"You want to undress us to press your case": Negotiating claims to religious truth in a secularizing state

For decades, Luxembourg funded its recognized religious communities; recently, with a goal of greater secularization, the state made major changes (and cuts) to its funding scheme. This move revived simmering tensions in the Jewish community, comprised of one Orthodox and one Liberal synagogue and represented to the state by a single Orthodox-led administrative body (la communauté israélite du Luxembourg, or CIL). Emboldened by growing membership and fearing a loss of their already-precarious autonomy and financial support, the Liberal congregation has begun pushing for representation on the CIL, which the Orthodox congregation in turn resists. In the process, Orthodox leadership is forced to reflect on their own practices and values in sometimes uncomfortable ways. As they jostle for control of the CIL, each side makes claims to truth, authenticity, and authority based on drastically different ethics and visions of the future for Luxembourg and its Jewish community. In board meetings, general assemblies, and conversations, old conflicts around the 'right' kind of Jewish life and current and future shape and needs of the Jewish community are rearticulated as the two congregations debate who can and should be the state's interlocutor. Based on 31 months of fieldwork, this paper explores how a reorganization of state administrative control reignited an old struggle within Luxembourg's Jewish community and how two congregations with different histories, ethical projects, and anticipated futures fight to define Jewishness, community, and a good Jewish life and to maintain (or gain) the right to represent Judaism to the Luxembourgish state.