Focusing on the secular society of contemporary Israel, this collection of essays examines the way civil religion invents collective rites for turning points in community life, and personal definitional rites for ratification of identity change in the individual's life cycle.

PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. PART ONE: RITES AND SOCIAL STRUCTURE. Chapter One: Social Networks and Mourning: A Comparative Approach. Chapter Two: Unofficial Memorial Rites in an Army Unit. PART TWO: RITES AND CIVIL RELIGION: INVENTION OF TRADITION. Chapter Three: Ethnic Civil Religion: A Case Study of Immigrants from Rumania in Israel (with Rina Neeman). Chapter Four: Death Customs in a Non-Religious Kibbutz: The Use of Sacred Symbols in a Secular Society. Chapter Five: Personal Bereavement in a Collective Environment: Mourning in the Kibbutz. PART THREE: PERSONAL DEFINITIONAL RITES: CHANGING ONE’S IDENTITY. Chapter Six: From Fat to Thin: Informal Rituals of Identity Change (with Carmela Shmilovitz and Meira Weiss). Chapter Seven: Formal and Informal Retirement Rites in the Israeli Army (with Drora Peer). REFERENCES. General Index. Authors Index.