Rachel Feldman is a PhD Student in the Anthropology Department at the University of California, Davis. Her research interests include messianic movements, urban anthropology, gender, and Jewish mysticism. Rachel will be presenting her current dissertation research on the Third Temple Movement in Jerusalem.
In recent years, the movement to rebuild the Third Jewish Temple, on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, has grown in numbers amongst Israel’s Orthodox Nationalist (dati-leumi) community.
They believe that the rebuilding of the Temple will usher in messianic times, Third Temple activists have begun preparing sacred Temple objects, architectural plans, and leading daily pilgrimages to the Mount.
Through ethnographic fieldwork with women activists for the temple, Rachel considers the ways in which religious women fashion themselves into agents of national and global redemption, who attempt to embody and live out mystical Jewish ideas of messianic femininity. In addition to presenting her work with women activists, she will address the political and theological implications of the Third Temple Movement more broadly and open this topic up for group discussion.
There will be food! This event is free and open to all who respect the aims of the group as a platform for critical discussion about Israeli society.
Location: Room 279, main building of SOAS
For further details, please go to:
https://www.facebook.com/events/911681982185894/
