Jewish Studies Commons^™

Jewish Conversion During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Victoria Davide

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

March 2020 saw a stark change to daily life and religious practices for many individuals because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Those converting to Judaism, or in the process of wanting to convert, found themselves physically isolated from their Jewish communities. This thesis dives into what aspects are important when creating a Jewish identity and how individuals circumnavigate these changes in crisis. Through the use of qualitative interviews this thesis illuminates the many different changes and experiences that individuals went through converting to Judaism during the COVID-19 pandemic. I bring many different groups for comparisons including different branches within Judaism and …

Sephardi Identity & Legitimacy In The Age Of Direct-To-Consumer Dna Tests, Caitlyn Rose Campana

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Today, individuals may purchase genetic tests that promise to “reveal” one’s “true self” through ancestry composition reports, health reports, and lists of DNA relatives. Such tests add another dimension to the ongoing debate about what it means to be Jewish, but also what it means to be “legitimately” Sephardi. Through qualitative interviews, this thesis illuminates the experiences of Sephardim who received identity-affirming DNA test results and Sephardim who received identity non-affirming DNA test results. Findings suggest that contemporary Sephardim consider a link to the Iberian Peninsula as indicative of Sephardi identity, despite expanding definitions of the label. They also suggest …

Self-Referential Features In Sacred Texts, Donald Haase

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines a specific type of instance that bridges the divide between seeing sacred texts as merely vehicles for content and as objects themselves: self-reference. Doing so yielded a heuristic system of categories of self-reference in sacred texts based on the way the text self-describes: Inlibration, Necessity, and Untranslatability.

I provide examples of these self-referential features as found in various sacred texts: the Vedas, Āgamas, Papyrus of Ani, Torah, Quran, Sri Guru Granth Sahib, and the Book of Mormon. I then examine how different theories of sacredness interact with them. What do Durkheim, Otto, Freud, or Levinas say about …

Jewish Women’S Transracial Epistemological Networks: Representations Of Black Women In The African Diaspora, 1930-1980, Abby S. Gondek

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation investigates how Jewish women social scientists relationally established their gendered-racialized subjectivities and theories about race-gender-sexuality-class through their portrayals of black women’s sexuality and family structures in the African Diaspora: the U.S., Brazil, South Africa, Swaziland, and the U.K. The central women in this study: Ellen Hellmann, Ruth Landes, Hilda Kuper, and Ruth Glass, were part of the same “political generation,” born in 1908-1912, coming of age when Jews of European descent experienced an ambivalent and conditional assimilation into whiteness, a form of internal colonization. I demonstrate how each woman’s familial origin point in Europe, parental class and political …

From The Fall To The Flood And Beyond: Navigating Identity In Contemporary Noahidism, Patrick J. Villalonga

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates artifacts and concepts present in the Noahide world and how they affect Noahide identity. Five factors are analyzed, namely Noahide law, religious pluralism, ritual, sectarianism, and conversion. I consult the Hebrew Scriptures as well as early, medieval, and modern rabbinic sources to set the conceptual background of the Noahide movement before moving into the primary, contemporary sources written by Orthodox Jews, Orthodox rabbis, and Noahides. To supplement my literary analysis, I have conducted a survey of self-identifying Noahide practitioners. This survey collects data concerning religious background, religious behavior, demographics, and free responses. I aim to show first …

Heavenly Voice, Earthly Echo: Unraveling The Function Of The Bat Kol In Rabbinic Writings, John D. Grullon

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

There is an ancient rabbinic apothegm which asserts that prophecy “ceased” after the last Biblical prophets, Haggai, Zachariah, and Malachi. After their deaths, a new phase of divine revelation was believed to have emerged through manifestations of a bat kol (lit. “Daughter of a voice”). This thesis examines the bat kol’s function within the contours of the Babylonian Talmud, primarily, employing philological, literary, and historical analyses. Moreover, it includes a review of parallels with Biblical and Second-Temple era, Apocalyptic works, so as to suggest possible origins. In addition, a sample of about ten stories are presented as representative of larger …

An Ethnography: Discovering The Hidden Identity Of The Banilejos, Yehonatan Elazar-Demota

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

During June of 2015, an anthropological and sociological study was conducted in the Dominican city of Bani. On the surface, the banilejo people appear to be devout Catholics. However, having had access to their personal lives, it was evident that their peculiar family traditions and folklore hinted at their liminal identities. This study involved interviewing 23 female subjects with questions found in the Spanish and Portuguese inquisitorial manuals. In addition, their mitochondrial DNA sequences were analyzed and demonstrated a high percentage of consanguinity and inbreeding within Bani's population. The genetic analysis of their mitochondrial DNA yielded genetic links with Jewish …

On Record: Soundscapes As Metaphor And Physical Manifestation Of Memory In Early Holocaust Novels And Contemporary Criticism, Mariane Stanev

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis compares two perspectives on the production of Holocaust memory: a novel that leads up to The Holocaust in Britain and one that reflects the hindsight perspective of a liberator in the Soviet Union. The novels are Virginia Woolf’s BETWEEN THE ACTS and Vasily Grossman’s LIFE AND FATE. The analysis offers a locus of analysis for the diasporic literary energy created by the catastrophe in the 20^th and 21^st centuries. The project offers a theorized standpoint on the role of literature on official historical archives. Proposing a method through which contemporary readers can engage the diasporic event …

Jesus As The Son Of Man In Mark, Andres A. Tejada-Lalinde

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Scholars have often seen the interpretation of the Son of Man as crucial in discovering Jesus’ self-understanding, given that the expression occurs so frequently and almost exclusively on Jesus’ lips. After ascertaining the authenticity of the Son of Man sayings, I carry out the exegesis in the Gospel of Mark using a methodology consisting of examining Biblical passages within the context of the Bible as a whole and of historical-critical and philological perspectives. Also, the narrative context of the saying is taken into account. I show that the Son of Man is a Messianic title derived from Daniel 7:13, and …