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The Impact of Israel Experience Programs on Israel's Symbolic Meaning
Publication Date: January 2004
Publisher(s): Association for the Social Scientific Study of Jewry
Author(s): Shaul Kelner
Special Collection: Berman Jewish Policy Archive
Topic: Culture and religion (Religion and religious groups)
Education (Study abroad)
Keywords: American Jews; Israel experience
Type: Report
Coverage: United States Israel
Abstract:
The author argues that the conceptions of Israel typically produced by educational pilgrimage tours can be understood in Durkheim's classic theory of religion, whereby feelings of fulfillment and empowerment created by an intense group experience are preserved in symbolic residue that revokes these feelings. Seeing Israel as emblematic of the Israel experience programs helps explain how such programs can influence people who are not predisposed to care about the country. For American Jews "Israel" is a "summarizing symbol," integrating a multitude of normative and non-normative meanings allowing for a variability and idiosyncrasy.