Abstract

This chapter introduces the book’s main terms of kinesthetic peoplehood, corporeal diasporism, and the dichotomy of ancient versus contemporary. It argues that diaspora and migration manifest in the body. Furthermore, it contends that audience encounters with Jewish practices that resonate with or rub against their familiarity with Jewish cultures determine how people feel part of or estranged from the Jewish diaspora. By gaining literacy in myriad Jewish aesthetics, audiences can come to recognize the multiplicity of global Jewry. The chapter presents two modes of kinesthetic peoplehood: an ancient/modern dichotomy that connects people through a mythology of an imagined shared past and corporeal diasporism that describes the body as a vessel for diasporic circulation linking Jewish people across regions. It introduces the book’s research methodology of decentering Ashkenazi assumptions to complicate diasporic hierarchies. Relationships between dance makers, performers, and spectators reflect ongoing Jewish migration and perception of peoplehood. The analysis upends binary Ashkenazi/non-Ashkenazi, heteronormative/queer, home/exile, and self/Other conceptions of diaspora.