Jewish Studies Commons^™

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

Beyond Memory: The Transmission Of Trauma, Identity, And Resilience In Grandchildren Of Holocaust Survivors, Harper Gordman

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

The present study aims to investigate how third-generation Holocaust survivors (3G) articulate and experience intergenerational trauma. By conducting narrative interviews with five third-generation survivors, six main themes emerged: (1) Early Awareness and Understanding, (2) Transmission of Trauma, (3) Family Communication Patterns, (4) Identity Formation and Jewish Connection, (5) Responsibility to Preserve Memory, and (6) Contemporary Relevance. The participants communicated experiencing anxiety and protective behavioral patterns likely linked to their family history, while also developing high levels of resilience. Many reported feeling a great personal responsibility to preserve their family’s stories and experience a deep connection to their Jewish identity. Although …

Wells Of Pain, Walls Of Silence: October 7 And Sexual Violence Against Women At Wartime, Shulamit Almog, Gal Amir

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

This essay focuses on sexual violence against women during the October 7 massacre and the following captivity of female hostages in the Gaza Strip. Its premise is twofold. First, it puts forward the resoluteness with which sexual violence against women must be condemned, as it transcends any politics. Sexual violence against women is unacceptable under any circumstances and cannot be used as a weapon in any kind of conflict. Next, various silencing walls that obstruct both condemnation of such violence and full exposure of it will be delineated. These are walls of Political Silence, Collective Shame Silence, …

Baptism As A Holocaust Survival Strategy (1938–1945 Slovakia From The Perspective Of Oral History), Peter Salner

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

Abstract

This paper employs the oral history method to analyze Jewish conversion during the Holocaust. Between 1938 and 1945, the Slovak Republic was governed by the antisemitic Ľudák regime, whose policies culminated in the deportations of Jews to Nazi death camps. In a society heavily influenced by the Catholic Church, many Jews turned to conversion as a survival strategy. Although most regarded baptism as merely a formal, temporary measure, the decision was not easy, as converting to Christianity meant abandoning Judaism, the Jewish community, and the traditions of their ancestors. Many Christian priests faced dilemmas of their own. Accepting a …

Jewish Emigration And Satire In The Soviet Union (Ca. 1970), Jack I. Reppen

Binghamton University Undergraduate Journal

The Dymshits-Kuznetsov affair provides an important case study of the use of satire in Soviet media, primarily through easily understood cartoons like the ones seen in Krokodil. These satirical cartoons exploit Jews for alleged scapegoatism, anti-Sovietism, and other characteristics relating to internal problems. In this paper, the author explores the idea that when disinformation disguises itself as satire, it subverts the revolutionary and critical components that are traditionally attributed to the genre of satire.

Lishmah: An Exploration Of Syntactic Ambiguity And Biblical Exegesis Through The Jewish Calendar Year, Shani Tzoref

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Lishmah (Hebrew, meaning “for its own sake”) is a digital resource for exploring syntactic ambiguity in the Hebrew Bible and traditional Jewish biblical interpretation. Hosted on CUNY Manifold, it currently features twelve curated cases of syntactic ambiguity, each linked to a month of the Hebrew calendar, accompanied by annotated medieval Jewish commentaries.

The project employs digital tools for data compilation, presentation, and user interaction. While in its early stages, Lishmah aims to contribute to digital humanities by bridging traditional close reading with computational approaches and highlighting discourse analysis in biblical studies.
Future plans include developing Lishmah into a collaborative research …

Coexistence, My Ass!, John C. Lyden

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Coexistence, My Ass! (2025), directed by Amber Fares.

Unholy, William L. Blizek, Monica Blizek

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a review of the short film, Unholy (2025), directed by Daisy Friedman.