Don Seeman
Emory University, Religion, Faculty Member
The new softcover edition is out (Jan. 2022!). See the attached flier for a discount code, 30% off till May and 50% for the rest of this month when you order directly from the publisher!
Research Interests: Religion, Jewish Studies, History of Religion, Jewish Mysticism, Theodicy, and 15 moreHolocaust Studies, Religious Experience, Judaism, Hasidism, Theology of Suffering and Evil, Religious Studies, Warsaw Ghetto, Judaica, Social Suffering, Polish Jewish history, Hasidic Judaism, Jewish Mysticism/Kababalah, Piaseczner Rebbe, Literature and mysticism, and neohhasidism
This book is the inaugural volume in a new series on Jewish Ethnography called “Jewish Cultures of the World,” edited by Matti Bunzl and Jeffrey Shandler. Synopsis: “One People, One Blood” is an ethnographic study of Ethiopian Jews... more
This book is the inaugural volume in a new series on Jewish Ethnography called “Jewish Cultures of the World,” edited by Matti Bunzl and Jeffrey Shandler.
Synopsis: “One People, One Blood” is an ethnographic study of Ethiopian Jews whose ancestors converted to Christianity and are today clamoring for the right to ‘Return to Judaism’ and claim citizenship in the State Israel. It focuses on the lived experience of these refugees and on the complex moral and political controversy over their ongoing cultural and religious transformation. This is the first ethnography ever devoted to this group, or to the cultural politics of Ethiopian Judaism. I argue that epistemological limitations in the study of religious experience ought to be taken into account by Israeli policy makers who decide “who is a Jew” based on uncritical assumptions about the nature of religious conversion. I also use the ‘Feres Mura’ dilemma to raise broader questions about the nature of Jewishness and the political role of academic scholarship.
Synopsis: “One People, One Blood” is an ethnographic study of Ethiopian Jews whose ancestors converted to Christianity and are today clamoring for the right to ‘Return to Judaism’ and claim citizenship in the State Israel. It focuses on the lived experience of these refugees and on the complex moral and political controversy over their ongoing cultural and religious transformation. This is the first ethnography ever devoted to this group, or to the cultural politics of Ethiopian Judaism. I argue that epistemological limitations in the study of religious experience ought to be taken into account by Israeli policy makers who decide “who is a Jew” based on uncritical assumptions about the nature of religious conversion. I also use the ‘Feres Mura’ dilemma to raise broader questions about the nature of Jewishness and the political role of academic scholarship.