Jewish Studies Commons^™

New Commandments, Jacob Sussman

Masters Theses

I reach into the earth, pull out mud-encrusted objects, and recombine them to define new meanings. With every object transposed, the past breaks down; new potentials form. “New Commandments” recombines historical symbolism through an intuitive building, destroying, and merging to reimagine or re-establish meaning.

The work critiques rites of passage, masculinity, and stereotypes by deconstructing how histories, ideologies, and preconceptions form.

As a queer person raised in-between Judaism and Christianity, social preconceptions and religious expectations festered my formation. Our choice is taken away at this moment of conception. To take back autonomy, I reimagine historical, and religious symbolism and transmute …

Homosexuality In Leviticus: A Historical-Literary-Critical Analysis, Ian Jarosz

James Madison Undergraduate Research Journal (JMURJ)

The book of Leviticus from the Hebrew Bible is often referenced when discussing the LGBTQ+ community and related topics. This project offers historical, literary, and etymological analyses of Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, exploring cultural and thematic similarities between Leviticus, the Avestan Vendidad of ancient Persia, and the Book of the Watchers in 1 Enoch. The influential views of other ancient Near Eastern cultures and the growing Persian culture during the time of the Exile establish a tolerant cultural background for the Levitical authors and for the Hebrew Bible. Moreover, the exilic priests who finalized the laws within Leviticus did not …

Jewish Conversion During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Victoria Davide

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

March 2020 saw a stark change to daily life and religious practices for many individuals because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Those converting to Judaism, or in the process of wanting to convert, found themselves physically isolated from their Jewish communities. This thesis dives into what aspects are important when creating a Jewish identity and how individuals circumnavigate these changes in crisis. Through the use of qualitative interviews this thesis illuminates the many different changes and experiences that individuals went through converting to Judaism during the COVID-19 pandemic. I bring many different groups for comparisons including different branches within Judaism and …

Joan Rivers: Comedy And Identity On The Road To Fashion Police, Melanie Gaw

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes how Joan Rivers’ comedy content and style changed during the first 30 years of her career and how these changes impacted Rivers’ presentation of her identity as a Jewish female comedian. This project focuses on Joan Rivers’ career in two sections: her early career with its reliance on a self-deprecatory style of humor spanning roughly from her first appearance on The Tonight Show in 1965 to the early 1980s, and a transitional period in her career that saw a shift toward a celebrity gossip style of humor during the 1980s. I perform textual analyses of some of …

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 …

Film Review: The Impure: An Abolitionist Documentary Film Of The 19th Century Traffic In Jewish Women, Caroline Norma

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.

Jewish Women’S Transracial Epistemological Networks: Representations Of Black Women In The African Diaspora, 1930-1980, Abby S. Gondek

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation investigates how Jewish women social scientists relationally established their gendered-racialized subjectivities and theories about race-gender-sexuality-class through their portrayals of black women’s sexuality and family structures in the African Diaspora: the U.S., Brazil, South Africa, Swaziland, and the U.K. The central women in this study: Ellen Hellmann, Ruth Landes, Hilda Kuper, and Ruth Glass, were part of the same “political generation,” born in 1908-1912, coming of age when Jews of European descent experienced an ambivalent and conditional assimilation into whiteness, a form of internal colonization. I demonstrate how each woman’s familial origin point in Europe, parental class and political …

Profile Interview With Pamela K. Sari, Keslee Diiorio

Purdue Journal of Service-Learning and International Engagement

Pamela K. Sari is a PhD candidate in American studies at Purdue University. She also is affi liated with the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) Program and the Anthropology Department. Her research, teaching, and engagement interests relate to how individuals and communities navigate issues of “home” and “belonging.” Her dissertation research examines a transnational connection between a Charismatic megachurch in central Java, Indonesia, and its American church partners, particularly Indonesian immigrant churches in southern California. Through her experience living in Indonesia and the United States where religious practices are prevalent, she is interested in the intersectionality between religion and …

Reform Judaism And Lgbtq Identity In Indiana: A Sociological Study Toward Greaterunderstanding And Inclusion, Gregory Ethan Zemtsov

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

LGBTQ Jews are collectively an underrepresented population, and their identification with two minority groups exposes this group of individuals to a great deal of potential hardships. Jewish culture, the largely secular LGBTQ community, and the ever-present gaze of heteronormative Christian society at large unfortunately have the ability to permutate and coalesce in a myriad of destructive ways at the expense of LGBTQ Jews. While the media and academia largely ignore this community at the national level, LGBTQ Jewry in the Midwest is worse off still. Today, there has yet to be a single published article about LGBTQ Jews in the …

Dressing Up: Religion And Ethnicity In Israeli National Dolls, Maya Balakirsky Katz

Graduate School of Jewish Studies Publications and Research

This article considers Israel’s national image both at home and abroad through the framework of Israeli costume dolls, looking specifically at the way that gender played a role in Israel’s national image as it travelled from domestic production to international reception. Initially, predominantly female doll makers produced three main types of Israeli dolls, but over time the religious Eastern European male doll triumphed in the pantheon of national types. Produced for retail sale to non-Hebrew speaking tourists by immigrant woman, the Eastern European religious male doll came to represent Israel abroad while the market pushed representations of the Middle Eastern …

Advice And Help-Seeking Intentions Among Youth In Israel: Ethnic And Gender Differences, Moshe Sherer

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This study addresses intentions to seek advice and help among Jewish and Arab youths in Israel. The sample included 805 Jewish, 159 Moslem, 42 Christian, and 43 Druze youths. Two instruments were used: a demographic questionnaire and a questionnaire on help-seeking intentions. Results indicated that members of the ethnic groups preferred using different sources for advice and help. Compared to Moslem and Druze youths, Jewish youths preferred to turn to fathers, siblings, school counselors, and social workers; Compared to Arab youths, Jewish youths expressed less intention to seek assistancef rom their mothers; and compared to Moslem youths, Jewish youths expressed …

The Wanted Gaze: Accountability For Interpersonal Conduct At Work, Anita L. Allen

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

"Who Is Sleeping In The Bed Of Sodom?", Nancy Levene

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

The question that I am left with from the extraordinary presentations over the conference's two days borrows from Rabbi Steve Greenberg's and Ludger Viefhues's discussion of the multiple images of the biblical "Sodom". Conventionally Sodom has signified a place of sexual deviance or, conversely, sexual censorship. But as Greenberg pointed out, in many traditional commentaries on the story of the condemnation of Sodom, the issue was not that the townspeople were engaged in forbidden sexual practices, but that they were violent and hostile to those in need of shelter and food.