Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted with Jewish conversion agents and activists in Israel between 2004 and 2007, this article argues that state‐run Jewish conversion provides a constructive institutional arena for religious Zionists to rework their active citizenship, in both the Israeli state and the religious Zionism movement. To the extent that Israel offers a compelling case for understanding how and why the politics of religious conversion intersect with the legal and bureaucratic dynamics of the modern nation‐state, it also allows us to unpack the identity work of those who take it upon themselves to embody the morals and ambitions of the Jewish state. I draw on anthropological writing on the state and citizenship to argue that, by working institutionally on behalf of the state and investing itself in a goal assumed to secure its future, the religious Zionist community attempts to reaffirm the idea of “national responsibility” —a discursive construct that underwrites its interdependent relationship with the Israeli state. Such a reaffirmation is of particular importance in light of the volatile struggles it has had with and within the state over Israel's political and religious policies.

中文翻译：

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担负国家重任：以色列的犹太复国主义公民身份，国家责任和犹太人悔改

根据2004年至2007年期间与以色列的犹太改宗代理人和活动家进行的人种志田野调查，本文认为，由国家管理的犹太人改宗活动为犹太复国主义者提供了一个建设性的制度舞台，可以重塑以色列国和犹太复国主义者的积极公民身份运动。在一定程度上，以色列提供了令人信服的案例，以了解宗教信仰转换的政治如何与现代民族国家的法律和官僚机构动态相交，为什么它如此相交，这也使我们能够对那些将其视为自己的身份认同者进行剖析体现犹太国家的道德和野心。我以关于国家和公民身份的人类学著作来论证，犹太复国主义宗教团体通过代表国家在体制上开展工作，并为实现其未来的目标进行投资，从而试图重申“国家责任”的观念，这种话语结构是其与以色列国家相互依存关系的基础。鉴于以色列与以色列国内以及以色列内部在政治和宗教政策方面的动荡不定的斗争，这种重申特别重要。