Paper Short Abstract:

"Shaatnez: Creating Fantastic Judaism" is a literary space for creating and discussing fantastic Judaism, initiated by a group of Jewish-Israeli creators at 2021. The members of Shaatnez, deliberately seek to explore and incorporate parts of the Jewish folklore, religion, and culture, through fantasy literature, within various digital platforms.

Paper Abstract:

"Shaatnez: Creating Fantastic Judaism" is a literary project, initiated by a group of Jewish-Israeli creators at the beginning of 2021. The members of Shaatnez, deliberately seek to explore and incorporate parts of the Jewish folklore, religion, and culture, through fantasy literature.

Within ‘Shaatnez’ one can find short stories, sequential narratives, theories, critiques, presentations, podcasts and more. The project first came to be through social media, from the publication of stories on their Facebook page and later a Facebook group for discussing and engaging with their audience, alongside an intimate WhatsApp group for their core members.

Shaatnez was established, ‘with the intent of fantasizing our culture from within itself’, and with the perspective that there is a need for ‘lasting fantastical Judaism that we lack in the world’, as they define it. Within Shaatnez, they create and discuss Jewish fantasy literature which emerges from the culture in which they live.

In this presentation I aim to trace the dynamics from which the project emerged and its use of folk materials to (re)create a literary genre. To be more precise, where do the members of Shaatnez come from, and what is their innovation? What new insights can fantasy provide us? And how far can it get?

Based on in-depth interviews with the founding members and additional writers, alongside participant observations within their wider activities, I will focus on the in-group voices and unique perspectives that each of them brings, that come to life within their stories, together making Shaatnez what it is.