Part 3: Religious Dramaturgies

This session explores historical and present-day liminal dynamics of the Kol Nidre. The very nature of the Kol Nidre’s incongruencies and inner tensions will be examined within the Yom Kippur prayer between absence and presence, and between performance and loss. Contemporary practices provide examples of ethnographic and performative explorations of the liminal moment that not only connects the secular with the sacred, but also bridges between the congregants and their gender/sexual identity.

Presenters:
“Kol Nidre as Prologue: Performative Tensions”; Yair Lipshitz (Tel Aviv University)
“Queering the Sacred Performance: The Kol Nidre Prayer at Reform Jewish Congregation in Tel Aviv”; Elazar Ben-Lulu (Ariel University)
Laura Lieber (Duke University), Discussant

This event is made possible by the Lowell Milken Center for Music of American Jewish Experience at The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, and is part of the DYBBUK project at the University of Haifa, that has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant agreement No. 948150). It is co-sponsored by the UCLA Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies. Additional support is provided by The International Forum for Jewish Music Studies, Cantors Assembly, European Cantors Association, Jewish Music Forum and the UCLA Center for the Study of Religion.