Religion, ethnicity and conversion: Messianic Jews in the Southern Cone, the Brazilian and Argentine cases

• Grant number: 23/15583-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research
• Start date: May 03, 2024
• End date: January 28, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Anthropology
• Principal Investigator: Marta Francisca Topel
• Grantee: Marta Francisca Topel
• Host Investigator: Susana Brauner
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Universidad Nacional De Tres De Febrero, Argentina

Abstract

ABSTRACT: The aim of the proposed research is to carry out an ethnography in two Argentine messianic churches in order to establish a comparative exercise between Brazilian Messianic Judaism and Argentine Messianic Judaism. Throughout the fieldwork, emphasis will be placed on two dimensions: 1) the construction of the group's ethno-religious borders, and 2) the ways in which Messianic Jews incorporate and resignify rituals, material culture and Jewish values.This research is based on the assumption that the relationship between the Brazilian and Argentine religious fields is that of a center facing a periphery (FRIGERIO, 2013; LAMBORGHINI TORRECILLAS, E. L., 2017). This finding about neo-Pentecostal churches and Afro-Brazilian religions inevitably leads to the following question: what would be the importance of the center, that is, Brazil, in the process of establishing of Messianic Judaism in Argentina? We must not forget that messianic churches in particular and Judaizing groups in general have grown and strengthened significantly in the Brazilian context since the 1980s.The research on Messianic Jews based on the approaches explained throughout the project will expand the reflection on contemporary bricolage, hybridism and religious miscegenation. Last and not least, Messianic Judaism constitutes a convergence between two religions of Abrahamic origin, a phenomenon about which there is no research in southern countries.