Preserving the Boundaries of an Immigrants' Ethnic Tradition via a Ritual System

This article discusses the cultural syncretism created in the renewed wedding rituals of immigrants from Georgia in Israel. It uses this ritual in order to examine the manner in which their ethnic identity is repositioned and redefined in the absorbing society. The findings show that in the 1970s and 1980s, the immigrants usually married among themselves, and continued to uphold most of the traditional wedding ritual customs. However, changes in the geographic, economic and other life conditions, as well as the encounter of the younger generations with new cultural norms, led to the beginning of a process of syncretism. The process of syncretism became stronger in the wedding rituals of the immigrants from Georgia beginning in the 1990s, and comprises a solution by way of compromise in intergenerational and inter-ethnic conflict situations that are becoming more frequent in the Georgian community. This process expresses not only the choice of the young Georgian, but also a choice that takes the partner's different origin into account. The result is ritual variation, which illustrates the choices made by the immigrants and the multiple modern conformations. The personal freedom of the young Georgian generation to interpret and shape tradition and to weave it into its identity in the present indicates that these youths have internalized modernity.