Visions of identity: Pictures of rabbis in Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) private homes in Israel

Abstract

This article discusses the use of portraits and photographs of rabbis in the private sphere – the home – amongst the ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) scholar-society in Israel. It shows that the pictures of rabbis help to transform the home from a place that is essentially functional into a sphere that participates actively in the politics of Haredi identity. This politics plays a central role in contemporary Haredi society, both because of that society's internal diversification as a result of the relatively recent affiliation of new groups and because of the ongoing and charged interaction of parts of this society with its non-Haredi environment. The pictures of rabbis serve as visions of identity, in two senses: in their visibility, they are part of the cultural effort to signify social belonging and boundaries in a society that is boundary-challenged, both inwardly and outwardly; and in the sense of the vision that they reflect, the choice of portraits and the manner in which they are displayed connect their users to a religious, communal, and political vision that is identified with a particular rabbinical figure or set of figures.