This dissertation investigates enduring forms of Jewish “presence” in Tunisia, but a presence in the near-absence of Jewish communities. French colonialism, Zionism, and Arab nationalism led to the mid-twentieth century immigration of Tunisia's Jewish population to France and Israel-Palestine. Minor Differences examines the century-long de-nativization process by which the Jews of Tunisia went from being seen as Tunisian or Ottoman subjects, to a minority of “nonnative” outsiders. If the historical Jew indexes a past “Golden Age” in Tunisia, then the contemporary Jew is a subject of curiosity––and hostility through her association with the Israeli state.
Through the prism of Jewish absence, I examine social relations among the few Jews who stayed in Tunisia, as well as between Jews and Muslims. I draw on a wide array of historical and literary sources as well as two years of fieldwork in a variety of sites, some intuitive and some unexpected: a boxing gym, a Hebrew class, a photography studio, a cemetery, and a synagogue; all of which inform my research, three of which I explicitly discuss in this dissertation. In these cultural sites, my research revealed a phenomenon I call “minor differences”: a paradigmatic instance of this anthropological pattern is the common distinction made between two nearly identical dishes, the “Muslim” madfouna and the “Jewish” bkaila.
The “narcissism of minor differences” is a phrase used by Freud to describe an inclination toward aggression that facilitates cohesion between members of a family, or community. Provoked by Freud’s limited theorization of this peculiar form of narcissism, my research develops and applies it to understand the small ways people construct Otherness in everyday life—even, and perhaps especially, the Otherness of an absent cultural presence; and my fieldwork illustrates how it is through these “minor differences” that Jews and Muslims in Tunisia define themselves historically and contemporaneously. I show how minor differences are used to divide people and treated as proof of their essential cultural difference but also how these same “differences” can be used to foster connection, smooth out bumps in social relationships, and argue for broader solidarities. Ultimately, minor differences form the basis of major distinctions in inherited and ascribed forms of social belonging.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:columbia.edu/oai:academiccommons.columbia.edu:10.7916/97tv-4w80 |
| Date | January 2024 |
| Creators | Fitoussi, Margaux |
| Source Sets | Columbia University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Theses |
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