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Paper short abstract:

The nearly mythological imagery of the Golan Heights has forged the becoming of young Syrian Druze women, and influenced their decision to marry across the border into Israel. The paper explores their life on the Golan Heights, their new self awareness from Druze returning home to Syrian migrants

Paper long abstract:

The main defence against assimilation and diaspora for ethno-religious communities is the strictest adherence to traditional teachings and kinship. This constantly fuels the search for brides and grooms within their communities, regardless of modern national borders.

The "Golan Brides" are Syrian Druze women who have married into the Druze community living on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. One of the most powerful motives for their life-changing choice is their vision of a highly idealised Golan, a land of plenty, blessed like heaven on Earth. Their passage to the Heights is the return, both ideal and physical, to the land that has belonged to their families for generations.

With songs ringing in their ears and old photos in front of their eyes, those brides made their way from Damascus to the checkpoint in El-Quneitra. Upon passing the UN-guarded gate they are stripped of their documents, and are de-facto forced to reinvent themselves, build families and make a living on the old land into a new society. With time, the myths have subsided and the once young Druze brides are now grown stateless Syrian women living on disputed territory dealing with diasporic issues, foreigner in their own homeland.

Drawing upon the theoretical work of Safran (1991), Clifford (1994) and the later work of Dufoix (2008), and upon ethnographic research into individuals' case studies of Golan brides, this article will explore ways of attachment to land as a maker of identity, and the paradox of women being migrant in their own historical geographic territory.