Zoe Vania Waxman
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199541546
- eISBN:
- 9780191709739
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199541546.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
This chapter examines the work of Emmanuel Ringelblum, a trained social historian and teacher, who initiated the Warsaw-based secret archives of Oneg Shabbat (Sabbath Delight: a code-name for the ...
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This chapter examines the work of Emmanuel Ringelblum, a trained social historian and teacher, who initiated the Warsaw-based secret archives of Oneg Shabbat (Sabbath Delight: a code-name for the clandestine Sabbath afternoon gatherings). These archives, which represent the most systematic attempt to record Jewish suffering during the Holocaust, were dedicated to finding the best way to record the uprooting of communities, and the suffering and destruction of Polish Jewry. Ringelblum and his colleagues in the Warsaw ghetto were able to amass a considerable amount of information. By secretly recording Jewish life in Poland during the German occupation, and continuing the Jewish tradition of witnessing, the Warsaw ghetto chroniclers, both individually and collectively, performed important acts of resistance. They believed that what they were experiencing would one day be studied as historically important, and this awareness shaped their writing.Less
This chapter examines the work of Emmanuel Ringelblum, a trained social historian and teacher, who initiated the Warsaw-based secret archives of Oneg Shabbat (Sabbath Delight: a code-name for the clandestine Sabbath afternoon gatherings). These archives, which represent the most systematic attempt to record Jewish suffering during the Holocaust, were dedicated to finding the best way to record the uprooting of communities, and the suffering and destruction of Polish Jewry. Ringelblum and his colleagues in the Warsaw ghetto were able to amass a considerable amount of information. By secretly recording Jewish life in Poland during the German occupation, and continuing the Jewish tradition of witnessing, the Warsaw ghetto chroniclers, both individually and collectively, performed important acts of resistance. They believed that what they were experiencing would one day be studied as historically important, and this awareness shaped their writing.
Yaacob Dweck
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691145082
- eISBN:
- 9781400840007
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691145082.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This chapter argues that Modena's criticism of the Zohar's origins had little to do with its theological contents. It emerged as a reaction to the elevated status of the work among his Jewish ...
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This chapter argues that Modena's criticism of the Zohar's origins had little to do with its theological contents. It emerged as a reaction to the elevated status of the work among his Jewish contemporaries and immediate predecessors; Jews had begun to treat the Zohar as a source of legal authority rather than a collection of stories and biblical glosses. Modena's critique constituted a denunciation of these larger trends in contemporary Jewish life rather than a rejection of the Zohar as a work of exegesis. As such, Ari Nohem offers a case study of how an early modern intellectual worked to prove that a text was pseudepigraphic. It also presents a wealth of information on attitudes toward the Zohar among Jews in Italy, Poland, and elsewhere. Ultimately, Modena rejected the status ascribed to the Zohar in contemporary Jewish life, denied the work's ostensible antiquity, and reflected on the deleterious impact of its packaging as a printed book.Less
This chapter argues that Modena's criticism of the Zohar's origins had little to do with its theological contents. It emerged as a reaction to the elevated status of the work among his Jewish contemporaries and immediate predecessors; Jews had begun to treat the Zohar as a source of legal authority rather than a collection of stories and biblical glosses. Modena's critique constituted a denunciation of these larger trends in contemporary Jewish life rather than a rejection of the Zohar as a work of exegesis. As such, Ari Nohem offers a case study of how an early modern intellectual worked to prove that a text was pseudepigraphic. It also presents a wealth of information on attitudes toward the Zohar among Jews in Italy, Poland, and elsewhere. Ultimately, Modena rejected the status ascribed to the Zohar in contemporary Jewish life, denied the work's ostensible antiquity, and reflected on the deleterious impact of its packaging as a printed book.
Derek J. Penslar
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691138879
- eISBN:
- 9781400848577
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691138879.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
This chapter explores the Jews' historic self-image as a people that shuns what the Hebrew writer S.Y. Agnon called “the craft of Esau, the waging of war.” The notion of Jews as wards of divine and ...
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This chapter explores the Jews' historic self-image as a people that shuns what the Hebrew writer S.Y. Agnon called “the craft of Esau, the waging of war.” The notion of Jews as wards of divine and state authority derives from both rabbinic tradition and the specific conditions of Jewish life in medieval Christian and Muslim civilizations. Committed to maintaining their faith and community, Jews had little reason to cross social boundaries or endanger their lives through military service. The historical memory of Russian and Polish Jewry is replete with images of harsh military service and tales of fleeing the country in order to avoid it. Like all historical memory, this narrative blends fact with fiction. Eastern European Jews engaged in a variety of paramilitary activities long before conscription into the tsar's army, and once the draft was implemented in the nineteenth century, their experiences were not uniformly miserable.Less
This chapter explores the Jews' historic self-image as a people that shuns what the Hebrew writer S.Y. Agnon called “the craft of Esau, the waging of war.” The notion of Jews as wards of divine and state authority derives from both rabbinic tradition and the specific conditions of Jewish life in medieval Christian and Muslim civilizations. Committed to maintaining their faith and community, Jews had little reason to cross social boundaries or endanger their lives through military service. The historical memory of Russian and Polish Jewry is replete with images of harsh military service and tales of fleeing the country in order to avoid it. Like all historical memory, this narrative blends fact with fiction. Eastern European Jews engaged in a variety of paramilitary activities long before conscription into the tsar's army, and once the draft was implemented in the nineteenth century, their experiences were not uniformly miserable.
CATHERINE HEZSER
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197264744
- eISBN:
- 9780191734663
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197264744.003.0018
- Subject:
- History, Middle East History
This chapter evaluates the use of rabbinic literature in the study of Jewish daily life and material culture. It explains that one of the main problems associated with research on material culture ...
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This chapter evaluates the use of rabbinic literature in the study of Jewish daily life and material culture. It explains that one of the main problems associated with research on material culture and daily life is the establishment of a proper relationship between rabbinic literary references and archaeological data, between text and object. It suggests that these problems can be resolved by approaching the issues on the basis of a historical-critical study of rabbinic sources in a broad interdisciplinary framework, which takes account of archaeological research within the Graeco-Roman and early Byzantine context and which uses tools, methods and models developed by the social sciences.Less
This chapter evaluates the use of rabbinic literature in the study of Jewish daily life and material culture. It explains that one of the main problems associated with research on material culture and daily life is the establishment of a proper relationship between rabbinic literary references and archaeological data, between text and object. It suggests that these problems can be resolved by approaching the issues on the basis of a historical-critical study of rabbinic sources in a broad interdisciplinary framework, which takes account of archaeological research within the Graeco-Roman and early Byzantine context and which uses tools, methods and models developed by the social sciences.
Marion A. Kaplan
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195171648
- eISBN:
- 9780199871346
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195171648.003.0027
- Subject:
- History, European Early Modern History
This chapter presents some concluding thoughts from the author. The history of Jewish daily life does much more than provide static snapshots of the past. It opens up new vistas and shows that ...
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This chapter presents some concluding thoughts from the author. The history of Jewish daily life does much more than provide static snapshots of the past. It opens up new vistas and shows that German-Jewish history is not merely a simple, linear story that takes us from the limitations and insecurities of the 17th century to the successful achievement of emancipation in the 19th, back down to the dark days of the Nazi era. The history of daily life also provides a three-dimensional perspective that illuminates gender relations, the interactions among generations, and those between Jews and non-Jews.Less
This chapter presents some concluding thoughts from the author. The history of Jewish daily life does much more than provide static snapshots of the past. It opens up new vistas and shows that German-Jewish history is not merely a simple, linear story that takes us from the limitations and insecurities of the 17th century to the successful achievement of emancipation in the 19th, back down to the dark days of the Nazi era. The history of daily life also provides a three-dimensional perspective that illuminates gender relations, the interactions among generations, and those between Jews and non-Jews.
Joshua L. Miller
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195336993
- eISBN:
- 9780199893997
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195336993.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
Diasporic Jewish culture has been multilingual by definition for more than two thousand years of statelessness—until the twentieth century, that is. This chapter juxtaposes two sharply different ...
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Diasporic Jewish culture has been multilingual by definition for more than two thousand years of statelessness—until the twentieth century, that is. This chapter juxtaposes two sharply different textual and intellectual trajectories for multilingual Jewish cultures. Henry Roth and Lionel Trilling were each engaged in projects of representing U.S. Jewish life in the 1920s and '30s, the former in his novel Call It Sleep (1934) and the latter in contributions to the Menorah Journal, his later occasional writings on Jewish culture, and, perhaps counterintuitively, his first scholarly book, Matthew Arnold (1939). While Roth's linguistically defamiliarizing novel depicted multilingual invention within Jewish, modernist, and multiethnic proletarian milieux, Trilling moved from particularist Jewish expression to Arnoldian definitions of culture and modernity that quietly enfolded Jewish ethics and aesthetics within a broader program for cultural institutions.Less
Diasporic Jewish culture has been multilingual by definition for more than two thousand years of statelessness—until the twentieth century, that is. This chapter juxtaposes two sharply different textual and intellectual trajectories for multilingual Jewish cultures. Henry Roth and Lionel Trilling were each engaged in projects of representing U.S. Jewish life in the 1920s and '30s, the former in his novel Call It Sleep (1934) and the latter in contributions to the Menorah Journal, his later occasional writings on Jewish culture, and, perhaps counterintuitively, his first scholarly book, Matthew Arnold (1939). While Roth's linguistically defamiliarizing novel depicted multilingual invention within Jewish, modernist, and multiethnic proletarian milieux, Trilling moved from particularist Jewish expression to Arnoldian definitions of culture and modernity that quietly enfolded Jewish ethics and aesthetics within a broader program for cultural institutions.
Yaacob Dweck
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691145082
- eISBN:
- 9781400840007
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691145082.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This is the first book about the origins of a culture war that began in early modern Europe and continues to this day: the debate between kabbalists and their critics on the nature of Judaism and the ...
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This is the first book about the origins of a culture war that began in early modern Europe and continues to this day: the debate between kabbalists and their critics on the nature of Judaism and the meaning of religious tradition. From its medieval beginnings as an esoteric form of Jewish mysticism, Kabbalah spread throughout the early modern world and became a central feature of Jewish life. Scholars have long studied the revolutionary impact of Kabbalah, but, as this book argues, they have misunderstood the character and timing of opposition to it. Drawing on a range of previously unexamined sources, this book tells the story of the first criticism of Kabbalah, Ari Nohem, written by Leon Modena in Venice in 1639. In this scathing indictment of Venetian Jews who had embraced Kabbalah as an authentic form of ancient esotericism, Modena proved the recent origins of Kabbalah and sought to convince his readers to return to the spiritualized rationalism of Maimonides. This book examines the hallmarks of Jewish modernity displayed by Modena's attack—a critical analysis of sacred texts, skepticism about religious truths, and self-consciousness about the past—and shows how these qualities and the later history of his polemic challenge conventional understandings of the relationship between Kabbalah and modernity. The book argues that Kabbalah was the subject of critical inquiry in the very period it came to dominate Jewish life rather than centuries later as most scholars have thought.Less
This is the first book about the origins of a culture war that began in early modern Europe and continues to this day: the debate between kabbalists and their critics on the nature of Judaism and the meaning of religious tradition. From its medieval beginnings as an esoteric form of Jewish mysticism, Kabbalah spread throughout the early modern world and became a central feature of Jewish life. Scholars have long studied the revolutionary impact of Kabbalah, but, as this book argues, they have misunderstood the character and timing of opposition to it. Drawing on a range of previously unexamined sources, this book tells the story of the first criticism of Kabbalah, Ari Nohem, written by Leon Modena in Venice in 1639. In this scathing indictment of Venetian Jews who had embraced Kabbalah as an authentic form of ancient esotericism, Modena proved the recent origins of Kabbalah and sought to convince his readers to return to the spiritualized rationalism of Maimonides. This book examines the hallmarks of Jewish modernity displayed by Modena's attack—a critical analysis of sacred texts, skepticism about religious truths, and self-consciousness about the past—and shows how these qualities and the later history of his polemic challenge conventional understandings of the relationship between Kabbalah and modernity. The book argues that Kabbalah was the subject of critical inquiry in the very period it came to dominate Jewish life rather than centuries later as most scholars have thought.
Marion A. Kaplan
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195171648
- eISBN:
- 9780199871346
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195171648.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Early Modern History
This introductory chapter presents an overview of the book. It begins with a discussion of the purpose of the book, which is to examine the qualitative aspects of the life of Jews in Germany. The ...
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This introductory chapter presents an overview of the book. It begins with a discussion of the purpose of the book, which is to examine the qualitative aspects of the life of Jews in Germany. The book begins in the 17th century, the early modern period among Jewish communities in the German states, principalities, and duchies, and concludes in 1945, a caesura in German-Jewish life. Sources range from memoirs, letters, and diaries to rabbinic response (replies by rabbinic scholars applying Jewish law to queries concerning the exigencies of daily life), communal and organizational histories, and Jewish newspapers.Less
This introductory chapter presents an overview of the book. It begins with a discussion of the purpose of the book, which is to examine the qualitative aspects of the life of Jews in Germany. The book begins in the 17th century, the early modern period among Jewish communities in the German states, principalities, and duchies, and concludes in 1945, a caesura in German-Jewish life. Sources range from memoirs, letters, and diaries to rabbinic response (replies by rabbinic scholars applying Jewish law to queries concerning the exigencies of daily life), communal and organizational histories, and Jewish newspapers.
Jonathan I. Israel
- Published in print:
- 1985
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780198219286
- eISBN:
- 9780191678332
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198219286.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Early Modern History, History of Religion
This is the first survey history of Jewish life and culture in early modern Europe to concentrate on the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as a radically new phase in Jewish history. The book ...
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This is the first survey history of Jewish life and culture in early modern Europe to concentrate on the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as a radically new phase in Jewish history. The book argues that the rapidly expanding Jewish role in political and economic spheres in much of Europe from the 1570s was the first fundamental emancipation of European Jewry.Less
This is the first survey history of Jewish life and culture in early modern Europe to concentrate on the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as a radically new phase in Jewish history. The book argues that the rapidly expanding Jewish role in political and economic spheres in much of Europe from the 1570s was the first fundamental emancipation of European Jewry.
Robert Liberles
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195171648
- eISBN:
- 9780199871346
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195171648.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, European Early Modern History
This chapter shows that the dynamics of Jewish family life in early modern Germany did not differ markedly from those of their neighbors. Except for the wealthy, women generally married between their ...
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This chapter shows that the dynamics of Jewish family life in early modern Germany did not differ markedly from those of their neighbors. Except for the wealthy, women generally married between their late teens and late twenties, and men usually wed in their twenties. Family size was not unusually large, nor was it likely to be when the age at marriage was not substantially different from that of non-Jews. Husbands and wives divided their responsibilities in ways that also paralleled the society around them. Residential and economic restrictions caused one fundamental and significant difference between Jewish and Christian family life. Both Jewish males and females were more likely than Christians to move away from their native homes to establish their own families and households, and males, working more in commerce than agriculture, were more likely to be away from the family in order to provide support.Less
This chapter shows that the dynamics of Jewish family life in early modern Germany did not differ markedly from those of their neighbors. Except for the wealthy, women generally married between their late teens and late twenties, and men usually wed in their twenties. Family size was not unusually large, nor was it likely to be when the age at marriage was not substantially different from that of non-Jews. Husbands and wives divided their responsibilities in ways that also paralleled the society around them. Residential and economic restrictions caused one fundamental and significant difference between Jewish and Christian family life. Both Jewish males and females were more likely than Christians to move away from their native homes to establish their own families and households, and males, working more in commerce than agriculture, were more likely to be away from the family in order to provide support.
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804761222
- eISBN:
- 9780804774239
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804761222.003.0005
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Jewish Studies
This chapter examines the roles that narrative fiction—primarily orthodox novels and novellas of contemporary Jewish life—played in creating and sustaining a vision of orthodoxy as wedded to German ...
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This chapter examines the roles that narrative fiction—primarily orthodox novels and novellas of contemporary Jewish life—played in creating and sustaining a vision of orthodoxy as wedded to German culture and ideas about modernity as it was to maintaining the continuity with Jewish tradition which orthodox leaders felt reformers had forsaken. As prominent as fiction was in Jeschurun, Der Israelit and other papers, it always occupied a subordinate position in the orthodox world, inferior to Torah and Talmud study, and ranking far beneath more traditional Jewish reading material.Less
This chapter examines the roles that narrative fiction—primarily orthodox novels and novellas of contemporary Jewish life—played in creating and sustaining a vision of orthodoxy as wedded to German culture and ideas about modernity as it was to maintaining the continuity with Jewish tradition which orthodox leaders felt reformers had forsaken. As prominent as fiction was in Jeschurun, Der Israelit and other papers, it always occupied a subordinate position in the orthodox world, inferior to Torah and Talmud study, and ranking far beneath more traditional Jewish reading material.
Yaacov Deutsch
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199756537
- eISBN:
- 9780199950201
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199756537.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This chapter focuses on a topic that pertains to the life cycle—birth and its attendant ritual. Birth rituals are indeed among the most popular subjects in our corpus. A case in point is circumcision ...
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This chapter focuses on a topic that pertains to the life cycle—birth and its attendant ritual. Birth rituals are indeed among the most popular subjects in our corpus. A case in point is circumcision (brit mila), which is discussed in thirty-nine of the forty works that cover Jewish life cycle events. The relative abundance of early modern travel works that describe the circumcision ceremony attest to the curiosity that this practice aroused.Less
This chapter focuses on a topic that pertains to the life cycle—birth and its attendant ritual. Birth rituals are indeed among the most popular subjects in our corpus. A case in point is circumcision (brit mila), which is discussed in thirty-nine of the forty works that cover Jewish life cycle events. The relative abundance of early modern travel works that describe the circumcision ceremony attest to the curiosity that this practice aroused.
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804763844
- eISBN:
- 9780804773423
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804763844.003.0006
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Jewish Studies
Between 1849 and 1853, Auguste Widal published a series of nine “Lettres sur les moeurs alsaciennes” (Letters on Alsatian Manners in the Reform Jewish newspaper Les Archives Israélites. He published ...
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Between 1849 and 1853, Auguste Widal published a series of nine “Lettres sur les moeurs alsaciennes” (Letters on Alsatian Manners in the Reform Jewish newspaper Les Archives Israélites. He published a book adaptation of the series entitled Scènes de la vie juive en Alsace (Scenes of Jewish Life in Alsace), using the pseudonym Daniel Stauben. At a time when large numbers of Jews in France and Germany had already broken free from their own Jewish past, Stauben's book gave rise to a new form of “ghetto nostalgia” in French and German literature and art after the Revolution of 1848, one that became one of the defining forms of modern Jewish literature and helped institute a new relation to the Jewish past as well as a new use for Jewish history. This chapter explores how nineteenth-century ghetto fiction, including the works of David Schornstein, offers up the past as the ground for new forms of Jewish identity in the present, an approach that differs from the other solutions which have been proposed to address the problem of Jewish modernity.Less
Between 1849 and 1853, Auguste Widal published a series of nine “Lettres sur les moeurs alsaciennes” (Letters on Alsatian Manners in the Reform Jewish newspaper Les Archives Israélites. He published a book adaptation of the series entitled Scènes de la vie juive en Alsace (Scenes of Jewish Life in Alsace), using the pseudonym Daniel Stauben. At a time when large numbers of Jews in France and Germany had already broken free from their own Jewish past, Stauben's book gave rise to a new form of “ghetto nostalgia” in French and German literature and art after the Revolution of 1848, one that became one of the defining forms of modern Jewish literature and helped institute a new relation to the Jewish past as well as a new use for Jewish history. This chapter explores how nineteenth-century ghetto fiction, including the works of David Schornstein, offers up the past as the ground for new forms of Jewish identity in the present, an approach that differs from the other solutions which have been proposed to address the problem of Jewish modernity.
Jess Olson
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804778732
- eISBN:
- 9780804785006
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804778732.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Jewish Studies
This book explores the life and thought of one of the most important but least known figures in early Zionism, Nathan Birnbaum. Now remembered mainly for his coinage of the word “Zionism,” Birnbaum ...
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This book explores the life and thought of one of the most important but least known figures in early Zionism, Nathan Birnbaum. Now remembered mainly for his coinage of the word “Zionism,” Birnbaum was a towering figure in early Jewish nationalism. Because of his unusual intellectual trajectory, however, he has been written out of Jewish history. In the middle of his life, in the depth of World War I, Birnbaum left his venerable position as a secular Jewish nationalist for religious Orthodoxy, an unheard of decision in his time. To the dismay of his former colleagues, he adopted a life of strict religiosity and was embraced as a leader in the young, growing world of Orthodox political activism in the interwar period, one of the most successful and powerful movements in interwar central and eastern Europe. This book brings to light documents from one of the most complete archives of Jewish nationalism, the Nathan and Solomon Birnbaum Family Archives, including materials previously unknown in the study of Zionism, Yiddish-based Jewish nationalism, and the history of Orthodoxy. This book is an important meditation on the complexities of Jewish political and intellectual life in the most tumultuous period of European Jewish history, especially of the interplay of national, political, and religious identity in the life of one of its most fascinating figures.Less
This book explores the life and thought of one of the most important but least known figures in early Zionism, Nathan Birnbaum. Now remembered mainly for his coinage of the word “Zionism,” Birnbaum was a towering figure in early Jewish nationalism. Because of his unusual intellectual trajectory, however, he has been written out of Jewish history. In the middle of his life, in the depth of World War I, Birnbaum left his venerable position as a secular Jewish nationalist for religious Orthodoxy, an unheard of decision in his time. To the dismay of his former colleagues, he adopted a life of strict religiosity and was embraced as a leader in the young, growing world of Orthodox political activism in the interwar period, one of the most successful and powerful movements in interwar central and eastern Europe. This book brings to light documents from one of the most complete archives of Jewish nationalism, the Nathan and Solomon Birnbaum Family Archives, including materials previously unknown in the study of Zionism, Yiddish-based Jewish nationalism, and the history of Orthodoxy. This book is an important meditation on the complexities of Jewish political and intellectual life in the most tumultuous period of European Jewish history, especially of the interplay of national, political, and religious identity in the life of one of its most fascinating figures.
Yaacov Deutsch
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199756537
- eISBN:
- 9780199950201
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199756537.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This book examines Christian ethnographic writing about the Jews in early modern Europe, offering a systematic historical analysis of this literary genre and arguing its importance for better ...
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This book examines Christian ethnographic writing about the Jews in early modern Europe, offering a systematic historical analysis of this literary genre and arguing its importance for better understanding both the period in general and Jewish–Christian relations in particular. The book focuses on nearly eighty texts from Western Europe (mostly Germany) that describe the customs and ceremonies of the contemporary Jews, containing both descriptions and illustrations of their subjects. It examines books in which Christian authors describe Jewish life and provides new interpretations of Christian perceptions of Jews, Christian Hebraism, and the attention paid by the Hebraist to contemporary Jews and Judaism. Since many of the authors were converts, studying their books offers new insights into conversion during the period. Their work presents new perspectives on the study of religion, developments in the field of anthropology and ethnography, and internal Christian debates that arose from the portrayal of Jewish life. Despite the lack of attention by modern scholars, some of these books were extremely popular in their time and represent one of the important ways by which Jews were perceived during the period. The key claim of the study is that, although almost all of the descriptions of Jewish customs are accurate, the authors chose to concentrate mainly on details that show the Jewish ceremonies as anti-Christian, superstitious, and ridiculous; these details also reveal the deviation of Judaism from the Biblical law. The book suggests that these ethnographic descriptions are better defined as polemical ethnographies and argues that the texts, despite their polemical tendency, represent a shift from writing about Judaism as a religion to writing about Jews, and from a mode of writing based on stereotypes to one based on direct contact and observation.Less
This book examines Christian ethnographic writing about the Jews in early modern Europe, offering a systematic historical analysis of this literary genre and arguing its importance for better understanding both the period in general and Jewish–Christian relations in particular. The book focuses on nearly eighty texts from Western Europe (mostly Germany) that describe the customs and ceremonies of the contemporary Jews, containing both descriptions and illustrations of their subjects. It examines books in which Christian authors describe Jewish life and provides new interpretations of Christian perceptions of Jews, Christian Hebraism, and the attention paid by the Hebraist to contemporary Jews and Judaism. Since many of the authors were converts, studying their books offers new insights into conversion during the period. Their work presents new perspectives on the study of religion, developments in the field of anthropology and ethnography, and internal Christian debates that arose from the portrayal of Jewish life. Despite the lack of attention by modern scholars, some of these books were extremely popular in their time and represent one of the important ways by which Jews were perceived during the period. The key claim of the study is that, although almost all of the descriptions of Jewish customs are accurate, the authors chose to concentrate mainly on details that show the Jewish ceremonies as anti-Christian, superstitious, and ridiculous; these details also reveal the deviation of Judaism from the Biblical law. The book suggests that these ethnographic descriptions are better defined as polemical ethnographies and argues that the texts, despite their polemical tendency, represent a shift from writing about Judaism as a religion to writing about Jews, and from a mode of writing based on stereotypes to one based on direct contact and observation.
Moshe Halbertal
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691152851
- eISBN:
- 9781400842353
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691152851.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
This chapter begins with a discussion of how sacrifice is the most primary and basic form of ritual. The elimination of animal sacrifice from contemporary Western religious life came about as a ...
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This chapter begins with a discussion of how sacrifice is the most primary and basic form of ritual. The elimination of animal sacrifice from contemporary Western religious life came about as a result of a cataclysmic moment. The chapter also explores how love is a noninstrumental relationship outside of what appears to be the sphere of exchange. The mark of love as noninstrumental is attentiveness. Attentiveness as a form of affirmation is what makes love so precious. The remainder of the chapter talks about how the sacrificial system itself was replaced in Jewish life after the temple's destruction. The rabbis devised alternatives to the sacrificial functions in ways that struggle and deal with the fears and stress inherent in sacrifice.Less
This chapter begins with a discussion of how sacrifice is the most primary and basic form of ritual. The elimination of animal sacrifice from contemporary Western religious life came about as a result of a cataclysmic moment. The chapter also explores how love is a noninstrumental relationship outside of what appears to be the sphere of exchange. The mark of love as noninstrumental is attentiveness. Attentiveness as a form of affirmation is what makes love so precious. The remainder of the chapter talks about how the sacrificial system itself was replaced in Jewish life after the temple's destruction. The rabbis devised alternatives to the sacrificial functions in ways that struggle and deal with the fears and stress inherent in sacrifice.
Martin Land
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780823282005
- eISBN:
- 9780823284795
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823282005.003.0011
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This chapter begins by tracing the assertions that link the predominance of Jews in critical discourses to Jewish marginality to a 1919 essay by Thorstein Veblen. Veblen does not argue that ...
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This chapter begins by tracing the assertions that link the predominance of Jews in critical discourses to Jewish marginality to a 1919 essay by Thorstein Veblen. Veblen does not argue that creativity and innovation thrive on the margins but, rather, that marginal groups like the Jews are better able than their European contemporaries to hold to a position of detachment and alienation from tradition and received wisdom, transforming their marginality into a critical perspective from which they are able to question, as it were, both themselves and the European social and economic systems. Recent critics of Veblen have pointed at his blindness toward the cultural and economic characteristics of Jewish communal life. In their critique, however, they take the disproportionate success of American Jews as their prime measure, supplanting Veblen's intellectual value with monetary value. From this perspective, Jews are no longer marginal but, on the contrary, central to the ever-expanding social order of capital.Less
This chapter begins by tracing the assertions that link the predominance of Jews in critical discourses to Jewish marginality to a 1919 essay by Thorstein Veblen. Veblen does not argue that creativity and innovation thrive on the margins but, rather, that marginal groups like the Jews are better able than their European contemporaries to hold to a position of detachment and alienation from tradition and received wisdom, transforming their marginality into a critical perspective from which they are able to question, as it were, both themselves and the European social and economic systems. Recent critics of Veblen have pointed at his blindness toward the cultural and economic characteristics of Jewish communal life. In their critique, however, they take the disproportionate success of American Jews as their prime measure, supplanting Veblen's intellectual value with monetary value. From this perspective, Jews are no longer marginal but, on the contrary, central to the ever-expanding social order of capital.
Ezra Mendelsohn
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195112030
- eISBN:
- 9780199854608
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195112030.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, History of Religion
This chapter presents an analysis of one of the least studied parts of Jabotinsky's massive ocuvre, namely, the three plays he wrote in Russian in the early years of his literary career. This ...
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This chapter presents an analysis of one of the least studied parts of Jabotinsky's massive ocuvre, namely, the three plays he wrote in Russian in the early years of his literary career. This analysis is part of an effort to reassess the crucial transition made by Jabotinsky and other early Zionist leaders from cosmopolitanism to nationalism in the fin de siècle. It further notes that this reassessment is based on recently discovered archival and published evidence, especially, but not solely, in previously inaccessible Russian collections; and on a self-conscious attempt to produce a detached scholarly account of early Zionism that deliberately eschews intramural polemical disputes and pays special attention to the European and Russian contexts of intellectual and ideological developments in Jewish life.Less
This chapter presents an analysis of one of the least studied parts of Jabotinsky's massive ocuvre, namely, the three plays he wrote in Russian in the early years of his literary career. This analysis is part of an effort to reassess the crucial transition made by Jabotinsky and other early Zionist leaders from cosmopolitanism to nationalism in the fin de siècle. It further notes that this reassessment is based on recently discovered archival and published evidence, especially, but not solely, in previously inaccessible Russian collections; and on a self-conscious attempt to produce a detached scholarly account of early Zionism that deliberately eschews intramural polemical disputes and pays special attention to the European and Russian contexts of intellectual and ideological developments in Jewish life.
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804774437
- eISBN:
- 9780804779043
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804774437.003.0008
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Jewish Studies
This chapter focuses on the connection between the classic Yiddish literary imagination of the shtetl and Yiddish literature before and after World War II, focusing on the works of such authors as ...
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This chapter focuses on the connection between the classic Yiddish literary imagination of the shtetl and Yiddish literature before and after World War II, focusing on the works of such authors as David Bergelson, Itsik Kipnis, and Shmuel Gordon, as well as Inna Lesovaia, Grigorii Kanovich, and Fridrikh Gorenshtein. These authors situate the Jewish home in the former Pale of Settlement, which is something in between a wasteland and the site of full plenitude and unbroken tradition. The chapter considers how Jewish Jews live in a Jewish world and how Jewish literature represents and imagines the survival and continuing existence of the Jewish body politic in Jewish places in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia following the massive destructions of the twentieth century. In his two-volume autobiographical novel Baym Dnyeper (At the Dnieper), Bergelson takes the notion of continuous, ordered time with him from the shtetl into the world beyond. The shtetl is also the focus of Kipnis's autobiographical fiction Untervegns (On the road).Less
This chapter focuses on the connection between the classic Yiddish literary imagination of the shtetl and Yiddish literature before and after World War II, focusing on the works of such authors as David Bergelson, Itsik Kipnis, and Shmuel Gordon, as well as Inna Lesovaia, Grigorii Kanovich, and Fridrikh Gorenshtein. These authors situate the Jewish home in the former Pale of Settlement, which is something in between a wasteland and the site of full plenitude and unbroken tradition. The chapter considers how Jewish Jews live in a Jewish world and how Jewish literature represents and imagines the survival and continuing existence of the Jewish body politic in Jewish places in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia following the massive destructions of the twentieth century. In his two-volume autobiographical novel Baym Dnyeper (At the Dnieper), Bergelson takes the notion of continuous, ordered time with him from the shtetl into the world beyond. The shtetl is also the focus of Kipnis's autobiographical fiction Untervegns (On the road).
Amy Hill Shevitz
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780813124308
- eISBN:
- 9780813134932
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813124308.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
This chapter provides a description of the Jewish communities in America during the nineteenth century. The small Jewish communities showed remarkable institutional persistence, holding together to ...
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This chapter provides a description of the Jewish communities in America during the nineteenth century. The small Jewish communities showed remarkable institutional persistence, holding together to grasp on to Jewish life where they were, which went beyond being a mere demographic persistence. Some of these communities even created new institutions in the latter part of the century and aligned themselves with the Americanized Reform synthesis that seemed to work well with small-town culture. It is also noted that certain aspects of Jewish life were still retained by the Jews, such as the kashrut.Less
This chapter provides a description of the Jewish communities in America during the nineteenth century. The small Jewish communities showed remarkable institutional persistence, holding together to grasp on to Jewish life where they were, which went beyond being a mere demographic persistence. Some of these communities even created new institutions in the latter part of the century and aligned themselves with the Americanized Reform synthesis that seemed to work well with small-town culture. It is also noted that certain aspects of Jewish life were still retained by the Jews, such as the kashrut.
