Jewish Studies Commons^™

Saving Adele: A History Of The Portrait Of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, Ariel A. Furman

Quest

Individual Research Project

Research in progress for HIST 1302: United States History II

Faculty Mentor: Kyle Wilkison, Ph.D.

Nothing ruins an enriching intellectual experience quite like having it assigned. Consequently, Honors History 1302 students began by identifying their own passions and interests. They then chose topics of immediate and abiding personal interest and produced research projects that reflected that energy and commitment. Their research probed a marvelous variety of historical topics from culture, medicine, science, politics, and economics. They researched and wrote about anti-fascist American comic books during World War II, disturbing historic treatments for the mentally ill, advances in …

Why The Passive Protagonist In Wisdom Of Solomon 2–5?, Larry Wills

Journal of Religious Competition in Antiquity

Scholars have long noted the mixed traditions in Wisdom of Solomon: wisdom, apocalypticism, and Greek philosophy—both Platonic and Stoic motifs. But in addition, among the three sections of the text (1:1–6:21, 6:22–11:1, 11:2–19:22), there is also a discrepancy in the psychological tone. In Wisdom 1–6, and more specifically 2–5, the protagonist, the “righteous one” (dikaios), is persecuted by the many ungodly (asebeis). The modern reader often misses the fact that the righteous one never speaks; he is described, rather, by the ungodly. The fact that the righteous one never speaks, and is described as a passive …

The Swine Suicides: On The Appearance And Disappearance Of Pork-Related Jewish Martyrdom In Antiquity, Jordan D. Rosenblum

Journal of Religious Competition in Antiquity

The willingness for Jews to martyr themselves rather than consume pork was well known in the ancient Mediterranean. Both Jewish and non-Jewish texts attest to this predilection, some viewing it as an inspired testimony to one’s faith and others as a baffling and peculiar act. In Late Antiquity, new depictions of pork-related Jewish martyrdom disappear (though the occasional reference to centuries-old actions do appear). This paper offers an explanation for the disappearance of accounts of pork-related Jewish martyrdom. In doing so, it advances an argument for the rhetorical role played by pork-related Jewish martyrdom. Once we understand the role that …

Foreignization In Ancient Competition, Debra Ballentine

Journal of Religious Competition in Antiquity

Much of the literary data we study from ancient West Asian and ancient Mediterranean authors features social, political, ritual, and/or theological competition. These sorts of competition are frequently intertwined. Or rather, we scholars distinguish such categories as we aim to appreciate the threads of our data. This essay focuses on one rhetorical tool frequently utilized within competitive discourse: the label “foreign.” For example, some biblical authors utilize the label “foreign” to categorize phenomena that they reject. Nonetheless, passages feature Judeans doing “foreign” practices as genuinely Judean activities. While critical scholarship has effectively recognized this tension within primary sources, some interpreters …

“I Will Heal Their Land”: The Meaning And Significance Of Healing (רפא) In 2 Chronicles 7:13–16, Lian Mung

Spiritus: ORU Journal of Theology

This article explores the meaning and significance of Yahweh’s promise to heal the land of his people in 2 Chr 7:13–16 within its immediate context and also within the book of 2 Chronicles by exploring how the text is connected linguistically and thematically with other related texts. It argues that the meaning of healing in 2 Chr 7:13–16 extends far beyond the physical healing of the land that results in agricultural blessings, and the theme of healing plays a significant role in the Chronicler’s theology of retribution, repentance, and restoration.

Temporal And Topological: Two Ways Of Living Israel/Palestine, Rocco Giansante

Journal of Religion & Film

Elia Suleiman and Amos Gitai are two Israeli filmmakers, Palestinian and Jewish respectively. Gitai’s first film, House (1980), was censored by Israeli Television—the producers of the film—due to its sympathetic portrayal of Palestinians. Elia Suleiman’s debut film, Chronicle of a Disappearance (1996), was criticized at the Carthage Film Festival in Tunisia for a sequence showing an Israeli flag and Suleiman himself was accused of being a Zionist collaborator. By comparing the ways in which these two films deal with the political and social implications of the Israel-Palestine conflict, this article highlights two distinct methods of relating to facts on the …

Bridging The Divide Through Graphic Novels: Teaching Non-Jews’ Holocaust Narratives To Jewish Students, Matt Reingold

SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education

The following paper considers how integrating Holocaust graphic novels that prominently feature non-Jewish characters can be effective in introducing Jewish students to new perspectives on contemporary understandings of the Holocaust. Drawing on the results of recent studies about rising anti-Semitism and Jews' concerns for their safety, feelings of insularity are understandably becoming more pervasive within the Jewish community. The author argues that in order to combat the negative aspects of this entrenchment, Jewish students need to be introduced to thoughtful and complex narratives that relate to historical anti-Semitic incidents which also model ways of building relationships between the disparate communities …

Singing God's Words: The Performance Of Biblical Chant In Contemporary Judaism, Mili Leitner Cohen

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

A book review is presented for Jeffrey Summit, Singing God's Words: The Performance of Biblical Chant in Contemporary Judaism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016).

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.

Who Is Like God? The Deer Hunter As Angelic Allegory, Nicholas J. Schaser

Journal of Religion & Film

Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter utilizes Christian contexts and biblical motifs in order to present an allegory in which Michael (Robert De Niro) represents an angelic being. While Michael displays powers that parallel those of biblical angels, his lack of religious reverence and divine self-perception lead to a metaphorical fall in Vietnam. Michael’s friend Nick (Christopher Walken) is also an allegorical symbol for imperiled humanity in need of salvation. When Michael is unable to rescue Nick from a Russian roulette table in Saigon, Cimino’s film emerges as a theological statement about the problem of human violence and the necessity for …

The Complicated Cases Of Soghomon Tehlirian And Sholem Schwartzbard And Their Influences On Raphaël Lemkin's Thinking About Genocide, Steven Leonard Jacobs

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

The article is an examination of the persons and trials of Soghomon Tehlirian and Sholem Schwartzbard, their political assassinations as acts of vengeance for genocide and pogroms, their trials and subsequent acquittals. It is also an examination of the influences of these two events on the evolved thinking of Raphael Lemkin on his conceptualization of the needs for an international law contra genocide. Finally, it also elaborates on what information is now available on both men and their associations, and what was known and unknown to Lemkin and whether or not these two cases remained centrally important to his understandings.

Abe, John C. Lyden

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Abe (2019) directed by Fernando Grostein Andrade.