular religion or belief system. Okay, so, what are some food rituals that your families observe? Ahmad: Prayer before eating PI: Yes, okay good, what else? Avi: Uhm, specifically for the Eastern, or Mizrachi minhag for Passover, you take, (Avi makes whipping gesture) they’re green things. PI: Oh scallions? Avi: Yeah, scallions and you hit each other with them. PI: Okay, yeah, you’re referring to the Seder, which is a bigger ritual and this custom is a smaller aspect of that ritual, cool, alright. Who else? Okay Lariana, oh Yael, okay Yael: Well, to add to Mizrachim at Passover. Moroccans take the Seder plate while singing a song, which I can’t remember the words right now, and they pass it over the heads of everyone at the table and it’s supposed to bring good luck. The commensal quality of the experience has started to emerge (It is presented in the contexts of* prior knowledge and of revealing and disclosure.) PI: Okay, cool, Lariana, what is a food ritual in your family? Lariana: Uh, prayer before eating.

PI: Okay, good. And Salim, what about in your family? Salim: I don’t think we have one, wait, yeah, I think the biggest ritual is sacrifice, yeah, that’s what it’s all about. PI: And what about you Seth? What kinds of rituals around food do you think of for your family? Seth: I mean, on most nights we will have some kind of challah, and um, and you know with that is like the washing of the hands, that’s a piece of it as well. A transition to collaboration (participants are presenting in the mode of students performing their achievement for the teacher and to each other) PI: Okay, so everyone seems to be familiar with some kind of food ritual then. Okay, so, what I would like you to do now is… uh…. Okay, for this I am going to divide you in to pairs. And, this will be the last piece of this first part of tonight’s experience before we go into the other room. Soo… Salim and Lariana you two will work together, Avi and Seth, and Yael and Ahmad, y’all will be the other two groups. Yael and Ahmad, use your phones, I want y’all to look up Christianity, Lariana and Salim you two work on Judaism and, Avi and Seth, you two look up Islam. Okay use the slips of paper there with the electronic web sources for your searches. Okay, so, what I want you to be able to tell me at the end of your search is specific information about rituals, and any mention of food, and especially food ritual. Also, look for information that relates to the specific observances we have discussed, Passover, “Eid al Adha, and Easter. (12 minutes or so pass) PI: So, have y’all completed your searches? (positive response) Okay. Ahmad: We can start with Christianity if you want. PI: Okay, what did y’all find out about Christianity and food ritual? Ahmad: Okay, so, there’s no meat on Friday during Lent. Yael: So, for the Easter…I keep wanting to say Seder, but it’s not, like the banquet, Christians eat ham and turkey and dyed eggs, and ham is the big component. PI: Okay anything else about food for this one? (Yael looks back to phone) PI: Okay, what about the group doing Judaism, what did y’all find? Lariana: So, there are seven days for the Passover and the first night it’s called the Seder? (seems unsure of pronunciation) Salim: Also, they teach their kids about the deliverance from Egypt PI: What about the food? Salim: First, there is the cakes of matzah, roasted egg, shank bone, and there’s a dish of salt water PI: Uh, what did y’all find out about Islam?

Avi: (Reading from phone) So, Ramadhan and haj are the holy holidays for Muslims. All healthy adults must abstain from food and drink during the day time for Ramadhan and meals are eaten before sun rise and after sunset. Bread, halal meat and fresh vegetable and fruits are eaten and eid al fitur marks the end of Ramadhan, and the traditional foods include lamb, various vegetable and rice dishes, kabob, date and other fruits, as well as nuts. PI: Okay, going back to Easter for a moment, What about general rituals? Was there any discussion of the general rituals associated with Easter? Yael: It really only says about the colored eggs and not eating meat on Fridays. PI: Okay. Now go back through all the pictures. Knowing now, what each picture represents, what do you think is happening ritually in these pictures? The ones that have people doing stuff. What can you recognize? Yael: So, in this photo you can see they are eating all the meats, like the web site said about the Easter meal and in that far photo down there you can see the colored eggs on the table, which is how Avi and I knew that was Armenian Easter. Salim: Well, I think they’re all kind of mixed. Like the different religions seem to share. PI: Okay so, what do you see as being shared exactly? Salim: Well, first of all Lamb. PI: Okay, so earlier, when we looked up Christianity and looked at rituals about Easter, we didn’t find anything specific about lamb there. But, I did say before that the lamb is central to Easter, does anyone have a clue as to how that might be understood? How the idea of the lamb fits in with Easter and the whole Christian thing? Avi: Lamb is the sacrifice, so then Jesus is the sacrifice on the cross, so Jesus is the lamb. PI: Exactly, just as lamb was a sacrificial item, especially for spring sacrifice, which was among the most elite and important sacrifices, then Jesus is represented as the lamb in his sacrifice for the sins of all humanity. Okay, what else do you see that is shared? Avi: Eggs, I mean the Seder has eggs, and I am sure that Muslims probably have eggs, and of course, the Christians have eggs for Easter. PI: Okay, why do you think eggs might be shared? What do you think the symbolism might be? Avi: They could represent fertility, birth, youth? PI: They can represent all those things, and they represent a full and complete cycle because of their oval shape. They can also represent spring, so what does that tell us about the relationship between at least Christianity and Judaism in terms of these two holidays?

Avi: Maybe the change from winter to spring? PI: Well, clearly, there is a sort of agrarian cycle at play here. These holidays and their observances are based on an agrarian life style, I would say even eid al adha. Because again you are sacrificing the spring lamb which is very valuable, and it only happens at a certain time of year, but of course with the lunar calendar things move around, but you get the idea. Okay, what else do you notice when you look at the pictures? What do you see now that you know something about all these ritual meals that you didn’t notice before? Avi: It’s always a meal of family. PI: Ah! That’s interesting, commensality, right, these meals are shared, communal meals. The sharing of the food is important in all three traditions. All three religions value that idea of sharing, and especially the idea of sharing food is valued highly, okay, that’s great. Seth: It also seems like there is always some kind of bread and sharing bread. In the Easter one there is some kind of biscuit, or something, and of course there is Matzah in the Pesach one and then there is some kind of flat bread or naan in the Muslim one. Avi: Lavash maybe? PI: Maybe, yeah maybe. Ahmad: I noticed in this feast here (points to eid al adha family feast photo) They use their hands instead of utensils, but I can’t tell about this one (holds up Pesach family meal photo), it’s unclear. PI: Okay, interesting I never thought about that. So, that might be an aspect of geographical or geo-cultural difference perhaps. Okay, so I guess we are ready to move into the next room and share a meal together First, before proceeding with the analysis of the dialogue from this scene presented above, I will address the proxemic dynamics and the conversations going on while the participants were trying to access the electronic sources (Hall 1963).

I wanted to make sure that all the participants were looking up religions other than their own. As has been mentioned, there were two Muslims, one Christian, and three Jewish participants. It was going to be necessary that one pairing be comprised of two Jews.

As it turned out I paired Yael with Ahmad, so Avi and Seth, then, were left as the pairing of two Jews. I, of course, did not have the benefit in that moment of seeing the dynamics of the dialogue mentioned earlier between Ahmad and Yael because I was only able to see and hear that when viewing the audio-visual recording. My decision was based on the relationship between Yael and Avi as both being Mizrachim and the bond of resistance I sensed had developed between them toward Seth and Ahmad as representatives of hegemonic discourses that have been perceived as historically marginalizing for Mizrachim, from different standpoints of course. Yael and Avi have been seated next to each other and when the pairings are made Avi asks Yael to switch seats with him so that he can be better positioned to work with Seth. This puts Yael directly across from Ahmad and Avi right beside just on the other side from before the move. Avi is now somewhat closer to Seth, sort of diagonally across the table from him. Yael sits turned in her chair almost completely facing Avi and not facing Ahmad. There is no overt hostility or discourtesy on Yael’s part when she does interact with Ahmad, but the body language is quite indicative of a certain discomfort with the arrangement and perhaps of an attempt to

“attach” herself to Avi, and Seth indirectly as a result of Avi and Seth being Paired.

All the participants are searching on their phones for the information I have requested and there is some filler conversation happening between them. Avi seems to have found something and Seth asks what he has found. Avi responds that it is something about “Eid al-Fitur. Seth chuckles and says “al-fuckher”? Avi just keeps scrolling, but Ahmad raises his eyes from his phone and says to Seth “Well, that’s partially true.” Seth looks at him inquisitively and Ahmad says, “You’re not supposed to have sex during Ramadhan, well at least while you’re fasting anyways” They both chuckle and then return to their searches.

Ahmad says that he thinks he has found something and Yael asks to look at it. Ahmad gives his phone to Yael and while he is waiting for her to read what he has found he turns toward

Avi and says, “Isn’t your name an Arab name and a Muslim one?”8 Avi responds affirmatively.

Ahmad then says, “Hm, that’s kind of weird.” Avi tells him it is common for anyone of South

Russian ethnicity and that it’s also Hebrew.” Ahmad asks “Oh, really? What does it mean? In a rather bored monotone Avi tells him it means the same either way. Ahmad seems satisfied with this response noting the family relationship between Arabic and Hebrew.

At the end of the table by the doorway, side by side Salim and Lariana work quietly together leaning into one another indicating little sense of difference in positionality as well as an effort to hear clearly over the banter going on among the other participants. Salim only ever addresses the other participants in this moment to help guide some of them to the electronic sources they are trying to access.

The interactions described here represent the elements of interactional sociolinguistics associated with the performative social interactions of politeness/impoliteness as well as the performativity verbally and non-verbally of a polyphonously constructed “plurality of consciousness”, all the while striving to “keep apart” and to “cohere.”

In these last moments of the lesson part of the project, with the focus on collaborative learning, the commensal element begins to become plainly visible. This dialogue centers on food ritual and on sharing aspects of foodways from the three major Abrahamic traditions. When I ask for the definition of a food ritual, the participants are hesitant to respond each seems to want

8 The character/participant called Avi is from Azerbaijan. His real name is a common Arabic and Hebrew name throughout the Middle East and Islamicate world and is common among members of Azerbaijani society regardless of religious affiliation.

`someone else to answer. Avi even extends his palm up hand toward Seth as if to say “yeah, go ahead take it away Seth”, but Seth just sits there. Eventually Avi responds. The others are listening and clearly waiting to see how I respond. When my response is positive, they all seem to relax a bit. It was like a moment of “collective test anxiety” had been alleviated.

When I moved to asking about the food rituals in each of their families Ahmad immediately jumps in with a response and then the responses start flowing. Avi’s and Yael’s body language and proxemic positionality still seems to be indicative of the enactment of a bond of solidarity at this point, both eager to share Mizrachi ritual in detail with me and the other participants. Both Yael and Avi use physical gesture to portray aspects of Mizrachi ritual they are explicating. Avi with his imitation of whipping Seder guests with scallions and Yael by making circular motions in front of her as if holding a plate in her hands. It seems clear that Avi and Yael are determined to “represent” in the current common English slang sense of the word.

I should mention here, that once again these are aspects of the non-verbal communication that were occurring which I was unable to see in the moment (Hall 1963). I was only able to see these aspects through viewing the audio-visual recording.

At this moment in the lesson, I was positioned at the white board in the room. I had made a chart on the board. So much of the time during this moment I was not facing the participants directly and of course sometimes had my back to them. Viewing the audio-visual recording allowed me to see how over these last moments of the lesson which focused on collaborative learning brought about a very noticeable shift in the proxemic dynamics of the participants. I noticed that as the participants shared what they had learned from their searches about each other’s traditions, much of which duplicated what we had talked about throughout the lesson, their body postures begin to become more open and they begin to move more as group focusing

their attention in unison, almost, on this or that photo or on something being written into the chart on the board. Yael and Avi even seem to be less “joined at the hip,” as it were.

Salim, as he will be throughout his participation in the project, focuses on similarity talking about what is shared. Avi brings the idea of commensality to the fore, Seth and Ahmad respond by thinking about aspects of shared practice as indicated by their references to bread and to use of utensils. It is in viewing these moments of the audio-visual recording that I begin to see the commensal performativity emerging among the participants.

Act II: The Meal I will move now to the analysis of the social interaction during the meal. With an eye toward the commensal performative nature of these social interactions, I will focus particularly on the aspects of social interaction that indicate the performativity of inclusion and exclusion, politeness and impoliteness, gender, ethnicity, and relatedness as members of the Abrahamic faiths. I will continue to attend to the proxemic non-verbal aspects of communication as well.

Scene Setting: At this point the PI and participants have moved to another area, a different space. One more suitable for a social engagement such as sharing a meal. This space is part of the School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies at the University of Arizona and it is called the Bonine Commons. It is something like a lobby/reception space. It contains a central arrangement of mirror image facing sofas and coffee tables flanked by pairs of arm chairs and side tables. To the left side of this central arrangement is a ten- foot wooden table which this evening serves as the supper buffet. To the right of the central arrangement is another ten-foot wooden table that is serving as the dining table. The menu for the shared meal consists of a lentil soup, a chopped salad, fattet maqdous or a layered casserole of eggplant stuffed with spiced meat on top of bread and smothered with a tahina and tomato pomegranate sauce, roasted leg of lamb, a dish composed of basmati rice, spinach and chick peas, some bread, and for dessert, dates stuffed with a pistachio marzipan. The dining table has a center piece of six candles and some Ivey vines, there is a French press with Arabic coffee and bottles of sparkling grape juice and some bottled water. There are chairs all around. Scene I: The Reveal- PI begins to remove foil covers from food and participants are gathered around buffet table observing.

PI: Okay, so this is lintel soup here, a chopped salad, this is called fattet maqdous; it is eggplant stuffed with meat laid over bread with a pomegranate and tomato sauce with a tahina sauce over the top of everything and then garnished with some cilantro. Here we have…. What do you think that is? Avi: I have no idea PI: It’s a roasted lamb, a roasted leg of lamb. Ahmad: Is that flat bread? PI: It is. It’s a kind of flat bread. And then we have a green rice, it is basmati rice with spinach and chick peas and flavored with cumin and garlic and some other spices. Alright, I want y’all to try and guess to which religion and observance this meal belongs, oh and over here we have dates stuffed with pistachios and …basically icing sugar and rose water. Okay what do y’all think? {the participants begin to walk around the table and inspect the dishes} Salim: So, like those lentils, we would have those for breakfast, but that eggplant that is probably Christian. Avi: I’m just gonna guess Mizrachi, because I’ve seen all of these dishes before, but I am probably wrong. Ahmad: This one {pointing to the lamb} is neutral, it can go for any one PI: Any other ideas? Salim: I really don’t want to try to say. PI: (no more responses) Okay, so this meal could be served at any of the three observances, and when you asked me if this was flat bread, well yes, it’s flat bread, but this is Sephardi/Mizrachi matzah; so, this is not a leavened bread, it is unleavened Avi: It’s better than Ashkenazi matzah! Yael: Wait, what is it? Avi: It’s Sephardi matzah. PI: It’s matzah, but instead of being rolled out super thin and baked in a European style oven, it is rolled out like regular flat bread and baked in a tandoor, or on a taboon, or in this case on an iron griddle; so, it maintains flexibility while being unleavened. Yael: Oh yeah. As I begin to unwrap the dishes on the table and their sight and aroma are revealed

Ahmad slaps his hand to his chest and says “yes!”, Lariana moves in to see if she can help me.

The other participants are standing back close to the wall and clearly wanting me to finish and invite them to fill their plates. As I begin to explain the fattet maqdous the participants move in

unison toward the table to peer into the chaffer and then they step back again and patiently wait for me to finish unwrapping and talking. These actions all indicate enactments of politeness as performative expressions of appreciation and patience as part of a commensal experience. In terms of proxemic arrangement, Avi, Seth, and Yael are grouped together a little to the left of

Salim and Ahmad who are standing together, Lariana stands alone a little to the left of everyone else. The proxemics here can be interpreted as indicating deep understandings of self and affiliation in terms of religio-ethnic subjectivities. However, the act of coming to the table together, Muslim, Jew, and Christian might be interpreted as indicating an enactment of neighborly social interaction.

Of course, when the participants finally fill their plates it’s every woman for herself. The dialogue in the scene above, speaks to the participant’s awareness of the relatedness of the foodways of the “Children of Abraham” that has been focused on during the hour or so of the lesson activity that preceded the meal. Avi suggests that perhaps the meal is a Sephardi one but then says he is probably wrong, while Salim first suggests Christian, but later is reluctant to make a determination as well as Ahmad’s assertion that the lamb is neutral and could go with any one.

When I tell them that this is indeed a meal that could appear at an al-Adha feast, an

Easter banquet, or a Passover Seder there is a lot of affirmative head nodding. Avi’s declaration that Sephardi matzah is better than Ashkenazi matzah can be interpreted as a performative utterance demonstrating resistance to Ashkenazi/Western hegemony, while Seth’s agreement with the statement can be understood as a performative utterance also. In this case, the current popular discourse around multiculturalism among American Jews, very much influenced by

Israeli popular discourse comes to mind, as the performance. Of course, it is important to

remember that Seth is of Ashkenazi and Sephardi background, thus his subjectivity may be heavily influenced by being, as Lila Abu-Lughod (1991) has described it, a halfie. All these verbal and non-verbal acts of communication are occurring within a framework of commensality and speak to the ways in which the constructions of inclusion and exclusion based on a multi sited assemblage of viewpoints and subjective social intersections may emerge in such a commensal setting.

Scene II: At the Table At the dining table, initially there is just some talk about the food being good and some banter between Seth and Yael over Yael’s not understanding at first about the matzah. Really, only the three Jewish participants are talking at all. Then Yael addresses everyone at the table and asks what everyone is majoring in Seth: (speaking to Yael) How do you say this again {tears off a piece of matzah} mat-sa? Avi: Matzah (emphasizing the second syllable, which is the Hebrew accent pattern) Yael: I don’t know, you’re “the Jew” here? Seth: I’m outnumbered here I guess Avi: Do you even know Hebrew? Seth: (Chuckling) You’re supposed to ask, “Don’t you know Jewish?” Cross talk (the participants begin to engage the social interactions of politeness in a mode of “small talk.”) Yael: So, what is everyone majoring in? Lariana: I’m majoring in political science and Arabic Salim: Political science. Ahmad: Why Arabic? Lariana: I want to work in the Middle East Ahmad: WHY!? Lariana: Why not? Ahmad: You’re not gonna fit there, I mean, I’m sorry, but it’s hard, especially for a woman by herself. Avi: It really depends on what country

Ahmad: No, I’m saying as a person who grew up over there, it’s hard over there for a woman, It’s intense. Yael: (said with a playful almost sarcastic tone) If you want work in Israel it’s always available. Avi: Or Iran Lariana: I already went to the Emirates Ahmad: Oh yeah, that’s good. Lariana: So, I think it’s changing over there. Even the countries that are more closed minded are getting better, it’s working better over there. Everything changes Avi: Lebanon’s pretty good. And Egypt. Lariana: Where? Avi: Lebanon. And Egypt. Lariana: Uhum. Seth: Is that a joke? Avi: No! Seth: (laughing, with tone of “Are you sure?”) Oh, okay Ahmad: He’s right, for one there more stable, after the uprisings and all. Avi: Actually, I say Egypt and Lebanon cuz there a lot of Christians there.

PI: (Takes place at table) So, I have a question. Would all of you say you would be comfortable with this meal as part of your own traditional observances? For one of your own observances would this meal feel right? Ahmad: (said short, quick, and matter of fact) Yeah. Seth: Yeah, oh yeah! Avi: One hundred percent. (Affirmatively nodding heads all around and echoes of “yeah” from the rest of participants)

Here in this scene, the performative character of dialogism through polyphony is quite pronounced. There are the voices of women and men as gendered subjects shaping the contours of and determining the direction of the conversation. The religio-cultural subjectivities combine

with the gendered aspects of the discourse to produce an intersectional depth here that makes quite visible, in the scene, multiple viewpoints converging to produce a “plurality of consciousness.” While all parties stably enact their positionalities, there is this constant “give and take” of “dominance and deference”, different solidarities becoming plainly visible and then fading from visibility as other subjectivities come into play (ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/in-theory- bakhtin-1 2018) (Richardson 2010).

At the top of the scene there is this gentle, playful tension between the Jewish participants in terms of the ethnic balance and difference between them that is shaped by gendered modalities. Seth “good naturedly” poking fun at Yael, Avi interjecting as a buffer between them and Yael making her own little jab at Seth. This interaction puts one in mind of siblings in a sand box. The big brother, the most privileged, wedeling the lesser privileged little sister. Then the junior of the brothers, less privileged than big brother which makes him his sister’s ally, comes to the little sister’s defense and shovels sand in big brother’s face, but little sister is going to have her two cents to show both of her brothers that she can take care of herself. Big brother, by the way it seems, is none too phased. Then there is the whole very overtly gendered exchange around Lariana’s plans to work in the Middle East with both Avi and Yael demonstrating a bond of solidarity with Lariana. One could imagine that the bond of solidarity with Lariana demonstrated by Avi and Yael in this scene is multi-vocal responding to all their subjectivities as

“outsiders” in terms of the patriarchal and ethnocratic hegemonies to which all three may be perceived as subjected on one or more of those levels. It would have been interesting to see where that conversation might have ultimately led had my arrival to the table not interrupted the flow.

At that point where I had interrupted and changed the direction of the conversation, after all the positive responses to my initial question, Ahmad tells me that I am a very good cook. I thank him and explain that before coming to the academy I had been a chef for almost twenty years. As a result, a conversation regarding how I moved from being a chef to anthropology and

Middle Eastern studies arises.

Then Seth asks “So, did you have to travel far and wide to learn how to cook all these foods?” I explain that ever since my first exposure to Sephardi and Mizrachi food I always preferred the Sephardi and Mizrachi dishes to the Ashkenazi dishes and that I sought the knowledge of them from my grandmother, and from books. This brings me to the moment where

I see commensality most visible during the meal.

Scene II: All About Food All characters are seated at the table and there is conversation occurring that ranges from topics of where the participants have mutual acquaintances to alma maters, but mostly the topic is food PI: Ever since my first exposure to Sephardi and Mizrachi food I always preferred the Sephardi and Mizrachi dishes to the Ashkenazi dishes. Avi: Sephardi and Mizrachi foods are much better than Ashkenazi foods (looks at Seth and extends his hand toward him palm out fingers spread and waves side to side) “no offense”. (At this point the Jewish participants start to engage the PI in a discussion of the virtues and foibles of Jewish food in General.) Ahmad: (Interjects) Are there any good Jewish restaurants in Tucson? Avi: No! Yael: Not really PI: Not to my knowledge. Ahmad: (Seemingly to Avi) “Would you cook something for me, if I ask nicely?” Avi: Oh, I’m not cooking. PI: Ahmad, what would you want? Ahmad: (shrugs) Nothing in particular. I have just never had Jewish food.

PI: Are we talking Ashkenazi or Sephardi/Mizrachi? Ahmad: I really don’t know enough about it to know the difference. Avi: Middle Eastern and North African Jewish food is the same food as everybody else there. PI:(At this point the PI explains that there is some difference between Jewish and non- Jewish cooking in that region due to adherence to Rabbinic kashrut still being the norm among most Jews there), But this was Jewish meal. Ahmad: Yeah? This was really good. PI: It’s also Muslim food, and Christian food. For example, I happen to know, or I feel sure, that Seth keeps strictly kosher. Seth:( nods in agreement) Yeah. PI: So, this fattet, it often would contain yogurt in addition to the other sauces here, but this is a version for Passover, so it contains no dairy and the bread used is matzah. (At this moment Ahmad excuses himself from the table saying that it is the time he has to leave for a previously scheduled soccer match) PI: Thank you so much Ahmad for participating and remember about the focus group coming up in one week. Ahmad: Oh, yeah, I’ll be here. Thanks, bye. Seth: You need to open a restaurant here. Salim: Yes, uhuh! Seth: We desperately need it. Avi: Especially, Middle Eastern Jewish food. Salim: Oh, Brittany I really have to go, but thank you so much. I do apologize for being late, I was just sitting down sipping a beer and the time escaped me. PI: Thank you Salim and I understand. Don’t forget though about the focus group. Salim: I won’t, bye (Everyone says bye to Salim, While Salim is making his goodbyes, Lariana has stood up) Lariana: I have to go now too. Thank you so much though. PI: No, thank you and of course you will be with us Monday night?

Lariana: Oh yes. I will be here. (Everyone says good Bye to Lariana) Yael: This has been so interesting. Avi: Yeah, right, I never thought I would share a Sederish meal with two Muslims and a Christian, if I’m being honest. PI: (The participants are laughing) No, that’s good. I wish that could have been said when we were all together, but that’s great. It is something we can talk about Monday night. The end of this scene represents the performative enactment of politeness as the

expected social interaction. As well it represents the performativity or “brining into

being” of bonds of solidarity as members of this newly formed group. Commensality

comes to the fore here due to the structuring of the conversation and social interaction

that was a direct result of sharing food and drink together as a group (Richardson 2010)

(Giorgi, deAlmeida 2017) (Kerner 2015) .

The proxemic arrangement at the table presents with the Jews as a “cluster”, the two

Muslims sit side by side and the lone Christian sits across from them, next to me, at the end of the table (Hall 1963). Everyone has been joining in conversation with everyone else, everyone is passing utensils and beverages to one another. There is no apparent distance between the various participants as a group. Ahmad is engaged with every level of the conversation, even when it gets very particular regarding Jewish food.

The exchange between Ahmad and Avi about Avi cooking for Ahmad is interesting.

These two people had never met before this evening, but in that commensal moment Ahmad was comfortable enough to ask that of Avi. The talk about me and a restaurant, which Salim and Seth commented on indicates that such an establishment would be welcomed and perhaps patronized by all members of the group. All these exchanges and interactions were structured and facilitated

by sharing food and drink, they were brought into being commensally. Then the final two lines spoken by participants in this scene:

Yael: This has been so interesting. Avi: Yeah, right, I never thought I would share a Sederish meal with two Muslims and a Christian, if I’m being honest. This moment illustrates the unusualness of this encounter for this group of young people. It speaks to possibility.

Act III: A Conversation One week following the lesson and meal part of the project the participants and I met again to take part in a focus group. By engaging in a focus group, I seek to elucidate the enduring understandings and the emergence of shifts in or of new ways of thinking that might have been facilitated through this project for the participants. Both Seth and Yael encountered conflicts and were unable to attend. Ahmad, Salim, Avi and Lariana took part in this part of the project.

As mentioned in the introductory section, there was a presurvey filled out by the participants prior to beginning the lesson. I used information from the presurvey to construct the questions for the focus group. These questions focused on the significance of certain foods, the importance of Abraham/Ibrahim as “father” of the three-major monotheistic religions and shifts in, or new ways of, thinking for the participants. The questions were open ended, and the structure of the focus group was semi-guided. I allowed the conversation to take what paths it would.

Scene setting PI and four participants are seated at a round table in a small but pleasant conference/class room with one wall having several large windows at the University of Arizona in the School of Middle eastern and North African studies. The PI is seated at the end of the table facing the entrance to the room with the windows behind her. Avi is seated directly to her left. Lariana is seated on the

same side of the table as Avi and she has brought her roommate9 who sits between them. Ahmad and Salim sit on the other side of the table. Ahmad sits directly to the PI’s right and Salim at the end of the table closest to the room’s entrance Scene I: Reflections

PI: Welcome and thank you for returning tonight to continue our conversation. I guess what I would like to begin with is asking if you thought about our experience last Monday evening over the course of the week and have you talked to anyone about it? Ahmad: Well, not within the circle, but I have been talking to my friends and my roommate about it though, I was talking mostly about the meat. Lariana: I talked to my roommate too. She was interested, she wanted to come. I was also talking to my friends…. I have a lot of Muslim friends and we were talking about what we did, and about how it’s related, you know food and religion and how for the three main religions it’s very similar. Avi: I told my mom we ate some good food. PI: You did, okay, good Avi: I did think about it though, I reflected over it. I went to a Christian event over the week, a Ukrainian Christian event, and I didn’t understand everything that was going on, but they had meat and it was lamb, and I thought ‘oh, this is pretty cool”. Oh, it was their pre-Easter thing, so…… PI: Okay, so drawing that connection, okay, okay So what other experiences around this did any of you have over the week? Salim: I thought a lot about it. I always knew that there were similarities between our religions, but I never realized that it extended all the way to meat, or to food; I was really surprised PI: And you reflected about that over the course of the week? Salim: Yeah. This scene contains the opening dialogue of the conversation that took place during the focus- group. I might mention here that Ahmad told me the day that I recruited him for this project that “You had me at free food,” I say this to contextualize his positionality as a

9 Lariana reached out to me just before the focus group event and asked if she might bring her roommate who was interested in the event. I asked the other participants if this was acceptable to them and all offered an affirmative response.

participant. I think his participation in the project was very much predicated on that condition, yet his contribution to the production of a polyphonous plural consciousness is equal to any other participant in this project. Lariana, Avi and Salim were much more consciously engaged with the project as a learning process.

This scene illustrates that the commensal aspect of the participants’ involvement with this project was having an effect beyond the duration of the interaction and was even “touching’ people outside of the “circle” to use Ahmad’s word, a week later at least. Avi’s and Lariana’s discourses here suggest that the act of sharing food as well as talking about food facilitates intersubjective connections that can be carried over to new situations or spark broader conversations. Salim’s statement regarding the expansion of his comprehension of how Muslims,

Christians, and Jews are related demonstrates the possibilities that commensal encounters may have for facilitating broader intergroup understanding. As I have stated already, all the participants came to the table with some understanding of their relatedness within a “Children of

Abraham/Ibrahim” framework, but through the performative dialogical processes of commensality that understanding was expanded and I argue reshaped intersubjectively. This is not to say that some collective paradigm shift occurred for the participants regarding their understandings of the relationship between Muslims, Christians, and Jews, but rather that a more nuanced and intersectional understanding had developed.

Scene II: Food and Symbols

PI: So, I want to talk about some of what… you know we were talking about rituals and food, and I want to talk about symbols, right, about the symbolism of certain foods. So, when looking through the comments in the pre-surveys and thinking about some of the stuff we talked about, there were three foods in particular that I thought there was some significant information about. The first

one is bread. So, how is bread religiously and culturally significant or symbolic for each of you? Ahmad: Well, I know that in Arabic the word for bread means life, it’s the same word, it’s colloquial, but never the less it’s the word that people use. PI: Aish? Ahmad: Yes, that’s the word. That’s the first thing that came to my mind, and the reason is because they eat it every day. PI: Okay, good. What other thoughts about bread and the religious and social symbolic value of bread? Salim: I was thinking the same thing, because if water is the source of life then bread is second to it as life giving. Avi: Yeah, we have the same idea. PI: What sort of rolls does bread play in religious and social ritual? Avi: Huge part… huge part. PI: Okay, expound on that. Avi: On Shabbat you have the bread that you eat after the wine and you wash your hands and make a blessing and you don’t talk…ah, it’s very important in Passover, it’s unleavened, literally every holiday incorporates bread. PI: Okay, what about in non-Jewish observances? Lariana: Well, in church, they bless bread and then they share it and that’s a ritual. Sharing, there is always bread to share with others. Ahmad: So, socially bread is always there as a filler, like for empty calories, like something that you can stuff with something else. PI: Okay PI: Okay, another thing that came up was grapes and products made from grapes. So, what about grapes? What social or religious symbolism and connotations do each of you associate with grapes? Avi: Life for wine…. health, in my tradition there is the connotation of good wishes, like we drink wine on new year’s to celebrate PI: And when you say new years are you talking about the secular new year or…? Avi: No, no, no, I mean (starts tapping forehead with fingers). PI: Rosh Hashanah? Avi: Rosh Hashanah, yeah.

PI: Any others? Salim: That’s like a tough one for us because we don’t socialize with it or anything PI: So, what about grape juice? Salim: Well, I’ve hated it ever since I was a kid! (Everyone laughs) PI: Okay what about in Christian traditions? Lariana: Wine represents the blood of Christ and at the new year we have the twelve grapes, I don’t know if that is connected to religion or not, but it’s like twelve grapes, one for every month, to make a wish, yeah, the wine is a representation of blood. PI: What about lamb? So, lamb was the big one that we focused on a lot. Ahmad: Actually, if we could go back. If we are talking about grapes, we do have a pretty strong stance on wine, alcoholic wine. It’s a pretty big no- no, obviously. You’re not supposed to drink it, it’s not good for your health. It’s not one hundred percent bad, but the bad stuff outweighs the good. You can get lashed for it, about eighty lashes just for drinking wine. PI: Okay Ahmad: Yeah, it’s a cultural taboo, I’d say Salim: It’s religious, not cultural. Ahmad: Yeah PI: I think you could say it’s both, but what about with grapes themselves? Ahmad: No, nothing significant. PI: Okay, so, let’s move onto lamb. What are the religious and cultural associations that you all have with lamb symbolically, oh yeah, Salim? Salim: Sacrifice PI: Okay: That’s the biggest one, yeah. Avi: Sacrifice, Abraham and Isaac. PI: Okay, what about in the Christian tradition? Lariana: Uhm, it’s sacrifice. PI: Okay, so that’s one, where it’s, it’s pretty, well, it’s pretty universal among the three, right? All three associate the lamb with the sacrifice. Why do you think that connotation goes across all three traditions?

Ahmad: Same root. They are all Abrahamic religions and they all share the same mythology. PI: Okay, okay Ahmad: Our version is with Abraham and Ishmael, but just case in point. PI: So, Christianity is also an Abrahamic religion, of course, but what might be the significance there with lamb? Avi: So, where Jews and Muslims think about it as Abraham sacrificing whoever and the lamb thing, Christians see Jesus as the sacrifice and associate the lamb with him? In the scene above, there is a lot of self -disclosure going on around religious identity.

The details provided by the participants regarding the rituals that are specific to their respective religious traditions speak to disclosing the self as a religio-cultural subject, but the dialogue centered on symbolism focuses mostly on what is shared. In terms of social-interaction each disclosure responds to and builds on what has come before in this conversation in the sense of

“face to face interaction” as Richardson (2010) puts it.

There is difference being enacted, particularly in Salim’s and Ahmad’s discourse regarding wine. Yet, Ahmad’s voice is also the strongest and clearest voice that speaks to the relatedness of Muslims, Christians and Jews here. Ahmad tells us that our traditions are from the

“same root” invoking the Abrahamic/Ibrahimic connection. This moment brings us to the next scene.

Scene III Let’ Talk About Abe

PI: Alright, so something’s come up, that’s good, it was something I hoped we might touch on. So, we’ve been mentioning Abraham, right? In what way is this idea of Abraham as the founder of the three traditions important and meaningful? Lariana: It feels like we’re all connected, somehow. Beliefs, traditions; like food, we experienced it. So, we share all of this. Not everything, but a lot.

PI: Alright, so before taking part in this experience, did you have different or any other ideas about Abraham regarding your faith or any other faith? Did your ideas change in any way after having this experience? Ahmad: I’d say so. I didn’t know a lot of this stuff about Judaism. PI: Okay, okay, so were you aware that Abraham was also considered a founder of Judaism as well as Islam? Ahmad: No, yeah. That I knew, but some of the specifics about Jewish practice. You know we went into that last week. PI: Right, okay? So…. Avi: I don’t really know about all sects or denominations of Judaism on this, but for my tradition, we don’t think of Abraham as fully a Jew, because that doesn’t really happen until Moses. But, knowing that Abraham is the founder of all three faiths and him having a son, Ishmael, that really brings it all together

PI: Okay, yeah, wow, so being aware of this connection, in other words, this idea of Abraham as a founder of the three religions Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, has that changed at all the ways in which you understand these groups? You know like What Avi is saying, through Abraham come Isaac and Ishmael who are considered, you know, our ancestors. Did talking about that, particularly in a group with Muslims, Christians, and Jews together change anything about how you think about your group and the other groups in relation to each other? Avi: I wanna say yes. I mean I never knew what Muslims and Christians ate for their holidays, oh and also, most of our holidays, even though they have different names, they happen around the same times, so like it wouldn’t be weird if you invited Muslims and Christians over. It would probably be the same thing for them, like with little twists and tweaks here and there and different names, a little different theme to it, but overall, we’re all doing pretty much the same thing. This scene illustrates how through the processes of dialogism, particularly as manifested through commensality, Muslims, Christians and Jews experience relatedness. The participants all came to the table with various degrees of intellectual awareness of the relatedness of their religio-cultural traditions. Discussing and sharing food and drink “at the same table” while inhabiting all the locations of intersection between them performatively through acts of speech,

verbal and non-verbal, intergroup understandings of relatedness were expanded and new relationships were “created and cemented” and yes, also, boundaries were set.

A moment that caught me off-guard.

I was not expecting for an exchange like this one to occur, but this happened.

Scene IV: An Upside-down Moment PI: Alright, so, what do you think then are the implications of these shared religious and cultural foodways among Muslims, Jews, and Christians, what do you think they might mean, what could the implications of this relationship be? Ahmad: We might be a lot closer than we think we are. It’s something I’ve thought about a lot, actually, throughout the week, yeah. Avi: Ah, I agree, you could just share a meal together, it doesn’t have to be religious, it could have a religious entity to it, but not like a full on observant religious meal, maybe parts and pieces, but it wouldn’t make a difference. Salim: So, what I would want to say is I don’t think anyone would care about where this food originated, I mean, so most people know, now I might be wrong about this, (Nodding and gesturing with hand toward Avi) but we know that falafel is Israeli right? Avi: No, no it’s not! Salim: No? PI: This is very interesting. Ahmad: Wow, (gesturing with pointed index fingers of both hands in opposite directions) this is the first time I ever heard it go like that. PI: Okay so say that again Ahmad Ahmad: Usually everybody is claiming it for themselves, I never heard it go the other way around PI: Yeah you never heard anyone saying it belongs to the “other.” Avi: (Looking at his phone) It says here it originated in Egypt Salim: Wow that’s not even close to how I heard it. PI: So, this is a very interesting question, it’s an interesting phenomenon right. You Know, how we come to associate food as belonging to groups, right? I’m curious, why did you say everyone knows that falafel belongs to Israelis?

Salim: Yeah, cuz that’s what I’ve been hearing since I was a kid, but that never stopped anyone I know from eating it. For us it’s like pretty much breakfast, in schools, and everywhere else PI: And you’re Iraqi…? Salim: No, I’m Saudi. PI: Oh yeah, that’s right, I knew that….and so you (addressed to Avi) were like

immediately no, no it’s not Israeli, what informed that reaction?

Avi: Umm, because I just feel like there is no such thing as Israeli food, okay

being like half Persian, so like Israeli salad is literally Persian salad, Shirazi, so

when somebody says some food is Israeli, I’m like no it’s not.

This was the most unexpected moment for me during this project. I was quite taken aback, my jaw dropped, and I made an audible gasp when Salim said that everyone knew that falafel was Israeli. Ahmad looks first at Avi, then at Salim with an expression that suggested an interpretation as one of utter incredulity. Lariana seemed as though she was very confused, as if the issue were escaping her. Avi rejects the claim immediately and starts searching his phone for corroboration of his position. Lariana seemed as if she may have become amused by the exchange between Salim and Avi and her body language and facial expression , eyebrows raised and eyes darting back and forth between the parties, suggests that she may be trying to anticipate what would happen next.

On film the moment feels fraught, but with the tension emerging out of confusion not hostility. The dialogue in this scene speaks to how the processes of dialogism never render a finished subject, but rather inform and shape the ongoing becomingness that is inherent in social beings living social lives.

The scene just described happened in the last fifteen minutes of the focus group session. I am still a little incredulous myself that this moment occurred, much less so near the end of the project. The final scene I will present occurs within the context of going forward and illuminates what the participants see as their “takeaways” from taking part in the project.

Scene VI: Going Forward

PI: So, what are your thoughts now that you will be going on with the rest of your lives and you’re going to be encountering all kinds of people, what effect do you think this experience will have on how you interact with other people, and what you think about other people’s membership in cultural and religious groups, will anything change for you? Ahmad: No, it was a nice meal, but... PI: I know, you were in it for the food Ahmad: Yeah, I wanted to eat. Salim: I’m pretty sure it will, because now, I can explain how it’s all connected and I’m sure that’s a shocking thing that most people don’t know about. You know, like using the food to make a connection. I was always open minded about religion and always reading about them, but I never thought about food and how it connects us PI: Okay anyone else have thoughts? Lariana: I think that from here on out, If I want to learn about other groups and religions, I think it would be great to find the similarities first, maybe if I meet people from a different culture, I feel like it would be a great idea to bring them together and do the same. (meaning to replicate this experience) PI: Okay, that’s a very interesting point. Lariana: It helps with understanding PI: So, learning about similarities first before assuming differences, am I understanding that correctly? Lariana: Yes. Avi: I agree with that, it makes a lot more sense that way, yeah, I really do.

The strong reference and emphasis in this dialogue to food and connection and to the concretization of that idea through this project speaks to the efficacy and the value of commensality as a dialogical, performative process.

These young people are expressing here the value that they found in the experience of eating and drinking together and even of talking about eating and drinking, as one that made the other familiar, that dispelled the strangeness. Strangeness that was mostly assumed, by their own admissions. Of course, Ahmad just wanted to eat.

Discussion: Why Commensality?

As I stated in the introductory section this project constitutes a study to determine the feasibility of this approach as one that is appropriate for addressing intergroup perceptions, particularly within a conflict frame. The finding of the performative element of the commensal aspect of this mode of participatory action research as the key to its affective and effective potential suggests that it is a viable research approach. Muslims, Christians and Jews have experienced intergroup conflicts since at least the time of the crusades over all space and time, and it is particularly evident today in the “Holy Land”. The need for additional tools for sustainable peace building are badly needed. The top/down strategies employed by the governments of countries experiencing such conflicts between Muslims, Christians and Jews have been woefully ineffective. I argue that if there is to be any hope of moving forward toward sustainable co-existence, anywhere in the world where there is sectarian conflict between them, then people on the ground, using bottom-up tactics will have to work together to produce spaces in which all people who reside in shared space and place as “home” must learn to know each other within a context of “we” and “us” as opposed to “they” and “them.” The utterances of the participants in this project speak to possibility. Commensal experience, based on this project, facilitates the potential for possibility to be realized.

Regarding the utterances of the participants in this project, it must be recognized that the various exceptional intersections of their subjectivities should be considered, if this research approach is to remain viable going forward. As university students in the United States, there is an absence of barriers to their mobility and access to each other. Barriers that are common place in the Middle Eastern context, whether that be Turkey, Iraq, or Israel/Palestine or whether it is

Shi’i and Sunny, Muslim/Christians/Jews/Yezidis, and or Mandaeans involved. Their relative

homogeneity in terms of class and education must have influenced how they engaged in dialogue with one another. The participants, due to these exceptional aspects of their subjectivities came to the table with rather of wealth of information about the Abrahamic faiths. It is likely that when such relative homogeneity of class and education is not the case then the need for the pedagogical element of this approach, whatever the particular context, will be crucial. However, it was not so much what the participants came to the table knowing or not knowing but it was the coming to the table that made a difference in the end.

For the implementation of such an approach, it is necessary to understand the intersections between dialogism, social interaction and commensality, and the performative processes which can be attributed to this relationship. According to Giorgi and deAlmeida

(2017), referencing the work of Goffman (1959), as part and parcel of social interaction people

“constantly perform and enact a wide range of social roles.” Such performances constitute the social practices through which people construct “reality.” In Linguistics, performance is linked to performativity or the ways in which speech acts, verbally and non-verbally “act upon the world” to effect “being.” Butler (2003) extends this linguistic context of performativity to the construction of identity decoupling identity from the notion of an essential a priori self which gives rise to non-binary possibilities. In other words, performativity, so conceived, allows identities to be constructed not as “this or that”, but rather as “both, and”. Giorgi and deAlmeida

(2017) bring the linguistic conception of performativity together with Bakhtinian dialogism stating,

An utterance’s potential of being quoted, unhinged from its context and moved towards others, producing performative effects, is its very condition of possibility. This understanding of language is closely linked to the notion of dialogism, put forth by Bakhtin and his circle as a founding principle of language (Bakhtin/Voloshinov, 1995) (Bakhtin, 2000). The author believes that every D/discourse is doubly

dialogical, that is, dialogue is established in two co-occurring and interdependent plans. In one of them, dialogue represents the product of interaction between one speaker and his/her interlocutor(s). In the other, D/discourse acts as a link in the infinite chain of Discourses, perpetually establishing relations with previously produced utterances, and triggering off answers from upcoming ones. As mentioned by Gee (2001: p. 18): “The Discourses we enact existed before each of us came on the scene and most of them will exist long after we have left the scene. Discourses, through our words and deeds, have talked to each other through history, and, in doing so, form human history.” Commensality as a dialogical and experiential process operates on a performative level through the manifestation of Discourse and discourse. People come to the table embodying historically shaped perceptions of themselves as well as of others. Their utterances also are shaped by and reflect these same historical Discourses but are also “acted upon” performatively through utterances in dialogue constantly incorporating new ways of “being” as socially interactive subjects. Shields-Argeles (2016) a professor of anthropology at the

American University of Paris, tells us that in the act of eating we feel and we trust. The commensal experience produces a “whole series of raw, uncensored subjective reactions.”

Shields-Argeles describes the phenomenon of commensality this way,

In such circumstances, eating must be understood as an act of incorporation of otherness: a fundamental act in which “we send food across the frontier between the world and the self, between ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ our body” Fischler (279) … Eating with strangers, and the feelings that accompany it, are also bound to social identification dynamics. Understood as a continuous, dialogical process, rather than as a thing people possess, identity here has to do with the manner in which representations of “us” and “them” are not only integral to our own identity, but also constitutive of social interactions (Shields-Argeles 2016). This intersubjective performativity produced by coming to the table engenders an enactment of the “we” in the moment of sharing food and drink. In the remembering and the telling of the stories of those moments at the table the “us” comes into being. It is in this context that the viability and efficacy of the research approach proposed here comes into focus. When people who “perceive themselves as distant and different from one another politically, culturally, and

economically” come to the table and share food and drink exploring the “frontier between the world and the self” interacting socially in a polyphonous site of multiple historically shaped viewpoints the incorporation of otherness cannot be avoided (Gvion 2012), (Robinson 2011),

(Shields-Argeles 2016).

Intersubjectivity is key to the production of the “bringing into being” effect of the performative utterance, whether verbal or non-verbal. The project analyzed in the previous section represents a particular kind of intersubjective experience. As previously stated this project was conceived of within a structured framework incorporating pedagogy as a main feature. The dynamic between myself as the author and director of this project and my interlocutors was initially established within a context akin to that of the relationship between a teacher and her students. Such a dynamic, by definition, implies an inequity in that the personae of the teacher is usually, on some level, intimidating to her students. This dynamic is apparent in the descriptions offered of the non-verbal communication and to some extent by the character of the answer responses provided by the participants. During this part of the project the participants responded to the guided structure of the experience as students in a classroom setting. Often participants are raising their hands for permission to speak. There is a quality to the discursive dynamic of the conversation that could be likened to the pedagogical process of lecture and assessment. In other words, the students receive the information being

“transmitted” by the teacher and then through the discussion process the acquisition of that knowledge by the students is assessed or judged by the teacher. Such a dynamic, fosters the production of answers by students constructed to “please” the teacher. However, this dynamic shifts over the course of the project.

In the second part of the project the dynamic begins to shift to one less guided by me as a figure of authority, but more driven by the sociality of the experience. The discourse becomes much less formal and directed and reflects the dialogical and performative character of commensality through the manifestation of small talk, playful “ribbing” of one another by the participants, as well as the interest in “sharing” and “revealing” or disclosing around food.

By the time the focus group happens, one week later, my status as an authority figure is quite diminished and has become more that of a facilitator. While there is still some guided aspect to this conversation it is decidedly of an open-ended nature and what paths may arise are allowed to do so. In fact, it is this quality of an open ended, dialogically directed flow that defines this experience as a conversation. The participants are quite relaxed with one another.

Again, there is a playful air to the conversation, the nature of the conversation is more that of a game of “riddle me this” than the “Q and A” following the presentation of a lecture such as was seen in the first part of the project. Concepts of food and foodways still shape the content of the conversation and in that sense the dialogic and performative processes of commensality are key and very much at work here as they have been throughout the course of this project.

In describing this project as a collaborative learning experience, I include myself. My shifting subjectivity and intersubjectivity over the course of this project not only influenced the ways in which the participants engaged in the various levels of conversation that were part of the experience of this project but shaped my perception of the value and efficacy of this research approach. Becoming aware of the greater role of the commensal element, rather than the revelation of historical relatedness for Muslims, Christians, and Jews through pedagogical guidance, produced a broader and more applicable understanding of this research approach.

Understanding the key role of commensality as a dialogical process that promotes an ontology

of “togetherness” greatly expands the possibilities of the kinds of applied projects that could be constructed using this approach to participatory action research. The scope of the framework is also expanded. The “Children of Abraham/Ibrahim” frame becomes only one of many that can be conceived through the lens of commensality.

This “revelation” of a broader range of frameworks makes the prospect of centering applied projects within commensal events even more compelling than it was before the

“revelation” occurred. The component of commensality represents the potential to produce one additional tool in the sustainable peace building toolkit.

Conclusion: The Big Picture

In these pages, the tumultuous history of the food Discourses of Muslim and Christian

Arabs and Jews in the context of conflict in a Middle Eastern contexed has been presented through the presentation of historical narratives and a review of relative literature. It has been presented here to establish the grounds for the inquiry on which this research is based. Muslims and Christians and Jews have been engaged in contestations, mostly violent and deadly, over land, cultural belonging, and civil rights for generations. Food has been employed as a marker of difference and as evidence of appropriation and of belonging. Also, food has been operationalized as a site of resistance and as symbols of nationalism by Muslims Christians, and

Jews over the courses of those generations in those contestations, as evidence of their separateness. Likewise, the bulk of scholarly attention to the conflict and to issues of food and foodways in Middle East and North Africa has been focused on separateness and difference.

What this work has revealed, and what has mostly not been examined yet, is the affective and effective processes of commensality among groups engaged in protracted sectarian conflicts, especially for my interests in the MENA region. Interrogations of the production of sectarian group identities are all too common, but this approach allows for the investigation into the possibilities of turning perceptions of “us and “them” into perceptions of “we”. The way such a transformation may be achieved potentially lies in the element of commensality being applied to the common ingroup identity production model.

Of course, absolute shifts in worldview among individuals and groups may not be achieved by members of diverse groups sitting down at table together once and then going on about their lives. But even in such a scenario, though the face to face processes of revelation and self- disclosure around the food related symbolism and materiality of a meal, a more nuanced

and intersectional understanding or intersubjectivity may emerge. Such processes are based in

“conversations/dialogues” which build upon layers of effective utterances spurred by the affective processes of memory and new experience encompassed in commensal relations. As one of my interlocutors said,

You could just share a meal together, it doesn’t have to be religious, it could have a religious entity to it. But not like a full observant religious meal. Maybe parts and pieces, but it wouldn’t really make a difference. In other words, what is of import is the recognition of shared appreciation of dishes effected through consuming those dishes together at the same table enacting what I will call the “you are what you eat effect”.

The commensal process as an affective and effective one, has the potential to reveal nuanced and complex polyphony or multiple viewpoints on all sides and among members of the same group as well as diverse groups. Recall the exchange between Slim and Avi regarding the ownership of falafel and the utterly unexpected revelation of the perceptions each held about the subject. Due to the “always rendering” effect of dialogue there is potential for unlimited personal and social growth and change or “ongoing becomingness” to occur as part of taking part in processes in which dialogue is inherent, such as commensality.

Commensality as as a shared social and material experience can make the “other” familiar and that is what I man by the “you are what you eat effect”. I agree with Lariana and

Avi who said,

Lariana: I think that from here on out, If I want to learn about other groups and religions, I think it would be great to find the similarities first, maybe if I meet people from a different culture, I feel like it would be a great idea to bring them together and do the same. (meaning to replicate this experience) It helps with understanding Avi: I agree with that, it makes a lot more sense that way, yeah, I really do.

It is as important to look for and understand similarity among groups experiencing conflict as it is to determine and understand their points of divergence and contention. In the literature review, the lack of scholarly attention to similarity is illustrated. However, it is also pointed out that when the literature is read closely the hints at loci for understandings of similarity and historical relatedness are present there. The research represented here in these pages is focused on determining and understanding the similarities among people groups and ways of fostering and promoting solidarities rather than divisions. This is not to say that such shifts will be something simple or easy to achieve. Certainly, shifts such as these will take time, quite likely over the course of more than one or two, but several generations. Yet, if such directions are not imagined and attempted then they will never happen.

The research approach put forth in this research represents a viable tool for engaging movement in the direction of solidarity and sustainable peace building in among Muslims,

Christians and Jews in contexts of conflict. The finding that commensality as a dialogic and performative process has potential for demonstrating efficacy in terms of a potential for affecting de-othering processes demonstrates that this research approach is potentially viable, and feasible within an even broader context than that of this single project. The findings of this research suggest that there are many ways of framing such a project when the operationalizing mode is the experience of commensality rather than a pedagogical experience meant to expose persons to particular historical Discourses. In fact, it is the polyphonous multi-discursive nature of the commensal experience along with notions of sharing food and drink as constitutive of relatedness that commensality as a performative mode is capable of effecting new ways of

“being.”

What has been shown by this project, more than anything else, is the potential for dialogue/conversation through all the verbal and non-verbal modes of communication inherent in a commensal experience, within a structured “safe space”, as constituted by such a project, to facilitate possibilities for Muslims, Christians, and Jews to begin the processes of effecting a shift from a prevalence of divisive discourse to a prevalence of discourses of solidarity. A shared repertoire of common culinary dishes which allows Muslims and Christians and Jews living in contexts of sectarian conflict to produce and maintain their separate religious/ cultural subjectivities while participating in the larger food culture of a given society, presents the possibility of the facilitation and emergence of a solidarity based subject position. It is quite exciting to think of the possibilities for expanding modes of intergroup conflict management and sustainable peace building based in commensal engagement that may open up in future as the result of further implementation of the research approach proposed here.

Appendix A: Priori and Emergent codes and their Number of Occurrences

1). Relatedness: religious-cultural symbols and food rituals for Muslims, Christians and Jews 31 occurrences 1a) Prior Knowledge: of relatedness 18 occurrences 1b) New Knowledge: of relatedness 13 occurrences 2). Abraham: as founding figure and representative of cultural convergence and relatedness 9 occurrences 3). Food Culture: significant cultural relativity between these three fooodways traditions. 9 occurrences 4). Implications: of these related religio-cultural foodways among Muslims, Christians and Jews in terms of possible effects on inter-group relations 4 occurrences 5). Evidence: (of hope) statements and revelations and inferences which suggest a positive correlation between a knowledge of religio-cultural relatedness as demonstrated through foodways and an effect of “de-othering. 9 occurrences 6.) Pedagogy: instruction by PI primarily as part of part one, the lesson. Count not applicable 7). Revealing: everyone seemed compelled to speak about their own traditions in order to ensure that they were properly understood 26 occurrences 8). Commensality: eating and drinking at the same table - is a fundamental social activity, which creates and cements relationships. It also sets boundaries, including or excluding people according to a set of criteria defined by the society. Suzanne Kerner 7 occurrences= blocks of dialogue from transcript 10) Difference: any indication that something represents a perceived difference or separation 3 occurrences

11) Trust: issues regarding trust 3 occurrences 12) Ownership/Origins: where does food come from and to whom does it belong 6 occurrences

Appendix B: Group Activities Chart

Ritual Food Judaism Christianity Islam

For each religious tradition the chart was filled in with the information regarding the specific observance the groups were researching (Passover, Easter, Islam) and the rituals and foods associated with each.

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