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Articles 1 - 9 of 9

Full-Text Articles in Jewish Studies

Intro To Jewish American Literature, Amy W. Kratka Jan 2022

Intro To Jewish American Literature, Amy W. Kratka

Open Educational Resources

No abstract provided.


Leaving A Covenantal Religion: Orthodox Jewish Disaffiliation From An Immigration Psychology Perspective, Joel Engelman, Glen Milstein, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, Joshua B. Grubbs Aug 2020

Leaving A Covenantal Religion: Orthodox Jewish Disaffiliation From An Immigration Psychology Perspective, Joel Engelman, Glen Milstein, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, Joshua B. Grubbs

Publications and Research

This study explored psychological variables associated with disaffiliation from Orthodox Judaism (a covenantal community), and subsequent wellness. A web-based survey (N = 206) assessed factors previously used to study immigrants: push (distress within origin community), pull (toward destination community), and goal attainment. Psychological wellness, perceived stress, overall health, and loneliness were also assessed. Findings included: (1) strong pull toward opportunities for physical and ideological autonomy; (2) those who experienced more push toward disaffiliation, reported decreased current wellness; (3) goal attainment was associated with increased wellbeing; (4) significant differences in the experiences of disaffiliation between men and women; (5) most who …


Feminist Theology And The Fantastic In Jewish Poetics And Children's Literature (1960s–Present), Meira S. Levinson Feb 2020

Feminist Theology And The Fantastic In Jewish Poetics And Children's Literature (1960s–Present), Meira S. Levinson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation traces the development of Jewish fantasy rhetoric in post-WWII British and American literature, focusing on three genres: kabbalistic Beat poetry, children’s fantasy, and graphic novels/comics. Despite increasing scholarly attention to all these areas, little work has focused on fantasy rhetoric or issues of gender and sexuality within non-canonical Jewish literature, or on interplays of religion and fantasy in children’s literature. Jewish kabbalistic poetry and children’s fantasy speak to each other in their mutual engagements with the otherworldly, mystical and monstrous, interrogations of gender, and complex portrayals of feminist theological potentialities. I identify and analyze Jewish-hermeneutic themes and methodologies …


Music And Jewish Practice In Contemporary Istanbul: Preserving Heritage, Bending Tradition, Joseph M. Alpar Sep 2019

Music And Jewish Practice In Contemporary Istanbul: Preserving Heritage, Bending Tradition, Joseph M. Alpar

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is a study of ongoing transformations in the sacred musical repertoires practiced by ḥazzanim (synagogue cantors) and their synagogue congregations in Istanbul’s contemporary Jewish community. I argue that clergy and laypeople alike negotiate their religious identities as Turkish Jews in the musical choices they make. While many try to maintain the community’s local music tradition, rooted in makam—the Ottoman Turkish melodic system—others attempt to broaden their repertoire with musics from Israel, the United States, and Ḥabad Hasidic Judaism. I examine adjustments made to the musical components of ritual as responses to decades of Jewish religious life as …


Art Of Jerusalem: Power And Piety In The Holy Land, Abby M. Kornfeld Jan 2018

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 …


Music In Haredi Jewish Life: Liquid Modernity And The Negotiation Of Boundaries In Greater New York, Gordon A. Dale Sep 2017

Music In Haredi Jewish Life: Liquid Modernity And The Negotiation Of Boundaries In Greater New York, Gordon A. Dale

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this dissertation I seek to understand tensions regarding boundary maintenance, music, and cultural continuity among the contemporary Haredi (“Ultra-Orthodox”) Jewish community of Greater New York in the context of sociologist Zygmunt Bauman’s theory of liquid modernity. While Bauman suggests that modernity has melted familiar institutions and created an unstable and rapidly shifting world, I argue that for Haredim, the non-liberal religious community and its cultural productions solidify social bonds. While many Haredi Jews strive to continue the musical practices of pre-WWII Europe, some Haredi musicians push or disregard the boundaries of accepted practice by experimenting with Western popular music …


Reorienting American Liberal Judaism For The Twentieth Century: Stephen S. Wise And The Early Years Of The Jewish Institute Of Religion, Shirley Idelson Feb 2014

Reorienting American Liberal Judaism For The Twentieth Century: Stephen S. Wise And The Early Years Of The Jewish Institute Of Religion, Shirley Idelson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study explores how Rabbi Stephen S. Wise and supporters from the Free Synagogue and elsewhere sought to reorient American liberal Judaism by establishing the Jewish Institute of Religion (JIR) in the early 1920s. They believed the leaders of the Reform movement at that time were reluctant to relinquish an outmoded approach that had lost relevance in light of a new demographic reality whereby over a million Eastern European Jews now living in New York were becoming the dominant presence in American Jewish life. The JIR founders attributed this to Reform's having become insular, unresponsive to pressing social issues, overly …


The Library's Bassin Collection, Scott Sheidlower, John A. Drobnicki Mar 2008

The Library's Bassin Collection, Scott Sheidlower, John A. Drobnicki

Publications and Research

In May 1973, York College President Milton G. Bassin donated 495 volumes to the York College Library, most of which were written in either Hebrew or Yiddish, with some also in Aramaic. The books belonged to his father, Max Bassin (who was sometimes referred to as Morris, Moses, or Moshe), who was a noted anthologist of Yiddish poetry.


"Who Is Sleeping In The Bed Of Sodom?", Nancy Levene Jul 2000

"Who Is Sleeping In The Bed Of Sodom?", Nancy Levene

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

The question that I am left with from the extraordinary presentations over the conference's two days borrows from Rabbi Steve Greenberg's and Ludger Viefhues's discussion of the multiple images of the biblical "Sodom". Conventionally Sodom has signified a place of sexual deviance or, conversely, sexual censorship. But as Greenberg pointed out, in many traditional commentaries on the story of the condemnation of Sodom, the issue was not that the townspeople were engaged in forbidden sexual practices, but that they were violent and hostile to those in need of shelter and food.