Aesthetics of Sorrow: The Wailing Culture of Yemenite Jewish Women

Index

433 Index NOTE: Italicized page numbers indicate figures. Aborampah, O. M., 400n8 About Mourning (Weizman and Kamm), 223 Abridged Code of Jewish Law, 276, 291, 304 absence, value of, 334–41 Abu-Lughod, L., 118, 133 acting, 187, 193–94, 394–96. See also performance and performances Adina (respondent), 77–78 aesthetic distance, 238–39 aesthetic element of wailers’ performance, 28–31, 104, 136, 148, 265–67, 379–80 age stratification, and wailing, 247–48 Akans of Ghana, wailing culture of, 94, 98–99, 190, 400n8, 407n11 Altshuler, David, 288 ambivalence, as feminine trait of wailers, 251 analytical presentation of wailing, value of, 133 appearance of wailers, appropriate, 175 Arabic language, 12, 282–84, 366 Arabs: participation of Jews in death events of, 199–201, 206–7; similarities in mourning practices of Yemenite Jews, 13–14; view of eulogizing and bewailing, 195–96; wailing by women in Israel, 17. See index / 434 also wailing in Arab’s homes Ashkenazi-ism, 15–16 audience: attention to emotional needs of, in wailing performance, 176, 178–80; importance in wailing, 167–68; as part of performance, 173; performer’s relationship with, 140–41; for solo-and-chorus form, 153; of solo wailers, 167–68; weeping of, as performed response, 210 authentic, the, 34–42 authenticity: commercialization of self and craving for, 387–88; consciousness of, by Jewish immigrants from Yemen, 350; cultural, limits of, 361; in gender, 364; as modern ideal, 370–71 authentic self, 349–50, 370 authority rituals, 245 autonomy, wailing as threat to individual’s sense of, 374–75 Avalad ‘Ali Bedoin tribe in Egypt, wailing culture, 17–18 Averill, J. R., 136 babies, visitations of dead for treatment of, 87–88 Balinese, 84–85 Bataille, George, 270 Bateson, G., 337 Bauman, Z., 373–74 Bedouin women, wailing by, 17 behavior of wailers, appropriate, 175 Benaya (respondent), 171–72 Ben-Gershom, 259 Benjamin (respondent), 329 bereavement manifestations, 340 Biara (respondent), 77 biblical sources on men’s and women’s laments, 287 Binyamin-Gamliel, Nissim, 56, 195–99, 202, 365, 401n3 biographical approach, in adjustment process, 232–33 biographies, collective construction of, 233–34 Book of Lamentations (Qinot), 288–89 Bowlby, J., 219 Briggs, C. L., 31, 134, 233–34, 256 Bukhara Jews, wailing culture of, 16 Burns, E., 187 burqas, in Saudi Arabia, 193 categories of discourse in lamentation texts. See lamentation texts, categories of discourse in catharsis, of a group, 239 catharsis theory, 224–25, 227 cathartic effect of weeping, 221–22, 225, 239 Caucasus, wailing culture, 16–17 cemeteries: gender segregation in, 291–96, 404n8; men’s chanting at, 312–13; wailing circles in, 142–43, 147 chain of tears, 148–52 index / 435 chains, tradition and snapping of, 11–20 childbirth, as act of creation and sacrifice, 161–63 choking, simulated, in wailing performance, 180, 190–91 circle metaphor, 323 circles, men’s, 321–24, 334–35 circles, women’s. See wailing circles coexistence thesis, 21 coffee drinking, in wailing circle, 144–45 collective crises, 238–39 collective weeping, and social healing, 239 commercialization of self, and craving for authenticity, 387–88 communitas, defined, 241 community, as structure of emotion, 23–24, 344–47 community, in Yemen vs. Israel, 53, 344–46 community burial societies, 86 compensation for wailing: accepted forms of, 171–73; appreciation and honoraria for Johara, 82–83; in Arabs’ homes, 197–99; contradictory information about, 51–52; emotional restraint, class, and, 54 consolers: affective-existential experience of, 214–15; expectations of, 20, 380–81; greeting and addressing, 121, 128–29; in wailing circle, 18 contradictions and mystery, in wailing, 50–55 cradle metaphor, 231–32, 360 crisis, response of collective to, 339 crisis consciousness, 320–21 crisis vs. transition, in women’s wailing, 314 cultural assimilation, among Yemenite Jews in Israel, 23 cultural authenticity, limits of, 361 cultural relativism, 349 Daniel (respondent), 385 David (respondent), 324–25 dead, the: dialogue about, 232–33; dialogue with, 218; Dream of the Ten Dead, 68–71; honoring, 177, 275–77, 304, 375; visitations of, for treatment of babies, 87–88; wailer’s address to, 130 death: as ambivalent form of woman’s reversion to child care, 90; connection with erotic acts, 270– 71; duality in mother’s encounter with, 253; information about circumstances and frequencies of, 345–47; and marriage as two sides of one coin, 75–78, 158–59; in modern societies, cultural coping with, 14; of...