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Israel's Significance to American Jews by Sarah Anne Minkin A Fear, Fantasy, and Family: Israel’s Significance to American Jews By Sarah Anne Minkin A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Dissertation committee: Professor Raka Ray, Chair Professor Barrie Thorne Professor Diane Wolf Professor Chana Kronfeld Spring 2014 Abstract Fear, Fantasy, and Family: Israel’s Significance to American Jews by Sarah Anne Minkin Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology University of California, Berkeley Professor Raka Ray, Chair This dissertation investigates the construction and maintenance of ethnic boundaries in the face of contestation over core values. The dynamics of American Jewish communal structures and American Jews’ relationships to the state of Israel offer a case study for exploring questions of boundary-maintenance, diasporic nationalism, and the social power of emotion. Specifically, this dissertation asks how, given disagreement and struggle over the ways in which Jewish Americans relate to the state of Israel, Jewish organizations strategize to develop and maintain Jewish community. It argues that dominant American Jewish organizations act like a social movement in mobilizing American Jews to identify with a particular version of the Jewish collective, which contributes to nationalist and political goals. Contestation over the state of Israel is central to the organized Jewish community’s efforts to produce and regulate Jewish identity. Dominant American Jewish organizations seek to shape collective identity in the face of growing challenge by reasserting three key emotional frames through which they promote American Jewish connection to the state of Israel. These frames, which draw from existing cultural understandings, beliefs, and practices, are: a sense of interconnectedness, interdependence, and love, which resembles and reflects the claim that the Jewish nation is family; a sense of the state of Israel as the potential culmination of the most noble of Jewish and liberal values, such that the state represents a collective fantasy of aspirations realized; and the dual sense of both vulnerability and power, as an historically persecuted people with access to substantial political and financial resources. These three main threads – familial love, collective fantasy, and vulnerability and empowerment – form the basis of the emotional disposition the dominant Jewish organizations seek to inculcate. Using qualitative data gathered through ethnography and content analysis, this dissertation argues that the performance of the prescribed emotional disposition towards the state of Israel facilitates and expresses a sense of belonging to the American Jewish collective. These emotions also operate as a boundary marker, disciplining Jewish identity and variations of belonging to the collective. American Jews who breach the boundaries of the collective through critique of Israeli state policies toward Palestinians face potential marginalization or exclusion. Finally, in looking at the ways in which American Jewish organizations make meaning out of, and regulate relationships with, the state of Israel, this dissertation argues that the collective identity making processes of American Jews have tangible implications in the lives of Jews and Palestinians in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. 1 Table of Contents List of Tables………………………………………………………………… ii Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………... iii Chapter 1: Introduction ……………………………………………………… 1 Chapter 2: We Are Family: Love for Israel and the Limits of Loyalty ……….. 28 Chapter 3: Fantasizing Israel: Loving the Idealized State ……………………. 67 Chapter 4: Fear and Vulnerability: The Need and Source for Power ……….... 91 Chapter 5: Conclusion ……………………………………………………... 131 Epilogue: Young People Respond: Resistance and Reinterpretation……….. 134 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………140 Appendix A………………………………………………………………… 151 ii List of Tables Table 1: American Jewish Attachment to Israel, Pew Research Center data, 2013……… 99 Table 2: Caring for Israel an Essential Part of Being Jewish……………………………. 100 Pew Research Center data, 2013 iii Acknowledgements Before I came to UC Berkeley for graduate school, I read Raka Ray’s book Fields of Protest and knew I wanted to study with her. As Raka’s student, I discovered that she brings the same sensibilities to mentorship as to her research: very high standards, sensitivity to complexity and nuance, a strong sense of personal investment, and a political sensibility that challenges and enhances the intellectual project. I have been enormously lucky to fall under Raka’s care and I have learned so much from her brilliance, commitment, patience, and grace. From her sociology of gender course during my first semester of graduate school to the present day, Raka has shepherded me through writing an MA thesis, a wonderful learning experience for my qualifying exams, a long and sometimes difficult dissertation research period, and the writing and re-writing of this dissertation. All along, Raka has identified and affirmed my strengths, insisted I push myself further, and celebrated my achievements. For her generosity, insight, interest, and especially for her faith in me, I am eternally grateful. This dissertation has benefited enormously from the other members of my dissertation committee and I am deeply grateful for their time, concern, and guidance. Barrie Thorne is a tremendous mentor whose strength, insight, and sense of humor have nurtured me for many years. A class with Chana Kronfeld years ago fed my heart and stretched my mind, and I am grateful for the careful eye and critical questions she brought to this dissertation. I learn so much from Chana’s tenacity, political and ethical commitments, enormous knowledge base, and love for learning and for Jewish culture. Diane Wolf, too, brought incomparable knowledge and insight to this project, and I am grateful for several years of her pointed questions and incisive feedback. I am extremely lucky to have had this opportunity to work closely with such exceptional scholars and mentors. As a fellow at the UC Berkeley Center for Right-wing Studies from 2009-1011, I spent two years as part of the Center for Research on Social Change’s Graduate Fellows Training Program and benefited enormously from being mentored by Deborah Lustig, David Minkus, and Christine Trost. I am grateful to the three of them as well as the other fellows for the extraordinary support, encouragement, smart feedback, and straight talk; our program was one of the highlights of my academic experience at Berkeley. I am grateful to Larry Rosenthal of the Center for Right-wing Studies for taking a chance on me and for his support and interest, which were sustaining at critical moments during the research. Christine Trost has continued to be an extraordinary mentor, opening doors for me and modeling what it looks like to be a committed, smart, and strategic public interest scholar. I am grateful for her vision, commitment, and friendship. A number of other faculty members helped me develop my intellectual orientation, research skills, and sociological imagination. I’m grateful to Dawne Moon for her compassionate approach to Jewish politics and for the years of conversation on these and other topics. The students at Marquette University are lucky to have her. Michael Burawoy helped me discover how to survive in graduate school and his love for social theory and teaching Berkeley undergraduates is infectious. Sandra Smith taught me a great deal about public engagement as a scholar and a teacher. Steven M. Cohen has been a generous mentor, sharing data, encouragement, and constructive criticism. A long conversation with Ted Sasson at the very beginning of this project helped me get it started. Josh Gamson has been my unofficial advisor all the way through, and his guidance has helped me cross many hurdles. iv Generous grants and fellowships enabled me to complete this dissertation. I am grateful to the Center for Right-wing Studies, the Germanacos Foundation, the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise, and the Dean’s Normative Time Fellowship. I am grateful to the National Science Foundation for supporting my master’s research on gender and Israeli militarism. I am also grateful to the Sociology department for many semesters of teaching Berkeley undergraduates, and for providing me the opportunity to develop and teach two advanced undergraduate seminars of my own design. I have loved working with this student body, and they have made me a more careful thinker. I have also had the good fortune to work with extremely competent and committed UC Berkeley staff. Within the Sociology department, Carolyn Clark, Anne Meyers, and Elsa Tranter made the administrative aspects of graduate school smooth, clear, and mostly stress free. Susan Meyers at the Institute for the Study of Societal Issues (the home of the Center for Right-wing Studies) has gone above and beyond to help me, and I am grateful to her for it. This dissertation research has been challenged, strengthened, and developed through exchanges with graduate student peers. Raka Ray’s dissertation group was an important source of insight, analysis, and new ideas, and it was a fascinating experience to work with the other students and get to know their projects. Thank you to Abigail Andrews, Kemi Balogun, Jenny Carlson, Dawn Dow, Sarah Gilman, Katie Hasson, Kimberly Hoang, Kate Maich, Kate Mason, and Nazanin
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