The Community Building of Kiryat Baba Sali in Netivot

Abstract

Studies that have focused on the expanding phenomenon of the popular veneration of holy leaders in Israel in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, have indicated the various factors at its core: the unique ethnic tradition of believers, the underlying historical-political currents, and class struggles for dominance-hegemony at an international level. In this study, which centers on a distinct and popular site – Kiryat Baba Sali in Netivot – I will turn the spotlight on additional influence factors: 1. Urban political culture; 2. Spontaneous, bottom-up development of heritage communities; 3. Initiatives by higher-ups in the government and business world.

Results show that all actors in the abovementioned categories (most of whom born and grew up in a specific area in Morocco) share separate spatial cells and yet all work in synergy and orbit the same shared circle – the legacy of the Abuhatzeira family. Unlike the central theme of the studies that were held at that time, which attributed the veneration of holy leaders with underprivileged believers, in this case, the actors come from the top of the political, civil, and business worlds, whether national or local. Moreover, in contrast to traditional explanations that emphasized the power relations, status, ethnicity, and geographic and political marginality as the foundations of this phenomenon, this study will expose (through a biographicinterpretive examination) a different, more ‘human’, source of influence: values, collective memory, identity, sentiments, childhood experiences, reflexivity, tradition, family. The human factor caused internal combustion and brought about a mobilization that is very much voluntary-authentic, toward the renewal and restoration of the heritage.