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Learning faith: Language socialization in a community of Hasidic Jews

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 March 2006

AYALA FADER
AYALA FADER
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology/Anthropology, Fordham University, 113 West 60th Street, Room 916E, New York, NY 10023, fader@fordham.edu
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Abstract

Despite a growing body of cross-cultural ethnographic research in religious enclave communities, we know little about the everyday discursive practices by which women caregivers socialize children to morally reject much of contemporary society. This article draws on ethnographic and linguistic research conducted in a Brooklyn (New York) neighborhood from 1995 through 1997 to discuss how Hasidic women caregivers rehearse a particular stance to faith with young children by examining socialization routines in which Hasidic children display culturally unacceptable ways of speaking: questioning, requesting or challenging authority figures. An unusual consistency of message across a range of socialization contexts supports caregivers' (mothers' and teachers') efforts to teach their children the morality of communal hierarchies of authority and difference. Hasidic women encourage their children to “fit in” to communal hierarchies of age, gender, and religious practice and to reject what they present as “Gentile” ways of behaving and communicating. When children make certain requests, ask culturally unacceptable questions, or challenge caregiver authority, caregivers invoke the moral authority of community practices and social roles. Through appeals to a higher authority, essentializing difference and morality, silence, shaming, or threat of exclusion, Hasidic children are presented with a type of faith which parallels communal authority with divine authority. An approach to religious enclave communities that is framed by the language socialization research paradigm can link everyday micro processes of talk with broader global processes shaping contemporary religious movements.Thanks go to Bambi Schieffelin, Peter Schneider, Samuel C. Heilman, Adam Idelson, Patrick Moynihan, Lotti Silber, Faye Ginsberg, Barbara Kirschenblatt-Gimblett, and Jim Wilson for their time, insights, and support (technical and otherwise). This article grew out of a shorter version I presented at an invited session Paul Garrett and I organized for the American Anthropological Association 1997 meetings, at which Elinor Ochs was a valuable discussant. I presented a more recent version at the Michigan Seminar on Social Identity (2003) thanks to Bambi Schieffelin's invitation. The broader research on which this article is based was funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, National Science Foundation, Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, Spencer Foundation, Lucius Littauer Foundation, and National Foundation for Jewish Culture. I am very grateful for the support. Thanks to the teachers, students, and administrators at the Hasidic girls' school, Bnos Yisroel, and the women who invited me into their homes. Special thanks to the first-grade teacher, Mrs. Weiss, whose graciousness makes her a role model for Jews, Gentiles, and everyone else.

Keywords

Hasidic Jewsgenderlanguage socializationmoral discoursereligious enclave communitiesboundary maintenance
Type
Research Article
Information
Language in Society , Volume 35 , Issue 2 , April 2006 , pp. 205 - 229
Copyright
© 2006 Cambridge University Press

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