Jewish Studies Commons^™

The San Nicandresi Jews: A Brief Bibliographic And Photographic Essay, Michael C. Vocino

Technical Services Faculty Publications

Brief bibliographic, photographic essay on the conversion story of the Southern Italian Jews known as the Jews of San Nicandro.

Abraham's Faith And Sacrifice, Lawrence Frizzell

Department of Religion Publications

Cycle B liturgical readings for the Second Sunday of Lent, March 4, 2012: Gn 22:1-18; Ps 116; Rm 8:32-34; Mk 9:2-10. This article was previously published in The Catholic Advocate.

Cultural Transmission And Assimilation In A Quotidian Key: The Conversion Of Two Jews In Spain, 1790- 1792, David Graizbord

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The Early Modern Period, an era of “confessionalization,” provides numerous examples of individuals of immediate, distant, feigned, or merely imputed Jewish origin whose religious and social allegiances shifted radically. The phenomenon of Iberian New Christians or conversos comes to mind. Early modern Jews who became Christians but who, unlike conversos, possessed no personal and familial background in Christianity constitute an allied field of research (See examples in the Bibliography, below). Scholarly assessments of the ways in which these Jewish non-conversos learned and influenced their adopted Christian culture(s) often concentrate on intellectual production. The focus is not surprising, as the converts …

The Early Modern Inn As A Space For Religious And Cultural Exchange, Magda Teter

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

While it is relatively easy to map out mutual cultural influences between Jews and non‐Jews, it is much more difficult to map out the mechanisms of this cultural exchange. Such instances of cultural exchange may have happened indirectly, for example, through books, as Joanna Weinberg termed it, through “virtual contact”; or, directly, through “real” human interaction. The texts presented here deal with the latter. One set of texts is a selection of several seventeenth‐century takkanot, rulings, by the Council of Four Lands, the supra‐communal organization responsible primarily for collection of taxes levied by the Polish state but also engaging in …

Emw 2012: Cross-Cultural Connections In The Early Modern Jewish World, Emw 2012

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

Understanding the processes of cultural change in early modern history as a process of creating and negotiating social, cultural, and religious borders has become a commonplace in the last generation of research. This perspective has great validity for Jewish history, too: early modern Jews also found themselves in a range of new settings, which allowed a considerably greater range of interactions with their non-Jewish neighbors than had previously been the case. It was not only geographical dispersion that broadened their social, economic, cultural and religious contacts with their non-Jewish surroundings: new ideas and ideologies deriving from the thought of the …

Jailhouse Encounter: A Sixteenth-Century Jewish-Christian Tale And Its Historiographical Ramifications, Daniel Jütte

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

This presentation examines two excerpts from the little known early seventeenth-century German memoirs of the non-Jewish Swabian merchant Hans Ulrich Krafft (1550–1621).1 Krafft was born into one of the most respected families in the city of Ulm, in southern Germany. In the 1570s, he served as a factor for the Augsburg-based Manlich trade company in the Levant. 2 In the summer of 1574, however, the Manlich Trade Company went bankrupt, and Krafft, who did not have the means to pay off the debts he had guaranteed on behalf of his employers, was arrested and imprisoned in Tripoli (now in Lebanon). …

A Jewish Merchant Family And A Moroccan Ruler, Daniel Schroeter

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

These three documents are from the Lévy-Corcos archives, a private collection of family documents in Paris, which I photographed in 1985. A few comments on what Jewish family archives reveal about Muslim-Jewish relations in Morocco: It was not uncommon for elite Jewish families to pass down from generation to generation various kinds of Muslim and Jewish legal documents, including Arabic decrees of rulers (dahirs) and letters from Muslim governmental officials. Such documents were kept as records of property, debts, or special privileges. Significantly, literate Jews did not read or write in the Arabic script, and thus could not read the …

A Jewish-Christian Commentary On Luke, Yaacov Deutsch

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

In 1735, Immanuel Frommann, a converted Jew who was working at the Institutum Judaicum in Halle translated the book of Luke and wrote a commentary on the text. This text is probably the first printed Hebrew commentary on the New Testament. In his commentary, Frommann uses a wide range of Hebrew sources. He quotes regularly from the Babylonian and Palestinian Talmud, biblical commentaries, midrashim, legal treatises, philosophical texts and historical works. He also makes use of mystical and kabbalistic works. The commentary has several layers of interpretation: relatively short lexical or grammatical explanations of words or phrases; literary explanations of …

Medicine As A Cultural Connection Between Jews And Christians In Early Modern Italy, Berns Andrew

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

This presentation explores cultural connections between Jews and Christians in sixteenth-century Italy through the lens of medicine. I present and analyze two texts. The first (from 1587) is a letter from Girolamo Mercuriale, a Catholic, to Moses Alatino, a Jew. The second (from 1592) is an excerpt from a consilium sent by the Jewish physician David de' Pomi to Francesco Maria della Rovere, Duke of Urbino.

It discusses the following texts:

1. Girolamo Mercuriale to Moses Alatino,"On a Uterine Tumor, Painful Urination, and Constipation, for a noble young Jewess, [sent] to the Jewish Physician Moses Alatino. Consultation #16" From: Hieronymi …

Finding Common Ground: The Metz Beit Din And The French Judicial System, Jay R. Berkovitz

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

In the two decades preceding the French Revolution, the rabbinic court of Metz functioned within a complex world of overlapping legal jurisdictions. The extant records of the beit din in the years 1771-1790 contain evidence of familiarity with French law and even an interest in taking that law into consideration in its own deliberations. From time to time, the beit din instructed litigants to consult French avocats in order to clarify a legal question, and in some cases the beit din itself initiated the consultation. There were also, certainly, instances when individuals sought the opinion of French lawyers on their …

Real Or Virtual Contact? Johannes Buxtorf's Reading Of Jewish Literature, Joanna Weinberg

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

This presentation attempts to analyse how Johannes Buxtorf the elder (1564-1629), long-time professor of Hebrew at Basel, ethnographer, lexicographer, and textual critic,read Jewish books by examining one passage from the Sefer ha-Hayyim written by Hayyim ben Bezalel (Cracow, 1593), which Buxtorf chose to integrate into his polemical critique of Jewish allegiance to the Talmud in this opening chapter of the Juden—Schul. Hayyim ben Bezalel, fated to remain second fiddle to his brother, the Maharal of Prague, had his own battles to fight against both Jews and Christians. In the selected passage, Hayyim ben Bezalel defends the Talmud as a unique …

The Paschal Mystery And Christian Baptism, Lawrence Frizzell

Department of Religion Publications

Cycle B liturgical readings for the First Sunday of Lent, February 26, 2012: Gn 9:8-15; Ps 25; 1 Pt 3:18-22; Mk 1:12-15. This article was previously published in The Catholic Advocate.

The Unity Of Teaching And Action In God's Service, Lawrence Frizzell

Department of Religion Publications

Cycle B liturgical readings for the Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, January 29, 2012: Dt 18:15-20; Ps 95; 1 Cor 7:32-35; Mk 1:21-28. This article was previously published in The Catholic Advocate.

Repentance And Self-Discipline In The Christian Life, Lawrence Frizzell

Department of Religion Publications

Cycle B liturgical readings for the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, January 22, 2012: Jon 3:1-5, 10; Ps 25; 1 Cor 7:29 31; Mk 1:14 20. This article was previously published in The Catholic Advocate.

Listening And Service As Prayer, Lawrence Frizzell

Department of Religion Publications

Cycle B liturgical readings for the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, January 15, 2012: 1 Sm 3:3 10 and 19; Ps 40; 1 Cor 6:13 20; Jn 1:35 41. This article was previously published in The Catholic Advocate.

Gifts For Service Of God, Lawrence Frizzell

Department of Religion Publications

Cycle B liturgical readings for the Epiphany of the Lord, January 6, 2012: Is 60:1-6; Ps 72; Eph 3:2-6; Mt 2:1-12. This article was previously published in The Catholic Advocate.

Formation Of Public Sphere(S) In The Aftermath Of The 1908 Revolution Among Armenians, Arabs, And Jews, Bedross Der Matossian

Department of History: Faculty Publications

Revolutionary theories are most useful when they attempt to define and interpret the causes and mechanisms of revolutions. However, when they attempt to forecast the outcomes and the impact of revolutions on their indigenous societies, they are largely unsuccessful. This article deals with the impact of the Young Turk revolution on three non-dominant ethnic groups in the Ottoman Empire: Armenians, Arabs, and Jews. It will argue that the revolution resulted in the creation of a multiplicity of public spheres among the ethnic groupS.1 This multiplicity of public spheres became the main medium through which these ethnic groups internalized the Young …

“Under The Very Windows Of The Pope”: Confronting Anti-Semitism In Catholic Theology After The Holocaust, Carolyn Wesnousky

History Honors Papers

No abstract provided.

The Church's Bond With The Jewish People, Lawrence Frizzell

Selected Works of Lawrence E. Frizzell

This article examines the history and impact of the fourth paragraph, "The Church's Bond with the Jewish People," within the Second Vatican Council's Declaration Nostra Aetate, which was promulgated October 28, 1965.

Leading Through Listening: Racial Tensions In 1968 New York, Janice W. Fernheimer

Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Studies Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Golems Take New York: The Resurgence Of The Golem In The Work Of Cynthia Ozick And Thane Rosenbaum, Peter Schulman

World Languages and Cultures Faculty Publications

The late twentieth and early twenty first centuries have seen a resurgence of the golem in several major American novels. What factors might lead to such a re-imagining of the golem in American fiction? Cynthia Ozick's The Puttermesser Papers (1997) and Thane Rosenbaum's The Golems of Gotham (2002) re-invent golems no longer anchored in vengeance but in healing, as vehicles for the kabbalistic notion of Tikkun Olam ("repairing the world"). Ozick creates the first female golem to help the lonely protagonist become a reformist mayor; in The Golems of Gotham, the golem is transformed into a team of literary …

One State Or Two In Israel/Palestine: The Stress On Gender And Citizenship, Gordon Babst, Nicole M. Tellier

Political Science Faculty Articles and Research

As is the case with any of the three great Abrahamic religions, there is considerable ambiguity regarding the status and role of women both within doctrinal interpretations, and between religious and other cultural traditions in the community. These ambiguities are reflected in political practice and condition women's aspirations regarding what is possible for them to achieve. Nowhere is it more true that understandings of religious imperatives permeate politics and work to make other lines of division all the more intractable than in Israel/Palestine. The proclivity to violence between the two peoples not only victimizes women, but foreshortens attention to their …

Yiddish In Abramovitsh's Literary Revival Of Hebrew, Ken Frieden

Religion - All Scholarship

No abstract provided.

A Multidimensional Assessment Of Orthodox Jewish Attitudes Toward Homosexuality, Rachel Shapiro Safran

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

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The Continuing Exodus: The Synagogue And Jewish Urban Migration, Samuel D. Gruber

Religion - All Scholarship

Catalog essay in Silent Witnesses: Migration Stories Through Synagogues Transformed, Rebuilt or Abandoned (Farmington Hills, MI, 2012) that deals with Jewish settlement and migration in American cities (especially New York, Boston and Cleveland) and the religious and community buildings erected and left behind in the process.

The Sea Of Talmud: A Brief And Personal Introduction, Henry M. Abramson

Lander College of Arts and Sciences Books

Scholarly yet readable, The Sea of Talmud combines basic, authoritative information on the Talmud with the author’s unique and personal journey to traditional Judaism. Tracing the history of the Talmud from its origins in ancient Israel and Babylon to Internet-based texts, Dr. Abramson describes the excitement and thrill of studying Talmud from an insider’s perspective.

Reading The Talmud: Developing Independence In Gemara Learning, Henry M. Abramson

Lander College of Arts and Sciences Books

Reading the Talmud is a textbook designed for students who want to move beyond translations to learning the Talmud on their own. This book presents a proven, “no shortcuts” approach based on the traditional Yeshiva model. If you have enough Hebrew skills to work out a Biblical verse, and a healthy determination to toil in the Talmud, this book will help you develop independence in Gemara learning.

This is the second edition of this book.

What Is Talmud? The Art Of Disagreement, David Metzger

English Faculty Publications

Review of What is Talmud? The Art of Disagreement, by Sergey Dolgopolski. New York: Fordham University Press, 2009.

The Strange Career Of The Biblia Rabbinica Among Christian Hebraists, 1517–1620, Stephen G. Burnett

Department of Classics and Religious Studies: Faculty Publications

The Rabbinic Bible became a standard reference tool, above all for Protestant Hebraists during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It contained not only the Hebrew Bible text, but also Aramaic-language Targums (periphrastic translations of the biblical text, mostly dating from before 500) and Jewish biblical commentaries written between ca. 1100 and 1500. To use these works required that a Christian Hebraist know not only the language of the Bible, but also Targumic Aramaic and medieval Hebrew, which was rather different from biblical or mishnaic Hebrew. For Christian scholars who mastered these languages and were able to read these different texts, …

Prayers Of Obligation And Well-Being: A Study Of The Effects Of Orthodox Jewish Prayer, Charles T. Coleman

Masters Theses

In a study to explore the effect of concentration during Orthodox Jewish obligatory prayer on well-being, ten Orthodox Jewish prayers were rated by experts (Rabbis) for the inclusion of the five identified prayer types of adoration, thanksgiving, confession, supplication, and reception. The ratings were used to establish a prayer type score for each of the ten prayers studied. Other Orthodox Jewish males (non-Rabbis) were then surveyed about their individual level of concentration during the same ten prayers and about health and psychological well-being. Although the multiple regression analyses showed no link between degree of concentration and well-being, it was determined …