Your Loved One Can’t Rest Near Mine: The Materiality of a Contemporary Immigrants’ Cemetery

Abstract

Contrary to the claim that the twenty-first century archaeological ontology, which centers on materiality, is non-historical, this article argues that materiality can be examined critically in order to uncover its political implications. My argument is based on my former and recent studies of the mortuary practices of a community of halakhically non-Jewish immigrants who arrived in Israel in the 1990s from the former FUS in result of the historical events, and continue to come to this day. My study involves a ‘deep description ‘of the materiality and its ontological perspectives, which provides a critical view point. Firstly, it reveals what is permissible and what is not in the funerary practices of the community in contrary to the Jewish-Israeli conventions. Secondly, the materiality unveils what is covered up by official history, namely the counter-policy of the religious orthodoxy to the idiosyncrasies of the community.