A01=Nathan Katz
Author_Nathan Katz
Category=JH
Category=NHF
Category=QRR
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eq_isMigrated=1
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eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
Product details
- ISBN 9788173040719
- Weight: 550g
- Dimensions: 150 x 230mm
- Publication Date: 20 Nov 2024
- Publisher: Manohar Publishers and Distributors
- Publication City/Country: IN
- Product Form: Hardback
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This book about Indian Jewish identity is an attempt at 'self definition'. It raises basic questions like who the Jews of India are, are they Jewish or Indian? It then proceeds to answer them by delving deep into cultural mechanisms by which India's Jews came to define themselves and how they were defined by others. In doing this it explores the conditions by which a group's identity is established and maintained, how it responds to changing conditions and how it anticipates and structures a future.
This book, therefore, is about at least two subjects. First, it is descriptive and ethnographic. It describes the beliefs and attitudes, the rituals and histories, which conditioned the identities of three distinct communities of Indian Jews. Second, it is analytical and therefore reflexive; it adheres to the standard of scholarship which insists that in studying the 'other' we learn about ourselves.
The seven essays in the book analyze Indian Jewish identity as a complex product of four interrelated phenomena. First, there is the historical trajectory, the construction of a suitable narrative. Second, there are social trajectories of the present, the patterns underlying social interactions with Gentile neighbors, which also defined the group. Third, there are the trajectories of the future, which is to say how modernization, Zionism and Indian nationalism came to reconstellate Jewish identity by directing toward new sometimes competing, goals. Finally, there is the role of religion, not merely as a template of ethnic identity but as a system of rituals and norms which defined and celebrated the very identities of India's Jews.
This book, therefore, is about at least two subjects. First, it is descriptive and ethnographic. It describes the beliefs and attitudes, the rituals and histories, which conditioned the identities of three distinct communities of Indian Jews. Second, it is analytical and therefore reflexive; it adheres to the standard of scholarship which insists that in studying the 'other' we learn about ourselves.
The seven essays in the book analyze Indian Jewish identity as a complex product of four interrelated phenomena. First, there is the historical trajectory, the construction of a suitable narrative. Second, there are social trajectories of the present, the patterns underlying social interactions with Gentile neighbors, which also defined the group. Third, there are the trajectories of the future, which is to say how modernization, Zionism and Indian nationalism came to reconstellate Jewish identity by directing toward new sometimes competing, goals. Finally, there is the role of religion, not merely as a template of ethnic identity but as a system of rituals and norms which defined and celebrated the very identities of India's Jews.
Nathan Katz is Distinguished Professor, Emeritus, at Florida International University, where he was the Bhagwan Mahavir Professor of Jain Studies, Director of Jewish Studies, and held several appointments. He is Founder/Editor of the Journal of Indo-Judaic Studies. The author of fifteen books, his Who Are the Jews of India? was a Finalist for the 2000 National Jewish Book Award and won the 2004 Vak Devi Saraswati Saman Award.
