Jewish Studies Commons^™

Introduction To Unlikely Heroes: The Place Of Holocaust Rescuers In Research And Teaching, Ari Kohen, Gerald Steinacher

Department of Political Science: Faculty Publications

The aim of this collection is not to provide an all-encompassing work about "rescuers" or the phenomenon of rescue. The topic is too large to cover exhaustively, of course, but doing so is also not our aim. We use a few examples in this volume to illustrate research findings and teaching techniques related to Holocaust rescuers in order to show the issues at stake. We open with some new research on the phenomenon of rescue and resistance during the Holocaust.

Testimony, Objectivism, And Poetic Form In Charles Reznikoff’S Holocaust, Rachel E. Trnka

Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

This essay examines the gradual development of Charles Reznikoff’s testimony form Holocaust poetry, which ultimately rejected the traditional lyric forms of his earlier works in favor of a stark, Objectivist poetry that culminated in Holocaust (1975)—a poem based on the transcripts from the Nuremberg and Eichmann trials. The WWI poems from Reznikoff’s first volume Rhythms (1918) underscore the importance of music to his early elegies in contrast to the blunt, impersonal testimonies in Holocaust. In Rhythms, Reznikoff employs traditional conventions ironically to convey war’s unpoetic reality while the poetic speakers in Going To and Fro and Walking Up …

Katharina E. Keim, Pirqei Derabbi Eliezer: Structure Coherence, Intertextuality, Rivka Ulmer

Faculty Journal Articles

Book Review, Pirqe deRabbi Eliezer

Gothic Identity And The ‘Othering’ Of Jews In Seventh-Century Spain, Erica Buchberger

History Faculty Publications

In 589, Reccared, king of the Visigoths in Spain, converted from Arian to Catholic Christianity. Arianism was banned, and after a brief period which saw the repression of rebellions, eliminated from the kingdom. All Goths were required to become Catholic. This watershed in Visigothic history both necessitated and facilitated a renegotiation of the parameters of Gothic identity. The entire kingdom was affected: the ruling Visigoths, the small population of recently conquered Sueves, and the Hispano-Romans who were left under the rule of the Goths when the Western Roman Empire fell apart.^[1] This Roman population also included some Jews. While …

Religion In Incarcerated, Jewish, Female Inmates, Marcia Janine Kesner

Theses and Dissertations

This study explored the role religious belief and practice played amongst Jewish, female inmates during their incarceration. A group of ten correctional chaplains who work with Jewish, female, inmates and a comparison group of ten chaplains who work with Protestant, female inmates were interviewed. The study determined the reasons for and benefits of religious observance among these inmates and included assisting in dealing with fear, providing a sense of peace, and deceitful motives for personal gains. Religious practice also assisted inmate populations in healing from trauma, improving self-respect and self-esteem, building support systems, and additionally for Jewish, female inmates constructing …

Jewish Mysticism From Borges To Cirlot: A Transatlantic Approach To The Possibility Of A Non-Subject Subjectivity, Erika Martínez

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article “Jewish Mysticism from Borges to Cirlot,” Erika Martínez discusses the form in which some Latin American and Spanish poets of the twentieth century have experimented, in a disruptive way, with the subjective possibilities of stillness and of time capable of overflowing. Foucault defended, in his last lectures, the construction of a new governmentality of self and of others. Among the many possible technologies to achieve it would be that of the writing of a poetry without words, knowing the insurrectional potentiality of silence. This provides us with a possible starting point for reading the post-secular revision of …

Doing Business In America: A Jewish History, Purdue University Press

The Jewish Role in American Life: An Annual Review

American and Jewish historians have long shied away from the topic of Jews and business. Avoidance patterns grew in part from old, often negative stereotypes that linked Jews with money, and the perceived ease and regularity with which they found success with money, condemning Jews for their desires for wealth and their proclivities for turning a profit. A new, dauntless generation of historians, however, realizes that Jewish business has had and continues to have a profound impact on American culture and development, and patterns of immigrant Jewish exploration of business opportunities reflect internal, communal, Jewish-cultural structures and their relationship to …

A Journey Into The Heart Of God: Darren Aronofsky’S Noah (2014) As A Subversive Kabbalistic Text, Lindsay Macumber, Magi Abdul-Masih

Journal of Religion & Film

The title of this paper reflects our interpretation of this film as a subversive mystical text, from within the Jewish tradition of Kabbalah. This interpretation is itself the product of a long journey of thinking about, and wrestling with this film in various ways. In this paper, we will outline this journey, concentrating on our first impressions of the film, some notable shifts in our thinking on this film that alerted us to the connection between the film and Jewish mysticism, and some concluding remarks about the implications of this reading.

A Newcomer's Guide To Kabbalah, Ernest M. Oleksy

The Downtown Review: An Interdisciplinary Journal Written and Peer-Reviewed by Mandel Honors College Students at Cleveland State University

Kabbalah is a mystical and highly spiritual form of Judaism. Popularized by its endorsement by high-profile celebrities like Madonna, the average layperson knows enough about Kabbalah to recognize it as a vaguely familiar term, but not much else. This article strives to serve as an entry-point for both an intellectual and a popular audience to help familiarize readers with core components of Kabbalah and to help to begin fostering an appreciation for this very sophisticated faith. Matters of history, philosophy, science, doctrine, and more pertaining to Kabbalah will be discussed in this article

December 2018, Temple Shalom Synagogue Center

Newsletter Archive

Contents: Mega-Chanukah Party; From the Rabbi; President's Message; Book group; Anouncements; Community Notices

Embry, Herms, And Wrights' "Early Jewish Literature: An Anthology" (Book Review), Taylor Wilcox

The Christian Librarian

No abstract provided.

“To Defend The Citadel Of Its Faith From All Assaults": Hermann Adler And The London Society For Promoting Christianity Amongst The Jews, Robert H. Ellison

English Faculty Research

This article employs sermons as a lens through which to examine Jewish-Christian relations in Victorian England. It focuses primarily upon discourses preached by clergy affiliated with the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews, and on rebuttals delivered by Hermann Adler, a London rabbi who would go on to become Chief Rabbi of the British Empire. Attention is also given to reviews of Adler's work, and to responses to those reviews. These reviews and reviews-of-reviews are evidence that there was an active conversation taking place in the pulpit and the press; the article seeks to show that preaching is …

Doing Business In America: A Jewish History, Hasia Diner

Purdue University Press Book Previews

American and Jewish historians have long shied away from the topic of Jews and business. Avoidance patterns grew in part from old, often negative stereotypes that linked Jews with money, and the perceived ease and regularity with which they found success with money, condemning Jews for their desires for wealth and their proclivities for turning a profit. A new, dauntless generation of historians, however, realizes that Jewish business has had and continues to have a profound impact on American culture and development, and patterns of immigrant Jewish exploration of business opportunities reflect internal, communal, Jewish-cultural structures and their relationship to …

November 2018, Temple Shalom Synagogue Center

Newsletter Archive

Contents: Shab-bates; From the Rabbi; President's Message, Maine State Museum Tour; Book Group; Announcements; Community Notices

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 …

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 …

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

Purdue University Press Book Previews

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 …

Lessons From The Treblinka Archive: Transnational Collections And Their Implications For Historical Research, Chad S.A. Gibbs

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

In work for his 1979 book The Death Camp Treblinka, Alexander Donat began the process of locating survivors of the camp and recording their histories. In a telling testament to the lethality of this place, he could identify only sixty-eight survivors. Analysis of Donat’s early findings—emerging six years prior to the publication of any major academic monograph on the subject—offers a window into the difficulties of conducting research on this Nazi extermination camp and its widely-scattered witnesses.

Treblinka’s disembarkation ramp was effectively the eye of a transnational needle through which so many passed and so few emerged. Victims of …

October 2018, Temple Shalom Synagogue Center

Newsletter Archive

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

Frank Thoughts: Investigating The Construction Of Anne Frank As A Site Of Heritage And Identity Formation In A Globalized Postholocaust Society, Sarah Silverstein

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This research begins to investigate the ways constructions of Dutch-Jewish history and the Holocaust in the Netherlands post World War II have become active symbols of heritage or physical sites of heritage for tourists and host communities alike. In this paper I consider the ways in which the memorialization of Anne Frank in Amsterdam and the human rights violations documented more broadly in the host community, the Netherlands, during the Holocaust has and continues to influence identity politics of the Dutch nation-state, its culture, and citizens on both a local and global stage in contemporary times. The “Jewish History – …