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Daily doses of fascinating, useful, and always scholarly Jewish Studies materials. Plus tips and tricks. Suitable for all ages...if you're already on tumblr to begin with.

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Voices of the Jewish Diaspora

Jewish culture has evolved tremendously in modern history, leaving behind a rich legacy with rich audio artifacts to match. Thanks to the Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life, Pop Up Archive now has access to important Jewish oral histories and speeches.

[dailyjewishstudies]

Via PopUp Archive: Voices from the Jewish diaspora

The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art & Life

Voices from the Jewish diaspora

Established at UC Berkeley’s Bancroft Library in 2010, the

Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life

holds a number of rare and newly digitized recordings. Thanks to the Magnes Collection, we now have access to important Jewish oral histories and speeches.

Among these recordings is a

historic 1956 speech from Golda Meir

, then Foreign Minister of the State of Israel, who became Israel’s fourth Prime Minister in 1969.

Meir speaks to the Israel Bonds Development Corporation of America about the history of Jewish persecution and the contentious founding of Israel.

Meir says: "No sooner did we declare our independence then we were in the midst of a very bitter struggle for our very existence.”

She describes a matter of life or death: "...[The] Jewish people have been faced with another problem: And that is to live or not to live. There were many moments in our history when it would have been very convenient for others had we decided not to live. ...For us to have remained alive meant also to keep alive the desire and the dream and the determination to be free and independent."

Other recordings include "

A Dinner of Appreciation to the U.N.

" from 1965, a 1968 speech from Israel’s fifth prime minister,

Yitzhak Rabin

, and an oral history of

Seymour Fromer

, who co-founded the Magnes Museum with his wife Rebecca Fromer.

Take a listen to more of the newly digitized audio already available on Pop Up Archive:

Listen: The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life

See you in the archive,

The Pop Up Archive team

[dailyjewishstudies]

This is an oral history interview with Max Berner. Max was interviewed in 1981 as part of the Great War oral history project. Max Berner was the son of Jewish immigrants from Latvia. He was born in Manchester but moved to Birmingham aged 3 months old. After leaving school Berner worked in the metal industry which led to him setting up his own scrap metal business at the beginning of the war. In March 1917 he enlisted with ‘H’ Special Company, Royal Engineers in the Poison Gas Section. He served in France and Belgium. Berner discuses the use of poison gas in warfare, as well as German and Chinese prisoners of war. Berner was demobbed in January 1919. Some of the terminology used in this interview may be considered offensive today. Oral history number: R0035 Download the transcript here: http://bmagblog.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/r0035-max-berner-nt.pdf

[dailyjewishstudies]

E177 | The 1870 Crémieux Decree extended French citizenship to most, but not all, of Algeria's Jewish population. The Jews of the M'zab Valley were excluded from this legislation. As Professor Sarah Abrevaya Stein explains in this episode, this was due to a complex web of historical confluences including the chronology of conquest, shifting military and administrative structures for French Algerian rule, and perceptions of Jewish, Arab and Berber indigeneity. This story, while anchored in the local, participates in wider discussions of international Jewish philanthropies, decolonization, citizenship, belonging and marginality amid rapidly shifting global conditions. Sarah Abrevaya Stein is a professor in the Department of History and Maurice Amado Endowed Chair in Sephardic Studies at UCLA. In addition to Saharan Jews and the Fate of French Algeria (University of Chicago Press, 2014), she has written a number of award-winning books and articles including Plumes: Ostrich Feathers, Jews and a Lost World of Global Commerce (Yale University Press, 2008), winner of the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature. She is the co-editor of Sephardi Lives: a Documentary History, 1700-1950 (Stanford University Press, 2014), a primary source reader of over 150 documents translated from fifteen different languages into English along with Professor Julia Phillips Cohen of Vanderbilt University. Alma Rachel Heckman is a Ph.D. candidate at UCLA's history department. Her dissertation is entitled "Radical Nationalists: Moroccan Jewish Communists 1945-1975" and concerns Jewish engagement in Morocco's national liberation movement, intertwined with global political developments and migrations. More at: http://tajine.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2014/10/jews-saharan-french-algeria.html

[dailyjewishstudies]

E126 | Progress, colonialism, nationalism, and the civilizing mission are all concepts associated with the late nineteenth century that were on display at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. In this podcast, Alma Heckman discusses the ways in which l'Alliance Israélite Universelle, a Jewish philanthropic organization founded in Paris in 1860, participated in the exposition and in doing so, highlights the ways in which the group's ideology and activities in the realm of education in the Middle East and North Africa contribute to our understanding of these important notions. - See more at: http://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2010/09/jewish-education-ottoman-empire-alliance-israelite.html#sthash.OW8hN6dc.dpuf

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From the PSU Library’s fall exhibit of PSU’s Yizkor book collection:

The exhibit “Of Place and Memory: The Yizkor Book as a Window into a World Destroyed” at the Portland State University Library tells the stories of Eastern European Jews and their communities destroyed in the Holocaust. It is the result of a first-time collaboration between the University Library and the Harold Schnitzer Family Program in Judaic Studies.

Yizkor books were assembled by survivors from all over Eastern Europe to document their lives, those of their lost family members and friends and their obliterated shtetls (towns).  Part memoir, part family tree, part family photo album, Yizkor books tell not only of a people and culture destroyed, but also of a people’s renewal and post-1945 regeneration that followed in Israel and the Diaspora.

Portland State University Library’s Special Collections is the steward of 136 Yizkor books—the largest collection of its kind in the Pacific Northwest.  Its Yizkor holdings include a volume dating back to 1929, published in Pinsk, well prior to World War II, as well as unique copies not yet included in the recent digitization project undertaken by the New York Public Library’s Dorot Jewish Division.  “Of Place and Memory” is curated by Natan M. Meir, the Lorry I. Lokey Assistant Professor of Judaic Studies, with assistance from Special Collections.

“For researchers, Yizkor books are a precious resource, providing a glimpse of everyday life in the shtetls that were home to so many Eastern European Jews before the Holocaust,” Meir states.   “Though many of the books have a strongly nostalgic strain, their collage-like quality makes them a genre of their own, and they are fascinating both in and of themselves as well as because of the vanished world that they memorialize.”

Learn more about the Yizkor Book Collection online at http://library.pdx.edu/yizkor.html.

[dailyjewishstudies]

Via the Forward: In Jewish Studies, Women Remain ‘Second Sex’

January 5, 2015, 5:00am

By Keren R. McGinity

via Creative Commons

Whenever I tell my thirteen year old daughter Shira about an article I’m writing or a presentation I’m giving, the first thing she asks me is “Will you be paid?” This simple question illustrates that female Jewish academics are still the “second sex” in the American University system.

In his plenary address at the annual Association for Jewish Studies conference December 14th, AJS president and noted Brandeis historian, Jonathan D. Sarna said “Women have not yet achieved anything like equality in terms of salaries.” His speech synthesized data from ayet-to-be-released survey of AJS members sponsored by the American Academy of Jewish research and conducted by Steven M. Cohen of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. The sample had 1,790 respondents representing a 60 percent response rate out of a total sample of 3,026 members with analysis limited to the 1,353 respondents living in the US or Canada.

Related

What We Learn From the Salary Survey

32 Things You Should Know About The Forward's 2014 Salary Survey

One notable find has been the progress over time in terms of the female-to-male ratio in Jewish studies. In 1966 there was only one woman working in the field. By 1978-79, the AJS had 114 women members (approximately 16 percent), which grew to 47 percent by 2007. In 2014, women actually outnumbered men among recent PhDs who earned their degree within the past decade: 54 percent to 46 percent.

The increase in women choosing to enter the field suggests that their interest in pursuing Jewish studies is undeterred by either the scarcity of jobs — Sarna made clear that job seekers outnumber jobs and older professors are not eager to retire — or that they are optimistic about finding some sort of work outside of the academy. Seeking creative alternatives is warranted given that among AJS members who received their PhDs since 2005 in North America, 50 percent did not hold a tenure track academic position three years after finishing.

The AJS survey also found that men who earned their doctorate between 1980 and 1994 made an average salary of $128,000 while women made $100,000. The difference among recent PhDs (since 2005) was $65,000 to $59,000. It’s difficult to know whether the smaller gap is due to progress being made toward income equality or that more recent PhDs have less disposable time to pursue outside income than seasoned professors.

“The biggest gaps occur when you add in ‘other dollars.’ Men earn twice as much as women in additional compensation,” says Deborah Dash Moore, director of the University of Michigan’s Frankel Center for Judaic Studies who chaired the sub-committee that oversaw the survey. “This would suggest that the larger society, which pays for lectures, scholars in residence, consultants, and authors of works for hire (like textbooks), continues to reward men and to solicit men far more than women.”

I’ve experienced this kind sexism firsthand. I was once asked by the executive director of a Jewish non-profit to create a bibliography of intermarriage—my area of scholarship. When I suggested that I be paid for my effort his response was, “Never mind. I’ll do it myself.” Would he have likewise assumed that a male scholar would do this work without compensation?

How do Jewish studies salaries compare to salaries in other academic fields? The average 2013-14 salary for men and women faculty in public, private-independent, and religiously affiliated institutions at the academic rank of full professor was $142,000 for men and $128,000 for women (Academe, Survey Report Table 5, March-April 2014). “The gender gap is still most pronounced at research institutions at the higher ranks, especially full professor level where numbers of men and their salaries are much higher,” says Anne Runyan, chair of the American Association of University Professors’ Committee on Women in the Academic Professions. “In aggregate as well, there is about a 10 percent gender salary gap at research institutions, although new hires show a closing gap in numbers and starting salaries.”

The gender gap is lower in liberal arts colleges than research institutions and nearly closed at community colleges in terms of new hires and salaries. Hence there appears to be something of a parallel between Jewish studies and academe in general in that the gap is larger the higher up the ranks and smaller at the lower ranks and for newer PhDs. For example, at the academic rank of instructor at all categories of institution, women earned $49,000 compared to men’s $51,000, a much narrower gap than at the higher ranks. Noting these discrepancies, Riv-Ellen Prell, AJS member and professor of American Studies at the University of Minnesota, says, “It is incumbent on universities to carefully monitor disparities across class and gender.”

Achieving gender equity in Jewish studies is a critical goal. Referring to Sheryl Sandberg’s bestselling book “Lean In,” Sarna pledged to conference attendees “that AJS will lean in with you.” The loud applause that followed made evident these words resonated strongly with many present. Until recently, the Women’s Caucus of the AJS independently subsidized childcare for conference attendees. A loss of external funding eliminated childcare, making it difficult for Jewish studies scholars of both sexes to participate fully but likely influencing mothers of young children more than fathers.

But in order for Jewish studies to be in the vanguard, men must also be encouraged to fully “lean in” and become equal partners when it comes to household labor and childcare, and employers must increase women’s salaries on a par with men’s rather than expect them to behave like men during the negotiation process. As economists have documented, men ask for what they want twice as often as women and initiate negotiation four times more. In order for women to succeed equally as men in Jewish studies and out, in academia and out, they need to ask for higher salaries and men need to demand that their female colleagues be paid equally. Until then, true equity between genders remains a thing of the future.

Dr. Keren R. McGinity is affiliated with Brandeis University. Her books include the newly released Marrying Out: Jewish Men, Intermarriage, and Fatherhood. Learn more atwww.loveandtradition.com

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[dailyjewishstudies]

BLOG POST: Learning to Undo Ashke-normativity – A Jew in the Motherland

The Conspiracy | October 22, 2014 by Jonathan Katz | 3 Comments

Like most Jews with ties to South Africa, my heritage is extremely Ashkenazi. In fact, both sides of my family largely originate from the same region of what is now northeastern Lithuania and northern Belarus. Growing up in New York, most of what I was exposed to as “Jewish culture” was really “Ashkenazi, specifically Lithuanian practice”: savory gefilte fish, Yiddishisms, and my grandmother’s frown at the mere mention of the word Chabad. (As almost every Litvak family does, we claim [perhaps incorrectly] that we are descended from the Vilna Ga’on, whose archenemy was the Hasidic movement.) Suffice to say that, in a country whose Jewish community equates “Jewish” and “Eastern European,” my Jewish upbringing was extremely Ashke-normative.

Some of this changed in college. I learned about Sephardi and Mizrahi customs and traditions – from the additions in the Kaddish to the foods consumed on various holidays. I learned particularly about the discrimination Mizrahi migrants faced in the early days of Israel, and about continued struggles in that regard today. However, my engagement with non-Ashkenazi custom by and large remained somewhat curtailed, and our Hillel was certainly very Ashkenazi-centric – despite the staff’s best efforts at inclusion.

And then I crossed the Atlantic.

England’s Jewish community has a quite different hierarchy of custom. The first Jews allowed in the country after re-admission to England in the 17th century were Spanish and Portuguese Jews from Amsterdam. Their practice became the established norm in London by the 18th century, and wealthy Italian Jews contributed too to an ascendant Sephardi norm. True, some German custom was to be found. But by the arrival of large-scale Ashkenazi migration to England in the late 19th-century, an upper-class Anglo-Jewish Sephardi community had sealed Sephardi custom in the “upper-caste” practice of Jewry across the British Empire. Despite changes instituted by a huge Ashkenazi influx, many Sephardi traditions remain just as normative and celebrated in England – even as they are hushed in an America that exhibited a similar Jewish settlement trajectory.

Oxford’s (fantastic) community is, admittedly, somewhat more non-Ashkenazi than most English synagogues. Several of the prominent community members, prayer-leaders, and Torah readers are Sephardi or Mizrahi, and both practices are frequently found in services. There was even a Sephardi option on Yom Kippur. But beyond Oxford, Sephardi and Mizrahi influences can be found throughout English Jewish practice today. A distinct English Sephardic prayer rite is still used, and many siddurim offer both Ashkenazi and Sephardi options. Sephardic heroes in English Jewish history – Sir Moses Montefiore prime among them – are far more celebrated than those of America.

My initial reaction was one of puzzlement. “What are these strange practices?” I thought. “And how is everyone here not as puzzled as I am?” But I soon realized that my consideration of these practices as strange was a reflection of my own Ashkenazi-centric upbringing, and my own Ashkenazi-centric approach to Judaism. Rather than see these non-Ashkenazi practices as strange, or demand to be taught about them, I realized it was my imperative to learn more about them. At this point, I find myself now celebrating the change. After all, we are one people Israel.

Admittedly, England’s Jewish community is very Ashkenazi-normative too. (Other parts of the United Kingdom are too.) Many English Jews are also confused at their first encounter with Sephardi or Mizrahi practice. Yet in conversation I noticed that many more English Ashkenazim are comfortable with non-Ashkenazi practice than those in the United States. I began to wonder why.

New York may be big, but it is a bubble. So often in the big Jewish communities of the United States, “different” practices get isolated into their own spaces. Sephardim in New York go to Sephardi synagogues OR sit through a highly Ashkenazi practice. Note that few Ashkenazim go in the other direction. Simultaneously, ideas of normalcy in Jewish communities – and especially the traditional egalitarian communities I have participated in – hew towards a highly Ashkenazi-centric model. Some point out, rightly, that most American Jews are Ashkenazi. (So are most English Jews.) Others fall prey to racist ideas, claiming that Ashkenazim were somehow more egalitarian, or that Ashkenazi practice is the basis of Jewish achievement. Neither is true – and the self-congratulation allows us to forget that non-Ashkenazi practice has just as much of a place in Jewish worship today. England more generally and Oxford specifically offer one potential way forward in this regard: integration of practice is not all that impossible. But, beyond this, we must copy England in another manner: honoring Sephardi and Mizrahi custom.

As Sephardi-written articles in New Voices have said before, honoring Sephardi and Mizrahi custom as an Ashkenazi person is about more than eating mufletot, or appreciating the occasional chanting in Syrian or Gibraltarian tropes. One must learn about Sephardi and Mizrahi history – and certainly not in the “heroic Ashkenazi savior” mode. One must undo the conflation of Jewishness with Ashkenazikeit: for some Jews, matzoh balls are as foreign to their celebrations as fenugreek is to ours. And perhaps most importantly, one must become as ready to acknowledge Sephardi and Mizrahi practice as normative as one does Ashkenazi.

In that regard, we again can learn a lot from England.

  Jonathan P. Katz is a grad student at Oxford University.

[dailyjewishstudies]

UPCOMING COURSES IN NEW YORK CITY: Brooklyn Institute for Social Research Cosponsored by the American Sephardi Federation

current courses

Jews and the Colonial ProjectSuzanne Schneider-Reich Center for Jewish History, 15 West 16th St. in Chelsea

(Cosponsored by the American Sephardi Federation.)

This seminar offers both a historical and theoretical introduction to the history of Jews in the Middle East and North Africa, with particular attention to the relationship between Jewish identity and European colonialism. Here we encounter a very different historical experience that that of European Jews (who still often appear as the primary if not sole subjects of “Jewish history”) on account of numerous factors, ranging from the Ottoman Empire’s administrative style to Islamic views toward non-Muslims and the uneven experience of colonial subjectivity.

By merging historical studies with select literary, philosophic and biographical writings of Jews from these communities, this seminar will expose students to the major debates regarding the nature of Jewish identity, the proper orientation ofJewish culture, and the appropriate forms of Jewish political activism. The final weeks of the seminar will trace the legacy of this historical experience to contemporary “Mizrachi” politics in Israel. The reading list will include selections from the following texts:

Mark Cohen, Under Crescent and Cross and Jews Among Arabs Albert Memmi, The Colonizer and the Colonized and Jews and Arabs Moshe Behar and Zvi Ben-Dor Benite (eds), Modern Middle Eastern Jewish Thought Ella Shohat, “Taboo Memories, Diasporic Voices: Columbus, Palestine and Arab-Jews” Sami Shalom Chetrit, “Revisiting Bialik: A Radical Mizrahi Reading of the Jewish National Poet” Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin, “The Zionist Return to the West and the Mizrachi Jewish Perspective”

  Held Tuesdays, 6:30pm-9:30pm, followed by informal drinks Starts November 25, 2014 Lasts 4 extended sessions over 4 weeks Costs $315

ENROLL

Madness and Emancipation: The Tales of Rabbi Nachman of BraslavYitzhak Lewis Center for Jewish History, 15 West 16th St. in Chelsea

This course will introduce students to one of the most creative figures of the Hasidic movement, and one of the key figures in the conceptualization of a Jewish literary modernity. Rabbi Nachman of Braslav (1772—1810) is widely recognized as a unique figure among Hasidic rabbis. His associative and speculative teachings, coupled with highly imaginative stories, set him apart from traditional modes of Hasidic expression. We will begin by outlining the historical and ideological context of Rabbi Nachman’s work and familiarizing ourselves with his major texts and themes, then turn to selections from his teachings and tales. Throughout the course, our readings will track the theme of emancipation in Rabbi Nachman’s work. We will read and discuss the multiple levels on which he understood the operations of the political project we call “emancipation”: as a project of rethinking the social limits of inclusion and exclusion; of losing the public markers and designations that are essential for communal (in Nachman’s case, Jewish) identity; of parsing the relation between public and private, and the disruptive role of secrecy in this relation; and of reshuffling social elements of visibility and invisibility. A contemporary of Kant and Mendelssohn, the Hatam Sofer and Joseph Perl, Rabbi Nachman’s short life spanned the American and French revolutions, the three divisions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the establishment of the Russian Pale of Settlement.  The insights Nachman offers into the prospects and perils of political emancipation raise timely questions about our present globalizing world and its political order.

(No prior knowledge of Hebrew or Braslav Hasidism is necessary and all readings will be in English.)

  Held Mondays, 7-9pm, followed by informal drinks Starts November 3, 2014 Lasts 6 sessions over 7 weeks (skipping the week of November 17) Costs $315

[coffeeandtheskyline]

Perks of being a Jewish Studies minor, having all these books at my disposal. #jewishstudies #jstuds #minor #books

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History Replays Today: the History of Jewry in Richmond, Virginia

History Replays Today, our local history podcast, recently did an episode on the rich history of Richmond’s Jewish community. Check it out through the link. 

[dailyjewishstudies]

The Road to the New Jerusalem

To understand what’s happening in Crown Heights today, look at Instagram

By Sonja Sharp|September 11, 2014 2:22 PM

The Crown Heights of my ‘90s childhood imagining bears as little resemblance to the neighborhood today as it did to the early-20th-century Jewish enclave that was already in the process of uprooting for the suburbs when the Rebbe assumed leadership here in 1951. From that time until his death in 1994, the neighborhood became a magnet for spiritual seekers, part baale teshuva training camp, part devotional proving ground—but mostly your standard black-hat Brooklyn shtetl.

Once established, shtetls are slow to move. New York real estate is precious, particularly among those for whom geographic proximity is a function less of affinity than of religious law that dictates the devout must hoof it between almost every place they might reasonably want to go, at least on Shabbos. When the Rebbe died, the Jews stayed put. Two decades on, something else has taken root in their midst, something new. Or rather, a multitude of somethings.

If these somethings have one thing in common, it’s discord. Like Jerusalem, Crown Heights is contested land: Exactly what may be considered part of it and to whom it belongs remain bitterly divisive questions, no less so since people like us started showing up here half a decade ago. Our common ground is only what’s beneath our feet, this same stretch of pavement where seekers like us have been searching for meaning since the end of the Second World War. Only now, a lot of us aren’t quite sure what we’re looking for. The Rebbe has left the building. Crown Heights is a little like Neverland—to reach it you only have to believe, because whatever you believe is what you find here.

In many ways, creative chaos is the thing we came looking for. Our friends began moving to Crown Heights in 2009 because it was cheap; when we moved in 2011, it was because we wanted a wide swath of Jewish experience within walking distance—but also a wide variety of bars. Hipsters and Jews live cheek-by-jowl in Williamsburg, but not together. Here it’s different. Here we have Franklin Park.

Franklin Park, the neighborhood’s best-known bar, was very famously the place where our normally separate cultures—African American, Caribbean, Hasidic, and hipster—would mingle when it opened five years ago. But five years on, the bar is no longer singular. Crown Hill Crossfit has a special class for Orthodox women, and my favorite yoga teacher on Franklin Avenue also subs at the kosher studio on President Street.

Where other Brooklyn shtetls have revolted against the invasion, a small but significant number of Crown Heights Hasidim have embraced their new neighbors. The Hasidic hipster is now his own subset of the Brooklyn population: Yuda calls his artisanal kosher sandwich shop Hassid+Hipster, and Ben rolls under the Instagram handle @thehipsterrebbe; Mimi’s 5-year-old shoots her picture posing in front of graffiti murals in her and her sister-in-law Mushky’s designer “skirt leggings,” the ones that caused a minor social media war when @hipsterhijabis posed in them during Ramadan; and Chezzie … well, you’d hardly find a better word for Rabbi Chezzie if you scoured the OED.

It’s not kumbaya, exactly, but it’s more than comingling. Where once there were rebels, now there are rabbis. It’s they who’ve opened this to us.

If you really want to understand what is happening here, the best place to start is on Instagram. It’s where I start when I want to explain how I picked my shul and my community, what it means to me to be here, why I feel I belong here, or at the very least that I could belong somewhere at all.

this is my shul this is our community these are our friends this is how we party and this is how we pray

This is us, I tell everybody. This is the Judaism you don’t see, the Orthodoxy you fail to recognize under all those black hats. The hashtags may be different, but Jewishly speaking all selfies are the same.

This essay is excerpted from ‘My Journey to the New Jerusalem,’ a story about one woman’s search for a new kind of Jewish community. The article, which Tablet will publish on September 22, was written and edited in collaboration with The Big Roundtable.

[thebigroundtable]

When Sonja Sharp and her husband Tal returned to New York three years ago they settled in Crown Height and began the search for a Jewish spiritual home – not an institution, or a denomination.

A home.

Sonja and Tal represent that most elusive, and in some circles, terrifying subset of the...

[dailyjewishstudies]

UPCOMING PUBLIC LECTURE: Centre for Jewish Studies, University of Manchester

Public Lecture

Archaeology of Death Camps. The keynote lecture at the forthcoming Corpses of Mass Violence and Genocide conference will be given by Dr. Caroline Sturdy Colls (Straffordshire University)  on the subject of "'Earth Conceal Not My Blood': Forensic and Archaeological Approaches to Locating Human Remains of Holocaust Victims" on Mon 8 September 2014, 2.00-3.30pm, University of Manchester, Room 4/5, Staff House (Manchester Meeting Place Building, no.13 on the campus map). Further information.

[dailyjewishstudies]

ToC: Melilah: Manchester Journal of Jewish Studies Volume 10 (2013)

Melilah: Manchester Journal of Jewish Studies Volume 10 (2013), Israel Studies theme www.melilahjournal.org/p/2013.html

Open Access, freely available online.

Editors: Daniel R. Langton and Renate Smithuis

Contents

1. Daniel Langton, Abraham Isaac Kook’s Account of ‘Creative Evolution’: A Response to Modernity for the Sake of Zion

The Chief Rabbi of Israel and religious Zionist Abraham I. Kook is well known for having written about evolution. His mystical interpretation of the theory is often presented as a synthetic or complementary model that effectively offered a defence of Judaism in the context of the religion-science debate. But this is not the only context in which one might consider his views on the topic. From a political perspective, one might note his interest in the influence of Darwinism in the thought of secular Jews. And if one gives due weight to his appreciation of secular Zionists’ work in building up the Land and combines this with his earlier, often overlooked writings on evolution in which the mystical dimension is missing, then it is possible to suggest that his engagement with evolutionary theory reflected as much a political concern to build bridges between religious and non-religious Zionists as it expressed a theological defence of traditional Judaism against the challenges of modern science.  

  2. Simon Mayers, Zionism and Anti-Zionism in the Catholic Guild of Israel:

Bede Jarrett, Arthur Day and Hans Herzl

This article examines Zionism and Anti-Zionism in the discourse of key members of the Catholic Guild of Israel, an English Catholic movement for the conversion of the Jews. The central theme in the discourse of the Guild was Jewish ‘power’.It was argued that the Jews had great vitality, zeal and energy, which made them dangerous outside of the Church, but an asset if they could be brought into it. This idea was disseminated by Bede Jarrett and Arthur Day, the two most senior and prolific members of the Guild. Their notions of Jewish power influenced their views about Jews and Zionism. They both saw Jewish power and Zionism as a threat and opportunity, but Jarrett placed the emphasis on threat, whilst Day placed the emphasis on opportunity. One prominent member of the Guild who did not gravitate to their views was Hans Herzl, a convert to Catholicism and the son of the Zionist leader, Theodor Herzl. On the surface Hans adopted the anti-Zionism of Jarrett. Unlike Jarrett, however, Hans believed in Jewish nationalism, although he interpreted it as a spiritual rather than political movement. His ideal Jewish nation was a ‘Christian theocracy of Jewish faith’ with the Pope as sovereign and protector. 

  3. Roman Vater, Down with Britain, away with Zionism: the ‘Canaanites’ and ‘Lohamey Herut Israel’ between two adversaries

The imposition of the British Mandate over Palestine in 1922 put the Zionist leadership between a rock and a hard place, between its declared allegiance to the idea of Jewish sovereignty and the necessity of cooperation with a foreign ruler. Eventually, both Labour and Revisionist Zionism accommodated themselves to the new situation and chose a strategic partnership with the British Empire. However, dissident opinions within the Revisionist movement were voiced by a group known as the Maximalist Revisionists from the early 1930s. This article analyzes the intellectual and political development of two Maximalist Revisionists – Yonatan Ratosh and Israel Eldad – tracing their gradual shift to anti-Zionist positions. Some questions raised include: when does opposition to Zionist politics transform into opposition to Zionist ideology, and what are the implications of such a transition for the Israeli political scene after 1948?

  4. Dvir Abramovich, Breaking Taboos in Israeli Holocaust Literature

This article focuses on the phenomenon of second-generation Israeli Holocaust literature, also known as ‘bearing witness’ fiction, that appeared with great resonance on the Hebrew literary scene in the 1980s. It argues that this new band of writers overcame the dual moral obstacles of describing a reality that they did not directly experience and making art of a subject that defies human comprehension. The article focuses on one particularly important novel, Agadat Ha-agamim Ha-atzuvim (The Legend of the Sad Lakes) by Itamar Levy, which tested the limits of representation of the Holocaust and provoked intense debate about its graphic and violent scenes of Jews tortured by the Nazis as well as about its postmodern techniques in portraying the Holocaust experience. The article maintains that despite the fact that Agadat Ha-agamim Ha-atzuvimbroke taboos in Israeli Holocaust literature with its disturbing, and perhaps sensational sequences, that at heart Levy’s narrative presents a profound confrontation with the anguished past that affords young readers the necessary gateway to engage with the Holocaust on an individual, rather than a public level. The article makes the case that novels such as Agadat Ha-agamim Ha-atzuvimrepresent deeply veined journeys into the heart of the Nazi beast, by Israeli writers who are propelled by a wish to unshackle the Shoah from the fetters of the collective and reclaim it as a personal experience.

5. Tessa Satherley, ‘The Simple Jew’: The ‘Price Tag’ Phenomenon, Vigilantism, and Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh’s Political Kabbalah

This paper explores the Kabbalistic theosophy of Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh, and allegations of links between his yeshiva and violent political activism and vigilantism. Ginsburgh is head of the yeshiva Od Yosef Chai (Joseph Still Lives) in Samaria/the northern West Bank. His students and colleagues have been accused by the authorities of violence and vandalism against Arabs in the context of ‘price tag’ actions and vigilante attacks, while publications by Ginsburgh and his yeshiva colleagues such as Barukh HaGever (Barukh the Man/Blessed is the Man) and Torat HaMelekh (The King’s Torah) have been accused of inciting racist violence. This paper sketches the yeshiva’s history in the public spotlight and describes the esoteric, Kabbalistic framework behind Ginsburgh’s politics, focusing on his political readings of Zoharic Kabbalah and teachings about the mystical value of spontaneous revenge attacks by ‘the simple Jew’, who acts upon his feelings of righteous indignation without prior reflection. The conclusion explores and attempts to delimit the explanatory power of such mystical teachings in light of the sociological characteristics of the Hilltop Youth most often implicated as price tag‘operatives’ and existing scholarly models of vigilantism. It also points to aspects of the mystical teachings with potential for special potency in this context.

Centre for Jewish Studies

University of Manchester

www.melilahjournal.org

Bibliography, Journal ToC and tagged Abraham Isaac Kook, Activism, Anti-Zionism, Arthur Day, Baruch Goldstein, Bede Jarrett, British Mandate, Canaanites, Catholic Church, Christianity, Darwinism, Hans Herzl, Hebrew literature, Holocaust, Holocaust Literature, Israel Eldad, Israeli Literature, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Itamar Levy, Jewish Terrorism, Kabbalah, Lehi, Religion and Science, Religious Zionism, Revisionist Zionism, Second Generation, Testimony, Theodor Herzl, Theory of Evolution, Theosophy, Vigilantism, Violence, West Bank Settlements, Witness, Yeshiva, Yitzchak Ginsburgh, Yonatan Ratosh, Zionism, Zionism: Christian Zionism, Zohar, עוד יוסף חי

[dailyjewishstudies]

CFP: ‘Jewish Life and Jewish Arts in Scotland, 1914-2014′, Rozelle House, Ayr, 14/15 September 2014

CFP: ‘Jewish Life and Jewish Arts in Scotland, 1914-2014′, Rozelle House, Ayr, 14/15 September 2014

June 24, 2014 in Conferences

The Scottish Council of Jewish Communities (SCoJeC) and the Scottish Jewish Archives Centre  (SJAC) are inviting contributions for a conference to be held as part of the Cultural Connections Festival of Jewish Arts and Culture, Maclaurin Gallery/Rozelle House, Ayr, Scotland. Sunday 14/Monday 15 September 2014

This conference is part of the European Days of Jewish Cultural Heritage (14-21 Sept 2014).  The focus of the European Days is Women in Judaism, so we will particularly welcome contributions with a focus on women. The conference will take place in Rozelle House, alongside the exhibition of photography of Jewish life in Scotland “Scots Jews” by photographer Judah Passow, and “Cultural Connections”, the exhibition of paintings, drawings and sculpture by artists Benno Schotz, Josef Herman, and Hannah Frank, all of whom worked in Scotland in the last century.

We will consider papers or presentations relating to any aspect of Jewish life and Jewish arts in Scotland over the last hundred years, from 1914 to today.  Please send abstracts of no more than 300 words to [email protected] by 12 noon on Monday 14th July.

The conference will include a presentation by Harvey Kaplan, Director of the Scottish Jewish Archives Centre, on the history of the Jewish community in Ayr, including the emerging story of Susanne Schaefer-Buck, fostered by the Hamilton Family of Rozelle House during the war.  There will also be a presentation on the Scottish Government funded inquiry Being Jewish in Scotland carried out by Fiona Frank in 2011/12, with a panel and discussion on the contemporary experience of ‘Being Jewish in Scotland’ and how the Jewish experience relates to that of other minority identities.

 At the conference there will be a chance to see the film “Hannah Frank, The Spark Divine”  and to hear from Sarah Thomas, the director of the film, about the process of making this film which came out in 2008 to celebrate the artist’s 100th birthday and which was launched at the Scottish Parliament.

Places at the conference are free, a voluntary contribution will be invited for the kosher buffet lunch each day.  Advance registration open now: http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/jewish-life-and-jewish-arts-in-scotland-1914-2014-tickets-12047527479?aff=eorg