The Impact of Interactions with Secular Individuals on Kinship among Ultra-Orthodox Jews

Following the revival of kinship in anthropology, anthropologists have mainly focused their research on modern and post-modern liberal families in our societies. To be sure, even if anthropologists tell us that classic representations of kinship and family are no longer what they once were, some religious authorities, groups, communities and individuals resist such liberal conceptions of the family.

Along these lines, the ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities in London, New York, Jerusalem and Montreal provide particularly telling examples of complex negotiations around sexuality, gender, family and, more broadly, kinship in society. Beyond the typical representation of isolated communities situated on the margins of liberal mainstream society, many contact zones and exchanges exist that are built and sustained primarily through interpersonal relationships. Variously formed in private or in public, these relationships may occur in the real or virtual world. We can therefore investigate how individuals negotiate these exchanges and, on a wider scale, how these contact zones operate, persist and influence ways of conceptualizing kinship in ultra-Orthodox religious settings.

Towards this end, I will focus on my fieldwork in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities of Montreal and New York, including the stories of Hassidim who have secret contact with secular liberal society and those who ultimately decide to break away. I will explore and reinterpret the coexistence of kinship systems within our liberal societies and the role that such contact plays in defining, affirming and transmitting religious and ethnic identities.