Jewish Studies Commons^™

"A Jewish Merchant Who Helped Rescue A Christian Church", William Lindsey Mcdonald

Research Articles

During the Great Depression, the first United Methodist Church of East Florence, Alabama was at risk of being sold. However, local merchant, Louis B. Rosenbaum aided in the negotiation of the mortgage and ultimately ensured the community retained the church.

Jewish Women’S Folk Memory Of Argentine Schooldays, 1900–1955, Jacqueline Laznow

Jewish Folklore and Ethnology

This essay explores the folkloric formation of Jewish-Argentine female identity through schoolyard experiences and domestic resistance in the first half of the twentieth century. Drawing on interviews with women who later made aliyah, the study analyzes these accounts as personal experience narratives, arguing that painful memories of antisemitism and “otherness” are cognitively restructured through folk processes into a symbolic frame for communal interpretation. These narratives function as “legend discourse,” sparking commentary and intergenerational transmission, and serve as mechanisms for reconstructing daily life within a dominant Christian culture. They reveal a “hyphenated” Jewish-Argentine identity reimagined from the perspective of the narrators’ …

Documenting Death: A Question Of Sovereignty In The Cairo Geniza, Thomas Adkins

Theses and Dissertations

How can death offer a case study for the question of sovereignty in eleventh to thirteenth century Egypt as it was performed by sovereigns, officials, and subjects alike, and, in this context, how can the documentary practices preserved in the Geniza be understood as an instrument to perform sovereignty? This thesis uses death as a case study in the same way that scholars of the medieval Islamic world have studied taxation, administration, and ceremonials to understand sovereignty as it was performed by the state, officials, and subjects. This performance of sovereignty by each implicated actor left a rich documentary trail, …

Stages Of Belonging: The Yiddish Art Theatre’S Search For Its Home In New York City, 1918-1934, Octavia Chudnow

Lawrence University Honors Projects

In the first decades of the twentieth century, the main form of entertainment for the Jewish immigrant community was shund (trash) theater: popular and commercial theater. Although many immigrants enjoyed this kind of entertainment, playwrights, artists, and intellectuals critiqued its place in immigrants’ lives, especially since shund revealed the process of assimilation and was considered low-brow art. In 1918, Maurice Schwartz opened the Yiddish Art Theatre to create high-brow art for Jewish audiences. In my essay, I focus on the company’s history between 1918 and 1934, on the theater’s move from downtown to Midtown and back to the Lower East …

Apocalypse Of Hannah, Maksim Astashinskiy

Faculty Papers and Publications

Alexander Sperber edited the fifteenth-century Ms. Or. 2210, which is the basis of this text. See: “Or 2210,” British Library, Digitised Manuscripts, accessed January 4, 2022, https://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Or_2210. Also, see: Alexander Sperber, The Bible in Aramaic. Volume II: The Former Prophets according to Targum Jonathan (Leiden: Brill, 1959), 96–98; H. Barnstein, “A Noteworthy Targum MS. in the British Museum,” The Jewish Quarterly Review 11, no. 1 (1898), 167–171, https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1450407.pdf.

A Rabbinic Exegesis Of Halleluyah's Etymology, Maksim Astashinskiy

Faculty Papers and Publications

Pointed text is from Mishnah Pesachim, Open Mishnah, Sefaria: A Living Library of Jewish Texts Online, accessed April 19, 2019, https://www.sefaria.org/texts/Mishnah; or, see A Passover Haggadah, As commented upon by Elie Wiesel (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993), 69–70.

The Aramaic text is from: “Talmud Bavli,” in The William Davidson Talmud, The William Davidson Digital Edition of the Koren Noé Talmud (Jerusalem: Koren Publishers), Sefaria: A Living Library of Jewish Texts Online, 117a, accessed April 10, 2019, https://www.sefaria.org/texts/Talmud.

Rosenzweig's Elements And Universal History, Martin Zwick

Complex Systems Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper uses Rosenzweig’s conception of the three elements of God, World, and Human from The Star of Redemption in a model of universal history. The model also has some relation to Rosenzweig’s geopolitical essay, Globus, which is very different from the meta-historical Star. Based on a systems-theoretic schema of events and processes, the model views human history in terms of three linked processes: a primary process labeled “World” – the origin and development of human society embedded in nature, a secondary process labeled “God” – the origin and development of the Axial religions and philosophies, and a …

The Last Boat: How American And Polish Domestic And Foreign Policies Shaped The Polish Jewish Emigration Experience, 1933–1939, Jesse Spadaccini

History & Classics Undergraduate Theses

The interwar period from 1918 to 1939 saw Poland and the United States contend with major international and domestic questions regarding Jewish emigration. In a matter of twenty years, Polish policy developed from protecting its Jewish minority to actively persecuting it in political, economic, and social spheres with radical antisemitism. In the United States, immigration was limited post-1924 because of a nationality-based quota system introduced by the Immigration Act of 1924. Despite diplomats arguing for increased numbers, American officials’ position remained strong on limiting immigration, continuing unchanged as an understanding of Polish-Jewish plight became clear in the 1930s. The Polish …

Austrian Again Book Talk, Cardozo Law Institute In Holocaust And Human Rights (Clihhr), Anne Hand, Evelyn Konrad

2025–2026 Flyers

The Cardozo Law Institute in Holocaust and Human Rights hosted a special book talk featuring author Anne Hand, discussing her memoir Austrian Again. In her book, Hand explores her journey to uncover her family’s hidden history during the Holocaust while pursuing Austrian citizenship, tracing her Austrian and Czechoslovakian roots through personal stories and historical records.

The program also featured Evelyn Konrad, Cardozo alumna and Holocaust survivor, who joined the conversation and shared her personal reflections. Moderated by Konrad, the event examined themes of identity, migration, heritage, and historical memory.

The Religious Groups Of Mecca And Medina In The Sixth And Seventh Centuries Ce, Ilkka Linstedt

Abdou Filali-Ansary Occasional Paper Series

Ancient and modern urban centres have been important loci for encounters between individuals of different identities. In this article, I present Mecca and Medina as multi-religious towns in the pre-Islamic and early Islamic periods of the sixth and seventh centuries ce. Mecca was a very small town, but the Kaaba shrine there served as a regional pilgrimage site that drew people from different faith communities. Medina was a larger settlement with a significant Jewish population. Jews, Christians and others (‘pagans’) lived in both towns. Some of these ‘others’ had also adopted some of the basic ideas of monotheism, although they …

A Cold War Story: The Emigration Of Soviet Jews 1967-1980, William Bernstein

History Honors Papers

No abstract provided.

Victims Playing Villains: Subjects Of Blame In Elie Wiesel's "Night", Naomi Hollans

Student Scholar Symposium

Many readers who are familiar with the Jewish Holocaust are also familiar with Elie Wiesel’s Night. While many tragedies testify of villains and victims, Night’s testimony on these two elements is unclear. Night is riddled with shame, and Elie often sees himself as a perpetrator in his own suffering. With this misplaced shame, Wiesel partakes in a “confession” at the end of Night. This paper explores each of Wiesel’s “villains” and theorizes the psychological motivations behind each indictment. It gives special interest to the prevalence of victim shame in Holocaust survivor testimony, building on existing research about …

Trauma Beyond Time: Temporal Constructs In Holocaust Testimonies, Sarah Seiselmyer-Snyder

Purdue University Press Books

Trauma Beyond Time: Temporal Constructs in Holocaust Testimonies challenges our understanding of what it means to be a Holocaust survivor, arguing that the term “post-Holocaust” fundamentally misrepresents survivors’ experiences. Through careful analysis of Holocaust literature and testimony, this book reveals how trauma persists across generations, defying conventional historical timelines. For those who perished, there can be no “after” to the Holocaust—their stories were violently ended. Yet for survivors, the Holocaust didn’t simply conclude in 1945. Their experiences demonstrate how trauma continues to shape lives decades later, making “post-Holocaust” a misleading concept that fails to capture their ongoing reality. Using the …

A Shattered World: Jews And Israel After October 7, Michael Berenbaum, Gilbert N. Kahn

The Jewish Role in American Life: An Annual Review

October 7, 2023, was a watershed event in contemporary Jewish history. What took place on that date challenged the two most basic assumptions of post-Holocaust Jewish life: that the future security of the Jewish people would be assured by an independent Jewish state backed by an army, and that the freedom for Jews in the Diaspora to live as Jews would be secured by democratic rights and liberties. The pogroms of October 7 and the worldwide explosion of antisemitism that followed—even preceding Israel taking military action against Hamas—challenged both assumptions. The Israel Defense Forces could not prevent a slaughter from …

Investigating The Relationship Between Noun Classes And Plant Folk Taxonomy In Chasu Language Of Kilimanjaro Region In Tanzania, Peter Rabson Mziray

Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

The current study investigates the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu (G 22). The study focuses on two objectives: the first objective is to describe the plant folk taxonomy in Chasu and the second objective is to determine the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu. Data were collected from rural villages in Same and Mwanga districts by using free listing, field interviews (jungle-walk-and-identify), and written texts containing Chasu plant names. The findings reveal that Chasu folk taxonomy reflects different ethnobotanical categories; including a unique beginner which is mmea/mimea ‘plant(s)’, and three life …

The Paper Brigade Of Vilna, Maeghan O'Conner

The Ozark Historical Review

For the Jewish community in Europe, threats to their life, culture, and community had become a real burden, even before Nazi-occupation. An ever marginalized and terrorized lot, efforts to collect Yiddish history and literature had not been particularly successful. That is why the presence of the Libraries and Archives in the "Jerusalem of Lithuania," or Vilna, which had made efforts to preserve and research Yiddish culture, was so important and why their fall in 1940 was so devastating. This work looks at the actions of everyone involved, from the fearless smuggling of the Paper Brigade to efforts to collectivize and …

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.

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 …

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.

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.

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 …

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, …

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.

The Anatomy Of Resistance: Jewish Life, Struggle, And Revolt In The Vilna And Warsaw Ghettos, Theodore A. Evison

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

On September 1, 1939, the Germans invaded Poland, marking the start of WWII. In the following months, the Nazis established an inconceivable array of ghettos meant to concentrate the Jewish population and facilitate their deportation to killing centers across continental Europe. Of the over 1,000 ghettos set up throughout Nazi-occupied territory, this paper focuses on two, Vilna and Warsaw. Despite the hellish conditions imposed on the Jews in the Vilna and Warsaw ghettos—conditions rivaled only by the killing centers that awaited most of their inhabitants—an important phenomenon took form: the Jews of the ghettos resisted. How, it must be contended, …

Restitution Of Jewish Property In Northern Transylvania During The Early Postwar Years, Stefan Cristian Ionescu

History Faculty Articles and Research

The restitution of Jewish property in the multiethnic region of Northern Transylvania faced numerous challenges during the first post-Holocaust years as a result of the complicated wartime history, postwar demographics, legal status, interethnic dynamics, and occasional violence. Having the lowest rate of survival among all Jewish communities in Romania, most of the region’s Jews died during the deportation and did not return to their native places to claim their properties. This impacted the extent of restitution of individual private property. Some of the Aryanized property was restituted to the Jewish survivors or their heirs because the wartime beneficiaries fled the …

The Growing Rift Between Holocaust Scholars Over Israel/Palestine, Shira Klein

History Faculty Articles and Research

"A chasm has formed between Holocaust scholars concerning Israel/Palestine, deepening immeasurably since 7 October 2023. Unlike previous controversies in the field, the divide is not just historical or methodological; it revolves around academics’ role in the world today, particularly the public stand they choose to take on Palestine/Israel and Zionism. Two main camps have formed. Put reductively, one camp defends Israel, while the other defends Palestinians, although differences between individual scholars within each camp make for more of a spectrum than a clear-cut divide. How, despite a diversity of ideas and foci within each camp, did two academic-political antipodes solidify …