Jewish Studies Commons^™

Using A "Moves To Innocence" Approach To Dissect And Debunk The Claim That Critical Race Theory Is Antisemitic, Diane Kemker

Lewis & Clark Law Review

In the United States, law and policy have most frequently reflected dominant white Christian majority interests. Critical Race Theory (CRT) offers powerful tools for understanding our history and situation, including that of American Jews, and how the social positions and interests of American Blacks and Jews, real and perceived, have intersected, sometimes aligning, sometimes diverging, and sometimes conflicting. And yet, among other charges leveled against it, Critical Race Theory is frequently accused of being antisemitic.

Intentionally or not, this charge delegitimizes and discredits CRT, and therefore advances the aims of all who oppose it for any reason, including white supremacists …

The New Antisemitism, Edgar G. Soto

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Following the Second World War, antisemitism appeared to be on a decline. Presently, however, there is an uptick in antisemitic hate crimes, worldwide. Modern-day Islamic antisemitism in particular is in large part recycled European Christian antisemitism adapted for Islamic audiences and intensified by the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict. This iteration of anti-Jewish bigotry is not the same as the “old,” but neither is it different. As will be explained, antisemitism has, throughout history, amounted to an anomaly in Islamic culture and in what may be called “normative” Islam.

Indeed, Muslims and Jews lived together amicably for centuries. In fact, within dar-al-Islam, …

Negative Psychology Of Anti-Semitism: Fear Of The Uncategorizable, Benjamin Strosberg

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Anti-Semitism is a pervasive global issue, particularly prominent in the United States. Studying and defining anti-Semitism prove remarkably challenging for scholars, leading to inadequate understanding and exclusion from contemporary academic discourse and social justice initiatives. In this dissertation, I made the case that anti-Semitism is hard to categorize, stemming, in part, from the difficulty in categorizing what it is to be Jewish, which seems to be multi-form (a figure of thought, a race, an ethnicity, a religion, a nation, none of the above). In thinking about the difficulty in categorization, I constellated various instances of anti-Jewish practices across historical epochs …

Cohen, Ruthie, Sophia Maier Garcia

Bronx Jewish History Project

Ruthie Cohen is a second generation American, with her paternal grandparents immigrating from Poland. When she was born, her family lived at 2805 Sedgwick Avenue, but moved nearby to another two-family home at 2805 Webb Avenue. She remembers how her immediate neighborhood and school was predominantly Jewish, but Italians and Irish also lived nearby and attended parochial schools. Cohen felt very little antisemitism from them. She was the youngest of four children in a relatively observant family.

Cohen’s father was a teacher who was very involved in the larger community, and education and tolerance were important values in her family. …

'James', Reyna Lee Stovall

Bronx Jewish History Project

Summarizer: Sophia Maier

‘James,’ born 1951, grew up on Narragansett Avenue in the Bronx. He remembers the neighborhood as heavily Italian, with a sprinkling of Jews, Irish, and others. It was primarily small, private homes, many attached like their own. Their own neighbor expressed a dislike of living next door to Jews, directly to his parents’ faces. Yet, James grew up to become friends with the non-Jewish neighbors. He describes their own practice of Judaism as less prosperous and traditional than other parts of the Bronx.

James attend PS 108 with many of the Jewish kids in the neighborhood, as …

Material Culture In The Mediterranean: An Exploration And Examination Of Anti-Judaic And Antisemitic Spanish Medieval Cultural History, Madison Elizabeth Tarleton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Author Gavin Langmuir produced two monographs during his career, both published in 1990. Across both texts, one a proper monograph and one a compilation of essays, he offers a bifurcation of anti-Judaism and antisemitism. These texts illuminate his definitions of the terms and his differentiations on the basis of reason and rationality. Using the bones of these theories, I propose a different kind of bifurcation of these terms as it relates to Mediterranean (medieval) material culture using a cultural historical lens. By applying Gavin Langmuir's theoretical model of nonrational anti-Judaism and irrational antisemitism to material culture, I argue that visual …

Chavez, Robert, Sophia Maier Garcia

Bronx Jewish History Project

Robert Chavez, born 1945, lived on Undercliff Avenue in the Bronx after his family settled there from Eastern Europe. His maternal grandparents immigrated from Russia, where his grandmother was adopted into the Tsar’s court. They bought a farm in Rockland County, where Chavez’s uncle was hidden for fear of getting drafted into WWII. His father, a traveling salesman, came from Brooklyn and joined the close knit family. Chavez remembers his building being a filled with first and second generation Jewish families, and became friendly with Puerto Rican peers in school. Being a middle child, he remembers playing with his brother …

Wolfthal, Diane Fialkow, Sophia Maier Garcia

Bronx Jewish History Project

Diane Wolfthal was born in the Bronx in 1949 and lived on Pelham Parkway. However, shortly after her birth, Wolfthal’s family moved to the Amalgamated Housing Corporation. She remembers the co-op being an idyllic utopia. The co-op, from her memory, was very homogenous, with almost every family in the compound being Jewish, socialist, or communist, and either first or second-generation migrants. Additionally, most of the Jewish families at the Amalgamated Housing Corporation were secular. Wolfthal remembers observing Jewish holidays and going to Bar Mitzvahs but never having her Jewish practices tied to a notion of God. Instead, her Jewishness was …

Beyond Film: #Mejew: Antisemitism, Authentic Representation And Jewish Identity In Hollywood, Dereck Daschke

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a report on the Sundance Film Festival panel from the BEYOND FILM program: "#MeJew: Antisemitism, Authentic Representation and Jewish Identity in Hollywood" which occurred in Park City on January 22, 2023.

Diversity, Equity, & Exclusion: Examining Jewish Identity & Antisemitism As Missing Pieces Of Dei And Ethnic Studies Education, Katie Meitchik

Pitzer Senior Theses

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) is a theory and practice that focuses on systemic structures, inequities, and social change by examining concepts such as race, gender, class, sexuality, ethnicity, ability, and religion. Incorporating DEI initiatives into learning spaces can lead to a deeper sense of self, stronger coalition building, increased civic engagement, and a sense of healing, resistance, and belonging. Although a nationwide criteria for using DEI practices in education has not yet been implemented as a key component to public school teaching, there are programs emerging with the intent to utilize the theory. This has led to a movement …

For As Long As The Lamp Is Burning: A One-Act Play, Jon Papernick

Emerson Authors, Researchers, & Creators

Miriam Bravermann, (Mama) a Holocaust survivor living in 1990’s Jerusalem believes the Nazis have stolen the mezuzah off her door post. Her adult son Avshalom is concerned that she’s beginning to lose her grip on reality and wants her to move in with him and his family. Mama has taken on the near holy responsibility of remembering, and refuses to accept that she may actually be forgetting.

Nebraska Stories Of Humanity: Increasing Accessibility To Holocaust Education, Aila Ganic

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

This thesis seeks to answer the question: How can the digital humanities provide a vehicle that elevates the human impact of survivor narrative and testimony? An analyzation of how the digital humanities could preserve survivor testimony is conducted through an examination of how Bea Karp’s narrative will be shared through the Nebraska Stories of Humanity portal project. Based on this analyzation, the Nebraska Stories of Humanity portal could be an effective method for teaching Holocaust education for three main reasons. First, this portal project avoids perpetrator-oriented narratives by highlighting survivors and soldiers who liberated camps. Further, it also offers a …

Midrash Therapy: A Hermeneutical Inquiry, Robert T. Jury

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation examines descriptions of Midrash Therapy as practiced in a continuing care group for Jewish people in recovery. Specifically, it analyzes interviews with participants who experienced Midrash Therapy, therapeutic documents from a continuing care group using Midrash Therapy, fieldnotes, and an action-reflection journal kept by the practitioner-researcher. Interviews were conducted with six individuals and the collective data was analyzed under applied hermeneutical practices. At the onset of the study, the author Midrash Therapy as an integration of narrative practices and rabbinic approaches to counseling. This examination found that Midrash Therapy is a Jewish integrated therapy with five distinctive aspects: …

Refuge Must Be Given: Eleanor Roosevelt, The Jewish Plight, And The Founding Of Israel, John F. Sears

Purdue University Press Book Previews

Refuge Must Be Given details the evolution of Eleanor Roosevelt from someone who harbored negative impressions of Jews to become a leading Gentile champion of Israel in the United States. The book explores, for the first time, Roosevelt’s partnership with the Quaker leader Clarence Pickett in seeking to admit more refugees into the United States, and her relationship with Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles, who was sympathetic to the victims of Nazi persecution yet defended a visa process that failed both Jewish and non-Jewish refugees.

After the war, as a member of the American delegation to the United Nations, Eleanor …

The Future Of The German-Jewish Past: Memory And The Question Of Antisemitism, Gideon Reuveni, Diana University Franklin

Purdue University Press Books

Germany’s acceptance of its direct responsibility for the Holocaust has strengthened its relationship with Israel and has led to a deep commitment to combat antisemitism and rebuild Jewish life in Germany. As we draw close to a time when there will be no more firsthand experience of the horrors of the Holocaust, there is great concern about what will happen when German responsibility turns into history. Will the present taboo against open antisemitism be lifted as collective memory fades? There are alarming signs of the rise of the far right, which includes blatantly antisemitic elements, already visible in public discourse. …

Lost In Translation: A Critical Analysis Of The Libretto In Handel's Messiah, Jordan Lehto, Aaron Escamilla, Eden H. Nimietz

2020 Festschrift: Georg Frideric Handel's "Messiah"

Handel’s Messiah is renowned for its lush sound and richly developed message regarding the rejoicing of Christians and the celebration of religion through their faith in a divine savior. Not only is the full oratorio performed by countless ensembles every year, but many scholars have spent months, and even years, poring over its libretto. The conclusions they have come up with regarding the intentions of the librettist, Charles Jennens, have sparked much controversy over the years. Because of Jennens’ personal, religious beliefs, many scholars are concerned that much of his libretto is designed to discredit all other religions and proclaim …

“The Jews Love Numbers”: Steven L. Anderson, Christian Conspiracists, And The Spiritual Dimensions Of Holocaust Denial, Matthew H. Brittingham

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

From his pulpit at Faithful Word Baptist Church (Independent Fundamental Baptist) in Tempe, AZ, fundamentalist preacher Steven L. Anderson launches screeds against Catholics, LGBTQ people, evolutionary scientists, politicians, and anyone else who doesn't share his political, social, or theological views. Anderson publishes clips of his sermons on YouTube, where he has amassed a notable following. Teaming up with Paul Wittenberger of Framing the World, a small-time film company, Anderson produced a film about the connections between Christianity, Judaism, and Israel, entitled Marching to Zion (2015), which was laced with antisemitic stereotypes. Anderson followed Marching to Zion with an almost 40-minute …

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.

Mobilizing Jewishness, Gabriella Foster

Honors Theses

As a dance practitioner and self-identified Jew, I am deeply committed to social action through performance. Over the course of the past year, I explored the capacity of contemporary dance practices to support Jews in reflecting on and conceptualizing their Jewish experience. Through literary and creative research, the designing and facilitating of movement workshops in mid-Maine Jewish communities, and the creation of an evening-length performance piece titled, Shelanu (Ours), I discovered the numerous ways in which these two aspects of my identity could enrich one another. In the wake of several anti-Semitic incidents both nationally and locally this year, this …

Seasoned Antisemitism: Cannibalism In The Destruction Of Jerusalem, Bailey Ludwig

English and Creative Writing Summer Fellows

My project examines an episode of maternal cannibalism within the medieval poem The Destruction of Jerusalem. Several variations of the story of the 70 AD Roman siege of Jerusalem that include this particular episode exist; the story even has roots in the bible. I am looking at the poem within this context and noting its differences in order to best determine its intentions. This version, more so than any other I have encountered, eliminates complicating factors, such as the murder of the child or presence of male figures, in order to make its antisemitic message as direct as possible. The …

Review Of Dumitru, Diana, The State, Antisemitism, And Collaboration In The Holocaust: The Borderlands Of Romania And The Soviet Union And Geissbühler, Simon, Ed., Romania And The Holocaust: Events, Contexts, Aftermath, Stefan Cristian Ionescu

History Faculty Articles and Research

Reviews of The State, Antisemitism, and Collaboration in the Holocaust: The Borderlands of Romania and the Soviet Union by Diana Dumitru and Romania and the Holocaust: Events, Contexts, Aftermath, edited by Simon Geissbühler.

Commitment To Understanding And Understanding Commitment: Reflections And Dilemmas At The Intersection Of Racial Justice And My Jewish Identity, Devra Goldstein

Sustainability and Social Justice

As discussions of intersectionality and justice deepen and expand, this paper calls activists to include analyses of antisemitism in identity politics and organizing initiatives, most notably racial justice. I situate my critique of the silence around antisemitism in current analyses of antisemitism in social justice organizing. I draw on traditions of Yiddish storytelling and share five autoethnographic narratives from my personal experiences of pursuing racial justice and resisting antisemitism. Through these stories, I illustrate some of the points of tension and opportunity at the intersection of antisemitism and racism. When I explore the nuances of navigating this intersection, I find …

Jewish Perspectives On Christian Privilege: A Consensual Qualitative Study, Robert Kinney

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Although multicultural considerations, privilege, and oppression are of current interest across the field, much of the extant research has failed to explore religiosity as a component of the psychological literature. Using Consensual Qualitative Research (CQR) the authors set out to gain an understanding of Christian privilege and the impact it has on Jewish Identity. A sample of 12 adult, American, non-Orthodox Jews were interviewed using a semi-structured interview protocol. The interview data was collected to better understand the manifestations of Christian privilege and the impact of said issues on participant’s lives and identities. Seven themes were identified (1) Personal Conceptualization …

Germans, Jews And Turks (Spring 2010), Robert D. Tobin

Syllabi

This class studies the expression of cultural identity in central European literature. How have people come to think of themselves or others as “Germans,” “Jews,” “Turks,” or some combinations thereof? While the Holocaust is obviously central to the German-Jewish relationship, it is not the only focus of this course—we will read literary reflections of the emancipation of the Jews, of German-Jewish assimilation and symbiosis, of the rise of anti-Semitism and Zionism, as well as attempts to remember the past. And while the long history of the relationship between Jews and non-Jews in Germany will be a major component of our …

Creation Of Paranoia, Part I, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This article explores parallels between delusions and paranoia suffered by society and by the mentally ill. Motives behind the creation of paranoia are discussed. Focus is given to creation of paranoia toward the Jewish people, because this social pathology has infected most of the world for a greater period of time than any other. Reaction to rejection of ideology is found to be an important motive for creation of paranoia in society. Other manifestations of social paranoia, such as the creation of false memories, are also discussed. (Note 1: The article is written by Dr. Karl Ericson. Dr. Ericson has …

Russophobia And Judophobia Backlash In Extremist Russian Nationalism, 1987-1990, Connie Moray

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

In the late 1980s the former Soviet Union witnessed an increase in Russian nationalist extremist activity. Russian nationalist extremism was a backlash against a perceived decline in Russian status and a re-evaluation of such basic concepts as what it means to be Russian. Two manifestations of this backlash were russophobia and judophobia.

This thesis employs concepts used by American sociologists Seymour Martin Lipset and Earl Raab in their study of right-wing extremist groups in the United States to gain new insight into the nature of Russian nationalist extremism. Primary sources used include the writings of important Russian nationalists including Igor …

Religious Instruction, Sophia Cavalletti

The Bridge: A Yearbook of Judaeo-Christian Studies, Vol. V, Brothers in Hope

An examination of what can be done about the correct religious instruction of Catholics in properly understanding Jews and Judaism. Translated from the Italian by Arnold P. De Rosa.

Points Of Departure, Clemens Thoma

The Bridge: A Yearbook of Judaeo-Christian Studies, Vol. V, Brothers in Hope

This work proposes that the pivot of the Christian conversation with Jews lies in a true understanding of the Scriptures of Old and New Testaments, as well as in the recognition and acceptance of the historical developments that could derive from both. The article was translated from the German by Helga Croner,

The Theologian And The Land Of Israel, John M. Oesterreicher

The Bridge: A Yearbook of Judaeo-Christian Studies, Vol. V, Brothers in Hope

Msgr. Oesterreicher argues that the are no biblical or theological reasons that should impel a Christian theologian to deny the lasting union between God and Israel.

The Christian Debt To Pharisaism, J. Massingberd Ford

The Bridge: A Yearbook of Judaeo-Christian Studies, Vol. V, Brothers in Hope

An examination of the contributions the Pharisees made to Judaism and Christianity.