[Linganth] Fwd: CaMP author interview

[Ilana Gershon]

  Dear Colleagues,
Yoram Bilu talks about his new book, With Us More Than Ever: Making the 
Absent Rebbe Present in Messianic Chabad,  with Yael Assor on CaMP 
anthropology today.

https://campanthropology.org <https://campanthropology.org>


Best,
Ilana

Press blurb:

Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson was the charismatic leader of the 
Chabad Hasidic movement and its designated Messiah. Yet when he died in 
1994, the messianic fervor he inspired did not subside. Through 
traditional means and digital technologies, a group of radical Hasidim, 
the Meshichistim, still keep the Rebbe palpably close—engaging in 
ongoing dialogue, participating in specific rituals, and developing an 
ever-expanding visual culture of portraits and videos. With Us More Than 
Ever focuses on this group to explore how religious practice can sustain 
the belief that a messianic figure is both present and accessible.

Yoram Bilu documents a unique religious experience that is distinctly 
modern. The rallying point of the Meshichistim—that the Rebbe is "with 
us more than ever"—is sustained through an elaborate system that creates 
the sense of his constant and pervasive presence in the lives of his 
followers. The virtual Rebbe that emerges is multiple, visible, 
accessible, and highly decentralized, the epicenter of a truly messianic 
movement in the twenty-first century. Combining ethnographic fieldwork 
and cognitive science with nuanced analysis, Bilu documents the birth 
and development of a new religious faith, describing the emergence of 
new spiritual horizons, a process common to various religious movements 
old and new.

-- 
published articles and books can be found at:
https://indiana.academia.edu/IlanaGershon

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