Neoconservative Jewish Identity Architecture (Beit Avi Chai)

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Right wing Jewish architecture looks like this. Beit Avi Chai  on King George St. is the Jerusalem headquarters of the Avi Chai Fund. It is endowed by Zalman C. Bernstein, the same neoconservative Wall Street guy who put up all the money for the Tikvah Fund and the Jewish Review of Books. The mission of the Avi Chai Fund is “committed to the perpetuation of the Jewish people, Judaism, and the centrality of the State of Israel to the Jewish People.” It’s a Jewish-Israel identity space, or identity machine. The programming looks pretty anodyne. The fund itself is supposed to “sunset” in 7 years, but I can only comment on the architecture, which sits heavy and fortress-like closed up from the street whose identity it wants to configure into its own image.

 

About zjb

Zachary Braiterman is Professor of Religion in the Department of Religion at Syracuse University. His specialization is modern Jewish thought and philosophical aesthetics. http://religion.syr.edu
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1 Response to Neoconservative Jewish Identity Architecture (Beit Avi Chai)

  1. Barbara says:

    Looks very much like a huge bunker; not surprising.

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