“Again You Will Plant Vineyards in the Hills of Samaria”: Winemaking and Prophecy in the Contested Territories of Israel/Palestine

There is a growing wave of boutique wineries in Israel’s West Bank settlements and winemaking in this context is seen by many Jewish religious settlers as the fulfillment of Biblical prophecies. This belief bolsters their conviction not only that Jews unequivocally belong in this contested territory but that their return to winemaking represents the validation of ancient prophecies. Some winemakers see this process of returning to ancient winemaking sites and practices as part of the process of ge’ula, redemption. The grapes and vines are thus read by the winemakers as an index of the realization of the prophecies such that the image of vines yielding fruit entails strong religious sentiments of authentic belonging and redemption. Winemaking thus becomes one of the ways of imagining a spiritual connection to a contested territory which in turn supports Jewish claims to sovereignty over that territory. In this regard, winemaking becomes politicized as part of a wider process of territorialization and Jewish settlement. This paper is based on six months of ethnographic fieldwork in the West Banks areas of Judea and Samaria and interviews with sixteen winemakers. This anthropological study of wine production reveals the motivations and beliefs of Jewish religious settlers and elucidates some of the symbolic and metaphysical landscape of the West Bank settlements. Crucially, it shows that in this context wine is an ethnically-charged signifier that affirms Jewish settlement and concomitantly asserts the historical legitimacy of Jewish return.









Powered by Eventact EMS