Ritual and Ethnic Identity: A Comparative Study of the Social Meaning of Liturgical Ritual in Synagogues (review)

Book Reviews 167 who attempted to be a successful parvenu but who remained an outsider in German I culture, as Jews have done to the present day. Not only does Pilling discuss tho~oughly the historical investigations, but also the political activism which characterized!Arendt's life during and after World War II. She elucidates Arendt's ambivalent, but finally negative view of Zionism and clarifies the steps which the philosopher tried to take to help the cause of Jews in Israel during the country's early days. She makes clear I the reasons why Arendt consciously relinquished any role in influencing political events, but also shows that she was interested in and supportive of Jews throughout her cateer. I Although both books are excellent for the audience each author intends, Iris I Pilling's conscientious and scholarly look at one central aspect of the life and thought ofHannah Arendt is the one which mbst fulfills the promise of its title-to look at the thought and action of a Jewish womari philosopher. I I Erlis Glass Division of Modern Foreign Cultures and Literature Rosemont College Ritual and Ethnic Identity: A CJmparative Study of the Social Meaning of Liturgical RItual in Synagogues, edited by Jack N. Lightstone and Frederick B. Bird. I Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1995. 224 pp. $34.95. This is a collection ofempirical studi~s of several Jewish congregations in contemporary Canada. As the book's subtitle suggests, its emphasis is on the social meaning of synagogue ritual. Contributors to this book use a perspective grounded most directly on I the work of Emile Durkheim and M~ry Douglas, for whom ritual reveals important dimensions of a group's identity and social reality-or "social map," to use the I nomenclature employed in this work:. The book is divided into three parts: Part I is theoretical, Part 2 consists of case st4dies of synagogue ritual, and Part 3 examines rituals that connect the family with the religious community. Part I lays the groundwork as far as method and theory are concerned, with one chapter devoted to a broad discussioniof contemporary Canadian Jewish identity. The I Introduction by Jack Lightstone most directly links aspects of ritual symbolism to congregants' social maps. Such linKs are not as fully established in some of the empirical case studies ofPart 2. Frederick Bird writes a rich and evocative theoretical chapter on ritual, a,.guing that ritual is principally a form of communicative action, serving multiple functions, among them self-representation, expressivity, and the 168 SHOFAR Spring 1998 Vol. 16, No.3 teaching of beliefs and moral codes. The case studies that follow would have been deepened by a more direct application of Bird's analytic categories. The case studies of Part 2 are based on qualitative field research conducted by contributors, consisting largely of participant observation during Sabbath services and interviews with clergy and members at five different congregations: Reconstructionist, Reform, traditional Conservative, Sephardi (modem Orthodox), and an independent Orthodox shtibl. The chapters in this section are rich in description, allowing the reader to enter the ritual experience of each synagogue; on the other hand, the very richness of detail might seem tedious to the reader unfamiliar with the ins and outs of Jewish liturgy. Madeleine Mcbrearty's study of a Sephardi congregation is especially interesting in its description and analysis of complex ethnic identities expressed in the synagogue's ritual life. In regard to the book's comparative aims, the authors' efforts almost inevitably mean situating the congregational ritual under consideration in relationship to rabbinic Judaism, and hence, to Orthodoxy. There is not much discussion of how non-Orthodox congregations compare with one another. Part 3 consists ofthree chapters dealing with other types ofritual. A large suburban Orthodox congregation was the site for two additional case studies by Simcha Fishbane: one on bar mitzvah rituals and one on Jewish mourning rites. In both chapters Fishbane argues that ritual serves the group's collective needs, a case especially well made in reference to mourning rituals. The book's last chapter, by Frederick Bird, is a study of Jewish and Christian family rituals, many of which are private family creations, some...