Almost pilgrims: Authenticity, identity and the extra -ordinary on a Jewish tour of Israel.
Item
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Title
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Almost pilgrims: Authenticity, identity and the extra -ordinary on a Jewish tour of Israel.
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Identifier
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AAI3063843
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identifier
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3063843
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Creator
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Kelner, Saul J.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Charles G. Kadushin
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Date
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2002
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Sociology, General
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Abstract
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There has been an unrecognized convergence in sociological, psychological and anthropological theory surrounding situations outside of the ordinary. Synthesizing works of Weber, Durkheim, Turner, Maslow and others, this dissertation argues that routine-shattering situations generate intense collective experiences that foster the perception of an unmediated encounter with the sacred. One instance of the routine-shattering situation is modern mass pilgrimage-tourism, a hybrid of two forms of travel that are often thought to be distinct, but in practice blend into one another with considerable ease.;Traditional notions of pilgrimage see it as a deliberate journey to commune with sacred symbols whose meanings are established. The pilgrim orientation, however, can also emerge en route. The collective experience of the routine-shattering situation generates an emergent sense of the sacred, which, in classic Durkheimian form, is projected totem-like onto the pilgrimage center. Normative meanings frame the emergent experience, and the emergent experience rejuvenates the established symbols. Modern organizational technologies enable the systematic mass production of such sacred experiences.;Combining archival, ethnographic, survey and sociometric data, this dissertation examines the case of Taglit/birthright israel, a ten-day educational pilgrimage-tour that has sent over 28,000 Diaspora Jews to Israel since 1999. It presents the 50-year-old history of the "Israel experience program," a systematic effort to use pilgrimage-tourism as an educational medium. It then considers how meaning is produced in pilgrimage-tourism. The question of authenticity---both Israel's and the travelers'---is a central focus. Authenticity is found to rest on a notion of a boundary that divides the authentic from the inauthentic, and then proceeds to characterize each of these in terms of idealized conceptions that invariably oversimplify. This oversimplification maintains the exalted position of the pilgrimage center and permits a fleeting sense of thematic unity to pilgrim-tourists' otherwise fragmented lives. The routine-shattering situation is implicated in making the issue salient to travelers.;Meaning is also found to emerge from the group experience. Communitas and collective effervescence are produced both by the routine-shattering situation and by the pilgrimage-tour's structure as a Goffmanesque temporary total institution. The dissertation concludes by elaborating a theory of routine-shattering situations, or "anti-routine."
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
