Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Contributors, Jewish Folkore & Ethnology Editors

Jewish Folklore and Ethnology

Contributors to Jewish Folklore and Ethnology Volume 2

In Memoriam: Tamar Alexander-Frizer (1945–2023), Eli Yassif

Jewish Folklore and Ethnology

Memorial Essay for Professor Tamar Alexander (1945-2023)

(Candle)Sticks On Stone: The Representation Of Women In Jewish Tombstone Art, Ruth Ellen Gruber

Jewish Folklore and Ethnology

Candles and candlesticks are a common and potent symbol on the gravestones of Jewish women because lighting the Sabbath candles is one of the three so-called “women’s commandments” carried out by female Jews; it is the only one easily represented in visual terms. This essay describes the author’s field research, photographic, and writing project, “(Candlesticks) on Stone,” carried out mainly in 2009–2011, to explore the variety of ways candles and candlesticks are depicted on women’s gravestones in Eastern Europe. It also questions the transmission of the candle-lighting tradition from her East European ancestors to later generations.

“In Proverbiis Non Semper Veritas”: Reflections On The Reprint Of An Antisemitic Proverb Collection, Wolfgang Mieder

Jewish Folklore and Ethnology

This article concerns the highly questionable 2016 reprint of Ernst Hiemer’s antisemitic proverb collection Der Jude im Sprichwort der Völker (1942, The Jew in the Proverbs of the People). It begins with a glance at earlier antisemitic proverb collections while also reviewing some of the superb Yiddish and Jewish/Hebrew proverb collections and serious studies on this rich repertoire of proverbs. This is followed by a discussion of the misguided antisemitic publications of the nineteenth century that were precursors of even more slanderous and prejudiced collections that appeared during the time of National Socialism. It is shown that both traditional …

Why Were There No Jokes After The 2021 Meron Crowd Crush? On Israeli “Joking Relationships”, Tsafi Sebba-Elran

Jewish Folklore and Ethnology

The vast research literature on disaster jokes demonstrates that no calamity is too horrific to be followed by jokes that typically recontextualize traumatic events and channel the threatening voices that these events provoke. Why, then, did no jokes circulate after the deadliest civil disaster in Israel’s history, which occurred on Mount Meron during the Lag Ba’Omer celebrations in April 2021? Drawing upon the ethnographic concept of “joking relationships,” this essay documents representations of ultra-Orthodox Jews (Haredim) in contemporary Israeli memes and explains the restraint that Israeli society shows toward this group with whom the Meron disaster is associated. …

The Besht As Ba’Al Shem: Magic In The Life And Legacy Of Israel Ba’Al Shem Tov, Elly Moseson

Jewish Folklore and Ethnology

Israel Ba’al Shem Tov (the Besht), the purported founder of the Hasidic movement, achieved renown during his lifetime as a holy man and a ba’al shem—a magician and folk healer. This paper surveys the sources containing evidence pertaining to the Besht’s medico-magical activities, presents the variety of recipes and rituals that have been preserved in his name, and explores the implications these hold for understanding his life and legacy. It further argues that the centrality of magic we find in the life of the Besht did not disappear with his death but was maintained within the Hasidic movement that …

“Let Me Tell You Some Stories, And You Will Record Them”: Dan Ben-Amos And The Study Of Jewish Folklore And Ethnology, Simon J. Bronner

Jewish Folklore and Ethnology

Dan Ben-Amos (1934–2023) was associated with groundbreaking work beginning during the 1960s on concepts of context and performance and the paradigm shift in folkloristics with his groundbreaking essay “Toward a Definition of Folklore in Context.” His odyssey from Israel to the United States, including formative experiences as a youth absorbing ideas about social reality and Jewish folklore as counterculture, has a profound influence on an equally profound shift in the understanding of Jewish experience as well as on the globalization of folkloristics as a discipline. In addition to interpreting his culminating work of the Folktales of the Jews series of …

Note On Transliteration

Jewish Folklore and Ethnology

.

Surveys: Who's Asking? Who's Answering? Is Anybody Listening?, Virginia C. Thomas

Library Scholarly Publications

The author examines the historical impact of surveys and opinion polls on the U.S. Congress.

Exploring Arab Americans’ Preferences Towards Telemedicine As A Mental Health Treatment, George G. Kidess, Liam Browning, Nicole Oska, Liza Hinchey, Arwa Saleem, Sadie Knill, Malaak Elhage, Arash Javanbakht

Medical Student Research Symposium

Introduction

Arab Americans—a large minority group in the United States—experience higher rates of mental illness and relatively lower rates of treatment compared to the general population. While some factors leading to this disparity have been proposed, data in the literature remains lacking. This study aims to explore Arab-American mental health perspectives with regards to their preferences towards telemental health as a treatment option.

Methods

Responses were collected through an anonymous bilingual Qualtrics survey from both Arab and non-Arab participants (n=294, ages 18+). Participants’ perceptions towards telemental health and mental illness stigma were assessed, performing comparisons between Arabs and non-Arabs, as …

Mental Health Attitudes And Perspectives Of Arab Americans: Beliefs Associated With Stigma, Treatment, And The Origins Of Pathology, Sadie Knill, Liam Browning, Nicole Oska, George Kidess, Liza Hinchey, Arwa Saleem, Malaak Elhage, Arash Javanbakht

Medical Student Research Symposium

Purpose:

Arab Americans are one of the largest ethnic groups in the United States. Despite elevated incidence of mental illness and diminished rates of treatment within this community, the mental health of Arab Americans, along with their attitudes towards mental health, has not received adequate study. Unique cultural interpretations of mental illness may engender stigma, exacerbating disparities in treatment. This study aimed to assess the attitudes and perspectives of Arab Americans concerning mental illness, with the goal of identifying and addressing barriers to treatment.

Methods:

Using an anonymous bilingual Qualtrics survey, we assessed Arab and non-Arab participants (n = 294; …

Investigating Arab American Perspectives On Barriers To Mental Health Treatment, Arwa Saleem, Liam Browning, Nicole Oska, George Kidess, Liza Hinchey, Sadie Knill, Malaak Elhage, Arash Javanbakht

Medical Student Research Symposium

Purpose: Compared to the general population, Arab Americans experience higher rates of mental illness and lower rates of mental health treatment. While some causes of this discrepancy have been suggested, there are many gaps in the literature since Arab Americans are not recognized as an ethnic group in the United States. This study aims to analyze Arab-Americans’ outlook on mental health by identifying and addressing the barriers to receiving mental health treatment.

Methods: An anonymous bilingual Qualtrics survey was conducted and responses were collected from Arab and non-Arab participants (n=294, ages 18+). The participants’ viewpoints on barriers between Arabs and …

M-Chat Implementation Strategies To Improve Autism Screening Rates In Pediatric Clinics In Metro Detroit, Karamoja Monchamp

Medical Student Research Symposium

The Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers (M-CHAT) is the most widely used autism screening tool. However, current practices for M-CHAT roll-outs and follow-ups are not wide-reaching, culturally sensitive, or consistent. This study aims to address the existing barriers to universal autism screenings and design a sustainable implementation strategy for a successful M-CHAT roll-out. We implemented strategies in five Henry Ford Health pediatric clinics, incorporating iPad-administered M-CHAT in waiting rooms, multilingual options, task shifting for referrals, forced choice mechanisms, and audit-and-feedback support. A Clinical Screening Dashboard tracked real-time M-CHAT data, including demographic information, collected from EPIC. Our goal is to …

Racial Disparities In Palliative Care Utilization In The Covid-19 Pandemic, Margaret S. Bove, Benjamin Huber, Myles Hardeman, Daniel Harris, Areeba Jawed, Amber Comer

Medical Student Research Symposium

BACKGROUND

Palliative care is a vital resource for the critically or terminally ill. It has myriad benefits such as improved quality of life, reduced depressive symptoms, and decreased scarce resource utilization. Self-identified Black/African patients, however, are less likely to utilize advanced care directives or engage in hospice/comfort care measures and are more likely to prefer intensive treatment at the end of life. There is no research, however, on how the COVID-19 pandemic may have affected these trends.

METHODS

A retrospective cohort study of patients who experienced in hospital mortality or in hospital hospice due to COVID-19 between March 2020 – …

Examining Causes And Outcomes Of Migration Patterns Out Of Southeast Michigan, Alex B. Hill, Rayman Mohamed, Allan Yang

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Research Publications

This report describes a survey of U-Haul patrons regarding their experiences utilizing U-Haul to move out of the Southeast Michigan region.

Executive Summary

In the latest U-Haul Growth Index, the state of Michigan moved from ranking 48 out of 50 states up to 46. This represents a relatively small change that doesn’t relate to the documented population loss in the state.

The city of Detroit and Michigan are both at critical crossroads. Population declines are pushing local officials to come up with new and unique programs to attract new residents, new business investment, and new tax revenue.

The reasons that …

Decolonizing Descriptions In Library Archives, Michael J. Daronco

School of Information Sciences Student Scholarship

Descriptions in a library archive are the anchoring guide to all information that’s available to those who are researching a subject of their choosing. For hundreds of years, estates, historical documents, artifacts, moving images, and sound material have been donated to libraries and universities for the use of higher education, but without a tool to help one navigate the endless amount of information, knowledge will become doormat if there’s no organizational means of looking it up. With the use of Describing Archives: A Content Standard (DACS), this system can help provide direction towards what you’re looking for to the point …

Protecting The Integrity Of Archives, Sean Daigle

School of Information Sciences Student Scholarship

This article examines the problem of fraudulent and stolen materials being introduced into archives. If these issues become common enough, people will not trust archives or history itself. Archivists can fight these problems by learning how to spot potential sellers of stolen or fraudulent items. They can also catalog unique aspects of their collections and share them on the internet, dedicate more resources to security, and hire experts when items’ authenticity is called into question. The most helpful step they can take, however, is being so diligent about establishing provenance that provenance becomes a security measure in itself. Ultimately, resources …

Issues Of Description And Access For The Graystone And Other Collections At The Detroit Sound Conservancy, Daniel Joseph E. Kelly

School of Information Sciences Student Scholarship

In this mixed case study research paper, I examine how Community Archives deal with issues of access and difficulties of description, especially with hard-to-describe materials. I first discuss the general role of a community archive. I then discuss some of the issues faced by community archives through the lens of three collections at the Detroit Sound Conservancy (DSC) that are complicated when it comes to matters of description. The case study part of this project is based on my own experience working on collections at the DSC and from interviews with Michelle McKinney, the Archivist at the DSC. The first …

Representing Historically Marginalized Communities In Archives: Moving Beyond Lcsh To Create More Inclusive Subject Headings, Melissa A. Ewing

School of Information Sciences Student Scholarship

The Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) are widely used around the world in libraries and archives to add access points for users searching their collections. This can be problematic because LCSH has many embedded issues including inconsistency and complexity, the myth of neutrality that surrounds it, systemic biases, and how slow it is to change. These problems lead to poor descriptions of people, especially those who belong to historically marginalized communities. Archives can move beyond LCSH to create local thesauri, crowdsourced vocabularies, and collaborative partnerships with historically marginalized communities to create more inclusive subject headings.

Museum Preparedness In The Digital Age, Mary Jatkowski

School of Information Sciences Student Scholarship

In 2001, Neil Beagrie coined the term, “digital curation” at the Digital Preservation Coalition sponsored conference in London. This new term launched a field of study which has since beenadopted by various disciplines within the sciences and humanities. Cultural heritage organizations like libraries and archives adapted the new field, by refining and formalizing standards and practices of digital curation to cater to their diverse cultural and historical collections. LIS graduate programs have embraced the field of study with rigorous curricula like DigCCurr which trains students in the various aspects of curation and preservation, from metadata standards to selection and …

Arbiters Of Ugliness: A Review Of Strategies For Describing Offensive Archival Materials, Leah Minadeo

School of Information Sciences Student Scholarship

As archivists increasingly concede that neutrality is impossible, we suggest that non-action is still action. It follows that to treat reasonably offensive records as any other record is to apply an interpretation that they are innocuous, unremarkable, and uncontroversial. Archivists may perceive the stakes of describing these materials as particularly high, but they lack a comprehensive set of descriptive strategies in consideration of interpretive ethics. As a result, existing practices are likely to be local or ad hoc. This research aims to identify and explore descriptive strategies archivists use which serve to construct (or concede) the meaning that certain historical …

Autism Spectrum Disorder: An Insider’S Perspective In Public And Academic Libraries, Ryan N. Lamberts

School of Information Sciences Student Scholarship

The purpose of this paper is to bring to light the social issue of the Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and how public and academic libraries are making strides to better serve this branch of the population. Definitions will be provided to better explain what challenges ASD patrons face. In turn, librarians across America, specifically in Illinois and Ohio in recent years, have come together to discuss in both literature and national forums what they are continually doing to better serve, educate, and support their patrons and train their librarians. ASD is a complex social issue faced by millions; one widely …

Genrefication In Secondary School Libraries, Lindsay E. Pulsipher

School of Information Sciences Student Scholarship

Most school libraries organize fiction books alphabetically by an author’s last name. In order for a student to find and compare potential fiction reading material, the traditional school library model would have the student either search the library system for the topic and then go from stack to stack looking for books about the topic from any number of locations or seek advice from school library staff who would direct the student to potential titles as part of a reader’s advisory. In an effort to make fiction book selection easier for students, some school librarians have turned to genrefied fiction …

Representing Historically Marginalized Communities In Archives: Moving Beyond Lcsh To Create More Inclusive Subject Headings, Melissa Ewing

The Information Warrior Journal

The Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) are widely used around the world in libraries and archives to add access points for users searching their collections. This can be problematic because LCSH has many embedded issues including inconsistency and complexity, the myth of neutrality that surrounds it, systemic biases, and how slow it is to change. These problems lead to poor descriptions of people, especially those who belong to historically marginalized communities. Archives can move beyond LCSH to create local thesauri, crowdsourced vocabularies, and collaborative partnerships with historically marginalized communities to create more inclusive subject headings.

Genrefication In Secondary School Libraries, Lindsay Pulsipher

The Information Warrior Journal

Most school libraries organize fiction books alphabetically by an author’s last name. In order for a student to find and compare potential fiction reading material, the traditional school library model would have the student either search the library system for the topic and then go from stack to stack looking for books about the topic from any number of locations or seek advice from school library staff who would direct the student to potential titles as part of a reader’s advisory. In an effort to make fiction book selection easier for students, some school librarians have turned to genrefied fiction …

Arbiters Of Ugliness: A Review Of Strategies For Describing Offensive Archival Materials, Leah Minadeo

The Information Warrior Journal

As archivists increasingly concede that neutrality is impossible, we suggest that non-action is still action. It follows that to treat reasonably offensive records as any other record is to apply an interpretation that they are innocuous, unremarkable, and uncontroversial. Archivists may perceive the stakes of describing these materials as particularly high, but they lack a comprehensive set of descriptive strategies in consideration of interpretive ethics. As a result, existing practices are likely to be local or ad hoc. This research aims to identify and explore descriptive strategies archivists use which serve to construct (or concede) the meaning that certain historical …

Autism Spectrum Disorder: An Insider’S Perspective In Public And Academic Libraries, Ryan Lamberts

The Information Warrior Journal

The purpose of this paper is to bring to light the social issue of the Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and how public and academic libraries are making strides to better serve this branch of the population. Definitions will be provided to better explain what challenges ASD patrons face. In turn, librarians across America, specifically in Illinois and Ohio in recent years, have come together to discuss in both literature and national forums what they are continually doing to better serve, educate, and support their patrons and train their librarians. ASD is a complex social issue faced by millions; one widely …

Development Of Model Vaccination Initiative In Detroit, Muhammad Tarar

Rushton Journal of Undergraduate Humanities Research

The distribution of vaccines to Detroit residents faced significant challenges during the COVID-19 health crisis. Vaccine distribution was slow, ineffective, and resulted in significant disparities in vaccine coverage among various racial and ethnic populations. This study examines existing data barriers to vaccination efforts in the United States, including common factors associated with vaccine hesitancy and attempts to identify factors that impact racial and ethnic disparities in vaccine coverage. Finally, this study examines successful vaccination initiatives from other cities in the United States to discuss a model vaccination initiative in Detroit.

Bad Apples Or A Rotten Orchard: Detroit Police Culture And Its Protection Of Corruption, Megan Quick

Rushton Journal of Undergraduate Humanities Research

In the light of substantial police corruption and misconduct in the history of the Detroit Police force, the defense of “a few bad apples” is frequently proffered. To examine the validity of the bad apple defense, this paper examines how the DPD’s leadership and rank and file officers responded to allegations and criminal charges for police corruption under Mayor Coleman A. Young. The paper concludes that police culture played a role in law enforcement corruption and points to the importance of understanding police corruption and its causes to better address the issue.

Double Consciousness, Mirrors, And The Children Within Them: A Conceptual Reading Of W. E. B. Du Bois's "As The Crow Flies", Adeline Navarro

Rushton Journal of Undergraduate Humanities Research

This research essay argues that W. E. B. Du Bois’s Crow from his magazine column “As the Crow Flies” is a figurative device for double consciousness and examines how aspects of double consciousness are present in the frequent motifs of dialectic doubleness in the column. Drawing from scholar Rudine Sims Bishop, this essay explores how the Crow functions as a mirror that children can use to realize their own double consciousness and thus see themselves. This insight into Du Bois’s news column provides a further understanding of the significance of accessible, multicultural children’s literature.