ANDREW BUCKSER
Purdue University
Religious practice and cultural politics in
Jewish Copenhagen
A B S T R A C T
The small Jewish community of Copenhagen is one
of the most liberal and assimilated in Europe. In
its liturgy, its leadership, and its ritual practice,
however, it maintains strictly orthodox forms. In
this article, I examine how this orthodox domi-
nance has persisted, despite the often vigorously
expressed dissatisfaction of the liberal majority. I
argue that the confluence of Jewish religious forms
with the cultural setting of contemporary Denmark
tends to confer control over ritual practice on the
orthodox. The interaction of Jewish institutional
structures with Danish social patterns leads to or-
thodox social control, whereas the interaction of
Jewish religious ideas with the Danish cultural set-
ting promotes cultural control. These outcomes
have implications for social scientific approaches
to contemporary conservative religious movements,
which have often been characterized primarily as
forms of opposition to modern social change. The
political dynamics of such movements are not sim-
ple reflections of a broad opposition between tradi-
tion and modernity; they emerge out of the intri-
cate and often unpredictable interplay of religious
structures with the social and cultural worlds
within which those structures are embedded.
[cultural politics, Denmark, Jews, liberalism, religion]
he Great Synagogue of Copenhagen stands on a narrow side street
T
in the heart of the city, a massive block of yellow brick crouched be-
hind a forbidding iron fence. The street bridges two arteries of the
pedestrian shopping district, a maze of upscale offices, restaurants,
and Denmark's most expensive boutiques. Across the way stands a
modern public library, its gleaming glass doors leading to dramatic interior
escalators. The area is crowded, especially on Saturdays, when it overflows
with tourists, shoppers, and students, all reveling in the bustle of one of
Europe's most affluent and self-consciously modern capitals. Inside the
synagogue, however, a very different atmosphere prevails. Men draped with
prayer shawls, their heads covered, stand in narrow rows of pews, bent over
battered Hebrew liturgies. At the central platform, or bimah, a cantor
dressed in black robes sings Hebrew prayers for hours from a magnificent
hand-lettered scroll. Ornate, gilded columns rise to the balcony, where the
women look down in silence on the service. The whole structure of the ritual
embodies a deliberate traditionalism, a turning away from the trends and
styles of the streets outside, an island of the old in a sea of the new.
The contrast between the synagogue and the world around it evokes a
romantic image, that of a devout community of traditionalists holding tightly
together against the tempests of the modern world. In this case, however,
such an image is wildly inaccurateby and large, Jews in Copenhagen are
neither devout, united, nor particularly traditionalist.1 The majority hold
very liberal attitudes toward both religious doctrine and ritual practice; few
keep kosher, few observe the Sabbath strictly, and a large majority marry
outside of the faith. Even among those standing in the synagogue, only a mi-
nority understand more than a smattering of the sonorous Hebrew prayers.
And yet the orthodox orientation of the community persists. Nor is this situ-
ation unique. Although the thrust of religious change in 20th-century West-
ern Europe has been secularization, outposts of conservative religiosity re-
main. Sometimes these outposts take the form of traditionalist cultural
enclaves, as groups like Hasidic Jews or fundamentalist Muslims strive to
maintain distinctive customs and identities (Eisenberg 1996; Nonneman et
al. 1996; Peach and Glebe 1995). Some of them endure, however, even in the
heart of modernity, in places where secularism and liberalism are the dominant
trends (Breuer 1992; Ray 1999; Webber 1994). Their strength and, indeed,
American Ethnologist 30(l):102-l 17. Copyright 2003, American Anthropological Association.
 Religious practice and cultural politics American Ethnologist
their very existence pose a challenge to social scientific un-
derstandings of the relationship between religion and con-
temporary social change.
For much of social science, the key to understanding
that relationship has lain in the discourse of modernization.
To many scholars, particularly before the 1980s, the secu-
larization of Western Europe exemplified the ability of mod-
ern states and social systems to undercut the traditional, pa-
rochial foundations of premodem society (Bruce and Wallis
1992; Swatos and Christiano 1999; Wilson 1985). As the old,
established churches became liberalized and depopulated,
they seemed to embody the weakness of traditional world-
views in the face of bureaucratization, globalization, and ad-
vanced capitalism. The resurgence of religiosity throughout
the West in the late 20th century called these analyses into
some doubt (Hadden 1987; Swatos and Christiano 1999)
and suggested that the inevitable triumph of modernity over
tradition had been overstated, that modernity might even
give a new appeal and vitality to older forms of belief and
authority. In the chaos and confusion of modern society, for
example, fundamentalism could prosper as a refuge for
those opposed to or overwhelmed by the emerging order
(e.g., Giddens 1991:202-208; Luckmann 1999:256). It could
also provide a means of resistance for communities strug-
gling against the disintegrative forces of the modern nation-
state (e.g., Peach and Glebe 1995:40^44). Such a view offered
an explanation for the persistence of religious orthodoxies
in the West, particularly among ethnic and immigrant mi-
norities. At the same time, however, this view remained
largely within the established framework for conceptualiz-
ing conservative religion, casting it as an opponent to mod-
ernizing forces like state power and globalization (Hunt-
ington 1993; Prodromou 1996). Such dichotomies have
difficulty encompassing places like the Great Synagogue,
where traditionalist practice exists among groups neither
isolated from nor opposed to the world of late modernity.
In Copenhagen, a close look at Jewish community poli-
tics suggests a different explanation. This community is
characterized by a sharp opposition between orthodox and
liberal factions, with liberals holding a large majority of the
members. The intersection of traditional Jewish religious
practice with the cultural world of postwar Denmark, how-
ever, produces a distinctive set of political dynamics that
tend to favor the orthodox. On one hand, the articulation of
Jewish congregational organization with external institu-
tions and social structures gives resources for social control
to the orthodox. On the other hand, the meanings that Jew-
ish religious symbols and categories take on in the context
of Danish culture produce what Laura Nader (1997) refers to
as cultural control. Together, these patterns allow the ortho-
dox both to forestall changes in the community's ritual
practice and to inhibit the development of alternative liberal
congregations. Political control by the orthodox does not re-
flect a general rejection of modernity by Danish Jews but,
rather, the relationship of a particular set of institutional
and doctrinal structures to the cultural world within which
they exist.
In this article, I discuss how these dynamics work, and I
suggest some implications for anthropological under-
standings of modernity, power, and religion. Religious
groups' ideas about identity and authority, as well as the de-
tails of their ritual practice and the structure of their congre-
gational institutions, must articulate with structures involv-
ing the state, the international community, and the cultural
categories of the larger society. This interaction creates sites
for political control that favor particular actors or view-
points. Understanding patterns of practice within modern
religious groups, therefore, requires attention not only to
general trends like secularization and globalization, but also
to the complex world of micropolitics and meanings that
practice involves.
The Jews of Copenhagen: Background
Jews have lived in Denmark since the early 1600s, when
Sephardic merchants from the Netherlands first received
permission to settle in the country.' They established an of-
ficial presence in 1684, with the formation of the Jewish
community, and they received religious freedom and civil
rights in a royal proclamation of 1814. Since the mid-19th
century, most of them have lived in Copenhagen and main-
tained an affiliation with a single administrative body. Over
the past two centuries, they have become the most estab-
lished and accepted minority group in the largely homoge-
neous culture of Denmark.3 Jews hold prominent positions
in politics, journalism, industry, and the arts, and Jewish
rabbis have taken active part in national debates on ethics
and human rights. Anti-Semitism has never had a strong
foothold in Denmark, and in the 20th century its stronger
forms have been all but absent. lews became a national
cause during World War II, when their protection was em-
blematic of resistance to the Nazi occupation; their dra-
matic rescue from German roundups in 1943 has figured
strongly in the postwar self-image of the nation.4 For their
part, Jews have embraced the national culture, integrating
deeply into Danish social and occupational networks. Most
of the seven thousand or so Jews in Copenhagen today are
indistinguishable from other Danes in their speech, dress,
educational patterns, and work lives. There are no Jewish
neighborhoods in Copenhagen, and more than three in four
young Jews marry outside the faith. Although conscious of a
Jewish identity, most Danish lews also identify strongly as
Danes, and a visitor to Copenhagen sees few signs of a dis-
tinctive Jewish presence.
That presence does exist, though, and in fact Danish
Jews comprise one of the most active religious and ethnic
groups in Scandinavia.' Jewish institutions include an im-
pressive synagogue in the heart of the city, a school, two
103
American Ethnologist Volume 30 Number 1 February 2003
nursing homes, three day care centers, two cemeteries, two
kosher delicatessens, a cafe, and a large administration
building near Christiansborg Palace. Jews also sponsor a
number of voluntary associations, including literary socie-
ties, artisans' groups, athletic clubs, burial societies, and
several Zionist organizations. Most of these institutions and
activities fall under the administrative control of the Office
of the Jewish Community, or Det Mosaiske Troessamfund
(often abbreviated MT). The MT is one of a number of offi-
cially recognized independent religious entities in Den-
mark, the only one that represents Jews to the state Ministry
of Religion. Jews need not belong to the MT, and perhaps
half of the self-described Jews in the country do not, but the
institution stands at the center of Jewish life in Denmark. Al-
most all Jewish activities have some connection with it, and
the controversies within it define the debate over Jewish life
in Copenhagen. The MT describes itself as a "unity congre-
gation" (enhedsmenighed), one that encompasses both con-
servative and liberal versions of the faith and welcomes all
Jews within its embrace. It is the official representative of
Danish Judaism to Israel and the rest of the world, and its
rabbi is the only officially recognized Jewish cleric in Denmark.
As with many Jewish communities, this unified admini-
stration does not imply any sense of harmony among its
constituents. Fragmentation and conflict have charac-
terized the group since its inception, and disputes between
factions and viewpoints remain a constant feature of com-
munity life. Some of this factionalism derives from the his-
tory of Jewish immigration into Denmark. A large influx of
German Jewish merchants in the 1790s, for example, cre-
ated a core of affluent, educated Jews who dominated the
MT in the 19th century. A very different group arrived in the
early 20th century, when Denmark admitted several thou-
sand Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe. These new arri-
valsmainly poor Yiddish-speaking garment workers
clashed with the established "Viking Jews" on a variety of
political and doctrinal matters, creating bitter splits within
the congregation.6 Similar conflicts accompanied the arrival
of war refugees in 1946, Polish refugees in 1969, and Israeli
expatriates in the 1990s. Other divisions in the congregation
trace their origins back to family disputes, political disagree-
ments, conflicts over Israel, and the administration of com-
munity institutions. In many cases, they involve basic dis-
agreements over the nature of Jewish identity and the
meaning of Jewish ritual practice. Copenhagen Jews make
no secret of this factionalism, and they air their disagree-
ments forcefully at congregation meetings and in commu-
nity publications (e.g., Conn 1996; Goldstein 1996; Krag 1998).
Despite all this disunity, Jews in Copenhagen tend to
see themselves as a group, a distinct and identifiable minor-
ity within the larger Danish culture.7 Those 1 interviewed
varied considerably in the way they conceived of Judaism
and interacted with the MT, but all of them drew a clear line
between Jews and other Danes. Most of them described
104
Jewishness in primordial terms (Geertz 1973:259), as some-
thing inscribed in their bodies and blood as well as in their
cultural practice. All of my informants said unequivocally
that they could spot another Jew in a crowd of non-Jewish
Danes in a matter of seconds. Even Jews with whom they
disagreed, they said, looked, talked, and experienced the
world in a distinctively Jewish way. Copenhagen Jews do not
understand their factionalism as evidence of ethnic fission
but, rather, as a feature of the Jewish condition, evidence of
a basically contentious group character. Their fights may
produce serious strains and divisions, but they also demon-
strate the common identity of the participants.
Orthodoxy and liberalism in the Mosaiske
Troessamfund
One of the most enduring disputes within the MT concerns
the proper style of religious observance. Jewish religious
practice rests on a body of texts, many of which describe rit-
ual observances said to have been mandated to the Jews by
God (see Klein 1979). These prescriptions are complex, spe-
cific, and extremely wide-ranging. They encompass ways of
conducting worship, doing business, regulating marriage,
preparing food, and conducting a wide variety of other ritual
and social activities. Together they comprise a comprehen-
sive body of law, known as halakha, and the largest part of
Jewish religious debate for the past two millennia has re-
volved around the elaboration and interpretation of this law
(Blidstein 1987; Novak 1987). This debate has taken a dis-
tinctive form in Western Europe, where emancipation in the
19th century brought Jews into close contact with non-Jew-
ish populations from which they had long been socially iso-
lated (see Goldscheider and Zuckerman 1984; Katz 1973). As
they integrated into new legal and social structures, Jews en-
countered new sets of cultural expectations, many of which
clashed with the commandments of halakha. How were
these two cultural worlds to be reconciled? This question re-
mains essentially irresolvable to the present for Jews
throughout the West; it has a special urgency in places like
Denmark, where the engagement of Jews with the larger
culture is especially close.
Responses to this question over the past two centuries
have taken three main institutional paths (Blau 1966). One
calls for a radical reformulation of Jewish law, revising ritual
styles and cultural practices to accord with those of the
larger culture. Congregations following this approach,
known as Reform Judaism, have taken such steps as short-
ening synagogue services, using vernacular language in ritu-
als, relaxing dietary prohibitions, and allowing women full
participation in religious activities. A second movement, Or-
thodox Judaism, takes the opposite approach. Orthodox
congregations maintain Hebrew services; they favor strict
observance of laws concerning diet and personal appearance;
they retain ritual practices expressing male authority and
 Religious practice and cultural politics American Ethnologist
female impurity; and they maintain certain kinds of social
separation from the non-Jewish world. like Reform Judaism,
Orthodox Judaism constitutes a response to the problem of
emancipation; it does not carry on some objectively "pure"
form of Judaism but, rather, a particular vision of what tradi-
tional Judaism looked like.8 Most of its supporters, however,
and even many of its opponents, regard it as the most
authentic existing version of traditional Jewish practice.
Conservative Judaism takes a middle ground, deliberately
relaxing or eliminating some cultural rules while holding to
what it considers the essential features of religious practice.
Each of these movements has found some followers in the
West. In the United States, Reform and Conservative ap-
proaches dominate, each accounting for about 40 percent of
the Jewish population, whereas the Orthodox make up
about six percent (Lazerwitz et al. 1998). Orthodoxy domi-
nates most of Western Europe, and other congregations are
relatively few (see Webber 1994); Sweden, which has the
largest Jewish population in Scandinavia, has four Orthodox
and two Conservative synagogues.
No such distinct movements exist in Copenhagen, with
its "unity congregation." Although a reform movement
flared briefly in the early 19th century, no formal alternative
to the MT has ever been organized by liberal Jews in Den-
mark. The problems that fueled such movements elsewhere
in Europe, however, have also affected Copenhagen, and
they have produced sharp divisions within the congregation
on the subject of ritual practice. Danish Jews often describe
themselves as "religious" or "nonreligious," and they tend to
distinguish between "religious Jews" (de religiose) and "cul-
tural Jews" (kulturjeder). These terms do not refer to an en-
gagement with religion, per se, but with an orthodox model
of religious practicemany "nonreligious" Jews participate
actively in the MT.9 The terms do not denote formal affili-
ations, and individuals can change their positions over the
course of a lifetime. Yet, they refer to identifiable groups of
people within the congregation, who oppose one another in
predictable ways on a variety of issues. For the purposes of
this article, I refer to them as orthodox and liberal Jews.
These terms should not be understood as the equivalents of
Orthodox and Reform, which are formal and organized
theological movements within Judaism. Because of the na-
ture of their disagreement, however, the two groups' posi-
tions on specific issues of ritual practice often resemble
those of the two formal movements.
Orthodox Jews in Denmark follow the positions of the
Orthodox movement, arguing for the maintenance of what
that movement sees as traditional halakhic practice in is-
sues of ritual and community administration. They favor the
use of Hebrew in ritual, the strict observance of kosher laws,
and the separation of male and female roles in worship.
They stress the independence of Jewish culture from Dan-
ish, urging Jews to resist intermarriage and other forms of
assimilation with the non-Jewish world. They also emphasize
the importance of the religious dimensions of Jewish prac-
tice over the ethnic ones. Although Jews have a distinct cul-
ture, they say, that distinction derives from a special rela-
tionship with the divine, not simply from a shared history;
Judaism without belief is at best a hollow and inauthentic
echo of the real faith.
Liberal Jews constitute a more mixed group, whose
members take a variety of different positions on the nature
and proper place of Judaism in contemporary Denmark.
Some hold strong liberal views on Jewish theology; some
deny any religious faith, but identify strongly with Jewish
ethnicity or culture; some, perhaps a majority, regard Jewish
religious observance as a small and peripheral part of their
largely Danish lives. What unites them is not a specific theo-
logical position but, rather, a common commitment to en-
gagement with Danish culture. The practice and admini-
stration of the MT, they argue, should recognize and
incorporate the cultural context within which Jewish life
takes place. Their ritual preferences generally follow Danish
forms, favoring simplified vernacular services, gender
equality, and styles of cuisine and dress similar to those of
the larger society. They view intermarriage as an inevitable
consequence of participation in Danish society, and, in-
deed, the vast majority of their children marry non-Jews.
And like most Danes, they tend to discount many super-
natural beliefs and halakhic laws as archaisms.10 Most liber-
als in Copenhagen are not Reform Jews; the Reform move-
ment has a developed theology and tradition to which most
Danish liberals are strangers. They do, however, share the
Reform view that traditional practice must be modified to
reflect contemporary context, and, consequently, they often
draw on Reform models ofritualand organizational practice.
It is impossible to say how many Danish Jews are ortho-
dox and how many liberal; indeed, as with many Jewish
communities in Europe, it is difficult to say anything defi-
nite about Jewish demography in Copenhagen (see Buckser
1999b; Schnapper 1987). Yet, it seems clear that the ortho-
dox make up a small minority of Danish Jewry, certainly well
under 1,000 of the seven thousand or so Jews in the city. Sev-
eral hundred of them belong to Machsike Hadas, a group
that emerged out of a congregational schism in 1906.n
Machsike Hadas operates its own small synagogue as well as
such orthodox necessities as a ritual bath (mikva) and a He-
brew school (cheder). Its members worship separately, em-
ploying their own rabbi for holiday services; they remain
members of the MT, however, and they participate actively
in congregational politics and some voluntary associations.
Machsike Hadas owes its origin to congregational politics,
and it has shrunk over the decades as the events that gave
rise to it have receded. Today it serves a small and dwindling
circle of related families, which are increasingly depleted by
emigration to Israel or England. In addition to these fami
lies, a number of orthodox Jews participate actively in the
services at the MT synagogue, and they serve in many of the
IIS
American Ethnologist Volume 30 Number 1 February 2003
key administrative positions for the community. They have
difficulty, however, in achieving the numerical "critical
mass" to maintain orthodox practices. Getting the mini-
mum number of participants (minyan) for the daily worship
service at the synagogue, for example, has become a difficult
daily challenge for the rabbi; similarly, the paucity of fami-
lies that buy kosher meat has made existence tenuous for
the city's two kosher butchers.12 In my interviews with com-
munity members, both orthodox and liberal Jews described
the religious as a small and shrinking part of the community.
The decline of the orthodox stems from a number of
mutually reinforcing factors. Some involve the assimilative
pressures of Danish culture, which tend to discourage both
individual and cultural distinctiveness (see Borish 1991;
Buckser 1996a; Gullestad 1994; Hervik 1999; Knudsen 1996).
Others relate to the overall secular orientation that runs
throughout Danish society. Still others reflect the demo-
graphic difficulty of maintaining a small Jewish community
in an open society. The small number of potential Jewish
spouses and easy contact with the non-Jewish world lead to
high rates of intermarriage; children of mixed marriages
tend to endorse more liberal forms of Judaism (Levine
1993). At the same time, fear of intermarriage has led many
orthodox parents to move to Israel or England, where larger
Jewish communities offer them a better possibility of find-
ing Jewish matches for their children. Together, these fac-
tors have reduced the orthodox wing of the congregation
throughout the century, especially since World War II. Even
during the 19th century, however, liberalism seems to have
been a powerful force in the MT (Blum 1972:33). The com-
munity was heavily influenced by the Reform movement in
the 1800s, and Jewish publications voiced concerns about
the climbing rate of Danicization and intermarriage as early
as 1900 (Blum 1972:34). A strongly orthodox rabbi was
forced out of the community at the beginning of the 20th
century, leading to the founding of Machsike Hadas. A lib-
eral majority, then, although especially evident in the late
20th century, has characterized the community for quite
some time.
The community's style of ritual practice, however, has
not followed a liberal line. The MT resolutely maintained or-
thodox ritual practices throughout the 20th century, and no
change of policy appears likely soon. Synagogue services,
for example, take place almost entirely in Hebrew and often
last well over four hours; men and women sit separately,
with women taking little or no active part in the ceremony.
The services maintain elaborate traditional forms, including
the use of garments like prayer shawls (tallesim) by the men
and special headgear by the rabbi and other officials. Sea-
sonal and life cycle rituals also retain orthodox forms, avoid-
ing such liberal innovations as allowing girls who are com-
ing of age to read from the Torah. A ceremony has recently
been developed for such girls, one that many in the congre-
gation describe as a bat mitzvah, a parallel to the boys' bar
mitzvah; this ceremony has been carefully constructed,
however, to avoid girls' participating in the actual syna-
gogue service or engaging in any of the ritual privileges to
which boys accede at their adulthood.13 The community's
chief rabbi, perhaps the most influential figure in determin-
ing religious observance, has always endorsed a strictly or-
thodox line; although rabbis can be dismissed and must oc-
casionally be replaced, the congregation's leadership has
never entertained the possibility of appointing a Conserva-
tive or Reform rabbi (cf. Goldstein 1996:9).M Where the MT
oversees the operation of nonreligious institutions, it gener-
ally takes an orthodox approach. The Meyers Minde nursing
home, for example, imposes a strict kosher regime on all
residents and sharply limits residents' activities on the Sab-
bath. The community also follows the halakhic rules on Jew-
ish identity, limiting automatic membership to people born
of a Jewish mother. Children of mixed marriages with non-
Jewish mothers must formally convert to be considered Jew-
ish, and non-Jewish spouses cannot become community
members without converting. Moreover, conversion is not a
simple affair; the rabbi has almost complete discretion over
the process, and he may require converts to undertake years
of study and ritual participation before completing it. The
liberals' overwhelming numbers have not led to any signifi-
cant religious innovations on a community level.
This situation does not reflect liberal satisfaction with
the state of affairs; liberal Jews I interviewed frequently ex-
pressed frustration or irritation with MT policies. This re-
sponse came even from Jews who had relatively little con-
tact with the congregation, who attended services only for
holidays and life cycle rituals; in many cases, they attributed
their lack of participation to their annoyance with the ortho-
dox policies. The policies on conversion aroused the strong-
est feelings. Jewish men with non-Jewish wives found the
formal exclusion of their children from the congregation of-
fensive, and children with non-Jewish mothers who had
been raised as Jews found it baffling. Likewise, Jews whose
non-Jewish spouses wanted to convert bridled at the
lengthy and uncertain process. Why, they asked, should a
community that was concerned with its survival be less than
welcoming to people who wished to join?15 Gender attitudes
in the congregation also generate real anger among many
liberal Jews, especially women. Several told me that they
and many of their Jewish friends never attended services,
because they resented their exclusion from the action of the
ritual. Members of mixed marriages, almost always liberals,
also complained about having to sit apart from their
spouses. Dissatisfaction with the overall style of the ritual is
reflected in widespread liberal nonparticipation. Relatively
few liberal Jews attend services on a regular basis, and those
who do often ignore the religious content. They stay for an
hour or so, socializing with friends and family, and pay little
attention to a formal ritual that they find boring and incom-
prehensible. In its orthodox religious practice, then, the MT
 Religious practice and cultural politics American Ethnologist
takes positions that tend to offend or alienate the substan-
tial majority of its members.
I asked liberal Jews why they did not change these poli-
cies, why they did not demand at least some recognition of
mixed marriages or stylistic accommodations to make the
service more accessible. In most cases, they said that they
would like to see change, but that congregational politics
did not permit it. The MT, they said, was controlled by an
"inner circle," a small group that resisted change and made
reform impossible. Moreover, they said, the orthodox had a
disproportionate influence in congregational politics and
always blocked efforts to liberalize policies. Despite their
overwhelming numbers in a democratic organization, liber-
als felt a sort of political impotence that was quite striking.
Orthodox Jews characterized the political protagonists
rather differently, but they also saw the issue as a political
one. For them, the orthodoxy of congregational practice
represented a victory, the result of an ongoing and very diffi-
cult struggle to keep the liberals from eviscerating Jewish rit-
ual. During interviews, members of both camps expressed
the contest in terms of political struggle, often in emotional
and even eloquent terms. I asked one businesswoman, for
example, whose son and daughter were enrolled in one of
the Jewish day care centers, about my impression of male
bias in the center's religious curriculum; she agreed with my
impression and said that it characterized virtually every-
thing about the MT. "If you are a Jewish woman in Den-
mark," she said, "you must be either a victim or a revolu-
tionary. I didn't have courage, and so I was a victim, like
most of the women of my generation. I hope that my daugh-
ter will have the courage to be a revolutionary."
At first glance, the lack of courage this woman attrib-
utes to her generation is hard to understand. The orthodox
are not, as a group, powerful in any temporal sense; al-
though they include a handful of wealthy or politically influ-
ential individuals, they have no standing to punish or in-
timidate liberals who might oppose them. Indeed, the
liberals include a far greater number of influential public
figures, including well-known journalists, academics, and
businessmen. The governance of the MT, moreover, is
strictly democratic, and liberals have an overwhelming nu-
merical dominance. Although the orthodox are more active,
on average, than the liberals, the liberals still manage to
elect majorities to the congregational board on a regular ba-
sis. When effectively mobilizedas they were in 1982, when
the chief rabbi turned to liberals for support during a con-
flict with orthodox board membersthey can swamp or-
thodox opposition to their views.16 The liberals' perceived
political weakness exists alongside their manifest supe-
riority in conventional political resources.
Sources of orthodox control in Copenhagen
Where does the political power of the orthodox come from
in the MT? How is a small minority able to maintain policies
on religious observance that stand at such odds with major-
ity preferences? Neither wealth nor temporal political
power explains it; nor does the explanation favored by some
community officials, that schism would be fatal for such a
small community and that the most stringent form of obser-
vance is necessary in order to allow all Jews to participate.
Smaller Jewish populations elsewhere have supported more
than one synagogue, and the persistence of Machsike Hadas
demonstrates the viability of a smaller group in Denmark.17
In any case, although a more Reform-oriented ritual ap-
proach might alienate some of the orthodox, an orthodox
one currently alienates a considerable number of liberals.
When Jewish religion is presented in a form more accom-
modating to themthe coming-of-age ceremonies for girls,
for example, or a recent series of holiday activities hosted by
U.S. Chabad missionaries18liberals turn out in large num-
bers. Likewise, when the election of a very liberal MT presi-
dent in 1998 raised hopes for substantial reforms, liberal
membership increased sharply.19 A more liberal congrega-
tion, then, might well become a larger one. The use of ortho-
dox practice must be seen, not as an inevitable result of de-
mography or population size or as a proxy for political
relationships in the larger world, but, rather, as an expres-
sive practice deriving from political dynamics within the
congregation.
These dynamics, I would argue, stem from the relation-
ship between Jewish religious structures and the culture of
contemporary Denmark. Jewish religious practice rests on a
long international tradition, a body of belief and custom de-
veloped by Diaspora communities throughout the world
over the past 2,000 years. This tradition constitutes in itself a
powerful cultural system, one that creates certain structures
and behaviors typical of all Jewish communities. It finds ex-
pression, however, only in the context of particular national
and local cultures. These cultures have dynamics of their
own, which shape the way that Jews understand their relig-
ious practice and relate it to other areas of their lives. This
interaction takes on special importance in places like Den-
mark, where Jews participate fully and enthusiastically in
the non-Jewish social world. In Denmark, Jewish concep-
tions of what religious practice can be and should be are a
product of the confluence of Danish culture and Jewish re-
ligious structure. In postwar Denmark, this interaction has
produced a set of power relationships that have systemati-
cally favored the orthodox and rendered liberals both un-
able and unwilling to control the community's religious
practice.
As examples of this pattern, 1 discuss three sites of con-
trol, key points where the MT interacts with its members or
with the world outside: community social services, links
10?
American Ethnologist Volume 30 Number 1 February 2003
with external power centers, and images of religiosity. At
each site, I contend, the interplay of Jewish religious struc-
tures and Danish cultural understandings works to give so-
cial and cultural control to the orthodox over the liberals (cf.
Nader 1997). On one hand, these patterns produce a set of
social relationships and institutional practices that make it
difficult for liberal Jews to effectively contest orthodox poli-
cies. On the other hand, they create a set of cultural under-
standings that make reform or schism seem either impossi-
ble or undesirable. I do not contend that this reflects any
intentional design; the inequality results from the logic of
Danish culture and orthodoxy, not from some orthodox
conspiracy. Nor do I regard this relationship as unchanging.
Both Danish culture and Orthodox Judaism have changed
over time, and liberally oriented groups held power in Co-
penhagen at times during the 19th century. The political
balance among Copenhagen Jews represents neither a
grand design nor part of some inevitable process of modern-
ization but, rather, a particular historical moment in the in-
teraction of two distinct and evolving cultural systems.
Community social services
Like most religious communities, the Mosaiske Troessam-
fund provides more than theology and rituals for its mem-
bers. It also offers a variety of social services, supporting
schools, cemeteries, food stores, and nursing homes. The
MT directly operates some of these facilities. Others, for ex-
ample, the kosher delicatessen and the three day care cen-
ters, have formal autonomy despite close ties to the congre-
gation. The services these facilities provide constitute
important resources for many members of the congrega-
tion, even those who have little interest in the strictly relig-
ious aspects of Judaism. Many Jews send their children to
the Jewish school, for example, precisely because they
themselves have little knowledge of the religion; they hope
that the school will provide their children a meaningful
sense of Jewish identity that they, as parents, cannot. The
cemetery, likewise, provides a link between the present and
the past, even for completely secular Jews. Social services,
therefore, represent a political resource of great scopeone
that, because of its interaction with Danish cultural systems,
is politically helpful primarily to the orthodox.
The political value of MT-supported social services de-
rives largely from their tendency to prevent schism. Mem-
bers of the community have attachments to these institu-
tions that would be difficult to transfer elsewhere; school
memories, for example, are associated with a particular set
of buildings and administrators, and the family graves in the
cemetery cannot be moved to a new one. Maintenance of
these institutions also involves substantial capital and po-
litical investments that would be difficult for any new group
to muster. Insofar as these institutions have a specific asso-
ciation with the MT, therefore, they inhibit movements to
establish a separate Reform or Conservative congregation.
Indeed, they make it difficult even for individuals to re-
nounce their memberships in the MT, given that member-
ship in the community is a precondition for using some of
its services. For a family to send its children to some Jewish
day care centers or to guarantee a child's admission to the
Jewish school, at least one parent must be a member of the
MT. Likewise, entry into the Meyers Minde nursing home is
open only to members of the community. The size and im-
portance of these institutions gives the MT a powerful hold
on even its dissatisfied elements.
These resources take on a special importance in Den-
mark, where non-Jewish social institutions often differ in
particularly sensitive ways from Jewish ones. The impor-
tance of Jewish cemeteries, for example, in Copenhagen and
elsewhere, lies largely in the concrete sense of connection
they provide with the past; members of the community can
visit the resting places of ancestors and family members
from centuries gone by, knowing that they themselves will
eventually lie alongside them. The permanency of the
graves lends them a special sanctity, and the violation of a
grave constitutes a particularly disturbing crime. Danish Lu-
theran cemeteries, by contrast, seldom maintain graves per-
manently.20 Following initial burial in a Lutheran cemetery,
a body is left undisturbed for a period of 25 years. After that,
relatives of the deceased may pay fees to maintain the ten-
ancy for ten-year increments. If the fees are not paid, the
headstone is removed, the grave surface is plowed up, and
another body is interred in the site.21 This custom has a clear
rationale in Denmark, a densely populated country without
much room for large cemeteries. It also makes Danish
cemeteries particularly lovely places, full of immaculate and
beautifully cultivated gravesites, because neglected graves
are removed, rather than allowed to languish. Yet, it clashes
sharply with Jewish practice, and it makes burial in a regular
Danish cemetery an unpleasant thought for many Jews. Es-
tablishing a new Jewish cemetery would be prohibitively ex-
pensive; indeed, maintaining the current one has proved an
increasingly burdensome expense for the MT. Leaving the
MT, therefore, means accepting a form of burial that verges
on desecration in the eyes of Danish Jews. In this and other
ways, the confluence of Danish and Jewish cultural patterns
renders the existence of Jewish institutions a particularly
powerful bar to the creation of a new congregation.
As specifically Jewish institutions, moreover, entities
like the nursing home and the schools incorporate religious
activities into their organizational structure. Such activities
tend to follow orthodox forms, often for simple, practical
reasons. The Meyers Minde nursing home, for example,
maintains a single set of kitchen and dining facilities for its
residents; individual kitchens would be both dangerous to
residents' safety and prohibitively expensive. As a Jewish in-
stitution, the home must offer meals that accord with Jewish
dietary laws, and the kitchen, therefore, operates according
 Religious practice and cultural politics American Ethnologist
to kosher rules. It separates all milk and meat preparation, it
serves only kosher meat, and it observes the dietary restric-
tions associated with the Passover holiday. As a result, even
those residents who have never kept kosher previously
perhaps the majoritymust abide by orthodox dietary
practices once they move to the home. Likewise, Jewish in-
struction in the community school (as in most Jewish com-
munities) operates under the supervision of the chief rabbi,
the recognized expert on religious matters in the congrega-
tion. This position gives the rabbi substantial control over
the presentation of Jewish history, ritual practice, and social
identity to the congregation's children, and he ensures that
this instruction accords with orthodox positions. In addi-
tion, the general ignorance of Hebrew among liberal Jews
means that Hebrew instruction tends to be a preserve of the
orthodox. Taken together, such patterns create an equation
of Jewishness with orthodoxy within Jewish institutions. In-
sofar as Jewish social services have a distinctively Jewish
component, they tend to restate and reinforce the domi-
nance of the orthodox in congregational life.
The Jewish school plays a particularly important role in
this process. Located in an old factory building in a northern
suburb of the city, the school serves several hundred pupils
at any given timenot a majority of the city's Jewish youth
but a substantial minority. The school is very popular
among liberal families, many of whom see it as an opportu-
nity Xo nurture Jewish identity in their sons and daughters in
a context more appealing than the synagogue. The school
celebrates the Jewish heritage and ethnic identity prized by
"cultural Jews," marking Jewish holidays and history in ways
unthinkable in the Danish public school system. "When we
were young," one mother told me,
we never had to think about being Jewish, because all of
our parents' friends were Jewish. It was just part of life.
But for our children that's not true, and we were worried
that being Jewish wouldn't be something real to them.
And now they have lots of Jewish friends, and they know
all about Israel, and they think of being Jewish as some-
thing good. And we're happy about that.
As it defines Jewish identity for its charges, however, the
school also defines the proper place and style of religiosity,
invariably from an orthodox perspective. Many of the stu-
dents take up orthodox practices while at the school, which
then filter back to their homes. One parent laughingly said
that until two years ago he had never kept kosher, and nei-
ther had his parents or grandparents. "Now my daughters
are getting more religious, though, and I guess 1 should, too.
They tell me what to do." Such flirtations with orthodoxy
tend to fade after students graduate and move into the
world of non-Jewish gymnasia, technical schools, and uni-
versities. Their significance for cultural control, however, re-
mains long afterward, as both former students and their
parents must pit their desires for ritual reforms against such
formative experiences of "real" Jewish religiosity.
Links with external power centers
Political control in the Mosaiske Troessamfund depends not
only on internal political resources but also on links to
power centers outside the congregation. The MT does not,
after all, exist in isolation from the rest of the world; it has
connections to a number of other groups and institutions
that have both practical and symbolic value for members.
The links between the MT and some of the most important
such centers are dominated by the orthodox. As a result,
they provide an important site for both legitimizing ortho-
dox positions and for making reform or schism practically
difficult. Two of the most important such links are those to
the Danish state and to the nation of Israel.
As the closer of these two power centers, the Danish
state is clearly the most practically important. The MT exists
formally as a faith community (troessamfund), an organiza-
tion officially recognized and supported by the state Minis-
try of Religion (Kirkeministeriet). As such, the MT has cer-
tain rights not enjoyed by less formally organized groups. It
can collect taxes from its members, for example, and it can
register births and deaths with the state. It also has some im-
portant working relationships with state agencies. The con-
gregation's security service, for example, works closely with
the Copenhagen police to provide security for synagogue
events. Its voluntary organizations work with state refugee
agencies on the resettlement of Jewish refugees in Den-
mark. Its social services, like nursing home care and educa-
tion, receive substantial support from state social welfare
agencies. Such relationships benefit the orthodox, in part,
by making schism a rather intimidating prospect to liberals.
Forming a new congregation would mean stepping outside
of these ties and spending a great deal of time and money to
forge new ones. The accumulated social and political capital
of the old congregation would be difficult for any new group
to match.
In addition, the central place of the rabbi in these rela-
tionships gives the primary orthodox actor a great deal of
political power. As official arbiter of MT religious policies,
the rabbi controls any situation in which the state requires a
religiously based decision. When children are born to Jewish
parents, for example, their religious affiliation is registered
with the state by the rabbi; he alone has the authority to reg-
ister them as Jewish or non-Jewish. In lino with orthodox
doctrine and against most liberals' preferences, he registers
children of non-Jewish mothers as non-Jewish. This sort of
control can have important practical consequences. State
funding for the Meyers Minde nursing home, for example,
includes special allowances for the high cost of kosher food.
To verify that the money is spent properly, the state requires
the home's administrator to ensure that all food purchases
American Ethnologist Volume 30 Number 1 February 2003
are acceptable to the chief rabbi. As a result, the rabbi can
effectively require the home to buy kosher meats and spe-
cialty items from businesses he supports. The survival of the
city's kosher delicatessens, a matter of great importance to
the orthodox, rests to a significant degree on this patronage.
As the intermediary between the state and the Jewish world,
the rabbi can exercise both symbolic and concrete power on
behalf of orthodox policies.
The nation of Israel has a different sort of importance
for Danish Jews, built not on administrative relationships
but on ties of identification. Israel holds a special place in
the self-image and self-understanding of Jews around the
world; most consider it a national homeland as well as po-
litically representative of world Jewry (e.g., Silberman 1985:
199-202). Most Danish Jews have family connections to Is-
rael, most have traveled there, and all of those I interviewed
had at least considered the idea of resettling there. Danish
Jews generally have a strong interest in things Israeli, dis-
playing souvenirs of the country in their homes and keeping
abreast of its politics and culture. Zionist voluntary associa-
tions constitute some of the largest and most active social
groups within the MT, and campaigns to raise money for Is-
raeli causes attract support among all segments of the com-
munity. Connections to Israel therefore have great impor-
tance both for the community's self-definition and for its
social life.
The structure of religious observance in Israel gives the
orthodox in Copenhagen a special place in these connec-
tions. Israel incorporates religion into the structure of the
state, allowing clerical control of issues like marriage and
conversion (Edelman 1994). Control over such issues rests
primarily with Orthodox clerics; the Reform and Conserva-
tive movements have no official standing in Israel, and the
actions of their rabbis have force only if approved by Ortho-
dox authorities. Conversions to Judaism in Reform congre-
gations outside Israel, for example, are not officially recog-
nized within the country. To the extent that Danish
connections with Israel have a religious dimension, there-
fore, they favor those with a strongly orthodox interpreta-
tion of Jewish practice. This bias has important conse-
quences in terms of social control. It effectively bars the
nonorthodox from serving in the chief rabbi's office, be-
cause a Reform rabbi's weddings and conversions would
not carry force in Israel. It gives the orthodox greater access
to influential and prestigious religious figures in Israel. It
also makes schism within the Copenhagen community all
the more difficult, because those who joined a nonorthodox
congregation would lose their formal connection to the
Holy Land. As a mechanism of cultural control, Israeli or-
thodoxy also tends to confer a special legitimacy on ortho-
dox presentations of the religion. In religious instruction, for
example, pedagogical materials imported from Israel carry a
special prestige, and they generally follow orthodox forms.
Their orthodox bias is often subtle but quite pervasive.
110
When I visited one of the Jewish preschools around the High
Holidays, the class was using Israeli coloring books that
showed children building a sukkah.22 In the pictures, boys
took all of the active roles, climbing ladders and attaching
branches to the shelter, whereas girls in dresses either
looked on passively or assisted the boys. Although such a
presentation mirrors orthodox attitudes on gender roles in
ritual, it clashes sharply with Danish gender norms, and it is
hard to imagine a Danish press either printing or success-
fully marketing such a book. The book's Israeli origins, how-
ever, gave it a cachet that made it acceptable even in a pre-
school run largely by liberal parents.
Cultural images of religiosity
The power of the orthodox derives not only from their or-
ganizational position but also from their perceived authen-
ticity; in the eyes of most Copenhagen Jews, the orthodox
embody an image of Jewishness that seems purer and truer,
closer to what a "real Jew" ought to be, than the image em-
bodied by liberals. Such authenticity has become a major
concern for Jews throughout Europe and America in recent
decades, as the breakdown of traditional Jewish communi-
ties has made the meaning of Jewishness increasingly hard
to pin down (Buckser 1999b; Charme n.d.). Postmodern re-
newal movements within Judaism call constantly for a re-
turn to authentic Jewish traditions, and groups such as the
Hasids of the United States have gained prestige from their
perceived fidelity to "real" Jewish life (Kugelmass 1988;
Webber 1994). Such an image of authenticity carries im-
mense political value, by placing orthodox standards and
practices at the center of Jewish self-definition. In Denmark,
many of my liberal informants described the orthodox as
more truly Jewish than themselves, and even those who ac-
tively opposed the orthodox tended to admire their commit-
ment to "genuine" Jewishness. As a result, they tended to
defer to the orthodox in questions of ritual procedure and to
accord them a disproportionate influence over the conduct
of congregational life.
Why are the orthodox perceived as more authentic? In
part, because of internal logics of Jewish practice. With so
much of Jewish law devoted to the conduct of ritual, ritually
observant Jews have an association with group traditions
that the nonobservant lack. At the same time, under-
standings of Jewish identity and religiosity among Copen-
hagen Jews draw on the larger culture's ideas about the na-
ture of religious practice. Denmark is a self-consciously
secular society, with very low rates of religious participation
and a deliberate excision of religious activity from daily life
(Buckser 1996b; Knudsen 1996; Salamonsen 1975). Danes
overwhelmingly describe themselves as nonreligious, and
they tend to dismiss traditional religion as a collection of ar-
chaic superstitions. This does not mean that the Danes have
no religion; the overwhelming majority are members of the
 Religious practice and cultural politics American Ethnologist
state Evangelical Lutheran Church, and church seasonal
and life cycle rituals play an important role in social life and
self-identity. The church is symbolically associated with the
national culture, so that recent immigrants are generally
characterized as "Muslims," rather than as "Middle Eastern-
ers." Levels of belief, moreover, are higher than church at-
tendance might lead one to expect, and the widespread
fascination with spiritualism, astrology, and alternative
medicine has strong religious overtones. Analysts such as
Jakob Rod (1961, 1972) have argued that an underlying folk
religion has considerable influence on Danish culture. De-
spite this manifest presence of religion, however, popular
discourse treats religion with disdain, as a backward relic of
premodern Denmark. To be modern and progressive is to
be nonreligious, and images of religious practice in Den-
mark therefore take on a particular cast. Cultural under-
standings of religion associate it with the old, the archaic,
the humorless, and the dark.23
One result of these associations is that Jewish engage-
ment with Danish culture does not tend to promote an alter-
native form of Jewish observance but, rather, an avoidance
of observance altogether. Insofar as Danish Jews adopt con-
temporary mainstream attitudes toward religiosity, they
tend to opt out of religious participation, rather than at-
tempting to reform it. Few of them learn a significant
amount of Hebrew, for example, a necessary prerequisite
for full participation in Jewish ritual, and they attend serv-
ices infrequently, if at all. This tendency contrasts with the
Reform movement of the 19th century, which occurred in
the context of much greater religiosity among the larger
population; at that time, in Denmark and elsewhere, liberal
Jews expressed their ties to the majority culture by advocat-
ing forms of ritual practice that mirrored those of Protes-
tantism. In contemporary Denmark, by contrast, Protestant
forms are as discredited among Jews as Orthodox ones, and
no mainstream model of religious practice exists through
which to model Jewish reforms. Accordingly, many of the
most obvious opponents of the orthodox in congregational
politics tend to remove themselves from thefieldof battle.
Another result of prevailing religious associations in
Denmark is that when identifying "authentic" Jews, both
Jewish and non-Jewish Danes focus on characteristics asso-
ciated with the old fashioned, the exotic, and the pi-
ousthat is, precisely those features that Judaism associ-
ates with the orthodox. An old man in a black suit, bearded,
and solemn, arguing about Biblical texts or praying in an an-
cient tongue has been an icon of religious devotion in Den-
mark since at least the 16th century; in the 19th century, this
image became associated with the ascetic leaders of Lu-
theran pietist movements. Such a man thus embodies not
only the "authentic" Jew but also the "authentic" Lutheran;
he evokes associations not only with Hasidism and the rab-
binate but also with the Inner Mission Society and the
priesthood. To the extent that Danish Jews form their images
of authenticity and religiosity in concert with the larger
Danish culture, they will tend to see the orthodox as the tru-
est representatives of their faith.
This perception gives the orthodox face validity, an air
of authority on religious issues and matters of community
observance that the liberals do not see in themselves. It also
makes the orthodox the natural emblems of the community,
the immediate focus of attention when the media and popu-
lar culture discuss Jews. Caricatures of Jews in newspapers
and posters, anti-Semitic or not, almost invariably portray
them with the beards and black clothing of the idealized or-
thodox male. A recent book of photographs of Danish Jews,
produced with funding from the Danish Ministry of Culture,
contains a host of images of the orthodox; it depicts only a
handful of liberal Jews, and then primarily in the context of
Jewish religious institutions (Horowitz 1996). In 1996, like-
wise, national media paid considerable attention to the arri-
val of a missionary from the ultraorthodox Lubavitcher
movement in New York City. The missionary has become a
well-known icon of the orthodox wing of the congregation,
both within and outside of the congregation; many of my
liberal informants, although distancing themselves from his
theology, admired the commitment and authenticity of his
Jewishness. This admiration stemmed less from his actual
theology, about which most informants knew quite little,
than from the fact that he wore black clothing and a black
hat and beard and that he walked to the synagogue on Sat-
urdays. Although neither a Dane nor a follower of Danish or-
thodoxy, he has become an icon of "true" Jewishness for
Danes because he dresses and shaves like a conservative re-
ligionistJewish or Lutheranought to.
Control patterns and political dynamics in
Jewish Copenhagen
None of the patterns outlined here, in and of itself, makes a
liberal challenge to Copenhagen's orthodox ritual practice
impossible. Taken together, however, they present an im-
posing barrier to any Reform-oriented movement. To found
a new congregation, liberals would have to scale a mountain
of institutional obstacles, from such logistical problems as
establishing a cemetery to problems of establishing legiti-
macy with Danish and Israeli authorities. To liberalize prac-
tice within the MT, they would have to overcome the organ-
izational weaknesses stemming from their own peripheral
ritual participation and the institutional resources available
to the orthodox. And whether from within or from without,
change would have to face perceptual barriers that con-
struct liberalsto themselves as well as to othersas igno-
rant, illiterate, and inauthentic Jews. The interaction of Jew-
ish and Danish cultural understandings lay social and
cultural control primarily in the hands of the orthodox, leav-
ing liberals both disadvantaged in their ability to effect
change and unsure of their own right to do so.
Ill
American Ethnologist Volume 30 Number l February 2003
At points in Danish history, liberal Jews have pushed for
reforms. In the early 19th century, for example, a time of so-
cial and economic upheaval following the emancipation of
Danish peasants, social movements of many kinds found
expression in religious activism (see Begtrup 1934; Buckser
1996a; Holt 1961; Lindhardt 1959). The Grundtvigian move-
ment engaged the rising self-confidence of the nation's free
farmers, producing a host of independent Lutheran
churches throughout the Danish countryside. Likewise, the
Inner Mission and the Luther's Mission spoke for those left
behind by the changes, creating somber religious commu-
nities that mirrored the economic grimness of their world.
Against this backdrop, liberal Danish Jews also expressed
their changing experience through religious reform. Led by
Mendel Levin Nathanson, liberals embraced the Jewish En-
lightenment sweeping through Europe and pushed aggres-
sively for a Reform movement in Copenhagen. They
brought in a popular Reform rabbi, held services with organ
music and vernacular liturgies, and proposed sweeping
changes in the community's style of worship. Their move-
ment attracted a great deal of participation among Danish
Jews, and, for a time, it threatened to topple orthodox con-
trol of the community (see Meyer 1964).24 Like the wider cul-
ture with which they were becoming increasingly engaged,
Danish Jews manifested their changing worldview through
religious action.
The late 20th century experienced different kinds of
changes, however, and Danes found different avenues to ex-
press them. In a prosperous, decentered, and aggressively
modernizing society, concerns about economic and social
divisions have given way to concerns about self-identity
(Finkielkraut 1994; Giddens 1991; Salamon 1998); as they
search for a meaningful self amidst the fragmentation of
postmodern culture, Danes have turned away from organ-
ized religion and toward secular orientations like consum-
erism and nationalism (see Johansen 1994; Jokinen 1994;
Knudsen 1996). This context provides little motivation for
liberal Jews to take on the enormous challenges of reform-
ing the ritual or theology of the Copenhagen congregation.
Their engagement with Judaism instead follows the con-
cerns of the larger cultureJewishness has for most mem-
bers of the community become an ethnic or cultural iden-
tity, a resource for grounding and locating the self rather
than for encountering the divine (see Finkielkraut 1994;
Gans 1979, 1994). Although some liberals carry on a dogged
battle for change, many react to orthodox control by drop-
ping out of religious participation altogether or by regarding
the MT as an ethnic home, a place whose existencein as
orthodox, exotic, and "authentic" a state as possiblereas-
sures them of their distinctive identity even as they lament
its backwardness. Where Danish conceptions of religious
action fostered liberal activism in the 19th century, they
tend to undercut it at the dawn of the 21st.
112
Conclusion
The opposition between modernity and tradition that has
informed so much of the social scientific work on contem-
porary religion does not, in the end, reveal very much about
the persistence of Jewish orthodoxy in Copenhagen. The or-
thodox do not hold power in the MT because they somehow
represent tradition's side in a battle with modernity. They
have power because very specific connections among doc-
trinal, social, and cultural structures in Jewish Copenhagen
combine to give it to them. These interconnections often
have little or nothing to do with contrasts between two
grand antinomies. They involve, rather, mundane and often
apparently arbitrary correspondences between different
cultural systems. Danish and Jewish burial practices are nei-
ther distinctly modern nor distinctly antimodern, but their
contrast provides a powerful weapon in the orthodox politi-
cal arsenal. People have worn black clothing throughout
history, but its use by both Lutheran missionaries and ul-
traorthodox Jews lends the orthodox an air of authenticity.
In the meshing of such details, the products of separate
trains of historical development, the innocuous and the ar-
bitrary can take on real political significance. It is through
exploring such minutiae, not through focusing on metanar-
ratives, that we can understand the political dynamics of re-
ligious organizations like the Mosaiske Troessamfund.
The association of religious conservatism with anti-
modernism, moreover, ignores the extent to which conser-
vatism may be grounded in modern social forms. The Co-
penhagen orthodox, for all their associations with the
premodern tradition, do not exist in opposition to modern
culture; they exist and have power in large part because of it.
Many of the structures and patterns on which their domi-
nance depends spring directly from the conditions of the
modern nation-state. Their institutional advantages, for ex-
ample, depend on the structure and support of state bu-
reaucracies like the Ministry of Religion and the Ministry of
Health. The power of their association with Israel derives in
large part from the telecommunications and transport sys-
tems that connect Israel and Denmark so immediately. At a
broader level, the value placed on the perceived authentic-
ity of the orthodox is related to problems of self-identity and
ethnicity characteristic of late modern society (cf. Gans
1979; Giddens 1991; Waters 1990; Webber 1994). Even or-
thodox religiosity, although it draws on a long historical tra-
dition, is a distinctly modern formulation of the meaning of
Jewish practice (Breuer 1992). Religious conservatives in
Jewish Copenhagen do not constitute an island of resistance
to modernity nor a cultural enclave that modernity has yet
to affect. They belong as much to the modern world, they
are as active in their participation in the modern experience,
as anyone else in Denmark today.
To understand religious life in contemporary Copenha-
gen, then, we have to reach beyond conceptual schema that
 Religious practice and cultural politics American Ethnologist
equate traditionalist religion with antimodernism and that
reduce the meaning of conservative religious movements to
a frantic rebellion against the onslaught of modernity.
Rather, we have to understand such religions as one of a
number of possible ideological, intellectual, and spiritual
responses to the existential situation of late modern society.
Their successes and failures hinge on the detailed interac-
tions of the cultural and institutional systems within which
they exist. The complexity of this interaction makes the out-
come of religious politics very difficult to predict, because so
many apparently trivial details can achieve political signifi-
cance. Scholars of modern religion have had strikingly little
success in predicting religious growth or revival (cf. Hadden
1987), and even the future character of the Danish Jewish
community is in doubt. Conventional wisdom in the com-
munity holds that the orthodox will gradually fail; their
demographic erosion is gradually weakening their influ-
ence, and the sheer numbers of the liberals must ultimately
produce a major reform. Who knows, however, what minor
shifts in Danish culture or Jewish faith may assume impor-
tance in the years to come? A revaluation of religiosity in
the larger society might increase liberal participation, lead-
ing to a quick and decisive coup; a liberalization of Israeli
law might weaken the position of the orthodox, giving a Re-
form congregation the legitimacy it would need to emerge; a
change in Danish attitudes toward ethnicity might give or-
thodoxy an appeal it currently lacks, increasing orthodox
numbers and cementing their authority. Religions are infi-
nitely complex systems, as are cultures, and the coming to-
gether of religion and culture offers a dizzying array of possi-
ble outcomes. But it is only by addressing this complexity,
by studying the minute ways in which religion, culture, and
power interweave, that we can begin to make sense of the
religious worlds we inhabit.
Notes
Acknowledgments. This article is based on research supported by
the American-Scandinavian Foundation, the Lois Roth-Thomsen
Endowment, the Purdue Research Foundation, and the Purdue Uni-
versity School of Liberal Arts. The author would like to thank Susan
AnnBuckser, Morton Klass, Richard Blanton, Nila Hofman, Samuel
Cooper, and the anonymous reviewers at American Ethnologist for
their helpful comments on earlier drafts.
1. This article is based onfieldworkwith Danish Jews carried out
during several visits to Copenhagen between 1996 and 2000. During
that time, in addition to participant-observation in religious serv-
ices, social activities, and family life, I conducted interviews with a
wide variety of members of various congregational subgroups. I also
reviewed archival and historical materials published by members of
the community, including Jewish social scientists and historians.
When possible, 1 have obtained feedback on my observations
through presentations to community groups and publications in
community journals (e.g., Buckser 1999c, 2000a).
2. For historical studies of the Danish Jews, see Balslev 1932, Bam-
berger 1983, Borchsenius 1968, Feigenberg 1984, and Melchior 1965.
3. Homogeneous is, of course, a relative term; Danish culture
varies according to region, class, age, gender, and other sociological
categories. Even so, Denmark is routinely described both in popular
and scholarly literature as an unusually homogeneous country, with
relatively few ethnic, religious, or linguistic minorities. This is not
merely an observation but also a normative value in a society where
"sticking out" is strongly discouraged (see Buckser 1996a; Gullestad
1994; Knudsen 1996). Delineation of "Danish" culture and cuisine,
as distinguished from those of European neighbors, is a common
topic in the press and popular media (see Knudsen 1996; cf. Jokinen
1994). Discourse on the growing Muslim community, for example,
both in the popular and academic worlds, contrasts the immigrants
with an undifferentiated "Danish" culture (for an academic exam-
ple, see Enoch 1994). Conceptualizations of Jews follow the same
pattern, with both Jewish and non-Jewish Danes tending to describe
Danish culture as a uniform entity.
4. For historical studies of the rescue of the Danish Jews in 1943,
see Buckser 1998,2001; Goldberger 1987; Kirchhoff 1995; Kreth 1995:
Sode-Madsen 1993; and Yahil 1969.
5. For discussions of religion in contemporary Denmark, see Aar-
gaard 1984; Balle-Petersen 1981; Buckser 1995, 1997; Lausten 1987;
Rod 1972; and Salamonsen 1975. For descriptions of Jewish commu-
nities elsewhere in the region, see Elazar et al. 1984; Major 1996; and
Zitomersky 1990.
6. This period of immigration and the conflicts it engendered are
recounted comprehensively in Bludnikow 1986; see also VVelner
1965 for an evocative personal memoir of the period.
7. The contours of the group are problematic; as with most ethnic
identities, Jewishness in Denmark is a subject of disagreement and
individual negotiation. For discussions of Jewish ethnicity in con-
temporary Europe, see Boyarin 1992; Charme n.d.; Eisenberg 1996;
Finkielkraut 1994; Salamon 1998; and Webber 1994, 1997. For dis-
cussions of Jewish ethnicity in contemporary Denmark, see Buckser
1999a, 2000b.
8. Preemancipation Judaism, for example, varied in important
ways from one area to the next, and even within communities,
individuals had differing understandings of the mandates of ha-
lakha. Reconciling Judaism with local customs and institutions has
ensured regional variation throughout the Diaspora period. Ortho-
doxy, by contrast, posits a single, "correct" version of Jewish prac-
tice, from which the Conservative and Reform movements stray to
differing degrees. The development of Orthodox positions also in-
volved confrontations between alternative parties in the movement;
for a discussion of some of these conflicts, see Fishman 1995.
9. The current president of the MT, for example, would not be
described as a "religious" Jew, despite his regular attendance at the
synagogue and his intense involvement in Jewish activities. His
orientation toward reforms in MT practice, as well as his marriage to
a non-Jew, clearly places him outside "de religiose." This usage
resembles one found in Danish Lutheranism, in which de hellige is
often used to denote members of the pietistic mission movements.
10. The term supernatural is used here in its popular sense, to
connote beliefs in deities, ghosts, and magic. For a discussion of the
difficulties involved in using this term in a technical sense, see Klass
1995.
11. Machsike Hadas is a term meaning "holders of the myrtle,"
and it refers to one of four symbolic items that are bound together
during the holiday of Sukkoth. The myrtle branch is tasteless but
aromatic and it, thus, represents Jews who lack a deep knowledge of
scripture but who keep the religion's commandments.
12. This raises the question of why there are two kosher butchers
at all, rather than just one. The reason has primarily to do with
congregational politics; one shop is associated with and patronized
by members of Machsike Hadas, whereas the other is associated with
119
American Ethnologist Volume 30 Number 1 February 2003
those who attend the main MT synagogue. See Buckser 1999a for
further discussion of this issue.
13. The ceremony, depending on how one looks at it, represents
either the sole liberal victory on ritual in recent decades or an unusu-
ally elegant orthodox finesse of a difficult issue. Initiated under a
rabbi who is widely viewed as an orthodox partisan, the ceremony
allows 13-year-old girls to stand on the floor of the synagogue and
read an essay they have written on their understanding of the mean-
ing of Jewishness. Many members of the congregation call the cere-
mony a bat mitzvah, and virtually all liberals with whom 1 discussed
the ritual were very enthusiastic about it. Orthodox Jews, however,
although equally enthusiastic about the ceremony, pointed out that
the speech falls after the formal end of the service and has been
carefully constructed to avoid stepping outside of Jewish law in any
way. Girls do not wear male regalia such as prayer shawls or kippot,
and they do not read from or share the floor with the Torah. In this
sense, the ceremony differs sharply from the Reform bat mitzvah,
which is effectively a female version of the male bar mitzvah cere-
mony. In effect, the new procedure pleases and placates liberals
without retreating from orthodox standards for ritual practice.
14. Not all of the rabbis have been perceived as strictly orthodox;
the recently retired Bent M elchior, for example, was widely regarded
as a force for liberalism, as was, Max Schornstein in the early 1900s.
The liberalism of such leaders, however, has been confined almost
exclusively to the question of conversion. Melchior became notori-
ous during his tenure for his lenient terms of conversion, allowing
Christian spouses of community members to convert almost as a
matter of course. His outspoken public support of human rights, as
well as his personal disagreements with prominent members of the
orthodox faction, made him something of a hero to many liberal
Jews. Yet, his conduct of ritual was rigorously orthodox. He resisted
pressure to introduce bat mitzvah ceremonies and other Reform
measures into the synagogue's religious practice, and he regarded
even his stand on conversions as falling within the discretion of an
orthodox rabbi. In general, he interpreted the ritual discretion and
social mission of an orthodox rabbi in as broad a sense as possible,
without challenging or revising the formal strictures of the office.
When a more conservative rabbi replaced him in 1996, the new
leader needed to make no formal changes in congregational practice
or policy.
15. This issue comes up regularly in the MT board meeting debate
as well as in opinion columns and heated letters to the MT journal,
Jodisk Orientering. See, for example, Krag 1998.
16. On matters of ritual practice, Copenhagen rabbis in this cen-
tury have maintained a strict Orthodox position, and they represent
one of the most important political resources for the orthodox fac-
tion. As in many Jewish congregations, however, conflicts over
authority can easily arise between the chief rabbi and the congrega-
tional board; if that board is dominated by the orthodox, such con-
flicts can cause a rift within the orthodox wing. A severe disagree-
ment in 1981 arose between Chief Rabbi Bent Melchior and the
board, which many saw as dominated by its orthodox vice-chair.
After the rabbi's contract was canceled, he turned for support to
liberal leaders, who regarded his ouster as an orthodox coup; after
several months of bitter, public infighting, liberals swamped the
orthodox in a new board election and reinstated the contract. The
election neither produced reforms in the MT's ritual practice nor
changed rules about membership or conversion in a liberal direc-
tion. It did, however, demonstrate the electoral resources available
to the liberal wing.
17. I.evine 2001, for example, provides an intriguing case of a
Jewish community able to thrive even with a very small population
and wide geographical dispersion.
18. In 199H, at the invitation of orthodox leaders in Copenhagen,
a young rabbi and his wife from Chabad, an international Hasidic
114
religious movement, came to Denmark to establish a Chabad House.
The goal of Chabad is to promote active ritual practice and Jewish
identity among Jews around the world based on a very orthodox
understanding of Judaism associated with the Lubavitcher Hasidim.
Headquartered in Crown Heights, New York, Chabad has becomean
icon in many areas of ultraorthodox Judaism. Like many missionary
movements, however, Chabad is very attentive to the established
customs and sensibilities of the communities in which it operates,
and it tries to structure its activities in ways that will appeal to the
nonobservant Jews it hopes to reach. Accordingly, although the
rabbi and his wife practice a stringently orthodox Judaism, they
organize Jewish activities that are accessible and appealing to the
liberal majority of Copenhagen Jewry. The most popular of these
activities have been holiday parties, for example, a carnival at Purim
and a party just before Rosh Hashanah. These activities allow both
men and women to participate, they take place in English or Danish,
and non-Jewish partners and guests are warmly welcomed. They
also focus on the sorts of cultural and ethnic dimensions of Judaism
that are most appealing to liberals. These activities have become
among the best-attended Jewish events in Copenhagen, attracting
hundreds of participants, and liberal Jews I interviewed spoke of
them with almost uniform enthusiasm.
19. These reforms have not, so far, materialized; liberals I inter-
viewed in the summer of 2000 seemed generally disappointed in the
results of the new leadership.
20. The overwhelming majority of Danes are members of the state
Evangelical Lutheran Church, and the ritual forms of that church are
deeply entwined with mainstream Danish culture. See Buckser
1996a and Lausten 1987.
21. An exception to this rule relates to the graves of prominent
public figures. A church may maintain the graves of its former
priests, for example, and it may allocate funds to keep up the grave
of a well-known writer or politician from the community. Because
Danish graves require considerable maintenancethey must be
kept weeded and raked, with plantings tended and headstones
cleanedsuch exceptions are made relatively rarely and only with
solid justification.
22. The High Holidays of Rosh Hashanah (the New Year) and Yom
Kippur (the Day of Atonement) take place in the fall. Shortly after-
ward comes the holiday of Sukkoth. Part of the preparations for
Sukkoth involves the building of a small outdoor enclosure called a
sukkah. During the holiday, which lasts for eight days, family meals
are eaten in the sukkah. The structures are lightly built and often
decorated with fruits or vegetables that symbolize the harvest.
23. The term dark (nwrk) has a special meaning in the Danish
religious context. It refers on the one hand to a darkness of temper,
a grim asceticism that is associated with pietist religious move-
ments. One of the major contrasts between the progressive New
Grundtvigian movement of the 19th century and the pietist Inner
Mission movement, for example, involved their respective tempera-
ments; whereas a lively cheerfulness animated many of the
Grundtvigian congregations, the Inner Mission communities were
famous for their brooding pessimism. On the other hand, darkness
has a quite literal association with the color of pietist clothing. The
farmers and fishermen of the Inner Mission, the Luther's Mission,
and other ascetic movements often wore black suits, and calling a
religious view or practice "black" associates it with these groups.
24. The movement foundered by 1820, because of a series of set-
backs. Orthodox members of the congregation complained loudly to
the government, which eventually supported them against the char-
ismatic Reform rabbi, lsac Noa Mannheimer. Nathanson himself
suffered a series of business disasters, which crippled his influence
in the congregation, and the orthodox gradually reasserted control.
The excitement generated by the Reform group during its heyday,
however, suggests that things might have turned out differently. Had
 Religious practice and cultural politics American Ethnologist
Nathanson retained his influence, had Mannheimer not left the city,
and had they both pushed their agenda with more political finesse,
the Reform movement might well have gained control of the MT. For
historical studies of this episode, see Balslev 1932; Borchsenius 1968;
and Meyer 1964.
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accepted November 26,2001

final version submitted December 13,2001

Andrew Buckser
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Purdue University
1365 Stone Hall
West Lafayette, IN 47907
bucksera@soc.purdue.edu

117