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Constructing identity in diaspora : Jewish Israeli migrants in Cape Town, South Africa
Bibliography: p. 230-244.
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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Social Anthropology
2016
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| _version_ | 1867613250251653120 |
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| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author | Frankental, Sally |
| author2 | Sharp, John |
| author_browse | Frankental, Sally Sharp, John |
| author_facet | Sharp, John Frankental, Sally |
| author_sort | Frankental, Sally |
| collection | Thesis |
| description | Bibliography: p. 230-244. |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/20449 |
| institution | University of Cape Town (South Africa) |
| language | eng |
| last_indexed | 2026-06-10T12:33:08.525Z |
| license_str | Not specified — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| publishDate | 2016 |
| publishDateRange | 2016 |
| publishDateSort | 2016 |
| publisher | Social Anthropology |
| publisherStr | Social Anthropology |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| spelling | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/20449 Constructing identity in diaspora : Jewish Israeli migrants in Cape Town, South Africa Frankental, Sally Sharp, John Reynolds, Pamela Jews - South Africa - Identity Jews - South Africa - Migrations Bibliography: p. 230-244. This study was conducted through systematic participant-observation from July 1994 to December 1996. Basic socio-demographic data were recorded and revealed considerable ·heterogeneity within the population. Formal and informal interviews, three focus group interviews and (selected) informants' diaries provided additional material. The study examines the construction of identity in diaspora and explores the relationships of individuals to places, groups and nation-states. Jews are shown to be the most salient local social category and language, cultural style and a sense of transience are shown to be the most significant boundary markers. The migrants' sharpest differentiation from local Jews is manifested in attitudes towards, and practice of, religion. Whether a partner is South African or Israeli was shown to be the single most important factor influencing patterns of interaction. Most studies treat Israelis abroad as immigrants while noting their insistence on transiency. Such studies also emphasize ambivalence and discomfort. In a South Africa still deeply divided by race and class, the migrants' status as middle-class whites greatly facilitates their integration. Their strong and self-confident identification as Israeli and their ongoing connectedness to Israeli society underlines distinctiveness. The combination of engagement with the local while maintaining distinctiveness, as well as past familiarity with multicultural and multilingual reality is utilized to negotiate the present, and results in a lived reality of 'comfortable contradiction' in the present. This condition accommodates multi-locality, multiple identifications and allegiances, and a simultaneous sense of both permanence and transience. The migrants' conflation of ethnic-religious and 'national' dimensions of identification (Jewishness and Israeliness), born in a particular societal context, leads, paradoxically, to distinguishing between membership of a nation and citizenship of a state. This distinction, it is argued, together with the migrants' middle-class status, further facilitates the comfortable contradiction of their transmigrant position. It is argued that while their instrumental engagement with diaspora and their understanding of responsible citizenship resembles past patterns of Jewish migration and adaptation, the absence of specifically Israeli (ethnic) communal structures suggests a departure from past patterns. The migrants' confidence in a sovereign independent nation-state and in their own identity, removes the sense of vulnerability that permeates most diaspora Jewish communities. These processes enable the migrants to live as 'normalized' Jews in a post-Zionist, post-modern, globalized world characterized by increasing electronic connectedness, mobility and hybridity. The ways in which the migrants in this study have negotiated and defined their place in the world suggests that a strong national identity is compatible with a cosmopolitan orientation to multicultural reality. 2016-07-19T14:19:19Z 2016-07-19T14:19:19Z 1998 Doctoral Thesis Doctoral PhD http://hdl.handle.net/11427/20449 eng application/pdf Social Anthropology Faculty of Humanities University of Cape Town |
| spellingShingle | Jews - South Africa - Identity Jews - South Africa - Migrations Frankental, Sally Constructing identity in diaspora : Jewish Israeli migrants in Cape Town, South Africa |
| thesis_degree_str | Doctoral |
| title | Constructing identity in diaspora : Jewish Israeli migrants in Cape Town, South Africa |
| title_full | Constructing identity in diaspora : Jewish Israeli migrants in Cape Town, South Africa |
| title_fullStr | Constructing identity in diaspora : Jewish Israeli migrants in Cape Town, South Africa |
| title_full_unstemmed | Constructing identity in diaspora : Jewish Israeli migrants in Cape Town, South Africa |
| title_short | Constructing identity in diaspora : Jewish Israeli migrants in Cape Town, South Africa |
| title_sort | constructing identity in diaspora jewish israeli migrants in cape town south africa |
| topic | Jews - South Africa - Identity Jews - South Africa - Migrations |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/11427/20449 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT frankentalsally constructingidentityindiasporajewishisraelimigrantsincapetownsouthafrica |