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Articles 1 - 30 of 37
Full-Text Articles in Folklore
Does Reporting Of Israeli Organ Harvesting Constitute Blood Libelous Folklore, And Why Does It Matter?, Simon J. Bronner
Does Reporting Of Israeli Organ Harvesting Constitute Blood Libelous Folklore, And Why Does It Matter?, Simon J. Bronner
Jewish Folklore and Ethnology
Global news reporting of “organ harvesting” by Israeli soldiers for medical institutions in the twenty-first century is analyzed as “newslore,” defined by folklorist- journalist Russell Frank as “folklore that comments on, and is therefore indecipherable without knowledge of, current events.” Built on hearsay, the reports, especially in the Arab press during the Israel-Hamas War, begun in 2023, have connections to a complex of antisemitic “blood libel” narratives in Europe about Jews violating the bodies of Christian children. The accusations of organ harvesting invoked a number of antisemitic tropes that were visually conveyed globally through memes and posts on the internet, …
Words Of War: The Rhetorical Weapons Of Folklore After October 7, Steve Siporin
Words Of War: The Rhetorical Weapons Of Folklore After October 7, Steve Siporin
Jewish Folklore and Ethnology
The chant “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” became well known after the beginning of the Israel-Hamas War (October 7, 2023) due to its widespread use at anti-Israel demonstrations and on news broadcasts, social media, and YouTube videos. A retort that mocked the inability of demonstrators who espoused the slogan to answer the questions “Which river? Which sea?” also circulated widely. Noncombatants on the domestic front relied on these two items of folklore (among others), a chant and a retort, to support their aims and satisfy their emotions. This essay traces the origins of each of …
Jewish Women’S Folk Memory Of Argentine Schooldays, 1900–1955, Jacqueline Laznow
Jewish Women’S Folk Memory Of Argentine Schooldays, 1900–1955, Jacqueline Laznow
Jewish Folklore and Ethnology
This essay explores the folkloric formation of Jewish-Argentine female identity through schoolyard experiences and domestic resistance in the first half of the twentieth century. Drawing on interviews with women who later made aliyah, the study analyzes these accounts as personal experience narratives, arguing that painful memories of antisemitism and “otherness” are cognitively restructured through folk processes into a symbolic frame for communal interpretation. These narratives function as “legend discourse,” sparking commentary and intergenerational transmission, and serve as mechanisms for reconstructing daily life within a dominant Christian culture. They reveal a “hyphenated” Jewish-Argentine identity reimagined from the perspective of the narrators’ …
Folk Narratives Of “The Wandering Jew” (Atu 777) In Latvian Folklore, Svetlana Pogodina
Folk Narratives Of “The Wandering Jew” (Atu 777) In Latvian Folklore, Svetlana Pogodina
Jewish Folklore and Ethnology
This essay reports field-collected texts of “The Wandering Jew” (ATU 777) recorded in the twentieth century in Latvia to determine if they are distinctive within the global tradition of the folk narrative. The Archives of Latvian Folklore (Latviešu folkloras krātuve) collection contains versions of the narrative recorded in the 1920s and 1930s. These texts have not previously been published in English translation. An interpretation is made that the narratives borrow elements from Jewish stereotypes that exist in a local folklore tradition. Comparing the Latvian material to the European and Slavic versions of the story of the Eternal Jew, a major …
Introduction: The Folklore And Ethnology Of Antisemitism, Simon J. Bronner
Introduction: The Folklore And Ethnology Of Antisemitism, Simon J. Bronner
Jewish Folklore and Ethnology
A global rise in incidents and beliefs in the twenty-first century that monitoring and polling organizations label “antisemitic” raises several questions addressed by contributors to this special issue. A basic one is definitional regarding discourse about the shifting meaning of antisemitism in light of post-Holocaust events and digital age communication. A historical question is whether contemporary forms of antisemitism are connected to or a break from the term’s nineteenth-century roots. Related to that issue in modern discourse is whether antisemitism is an umbrella concept or separate from anti-Judaism, anti-Jewish, anti-Israel, and anti-Zionism movements. The materials of folklore—both as esoteric forms …
From A Shtetl House To An Urban Apartment: The Soviet Jewish Home Negotiated, Transformed, And Reimagined, Anna Kushkova
From A Shtetl House To An Urban Apartment: The Soviet Jewish Home Negotiated, Transformed, And Reimagined, Anna Kushkova
Jewish Folklore and Ethnology
This essay argues that despite the powerful forces of assimilation, official campaigns against Jewish religion/languages, and grassroots/state antisemitism, the “Jewish home” did not disappear, as is sometimes assumed, but continued to present a site of Jewish ethnic production and transmission, creativity, and resistance during the Soviet regime. In the Soviet Union, especially in the postwar period, Jewish ethnic culture was forced to leave the public sphere, where it became unwelcome and even dangerous, and withdrew into the less visible space of domestic interiors. The degree of Jewish public presence varied geographically: the situation was generally better in the Baltic Republics, …
Hiding From Kohanim: Covering Hands, Faces, And Children With A Tallit During The Priestly Blessing, Zvi Ron
Hiding From Kohanim: Covering Hands, Faces, And Children With A Tallit During The Priestly Blessing, Zvi Ron
Jewish Folklore and Ethnology
When the priestly blessing is performed as part of prayer services in both Ashkenazic and Sephardic communities, many of the members of the congregation can be seen covering themselves with their tallit, and also covering their children. The practice evolved from the Talmudic reference of not looking at Kohanim while they recite this blessing in the Temple, because of the Divine Presence resting on their hands and the belief that looking at it would damage a person’s vision. Later authorities expanded this to blessings outside the Temple as well, leading to the practice of Kohanim covering themselves and their outstretched …
The Uncanny, The October 7 Massacre, And The Folktale “The Wolf And The Kids” (Atu 123), Ravit Raufman
The Uncanny, The October 7 Massacre, And The Folktale “The Wolf And The Kids” (Atu 123), Ravit Raufman
Jewish Folklore and Ethnology
Following Freud’s claim that folktales do not necessarily evoke uncanny experiences, this essay presents a case in which a folktale brought to life in the form of real-world events evokes uncanny experiences. The essay examines testimonies from the October 7 events in light of the folktale identified as “The Wolf and the Kids” (ATU 123) and proposes that beyond the horrors that occurred in the massacre, the comparative discussion reveals an additional level of terror, related to the way fairy tale experiences take on flesh and bone.
“Holy Trash” And The Tears Of The Deceased: The Emotional Role Of Genizot For The Jewish Communities Of Central Europe, Nathanael Riemer
“Holy Trash” And The Tears Of The Deceased: The Emotional Role Of Genizot For The Jewish Communities Of Central Europe, Nathanael Riemer
Jewish Folklore and Ethnology
Since the 1980s, more than seventy genizot (Heb., repositories) have been rediscovered in former synagogues of Central Europe. A genizah is a room in or near a synagogue where damaged, discarded, or heretical texts and sacred relics are stored. This essay examines where, when, and why genizot developed in Central Europe. It also analyzes the emotional significance of the genizot for their respective communities. Historical and literary sources show that genizot were placed in the synagogue attics of Jewish metropolises from the seventeenth century at the latest and were usually not ritually buried. Smaller communities in rural regions adopted this …
“Have I Asked The Name Of That Fish?”: Synagogue Humor In Contemporary Hungary, Richard Papp
“Have I Asked The Name Of That Fish?”: Synagogue Humor In Contemporary Hungary, Richard Papp
Jewish Folklore and Ethnology
Jews who remained in Hungary after the Shoah almost completely abandoned their religious life because of the communist regime’s politics of assimilation. After the regime change in 1989, synagogue attendance rose and a renewed interest in ethnic-religious traditions was evident among Hungarian Jews. However, not knowing the ethnic traditions, they were unable to follow the religious commandments. Ethnographic observation in a synagogue in Budapest shows that ensuing communal tensions were eased by humor. Humor also became a marker of identity in the synagogue, by which even those who did not fully follow religious norms identified themselves as “imperfect but religious …
Theorizing Rabbinic Folklore: The Miraculous Sleep Of The Holy Man, Gal Sela
Theorizing Rabbinic Folklore: The Miraculous Sleep Of The Holy Man, Gal Sela
Jewish Folklore and Ethnology
The miraculous sleep (ATU 766) is a well-known, recurring tale-type observed in Abrahamic folktales since the Second Temple period. This study compares variants of ATU 766 on three levels of analysis: as a popular tale in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim writings from late antiquity and early medieval times; as a Jewish rendition; and as a multiple tale-type in rabbinic literature. The analysis engages with Dan Ben-Amos’s critical work concerning the use of syntactic methods in folklore studies to analyze Midrash and Aggadah. The essay offers a new theoretical perspective on rabbinic folklore using the notions of tale-type, ecotype, …
Editorial: Jewish Cultural Scholarship And Scholars—And Their Institutions—Under Duress, Simon J. Bronner, Amy K. Milligan, Tsafi Sebba-Elran
Editorial: Jewish Cultural Scholarship And Scholars—And Their Institutions—Under Duress, Simon J. Bronner, Amy K. Milligan, Tsafi Sebba-Elran
Jewish Folklore and Ethnology
The editors of Jewish Folklore and Ethnology (JFE) express concern about intimidation and estrangement of Israeli and Jewish professors in the international academic community after the surprise attack by Hamas in southern Israel on October 7, 2023. The editors point out that these types of hurtful antisemitic incidents against Israeli and Jewish academics preceded the attack, and they call on their colleagues and administrators to voice their outrage at the harassment, boycotts, and violence against Israeli and Jewish academics in addition to the suppression of Jewish studies, and their adverse effects on scholarship as well as Jewish students and their …
Contributors, Jewish Folkore & Ethnology Editors
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
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
(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
“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
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
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
“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 …
Contributors, Jewish Folklore And Ethnology Editors
Contributors, Jewish Folklore And Ethnology Editors
Jewish Folklore and Ethnology
Author biographies for contributors to this issue.
Yahrzeit ... Haya Bar-Itzhak (1946–2020), Simon J. Bronner
Yahrzeit ... Haya Bar-Itzhak (1946–2020), Simon J. Bronner
Jewish Folklore and Ethnology
Haya Bar-Itzhak was a driving force behind this journal and a shaper of the global study of Jewish folklore and ethnology. In her teaching, writing, and editing, she brought into relief the long lineage of work in periodicals devoted to Jewish folklore beginning in the nineteenth century (Bar-Itzhak 2010, 16–26) and inspired the editors of Jewish Folklore and Ethnology (JFE) with a vision for a journal that would go beyond an audience of Jews to become indispensable for all folklorists and ethnologists. The JFE editors, indeed all who care about understanding tradition, lost a friend and mentor when …
Yiddish Songs And Jewish Futures: A Besere Velt, Partisan Music, And Modern Performance, Justine Orlovsky-Schnitzler
Yiddish Songs And Jewish Futures: A Besere Velt, Partisan Music, And Modern Performance, Justine Orlovsky-Schnitzler
Jewish Folklore and Ethnology
A Besere Velt, the Boston Worker’s Circle community chorus, performs for a modern audience the music of Yiddish-speaking Jewish partisans and ghetto resisters. Through active transmission and re-interpretation of partisan and ghetto songs, A Besere Velt invokes East-European Jewish tradition and creates a liminal space ripe with new possibility. In the process, the chorus gives these old songs life for contemporary Jews. The analysis situates the songs within the genre of Yiddish music and investigates through interviews ways that members build meaning through the performance of partisan music, the construction of Jewish space, and the promise of Jewish futures.
Landscape Into Legend: Tracking Lost Tribes And Crypto-Jews Across New Mexican Terrain, Judith S. Neulander
Landscape Into Legend: Tracking Lost Tribes And Crypto-Jews Across New Mexican Terrain, Judith S. Neulander
Jewish Folklore and Ethnology
The essay traces the “Lost Tribes of Israel” legend to the purported academic discovery of lost and hidden “crypto-Jews” in contemporary New Mexico. The essay explores perceptions and beliefs of Jewish diasporic survival and identity in folkloristic, religious, historical, and genomic contexts. Analysis exposes pseudo-ethnography and pseudoscience as the basis for New Mexican claims, influenced in part by habitual association of the regional landscape with lost, hidden, and/or “wandering” Jews.
Gendered Foods And Traditions Among Argentine Jewry, Jacqueline Laznow
Gendered Foods And Traditions Among Argentine Jewry, Jacqueline Laznow
Jewish Folklore and Ethnology
Examining layers of meaning found in personal stories, folktales, memoirs, recipes, and cookbooks collected from interviewees in Argentina and in Israel, this essay interprets the women’s role in Jewish-Argentine identity formation and preservation in connection to processes of forming private and collective memory. Traditional Jewish foodways generally and gefilte-fish specifically in contrast to traditional Argentine foodways such as meat grilling are analyzed as a symbolic praxis that strengthens Argentine identity.
The Rise Of Judaic Calligraphy In The Twentieth Century, Stephen Michael Cohen
The Rise Of Judaic Calligraphy In The Twentieth Century, Stephen Michael Cohen
Jewish Folklore and Ethnology
Excluding religiously required safrut (e.g., handwritten Torah scrolls, mezuzot, tefillin, gittin), artistic aspects of Judaic calligraphy declined after moveable type was invented in the fifteenth century. Rediscovery of medieval calligraphic techniques in late nineteenth-century Britain, plus contemporaneous typographical studies in Germany, spurred revival of artistic calligraphy. The first Arts and Crafts movement, pre-World War I German research into aesthetic letterforms, and the Bezalel Academy sparked a rise of secularized Judaic calligraphy. Growth of folk arts and ethnic pride in the 1960s and accessible photocopiers in the 1970s allowed nonspecialists to become expert calligraphers.
Bird Spies And Poisoned Tomatoes: New Rumors And Legends In The Middle East, Steve Siporin
Bird Spies And Poisoned Tomatoes: New Rumors And Legends In The Middle East, Steve Siporin
Jewish Folklore and Ethnology
New rumors and legends about spy animals, attack animals, and attempted mass poisonings, all purportedly the work of Israel, circulate in Middle Eastern newspapers, television, and radio. This essay answers two sets of questions regarding these narratives, one regarding belief and the other regarding antisemitism. The analysis shows that the rumors and legends express attitudes in addition to conveying information. Whether or not any, some, or all these transgressions occurred, the narratives ineluctably serve to assert and confirm the depravity of a constructed enemy. They reveal unexpected continuities with age-old antisemitic folklore.