Jewish Studies Commons^™

Walking In A Burnt Hole, Sophia Friedman

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Holocaust stems from the Greek word “burnt hole,” but when the word Holocaust is mentioned today it refers to the rise of Nazi Germany in 1933 until the fall in 1945 (Skloot). More specifically, the Holocaust refers to the 11 million persecutions through concentration camps. The Holocaust is widely studied for various reasons, but the biggest reason is that “’we are seekers of understanding in the territory defined by those events” (Skloot 9). Through written work, such as poetry and plays, the Holocaust is brought to life in a more realistic way.

Through art we are able to connect to …

December 2014, Temple Shalom Synagogue Center

Newsletter Archive

Contents: Colby Professor Visits; From the Rabbi; Announcements; President's Message; Book Group; Community notices

Case Study Two: Jewish Time Jump: New York, Owen Gottlieb

Articles

Gottlieb presents an early case study of his mobile augmented reality game Jewish Time Jump: New York design on the ARIS platform for the iPhone and iPad (iOS). The game is set on-location in Washington Square Park in New York city. Players in 5th-7th grade take on the role of time-traveling reporters, landing on site on the eve of the Uprising of 20,000, the largest women-led strike in U.S. History. Based on their GPS location they receive media from over 100 years in the past, interactive with digital characters as they work to gather a story for the fictional Jewish …

The Spiritual And Secular Effects Of The Holocaust, Christine Coughlin

Fall 2014, Storytelling and the Life of Faith

My research paper focused on the topic of the Holocaust, and how this tragic event in history had a lasting effect, not only on the victims, but on future generations as well. My paper focused on two autobiographies, “Night,” and “After Long Silence” written by Elie Wiesel and Helen Fremont respectively, each of which portray a different perspective on the Holocaust and the significance it had in the peoples’ lives. Using these two autobiographies, as well as a number of articles referencing the Holocaust, I portrayed how this horrible period of history shaped many peoples' lives, both secularly and spiritually.

Nurturing Play-Makers & Active Investigative Agents: Schwartz Tag, Good Video Games And Futures Of Jewish Learning, Owen Gottlieb

Articles

How can an experiential approach to education, in combination with a games-based orientation, help us reach often-elusive educational goals? In many ways the study of games and game design bring us back to tenets of education that we have long known, including the benefits of self-directed learning and project-based work. Games-based design and learning may provide a way to shift the discussion from “What should an educated Jew know?” to “How does a learner develop a taste for Jewish learning and living?”

'Like Iron To A Magnet': Moses Hayim Luzzatto's Quest For Providence, David Sclar

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is a biographical study of Moses Hayim Luzzatto (1707-1746 or 1747). It presents the social and religious context in which Luzzatto was variously celebrated as the leader of a kabbalistic-messianic confraternity in Padua, condemned as a deviant threat by rabbis in Venice and central and eastern Europe, and accepted by the Portuguese Jewish community after relocating to Amsterdam. Using unpublished archival documents and manuscripts, as well as rare printed books, I seek to reconcile the seemingly incompatible aspects of Luzzatto as 'heretic' and 'hero.'

Chapter one sets the tone for the dissertation by analyzing the original version of …

The Ha-Ha Holocaust: Exploring Levity Amidst The Ruins And Beyond In Testimony, Literature And Film, Aviva Atlani

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

ABSTRACT

Jewish humour sheds a crude light on the social, political, and historical realities of the Holocaust. Paradoxically, contentiously, doses of levity during this period were very much a reality, and even a psychological necessity. The purpose of my thesis is to explore the historical, social, and political ramifications of such laughter provoking manifestations. In doing so, the nuances are highlighted which are found within the laughter of the ghettos, the transit camps, and the concentration camps. Furthermore, some of these jokes, and their subsequent variations, reappear within the discourse of children of survivors. The dissertation explores how some of …

Jan Karski And The Sacrifice For The Other: As Presented In In The Play Coming To See Aunt Sophie, Arthur Feinsod

Jan Karski Conference

No abstract provided.

The Becker Family Inaugural Learning Journey, Noreen Brand

Jan Karski Conference

No abstract provided.

Emw 2014: Healing, Medicine, And Jews In The Early Modern World, Northwestern University, Evanston And Spertus Institute, Chicago

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

Early modern healing and medicine continued medieval traditions and were simultaneously transformed as a result of radical scientific, religious, and social changes. Early modern scholars, pharmacists, medical doctors, and popular healers advanced significant arguments that drew from and shaped new understandings of human nature and subsequently altered the interactions between healing, religion, and society. Such changes afford a unique opportunity to discuss forms of Jewish interaction with Christian and Muslim societies and developments within Jewish learned and popular culture. They also engage and test the limits of new topics and methodologies employed in early modern studies, enriching the evaluation of …

Jewish Women In The Ghettos, Concentration Camps, And Partisans During The Holocaust, Sara Vicks

Honors Theses

Men like, Primo Levi, Viktor Frankl, and Elie Wiesel, have provided us with valuable insight on the suffering of the Jewish people during the Holocaust. Only until recently, was there a disproportion of female memoirs of the Holocaust beyond the story Anne Frank. The purpose of this study was to research the Jewish women’s experience in the ghettos, the concentration camps, and the partisans to add to a broader understanding of the Holocaust and its female victims. The hostile environment for Jewish males after Hitler’s rise to power led to a complete role reversal for Jewish men and women. Jewish …

One Way To Light A Candle, Samantha Samson

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The following collection of poems represents three years of creative work in the Masters of Fine Arts-Poetry program at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. Meeting at the intersection of both Jewish and Queer identities, the manuscript is united by the recurring image of a candle. Candles are lit on a wide variety of Jewish occasions, from the Sabbath to the anniversary of a family member's death. They serve as a constant reminder of God's divine presence. In Jewish tradition, candles also represent the human soul, the flame reminding us of the beauty and frailty of life. Proverbs 20:27 states, …

"Identity Imperative: Ottoman Jews In Wartime And Interwar Britain", Aviva Ben-Ur

Aviva Ben-Ur

By the onset of World War I, hundreds of Ottoman immigrants, including a significant proportion of Jews, were living and trading in Britain. During wartime and through much of the interwar period, these multi-ethnic Ottomans were automatically classified as enemy aliens, subject at times to internment and deportation, stripped of their freedom of movement, and uniformly barred from citizenship. Drawing on nearly sixty recently declassified naturalization applications of Ottoman Jews, this article discusses the prosopography of Middle Eastern newcomers, nativism and xenophobia, and the role of the state in shaping national and ethnic identities, focusing on the British government’s invention …

La Muerte, La Memoria Y La Filosofía Existencial En La Literatura Testimonial Pos-Dictatorial De Primo Levi, Jorge Semprún Y Jacobo Timerman, Andrew Mcnair

Senior Theses and Projects

What effect does the ubiquity of death in a traumatic experience have on an individual's memory and soul, and how is this manifested in one's written testimony? Through the analysis of their philosophical introspection, the testimonies of Primo Levi's The Drowned and the Saved, Jorge Semprún's Literature or Life, and Jacobo Timerman's Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number meditate on the atrocities they experienced during Levi and Semprún's incarceration under the Nazi regime in Europe between 1942 and 1945, and Timerman's imprisonment under the regime of Jorge Rafael Videla in Argentina between 1976 and 1983. The …

A Response To Abraham's Path, Lucy Felker

Georgia State Undergraduate Research Conference

No abstract provided.

Proto-Feminism In Ancient Global Texts, Jody A. Dammann-Matthews

Global Honors Theses

This paper was written to explore the patriarchal interpretations of ancient global texts and to uncover erroneous interpretations of the texts highlighted. Two texts were chosen, the biblical story of Deborah and Jael and the story of Shaharazad. They were both analyzed and compared. In this work the stories were scrutinized through the lens of proto-feminism and the patriarchal interpretations that have been accepted through history. The interpretation of these texts have downplayed the proto-feminist aspects of the protagonists and the patriarchal interpretations applied to these texts have subverted and portrayed women in a negative rather than a positive light. …

Annual Reports Of Clcweb: Comparative Literature And Culture 1999-, Steven Tötösy De Zepetnek

Tötösy de Zepetnek, Steven & Totosy de Zepetnek, Steven

No abstract provided.

Review Of The Book The Swastika’S Darkening Shadow: Voices Before The Holocaust, John A. Drobnicki

Publications and Research

Review of the book The swastika’s darkening shadow: Voices before the Holocaust.

Reorienting American Liberal Judaism For The Twentieth Century: Stephen S. Wise And The Early Years Of The Jewish Institute Of Religion, Shirley Idelson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study explores how Rabbi Stephen S. Wise and supporters from the Free Synagogue and elsewhere sought to reorient American liberal Judaism by establishing the Jewish Institute of Religion (JIR) in the early 1920s. They believed the leaders of the Reform movement at that time were reluctant to relinquish an outmoded approach that had lost relevance in light of a new demographic reality whereby over a million Eastern European Jews now living in New York were becoming the dominant presence in American Jewish life. The JIR founders attributed this to Reform's having become insular, unresponsive to pressing social issues, overly …

Reviving Enlightenment In The Age Of Nationalism: The Historical And Political Thought Of Hans Kohn In America, Brian Matthew Smollett

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation critically engages the thought of Hans Kohn (1891-1971). One of the most prominent theorists of nationalism in the twentieth century, Kohn has primarily been studied as an anti-statist Zionist thinker and as the originator of a Western-Civic/Eastern-Ethnic "dichotomy" of national development. This work takes a different approach by analyzing the matrix of tension between particularism and universalism in his mature, American thought. I argue that Kohn, especially in response to the crisis of fascism, used history to search for a balance within this perennial tension. His historical analyses, very much tied to his time and context, led him …

Dolmetscher, Spione Und Mörder: Südtiroler Im Sicherheitsdienst Des Reichsführers Ss In Italien 1943-45, Gerald Steinacher

Department of History: Faculty Publications

Bei Kriegsende 1945 blickte die Welt entsetzt auf das Ausmaß der NS-Verbrechen. Auf die Frage, wie konnte das geschehen und wer war verantwortlich für Völkermord und Krieg, verwies man meist auf eine kleine Clique (größen-) wahnsinniger Führer und ihre fanatische und mörderische SS-Gefolgschaft. Alle anderen - etwa die Angehörigen der Wehrmacht und der Waffen-SS - hatten mit den Verbrechen nichts zu tun, hieß es zumeist. Seit den 1990er Jahren hat sich diese Sichtweise in Deutschland und Österreich deutlich geändert. Das jahrzehntelange Schweigen der deutschen Gesellschaft während des Kalten Krieges bezüglich der NS-Täter wurde durchbrochen. Ausstellungen wie "Verbrechen der Wehrmacht" und …

Holocaust Denial Literature Twenty Years Later: A Follow-Up Investigation Of Public Librarians' Attitudes Regarding Acquisition And Access, John A. Drobnicki

Publications and Research

This study was undertaken to learn about public librarians' attitudes and opinions concerning the sometimes conflicting issues of intellectual freedom, collection balance, and controversial materials, and whether those attitudes and opinions have changed over twenty years. The investigation focused on Holocaust denial literature, a body of work which ranges from minimizing the Holocaust to outright denying that it happened. Public librarians in Nassau County, New York, were surveyed, and the results were compared with a similar survey from 1992. The results indicate that librarians are even more open to Holocaust denial literature than they were twenty years ago and, regardless …

Book Review: The Most Tenacious Of Minorities: The Jews Of Italy, David B. Levy

Touro College Libraries Publications and Research

The author reviews the book The Most Tenacious of Minorities: The Jews of Italy.

Printing, Fundraising, And Jewish Patronage In Eighteenth-Century Livorno, Francesca Bregoli

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Grafting Onto `The Jew': The Importance Of Being Jew-Ish To Early Modern English Christian Identity, Joan Blackwell Wedes

Wayne State University Dissertations

The dissertation examines how Jewish figures in early modern plays, prose, and poetry moved beyond the uncomplicated medieval image of murderous villain and towards a more reasoned consideration of the Jew's position in Christianity as well as in English life. While there has been significant scholarship on early modern representations of Jews, particularly in drama, these studies have not examined how Paul's Letter to the Romans, in forming much of Reformation doctrine, was also crucial in forming attitudes towards and representations of literary and living Jews. My project uniquely combines history, biblical studies, and literary analysis to reveal how early …

Haymarket To The Heights: The Movement Of Cleveland's Orthodox Synagogues From Their Initial Meeting Places To The Heights, Jeffrey S. Morris

Cleveland Memory

This document traces the movement, growth and demise of the small neighborhood synagogues, or shuls, established by newly-arrived Eastern European Jews in the Haymarket area as they migrated to the eastern suburbs.

Auschwitz-Birkenau: A Memorial, Nichole Delasalas

OUR Journal: ODU Undergraduate Research Journal

In the 1940s, Nazi Germany was an unstoppable force spreading throughout Europe. Hitler’s agenda was to take control of Europe and make it part of his pure Aryan race. As a result of his actions and his “final solution”, many people suffered. The concentration camp of Auschwitz I was created out of an old Polish military compound for three main reasons. The first was to incarcerate real and perceived enemies of the Nazi regime and the German occupation authorities in Poland for an indefinite amount of time.¹ The second was to have available a supply of forced labor for …

Sites Of Memory, Tonya Schmehl, Sherry Dixon

OUR Journal: ODU Undergraduate Research Journal

Photo Essay.

Introduction: Memory And Reflection, Annette Finley-Croswhite

OUR Journal: ODU Undergraduate Research Journal

During the spring semester of 2014, Old Dominion University offered a Study Abroad course called “Paris/Auschwitz” that I designed with funding from the Curt C. and Else Silberman Foundation and the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Over spring break, I led a group of eighteen students to France and Poland to study sites of Holocaust memory along with faculty team member, Dr. Brett Bebber. Dr. Bebber and I are both professors in the Department of History. The Study Abroad course was part of my attempt to create more Holocaust courses at Old Dominion …

Auschwitz As A Site Of Memory, Emma Needham

OUR Journal: ODU Undergraduate Research Journal

Auschwitz is known as the most substantial site of the Holocaust namely because Auschwitz-Birkenau was the largest concentration camp in Europe, and it is estimated that about 960,000 Jews and 125,000 others were murdered there.¹ Not only was the process of creating the memorial at Auschwitz filled with controversies, but the site also remains questionable today with regards to dark tourism, or thanatourism, “the tourism of death.”² For some, the thought of traveling to a place subsumed in death and despair sounds troubling as the consumption of dark tourism involves a process of “confronting, understanding and accepting death.” …