Search Results

This chapter focuses on the descriptions of a single festival—Yom Kippur. Out of all the possible holidays, Yom Kippur has been chosen for several reasons. To begin with, it comes up more often than any other festival in the ethnographic accounts, so that there is more material on the Day of Atonement than any other topic. Moreover, Yom Kippur constitutes one of the most important festivals on the Jewish calendar, which helps explain why it attracted so much attention from Christian authors. As a result, it also stands to reason that writing about Yom Kippur is more comprehensive than any of the other holidays.

This chapter reflects on the Jewish year. It begins by discussing the importance of proper sabbath observance for Jewish women. Sabbath contains within itself the great blessing that gives one spiritual and physical energies for the rest of the week. The chapter then considers the preparations for the Day of Judgement. It also looks at significant Jewish holidays, including the festival of Hanukah; Shabat Shekalim; the sabbath of Zakhor, which always falls on the last sabbath before Purim; Passover, which is the festival of freedom; and Shabat Nahamu, the sabbath of consolation. In addition, the chapter highlights two women who were especially noteworthy for having rescued the Jewish people: Judith and Esther. Judith, the great heroine of Hanukah, beheaded the terrible antisemite Holofernes with her sword, and Esther saved her people from the Jew-hater Haman.

This chapter investigates how theatre found a place in pre-modern Jewish societies. This was nearly exclusively a result of its association with the Jewish holiday of Purim. Closely linked to the celebration of Purim in Ashkenazi communities at least as early as the mid-sixteenth century was the performance of a Purim play, or purim-shpil. The actors were yeshiva students or artisans; dressed as non-Jews and where necessary as women, the purim-shpilers marched through town, performing their play in the wealthier Jewish homes, occasionally on an improvised stage. In eastern Europe, by the nineteenth century, the purim-shpil had become the property of the lower classes; it was often staged annually by the same group of players, with parts and even costumes passed down from father to son. Some of these groups travelled and performed in neighbouring towns. The earlier purim-shpils were apparently skits parodying local events; from the mid-seventeenth century, they began to be based on biblical stories.

This chapter explores the ways in which the nation constructs itself in relation to Jews, and how Jews actively participate in this historical revision. The recognition of the small population is mutually strategic as well as corrective: for Brazilian society, it is one example of a larger project to recast contemporary Brazil as a modern, multicultural nation. For Brazilian Jews, this rewriting of Brazilian history and the re-inscription of the landscape to reflect their presence serve to powerfully transmit the memory of their participation—acts that are infused with the hope of securing a place in the nation and confirming a sense of belonging.

This chapter sketches the history of yontef-bletlekh (holiday pages). First published in the mid-1890s, yontef-bletlekh were initially conceived as a means of circumventing the Russian censor’s ban on Yiddish periodicals. The ruse, which took advantage of looser regulations on “one-time journals”, was premised on the fact that almost every month in the Hebrew calendar has a Jewish holiday. Hence, by publishing a one-time journal in relation to each holiday—each with a unique title—one could create a de facto periodical. This concept of creating a one-time journal filled with secular content but labeled with a holiday-related title and published during holidays would subsequently be appropriated by Yiddish humorists, who would begin publishing satire magazines on Jewish holidays on an annual basis. This mainly Warsaw-based humoristic-journalistic subgenre included hundreds of publications and comprised nearly a quarter of all Yiddish journalistic endeavors in the Pale and in Poland from the turn of the 20th century until the Second World War. Indeed, it accounted for a significant proportion of Yiddish periodical titles as a whole.

This chapter reviews Dianne Ashton’s Hanukkah in America: A History, which chronicles how a once minor holiday gradually became (along with Passover) one of the most significant days on the American Jewish calendar, as well as the most prominent symbol of Jewish culture in the wider American milieu. Ashton points to four factors that moved Hanukah to the center stage of American Jewish life. First, the candle-lighting ceremony is simple, short, and easily performed. Second, it falls during the December holiday season, at a time when American culture sanctifies the cult of family and children. Third, the original story can be retold in diverse ways to suit American Jewish dilemmas, while always featuring the heroes as “us” American Jews. And finally, because the story underlines the tension between miraculous intervention and the Jews’ religious devotion, it serves to trigger conversations about the role of religion and God in modern life.

This chapter explores ten letters which provide ethical instructions to Jewish children. The letters talk about the importance of the sabbath and the holidays for worshipping the holy Creator with sincere prayers and learning Torah. They warn Jewish children of the dangers of lying, swearing, speaking ill, and gossiping. They also urge Jewish children to act according to the commandments of the Torah. The letters then explain the importance of the commandments of honouring one's father and mother; of loving one's neighbour; of not seeking vengeance; and of avoiding arrogance. The chapter also reflects on the fifteenth anniversary of the founding of the Bais Yaakov schools.

This chapter explores the nature and the scope of Judah Loew's literary work. Rabbi Loew's first published work was the Gur Aryeh (The Lion's Whelp, 1578), a supercommentary on Solomon ben Isaac's (Rashi) eleventh-century commentary to the Pentateuch. In 1582, Loew's second published work appeared, entitled Gevurot Ha-Shem. At the end of the introduction to this work, Loew outlines the titles and contents of six projected works, which would discuss theological and, to a lesser extent, halakhic problems relating to the religious holidays of the Jewish yearly cycle. However, of the six projected works, only three survived, albeit with slightly changed titles. Loew also wrote two works on the moral and religious values of Judaism: Derekh Ha-Ḥayyim (1589) and Netivot Olam (1595). In 1600, Loew published a polemical defense of rabbinic literature, entitled Be'er Ha-Golah (Well of the Exile). In addition, five of Loew's sermons were also published. From what must have been extensive writings on Jewish religious law, only scanty documents have survived. From what must have been many responsa, only one has been preserved and published during Loew's lifetime, namely, the Responsum on the Deserted Wife. The chapter then considers the nature of the sources from which Rabbi Loew drew to compose his works and to help formulate his ideas.