Reimagining holidays in the cultures of declining Judaism (16th and 20th centuries)

The article compares the practices and meanings associated with two key holidays in the Jewish annual cycle – Passover and Yom Kippur – in the cultures of Iberian converted Jews, namely conversos or Marranos, and Soviet Jews. Its aim is to trace the process by which traditional rituals were reduced and/or distorted and orthodox meanings reinterpreted in both cultures, to identify the differences between them, and to explore their presumed causes related to the hegemonic discourse – either Catholicism or atheism. Despite the considerable temporal, geographical, and ideological distance between the Spanish Marranos and Soviet Jews, as well as their internal heterogeneity, the author nevertheless regards them as promising objects for comparison and unites them under the concept of a culture of diminishing forbidden Judaism. The bearers of this culture were neither convinced crypto-Jews, nor convinced apostates, nor voluntary assimilationists, but rather often doubtful and guilt-ridden witnesses to the rapid reduction of their tradition. The reduction, adaptation, and reactualization of Jewish norms and practices take place under conditions of cultural hegemony, coercion into an alien religion or ideology, and constant surveillance, and are understood as inventive tactics of micro-resistance (M. de Certeau).

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