"Sacred in Your Midst": Sounding Israeli Identity Through the Performance of Jewish Liturgy in Jerusalem's Public Spaces

In this dissertation I explore common spaces and intersections of the sacred and secular in contemporary Jewish Jerusalem. Based on ethnographic fieldwork from 2015-2021, I argue that the characters of Israel and Judaism, and their relationship, are negotiated through the performance of liturgy in public spaces. Focusing particularly upon indices of race, gender, and nation, I illustrate the competing models, discourses, and ideals expressed by my interlocutors, and explore the historical and epistemological bases thereof. Tensions and conflicts, subtle and violent, are woven through the accounts, as actors deploy liturgy to assert an ideal sound of Jewish and Israeli public space, which comes to stand for a broader vision of Jerusalem, over and against conflicting attempts.