Jewish Studies Commons^™

For The Love Of God: Spiritual Purpose And Mastering Emotions In The Pietistic Writings Of Moses Hayim Luzzatt, David Sclar

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

During the early modern period, Jews lived with an assumed religious tenet to love their God. Biblical texts, including verses used in the liturgical Shema, explicitly commanded believers to wholly and actively do so. In the twelfth century, Maimonides had described a love of God driven by rational adoration of the Torah (and God’s works), which, appropriately realized, would result in a sense of intellectual and emotional fulfillment. Early modern kabbalists took the notion further by desiring to commune with the living God (devekut), channeling all of their faculties, including emotions, towards the spiritual. Both conceptions idealized love …

Rebbe Nachman Of Bratslav's Teachings On Melancholy And Joy, Lawrence Fine

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The several texts presented here are from the teachings of Rebbe Nachman of Bratslav (1772-1810), great-grandson of the Ba’al Shem Tov, and one of the very most significant figures in the history of early Hasidism. They are from part two (tinyana) of Nachman’s most important published collection of teachings, Liqqutei Moharan. These passages each address the subject of melancholy—marah shechora in Nahman’s language--as well as its antidote, joy, simchah. While the avoidance of sadness, and the cultivation of joy, are common motifs in classical Hasidism, Rebbe Nachman’s discussion of them deserves special attention in any …

Emotions In The Margins: Reading Toledot Yeshu After The Affective Turn, Sarit Kattan Gribetz

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

In 826 C.E., Agobard, bishop of Lyon, published a treatise entitled De Judaicis superstitionibus, detailing and ridiculing the ‘superstitions’ of the Jews. The details Agobard recounts make clear that the bishop is referring to a medieval Jewish parody of the story of Jesus’ life, known as Toledot Yeshu (Life of Jesus), composed in Aramaic sometime before the second half of the eighth century and later translated into Hebrew. Toledot Yeshu tells the story of Jesus’ life in a biting, vulgar tone. It was a text composed and used by Jews as an anti-Christian polemic, and as an internal document …

Emotions And Preaching, Sara Lipton

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

Jacques de Vitry (b. ca. 1160, d. 1240) was one of the most famous preachers of the high Middle Ages. Born in northern France, he studied at the University of Paris, and in 1210 became a canon regular in the diocese of Liège. Jacques’s most popular collection, the Sermones vulgares vel ad status, contains sermons recorded in Latin but designed to be preached in the vulgar tongue to laypeople, and arranged according the social class and profession of the audience. The sermon transcribed and translated here appears in Jacques’s less popular collection—the Sermones dominicales et festivales. Less popular, because the …

Emw 2016: History Of Emotions/Emotions In History, Fordham University

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The 2016 Early Modern Workshop on “History of Emotions/Emotions in History” was held at Fordham University.

Alongside earlier “turns” such as the linguistic and the cultural, an “emotional turn” has provided historians with a fresh perspective to consider the past. Emotion structures human experience. But emotions are shaped by languages of expression that can have ramifications for human thought and behavior. Historians pursuing research about emotions tend to follow one of two tacks: either to explore emotions as an object of inquiry in its own right (did people in the past “feel” differently than we do today?) or to use …

August 2016, Temple Shalom Synagogue Center

Newsletter Archive

Contents: Kiddush Levana; From the Rabbi; President's Message; Announcements; L-A Jewish Federation; A Bissel of Maine; Community Notices

History Of Visual Communication Design: The Bezelel Academy Of Art, Jerusalem, Shayna Tova Blum

Faculty and Staff Publications

Supported by the modern European Zionist movement, the Bezelel Academy of Art, Jerusalem, was founded in 1906 by Lithuanian artist and Zionist Boris Schatz. In the early years of the academy, work produced by students exhibited the political complexities presented in the Jewish return to Eretz Israel. The expression of concepts addressed in modern Jewish identity and Zionist ideologies were utilized in creative processes of visual communication and design. As most faculty and students were immigrating to Mandatory Palestine from Europe, the academy’s curriculum was developed through the culmination of styles and materials reflective of both European art and design …

July 2016, Temple Shalom Synagogue Center

Newsletter Archive

Contents: Maine-ly Jewish Storytelling Festival; From the Rabbi; President's Message; Announcements; Book Group; Community Notices

Review Of T. Alexa Linhard's Jewish Spain: A Mediterranean Memory, Eva Núñez-Méndez

World Languages and Literatures Faculty Publications and Presentations

Review of Linhard, Tabea Alexa. Jewish Spain: A Mediterranean Memory. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2014. Pp. 248. ISBN 978-0-80478-739-0.

June 2016, Temple Shalom Synagogue Center

Newsletter Archive

Contents: Shavout; From the Rabbi; President's Message; Book Group; Announcements; Communit Notices

May 2016, Temple Shalom Synagogue Center

Newsletter Archive

Contents: Lag B'Omer, From the Rabbi; President's Message; Announcements; Book Group; Community Notices

Migration In Slavic Village, The History Behind The Cleveland Central Catholic Ironmen., Mary C. Brondfield Mrs., Matt Aber Mr.

Migration in Global Context Symposium

This presentation is a collaborative effort by two educators from the disciplines of art and history. The PowerPoint presentation documents the the cross curricular migration themed event that explored migration in Slavic Village, Ohio. Historical speakers and visits to historical sites engaged students throughout the event. Through oral history and the visual arts students engaged in project based learning.

April 2016, Temple Shalom Synagogue Center

Newsletter Archive

Contents: Community Passover Seder; From the Rabbi; President's Message; Announcements; Book Group; Community Notices

March 2016, Temple Shalom Synagogue Center

Newsletter Archive

Contents: Purim Celebration; From the Rabbi; President's Message; Announcements; Book Group; Bissel of Maine; Community Notices

February 2016, Temple Shalom Synagogue Center

Newsletter Archive

Contents: Touched by Water Screening; From the Rabbi; Announcements; President's Message; Community Notices; Book Group; Hiram Bingham Postage Stamp

January 2016, Temple Shalom Synagogue Center

Newsletter Archive

Contents: The Mystical Aspects of Tu B’Shavat; From the Rabbi; President's Message; Announcements; Book Group; Community Notices

Arnold Michael Shankman Papers - Accession 259, Arnold Michael Shankman

Manuscript Collection

The Arnold Shankman Papers are a treasure trove of historical research in a variety of areas. Within the American Civil War era, Shankman had extensively researched the “copperhead” movement of northern opposition to the war and was an expert on one of its leading members, Clement Vallandigham. Pursuing his interest in ethnic history, Dr. Shankman was a pioneer in the study of how ethnic and immigrant groups viewed each other. For example, he was one of the first to use early African-American newspapers to determine the views of blacks toward Italian immigrants and other groups. Shankman also was singularly instrumental …

December 2015, Temple Shalom Synagogue Center

Newsletter Archive

Contents: Chanukah Party; From the Rabbi; President's Message; Announcements; Boo Group; Community Notices

November 2015, Temple Shalom Synagogue Center

Newsletter Archive

Contents: Sing my Soul; From the Rabbi; President's Message; Holocaust Survivor Speaks at Temple Shalom; Book Group; Bissel of Jewish Maine; Announcements; The L-A Musuem

October 2015, Temple Shalom Synagogue Center

Newsletter Archive

Contents: Shabbat Dinner and Musical Shabbat Service; From the Rabbi; President's Message; Book Group; Announcements

September 2015, Temple Shalom Synagogue Center

Newsletter Archive

Contents: High Holiday Schedule; From the Rabbi; Presidents Message; Book Group; Announcements

Documentation And Fiction In Hameiri's Accounts Of The Great War, Tamar S. Drukker

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Documentation and Fiction in Hameiri's Accounts of the Great War" Tamar S. Drukker discusses the only surviving Hebrew-language docu-novel of the Great War, written by Avigdor Hameiri (1890-1970), a Hungarian Jewish officer. His 1930 memoir The Great Madness is a wartime personal journal about his life at the Russian front. Many of the episodes described in The Great Madness receive a more styled treatment in Hameiri's wartime short stories which appeared in three collections during the 1920s. These stories are sometimes surreal, symbolic, and carefully crafted. Drukker's study of Hameiri's wartime life writing and his literary rendition …

Experience Is Proof: Texts Versus Observation In Eighteenth-Century Italy, Debra Glasberg Gail

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries marked a significant period in the transformation of scientific scholarship. The Latin philosophical tradition’s dominance waned as empirical methods gained credence. University educated men of science began to trust information actually seen and tested more than knowledge contained in books, especially ancient ones. The larger implications of this transformation -- the questioning of the authority of the written word of the Bible and the accompanying narrative of the origins of the universe -- have received significant scholarly attention. The smaller shifts in the way individuals weighed textual and empirical sources of authority, however, …

Jewish Space And Spiritual Supremacy In Eighteenth-Century Italy, David Sclar

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

This primary text, dated 11 October 1720, is taken from a pinkas belonging to the Jewish community of Padua. It concerns the establishment of an eruv hatserot, a boundary covering most of the city in which Jews would be permitted to carry possessions on the Sabbath. References to contemporary eruvin ordinarily appear in responsa literature. Perhaps uniquely, this document provides communal context for the construction of the Padua eruv. In so doing, it sheds light on the social and religious lives of Italian Jewry in the first half of the eighteenth century.

The document’s appearance as a copied …

Striking A Pietist Chord: Isaac Wetzlar’S Proposal For The Improvement Of Jewish Society, Rebekka Voß

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

In 1748/49, Isaac Wetzlar of Celle in Northern Germany completed Libes Briv (Love Letter), a Yiddish proposal for the improvement of Jewish society. In order to initiate exploration of the complex relationship between Central European Judaism and eighteenth-century Pietism selected sources are discussed that concentrate on the links between Libes briv and the contours of German Pietism. These sources demonstrate that Isaac Wetzlar’s Love Letter (edited and translated into English by M. Faierstein) substantially engages the concepts and initiatives encompassed by Pietist missionary efforts to Jews. The diaries of two travelling missionaries from the Institutum Judaicum in Halle who came …

Johan Kemper's (Moses Aaron's) Humble Account: A Rabbi Between Sabbateanism And Christianity, Níels Eggerz

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

Moses Aaron of Krakow, a Sabbatean rabbi, who would later call himself Johan Kemper, chose to convert to Christianity in the summer of 1696. When his mentor, the Lutheran cleric Johann Friedrich Heunisch, brought his mentee's wish before the council of the Free Imperial City of Schweinfurt, Kemper was asked to submit the reasons for his request together with a short autobiography in written form. The outcome was his Humble Account, which appeared in print shorty after Kemper was baptized. A close analysis of Kemper's Humble Account reveals a very subtle yet pronounced anti-Jewish narrative which makes use of …

The Religious Condition Of German Jewries In The First Half Of The 18th Century. Rural And Urban Communities In Comparison, Avi Siluk

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

This presentation focuses on Jewish attitudes towards non-Jews in the first half of the 18^th century as depicted in the travelling journals of Pietist missionaries. If up to that point, interreligious encounter had been a field of interaction between Jewish and Christian scholars, in the 18^th century the missionaries began to engage in conversations on faith with Jews of all social strata, genders, ages and educational backgrounds. Such interactions yielded many different forms of individual and communal Jewish reactions. Examining cases of missionary encounters with the large urban Jewry of Frankfurt (Main) and the smaller, rural kehilah of …

Illicit Sex And Law In Early-Modern Italian Ghettos, Federica Francesconi

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

This presentation explores the changes of attitudes toward illicit sexual relations within the ghetto societies that occurred in Italy between the late seventeenth century and the middle of the eighteenth century, with a specific focus on young Jewish maidservants. It analyzes how Italian Jewish leadership, both lay and rabbinical, acted in regard to the vicissitudes of Jewish women who faced seduction, sexual exploitation, and pregnancy under the Jewish roof. This analysis uses archival sources from both Jewish courts and civic magistracies in the cities of Venice, Mantua, and Modena during the years 1691-1751. Through a combination of paternalism, cohesiveness, innovation, …

Emw 2015: Continuity And Change In The Jewish Communities Of The Early Eighteenth Century, The Ohio State University

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

Volume 12: Continuity and Change in the Jewish Communities of the Early Eighteenth Century, Ohio State University, Columbus, August 17-19, 2015

The 2015 Early Modern Workshop on “Continuity and Change in the Jewish Communities in the Early Eighteenth Century” was held at Ohio State University.

Between the late seventeenth century and the middle of the eighteenth century, much of European Jewry (and elements within Ottoman Jewry as well) appear to have shifted from a generally traditional and religious way of life to a way of life that embraced non-traditional and/or non-halakhic practices and fashions. There were no great intellectual or …

The Sabbatean Who Devoured His Son: The Emden-Eibeschütz Controversy And Cannibalism, Shai Alleson-Gerberg

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

At a time when cannibalism captured European imagination and was used as effective propaganda against the ‘other’ within or elsewhere, as well as a test case for the concept of Natural Law, it is hardly surprising to discover similar rhetoric in internal Jewish discourse of the early modern era. R. Jacob Emden’s halachic writing on the subject of modern medicine and his tenacious battle against Sabbateanism, provide illuminating examples of the use of cannibalistic imagery, as this had crystalised in colonial literature from the new world and in religious polemics on the Eucharist. Emden’s halachic position on the question ‘is …