Category Archives: Professor Gideon Aran

Professor Gideon Aran

New Book: The Smile of the Human Bomb (Prof. Gideon Aran)

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In 2017, nearly six thousand people were killed in suicide attacks across the world.

In The Smile of the Human Bomb, Gideon Aran dissects the moral logic of the suicide terrorism that led to those deaths. The book is a firsthand examination of the bomb site at the moment of the explosion, during the first few minutes after the explosion, and in the last moments before the explosion. Aran uncovers the suicide bomber’s final preparations before embarking on the suicide mission: the border crossing, the journey toward the designated target, penetration into the site, and the behavior of both sides within it. The book sheds light on the truth of the human bomb.

Aran’s gritty and often disturbing account is built on a foundation of participant observation with squads of pious Jewish volunteers who gather the scorched fragments of the dead after terrorist attacks; newly revealed documents, including interrogation protocols; interviews with Palestinian armed resistance members and retired Israeli counterterrorism agents; observations of failed suicide terrorists in jail; and conversations with the acquaintances of human bombs.

The Smile of the Human Bomb provides new insights on the Middle East conflict, political violence, radicalism, victimhood, ritual, and death and unveils a suicide terrorism scene far different from what is conventionally pictured. In the end, Aran discovers, the suicide terrorist is an unremarkable figure, and the circumstances of his or her recruitment and operation are prosaic and often accidental. The smiling human bomb is neither larger than life nor a monster, but an actor on a human scale. And suicide terrorism is a drama in which clichés and chance events play their role.

Reviews:

Review

“By departing from the traditional political, military, economic, and theological analyses of terrorism, Aran presents an intriguing and novel view of the issue.”

(Publishers Weekly)

“A conceptually innovative examination of suicide terrorism…. One of the book’s unique contributions is its analysis of suicide terrorism from an anthropological-sociological perspective, based on the author’s extensive field research in Israel and the West Bank…. An important contribution to the literature on suicide bombing attacks.”

(Perspectives on Terrorism)

“This is a terrific book: fascinating, smart, and enlightening. Aran makes an important contribution to the field, and this is one of the best studies of the phenomenon of suicide terrorism and even of terrorism broadly conceived.”

(Barak Mendelsohn, author of The al-Qaeda Franchise: The Expansion of al-Qaeda and Its Consequences)

“This is a remarkable exploration of the meaning of suicide terrorism. It is an intellectual journey through personal accounts of victims and inside views of the Zaka movement of Orthodox Jews who locate bits of flesh remaining after suicide attacks.

This is a thoughtful, sensitively written tour de force by one of Israel’s leading anthropologists, and the scope of his book is wide-ranging, touching on themes that are relevant to the many forms of religious extremism around the world.”

(Mark Juergensmeyer, author of Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence)

 
Judaism, Original Articles, Professor Gideon Aran

Gideon Aran: Research on Religious Variation

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The psychology of religion has been dominated by issues of measurement. Not only have psychologists of religion long recognized the importance of good measurement and have placed a high pioity on it.

Written By Prof. Gideon Aran

But in the 1980s a leading specialist in the field pronounced measurement to be the current hegemonic paradigm, that is, the foremost perspective or concern of psychologists of religion (Gorsuch 1984). Continue reading Gideon Aran: Research on Religious Variation →

 
Judaism, Original Articles, Professor Gideon Aran

What Is The Meaning Of “More” Or “Less” Religious?

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What is the meaning of “more” or “less” religious, or “very” religious? Is religiosity indeed a variable which may assume various quantifiable values and be compared to values of other religiosities, with the possibility of competition between them?

Written By Prof. Gideon Aran

Is it possible that in addition to horizontal differentiation between types of religiosity according to various criteria (e.g. church – sect), there also exists vertical differentiation based on degree? And what happens when within one social group alternative scales of religiosity evolve? What is the purpose of or motive for distinguishing between superior and inferior levels of religiosity? Continue reading What Is The Meaning Of “More” Or “Less” Religious? →

 
Judaism, Original Articles, Professor Gideon Aran

Levels of Religiosity In The Ultra-Orthodox World

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There is explicit discourse in the Ultra-Orthodox world regarding levels of religiosity (madregot), including informal distinctions between high, low, and intermediate degrees (benoniyyim). One’s level of religiosity is regarded throughout the Ultra-Orthodox community as intertwined with one’s professional-scholarly career.

Written By Prof. Gideon Aran 

Those who excel at studying Jewish texts and take on Torah study as Continue reading Levels of Religiosity In The Ultra-Orthodox World →

 
Judaism, Original Articles, Professor Gideon Aran

kashrut Certification and Ritual Slaughter

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Ultra-Orthodox culture embraces elaborate, high-resolution scales of religiosity. A prominent example is the hierarchy among those institutions which issue kashrut certification, particularly when it comes to the certification of ritual slaughter.

Written By Professor Gideon Aran 

First, there exists a fundamental distinction between “regular” Continue reading kashrut Certification and Ritual Slaughter →

 
Fundamentalism, Jewish Ultra-Orthodox, Original Articles, Professor Gideon Aran

Ultra Orthodoxy – high degree religiosity

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Adherents to this extreme group, many of its religious opponents, and, curiously enough, secular Jews as well, see in Ultra-Orthodoxy the embodiment of “high-degree religiosity,” or, “religiosity par excellence.”

Written By Gideon Aran 

The notion of being more religious, or very religious, in the eyes of the Ultra-Orthodox as well as among others, gives the former a unique and authoritative standing.

Most Orthodox Jews–of all types–accept this perception, thereby relegating themselves to a lesser religiosity, a somewhat apologetic view of their own level of observance alongside awe for that of their more religious counterparts, one that relates to the religiosity of the latter as a point of reference for which they yearn and according to which they conduct themselves.

Though criticism of the Ultra-Orthodox on a wide range of issues is not uncommon, their supremacy in the religious realm is indisputable and the admiration they receive from other Jews is undeniable. Even those labeled Modern Jews whose lives are guided by “enlightened” values are ambivalent in their feelings toward the Ultra-Orthodox.

When Modern (neo) Orthodox Jews in Israel, especially those who are regarded as maintaining a “feeble” religiosity, wish to embark on a path toward greater religious observance, they essentially are on a journey to becoming Ultra-Orthodox. This phenomenon is known as hitchazkut (strengthening).

Taken from “On Religiosity and Super-Religiosity: Measures of Radical Religion”, By Prof. Gideon Aran

 
Fundamentalism, Jewish Ultra-Orthodox, Original Articles, Professor Gideon Aran

Gideon Aran : Degrees of Religiosity

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It is said that some people are religious, some are very religious, and some even more so.  This might sound ridiculous, strange or outrageous to many. Not so for various religious groups, including Orthodox, and particularly Ultra-Orthodox Jews.

Written By Gideon Aran 

The Ultra-Orthodox community of Jews in Israel is regarded as representing anything from paragon to radical religiosity. This stands in contradistinction to standard religiosity, which conventional wisdom hold is moderate and civilized, related to the establishment, and mainstream.

 

While a large proportion of Israeli Orthodox is in fact located in the range of “normal” religiosity, only a minority among them are truly emancipated from a charged position towards the Ultra-Orthodox (and the secular). According to idiomatic diagnosis, local Jews are either chazir trefe or meshuge frum.

Translated from Yiddish, they are either abhorred piggish filth eaters (as far as you can go in the violation of kashrut), or, in contrast, crazy punctilious ritualizers. Some mainstream religious Israelis are frustrated by the polar alternatives conceived as abomination and madness. A genuine solid conception of ideal religiosity as a matter of middle way is much less prevalent than could be expected.

Taken from “On Religiosity and Super-Religiosity: Measures of Radical Religion”, By Prof. Gideon Aran