Constructing Ethnic Identities (Immigration, Festivals and Syncretism)

This book deals with how, starting in the 1960s, immigrant groups in Israel constructed their ethnic identity by reviving their ethnic festivals and turning them into part of Israeli society. For the immigrants, these festivals serve as a collective “definitional ceremony,” with an intersection of ethnicity, culture, and identity. They also help them to develop cultural and religious syncretism. The discussion of their social and political leaders’ ethnic activism provides important insights about the ways in which immigrant leaders employ their ethnic tradition as a resource for mobilizing cultural, social, and political capital that will facilitate their penetration of the cultural mainstream.