‘Boundary work’ in a religious revival movement: The case of the ‘teshuvah movement’ in Israel

Abstract

The concept of ‘boundary work’ generally refers to class, community, gender and ethnicity. This article shows how ‘boundary work’ can be usefully applied to the religious arena as well. Drawing on fieldwork among two religious movements in Israel, I maintain that within Religious-Zionist teshuvah, ‘return to religion’ is construed through a binary with Sephardic-Haredi teshuvah, the former taken as intellectual/rational, the latter as traditional/emotional. The content and mode of action of the movement define the religious-Zionist teshuvah field as intellectual and modern, but this is greatly strengthened by contrast with the more traditional Sephardic-Haredi teshuvah.