Moriel Ram
Strongholding the Synagogue to Stronghold the City: Urban-Religious Configurations in an Israeli Mixed-City
Ram, Moriel; Aharon-Gutman, Meirav
Authors
Meirav Aharon-Gutman
Abstract
This article explores the geopolitical significance of public religious institutions and the ways in which it has corresponded to changes in their urban environment. Based on a spatial analysis and ethnography of urban synagogues in the northern Israeli mixed city of Acre that were established and constructed by communities of Jewish immigrants from North African countries, we demonstrate how significant shifts in the city's demographic pattern and landscape have affected these institutions' ascribed functions and meanings. We theorise this dynamic as ‘strongholding’, or, more specifically, strongholding the synagogue as a means of strongholding the city. The formation of the synagogue as a stronghold is enacted through a dual configuration process by which the religious legitimacy, which the synagogue bestows on those who maintain it, is interwoven into a broader urban sociopolitical struggle to claim a presence in the city.
Citation
Ram, M., & Aharon-Gutman, M. (2017). Strongholding the Synagogue to Stronghold the City: Urban-Religious Configurations in an Israeli Mixed-City. Journal of Economic and Human Geography, 108(5), 641-655. https://doi.org/10.1111/tesg.12231
Journal Article Type | Article |
---|---|
Acceptance Date | Sep 28, 2016 |
Online Publication Date | Jan 11, 2017 |
Publication Date | Oct 1, 2017 |
Deposit Date | May 15, 2019 |
Publicly Available Date | May 15, 2019 |
Print ISSN | 0040-747X |
Electronic ISSN | 1467-9663 |
Publisher | Wiley |
Peer Reviewed | Peer Reviewed |
Volume | 108 |
Issue | 5 |
Pages | 641-655 |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1111/tesg.12231 |
Keywords | Religion, Israel‐Palestine, mixed cities, synagogues, urban‐religious configuration |
Files
Ram_Strongholding the Synagogue to Stronghold the City.pdf
(200 Kb)
PDF
Copyright Statement
© 2017 Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG. This is the version of the article accepted for publication in Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie published by Wiley https://doi.org/10.1111/tesg.12231
Downloadable Citations
About SOAS Research Online
Administrator e-mail: outputs@soas.ac.uk
This application uses the following open-source libraries:
SheetJS Community Edition
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
PDF.js
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
Font Awesome
SIL OFL 1.1 (http://scripts.sil.org/OFL)
MIT License (http://opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.html)
CC BY 3.0 ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)
Powered by Worktribe © 2025
Advanced Search