AMCS Workshop features Shaul Kelner, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Jewish Studies and Director of Undergraduate Studies at Vanderbilt University. Dr. Kelner will present "Rituals, Calendars and Religious Frames in the Movement to Free Soviet Jews."
He will also speak on his book, Tours That Bind: Diaspora, Pilgrimage and Israeli Birthright Tourism (NYU Press, April 201).
Workshop Synopsis: At the height of the Cold War, Jews in the United States launched a human rights campaign on behalf of their brothers and sisters trapped in the Soviet Union. Hundreds of thousands marched to chants of "Let my people go" and adapted their Passover and Chanukah celebrations to demand an exodus to freedom for the oppressed Jews of their own day. The movement to free Soviet Jews adapted religious symbols, rituals, and themes to frame political protest as a sacred obligation. In the process, it put the entire Jewish holiday cycle at the service of the cause. How did the movement shift from ad hoc to systematic mobilizations of religious rituals? What did it mean for American Jews and American Judaism of that era? And what can it teach us about religion, politics and tactical innovation in American social movements?