'רבנו זה אבא': אבהות מטפלת כתסריט: גבריות בקרב עולי רגל לאומן

The annual pilgrimage to Uman, Ukraine, during Rosh Hashana is the key eventof the year for Breslov Hassidim. It is an exclusively male event, in which fathersare encouraged to visit Rabbi Nachman’s grave in the company of their youngsons. In the absence of mothers and older sisters, fathers find the round-the-clockcare for the children challenging but are excited about the opportunity to spendquality time with them. In this article, we draw on participant observation and fortyinterviews with men who traveled to Uman with young sons to reveal a uniquescript of caring masculinity that combines hands-on care with fatherly religiouspedagogy under the holy aegis of a mythological father (Rabbi Nachman). Thepilgrims experience this as a precious opportunity to fulfill a cultural ideal that isunattainable to them in quotidian life. As such, it offers partial compensation forthe patriarchal deficit that characterizes their daily lives, much as it does to menthroughout the global North, who struggle to accommodate contradictory demandsas providers, partners, and parents, and therefore fail on the caring front. We arguethat, although the caring masculinity that occurs during the pilgrimage does notreverse haredi gender roles, it exudes a dynamic quality by combining traditionalconservatism with pragmatic innovation. The paper offers a unique insight intoharedi fatherhood and augments the cumulative ethnographic literature on fatherlyroles in diverse cultural settings.