Description
Book SynopsisWhen the State Winks traces the performance of state-endorsed Orthodox conversion in Israel. Michal Kravel-Tovi complicates the popular perception that it is a "wink-wink" relationship in which both sides agree to treat pretenses of faith as real, developing new ways to think about the connection between religious conversion and the nation-state.
Trade ReviewEasily the best recent ethnography of state bureaucratic practice (and state-sponsored conversion) in Israel. Kravel-Tovi's work is grounded in significant ethnographic fieldwork and moves beyond accounts that treat 'the State' as a monolithic and inimical entity. Real people-rabbis, converts and state workers-emerge from these pages, not stick figures of the sociological imagination. -- Don Seeman, Emory University
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments
Prologue: The Naked Truth on Tel Aviv’s Beaches
Introduction: Taking Winking Seriously
Part 1. The Conversion Mission1. National Mission
2. State Workers
Part 2. The Conversion Performance3. Legible Signs
4. Dramaturgical Entanglements
5. Biographical Scripts
Epilogue: Winking Like a State
Glossary
Notes
References
Index
