From "Om" to "Shalom" Processes of Domestication in Jewish Approaches to Yoga Practice

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2016
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Swarthmore College. Dept. of Sociology & Anthropology
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Thesis (B.A.)
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en_US
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Full copyright to this work is retained by the student author. It may only be used for non-commercial, research, and educational purposes. All other uses are restricted.
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Abstract
This thesis examines Jewish approaches to yoga as projects of cultural and religious domestication.  My research centers on critical analysis of popular Jewish yoga literature and on interviews and participant observation in classes with 10 Jewish yoga teachers. These teachers either cater specifically to a Jewish clientele or pursue a syncretic form of yoga that facilitates Jewish spiritual experience.  I consider how such approaches vary along denominational lines, arguing that Orthodox teachers secularize their practice through processes of de-Hinduization, while more progressive, non-Orthodox teachers cross-ethnicize Jewish religious content into their classes.  Orthodox teachers value yoga as a physical technique for the promotion of health, fitness, and body positivity, while non-Orthodox teachers appreciate yoga as spiritual practice for embodying Jewish religiosity.  I argue that all of these methods generally preserve the physical form of yoga, while domestication occurs within the textual material that accompanies the technique.  Furthermore, I situate these projects of domestication within a larger historical trajectory of interaction, utilizing Weber’s concept of elective affinity to understand how the evolution of the relationship between Judaism and yoga in contemporary American society has made possible projects of confluence pursued by Jewish yoga teachers.
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