“Age of Innocence: The Symbolic Child and Political Conflict on American Holy Land Pilgrimage,” Religion and Society: Advances in Research (5) 2014: 157–172.
The link between U.S. evangelicalism, Christian and Jewish Zionism and Middle East policy is well documented, as is its refraction through American Christian tourism/pilgrimage in Israel-Palestine. At the grassroots, however, the focus on political Zionism oversimplifies how American Christian pilgrims, mostly older women, actually construe “religion” and “politics”: they see contemporary politics as unrelated, and even antithetical, to the trip’s spiritual goals. As a result, they draw on broadly moral-cultural tropes in order to “tranquilize” political discussions, while still speaking in a moral register about Israelis and Palestinians. I focus on how one especially powerful trope – the “symbolic child” – is viewed as the embodiment of innocence, a sign of hope and progress, and brutalized victimhood. Tracing this image historically and ethnographically, I show how pilgrims ground their reactions to Israeli-Palestinian conflict in symbolism with deep resonance for American women, which speaks also to how they engage politics at home.
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The link between U.S. evangelicalism, Christian and Jewish Zionism and Middle East policy is well documented, as is its refraction through American Christian tourism/pilgrimage in Israel-Palestine. At the grassroots, however, the focus on political Zionism oversimplifies how American Christian pilgrims, mostly older women, actually construe “religion” and “politics”: they see contemporary politics as unrelated, and even antithetical, to the trip’s spiritual goals. As a result, they draw on broadly moral-cultural tropes in order to “tranquilize” political discussions, while still speaking in a moral register about Israelis and Palestinians. I focus on how one especially powerful trope – the “symbolic child” – is viewed as the embodiment of innocence, a sign of hope and progress, and brutalized victimhood. Tracing this image historically and ethnographically, I show how pilgrims ground their reactions to Israeli-Palestinian conflict in symbolism with deep resonance for American women, which speaks also to how they engage politics at home.
back