bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Cinema Part 2: Heritage and Horror
Authors: Harmes Marcus K.
Published: February 2021

This chapter discusses The Curse of Frankenstein as a hybrid, adapting from a novel but by no means suggesting that the film is subordinate to the literature. The film instead sits in the trajectory established by Gainsborough period dramas, which the 'upstairs/downstairs' aesthetic of the Baron's world indicates. The chapter also discusses Terence Fisher's directing experience before he came to direct The Curse of Frankenstein and how his previous directions influenced his creation of the film. It describes his direction style and how he was able to create dynamic scenes in front of an almost stationary camera. The chapter discusses how The Curse of Frankenstein killed off the science-fiction thrillers that Hammer was producing. It compares and discusses the differences of reactions received by The Curse of Frankenstein with other films of the same genre. The chapter also discusses the portrayal of aristocracy on film and how aristocrats are far more acceptable than working-class characters as features to a horror film.
The ‘Great Thing’ and the ‘Small Thing’
Authors: Gillis David
Published: February 2021

This chapter examines what the idea of man as microcosm means for the place of the commandments in Maimonides' scheme of things. Mishneh torah's microcosmic form reflects the various parallels that Maimonides draws more or less explicitly in The Guide of the Perplexed between the laws of nature and the law of the Torah: both are perfect; both are permanent; both are accessible to reason. It implies the Torah's derivation from nature via the uniquely comprehensive prophecy of Moses, who understood God's governance of the world more perfectly than anyone before or since and translated this understanding into a system of laws. Despite Maimonides' programmatic remarks about ease of reference and so forth, the classification of the commandments in Mishneh torah is above all a rationalization of the commandments. Through its form, Mishneh torah presents them sub specie aeternitatis: they condense the rationality of the cosmos. Its treatment is to be distinguished from mystical interpretations that link the commandments to a supernal domain rather than to nature.
The Law of Adjudication
Authors: Novak David
Published: February 2021

This chapter discusses the law of adjudication. The rabbinic tradition presents two divergent positions on the nature of the law of adjudication. The first position, articulated most fully by Maimonides, was that this law was to be imposed upon gentiles by Jews; that is, ideally, Jewish judges would arbitrate Noahide laws for gentiles. The second position, advocated by Nahmanides, holds that non-Jews establish and maintain their own courts separate from Jewish courts, and judge based on the general principles of Noahide law. The chapter then looks at how the rabbis consistently moved Jewish law in the direction of Jewish and non-Jewish equality in matters of civil jurisprudence. The law of adjudication was also used by the rabbis to justify non-Jewish political authority over Jews. Finally, the chapter explores the principle of dina d'malkhuta dina (the law of the land is the law).
The Law of Blasphemy
Authors: Novak David
Published: February 2021

This chapter examines the law of blasphemy. Blasphemy is the explicit rejection of the God of Israel, who is also the God of the whole world, as a fundamental aspect (yesod) of Judaism. According to the rabbis, blasphemy is forbidden not only to Jews but also to gentiles, and the prohibition for Jews and non-Jews appears to be the same in the Talmudic sources. This is because reverence for God is assumed to be universal, an attitude written into human nature. Punishment for this sin, however, varies: gentiles are disciplined for misusing any divine name of God, whereas a more severe penalty is administered to Jews who blaspheme the Tetragrammaton. In the Hellenistic era, the Noahide prohibition of blasphemy was reevaluated by Josephus and Philo. The former wrote that no one, Jew or gentile, should blaspheme even the pagan gods, a tactic clearly prompted by concerns for Jewish flourishing in a wildly pluralistic environment where Jewish monotheism was an outlier. His contemporary, Philo, offered a more reflective response: he suggested no one ought to ridicule “the gods”—even though they were non-existent—as it would lead to contempt for the name of the true God.
The Law of Robbery
Authors: Novak David
Published: February 2021

This chapter focuses on the prohibition of robbery, which is based on the principle that society is necessary for human flourishing. And a central element of the construction of any human society is property, or the relation of persons to things, especially in economic transactions. The rabbinic tradition makes fine distinctions between Jews and gentiles regarding robbery, ultimately creating a double standard. Although the practical effects of a socially unfair law were removed, the rabbis maintained that Noahide law remained stricter than Jewish law regarding robbery. Like other violations of the Noahide commandments, the penalty was assumed to be death. In atypical historical circumstances—especially times of war or oppression—the rabbinic supposition was that all gentile robbery was aggressive and occurred because of anti-Jewish attitudes and not greed. Because the crime was ideological and not practical, its intent was far more lethal and therefore any act of robbery, no matter how minor, was to be punished with death.
The Law of the Torn Limb
Authors: Novak David
Published: February 2021

This chapter assesses the prohibition against tearing a limb from a living animal, which is explicit in Scripture, and the only one of the seven Noahide laws to be found immediately in the Torah. According to the rabbis, tearing a limb from a living animal was part of ancient pagan religious ritual, and thus was a species of idolatry. Clearly, such a practice was to be avoided by Israelites. At first view, this law appears limited in scope, but the chapter argues that it has implications for Jewish–gentile relations extending beyond the immediate purpose of the law. The chapter then demonstrates how Noahide law has directed some innovations within rabbinic law, namely, in reducing double standards in laws that pertain to both Jews and non-Jews. The law of the torn limb also introduces the question of nature in Jewish thought.
Maimonides’ Theory of Noahide Law
Authors: Novak David
Published: February 2021

This chapter describes Maimonides' theory of Noahide law. According to Maimonides, Noahide law is binding prior to its acceptance. It is written into the human constitution and exists before any possibility of assent. Maimonides maintains that there are three potential sources for knowledge of Noahide law: (1) the Mosaic tradition, both written and oral; (2) rational investigation; and (3) the general revelation found in the Torah. For Maimonides, the latter source is primary for gentiles. Despite the theocentric partiality here, he does not rule out rational investigation as a method for acquiring knowledge of the Noahide laws. Such a method is legally permissible, making its possessor both wise and moral, although theologically this method is insufficient. The chapter then reflects on the long-standing scholarly dispute concerning whether or not Maimonides engaged in natural law thinking. It considers the exegesis of his Hilchot Melachim (8:11), which has divided scholars on its true philosophical and philological meaning.
Late Medieval Developments
Authors: Novak David
Published: February 2021

This chapter studies how, following Maimonides and Albo, several other prominent Jewish thinkers reflected on the role of Noahide law both within Judaism internally and in relation to gentiles externally. Perhaps the medieval thinker who expanded the concept of the Noahide to its greatest point was Menachem ha-Meiri. He states definitively that there are no idolaters today like the pagans of the ancient world. Non-Jews are bound by religion, and clearly function in the moral universe as Noahides. By accepting the universal moral law, one that is written into the very essence of being human, Christians have a point of ethical commonality with the people of revelation. The chapter then argues that Meiri revived the biblical institution of the ger toshav, though of course absent the political dimension. It also considers the work of two nineteenth-century, Italian-Jewish thinkers: Samuel David Luzzatto and Elijah Benamozegh. Benamozegh presents a novel approach to Noahide law. He is the first—and, to this point, only—important Jewish philosopher to deem the content of this law to form a separate religion, “Noahism,” a religion that Benamozegh judged distinct from Judaism's monotheistic rivals.
Judaism and Buddhism
Authors: Gellman Jerome (Yehuda)
Published: February 2021

This chapter details how the author addresses the ‘godlessness’ of Buddhism, striving to understand Buddhism's benefits for Jews and their spiritual consciousness. As a traditionalist proceeding from a position of ‘religious exclusivist receptivity’, the author has learned about holiness from Buddhist spirituality in ways he, as a Jew, could not have imagined. Buddhism's aversion to metaphysical ontologizing and its non-theism have helped him shed the agonies of ‘the egocentric predicament’, functioning similarly to the hasidic concept of bitul hayesh (nullification of being). Paradoxically, this godless religion has taught him to focus his attention more successfully on the Jewish God — the permanent, infinite reality that transcends the human ego. It also helps him to understand the Jewish people's chosenness correctly, purged from nation-centrism and national self-absorption. The experiential and spiritual are primary here, while the formal theological issues of ‘alien worship’ that Buddhism may entail are secondary concerns.
The Challenge of a Jewish State
Authors: Weinberg David H.
Published: February 2021

This chapter investigates the first of three external challenges which defined Jewish life in western Europe in the late 1940s and 1950s. This was the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. For the first time in modern history, Jews could choose whether or not to live in the diaspora. There were hundreds of survivors in Belgium, France, and the Netherlands who were convinced that they had no future in Europe and migrated to Palestine as soon as they could. Those who chose not to were now forced to think more seriously about their decision to remain in western Europe. Zionist stalwarts, in particular, were challenged to reassess their role now that the Jewish state was a reality. What resulted was a transformation in collective and personal behaviour and attitudes that largely strengthened collective Jewish identity and commitment.
The Cold War: A Community Divided
Authors: Weinberg David H.
Published: February 2021

This chapter focuses on the Cold War, which split both Europe and its Jews into two camps. The Cold War imposed new barriers, both literally and figuratively. For the Jews of western Europe in particular, Soviet and American threats of unleashing nuclear missiles raised the prospect of a posthumous victory for Adolf Hitler over his ideological and ‘racial’ enemies. Divisions also arose in the communities themselves, reviving political debates from the interwar period that threatened to undo the fragile unity that leaders had attempted to forge after 1945. Yet rising East–West tensions did not totally paralyse west European Jewish communal life. Despite the formidable obstacles, both non-communist left-wing elements in the European Section of the World Jewish Congress (WJC) and mainstream leaders in western Europe worked diligently to steer a middle path between the demands of local political militants and leaders of Jewish organizations in the United States.
Hasidic Commentary on the Torah
Authors: Wiskind-Elper Ora
Published: February 2021

Hasidism, a movement of religious awakening and social reform, originated in the mid-eighteenth century. After two and a half centuries of crisis, upheaval, and renewal, it remains a vibrant way of life and a compelling aspect of Jewish experience. This book explores the profound intellectual and religious issues that the hasidic masters raised in their Torah commentary, and brings to the fore the living qualities of their sermons (derashot). The book addresses a spectrum of topics: creation, revelation, and redemption; hermeneutics, epistemology, psychology, Romanticism, poetry and poetics, art history, Hebrew fiction, cultural history, and tropes of Jewish suffering and hope. Fully engaged in the texts and their spirituality, the author brings them to bear on postmodernist challenges to traditional spiritual and religious sensibilities. The study uses the full range of critical scholarship on Hasidism as a social and ideological movement. At the same time, it maintains a strong focus on hasidic Torah commentary as a conveyor of theology and value. Each of its chapters presents a fundamentally new approach. The translations are in themselves an innovative moment in the tradition and spiritual history of the passages that the book offers.
Introduction
Authors: Wiskind-Elper Ora
Published: February 2021

This chapter begins with information about Hasidism, which is a movement of religious awakening, spiritual innovation, and social reform that originated in mid-eighteenth-century Ukraine. It addresses questions on what modern and enlightened Jewry makes of Hasidism, including its authentic message, historical significance and current relevance. It also aims to provide an understanding of Hasidism 'from the inside' or through its own literature and terms. The chapter discusses how a certain body of writing and commentary remained a compelling aspect of Jewish experience, as well as for spiritual seekers, for Hasidim of all times and places, and for academics of varied persuasions. It presents the relevant aspects of scholarship on Hasidism and considers the dominant attitudes and methodological assumptions on which it is founded.
Chapter Three The Torah Wrapper and the Torah Binder
Authors: Yaniv Bracha
Published: February 2021

Textile accessories for the Torah scroll are the most sacred ceremonial objects because they come into direct contact with the scroll. This is true of the wrapper (mapah, or mitpaḥat) and the accessories that evolved from it. Various aspects of the sanctity of these objects are discussed in the rabbinical literature. Rabbi Joseph ben Solomon Colon, who lived in fifteenth-century Italy, ruled that the mantle acquires its sanctity as soon as ‘the Torah scroll had been wrapped in the mantle [...
Chapter Five The Torah Ark Curtain and Valance
Authors: Yaniv Bracha
Published: February 2021

‘The curtain that is on the outside, in front of the ark, is like the parokhet in the Tabernacle, about which it is written “the curtain shall serve you as a partition” and so forth.’ This is how, in the early seventeenth century, Rabbi Joel ben Samuel Sirkes of Poland defined the essence of the ...
The Carved Wooden Torah Arks of Eastern Europe
Authors: Yaniv Bracha
Published: February 2021

The carved wooden Torah arks found in eastern Europe from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries were magnificent structures, unparalleled in their beauty and mystical significance. The work of Jewish artisans, they dominated the synagogues of numerous towns both large and small throughout the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, inspiring worshippers with their monumental scale and intricate motifs. Virtually none of these pieces survived the devastation of the two world wars. This book breathes new life into a lost genre, making it accessible to scholars and students of Jewish art, Jewish heritage, and religious art more generally. Making use of hundreds of pre-war photographs housed in local archives, the author develops a vivid portrait of the history and artistic development of these arks. Analysis of the historical context in which these arks emerged includes a broad survey of the traditions that characterized the local workshops of Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine. The author provides a detailed analysis of the motifs carved into the Torah arks and explains their mystical significance, among them representations of Temple imagery and messianic themes — and even daring visual metaphors for God. Fourteen arks are discussed in particular detail, with full supporting documentation; appendices relating to the inscriptions on the arks and to the artisans' names will further facilitate future research. The book throws new light on long-forgotten traditions of Jewish craftsmanship and religious understanding.
The Emergence of the Torah Ark from Antiquity to the Seventeenth Century
Authors: Yaniv Bracha
Published: February 2021

This chapter discusses the major function of the synagogue from the ancient period until the present as a 'little sanctuary' and a somewhat substitute for the Temple. It explains how a synagogue is seen as the abode of the Divine Presence, in which the concept was expressed by the sages in the talmudic literature and became embedded in the Jewish tradition. It also cites the physical building of the synagogue that serve as a replacement in the absence of the Temple, which made the entire manner of worship to undergo fundamental change. The chapter reviews practices, such as sounding the shofar or the procession with the Four Species, that were performed in the synagogue instead of the Temple. It mentions points out how daily worship of animal sacrifice being performed on the altar was replaced by the reading of Torah and reciting of prayers.
The Kingdom of God in the Little Sanctuary
Authors: Yaniv Bracha
Published: February 2021

This chapter addresses whether the visual manifestation of the Torah ark as the Throne of Glory symbolizes God's presence and analyses the base and the upper section of the ark. It examines arks that have a tall, architectonic design and comprise several tiers that are set upon a raised, 120-cm-high platform with railings on either side. It also analyses the elevation of the ark by means of a platform or the ark's soaring, tiered structure that is in contradistinction to the bimah in the centre of the prayer hall. The chapter emphasizes how the elevated ark creates a competing architectural focus that serves no practical purpose. It describes the top of the ark as a representation of God that takes the form of a cartouche with the Tetragrammaton inscribed upon it and a freestanding eagle that is naturalistically sculpted in relief.
The Jews in Poland between the Two World Wars
Authors: Polonsky Antony
Published: February 2021

This chapter assesses the position of Jews in Poland between the two world wars, which differed considerably in the various partitions. Polish Jews were largely urban. In 1931, over three-quarters lived in towns and less than a quarter in villages and in the country. As one would expect, therefore, Jews were found mainly in urban occupations. In Galicia, however, where the granting of civil rights had enabled Jews to buy land, a class of Jewish land-owners grew up. Jews also formed a significant part of the Polish intelligentsia. Meanwhile, Jewish political life was highly factionalized. There was a multiplicity of Jewish political parties, reflecting deep divisions within the community over religion and class, and attitudes to the Polish state and to the Jewish national movement. Indeed, Jewish political life was characterized by a threefold division between Zionism, Orthodoxy, and socialism, although within each of these ideological camps there was a plethora of subgroups.
Postword
Authors: Polonsky Antony
Published: February 2021

Abstract and Keywords to be supplied.
Fast-Day Sermon
Authors: Seixas Gershom Mendes
Published: February 2021

This chapter turns to the sermon of Gershom Mendes Seixas during the War of 1812. This sermon is the only known extant Jewish preaching text responding to any American war before 1861, delivered before the flagship Jewish congregation of the nation, expressing the ideals of loyal support for the government despite its failures and empathetic commitment to fellow citizens in their time of need. As such, it is a text of considerable historical significance. Here, the chapter shows how Seixas's sermon presents a ringing assertion of the responsibility of citizens in a democracy to support their chosen leaders, even (or perhaps especially) when things are not going well. In this context, Seixas read the full text of the resolution of the New York City Common Council declaring the day of ‘fasting, humiliation and prayer’ as it had been publicized in the media.
Fast-Day Sermon
Authors: Isaacs Samuel Myer
Published: February 2021

This chapter discusses another fast-day sermon, this time by Samuel Myer Isaacs. His sermon begins with a series of rhetorical questions about the need for (yet another) day of fasting, prayer, and humiliation. The answer is simple: such days dramatize and emphasize the dependence of human beings upon God and their need for divine help in all of their undertakings. The sermon next presents a general review of the life of King David and then a detailed recapitulation of the biblical narrative in the final chapter of 2 Samuel regarding David's insistence upon taking a census of his people (despite the warnings of his military leader Joab), followed by the condemnation of David by the prophet Gad, who gives the king a choice of one among three possible punishments for the people. From there, the chapter suggests a possible reading of the sermon in which it addresses specific contemporary matters, including a veiled criticism of the president, Abraham Lincoln.
Two Civil War Sermons
Authors: Einhorn David
Published: February 2021

This chapter discusses two sermons by David Einhorn. The first sermon was delivered on Thanksgiving Day 1863. Central to the subject of Einhorn's sermon is the theme of divine providence. The tapestry of the sermon is woven out of a group of verses from the biblical lesson of the week, ‘Vayishlaḥ’, describing the encounter after many years of separation between Jacob and Esau. These two figures have deep resonance in Jewish consciousness, as Esau had long been typologically transformed into a figure for the enemy of Israel. Next, the chapter presents the sermon for the sabbath before the festival of Purim. Here, Einhorn chooses for his text a verse where the war crime of the Amalekites is first recorded. It is one of the most powerful verses a preacher can use in a wartime context, evoking an unprovoked attack against a defenceless civilian population by the arch-enemy of the Jewish people, and a divine sanction for a war of annihilation.
The Fall of the Second French Empire
Authors: Wise Isaac Mayer
Published: February 2021

This chapter concerns a sermon capturing the outbreak of hostilities between France and Prussia which led to the founding of the Third French Republic. In addition, there was a widespread consensus among Christians and Jews alike at this period that historical and current events reflect the providential control of an all-powerful sovereign ruler of the universe in accordance with the principles of divine justice. German Christian preachers were eager to claim that the stunning German victory was God's punishment for the sinful failings of French national character and of French political philosophy. This providential explanation of the war is a central theme of the sermon conducted by Isaac Mayer Wise. Wise, one of the most influential American Jewish leaders of the nineteenth century, had honoured a pledge to remain silent on political and military issues during the Civil War; now he strongly endorsed from his pulpit the view that the French debacle was part of God's plan.
The War
Authors: Artom Benjamin
Published: February 2021

This chapter takes a look at a sermon delivered by Benjamin Artom on war. Indeed, what distinguishes the sermon is the expression of deep discouragement at the very fact of war. It is not a challenge to belief in God, such as will be seen in the wars of the following century. Rather, the devastation wrought by the opposing armies, with their technologically sophisticated new armaments, represents a challenge to accepted beliefs about civilization and progress. To understand the context of Artom's message, the chapter provides some background on the ‘cult of progress’. This is a theme that Artom would pick up and develop with considerable power. The critique of the cult of progress had been launched in cultural circles through the idealization of a traditional past associated with the Oxford Movement, Young England, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and the Gothic Revival. But there was also a religious critique, and Artom's sermon is a fine articulation of its principles.
Judaism and War
Authors: Adler Hermann
Published: February 2021

This chapter analyses Hermann Adler's guest sermon on the Boer War. Three and a half weeks after the outbreak of hostilities, Adler chose to address the subject in a visit to the North London Synagogue in Islington. Assuming that the congregation had already been addressed by their own minister on the subject of the war, he nevertheless decided that it was necessary to make this the focus of his guest sermon, citing as a reason the military reversals of the previous Monday, which came to be known as ‘Mournful Monday’. Particularly striking to the modern reader is the preacher's total identification not only with the policies of the government but with the cause of empire. He invokes not only passages of English literature but also the glories of British military history in the recent past.
God in the Blackout
Authors: Rudin Jacob Philip
Published: February 2021

This chapter turns to a sermon by Jacob Philip Rudin. Rudin's sermon reflects an intensifying crisis of faith that can be seen emerging in sermons from the First World War, and that would become a prevalent motif in the Second. ‘Where is God in this blackout of humanity? How can He permit this savagery to come to pass? How can He allow the destruction of little children, of cities and of homes to go on unchecked?’ Rudin asks rhetorically, voicing the questions of his congregants and confessing that he too has wrestled with them. He then, of course, provides an answer, shifting the responsibility from God to human folly and indifference. The ‘blackout’ experienced in very real terms throughout so many British cities becomes a metaphor expressing the darkening of the moral landscape, with innocent human beings suffering because of the evil of some and the callousness of others. Throughout the relatively unstructured discourse, the leitmotif of the title frequently recurs: God is indeed present in the blackout, present with the anguished victims, waiting for human beings to learn the lesson of their folly and return to Him.
The Birth of a New Freedom
Authors: Gittelsohn Roland B.
Published: February 2021

This chapter deals with a sermon delivered by Roland B. Gittelsohn. Assigned to the Fifth Marine Division, Gittelsohn participated in the Iwo Jima invasion. Chosen by his commanding officer to deliver the address at the dedication of the American military cemetery on Iwo Jima, he offered to withdraw because of the opposition by other American chaplains to a rabbi preaching at a service primarily for Christians, and instead spoke at an alternative ceremony. The sermon, which received wide publicity at the time, was delivered twenty years later. The chapter notes the differences between the various versions of his sermon published online.
Three Sermons Responding to the Events of 11 September 2001
Authors: Saperstein Marc
Published: February 2021

This chapter presents three responses to the September 11 attacks from the Jewish pulpit. The first sermon reproduced in the chapter is by Elias Lieberman of Cape Cod. Next, the chapter turns to the sermon by Alexandra Wright, a British Liberal rabbi ordained at the Leo Baeck College. It was her second Rosh Hashanah sermon to address the events of 9/11. As this book opens with sermons from the two leading Orthodox synagogues of London, the chapter thus concludes it with a sermon from the leading Orthodox synagogue of America's capital. As such, the third sermon is delivered by Barry Freundel, rabbi of the Orthodox Kesher Israel Congregation in Georgetown.
Introduction
Authors: Rosman Moshe
Published: February 2021

This chapter provides a methodological case study of possible approaches to the recovery of the historical person behind Hadism. It serves as an antidote to the ideologically weighted approach by focusing more on the materials that can be drawn on to construct a description, rather than on the description itself. The chapter focuses on materials, interpretations, and methodological considerations that should now be taken into account when portraying the Besht. It also summarizes the issues and results of previous Ba’al Shem Tov research and presents contexts within which the Besht lived his life. It also examines the primary texts that contain information about Besht.
Hasidism before Hasidism
Authors: Rosman Moshe
Published: February 2021

This chapter focuses on the story in Shivhei Ha-Besht about the two hasidim who were sceptical about the Besht, which may not accurately reflect early eighteenth-century attitudes toward ba’alei shem. It analyzes a logical question of whether the Ba’al Shem Tov was the founder of Hasidism and confirms if there was hasidim before Hasidism. The once dominant, and still popular, view is that the Hasidic movement arose de novo, in contrast and opposed to normative rabbinic Judaism as it was believed and practiced in eighteenth-century Poland. The chapter explains the long history of the word “hasid” in Hebrew. Its root, “hesed,” is usually translated as “love” or “lovingkindness”; hence a hasid can be someone who practices lovingkindness or compassion.
The Holy Epistle
Authors: Rosman Moshe
Published: February 2021

This chapter enumerates, characterizes, and assesses the historiographical weight of the various Besht sources. The attempt to capture aspects of the Besht’s life is dependent on the sources that are extant. It points out that most of the material relating to the Ba’al Shem Tov is in Hebrew. Its ready accessibility has ensured that it would be the basis of representations of the historical Ba’al Shem Tov. The chapter highlights the traditions about the Besht’s activities that are collected into Shivhei Ha-Besht and published more than fifty years after his death. It also discusses the methodologically problematic category of sources and gives the post-Besht compilers and editors of these traditions a large, and largely unacknowledged, role in determining what have been seen as the basic motifs in the Besht’s character and life story.
From the Historical Besht to the Usable Besht
Authors: Rosman Moshe
Published: February 2021

This chapter analyzes the image of the Besht as a man who fit in with the institutions, doctrines, and practices of his time. It points out how the Besht was considered a religious or social activist and a near-ignoramus or profound thinker. Nearly all the standard accounts made the Besht into a religious revolutionary who established something new and virtually unprecedented. His accounts were perceived as doctrinal and institutional constellations that quickly coalesced into the new Hasidic movement. The chapter highlights the image of the Besht that emerged around the Lubavitch, or Habad, Hasidic court at the time of its transition from the generation of its first zaddik, Shneur Zalman of Ladi, to its second, his son, Dov Ber of Lubavitch.
The Preaching of Repentance and the Reforms in Toledo, 1281
Authors: Saperstein Marc
Published: February 2021

This chapter takes a look at the 1281 sermon of Abulafia. Abulafia was apparently one of the few Jews with standing in the court of Alfonso X of Castile who emerged unscathed — a model of traditional, rabbinic leadership blended with prestige in the political realm, and possibly still holding an official position of authority from the Crown. With the Jewish community of Toledo turning towards introspection, Abulafia was a natural figure to provide guidance. The contents of his sermon can be divided into three categories. The first is the condemnation of astrology. Next is the identification of sins. The third category consisted of specific institutional reforms.
The Conflict over the Ban on Philosophical Study, 1305: A Political Perspective
Authors: Saperstein Marc
Published: February 2021

This chapter suggests a new framework in which to evaluate certain significant events in 1305. Few events of internal Jewish history during the Middle Ages more effectively exemplify diversity and conflict than the so-called ‘Maimonidean conflicts’ — the attempts by certain Jews to control the educational curriculum and public discourse of their communities by banning various philosophical texts and those who taught or studied them. One of the best-known of these episodes, the ban restricting the study of Greek philosophy, promulgated during the summer of 1305 by Solomon ben Adret (Rashba) and his colleagues in Barcelona, has been extensively treated by historians for over a century. The bitter conflict surrounding this ban is extensively documented in Minḥat kena'ot (A Zealous Offering), a collection of letters edited by Abba Mari of Lunel, one of the protagonists of that conflict and an ally of Ben Adret. Yet there is still no consensus among scholars about the proper interpretation of this dramatic episode, and sharp disagreement remains over what was fuelling the antagonism.
Attempts to Control the Pulpit: Medieval Judaism and Beyond
Authors: Saperstein Marc
Published: February 2021

This chapter shows the perspective of those Jewish leaders who tried to restrict the freedom of expression of preachers when delivering sermons on controversial issues. Beginning in the thirteenth century, the chapter follows this theme into the modern period and includes the Jewish communities of the United States. It reveals a structural problem of Jewish preaching in the Middle Ages and — to a large extent — in the modern period as well. Unlike the situation in the Catholic Church, where the authority to preach was fairly strictly regulated and preaching without authorization was by its very nature a potentially heretical activity whatever the content of the sermon might be, medieval Jewish communities had no definition of who was permitted to speak from the pulpit. In theory, any male Jew who was respected enough to find a group of Jews willing to listen was entitled to deliver a sermon.
The Return of the Ḥeder among Russian Jewish Education Experts, 1840–1917
Authors: Horowitz Brian
Published: February 2021

THE ROLE of the ḥeder in the modernization of Jewish education in the tsarist empire is a fascinating, albeit little-known, story. Most laymen and even scholars view the ḥeder monochromatically. They repeat the criticisms of the maskilim of the 1840s and later decades: the ḥeder...
Creating a New Jewish Nation
Authors: Bloeme Jordana De
Published: February 2021

IN 1935 Max Weinreich, the Yiddish historian and a founder of YIVO, set out his views about the needs of young Jews in Poland. In summarizing the subject of his work, The Way to our Young People, Weinreich wrote: ‘He who holds the young, holds the future.’...
Between Church and State
Authors: Martin Sean
Published: February 2021

JANUSZ KORCZAK, physician, writer, pedagogue, and Jewish community leader, described a public school classroom in which religion was being taught in 1932:

I see a classroom: a class of forty or fifty students. Young and old, in the third or fourth lesson of the day, in the days before or after a holiday, during spring or fall. I see a teacher: sometimes feeling good, sometimes not. A teacher repeating the same material for the fourth or fifth year. I see a bored class and a bored teacher, who has to teach the lesson because of the mandatory curriculum. The hour, which lasts sixty minutes, passes slowly. And in these hours, on a topic that is supposed to enthral children, to give them eternal truth, the task is not easy. In each kind of work there are hours that are tiring and torturous and hours that are noble and beautiful....
Jewish Youth Movements in Poland between the Wars as Heirs of the Kehilah
Authors: Bassok Ido
Published: February 2021

THIS CHAPTER is a part of a research project focusing on 150 autobiographies out of the collection of about 350 by young Jews, which are in the possession of YIVO.1 Of the 150, 93 were written in Yiddish, 46 in Polish, and 11 in Hebrew; 109 were composed by young men and 41 by young women. They were sent to YIVO, then in Vilna, as entries in three contests the institute organized in 1932, 1934, and 1939. The contests, as was made clear,...
A Revolution in the Name of Tradition
Authors: Seidman Naomi
Published: February 2021

WHEN Sarah Schenirer, founder of the Bais Yaakov school system, died in 1935 at the age of 51, eulogists spoke of her enormous accomplishments in revitalizing Orthodox Jewish life through the education of young girls and women. Since 1917, when Schenirer accepted the first twenty-five students into her school, the movement she founded had become well established, with perhaps 200 schools and 38,000 students throughout Poland and beyond....
Władysław Bartoszewski
Authors: Polonsky Antony
Published: February 2021

This chapter includes the obituaries of Władysław Bartoszewski, Ezra Mendelsohn, Jerzy Tomaszewski, and Feliks Tych. Władysław Bartoszewski was one of the great figures in Polish public life in recent times, who died of a heart attack in Warsaw in April 2015 at the age of 93. Ezra Mendelsohn was one of the pioneers of the rediscovery of the Polish Jewish past, who died of cancer in May 2015. Jerzy Tomaszewski, who died on 4 November 2014 at the age of 84, was one of the principal figures in the revival of the study of the history of the Jews in Poland. Lastly, Feliks Tych was a leading figure in Jewish life in Poland and was a director of the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw, who died on 17 February 2015.
Ezra Mendelsohn
Authors: Polonsky Antony
Published: February 2021

EZRA MENDELSOHN, who, sadly, died of cancer in May 2015, was one of the pioneers of the rediscovery of the Polish Jewish past. For many years he was a professor at the Institute of Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and after his retirement became Rachel and Michael Edelman Professor Emeritus of European Jewry and Holocaust Studies at the Hebrew University. He completed his doctorate at Columbia University in 1966 and subsequently moved to Israel where he spent his entire academic career. A highly creative thinker, he wrote widely on many topics, including the Jewish labour movement, the history of Jews in eastern Europe, modern Jewish politics, and modern Jewish art and music. At the time of his death, he was working on a volume of articles dealing with universalism among Jews. He also served as co-editor for many years of ...
Pauline Wengeroff
Authors: Magnus Shulamit S.
Published: February 2021

This chapter discusses the different eras in Russian Jewish history in which Pauline Wengeroff's Memoirs of a Grandmother is set. Wengeroff's two volumes share an overarching theme: Jewish tradition and its loss in modernity. Volume I reflects the years of her childhood and adolescence during the reign of Nicholas I. The Russian Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment) took off as a movement and became a potent cultural force and challenge to traditional Jewish society in these years because of policies of Tsar Nicholas I. Volume II spans the years from mid-century to the death of Wengeroff's husband, Chonon, in 1892. It is about the overlapping destinies of her family and Russian Jewry in these decades, when Jewish modernity was no longer emerging but fully unfolding. This was the era of Alexander II, whose policies, liberal and reactionary, profoundly shaped the experience of modern Russian Jewry, and of Alexander III. The chapter then looks at the tsarist Jewry policies and Jewish society under Alexander II and III, considering the 'selective integration' policy and the emergence of the new Russian Jewish elite.
Hope
Authors: Magnus Shulamit S.
Published: February 2021

This chapter details how another youth arose during the era of the pogroms. Not the youth of some bygone, pre-modern time to which Pauline Wengeroff supposedly harked back but an ‘enlightened’ youth who nonetheless, in her words, had not gone ‘astray to the alien in that dark time’. Among them were many who found their way back to the Jewish people and who, under the influence of recent events, closed ranks. Indeed, as a reaction to antisemitism, ‘the Hovevei Zion (Lovers of Zion) society arose’. It is to this youth that Wengeroff says she relates — for the first time — the ‘dreadful event’ of her sons' conversion, something she had not previously shared even with her intimates. These are Wengeroff's grandchildren, for whom Memoirs of a Grandmother is written. It is clear from Memoirs, that Wengeroff was a Zionist. One effectively sees in her work the emergence of full-fledged political Zionism from traditional proto-Zionism. The chapter then assesses how Wengeroff was able to write and publish Memoirs. What made the difference for Wengeroff, who must be counted a stunning success story in the history of Jewish women's writing, and of Jewish literature altogether? The chapter also looks at how her memoirs were received by her metaphorical grandchildren.
Upending the Curse of Eve: A Reframing of Maternal Breastfeeding in BT Ketubot
Authors: Walfish Miriam-Simma
Published: February 2021

This chapter confronts a tradition that denies mothers' subjectivity in a core experience surrounding childbirth and breastfeeding and locates an ancient Jewish voice that restores subjectivity. It reviews early rabbinic texts that render the breastfeeding mother as subservient to father and child, viewing breastfeeding as part of the household economy. It discusses that the potential pain of breastfeeding constructs the mother as a subject to whom a husband must defer in decisions regarding this practice. The chapter argues that contemporary discussions of breastfeeding reflect a similar lack of attention to maternal subjectivity. It suggests that rabbinic texts can counter the present-day cultural attitude towards the mother, making a mother's personhood more perceptible.
On Teachers, Rabbinic and Maternal
Authors: Benjamin Mara H.
Published: February 2021

This chapter offers a constructive theology on the master–disciple relationship and a rabbinic culture which replaces the parent with the sage-teacher. It talks about a parent engaged in childcare and childrearing as a metaphorical sage. It also analyses the quotidian tasks of childrearing that is primarily gendered as maternal teaching or maternal work to Torah. The chapter describes the parent as a sage that embodies Torah in the practices of attention, care, and openness to the other. It advocates a shifting of cultural perspectives for a fuller understanding of Torah, in which maternal work becomes the foundation upon which later learning rests.
Jewish Theology for a Postmodern Age
Authors: Feldmann Kaye Miriam
Published: February 2021

In the postmodern, relativist world-view with its refutation of a single, objective, and ultimate truth, it has become difficult if not impossible to argue in favour of one's own beliefs as preferable to those of others. This study is one of the first English-language books to address Jewish theology from a postmodern perspective, probing the question of how Jewish theology has the potential to survive the postmodern onslaught that some see as heralding the collapse of religion. Basing the book's arguments on both philosophical and theological scholarship, the author shows how postmodernism might actually be a resource for rejuvenating religion. The author's response to the conception of theology and postmodernism as competing systems of thought is based on a close critical study of Rav Shagar (Shimon Gershon Rosenberg) and Tamar Ross. Rather than advocating postmodern ideas, the book analyses their writings through the lens of the most radical of continental postmodern philosophers and cultural critics in order to offer a compelling theology compatible with that world-view. Whether the reader considers postmodernism to be inherently problematic or merely inconsequential, this book demonstrates why reconsidering these preconceptions is one of the most pressing issues in contemporary Jewish thought.
Introduction
Authors: Feldmann Kaye Miriam
Published: February 2021

This chapter provides a compelling theology for the postmodern, relativist age. It confronts the crisis of Jewish theology that is premised on a growing ambivalence towards the idea of absolute truth and perpetuated by postmodern cultural and philosophical critiques. It also analyses the central principle of postmodernism, such as culture and its linguistic parameters that determine what is true and that therefore there can no longer be any objective truth. The chapter examines how particular religious culture demonstrate its greater 'truthfulness' and outlines multiple aspects of contemporary Jewish life that are plagued with questions. It investigates the use of the term 'theological', which refer to discussions and explanations dealing with conceptions of God.
Culture
Authors: Feldmann Kaye Miriam
Published: February 2021

This chapter discusses 'cultural particularism' as a central feature of postmodernism. It refers to the position that claims that understanding and interaction with the world are contingent upon one's culture. It examines radical cultural particularism, in which there is no objective reality but only multiple different perspectives that are based on local perceptions and interpretations and anchored in a specific cultural context. The chapter looks at the notion of objectivity as a figment of one's philosophical imagination, which is conceived through the lenses of a particular culture. It mentions Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, who is widely considered the founder of several contemporary philosophical movements, such as notably analytic, post-liberal, and postmodern philosophy.
Language
Authors: Feldmann Kaye Miriam
Published: February 2021

This chapter begins with Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, which offers seminal philosophical reflections on language. It looks at the numerous implications of Wittgenstein's observations in semiotics, cognition, sociology, and linguistics that testify to the acuteness of the problem of language for philosophy. It also examines how Wittgenstein delved into the way language functions and how he abandoned the hope of constructing a linguistic system based on representation. The chapter discusses the 'language game', which reflect different forms of life or the activities in which individuals engage on a daily basis. It talks about contemporary philosophers, which demonstrate that language does not describe an objective state of affairs but, rather, reveals a particular perspective and worldview that is rooted in culture.
‘A New Kind of Woman’
Authors: Seidman Naomi
Published: February 2021

This chapter evaluates the character of Bais Yaakov as a ‘revolution in the name of tradition’. The revolution that was Bais Yaakov was not limited to the direct participants in the movement, but also reshaped marriage practices, family structures, and the face of Orthodoxy at large. The chapter explores the parallels and resonances of the movement with such Orthodox phenomena as German neo-Orthodoxy, hasidism, and the yeshiva, as well as with other revolutionary elements of its immediate context, including socialism, Zionism, feminism, and Yiddishism. While Bais Yaakov presented itself as combatting the secular ideologies of the interwar period, it also adopted some features of these ‘isms’ in shaping its own distinctive and novel character. The chapter then presents a reading of the relationship—sociological, symbolic, and discursive—between Bais Yaakov and the traditional Jewish family.