1 Jewish Peoplehood: Hard, Soft, and Interactive Markers

The study of Jewish peoplehood needs to be undertaken in the light of appropriate investigative instruments, that unfortunately still seem to be largely lacking conceptually or underdeveloped empirically. Several markers of determinants and consequences of changes affecting Jewish peoplehood should be monitored simultaneously. A first distinction is between processes that unfold as a consequence of (a) factors operating inside the Jewish collective, independently and differently in different places, and whose balance contributes to reshaping whole global Jewish configuration; (b) factors operating outside the Jewish collective, globally and locally, whose balance independently influences the whole global Jewish collective; and (c) active interactions between parts of Jewish collective located in different places, global change resulting from changing relations of dominance/dependency between different local components. A second distinction is between social-structural/materialistic markers, and normative/ideational markers. This chapter analyzes some of the issues outlined above, based on a variety of findings from recent research. Keywords: Jewish collective; Jewish configuration; Jewish peoplehood; normative/ideational markers; social-structural/materialistic markers