Neurotic Fantasy: The Third Temple As a Metaphor in the Contemporary Israeli Art of Nira Pereg and Yael Bartana

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 238-251
Author(s):  
Sigal Barkai

In the political reality of Israel, some symbols lie at the heart of the political, religious, national, and historical discourse that characterize the peoples and cultures living on the Israeli-Palestinian soil. Among these, the Temple Mount in Jerusalem is one of the most complex and conflictual symbols. The multiple religious claims to the Temple Mount—Jewish, Christian, and Muslim—are the subject of extensive study, but this article focuses on their reflection in contemporary Israeli art. In traditional Jewish art, the visual representations of the Temple or of Jews praying nearby expressed the longing of the Jews for generations to return to the Mount. In contrast, Yael Bartana and Nira Pereg view the multiple socio-political currents and religious rituals surrounding the Temple Mount as a reflection of the internal public debate regarding the face of the Israeli society today. This article discusses the contribution of their visual art to a conscious and aware discourse about the Israeli society and the underground currents that shape its contemporary identity. The analysis of their work tracks a “politics of aesthetics”—interpretation of the images within a socio-political context—and draws upon Israeli sociology, art history, and visual culture. In-depth personal interviews with the artists also inform the analysis.

Author(s):  
Paulina Jagoda Warsza

After Arab Spring many hopes were dashed. However historical change must be happening now in the area of social awareness. The rise of ex­tremism limits awareness and also endangers the Arab identity. The Arab revolution has to be more than the overthrowing of dictators. Bennabi created the concept of Post- Almohad Man and its “Colonsability” – a ten­dency to be colonized which allows the aggressor to be transformed into the colonizer. Is Bennabi’s theory applicable to Iraq? Should killing a Post- Almohad Man be the aim, as Bennabi postulated, and only this will allow society to develop? Although Bennabi rather had in mind liberation from auto-stereotype and reconstruction of identity, many still interpret his words literally.


Author(s):  
Jerzy Ciecieląg

The article is an attempt to answer the question of whether the building on coins issued during the Bar Kokhba revolt, usually interpreted as the Temple in Jerusalem, was a testimony of the control of Jerusalem by the rebels or a manifestation of the political programme of the revolt. This meant that perhaps also worship on the Temple Mount was resumed. The image of the building itself is analysed against a comparative background composed of other sacred buildings shown on earlier Jewish coins, in particular those coming from the period of the First Jewish War with Rome. Coins from other areas where similar buildings are represented were also used as comparative material. Consequently, the answer to the basic question of whether the possible Temple on Bar Kokhba coins was a confirmation of the historical fact of taking power over the Jewish capital or was it only a manifestation of longing – firstly after the loss of the Temple in 70, and secondly after the restoration of Jerusalem as the spiritual and political centre of the Chosen Nation – clearly leads to the second conclusion.


Author(s):  
D. Hartman

Unlike the major intellectual currents that shaped religious thought in the modern world, Leibowitz’s thought is deeply anchored in the Israeli context. Both as philosopher and activist, Leibowitz lived and articulated the paradoxes of modern Israel where he lived and was best known. His reputation as a Socratic gadfly to the establishment reflected his ongoing critique of both Israeli society in the light of Judaism, and Judaism in the light of the revolutionary implications of the creation of the State of Israel. On the one hand, he was a Jewish patriot, a fighter for Jewish independence from all forms of foreign rule; on the other hand, he was a harsh, relentless critic of national and political expressions of chauvinism in the Israeli establishment. A strictly observant Jew, Leibowitz had less impact on traditional religious Jews than on secular Israelis. His central message is that what makes Jews distinctive as a group is neither their theology nor their Bible, but the system of law with which they regulate their lives. Judaism is a communal concept, and there is no point in religious Jews ignoring the State of Israel, or expecting others to bear their civil burdens for them. Religious law has to be reconciled with life in the political reality of the state, and this necessitates changing those attitudes to the law which reflect the historical conditions of life in exile.


2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 203-226
Author(s):  
Daniella Talmon-Heller ◽  
Miriam Frenkel

Abstract This paper describes religious innovations introduced by Muslims in the (arguably) holy month of Rajab, and by Jews on the High Holidays of the month of Tishrei, in eleventh-century Jerusalem. Using a comparative perspective, and grounding analysis in the particular historical context of Fatimid rule, it demonstrates how the convergence of sacred space and sacred time was conducive to “religious creativity.” The Muslim rites (conducted on al-Ḥaram al-Sharīf / the Temple Mount) and the Jewish rites (on the Mount of Olives) shared a particular concern with the remission of sins and supplication on behalf of others, and a cosmological world view that envisioned Jerusalem as axis mundi. The Jewish rite was initiated “from above” by the political-spiritual leadership of the community, was dependent on Fatimid backing, and was inextricably tied to specific sites. The Muslim rite sprang “from below” and spread far, to be practiced in later periods all over the Middle East.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-123
Author(s):  
Jocelyne Cesari

Abstract The main argument of this paper is that the sacred time and space of the nation has displaced the meaning of sacredness of the religious sites, and legitimized the national community. By comparing the Temple Mount and Ayodhya disputes, the paper exposes the tensions between two polarities, sacred/profane and religious/political, which helps explain the influence of national identities on the contested sacredness of religious sites. The competition over the Temple Mount is nested within a “thicker” context of conflicting political claims over Jerusalem and national territory between Jewish groups on one hand and between Jews and Muslims on the other. The Ayodhya disagreement is related to the political tensions between the dominant and the minority religions, which have turned the religious dispute over a holy site into a debate on the sacredness of the national community.


2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 60-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moshe Ma'oz

For both Jews and Muslims the Temple Mount and the Old City of Jerusalem constitute highly important religious, cultural, political and national centres. For centuries Jews in the diaspora prayed in the direction of Jerusalem, vowed never to forget it (‘If I forget thee Jerusalem, may my right arm wither’); and blessed one another ‘Next year in Jerusalem’. The Zionist-Jewish movement (since the 1880s) – although predominantly secular – has considered Jerusalem (Zion) as the political and cultural centre of the Jewish people.By comparison, the Palestinian-Arab national movement has, since the 1920s established its national and political-cultural centre in East Jerusalem, while the Haram al Sharif, particularly the Al-Aqsa Mosque, has continued to be a top religious shrine for Muslims. They termed it Awla Al-Qiblatayn (the first prayer direction before Mecca); Thani Masjidayn (the second mosque after Mecca); a place where Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven (Isra’ and Mi’raj).This article will examine the changes in Muslim–Jewish mutual relations, especially since 1967, at both government and public levels. Special attention will be given to the development of both Islamic Judeophobia and Jewish Islamophobia, which have been associated with the dispute over the Temple Mount and East Jerusalem. 


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
abdul muiz amir

This study aims to find a power relation as a discourse played by the clerics as the Prophet's heir in the contestation of political event in the (the elections) of 2019 in Indonesia. The method used is qualitative based on the critical teory paradigm. Data gathered through literary studies were later analyzed based on Michel Foucault's genealogy-structuralism based on historical archival data. The findings show that, (1) The involvement of scholars in the Pemilu-Pilpres 2019 was triggered by a religious issue that has been through online social media against the anti-Islamic political system, pro communism and liberalism. Consequently create two strongholds from the scholars, namely the pro stronghold of the issue pioneered by the GNPF-Ulama, and the fortress that dismissed the issue as part of the political intrigue pioneered by Ormas NU; (2) genealogically the role of scholars from time to time underwent transformation. At first the Ulama played his role as well as Umara, then shifted also agent of control to bring the dynamization between the issue of religion and state, to transform into motivator and mediator in the face of various issues Practical politic event, especially at Pemilu-Pilpres 2019. Discussion of the role of Ulama in the end resulted in a reduction of the role of Ulama as the heir of the prophet, from the agent Uswatun Hasanah and Rahmatan lil-' ālamīn as a people, now shifted into an agent that can trigger the division of the people.


Author(s):  
Nurit Yaari

This chapter looks at theatrical productions created in the wake of the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, which sought to convey the shock that permeated Israeli society as a result, and to provide theatrical responses to help the grieving community come to terms with his death. The chapter analyses the theatrical oeuvre of four post dramatic theatre creators—Ruth Kanner, Ilan Ronen, Rina Yerushalmi, and Hanan Snir—who saw Greek classical tragedy as a vast artistic arena where the political, the humanistic, and the artistic-performative merge, encompassing present and past, myth and history. Moreover, classical Greek tragedy allowed them to project their most disturbing concerns about the Israeli present and future by tearing apart the well-known texts, deconstructing their dramatic templates, and editing, adapting, revising, and redesigning their content in the decades after Rabin’s assassination, when hope gave way to despair.


Author(s):  
Vered Noam

This chapter examines the story of the internecine struggle between the two Hasmonean brothers, Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II, which brought the Hasmonean commonwealth to its end. Only in Josephus is the story of the murder of a righteous man, Onias, juxtaposed to the central tradition regarding the siege of the temple during this war, although this too was clearly an early Jewish tradition. In the rabbinic sources, the story of the siege and the sacrificial animals underwent multiple reworkings, and it is the Babylonian Talmud that reflects the more original version and message of the story. If in Chapter 2, we saw the “rabbinization” of the figure of John Hyrcanus, here the story itself underwent this process and its original moral message was replaced by multiple halakhic implications. In both corpora, this dissension between brothers is seen as the leading cause of the downfall of the Hasmonean dynasty. This was in contradistinction to the political stance represented in the Dead Sea Scrolls, which interpreted the Roman occupation as proof of the sinfulness of the Hasmonean state from its very inception.


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