Abstract
This article adopts the paradigm that claims the non-disappearance of the ritual and ritual changes in modern and postmodern society. A wedding is an event in which a group of people speaks to itself and about itself. Images of the social structure and cultural content, of couplehood, family and personal and group identity surface through this cultural act. Weddings and their customs thus comprise a window through which the social values of a group can be observed, be it a modern or a traditional society. The anthropological study of the prenuptial rituals of immigrants from Georgia to Israel, and my experience with the ethnic pride of the celebrators, most of them young, lead me to conclude that these rituals serve as collective ethnic definitional ceremonies for them, where crossing between ethnicity, culture and identity takes place. The new ritual tradition in Israel fulfills an important role in the identity of the youths of this community and in the solidarity of the Georgian family and community. Tradition was processed anew and interpreted through the renewed ritual patterns, and became intertwined with modernity. A process of syncretism was thus created.
Highlights
This article will examine the place and significance of prenuptial rituals of immigrants from Georgia in Israel as an ethnic definitional ceremony
In order to investigate the function that the prenuptial rituals fulfill as definitional ceremonies for the immigrants from Georgia in Israel, I will examine the extent to which forms and contents of their ritual ethnic activity become Israeli, the significance which the immigrants afford to their rituals and how they serve for presenting themselves as an ethnic group, and not as a collection of people who have some common Georgian background
A wedding is an event in which a group of people speaks to itself and about itself, and through this cultural performance images of the social structure and cultural content, of couplehood, familiarity and personal and group identity are raised to the surface
Summary
This article will examine the place and significance of prenuptial rituals of immigrants from Georgia in Israel as an ethnic definitional ceremony. The fact that the construction of state rituals as well as the invention of personal ritual has become common in today’s society has evoked the need among scholars to create an alternative set of concepts that will help analyze the phenomenon and the coping with this new reality Their basic assumption is that many rituals, which are not less important than in the traditional society, exist in industrial, modern and postmodern society. Moore and Myerhoff (1977) crystallized the concept of a secular ritual within the framework of such thinking They claim that rituals do not disappear in modern society which is characterized by processes of change and instability. Bocock (1974), Bell (1997), Cheal (1988) and others claim that the ritual continues to play an important role in modern societies and that this is a new type of ritualism In her anthropological work on secular rituals, Myerhoff The rituals position young immigrants in the ethnic context which is accepted within the framework of the current absorbing society
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