Jewish Studies Commons^™

'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 Using unpublished archival documents and manuscripts, as well as rare printed books, I seek to reconcile the seemingly incompatible aspects of Luzzatto as 'heretic' and 'hero.'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 …

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 …

The Privileged "In-Between" Status Of Latino Jews In The Northeastern United States, Laura Limonic

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study is an in-depth look at how religion, class, and ethno-racial status interact and intersect to affect assimilation and integration prospects for new immigrants. The research focuses on Latin American Jewish immigrants in the Northeastern United States, a particularly interesting group to study because they are not easily classified within the American racial and ethnic system and existing ethno-racial categories. As a result, they are presented with a number of ethnic options that they can call upon. The choices they make as well as the constraints they face in making these choices, can broaden our understanding of contemporary immigrant …

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 …

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 …

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

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Review Of The Website The Nuremberg Trials Project, John A. Drobnicki

Publications and Research

Review of the website The Nuremberg trials project.

Review Of The Book Fifty Key Thinkers On The Holocaust And Genocide, John A. Drobnicki

Publications and Research

Review of the book Fifty key thinkers on the Holocaust and genocide.

Polish Anti-Defamation Committee, John A. Drobnicki

Publications and Research

Polish American Congress Anti-Defamation Committee of California (later renamed the Polish American Defense Committee) successfully advocated for the inclusion of the treatment of Poles during World War II in California's model curriculum on Human Rights and Genocide. The group was also vocal in criticizing authors, films, subject, and newspaper articles which they felt presented a biased view of Polish-Jewish relations.

The Port Of Livorno And Its "Nazione Ebrea" In The Eighteenth Century: Economic Utility And Political Reforms, Francesca Bregoli

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Isaac Edward Kiev: Early Leader In American Judaica Librarianship, Amy F. Stempler

Publications and Research

Isaac Edward Kiev (1905–1975), former Chief Librarian of New York’s Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, spent a lifetime facilitating Jewish research. This article, based on the author’s Master’s thesis on Kiev, focuses on his contributions to the founding of Jewish book and library organizations during the American post-war era, including the Association of Jewish Libraries, Jewish Book Council of America, Jewish Cultural Reconstruction, Inc., and numerous Jewish book foundations in the United States and Israel. In addition to providing insight into the creation of these associations, the article illustrates the parallel development of the fields of Judaica librarianship and …

Review Of The Book Jewish Responses To Persecution, Vol. I: 1933-1938, John A. Drobnicki

Publications and Research

Review of the book Jewish responses to persecution, Vol. I: 1933-1938.

Holocaust-Denial Literature: A Sixth Bibliography, John A. Drobnicki

Publications and Research

This bibliography is a supplement to five earlier ones that were published in the Bulletin of Bibliography. Holocaust denial is a body of literature that seeks to prove that the Jewish Holocaust did not happen. This bibliography includes both works about Holocaust denial and works of Holocaust denial.

“Two Jews Walk Into A Coffeehouse”: The “Jewish Question,” Utility, And Political Participation In Late Eighteenth-Century Livorno, Francesca Bregoli

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

My Name And My Face, Stuart Ewen

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Images Of Egypt In Early Biblical Literature: Cisjordan-Israelite, Transjordan-Israelite, And Judahite Portrayals, Stephen C. Russell

Publications and Research

This book suggests a regional paradigm for understanding the development of the traditions about Egypt and the exodus in the Hebrew Bible. It offers fresh readings of the golden calf stories in 1 Kgs 12:25-33 and Exod 32, the Balaam oracles in Num 22-24, and the Song of the Sea in Exod 15:1b-18 and from these paints a picture of the differing traditions about Egypt that circulated in Cisjordan Israel, Transjordan Israel, and Judah in the 8th century B.C.E. and earlier.
In the north, an exodus from Egypt was celebrated in the Bethel calf cult as a journey of Israelites …

The Library's Bassin Collection, Scott Sheidlower, John A. Drobnicki

Publications and Research

In May 1973, York College President Milton G. Bassin donated 495 volumes to the York College Library, most of which were written in either Hebrew or Yiddish, with some also in Aramaic. The books belonged to his father, Max Bassin (who was sometimes referred to as Morris, Moses, or Moshe), who was a noted anthologist of Yiddish poetry.

Review Of The Database Testaments To The Holocaust, John A. Drobnicki

Publications and Research

Review of the database Testaments to the Holocaust.

Review Of The Book Dictionary Of Literary Biography, Vol. 299: Holocaust Novelists, John A. Drobnicki

Publications and Research

Review of the book Dictionary of literary biography, Vol. 299: Holocaust novelists.

Holocaust-Denial Literature: A Fifth Bibliography, John A. Drobnicki

Publications and Research

This bibliography is a supplement to four earlier ones that were published in the Bulletin of Bibliography. Holocaust denial is a body of literature that seeks to prove that the Jewish Holocaust did not happen. This bibliography includes both works about Holocaust denial and works of Holocaust denial.

Review Of The Book In The Shadow Of The Polish Eagle: The Poles, The Holocaust And Beyond, John A. Drobnicki

Publications and Research

Review of the book In the Shadow of the Polish Eagle: The Poles, the Holocaust and Beyond.

Historical Fabrications On The Internet: Recognition, Evaluation, And Use In Bibliographic Instruction, John A. Drobnicki, Richard Asaro

Publications and Research

Although the Internet provides access to a wealth of information, there is little, if any, control over the quality of that information. Side-by-side with reliable information, one finds disinformation, misinformation, and hoaxes. The authors of this paper discuss numerous examples of fabricated historical information on the Internet (ranging from denials of the Holocaust to personal vendettas), offer suggestions on how to evaluate websites, and argue that these fabrications can be incorporated into bibliographic instruction classes.

Holocaust-Denial Literature: A Fourth Bibliography, John A. Drobnicki

Publications and Research

This bibliography is a supplement to three earlier ones that were published in the Bulletin of Bibliography. Holocaust denial is a body of literature that seeks to prove that the Jewish Holocaust did not happen. This bibliography includes both works about Holocaust denial and works of Holocaust denial.

Review Of The Book The Holocaust: Memories, Research, Reference, John A. Drobnicki

Publications and Research

Review of the book The Holocaust: Memories, Research, Reference.

Dealing With Internet Hate, John A. Drobnicki

Publications and Research

The Internet offers a degree of anonymity whereby people can say things electronically that they often would not have the courage to say face-to-face, including racist rants and anti-Semitic lies. Beginning in 1998, Dr. David Maddison, an Australian scientist, began to post carefully researched replies to - and refutations of - anti-Semitic postings.

On The Double: The Hidden (Queer And Jewish) Career Of Danny Kaye, Michael Bronski

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

Last year, in the early stages of applying for the Duberman Fellowship, I began by trying to discern a topic, a subject, that would involve me intellectually as well as emotionally. As a free-lance writer and cultural critic I am, more frequently than not, assigned subjects, books, movies, performances by my editors. If I received the Duberman I wanted to research and write about something that resonated with my life and current interests.

"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.

Inmigración, Nacionalismo Cultural, Campo Intelectual: El Proyecto Creador De Alberto Gerchunoff, Fernando Degiovanni

Publications and Research

El final de la Autobiografía (1914) de Alberto Gerchunoff (1883-1950) constituye uno de los puntos de partida más significativos a través de los cuales es posible analizar la temática de lo judío-argentino en el marco de su producción textual. El autor de Los gauchos judíos (1910) se sitúa allí frente al campo cultural de la Argentina del Centenario por medio de una serie de operaciones ideológicas que plantean una opción no sólo intelectual sino también específicamente literaria en la construcción de su proyecto creador. La afirmación: “Yo no aspiro a cantar únicamente la vida judía: soy ante todo argentino y …

Felix Posen Bibliographic Project On Antisemitism, John A. Drobnicki

Publications and Research

A review of the Felix Posen Bibliographic Project on Antisemitism.