In this lecture, Professor Stav Shufan-Biton examines how Israeli Jews living outside Israel experience holy time, focusing on Shabbat, Jewish holidays, and local religious and civil holidays such as Halloween and Christmas. Drawing on ongoing ethnographic research based on interviews and observations conducted within Israeli Jewish communities in Cambridge and London, the findings show that cultural distance and a sense of temporariness enable the selective adoption of Jewish mitzvot alongside openness to local ritual practices.
Interviewees with flexible religious identities, particularly those identifying as secular or traditional, actively choose rituals they perceive as enjoyable and meaningful. These include Jewish practices such as Hanukkah, Purim, or partial Sukkot decorations, as well as local practices such as trick-or-treating on Halloween, Christmas decorations, singing carols learned at school or kindergarten, and exchanging gifts. At the same time, some halakhic practices that were part of everyday life in Israel, including the weekly Friday night Kiddush, fasting or reduced activity on Yom Kippur, and partial observance of Passover, tend to be less consistently maintained in the new context.
Building on Ammerman’s framework of lived religion, the analysis highlights how enjoyment, curiosity, and a sense of magic, alongside child centered and family-oriented logics, shape ritual participation and contribute to a reconfiguration of ethnic and religious boundaries in everyday life.
