Jewish Studies Commons^™

Review Of Jerusalem And Other Holy Places As Foci Of Multireligious And Ideological Confrontation, Rivka Ulmer

Other Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Some Corrections To The Record On Lemkin’S Early Years: The Evidence From Poland, Zachary Mazur

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

This piece addresses some misunderstandings regarding Raphael Lemkin's early years in Poland, his influences and the development of his ideas. While discussing some of the extent published information, I point out what other archival documents from Poland and the League of Nations have to say about Lemkin's past. One of the main points is that Lemkin was an unreliable narrator on his own life, and this has caused confusion.

Staff Development Day 2025: Topics On Jewish Law & Culture, Ellen Drucker-Albert

Library Staff Presentations

This presentation was delivered by Ellen Drucker-Albert, Head of Reference & Faculty Services, during Staff Development Day 2025 at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. It explores key aspects of Jewish law and culture, including the sources and development of Halacha, intersections with U.S. civil law, Jewish holidays and food customs, denominations of Judaism, and symbols like the mezuzah.

Du Undergraduate Showcase Abstracts: Research, Scholarship, And Creative Works, Kabe Aberle, Nadia Kako, Kateri Mcrae, Brooke Agulnek, Sky Palmon, Yasmine Ramirez, Francisca Aguirre Beltran, Ashley Juarez, Bridget Kim, Tessa Appel, Sterling Kerr, Spencer Ingley, Gabe Meyer, Robin Tinghitella, Dale Broder, Lily Baeza, Chloe Beers, Julia Coakley, Whitney Kelsey, Sydney Gainforth, Gabi Wing, Audrey Martin, Aaliyah Amore Berry, Brooke Watley, Kiruthika Venkatesan, Rachel Bienstock, Annabella Brotherston, Madison Bryant, Mia Burgener, Emma P. Lieb, Rachel A. Johnson, Jennifer L. Hoffman, Kania Campbell, Kiena Campbell, Courtney Cassidy, Sage Krzyzkowski, Maddox Jones, Skylar Abookire, Luke Hawkins, Sunnah Yoon, Andrea Chu, Yan Qin, Nyah Cubbison, Brian Gearity, Daniel Mcintosh, Mariely Cruz, Edward Garrido, Grady Dionne, Nicole Doris, Lyndsie Salvagio, Ann-Charlotte Granholm-Bentley, Anna Dymov, Hannah Eckert, Gabrielle Welsh, Erica Larson, Charlie Ernst, Anna Zhou, Sarah Watamura, Larissa Fedorovich-Klein, Georgie Fields, Kimberly A. Guevara, Aven Mccall, Ben Peltier, Feruz Yahia, Patrick Flores, Jadyn Floyd, Sophia Forcier, J. Von R. Monteza, Peter Sokol-Hessner, Gwendolyn Geiger, Scott Nichols, Camryn Gunter, Kendal Hengst, Charlie Bednarz, Issy Garside, Addison Baker, Rachel Mina, Brooke Hermanson, Amanda Klingler, William Highfill, Sydney Jaques, Kerstin Lewey, Allison Grossery, Daniel Linseman, Ethan Lim, Jagger Livengood, Owen Mantelli, Gabby Pappas, Abby Mcdonald, Madeleine Dierking, Eve Miller, Emma Loeber, Anna Marlow, Michael Kerwin, Ella Mathews, Hillary Hamann, Khadija Mohamed, Vivian Nguyen, Gabri Notov, Ifunayachi Ogbonna-Ukuku, Sunil Kumar, Charles Baysah, Sarah Olson, Don Sullivan, Anna Paradiso, Jay Parrish, Mira Pronobis, Alisha Pravasi, Kerstin Haring, Diego Ramirez, Christopher Reardon, Juliana Ramirez, Casey Doherty, Ella Kestner, Teagan Weindel, Cate Billings, Pablo Torre-Walter, Lucy Rand, Samantha Reynolds, Mark Siemens, Khadeeja Rashid, Laine Satterlee, Piper Heilbronner, Lily Pound, Ben Whitehurst, Anna Respet, Lizzie Lesoing, Sydney Hertel, Aya Saad-Masri, Brooke Ballenger, Max Proske, Hannah Rosenberg, Ellia Nakahara, Sophia Espinoza, Ivan Woolhouse, Simon Ruland, Gorkem Er, Timothy Sweeny, Melaku Saketa, Michela Schenk, Maren Lynch, Madi Hamm, Grace Schroeder, Michelle Rozenman, Rana Seif, Jackson Hall, Marisela Simental, Daniel Paredes, Aaron Mena, Preston Spaan, Evelyn Stovin, David Andrew Swartz, Anh Tran, Daniel Pittman, Luke Farchione, Emily Boyer, Ukari Verner, Lacey Conrad, Jonathan Velotta, James Weiner, Jagger Gossett, Noah Sherry, Sam Proud, Ben Block, Avi Narayana, Zoey Weiss, Alyssa Wilson, Gabrielle Walsh, David Zonana, Keely Wright, Kena Riveria, Lillybelle Deer, Jena Doom, Elysia Davis, Isabelle Yaremenko, Caitlyn Young

DU Undergraduate Research Journal Archive

Abstracts from the DU Undergraduate Research Showcase.

Inverting "Doux Commerce": The Paradox Of Rhetoric Surrounding European Jewish Commerce, Isabelle C. Sampere

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

This paper investigates the inherent contradictions in the "Doux Commerce" thesis as articulated by Montesquieu, which argues that commerce civilizes and morally enriches its participants, using the historical experiences of the French Jewish community as a case study. Despite the Enlightenment’s promotion of commerce as a path to societal gentility and tolerance, French Jews remained targets of economic and social marginalization, which persisted into the 19th century. The analysis centers on the rhetorical dissonance exhibited by philosophers such as Voltaire, who extolled the virtues of commerce for its ability to unify diverse religious and cultural groups, yet simultaneously endorsed and …

Paradise Lost Thrice: Exile And The Abrahamic Religions In Aciman, Werfel, And Ashour, Malak K. Hosny

Theses and Dissertations

Exile is an integral part of the history of all three Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. This thesis compares between literary narratives of the exile of Jews, Christians, and Muslims. It explores the notion that having been exiled from Eden with the fall of Adam and Eve, and having each religion’s prophet’s story intrinsically tied with exile, the believers’ exile is then the third in a layered cycle of exile. Having lost the paradise, believers tend to search for earthly paradises that they attach themselves to, and then tragically lose those as well. The thesis’ three primary literary texts …

The Narratological Maus, Isla Lader

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Complete Maus, a memoir graphic novel surrounding the events of character Art Spiegelman as he collects, records, and illustrates his father’s life pre-the Holocaust in Europe, his time in Auschwitz, and then life in the United States has been one of the focal Holocaust survivor testimonies and has redefined the genre it exists in as both a graphic novel, but also as a form of testimony. Like many popularized works dealing with the Holocaust, though, cultural preconceptions of Jewish people, genocide, and audiences’ desire to find morals within the work have made it so often audiences come to …

Between Word And World: Textual Space In Modern Sephardic Literature, Inci Cetin

Comparative Literature M.A. Essays

In the context of modern Sephardic literature, this paper defines “textual space” as the narrative’s self-conscious arrangement of its own textual elements such as time, space, and language to negotiate a position vis-à-vis the nation-state that is neither fully subsumed within nor completely outside of it. Textual spaces neither conform to the nation state’s borders even though they write from it, nor to nationalist temporalities as they continue a narrative thread that reaches back to 15th-century Spain. Through Myriam Moscona’s Tela de sevoya (2012) and Mario Levi’s Istanbul Was a Fairytale (1999), this paper investigates how textual spaces are deliberately …

Fear, Trembling, And Wonder: Psalms Of Awe, Solomon Aleph

University Honors Theses

This thesis proposes an expansion of genre form criticism within the Book of Psalms to include an additional category: Psalms of Awe. Building on scholarship that emphasizes the Psalms as expressions of religious experience, it draws from philosophical, theological, and critical scholarship to define the experience of awe as a distinct religious experience not fully captured by form critical scholarship. The thesis argues that awe is reflected in the Psalms through the combination of three key Hebrew roots: ירא (fear/reverence), פחד (fear/dread), and פלא (wonder). This is done by analyzing several psalms to explicate how each term captures a different …

Issues Of Religious Dominance: The Temple Mount/Haram Al-Sharif And The Western Wall At The Center Of Islam, Judaism, And Failing British Mandatory Responses (1917-1931), Kyra Young

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper explores how religious space and symbolism became central to Arab and Jewish nationalist identities in Mandatory Palestine, focusing on the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif and the Western Wall during the transition from Ottoman to British rule. It argues that the collapse of Ottoman sovereignty, alongside British support for a Jewish national home, transformed Islamic institutions into arenas for political expression. Muslim notables, particularly the Husayni family, strategically engaged with British colonial notions of “tradition” to reassert influence, exemplified by the politicization of the Nebi Musa festival. At the same time, Zionism—both political secular and religious—began to attach renewed …

The Queer Holocaust, Jensen B. Stoneking

Geifman Prize in Holocaust Studies

Everyone knows that in Weimar Germany, Adolf Hitler's main target was the Jewish population, however, there were other oppressed groups who faced his wrath as well. Queer folks during this time also faced mass persecution from the Third Reich, and this essay is a focus on their struggles.

A Study Of Rachel Galinne’S Dybbuk For Solo Clarinet: A Classical Work With Klezmer Influences, Rachel S. Levison

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Composer Rachel Galinne self-identifies first and foremost as an Israeli with Swedish roots. She was born and raised in Sweden to Holocaust survivors and always felt a deep connection to Jewish traditions and culture, leading her to immigrate to Israel. Her compositions are derived from her formal education in musicology and composition in contemporary music, as well as from her Jewish community. Her Jewish heritage is represented in her compositions through text, motivic ideas, and specific topics. Dybbuk for solo clarinet is an excellent example.

This solo follows the perspective of Leah, one of the main characters in Solomon Ansky’s …

A Survey Of And Performance Guide To Representative Flute Music By Two Twentieth-Century Serbian Composers: Ljubica Marić And Enriko Josif, Sanda Mašić

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Flute pieces by twentieth-century Serbian composers Ljubica Marić and Enriko Josif are little-known gems of modern repertoire that are almost completely unknown outside Serbia. Unique in their styles, these works illustrate the composers’ close relationship to the Serbian culture in which they lived and the religions they practiced. In addition, these works reflect the time they were created in, and are, therefore, modern with a distinctive sound. This document presents a study of seven selected flute works by these two important Serbian composers, places them in historical context, and reveals influences from both Serbian religious music (Orthodox and Jewish) and …

The Golem, Sayanti Ganguly Puckett Dr.

Sabbatical Projects

My research explores the Jewish mythical figure of the golem and the symbolism behind it from contradictory angles that juxtapose the figure as a subservient defender of the oppressed Jews and as a monster over whom his creator has lost control and who then runs amok slaughtering those it is created to protect. My research attempts to make sense of these clashing propensities to understand how this figure can become such a bewildering yet ominous figure to Christians and Jews alike. Additionally, in the ultimate destruction of the golem, I would like to explore societal anxieties, fears, and securities about …

Judaism In Modernity: Franz Rosenzweig’S ‘On Jewish Learning’ And Its Philosophical Impacts, Simon E. Rosenbaum

Armstrong Undergraduate Journal of History

This paper examines the works from Franz Rosenzweig and other Jewish philosophers to demonstrate how modernity led to religious and philosophical shifts in global Jewry in the early 20 th century.

The Delegation Discovering ‘Palestinianity’, Dianne Kirby

The Journal of Social Encounters

No abstract provided.

Unsettled Ground: How Jewish Undergraduates Are Negotiating Identity Shifts And (Un)Civil Campus Discourse After October 7, Vikki Katz, Emma Forman, Noel H. Mcguire

Communication Faculty Articles and Research

The post–October 7th period has been a period of redefinition for many Jewish American undergraduates and particularly for those who identify as politically left-of-center and who found themselves encountering anti-Israel and antisemitic attitudes among peers and organizations they had been part of previously. Via in-depth interviews with Jewish American undergraduates and their non-Jewish peers, this study documents undergraduates’ realignments of their Jewish and political identities and examines how those identity changes explain the students’ decisions to engage in, or avoid, discussions with peers about October 7, the war in Gaza and the broader Middle East conflict, and/or rising U.S. antisemitism.

“Tikkun” Viewed From The Perspective Of Systems Philosophy, Martin Zwick

Complex Systems Faculty Publications and Presentations

Understanding the idea of tikkun, as it appears in tikkun olam and tikkun ha’yetser, can be enriched by ideas from systems philosophy. From a systems perspective, “moral evil“ – the flaws of individual human beings, which create the need for tikkun ha’yetser – is a special case of “natural evil” – the dangers to life and especially to humanity from the natural world and from societal moral evil, which create the need for tikkun olam. Natural evil is in turn a special case of “metaphysical evil” – flaws in olam (which include those of yetser) that are ubiquitous, …

The Ravine Of Memory: Babyn Yar Between The Holocaust And The Great Patriotic War, Shay A. Pilnik

Purdue University Press Books

The Nazis and their collaborators buried over 100,000 victims at Babyn Yar, a ravine in modern-day Ukraine. Most of the individuals were Jewish, making this area one of the most infamous mass murder sites in history. The Ravine of Memory starts when the travesty ends, telling the story of the ravine’s memory and forgetting in Soviet literature and culture—in Russian as well as in Yiddish. This book challenges the prevailing binary conceptions of Babyn Yar as exclusively a Holocaust or a “Great Patriotic War” story. It is neither the exclusive product of Soviet censorship nor individual dissidents. Babyn Yar is …

Rescue Of Memory, Samuel P. Oliner, Ronnie Swartz

Trade & Scholarly Monographs

What motivates people to help, to care, to risk their own lives for others? What differentiates rescuers, helpers, carers, and bystanders?

There is no single explanation. Anyone who offers you a single explanation of why people do good things is oversimplifying. Empathy is very important. So is courage. And compassion. Bystanders, I want to impress on you, are not evil people; they are not people who should be put in a ship and sent to outer space. They are also good human beings, but they have not internalized some of the ethics of caring, of social responsibility, of knowing. They …