Jewish Studies Commons^™

Saving Adele: A History Of The Portrait Of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, Ariel A. Furman

Quest

Individual Research Project

Research in progress for HIST 1302: United States History II

Faculty Mentor: Kyle Wilkison, Ph.D.

Nothing ruins an enriching intellectual experience quite like having it assigned. Consequently, Honors History 1302 students began by identifying their own passions and interests. They then chose topics of immediate and abiding personal interest and produced research projects that reflected that energy and commitment. Their research probed a marvelous variety of historical topics from culture, medicine, science, politics, and economics. They researched and wrote about anti-fascist American comic books during World War II, disturbing historic treatments for the mentally ill, advances in …

Whose Birthright? Evaluating The Impact Of Birthright Trips To Israel On American Jewish Identity In The #Metoo And #Boycottbirthright Era, Christy David

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis critically examines both the impact of Birthright Israel trips on the formation of Jewish American identity but also confronts disparities in the participants’ experiences and the current evaluation methods being used to judge the ‘success’ of the trips. In 2018, the rise of the #MeToo and #BoycottBirthright movements coincided, and both participants of the trip and female educators called for a change in both the Birthright itinerary and supposed “goals” that were seeped in misogyny and an erasure of the Palestinian narrative. This research brings the two seemingly separate issues together by looking at the issues with the …

Law Library Blog (December 2019): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

New Perspectives On Kristallnacht: After 80 Years, The Nazi Pogrom In Global Comparison, Wolf Gruner, Steven J. Ross

Purdue University Press Book Previews

On November 9 and 10, 1938, Nazi leadership unleashed an unprecedented orchestrated wave of violence against Jews in Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland, supposedly in response to the assassination of a Nazi diplomat by a young Polish Jew, but in reality to force the remaining Jews out of the country. During the pogrom, Stormtroopers, Hitler Youth, and ordinary Germans murdered more than a hundred Jews (many more committed suicide) and ransacked and destroyed thousands of Jewish institutions, synagogues, shops, and homes. Thirty thousand Jews were arrested and sent to Nazi concentration camps.

Volume 17 of the Casden Annual Review includes …

Why The Passive Protagonist In Wisdom Of Solomon 2–5?, Larry Wills

Journal of Religious Competition in Antiquity

Scholars have long noted the mixed traditions in Wisdom of Solomon: wisdom, apocalypticism, and Greek philosophy—both Platonic and Stoic motifs. But in addition, among the three sections of the text (1:1–6:21, 6:22–11:1, 11:2–19:22), there is also a discrepancy in the psychological tone. In Wisdom 1–6, and more specifically 2–5, the protagonist, the “righteous one” (dikaios), is persecuted by the many ungodly (asebeis). The modern reader often misses the fact that the righteous one never speaks; he is described, rather, by the ungodly. The fact that the righteous one never speaks, and is described as a passive …

The Swine Suicides: On The Appearance And Disappearance Of Pork-Related Jewish Martyrdom In Antiquity, Jordan D. Rosenblum

Journal of Religious Competition in Antiquity

The willingness for Jews to martyr themselves rather than consume pork was well known in the ancient Mediterranean. Both Jewish and non-Jewish texts attest to this predilection, some viewing it as an inspired testimony to one’s faith and others as a baffling and peculiar act. In Late Antiquity, new depictions of pork-related Jewish martyrdom disappear (though the occasional reference to centuries-old actions do appear). This paper offers an explanation for the disappearance of accounts of pork-related Jewish martyrdom. In doing so, it advances an argument for the rhetorical role played by pork-related Jewish martyrdom. Once we understand the role that …

Foreignization In Ancient Competition, Debra Ballentine

Journal of Religious Competition in Antiquity

Much of the literary data we study from ancient West Asian and ancient Mediterranean authors features social, political, ritual, and/or theological competition. These sorts of competition are frequently intertwined. Or rather, we scholars distinguish such categories as we aim to appreciate the threads of our data. This essay focuses on one rhetorical tool frequently utilized within competitive discourse: the label “foreign.” For example, some biblical authors utilize the label “foreign” to categorize phenomena that they reject. Nonetheless, passages feature Judeans doing “foreign” practices as genuinely Judean activities. While critical scholarship has effectively recognized this tension within primary sources, some interpreters …

Jewish Time Jump: New York, Owen Gottlieb

Articles

Jewish Time Jump: New York (Gottlieb & Ash, 2013) is a place-based mobile augmented reality game and simulation that takes the form of a situated documentary. Players take on the role of time traveling reporters tracking down a story “lost to time” to bring back to their editor at the Jewish Time Jump Gazette. The game is played in Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village, New York City. Players’ iPhones become their time traveling device and companion. Based on the player’s GPS location, players receive digital images from their location from over a hundred years in the past as well …

Eva And Otto: Resistance, Refugees, And Love In The Time Of Hitler, Tom Pfister, Kathy Pfister, Peter Pfister

Purdue University Press Books

Eva and Otto is a true story about German opposition and resistance to Hitler as revealed through the early lives of Eva Lewinski Pfister (1910–1991) and Otto Pfister (1900–1985). It is an intimate and epic account of two Germans—Eva born Jewish, Otto born Catholic—who worked with a little-known German political group that resisted and fought against Hitler in Germany before 1933 and then in exile in Paris before the German invasion of France in May 1940. After their improbable escapes from separate internment and imprisonment in Europe, Eva obtained refuge in America in October 1940 where she worked to rescue …

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 …

“I Will Heal Their Land”: The Meaning And Significance Of Healing (רפא) In 2 Chronicles 7:13–16, Lian Mung

Spiritus: ORU Journal of Theology

This article explores the meaning and significance of Yahweh’s promise to heal the land of his people in 2 Chr 7:13–16 within its immediate context and also within the book of 2 Chronicles by exploring how the text is connected linguistically and thematically with other related texts. It argues that the meaning of healing in 2 Chr 7:13–16 extends far beyond the physical healing of the land that results in agricultural blessings, and the theme of healing plays a significant role in the Chronicler’s theology of retribution, repentance, and restoration.

Temporal And Topological: Two Ways Of Living Israel/Palestine, Rocco Giansante

Journal of Religion & Film

Elia Suleiman and Amos Gitai are two Israeli filmmakers, Palestinian and Jewish respectively. Gitai’s first film, House (1980), was censored by Israeli Television—the producers of the film—due to its sympathetic portrayal of Palestinians. Elia Suleiman’s debut film, Chronicle of a Disappearance (1996), was criticized at the Carthage Film Festival in Tunisia for a sequence showing an Israeli flag and Suleiman himself was accused of being a Zionist collaborator. By comparing the ways in which these two films deal with the political and social implications of the Israel-Palestine conflict, this article highlights two distinct methods of relating to facts on the …

October 2019, Temple Shalom Synagogue Center

Newsletter Archive

Contents: Simchat Torah; From the Rabbi; President's Message; Book Group; Announcements; Community Notices

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

Purdue University Press Book Previews

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 …

Finding A Common Ground Between Theology And Women’S Reproductive Rights: Assessing The Societal Levels Of Influence Of Religion On The Sexual And Reproductive Health Of Women, Natalie Montufar

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The principle aim of this study is to explicate and elucidate the intersection between religious beliefs and practices and Sexual and Reproductive Health throughout distinct levels of society in the developing world. A literature review identified relevant peer-reviewed and grey literature on religious beliefs held on sexuality and procreation, the landscape of influence of religion on laws and policies at a national and international level, the effects of religion on individual sexual behavior, and modern interventions aiming to be culturally and religiously sensitive. The intricacies and nuances of three Abrahamic faiths were assessed to highlight the dogma of sacred texts …

Bridging The Divide Through Graphic Novels: Teaching Non-Jews’ Holocaust Narratives To Jewish Students, Matt Reingold

SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education

The following paper considers how integrating Holocaust graphic novels that prominently feature non-Jewish characters can be effective in introducing Jewish students to new perspectives on contemporary understandings of the Holocaust. Drawing on the results of recent studies about rising anti-Semitism and Jews' concerns for their safety, feelings of insularity are understandably becoming more pervasive within the Jewish community. The author argues that in order to combat the negative aspects of this entrenchment, Jewish students need to be introduced to thoughtful and complex narratives that relate to historical anti-Semitic incidents which also model ways of building relationships between the disparate communities …

Daniel Nagrin: On ‘This And That’ And Choreographic Methods As Jewishness, Diane Wawrejko

Dance Scholarship

This paper examines American choreographer and dancer Daniel Nagrin’s choreographic methods as a study in Jewishness. It extends the notion that dancing Jewish not only resides explicitly through overtly Jewish themes, time and place, subject matter, and tropes (Brin Ingber 2011, Jackson 2011, and Rossen 2014), but also is posited subtly and discreetly within the methods, content/function, and structures and devices used to create and perform concert dances. The author's personal experiences with Nagrin, first as a graduate student and later as a researcher, coupled with admiration for his work are the inspiration and force behind this paper. From viewing …

September 2019, Temple Shalom Synagogue Center

Newsletter Archive

Contents: Shabbat in the Woods; From the Rabbi; Preident's Message; Book Group; Announcements; Community Notices

Review Of The Promise And Peril Of Credit: What A Forgotten Legend About Jews And Finance Tells Us About The Making Of European Commercial Society, Jared Rubin

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

A review of The Promise and Peril of Credit: What a Forgotten Legend about Jews and Finance Tells Us about the Making of European Commercial Society, by Francesca Trivellato, published by Princeton University Press.

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 …