Defining Saints in Islam and Judaism
In class we have been discussing saints and the different levels of holiness and sainthood in both Judaism and Islam. One of the unique aspects of sainthood in Islam is the notion of Baraka, which is...
View ArticleShared Landscapes and the Worship of Saints
Today, holy sites in the Middle East are politicized spaces tied to different national identities. This was not always the case, however—holy sites used to be universally worshipped, regardless of...
View ArticleThe Impact of Saints- Judaism and Islam
These past few weeks we have read two different authors; Meri and Grehan, who both approach the concept of saints in their writings. Meri starts by categorizing saints in two categories; traditional...
View ArticleNobody Like Rabbi Ya’aqov
The meaning title of Yoram Bilu’s Without Bounds: The Life and Death of Rabbi Ya’aqov Wazana does not become clear to the reader until nearly the end of the book, in chapters 16 and 17. In these...
View ArticleCategorizations of Sainthood
In the past few weeks, we have discussed the different categorizations for sainthood in Judaism and Islam. We noted that there was a level of integration of practices from one religion into the culture...
View ArticleThe Breaking of Boundaries
In Without Bounds I noticed and became interested in the idea of boundaries and their reoccurrence throughout the book. Some of these boundaries in the book are: the line between Judaism and Islam, the...
View ArticleJudeo-Muslim Hybridism: A Tool for Moroccan Nationalism
“The Real Morocco Itself: Jewish Saint Pilgrimage, Hybridity, and the Idea of the Moroccan Nation” by Oren Kosansky addresses an issue as of yet untouched by the Saints and Demons...
View ArticleThe Hillula of Beersheba
While Alexi Weingrod titled his book The Saint of Beersheba, he spends much of the text describing, discussing, and analyzing hillula. The word hillula is Aramaic and specifically refers to a wedding...
View ArticleHillula
In this weeks reading, I was really interested in the discussion of ‘hillula,’ or pilgrimage. Prior to this reading I was aware that there were pilgrimages made to saint’s shrines in Judaism, but most...
View ArticleTensions Within the Hillula
Through our discussion of Weingrod’s ethnographic analysis of the hillula, certain aspects of tensions amongst participants are present. These tensions vary in many ways, consisting mainly of gender...
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