In both academic writing and popular discourse, “the universal” is often assumed to oppose “the particular”. It is thought to transcend specific cultural, religious, ethnic, or national characteristics, offering a bird’s-eye view above particularities. Yet my anthropological research among two ideologically distinct right-wing Jewish Israeli groups illustrates how universality is not necessarily at odds with deeply rooted commitments. I will first show that people can adopt globally circulating universalist attitudes as a foundation for highly particularist commitments and claims to uniqueness. I will then show that universalisms can find expression through, and draw strength from, particularist loyalties and forms of belonging.
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Between 2015 and 2018, I conducted two periods of intensive fieldwork among orthodox-Jewish, strongly nationalist Israelis practicing globally circulating mindfulness techniques drawn from Buddhism. A central question was: why do people who usually regard Judaism as the only fully true religion increasingly adopt spiritual practices from a tradition Judaism often associates with its cardinal prohibition on “alien worship”? A related puzzle was: how do those committed to Israeli settlement of the entire biblical Holy Land—a stance entailing military control over Palestinians—embrace self-reflection techniques widely linked, in Buddhism and beyond, to nonviolence and compassion toward all beings?
A core feature of orthodox practitioners’ approach is the idea that the mind is universal, functioning the same for everyone. This understanding draws, at least partly, on the teachings of internationally popular meditation teachers. The Burmese-Indian teacher S. N. Goenka’s (1924–2013) ten-day vipassanā (“insight”) retreats—delivered worldwide via standardized video and audio recordings—are especially popular among Israelis. Even if indirectly, Goenka’s approach influences orthodox-Jewish meditators as well.
Goenka’s teachings emphasize universality. His retreats feature a plain aesthetic that seeks to avoid cultural markers and symbols. He framed the Buddha’s teachings as akin to modern science, purportedly transcending parochial identities. The Buddha, he claimed, taught neither a religion nor philosophy, but a universal solution—based on a universal law of nature—to the universal problem of suffering. This remedy, he insisted, is accessible to all: breath, bodily sensations, and awareness of them are common to everyone, regardless of background, country, or affiliation.
Orthodox-Jewish Israelis have created a “Jewish” version of these retreats, led by a former Goenka student who teaches in the same style but without authorization from Goenka’s organization. These retreats diverge from Goenka’s model: they include group Jewish prayers, hitbodedut (a Hasidic practice of solitary, candid speech with God), and are usually held in West Bank settlements. Participants are mostly orthodox and ultra-orthodox men. The framing of vipassanā draws not from Buddhism, but from Jewish thought—Hasidism, Mussar, religious Zionism, and rabbinic texts. Yet the meditation technique seeks to follow Goenka’s method as closely as possible and is taught as universally beneficial, assuming the mind operates the same way for all.
However, this universality applies only at one level. Like Goenka, orthodox-Jewish practitioners see the mind (nefesh)—which for them is the lower, bodily aspect of the self’s interiority—as shared by all. But they also tend to hold that higher aspects exist, particularly the soul (neshamah), which many of them see as uniquely Jewish or differently operative in Jews. This view—rejected by many other vipassanā and mindfulness practitioners as “psychological tribalism”—treats the repair of the nefesh through universal techniques as a way to access the divine neshamah, where a Jew can encounter both God and the Jewish People within.
Orthodox-Jewish practitioners often argue that this process of inner repair can only occur in the “Land of Israel”. They contend that refining the nefesh is largely impossible in the diaspora—or “exile”—where material and ancestral territorial ties are severed. Only in Israel, they claim, can Jews engage in this spiritual work, advancing the world’s gradual progress towards redemption. So while they adopt a universalist frame from Buddhist modernizers like Goenka, they do so to establish a second, particularist layer of selfhood. In this layer, key aspects of the inner world differ between Jews and non-Jews—especially in the unique geography of the Holy Land, understood to carry profound cosmic consequences when “re-united with the Jewish People”.
Beyond their universal-cum-particular view of the mind, a reverse logic applies to redemption. Rather than the neshamah building on the nefesh, here a particular belonging—to the Jewish People—is seen as having universal impact. Orthodox-Jewish meditators do not seek to convert others, follow global trends, or directly shape non-Jews’ moral or spiritual trajectories. Yet they see their distinct Jewish-national way of life—applicable only to a tiny population of roughly 14 million people in a world of around eight billion—as exerting an indirect transformative global influence.
This reflects a form of messianism that is particularist in content but universal in effect. Rather than proselytize, these practitioners view Jews’ Torah observance as a historical force that has improved the world in different ways across eras. Even military conquest, despite its costs to Palestinians, is seen as divinely ordained and ultimately beneficial for all. It enables the fulfillment of commandments associated with settlement of the land, which in turn furthers universal redemption. Their specific national-religious obligations, then, are understood to produce universal positive outcomes.
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Another form of universalism-amidst-particularism emerges in the marketplace at Ramle—a city in central Israel where, since the 1950s, the largest demographic has been working-class Mizrahim (Jews of Middle Eastern and North African backgrounds). A minority are Palestinians and Arabs, both Muslim and Christian, who, before an expulsion during the 1948 war in the course of which Israel was established, formed Ramle’s large majority.
In the market, the idea of a universal individual detached from specific affiliations and commitments is often explicitly rejected. Particularist identity is seen as inescapable. Vendors—both Jewish and Palestinian—frequently parody leftist Israeli activists who, as Erica Weiss describes, espouse “humanitarian empathy”,[1] mocking slogans such as: “What does it matter if you are a Jew or an Arab? We are all human beings!” In their broader lives—such as when choosing a spouse—belonging to a religion and a people matters greatly. But in the market, this reality mainly determines the kinds of jokes one receives. The humor is, in a way, egalitarian: it spares no identity and promotes a limited form of tolerance—an acceptance of challenging forms of otherness—one that both highlights and elasticizes boundaries through play.[2]
Rather than erase difference, marketplace sociality negotiates it—often through blunt humor, which helps lehachil (to “contain” or “accommodate”) challenging forms of otherness. This humor depends on national, religious, intra-Jewish ethnic, political, and class stereotypes. The marketplace accommodates such differences, as long as participants follow certain unwritten rules: avoid condescension and accept that anyone, including oneself, can be the butt of a joke. A rooted form of universalism thus emerges through the intimacy of extended social ties marked by distinct forms of belonging—not through abstract ideals of shared humanity.
Other scales of social life in Ramle operate differently. In other work, I examine the shifting relationships between home and neighborhood, public spaces like the market, municipal governance, and national politics—each with its own logic. These scales compete in real time to frame events. For example, during the clashes of May 2021—sparked by tensions around Israeli control of the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem—individuals had to choose whether to see those around them as members of a hostile collective or as neighbors, friends, or anonymous strangers. In such moments, both universal anonymity and particular belonging could mean the difference between rescue or harm.
My interlocutors in Ramle, primarily working-class Mizrahim, also sometimes claim the universal validity—and superiority—of their political and philosophical views and aesthetic tastes over those of secular “elites”. This extends to food, fashion, and leisure. In doing so, they invert the expectations of liberal universalism—and of hierarchies they partly accept—in which highly educated, cosmopolitan Ashkenazi Jews are seen as more sophisticated. Just as secular elites often dismiss them as victims of “false consciousness”, misled by Netanyahu, right-wing media, or rabbis, they often regard secular middle-class liberals as “poor things” who unquestioningly accept absurdities, lack critical thought, and conform intellectually. In this reversal, traditionalist Mizrahim see themselves as bearers of universally valid truths, while highly educated “privileged elites” are more easily deluded and led. They view the elites’ aspiration to align with the West as a claim to universal certainty—but see them as actually driven by fleeting cultural fashions from Europe and North America.
This occasional, qualified sense of epistemic certainty also influences how they engage with anti-government, self-described “pro-democracy” protesters, who usually belong to those same elites. Working-class, traditionalist Mizrahim often argue that the protesters assume they do not properly understand democracy. They believe that their views and values are unacceptable and must be kept away from positions of power in government and civil society to protect the state’s successful functioning. Indeed, exchanges with protesters are experienced not as dialogue but as condescending pedagogy. The protester—often from the political minority—teaches, and the traditionalist Mizrahi—often from the political majority—is expected to learn. As a result, traditionalist Mizrahim often feel dismissed. Their perspectives are rendered illegitimate, despite elite activists’ stated emphasis on “listening”, which is often strategic. Rather than inviting mutual change, it tends to aim at transforming working-class Mizrahi views and values that are seen as threatening or unfit for a liberal democracy.
These encounters frequently reinforce the sense that elites, despite their status and education, do not properly know or understand Mizrahim or indeed Israelis other than themselves, and that their fear makes them “detached from reality”. This, in turn, fortifies working-class Mizrahi epistemic confidence. One interlocutor described this as a “hate-admiration” dynamic. It combines admiration for elite credentials—and a strong desire to be recognized as legitimate by them—with resentment over exclusion and disdain for elites’ strange practices and views. The result is a hesitant yet insistent sense that working-class Mizrahim—rather than the elites, whose claims to universal truth they challenge—possess a more grounded understanding of politics and power.
This conviction extends to global affairs. Many of my traditionalist Mizrahi interlocutors assess international expectations of Israel almost entirely through the lens of national interest. They reject universal criteria as selectively and unfairly enforced. They often note that Israel alone seems to compete to be recognized as having “the most moral army in the world”—a contest they say Israelis foolishly invented. Western allies and regional neighbors escape such scrutiny, yet Israel is held to impossible standards regardless of its actions or the complex circumstances in which it operates. Many are convinced that trusting in the universal fairness of international expectations—including “international law”—is naive. As one interlocutor put it, “The world doesn’t like Jews. So if other countries support Israel, it is usually because of interests”.
Therefore, even as they reject externally imposed universal ethical standards, traditionalist Mizrahim often implicitly view their own sensibilities as universally applicable. They struggle to understand why others, in Israel and abroad, do not see the world similarly—often viewing this as a failure of perception or willful self-deception. This tension—between rejecting universal criteria and assuming the universality of their own perspective—shapes their political outlook in important ways.
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Taken together, these ethnographic cases show that universalism, rather than being an abstract ideal opposed to particularity, often emerges through—or actively shapes—particularist commitments. Among orthodox-Jewish meditation practitioners, universalist claims about the mind form the basis for a distinctively Jewish spiritual hierarchy, where the nefesh is shared by all, but the neshamah is uniquely Jewish. Conversely, it is particularist Jewish commitments in the Land of Israel that are believed to drive universal redemption. In Ramle’s marketplace, universalism is not grounded in sameness but in a shared, if unequal, social grammar—one where difference is acknowledged, negotiated, and, to a degree, transcended through humor and mutual recognition. Among the city’s working-class, traditionalist Mizrahim, universalism is both critiqued and inverted. They challenge the neutrality of liberal and international norms while often assuming that their own sensibilities—rooted in national loyalty, skepticism toward elites, and a pragmatic view of power—should be self-evident to others.
These cases suggest that universalism is not simply imposed from above, but a dynamic, situated logic through which people make sense of themselves, others, and their place in a contested world—alongside particularism, its mutually constitutive other. Whether in spiritual practice, visions of redemption, everyday market exchanges, or hard-nosed political realism, universality and particularity appear as deeply entangled forces.
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[1] Weiss, E. (2015). Provincializing Empathy: Humanitarian Sentiment and the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict. Anthropological Theory, 15(3), 275–292.
[2] See Seligman, A. (2024). Boundaries and Community: Rules for Re-engagement. Unpublished manuscript.
