Jewish Studies Commons^™

With Love, ; An Interdisciplinary And Intersectional Look At Why Creativity Is Essential, Theo Starr Gardner

Whittier Scholars Program

My Whittier Scholars Program self-designed major, Teaching Creativity, is a mixture of Art, Literature, and Education classes. My research and praxis classes have been focused on the ‘how?’s and 'why?’s of creativity, so it felt only right that my project should be a constructivist, generative project. The project I have been working on throughout my time at Whittier, and that has just fully come to fruition on April 11th, 2024, was a solo art gallery/open mic event entitled ‘With Love,’. With Love, was conceptually inspired by the research I’ve conducted on creativity and creative arts education over the past few …

Lost & Found (Game Series) [Book Chapter], Owen Gottlieb

Articles

Description of game series for use in the classroom with best practices.

Playing To Grow. Roundtable Interview On Games, Education, And Character, Owen Gottlieb, Matthew Farber, Paul Darvasi

Articles

In this roundtable interview moderated by Paul Darvasi, lecturer at the University of Toronto and co-founder of Gold Bug Interactive, Owen Gottlieb and Matthew Farber discuss research and practice at the intersection of religion, character education, and games in schools. Gottlieb is an associate professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology, founder and lead faculty at the Initiative in Religion, Culture, and Policy at the MAGIC center, and founder and director of the Interaction, Media, and Learning Lab at RIT, where he specializes in interactive media, learning, religion, and culture. Farber is an associate professor of educational technology and coordinator …

The Light Of The Revival: Stained-Glass Designs For Restituted Synagogues In Ukraine, Eugeny Kotylar, Magda Teter

Faculty Publications

The catalogue for the exhibition "The Light of the Revival: Stained-Glass Designs for Restituted Synagogues in Ukraine by Eugeny Kotlyar" held at Fordham University from September 10-December 10, 2023 offers a broad perspective on the revival of Ukrainian synagogues after Ukraine’s independence. It showcases three sets of stained-glass windows, which were designed by Eugeny Kotlyar and partially implemented in Ukrainian synagogues in the period from 1995 to 2005. Two early works shown here were the first samples of stained-glass designs for modern Ukrainian synagogues, which set a new trend. The first of them—the stained-glass windows for the Kharkiv Choral Synagogue …

Collaborative Constructions: Designing High School History Curriculum With The Lost & Found Game Series, Owen Gottlieb, Shawn Clybor

Articles

This chapter addresses design research and iterative curriculum design for the Lost & Found games series. The Lost & Found card-to-mobile series is set in Fustat (Old Cairo) in the twelfth century and focuses on religious laws of the period. The first two games focus on Moses Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah, a key Jewish law code. A new expansion module which was in development at the time of the fieldwork described in this article that introduces Islamic laws of the period, and a mobile prototype of the initial strategy game has been developed with support National Endowment for the Humanities. The …

Playing At The Crossroads Of Religion And Law: Historical Milieu, Context And Curriculum Hooks In Lost & Found, Owen Gottlieb

Articles

This chapter presents the use of Lost & Found – a purpose-built tabletop to mobile game series – to teach medieval religious legal systems. The series aims to broaden the discourse around religious legal systems and to counter popular depiction of these systems which often promote prejudice and misnomers. A central element is the importance of contextualizing religion in period and locale. The Lost & Found series uses period accurate depictions of material culture to set the stage for play around relevant topics – specifically how the law promoted collaboration and sustainable governance practices in Fustat (Old Cairo) in twelfth-century …

Designing Analog Learning Games: Genre Affordances, Limitations And Multi-Game Approaches, Owen Gottlieb, Ian Schreiber

Articles

This chapter explores what the authors discovered about analog games and game design during the many iterative processes that have led to the Lost & Found series, and how they found certain constraints and affordances (that which an artifact assists, promotes or allows) provided by the boardgame genre. Some findings were counter-intuitive. What choices would allow for the modeling of complex systems, such as legal and economic systems? What choices would allow for gameplay within the time of a class-period? What mechanics could promote discussions of tradeoff decisions? If players are expending too much cognition on arithmetic strategizing, could that …

Lost & Found: New Harvest, Owen Gottlieb, Ian Schreiber

Presentations and other scholarship

Lost & Found is a strategy card-to-mobile game series that teaches medieval religious legal systems with attention to period accuracy and cultural and historical context.

Set in Fustat (Old Cairo) in the 12th century, a great crossroads of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. The Lost & Found games project seeks to expand the discourse around religious legal systems, to enrich public conversations in a variety of communities, and to promote greater understanding of the religious traditions that build the fabric of the United States. Comparative religious literacy can build bridges between and within communities and prepare learners to be responsible citizens …

Acts Of Meaning, Resource Diagrams, And Essential Learning Behaviors: The Design Evolution Of Lost & Found, Owen Gottlieb, Ian Schreiber

Articles

Lost & Found is a tabletop-to-mobile game series designed for teaching medieval religious legal systems. The long-term goals of the project are to change the discourse around religious laws, such as foregrounding the prosocial aspects of religious law such as collaboration, cooperation, and communal sustainability. This design case focuses on the evolution of the design of the mechanics and core systems in the first two tabletop games in the series, informed by over three and a half years’ worth of design notes, playable prototypes, outside design consultations, internal design reviews, playtests, and interviews.

Re-Playing Maimonides’ Codes: Designing Games To Teach Religious Legal Systems, Owen Gottlieb

Articles

Lost & Found is a game series, created at the Initiative for

Religion, Culture, and Policy at the Rochester Institute of

Technology MAGIC Center.1 The series teaches medieval

religious legal systems. This article uses the first two games

of the series as a case study to explore a particular set of

processes to conceive, design, and develop games for learning.

It includes the background leading to the author's work

in games and teaching religion, and the specific context for

the Lost & Found series. It discusses the rationale behind

working to teach religious legal systems more broadly, then

discuss the …

The Lost & Found Game Series: Teaching Medieval Religious Law In Context, Owen Gottlieb, Ian Schreiber

Presentations and other scholarship

Lost & Found is a strategy card-to-mobile game series that teaches medieval religious legal systems with attention to period accuracy and cultural and historical context. The Lost & Found project seeks to expand the discourse around religious legal systems, to enrich public conversations in a variety of communities, and to promote greater understanding of the religious traditions that build the fabric of the United States. Comparative religious literacy can build bridges between and within communities and prepare learners to be responsible citizens in our pluralist democracy. The first game in the series is a strategy game called Lost & Found …

Art Of Jerusalem: Power And Piety In The Holy Land, Abby M. Kornfeld

Open Educational Resources

This course explores the art and architecture of Jerusalem from the reign of Herod through the Crusades, a period in which the city came under successive Jewish, Roman, Byzantine, Islamic, and Latin domination. Particular attention will be given to the repeated transformation of the landscape of Jerusalem through the destruction, construction, and modification of important religious and cultural monuments. We will gauge the role of Jerusalem as an object of desire for the dispossessed and for pilgrims of three faiths. In addition, we will explore how the accretion of myth and memory shaped the city’s symbolic identity, and how this …

Prosocial Religion And Games: Lost & Found, Owen Gottlieb, Ian Schreiber

Articles

In a time when religious legal systems are discussed without an understanding of history or context, it is more important than ever to help widen the understanding and discourse about the prosocial aspects of religious legal systems throughout history. The Lost & Found (www.lostandfoundthegame.com) game series, targeted for an audience of teens through twentysomethings in formal, learning environments, is designed to teach the prosocial aspects of medieval religious systems—specifically collaboration, cooperation, and the balancing of communal and individual/family needs. Set in Fustat (Old Cairo) in the 12th century, the first two games in the series address laws in Moses Maimonides’ …

Finding Lost & Found: Designer’S Notes From The Process Of Creating A Jewish Game For Learning, Owen Gottlieb

Articles

This article provides context for and examines aspects of the design process of a game for learning. Lost & Found (2017a, 2017b) is a tabletop-to-mobile game series designed to teach medieval religious legal systems, beginning with Moses Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah (1180), a cornerstone work of Jewish legal rabbinic literature. Through design narratives, the article demonstrates the complex design decisions faced by the team as they balance the needs of player engagement with learning goals. In the process the designers confront challenges in developing winstates and in working with complex resource management. The article provides insight into the pathways the team …

Entartete Kunst: The War Against Modern Art In The Third Reich, Zeynep Kazmaz

Honors Projects in History and Social Sciences

In July 1937, the Nazi Party exhibited a collection of modern artwork confiscated from museums throughout Germany. This display, entitled the “Degenerate Art Exhibition,” was organized to ridicule the artwork being presented. The events that led to such a breaking point had started forming around the early 20th century. In Germany, after the First World War, the blossoming of modern art had coincided with the forming of a racist ideology. Meanwhile, Hitler was also discovering his own racist views and dislike of modern art. An artist who delved into politics, Hitler integrated his artistic views into his political ideologies. Eventually, …

Card Tricks: A Workflow For Scalability And Dynamic Content Creation Using Paper2d And Unreal Engine 4, Owen Gottlieb, Dakota Herold, Edward Amidon

Presentations and other scholarship

In this paper, we describe the design and technological methods of

our dynamic sprite system in Lost & Found, a table-top-to-mobile

card game designed to improve literacy regarding prosocial

aspects of religious legal systems, specifically, collaboration and

cooperation. Harnessing the capabilities of Unreal Engine’s

Paper2D system, we created a dynamic content creation pipeline

that empowered our game designers so that they could rapidly

iterate on the game’s systems and balance externally from the

engine. Utilizing the Unreal Blueprint component system we were

also able to modularize each actor during runtime as data may be

changed. The technological approach behind Lost …

Typography And The Evolution Of Hebrew Alphabetic Script: Writing Method Of The Sofer, Shayna Tova Blum

Faculty and Staff Publications

Typography is the study of language letterforms, phonographic alphabetic characters that, when combined with additional characters, form words and/or sentences to express an idea and communicate a message to an audience. The history of typographic design dates back to early civilization and the invention of alphabetic writing systems, formulated and processed through the literary skills of the Hebrew Scribe Ezra whose knowledge and practice offered a significant contribution within a predominantly oral society. By examining the history of Hebrew typography through the discourse of biblical writing systems and alphabetic design, the article addresses the development of Hebrew scripts evolving from …

Hebrew Typography: A Modern Progression Of Language Forms, Shayna Tova Blum

Faculty and Staff Publications

Influenced by studies in traditional Ashkenazi and Sephardi scripts. The typeface had been designed for the printing of the Koren Tanakh, a first edition printed Jewish Bible processed through an all-Jewish collaboration for the first time in centuries. Koren’s project was inspired by the revival of Hebrew initiated by Haskalah writers in the 18th century. Haskalah writers utilized the language and scripts of written and printed literary texts. Influenced by philosophical and political ideologies of the European Enlightenment, the Haskalah explored Jewish identity through language by defining the secular context through traditional Jewish symbolism and narratives. The Zionist movement of …

Visual Communication & Typography: Study In The History Of Hebrew Letterforms And The Work Of Israeli Designer, Yaakov Stark, Shayna Tova Blum

Faculty and Staff Publications

The article reviews the history of letterforms and typographic design by discussing inventions in scripts, tools, and technology which impact the evolution of visual language and writing systems. Principles and elements of typography are analyzed using the Hebrew alphabet as an example in letterform design by exploring the work of Israeli designer, Yaakov Stark, who as an Israeli immigrant from Eastern Europe projects centered on Hebrew typography and the hybridization of Ashkenazi and Mizrahi scripts. Through an archive of work produced while a student at the Bezalel Academy of Art, Jerusalem in 1906, Stark has influenced generations of Israeli designers, …

Armenian Textile Terminology, Birgit Anette Olsen

Textile Terminologies from the Orient to the Mediterranean and Europe, 1000 BC to 1000 AD

The part of the Armenian vocabulary that is inherited from the Indo-European protolanguage is notoriously limited, variously estimated to include between 450 and 700 stems. Otherwise, the lexicon is dominated by etymologically obscure elements and an impressive amount of Middle Iranian loanwords, reflecting the centuries of Iranian political dominance. In particular the Parthian loans, introduced during the Arsacid dynasty (247 BC-224 AD), have left their mark on the Classical Armenian language, attested from the early 5th century, to a similar extent as Old French on English or Low German on Danish, so that linguists until the late 19th century still …

List Of Contributors

Textile Terminologies from the Orient to the Mediterranean and Europe, 1000 BC to 1000 AD

The 42 contributors include Salvatore Gaspa, Cécile Michel, Marie-Louise Nosch, Elena Soriga, Louise Quillien, Luigi Malatacca, Nahum Ben-Yehuda, Christina Katsikadeli, Orit Shamir, Agnes Korn, Georg Warning, Birgit Anette Olsen, Stella Spantidaki, Peder Flemestad, Peter Herz, Ines Bogensperger, Herbert Graßl, Mary Harlow, Berit Hildebrandt, Magdalena Öhrman, Roland Schuhmann, Kerstin Droß-Krüpe, John Peter Wild, Maria Mossakowska-Gaubert, Julia Galliker, Anne Regourd, Fiona J. L. Handley, Götz König, Miguel Ángel Andrés-Toledo, Stefan Niederreiter, Oswald Panagl, Giovanni Fanfani, Le Wang, Feng Zhao, Mari Omura, Naoko Kizawa, Maciej Szymaszek, Francesco Meo, Felicitas Maeder, Kalliope Sarri, Susanne Lervad, and Tove Engelhardt Mathiassen.

Listening For Licia: A Reconsideration Of Latin Licia As Heddle-Leashes, Magdalena Öhrman

Textile Terminologies from the Orient to the Mediterranean and Europe, 1000 BC to 1000 AD

The semantic field of Latin licium and its plural form licia is undoubtedly wide, with the term applied to thread both generally and in specific legal, medical and magical usage as well as in relation to weaving, and this paper does not aim to survey Latin usage of this term comprehensively. Rather, it focuses on one of the uses of licia in Latin literary sources, namely those where licia appears to denote heddle-leashes. Two much-discussed passages occur in Augustan poetry where licia may be used in this sense: Vergil’s Georgics 1.285 and Tibullus elegy 1.6.79. Both passages have been subject …

Tunics Worn In Egypt In Roman And Byzantine Times: The Greek Vocabulary, Maria Mossakowska-Gaubert

Textile Terminologies from the Orient to the Mediterranean and Europe, 1000 BC to 1000 AD

The principal element of the fashion in clothing introduced in Egypt with the arrival of the Romans was a tunic made of two rectangular pieces of fabric sewn together. Such a tunic either would leave the arms naked, or cover the arms to the elbow (fig. 1). This fashion changed with the turn of the 2nd and 3rd century AD. At this time, in addition to the tunics without sleeves, the inhabitants of Egypt started to wear tunics with ‘true’ sleeves – long or short, wide or tight – inspired by the Eastern fashion: the manner of making the tunics …

“Der Faden Soll Nicht Reißen, Während Ich Meine Dichtung Webe…”: Zum Metaphorischen Gebrauch Von Textilterminologie Im Rigveda, Stefan Niederreiter,

Textile Terminologies from the Orient to the Mediterranean and Europe, 1000 BC to 1000 AD

Wenn man sich als historisch-vergleichender Sprachwissenschaftler mit einem speziellen realienkundlichen Thema einer ausgewählten Epoche einer altindogermanischen Sprache beschäftigt, so ist man aus Erfahrung darauf gefasst, dass Informationen zumeist lückenhaft vorhanden sind und die Erschließung der Texte mit den unterschiedlichsten philologischen und linguistischen Schwierigkeiten verbunden sein kann. Trägt man das Erkenntnisinteresse textilterminologischer Fragestellungen an den ältesten indischen Text, den Rigveda (RV), heran, liegt es schon an der Textsorte der für rituelle Zwecke bestimmten sacerdotalen Dichtung, dass Informationen zur handwerklichen Praxis des Webens allenfalls verstreut, beiläufig und dann vor allem in poetischen Metaphern den vedischen Hymnen zu entnehmen sind. Aber gerade der …

Der Text Als Gewebe: Lexikalische Studien Im Sinnbezirk Von Webstuhl Und Kleid, Oswald Panagl

Textile Terminologies from the Orient to the Mediterranean and Europe, 1000 BC to 1000 AD

Die Thematik des folgenden Beitrags ist gleichsam doppelt gepolt. Sie ist zunächst im terminologischen Feld der Prozesse, Instrumente und Produkte der Sachbereiche von Weben und Flechten verankert. Zugleich ist sie auch in den metaphorischen Verwendungsweisen der zugehörigen Sinnbezirke bzw. Wortfelder, also im weitgespannten Horizont der Herstellung von Stoffen, Tüchern und Gewändern verortet. „Vom Textil zum Text“ ließe sich die Intention des Artikels bündig zusammenfassen: Dabei verläuft also die Richtung der Bedeutungsentwicklung des Produkts in ihrer Tendenz gegen den Vorgang der zugehörigen morphologischen Ableitung. Ich möchte mich meinem Vorhaben zunächst mit einem Blick auf die bekannten beiden konversen Zugänge zur Semantik …

Weaving A Song. Convergences In Greek Poetic Imagery Between Textile And Musical Terminology. An Overview On Archaic And Classical Literature, Giovanni Fanfani

Textile Terminologies from the Orient to the Mediterranean and Europe, 1000 BC to 1000 AD

In an analysis of the household-management (οἰκο- νομία) in the first book of the Politics, Aristotle discusses the nature and use of tools (ὄργανα), both inanimate (τὰ ἄψυχα) and animate (τὰ ἔμψυχα). While such a distinction is functional, in Aristotle’s argument, to illustrate the priority of the latter group (represented by the assistant, ὁ ὑπηρετής, and the slave, ὁ δοῦλος) over the first, what interests us here lies mainly within the realm of inanimate tools. As commentators to the passage have not failed to notice, a first literary frame of reference for Aristotle’s exemplum fictum is to be found …

Remarks On The Interpretation Of Some Ambiguous Greek Textile Terms, Stella Spantidaki

Textile Terminologies from the Orient to the Mediterranean and Europe, 1000 BC to 1000 AD

The study of written sources of the Classical period (5th and 4th centuries BC) reveals the existence of a very rich vocabulary related to textile production. There are terms referring to materials, tools, manufacture and decoration techniques, colours, people and places related to textile manufacture. Many terms are quite clearly defined, while others present major difficulties in their interpretation. Usually these concern terms for tools, such as κερκίς (pin beater or shuttle) and ἡλακάτη (distaff or spindle) or terms describing fabrics with some kind of decoration. Among the decorative terms, some refer to specific decorative techniques, such as κατάστικτος (embroidered) …

Sasanian Exegesis Of Avestan Textile Terms, Miguel Ángel Andrés-Toledo

Textile Terminologies from the Orient to the Mediterranean and Europe, 1000 BC to 1000 AD

The Zoroastrian religion, taking its name from the prophet Zoroaster, Greek version of the Avestan name Zaraϑuštra, developed in South and Central Asia out of the Indo-Iranian religious practices going back to the 2nd millennium BC, and is one of the few ancient Indo-European religions that still survive, concretely in some communities in Iran, India and the diaspora. The most ancient Zoroastrian sacred texts, commonly designated as the Avesta, were orally composed and transmitted during the 2nd and 1st millennia BC in the most archaic Iranian language preserved, known as Avestan, until they were eventually put down to writing in …

Beschaffung Und Handel Mit Farbstoffen, Peter Herz

Textile Terminologies from the Orient to the Mediterranean and Europe, 1000 BC to 1000 AD

Farbstoffe sind alles andere als ein leicht zu behandelndes Thema, denn von wenigen Ausnahmen abgesehen, die die mineralischen Farben betreffen, geht die archäologische Nachweisbarkeit in der Regel fast gegen Null, was gerade für die Textilfarben sehr bedauerlich ist. Die frühesten Nachweise auf einen internationalen Handel mit Farbstoffen stammen aus dem Ägypten der 4. Dynastie. In vielen Gräbern dieser Epoche finden wir Wandgemälde aus einem ganz speziellen Blau, dem sogenannten Ägyptischen Blau. Einer der Grundstoffe war Lapislazuli oder Blaustein, ein Mineral, das noch heute in den östlichen Teilen von Afghanistan abgebaut wird. Von dort aus wurde das Rohprodukt mit Eselskarawanen bis …

Ordinary People’S Garments In Neo- And Late-Babylonian Sources, Luigi Malatacca

Textile Terminologies from the Orient to the Mediterranean and Europe, 1000 BC to 1000 AD

The investigation of textiles and clothes in ancient Mesopotamia has been anything but neglected in Assyriological studies. For the Neo- and Late Babylonian periods, in particular, two fundamental monographs have shed light on the clothes worn by the deities worshiped in lower Mesopotamia. 2 Scholars, however, have focused almost exclusively on clothing in the cultic context. This is due to a prevalence of textual sources – mostly economic or administrative documents – recording clothing items worn by divine images during festivals and rituals. Sources on the clothes worn by common people, instead, are close to non-existent. Still, we cannot overlook …