Hidden Light
Judaism and Mystical Experience in Israeli Cinema
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- USD 39.99
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- USD 39.99
Publisher Description
Contemporary Israeli cinema's engagement with Judaism as cultural identity and mystical tradition.
Over the past several decades, the prevailing attitude toward Judaism in Israeli society has undergone a meaningful shift; where the national ethos had once deemed Judaic traditions a vestige of an arcane past incompatible with the culture of a modern state, there is now greater acceptance of these traditions by a sizeable part of Israeli society. Author Dan Chyutin reveals this trend through a parallel shift toward acceptance and celebration of Judaic identity and lifestyle in modern Israeli cinema. Hidden Light explores the Judaic turn in contemporary Israeli filmmaking for what it can tell us about Israel's cultural landscape, as well as about the cinematic medium in general. Chyutin points to the ambivalence of films which incorporate Judaism into Israel's secular ethos; concurrently, he foregrounds the films' attempt to overcome this ambivalence through reference to and activation of experiences of transcendence and unity, made popular by New Age–inflected understandings of Jewish mystical thought. By virtue of this exploration, Judaic-themed Israeli cinema emerges as a crucial example of how film's particular form of "magic" may be exploited for the purpose of affecting mystical states in the audience.
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Film scholar Chyutin (coeditor, Casting a Giant Shadow) explores "Judaism's ascent in Israeli society through its reflection in cinema" in this ambitious yet frequently opaque outing. Among other subjects, Chyutin spotlights 1960s filmmakers who "harnessed the powers of nostalgia in order to make Judaism more palatable to the nation's dominant Ashkenazi-Zionist tastes"; two religious Zionist filmmaking schools that emerged in the 1990s, each "creating Judaic filmic texts for the general audience (including gentiles)"; and movies from the 2000s and 2010s that tackle such hot-button topics as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the role of women and queer people in the Orthodox world. Later, Chyutin examines how Israeli films negotiate themes of "New Age–inflected Jewish mysticism," focusing especially on Kabbalistic concepts and rituals. Despite some revealing moments—and intriguing links drawn between mysticism and cinema's unique capacity to suspend disbelief—much of Chyutin's in-depth analysis is dense and jargon-filled ("Though such unitive experiences are grounded in certain phenomenological-ontological realities, for Merleau-Ponty their realization is nevertheless contingent on a proper use of aesthetics"). Film scholars will find merit, though they'll have to wade through the weeds to do so. )
