Digital Commons Network^™

Jews And Urban Life, Leonard J. Greenspoon

Studies in Jewish Civilization

Jews and Urban Life recognizes that throughout their long history, Jews have often inhabited cities. The reality of this urban experience ranged from ghetto restrictions to robust participation in a range of civic and social activities. Essays in this collection present relevant examples from within the Jewish community itself, moving historically from the biblical period to the modern-day State of Israel. Taking a comparative approach while recognizing the particulars of individual instances, authors examine these phenomena from a wide variety of approaches, genres, and media. Interdisciplinary and accessibly written, the articles display a multitude of instances throughout history showing the …

Jews And Gender, Leonard Greenspoon

Studies in Jewish Civilization

Jews and Gender features sixteen authors exploring the history and culture of the intersection of Judaism and gender from the biblical world to today. Topics include subversive readings of biblical texts; reappraisal of rabbinic theory and practice; women in mysticism, Chasidism, and Yiddish literature; and women in contemporary culture and politics. Accessible and comprehensive, this volume will appeal to the general reader in addition to engaging with contemporary academic scholarship.

Authority And Dissent In Jewish Life, Leonard Greenspoon

Studies in Jewish Civilization

Throughout the long history of Judaism, many individuals and groups have sought to wield authority on the basis of unique religious, social, familial, military, or political claims. Moving historically from the biblical period to the modern-day State of Israel, Authority and Dissent in Jewish Life discusses a range of those claims to authority from within the Jewish community itself.

Jesus And The Mosaic Law: Agapic Love As The Foundation And Objective Of Law, Robert F. Cochran ,Jr.

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

An Analysis Of The Spiritual Narratives Of Formerly Observant Jews In Recovery, Matthew Milstein

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Addiction is a world-wide problem, and 12-step recovery programs are the most popular intervention, which incorporate a spiritual message in the recovery process. However, little research has explored how spirituality is experienced, and the meaning it has for individuals leading up to addiction, during active addiction, and in recovery using the 12-step model. Thus, this qualitative research study was conducted to explore the spiritual narratives of formerly observant individuals raised in the Orthodox Jewish community, who used a 12-step recovery program to recover from addiction and maintain sobriety. Cognitive dissonance theory and faith development theory were used to identify the …

The Last Step To Whiteness : American Jews, Civil Rights, And Assimilation, 1954-1988, Eric Morgenson

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This dissertation examines the relationship between American Jews and African Americans through the prism of evolving Jewish whiteness. In the post-World War II period, American Jews were an outsider group that were moving into the mainstream. American Jews interested in assimilating tied themselves to the cause of African American civil rights in the 1950s and 1960s. This was partially motivated by a desire to help an oppressed minority work towards equality in the United States. However, it was also motivated in part by a desire to aid in their own assimilation process. The idea of creating a colorblind American society …

Next Year In Jerusalem: Exile And Return In Jewish History, Leonard Greenspoon

Studies in Jewish Civilization

Next Year in Jerusalem recognizes that Jews have often experienced or imaged periods of exile and return in their long tradition. The fourteen papers in this collection examine this phenomenon from different approaches, genres, and media. They cover the period from biblical times through today. Among the exiles highlighted are the Babylonian Exile (sixth century BCE), the exile after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple (70 CE), and the years after the Crusaders (tenth century CE). Events of return include the aftermath of the Babylonian Exile (fifth century BCE), the centuries after the Temple’s destruction (first and second CE), and …

Is Judaism Democratic?: Reflections From Theory And Practice Throughout The Ages, Leonard Greenspoon

Studies in Jewish Civilization

As government by the people, democracy has always had its proponents as well as opponents. What forms of government have Jewish leaders, both with and without actual political power, favored? Not surprisingly, many options have been offered theoretically and in practice. Perhaps more surprisingly, democracy has been at the heart of most systems of governance. Biblical Israel was largely a monarchy, but many writers of the Bible were critical of the excesses that almost always arise when human kings take charge: the general populace loses its freedom. In rabbinic Judaism, the majority ruled, and many principles that support modern democratic …

Olam Ha-Zeh V’Olam Ha-Ba: This World And The World To Come In Jewish Belief And Practice, Leonard Greenspoon

Studies in Jewish Civilization

Dining on Leviathan. Discoursing with Socrates. Debating the nature of existence in the afterlife. These are among the topics authors address in this wide-ranging account of how Jews have conceptualized the world to come and structured their lives in this world accordingly. Some authorities portrayed the afterlife as an endless round of feasting and drinking of chazerie that would put the fanciest Las Vegas buffets to shame. There were visionaries who mapped out otherworldly climes populated by monstrous creatures. Others, decidedly more staid, saw the world to come as a location where neither food nor wine would be consumed; instead, …

The Moral World(S) Of Malachi, Robert Alan Cope

ATS Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Wealth And Poverty In Jewish Tradition, Leonard Greenspoon

Studies in Jewish Civilization

Economic inequity is an issue of worldwide concern in the twenty-first century. Although these issues have not troubled all people at all times, they are nonetheless not new. Thus, it is not surprising that Judaism has developed many perspectives, theoretical and practical, to explain and ameliorate the circumstances that produce serious economic disparity. This volume offers an accessible collection of articles that deal comprehensively with this phenomenon from a variety of approaches and perspectives.

Within this framework, the fourteen authors who contributed to Wealth and Poverty in Jewish Tradition bring a formidable array of experience and insight to uncover interconnected …

“Kabbalistic Pharmacopeia: Wellbeing In The Atlantic Jewish World”, Aviva Ben-Ur

Aviva Ben-Ur

This article describes and analyzes a rare manuscript bearing the lead title Ta‘alumot Hokhmah and purchased at auction in 2013. The document was composed by many hands and in many lands, largely in Portuguese and Dutch, with significant portions in French and Italian, and a smattering of Spanish, English, German, and Yiddish. Most manifestly, it is a receipt book, a compendium of medical, culinary, and housekeeping recipes, sometimes mingled with kabbalistic directives; it also incorporates memoirs and biographical annotations. The multiple layers of text collectively represent the transmission of knowledge within a single family and mark the major transitions that …

Who Is A Jew?: Reflections On History, Religion, And Culture, Leonard Greenspoon

Studies in Jewish Civilization

Jewish identity is a perennial concern, as Jews seek to define the major features and categories of those who “belong,” while at the same time draw distinctions between individuals and groups on the “inside” and those on the “outside.” From a variety of perspectives, scholarly as well as confessional, there is intense interest among non-Jewish and Jewish commentators alike in the basic question, “Who is a Jew?”

This collection of articles draws diverse historical, cultural, and religious insights from scholars who represent a wide range of academic and theological disciplines. Some of the authors directly address the issue of Jewish …

Fashioning Jews: Clothing, Culture, And Commerce, Leonard Greenspoon

Studies in Jewish Civilization

This volume presents papers delivered at the 24th Annual Klutznick-Harris Symposium, held at Creighton University in October 2011. The contributors look at all aspects of the intimate relationship between Jews and clothing, through case studies from ancient, medieval, recent, and contemporary history. Papers explore topics ranging from Jewish leadership in the textile industry, through the art of fashion in nineteenth century Vienna, to the use of clothing as a badge of ethnic identity, in both secular and religious contexts.

Contents: Shmattas in the North, Shmattas in the South: The Civil War and the Birth of the American Clothing Industry (Adam …

Torah In The Diaspora: A Comparative Study Of Philo And 4 Maccabees, Christopher J. Cornthwaite

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis examines how Judaism was Hellenized by comparing how difference, boundaries, and syncretism function in both Philo and 4 Maccabees. Recent historical and anthropological methods demand rejection of old approaches to these works which differentiated between the Judaism and the Hellenism in them and were often dominated by attempts to show where these authors’ intellectual fidelities lay. By re-evaluating ideas of boundaries and identity, this thesis argues that these authors could be committed to the ends of both Judaism and Hellenism. This necessitates recognition that identity and boundaries are ultimately products of individual self-consciousness; these authors attempt to understand …

Jews In The Gym: Judaism, Sports, And Athletics, Leonard Greenspoon

Studies in Jewish Civilization

For some, the connection between Jews and athletics might seem far-fetched. But in fact, as is highlighted by the fourteen chapters in this collection, Jews have been participating in—and thinking about—sports for more than two thousand years.

The articles in this volume scan a wide chronological range: from the Hellenistic period (first century BCE) to the most recent basketball season. The range of athletes covered is equally broad: from participants in Roman-style games to wrestlers, boxers, fencers, baseball players, and basketball stars. The authors of these essays, many of whom actively participate in athletics themselves, raise a number of intriguing …

Jews And Humor, Leonard Greenspoon

Studies in Jewish Civilization

Jews and humor is, for most people, a natural and felicitous collocation. In spite of, or perhaps because of, a history of crises and living on the edge, Jews have often created or resorted to humor. But what is “humor”? And what makes certain types, instances, or performances of humor “Jewish”? These are among the myriad queries addressed by the fourteen authors whose essays are collected in this volume. And, thankfully, their observations, always apt and often witty, are expressed with a lightness of style and a depth of analysis that are appropriate to the many topics they cover. The …

A Knight At The Opera: Heine, Wagner, Herzl, Peretz, And The Legacy Of Der Tannhäuser, Leah Garrett

Shofar Supplements in Jewish Studies

A Knight at the Opera examines the remarkable and unknown role that the medieval legend (and Wagner opera) Tannhäuser played in Jewish cultural life in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The book analyzes how three of the greatest Jewish thinkers of that era, Heinrich Heine, Theodor Herzl, and I. L. Peretz, used this central myth of Germany to strengthen Jewish culture and to attack anti-Semitism. In the original medieval myth, a Christian knight lives in sin with the seductive pagan goddess Venus in the Venusberg. He escapes her clutches and makes his way to Rome to seek absolution from …

Can We Laugh? Jewish American Comedy's Expression Of Anxiety In A Time Of Change, 1965-1973, Emily Schorr Lesnick

American Studies Honors Projects

This Honors project is a site of intersection of my academic and activist interests in interrogating Whiteness, my social identity as a cultural Jewish American, and my creative passions in comedy performance. The tragicomic films The Graduate, Goodbye, Columbus, and Annie Hall of the 1960s and 1970s articulate the painful process of Jewish self- and group-definition in relation to dominant culture amidst fractures amongst Jews and external hostility and invitation. The collision of Jews’ long history of humor as a cultural practice and the turbulence and ambivalence of the post-World War II moment facilitated a space for Jewish …

Truth And Illusion, Suzanne Last Stone

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

We Speak And Write This Language Against Our Will’: Jews, Hispanics, And The Dilemma Of Ladino-Speaking Sephardim In Early 20th Century New York", Aviva Ben-Ur

Aviva Ben-Ur

Menorah Review (No. 40, Spring/Summer, 1997)

Menorah Review

A Dissenting Voice -- More Resources By, For and About Jewish Women -- Individuals of the Jewish Persuasion -- Book Listing -- Recognizing the Other -- Copying Torah, Copying Love -- Book Briefings

Menorah Review (No. 38, Fall, 1996)

Menorah Review

Jews and the New Christian Right -- A Time To Kill and a Time to Heal -- The Wisdom Tradition -- Among the Saints -- Full Circle -- Teaching Civics and Culture -- What Is a Community? -- From Israel with Love -- Book Briefings

[Review Of] Eve Harris (Director And Producer), Secret Jews Of The Hispanic Southwest, David Gradwohl

Ethnic Studies Review

Although this film is short, it is sweet to the eyes and ears. The story is brief and may appear simple, but its ramifications are extensive, reaching back into the distant past and extending from the present into the future regarding complex matters of ethnicity and ethnic identities. The material is particularly significant to those involved in Hispanic and Judaic studies. Beyond those areas, however, the data present some challenges to definitions of ethnicity, the perceived longevity of certain group and individual ethnic identities, and our knowledge of the processes of culture change.

Menorah Review (No. 33, Winter, 1995)

Menorah Review

Current Feminist Critiques -- Ideological Passion -- The Voices of Silent Dialogues -- The Covenantal Relationship: Ethical Implications -- The Perennial Shylock -- Talmud -- Book Briefings

The Founding Of A School: An Oral History Of The Abraham Joshua Heschel School, Joan Yotive Berland

Graduate Student Independent Studies

The Abraham Joshua Heschel School was founded in the early 1980's by Peter Geffen and other Jewish professionals and laypersons who were committed to a school that was independent of any synagogue or organization. A school where a wide range of Jewish beliefs and practices along with secular studies could be integrated through intellectual, academic, ethical, artistic, social and emotional realms.

By conducting interviews with 4 or the 8 people who taught or worked at the Heschel school when it opened in 1983, it was possible to collect an oral history that revealed aspects which were significant in founding and …

Menorah Review (No. 11, Fall, 1987)

Menorah Review

Why It's Fundamental -- In Search Of a Model For Liberal Religion: Maurice Friedman's Human Way -- Saving Face -- One Nation Under a Protestant God -- Book Briefings -- Rejoinder