bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Judaism Triumphant: Isaac Mayer Wise on Unitarianism and Liberal Christianity
Authors: Kraut Benny
Published: October 2009

Against the background of the dramatic upsurge of liberalism, radicalism, and freethought in religion within the United States in the last third of the nineteenth century, American Reform Judaism and Unitarianism made impressive strides. By the 1880s, Reform Judaism had become the preeminent form of Judaism in both institutional growth and organizational cohesiveness; it remained the favored religious pattern of the elite leadership of American Jewry well into the twentieth century. For its part, Unitarianism by the 1880s had spread beyond the confines of New England, featured a revitalized Western branch, the Western Unitarian Conference, and was experiencing an articulate denominational consciousness.
The Russian Pogroms in Hebrew Literature and the Subversion of the Martyrological Ideal
Authors: Mintz Alan
Published: October 2009

The developments triggered or accelerated by the anti-Jewish pogroms of 1881–1882 in Russia form a panorama of East European Jewish history at the end of the century: Zionism, the Bund, mass emigration and mass pauperization. The role of Hebrew literature in responding to these pogroms as well as to the later round of violence between 1903 and 1905 is significant for two reasons. In its own setting, Hebrew literature is crucial to an analysis of the consciousness of the period because it represents the response of an important segment of the intelligentsia of Russian Jewry, namely, those who associated themselves with national revival and its cultural medium, Hebrew. Hebrew fiction and poetry on the pogroms are also significant when studied in a vertical perspective, that is, in relationship to an evolved and elaborate set of traditions of response to catastrophe in Hebrew sources from the Bible and midrash through the piyyutim, chronicles, and consolation texts of the Middle Ages. Hebrew writing between 1881 and 1905 both partakes of that tradition and rebels against it, and in so doing reconstitutes the tradition; and it is that new tradition which must be confronted, evaded, or subverted when the literary imagination faces the more destructive pogroms of the World War I period and later the Holocaust itself.
Medieval Jewish Criticism of the Doctrine of Original Sin
Authors: Rembaum Joel E.
Published: October 2009

With the passage of time the notion of original sin became a matter of increasing concern for medieval Jewish critics of Christianity. The foundation of this criticism was laid by the earlier polemical writers, specifically those of the period from the second half of the twelfth through the early fourteenth centuries. The later authors, from the late fourteenth through the mid-seventeenth centuries, incorporated practically all of the arguments raised by their predecessors and added new criticism reflecting their greater familiarity with Christian beliefs and literature. The earlier polemicists, while approaching their task from a rational, “common sense” perspective, relied heavily on Hebrew biblical and, to a lesser degree, New Testament passages. The later writers reflected a greater intellectual independence of scriptural sources. Because the earlier works are generally structured as running commentaries of scriptural texts relevant to Christianity, their treatment of original sin, and other Christian doctrines for that matter, tends to be unfocused.3 The issues that are raised emerge piecemeal as the salient biblical passages are interpreted. The later works tend to be built on discussions of concepts. Consequently, a number of arguments are coalesced into coherent analyses. Such structural differences are the results of different patterns of inquiry. The earlier textually oriented critiques are, on the whole, products of the Franco-German polemical writers.
The Jewish Prayer for Rain in the Post-Talmudic Diaspora
Authors: Lasker Arnold A. , Lasker Daniel J.
Published: October 2009

Halakhah does not develop in a vacuum. It grows through its confrontation with the changing conditions in which Jews live. New situations raise new questions which, in turn, require new answers.
Chaim Weizmann and the Elusive Manchester Professorship
Authors: Reinharz Jehuda
Published: October 2009

In February 1912 Arthur Hantke, a member of the Engeres Aktions- Comite (EAC or SAC), asked Chaim Weizmann to undertake a propaganda tour in the United States.1 Weizmann refused, but did agree to a shorter tour to European cities during the university semester break in March. In explaining his reasons for traveling only to Berlin, Vienna, Prague, and Heidelberg,2 Weizmann revealed some of his plans for the future:

As you know, I want to go to Palestine in 3–4 years. But I want to go to Palestine not when I have nothing to lose here, but on the contrary after having achieved everything here. This “everything” consists of two things: a full professorship and admission to the Royal Society. The former has been achieved except for the official announcement, which will presumably come during the summer term [sic]. The second is somewhat more difficult for a Russian Jew. However, the matter has got to the point where my candidature has been established. How long the candidature will “stand” depends on the scope and character of my scientific work, for in my case this is the only decisive criterion. I must therefore strain every nerve to work and publish a great deal, for admission to the Royal Society will open all doors for me here. I shall then be worth ten times as much to you….
Cyrus Adler, Non-Zionism, and the Zionist Movement: A Study in Contradictions
Authors: Dalin David G.
Published: October 2009

For close to fifty years, Cyrus Adler was one of American Jewry's most influential communal leaders and public servants. Taking part in the founding of the Jewish Publication Society (1888), on whose various committees he would serve as chairman throughout his life, Adler was a founder of the American Jewish Historical Society (1892), and its president for more than twenty years. Together with Louis Marshall, Jacob Schiff, Oscar Straus, Felix Warburg, and his cousin, Judge Mayer Sulzberger, Adler played an instrumental role in organizing the American Jewish Committee (1906), and served as its president from 1929 until his death in 1940. During his thirtytwo years (1908–1940) as president and chief administrative officer of the Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning, Adler shaped the institution into one of the preeminent institutions of higher Jewish learning in America. When Solomon Schechter died in 1915, Adler succeeded him to the presidency of the Jewish Theological Seminary, with which he had been closely associated since its founding in 1886, while remaining president of Dropsie as well. Serving as president of the seminary for twenty-five years, Adler played a central role in the founding of the United Synagogue, whose presidency he also held.
Piercing the Shimmering Bubble: David Shahar'sThe Palace of Shattered Vessels
Authors: Morahg Gilead
Published: October 2009

Within the steadily growing body of fiction written by David Shahar over the past three decades, his trilogy of novels,The Palace of Shattered Vessels, stands out as his most remarkable achievement to date. It is a complex, often puzzling work, steeped in the spirit of Jerusalem, in which it is set, bold in the narrative techniques it employs, and ambitious in its thematic aspirations a meandering stream of fragmented memories flowing through the mind of its unnamed narrator. As the flow continues, these fragments gradually cohere into broad arcs of interlocking narrative circles that effect a vivid evocation of Jerusalem and its inhabitants as they were in the early decades of this century. ButThe Palace of Shattered Vesselsaims at being much more than a memorial tribute to a nearly forgotten era in a rapidly changing city.
Left Contained in the Right: A Study in Zoharic Hermeneutics
Authors: Wolfson Elliot
Published: October 2009

Although there has been much in modern scholarship written about the historical and theosophical background of the Zohar, scholars have paid little attention to the literary structure of the work and its relationship to the thematic content contained therein. There is, as far as I know, not one in-depth study of such a nature.
The Art of Metoposcopy: A Study in Isaac Luria's Charismatic Knowledge
Authors: Fine Lawrence
Published: October 2009

Amongst the most important roles which Isaac Luria (1534–1572), the preeminent kabbalist of sixteenth-century Safed, played in the lives of his disciples was that of physician of the soul. Before they could practice rituals which were intended to enable them to bind their souls to the divine realm, and to “repair” that realm in accordance with the teachings of Lurianic mythology, his disciples had first to mend theirownsouls, to cleanse and purify them of all imperfection No individual whose own soul had failed to achieve a certain level of perfection could hope to engage successfully in the intricate and elaborate contemplative rituals-such as theYiḥudim-which Luria devised. A person had to undergo a period during which he cultivated certain spiritual and moral traits and atoned for whatever sins he might have committed. Luria, in fact, provided his followers with highly detailed rituals of atonement by which they were to mend their souls. These penitential acts were known astikkunei avonot(“amends of sin”) whose purpose, in the words of Hayyim Vital's son Shmuel, was to “mend his soul"”and “cleanse him from the filth of the disease of his sins.” Hayyim Vital (1542–1620), Luria's chief disciple, himself introduces thetikkunei avonotwith a discussion of the relationship between one's soul and sin.
The Post-Rav Ashiamoraim: Transition or Continuity? A Study of the Role of the Final Generations of Amoraim in the Redaction of the Talmud
Authors: Kalmin Richard
Published: October 2009

The problem of the redaction of the Talmud, the final stages of the process by which the document before us assumed its present shape, is one which every student of the Talmud must eventually face. Resolution of this problem is by no means a matter of mere historical curiosity. Knowledge of who the redactors were, at what time period (or time periods) they lived, and how they reworked their sources, is indispensable for full comprehension both of these component sources and of the final product into which they have been combined.
A Polish Rabbi Meets the Berlin Haskalah: The Case of R. Barukh Schick
Authors: Fishman David E.
Published: October 2009

The name of Rabbi Barukh Schick of Shklov (1744–1808) does not figure in the pantheon of great eighteenth-century Jewish personalities, alongside those of R. Israel Ba′al Shem Tov, Moses Mendelssohn, and R. Elijah, the Vilna Gaon. Unlike the latter, his teachings were not distinguished by great originality or profundity, and they exerted rather limited influence. Indeed, Schick's name might well have fallen into total oblivion were it not for a few lines in the introduction to one of his books (a Hebrew translation of Euclid's Elements), in which he related certain remarks made to him by the Vilna Gaon in support of the study of science.
The Jewish Elite and the Children of the Poor: Jewish Apprenticeship Programs in Nineteenth-Century France
Authors: Weissbach Lee Shai
Published: October 2009

The desire of the Franco-Jewish elite to foster the acculturation of French Jewry during the nineteenth century is a theme that has been explored in considerable detail in recent years. Historians of French Jewry have described the development of an ideology that identified Judaism primarily as a religion, have analyzed the attempts of various communal institutions to mitigate Jewish distinctiveness, and have demonstrated that the leaders of French Jewry adopted a policy of social integration both because they were attracted to the mainstream culture of France and because they felt that acculturation was the implied price of empancipation.
Deconstructing the Biblical Sources in Israeli Theater:Yisurei Iyovby Hanoch Levin
Authors: Feldman Yael S.
Published: October 2009

When in 1981 the Israeli Cameri Theater performed The Passion of Job, written and directed by Hanoch Levin, the leading avant-garde playwrightin Israel (viewed by some as “the bad boy of the modern Israeli stage”),1 public outrage reached unprecedented heights.The scandal was partially provoked by Levin′s staging.His taste for the carnal and the cruel was much too unpalatable for many stomachs to digest.“People actually walked out, while others covered their eyes,” reported a review in the Jerusalem Post.2 No less detrimental, however, was the specific angle from which Levin th? playwright elected to retell the biblical story.For although the Hebrew title of the play, Yisurei Iyov, may be literally rendered as “Job′s Afflictions,” our translation was advisedly chosen: In his version, Levin catapults Job from the fictional land of Uz to Palestine of the Roman era, thereby embedding Job′s ordeal in that later agon between man and God–the passion of Christ.Accordingly, this dramatized Job does not live to hear an answer from the whirlwind, nor does he see his life redeemed.With a dramatic sleight of hand he is, paradoxically enough, the only character in the play who refuses to deny the existence of God–thus condemning himself to the stake.
Warding Off Chaos: Repetition and Obsession in the Poetry of Glatshteyn, Halpern, and Manger
Authors: Hadda Janet
Published: October 2009

For as long as I have been acquainted with them, the poems in which the above lines occur have held a peculiar fascination for me. With their rhythmic refrains, Glatshteyn′s “Der Rayzeman” (“The Travelman”), Halpern′s “Der Gasnpoyker” (“The Street Drummer”), and Manger′s “Eynzam” (“Lonely”) are lodged in my mind,1 cropping up periodically in almost–and in the case of “Eynzam,” literally–musical form. Yet it is only recently that I have come to see a special connection between these three diverse works. The present article explores this connection. Specifically, I wish to address the function of repetition and show how a much-used poetic device simultaneously points to a psychological realm otherwise easy to ignore.
Binary Oppositions in the Poetry of Amir Gilboa
Authors: Bargad Warden
Published: October 2009

The examination of binary oppositions (semantic structures of equivalence or opposition) in poetic texts has proved helpful in decoding messages which seem at first to be difficult to comprehend.1 Since the text often creates its own semantic system, which may appear to be ungrammatical (i.e., not in consonance with generally accepted extratextual meanings), the reader may profit considerably by decoding the texts system of oppositions and interpreting their semantic value.
Reinventing Bruno Schulz: Cynthia Ozick's The Messiah of Stockholm and David Grossman's See Under: Love
Authors: Sokoloff Naomi
Published: October 2009

Bruno Schulz, the Polish Jewish author of brilliant phantasmagoria, was gunned down by a Nazi officer in the Drohobycz ghetto in 1942. He left behind a small corpus of narrative work, published in English under the titles The Street of Crocodiles and Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass. 1 Another manuscript to which he had devoted several years, The Messiah, remained unfinished. Presumably it perished in the Holocaust, for it has never been recovered. Two recent novels, David Grossman's See Under: Love ('Ayen 'erekh 'ahavah)2 and Cynthia Ozick's (The Messiah of Stockholm),3 both turn the influence of Bruno Schulz and an evaluation of the events of his life to explicit thematic focus as they engage, too, in an imaginative reconstruction of the lost work, The Messiah. Though they have written very different books in different languages, Ozick and Grossman both take the same constellation of tensions as the raw material of their texts, and they elaborate on this fundamental similarity of concerns as part of a meditation on the power of the imagination, the possibilities of artistic expression, and Jewish identity in the second generation after the Holocaust.
Scripture Commentary in the Babylonian Talmud: Primary or Secondary Phenomenon?
Authors: Kraemer David
Published: October 2009

Virtually without exception, the Bavli is described by its students as a commentary on the Mishnah. This definition is such a commonplace that it is difficult to imagine the need to test or defend it. Its accuracy seems so selfevident that the question “what is the Bavli?” is itself rarely, if ever, asked.
The Samson Nazirite Vow in the Sixteenth Century
Authors: Morell Samuel
Published: October 2009

Responsa emanating from the Ottoman lands of the sixteenth century give evidence of the widespread use of an oath which invoked the name of Samson the Nazirite. Someone who undertook a “Samson nazirite vow” generally did so by making it conditional on his performance of or abstention from a certain act, thereby using it as an assurance for his word. Although the Samson nazirite, as a halakhic concept, is discussed in the Talmud, and its laws are codified by Maimonides, the earliest trace of its use as a contitional sanction does not precede the fifteenth century. It appears then in a single genizah document. The language of the vow is Judeo-Spanish, a fact which points to its provenance. It does not appear in the halakhic literature before the sixteenth century, nor does it appear to have been current even then in Christian Europe.
Buber's Anti-Kantianism
Authors: Perlman Lawrence
Published: October 2009

The philosophy of Martin Buber has attracted more attention, both favorable and critical, than has any other modern Jewish philosophy. None of the criticism leveled against Buber's thought is as thorough and philosophically informed as that found in Steven Katz's seminal essay, “Martin Buber's Epistemology: A Critical Appraisal.” In this essay Katz argues that Buber adopts a Kantian architectonic to provide the metaphysical underpinnings for his philosophy of dialogue. In Katz's own words, I contend, however, that Buber ultimately rejects the Kantian architectonic that Katz attributes to him. A close reading of all the appropriate texts will demonstrate that there is only superficial warrant for considering Buber's use of some Kantian ideas to be ultimately determinative. Buber's rejection of central Kantian positions must be weighed alongside the evidence that Katz marshals to erect his thesis.
Saints or Sinners, Scholars or Ignoramuses? Stories About the Rabbis as Evidence for the Composite Nature of the Babylonian Talmud
Authors: Kalmin Richard
Published: October 2009

As Jacob Neusner and others have argued, before talmudic stories can be evaluated as historical evidence we must ask who the original authors were, what were their motives, and who was their intended audience. Even once we obtain the “original” version of a story, we do not necessarily have access to the historical event which gave rise to the story. For perhaps accounts of the historical event have been colored, even distorted beyond recognition, by the needs, desires, and beliefs of the original authors. Or perhaps the stories they transmit are fabrications, invented by students or later editors with a particular goal in mind.
The Facticity of Medieval Narrative: A Case Study of the Hebrew First Crusade Narratives
Authors: Chazan Robert
Published: October 2009

In the early stages of the modern rewriting of medieval Jewish history, the sources most consulted and adduced were narrative. As the enterprise has matured, further source genres have been discovered and utilized, thus allowing for improved understanding of the medieval Jewish experience. Of late, the reliability of narrative sources has come under question, but at the same time these narrative sources have been utilized in new and creative ways. To be sure, both the questioning and the innovative utilization of medieval Jewish narrative sources have been profoundly influenced by similar tendencies among general medievalists, as they seek to refine their tools of historical reconstruction.
The Emergence of a Jewish Nationalist Consciousness in Europe
Authors: Salmon Yosef
Published: October 2009

A discussion of the emergence of a modern Jewish collective consciousness in Eastern Europe does not require us to address the question of the beginnings of a movement, which also has an organizational aspect. The phenomenon under discussion—at least in its initial stage—was not organized; there were no membership cards, bylaws, or party conferences. It is my contention, however, that the emergence of a Jewish nationalist movement was connected to, and dependent upon, the prior emergence of a collective consciousness.Thus, on the one hand, our discussion is not based upon the phenomenological definition of nationalism, which is not a simple matter, while, on the other hand, we view the institutionalized nationalist movement as a consequence of a process of consciousness-building. Mine is a syncretic approach, the advantage of which is that it does not observe a historical process from an intellectual or theoretical point of reference foreign to the process.
The Politics of Interpretation: Tel Hai in Israel's Collective Memory
Authors: Zerubavel Yael
Published: October 2009

In 1920, a brief but fatal battle between Arabs and Jews took place at the Jewish settlement of Tel Hai in the northern Galilee. The defense of Tel Hai soon became a landmark in the history of Israeli society. The story of Tel Hai was regarded as a major symbolic text of the pioneering ethos and an important step toward the development of a new national Hebrew culture. Highlighting the theme of collective death and rebirth, Tel Hai offered a modern, secular text that sanctified the new nation and dramatized the emergence of a new type of Jew. For the Jewish pioneers in Palestine, Tel Hai embodied the ideals of settlement and defense, providing a concrete example of their resolute determination to hold on to new settlements at all costs.The present study examines the role of Tel Hai as a national myth, name-ly, a symbolic narrative relating to an important event in the nation's past that embodies sacred national values and is used as a charter for political action.1 Following Halbwachs's pioneering approach to the study of collective memory,2 this article explores the meaning of Tel Hai as it was constructed in public discourse, focusing upon two periods of conflict within Israeli society. Thus it is not a historical study of the event that took place at Tel Hai in 1920, but a study of how this event has been remembered and reinterpreted in Israeli culture.
Egypt and Beyond: The Jews of the Arab Countries in Modern Times - Gudrun Krämer. The Jews in Modern Egypt, 1914–1952. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1989. x, 319 pp.
Authors: Laskier Michael M.
Published: October 2009

Gudrun Krämer's study on the Jews of Egypt is divided into five sections: Communal Structure and Composition; Communal Organization; Socioeconomic and Political Change (1914–1918); Jewish Reactions to Political Change: Egyptian Patriotism, Communism, and Zionism; and The Beginning of the End: Egyptianization, the Arab-Israeli War, and the Burning of Cairo.
The Historiographical Legacy of Salo Wittmayer Baron: The Medieval Period
Authors: Chazan Robert
Published: October 2009

The impact of Salo Wittmayer Baron on the study of the history of the Jews during the Middle Ages has been enormous. This impact has, in part, been generated by Baron's voluminous writings, in particular his threevolume The Jewish Community and–even more so–his eighteen-volume Social and Religious History of the Jews. Equally decisive has been Baron's influence through his students and his students' students. Almost all researchers here in North America currently engaged in studying aspects of medieval Jewish history can surely trace their intellectual roots back to Salo Wittmayer Baron. In a real sense, many of Baron's views have become widey assumed starting points for the field, ideas which need not be proven or irgued but are simply accepted as givens. Over the next decade or decades, hese views will be carefully identified and reevaluated. At some point, a major study of Baron's legacy, including his influence on the study of medieval Jewish history, will of necessity eventuate. Such a study will have, on the one hand, its inherent intellectual fascination; at the same time, it will constitute an essential element in the next stages of the growth of the field, as it inevitably begins to make its way beyond Baron and his twentieth-century ambience.
The Last Jewish Generalist
Authors: Schorsch Ismar
Published: October 2009

Why has the death of Salo Wittmayer Baron on November 25, 1989 at the age of ninety-four elicited so little comment? No chorus of tributes, memories, or evaluations erupted at the passing of this century's most erudite and prolific Jewish historian, whose standard of excellence almost singlehandedly opened the American university to the field of Jewish studies. The silence, I suspect, tells us as much about the present state of Jewish studies as about the limitations of his work. It is surely not related to the magnitude of his scholarly legacy or its unrelieved and often maddening thematic mode of discourse or even its frequently inelegant style. Sadly, Professor Baron had fallen out of sync with his time long before he died, in part because the one-sidedness of the final ten volumes of the second edition of his Social and Religious History of the Jews abandoned the balance and integration of external and internal events vital to his own understanding of Jewish history.
Agnon in Germany,1912–1924: A Chapter of A Biography
Authors: Laor Dan
Published: October 2009

In October 1912, the twenty-four-year-old Hebrew writer Shmuel Yosef Agnon embarked on a ship in the port of Jaffa, then Palestine, the destination of his trip being Germany, or, to be more exact, the city of Berlin. Agnon left for Germany in the company of Dr. Arthur Ruppin, known as the “father of Zionist settlement in Eres Yisra'el.” The friendship between Agnon and Ruppin had developed in Jaffa, where Agnon had tutored both Ruppin and his wife in Hebrew. And it was probably with the support of Dr. Ruppin, himself a native of Germany and a graduate of a German university, that Agnon decided to leave Palestine, where he had resided for more than three years, to see the world, which in those days meant Berlin.
Philosophy, Dogma, and Exegesis in Medieval Ashkenazic Judaism: The Evidence of Sefer Hadrat Qodesh
Authors: Davis Joseph M.
Published: October 2009

During the Middle Ages, each Mediterranean land, from one end of the sea to the other, had its Jewish philosophers. There was one region and one Jewish culture, however, that made no contribution at all to the writing of medieval Jewish philosophy. That was Ashkenazic or Northern European Judaism, the culture of the Jews of England, Northern France, Germany, and Eastern Europe north of the Balkans.
From Separation to Displacement: The Problem of Women inSefer Hasidim
Authors: Baskin Judith R.
Published: October 2009

A gender analysis of some of the representations of women inSefer Hasidimand related texts finds that the German-Jewish pietiests of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries express a profound ambivalence toward women. WhileSefer Hasidimplaces great importance on happy marital relations, its authors also see potential adulteries at every turn. Moreover, in their mystical yearning to transcend the physical pleasures of the material world, they go beyond rabbinic norms in their displacement of women in favor of devotion to the divine. This essay suggests that situating this ambivalence, and the frequent objectification of women which results from it, within the larger context of medieval social history can expand and enhance our knowledge of Jewish social norms, family life, and spirituality in medieval Ashkenaz.
Baghdad Jewry in Late Ottoman Times: The Emergence of Social Classes and of Secularization
Authors: Deshen Shlomo
Published: October 2009

In late Ottoman times and until the end of the British Mandate in 1932, the community in Baghdad was one of the glories of modern Jewry. In the contemporary Middle East and Mediterranean world, Baghdad Jewry was rivaled in size and institutions only by the Jewish community of Salonika. But despite its prominence, and that of its descendants in Israel today, Baghdad Jewry has been studied very little. Our understanding of Jewish societies in obscure regions such as Yemen and Tripolitania is more advanced. This paper offers the outlines of a sociological portrait to fill the gap.
Fantasies of Deviance in Mendele and Agnon
Authors: Aberbach David
Published: October 2009

Fantasies of deviance, including latent homosexuality, are not a major or overt theme in the fiction of Mendele Mocher Sefarim (pen name of S. Y. Abramowitz, 18357–1917) and Samuel Joseph Agnon (1888?–1970) but are, nevertheless, an unmistakable part of the characters whom they depict. These characters, for various reasons and to varying degrees, are deflected from normal heterosexual attachments and are inclined, for this reason, to forms of perversion which at times mirror the distortions and breakdown in the societies in which they live.
Updated Bibliography of Alexander Altmann's Published Writings
Authors: Altman Manfred
Published: October 2009

Alexander Altmann passed away six years ago, yet his presence is still very much felt by all who work in the field of medieval and early modern Jewish philosophy and mysticism. The recent publication of his early essays on Jewish theology and the crisis of German Jewry in the thirties will bring him to the attention of a still wider circle of readers. His place among the foremost scholars of Judaic studies in our century is assured.
“Like the Ministering Angels”: Ritual and Purity in Early Jewish Mysticism and Magic
Authors: Swartz Michael D.
Published: October 2009

Students of religion are aware that the same ritual act can have many meanings depending on the cultural context. As Walter Kaelber observes, “Viewed cross-culturally, a given ascetic form may have different, even opposite objectives.” Accordingly, the same detail may have entirely opposite meanings in different ascetic regimens. Thus for the biblical Daniel and his ascetic heirs, beans were an ideal food, probably because they are dry and not susceptible to impurity; but for Pythagoreans and others, they were to be avoided perhaps because in certain Mediterranean populations, they presented an actual medical danger. These factors alert us to the principle that understanding a ritual system in its cultural context is vital. They also encourage us to read rituals and actions as we read texts–coding their creators' statements about what they value in a religious system and what they aspire to be.
The French Revolution and the Jews: Assessing the Cultural Impact
Authors: Berkovitz Jay R.
Published: October 2009

For the Jews of France, as for their fellow countrymen, the French Revolution came to constitute the myth of origin, the birthdate of a new existence. On September 27, 1791, two years after the storming of the Bastille and the Declaration of the Rights of Man, the French National Assembly voted to admit the Jews of Alsace-Lorraine to citizenship. Subsequent generations would recall this momentous event as a turning point of extraordinary magnitude, and would view themselves as compelling evidence of its transformative power. Their memories tended to be dominated by images of celebration and glory, comparing the Revolution to the Sinaitic revelation and referring to it in messianic-redemptive terms. Not surprisingly, the many setbacks and misfortunes suffered by the generation of 1789 were largely absent from these recollections, while only meager appreciation for the complexities introduced into Jewish cultural life can be detected in the half-century following the Revolution. Even more significant was the ascendant historical view, undoubtedly colored by a pervading sense of optimism among leaders of French Jewry, that credited the Revolution with having put an end to centuries of humiliation, legal discrimination, and exclusion from the mainstream of society.
Derivational Processes: Underlying Forms and Analogies in Ḥayyûjs Linguistic Works
Authors: Kaplan Roger Jay
Published: October 2009

This study examines Rabbi Yehuda Hayyûj′s (945–1000 C.E.) use of two derivational processes: underlying forms and linguistic analogies (singular: ArabicHebrew), which were an integral element of his work. Since his goal was to show the derivation of Hebrew verbs from triliteral roots, he focused on weak verbs whose surface forms did not demonstrate all three radicals. He compared many weak verbs to other verbal forms in order to identify the exact inflection of words, especially their verbal patternand consonantal roots.
An Eschatological Drama: Bavli Avodah Zarah 2a–3b
Authors: Rubenstein Jeffrey L.
Published: October 2009

The homily near the beginning of Tractate Avodah Zarah of the Babylonian Talmud, folios 2a–3b, surely must be numbered among the most fascinating rabbinic compositions. A brilliant creation of the rabbinic imagination, the homily depicts the inauguration of the “world to come.” A richly detailed eschatological drama unfolds as God places a Torah scroll in his lap and summons those who busied themselves with Torah to collect their reward. While rabbinic literature teems with static descriptions of the glorious miracles that await the righteous in the next world and parallel illustrations of the painful sufferings the wicked should expect, extended narratives of the initial stages of the process are rare. Not the nature of the world to come, but the test for admission is the subject at hand.
The Use of Midrash in Maimonides'Guide of the Perplexed: Decoding the Duality of the Text
Authors: Diamond James A.
Published: October 2009

In the introduction to his philosophical magnum opus, the Guide of thePerplexed, Maimonides provides us with a rationale for the composition of this work as well as instructions for the targeted reader on how to decipher its elusive and enigmatic style. Such devices as contradiction, diffuse and seemingly discordant treatment of subject matter, and deliberate ruses are employed to accommodate both halakhic legal constraints on the overt teaching of physics and metaphysics and the wide intellectual disparity of his potential readers. The sensitive nature of the topics to be explored demands an unorthodox pedagogy that both illuminates and conceals, allowing entrance to the qualified few while excluding those who cannot cope with the intellectual rigors involved. Rabbinic stricture prohibits revealing anything more of the Account of the Chariot (metaphysics) than chapter headings, and therefore Maimonides cautions, “my purpose is that the truths be glimpsed and then again be concealed so as not to oppose that divine purpose which has concealed from the vulgar among the people those truths requisite for His apprehension.”
“Texts of Terror”: Rabbinic Texts, Speech Acts, and the Control of Mores
Authors: Satlow Michael L.
Published: October 2009

In 1962, J. L. Austin published a set of lectures entitledHow to Do Things with Words. In this founding document of speech act theory, Austin argues that language not only can say things, but it can alsodothings (what he calls the illocutionary force of language). Austins signal example of the illocutionary force of language is the wedding ceremony, in which words properly recited actually create a marriage. Later students of speech act theory have expanded the application of this insight: all language, written or spoken, has an illocutionary force that depends on the context of the speech act. All language not only, or even primarily,says; it alsodoes.
Perception and Reception of Repentant Apostates in Medieval Ashkenaz and Premodern Poland
Authors: Fram Edward
Published: October 2009

Converts to the faith have often been perceived as somewhat problematic by Judaism; apostates even more so.1 This was especially true in medieval Christian Europe, where the adversarial relationship between Christianity and Judaism made apostasy, particularly apostasy by choice, more than mere defection; it cast aspersions on the rejected religion.
Isaac Abarbanel's “Stance Toward Tradition”: The Case of' Aṭeret zeqenim
Authors: Lawee Eric
Published: October 2009

The eminent turn-of-the-sixteenth-century theologian and exegete Isaac Abarbanel was hardly the first Jewish scholar to receive established principles and ways of thinking and a large body of classical Hebrew literature from the past. Nor was he the first to feel the Jewish past's “rich and intimidating legacy” weighing on his intellectual and literary shoulders. Indeed, it has been noted that medieval Jewish writers habitually felt compelled to justify their intellectual-literary existence, and that they often did so using an almost conventional literary genre largely designed for this purpose—the introduction.
Biblical Hebrews and the Rhetoric of Republicanism: Seventeenth—Century Portuguese Jews on the Jewish Community
Authors: Bodian Miriam
Published: October 2009

In their rhetoric, the ex-conversos who settled in “lands of freedom” outside the Iberian Peninsula tended to emphasize the anguish and lack of freedom they had endured while in the orbit of the Inquisition–in stark contrast to the free and thriving Jewish collective life they had now built outside it. If the Peninsula had been a swamp of “Egyptian idolatry,” the Jewish ex-converso communities in Amsterdam, Venice, Livorno, and London (to name only the most vibrant) were, by implication, encampments on the way to the Holy Land. Yet one aspect of their new condition subtly undermined the ex-conversos' confidence as Jews vis-a-vis the gentile world. Ever sensitive to their image, they were exquisitely aware of their now unambiguous identification in Christian eyes, not with conviction rewarded, not with faith triumphant, but with a defeated and exiled people.
“Dum Recordaremur Sion”: Music in the Life and Thought of the Venetian Rabbi Leon Modena (1571–1648)
Authors: Harrán Don
Published: October 2009

To gauge the breadth of the topic, it should be said at the outset that music occupied a central place in the thought of Leon Modena and that Modena was not just another rabbi in early seventeenth-century Venice, but, among Italian Jews, perhaps the most remarkable figure of his generation. His authority as a spokesman for his people rests on his vast learning, amassed from a multitude of sources, ancient, modern, Jewish, and Christian. He put his knowledge to use in an impressive series of over forty writings. They comprise often-encyclopedic disquisitions on subjects as diverse as Hebrew language and grammar, lexicography, Jewish rites and customs, Kabbalah, alchemy, and gambling, to which one might add various plays, prefaces, rabbinic authorizations, translations, editions, at least four hundred poems (among them epitaphs), a highly personal autobiography, and numerous rabbinical responsa. Of his responsa, two concern music, the earlier of the two amounting to an extended essay on its kinds and functions.
Must the Patriarch Know 'Uqtzin? The Nasi as Scholar in Babylonian Aggada
Authors: Steinmetz Devora
Published: October 2009

A baraita cited in both the Palestinian and the Babylonian Talmud (pKetubot 12:3, 34d-35a = pKil'aim 9:4, 32a-b; bKetubot 103a-b) describes Rabbi's dying testament to his sons. In the Babylonian version, Rabbi designates his elder son, Gamaliel, as his successor, and his younger son, Shimeon, as the next hakham. In its analysis of this part of the testament, the BT interprets Rabbi's declaration, which begins, curiously, with the younger son and the lesser position, as concessive: although the younger son is wise, the elder shall be the patriarch. In the continuation of this discussion, the Talmud manifests its concern over Gamaliel's appointment: Gamaliel does not “fill his forefathers' place in wisdom.” This problem is so great, according to the BT, that it would negate the elder son's claim to the dynastic position were it not that Gamaliel has another quality, “fear of sin,” with respect to which he does, in fact, “fill his forefathers' place.”
From After Death to Afterlife: Martyrdom and Its Recompense
Authors: Shepkaru Shmuel
Published: October 2009

In rabbinical literature the belief in a postmortem existence is rather obvious. Related terminology is relatively abundant, although fluid and obscure at times. The use of this terminology by a diversity of Jewish sources further complicates the understanding of the enigmatic notion called afterlife.

The purpose of this article is to explore one aspect of the Jewish credo of the afterlife: the nature of divine recompense in relation to martyrdom. The article aims at determining when a relationship between voluntary death and divine recompense was first established and what the nature of this recompense was. While this relationship does not contain answers to every question regarding Jewish tenets on the afterlife, I believe it to be indicative of general Jewish attitudes toward life and death in various periods and Jewries.
Samuel Ibn Tibbon on the Book of Job
Authors: Eisen Robert
Published: October 2009

Samuel ibn Tibbon (died ca. 1232) is best known as the translator of Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed. But as Aviezer Ravitzky has shown in his doctoral dissertation and in a series of recent articles, ibn Tibbon was an important thinker in his own right. First and foremost, ibn Tibbon appears to have been the earliest significant interpreter of Maimonides' philosophical thought. He was also one of the most influential. While there had been suspicions, even during his lifetime, that Maimonides held radical esoteric philosophical views, ibn Tibbon was the first to lend sophistication to this viewpoint by developing an elaborate system of interpretation for unlocking the secrets of the Guide, one that would have a significant impact on subsequent interpreters of Maimonides.
Succession to the Rabbinate in Yemen
Authors: Gaimani Aharon
Published: October 2009

Rabbinical appointments in modern times have been the subject of some study: in Ashkenaz it was customary for a son to inherit the office of rabbi from his father, provided he was deserving. Simḥa Assaf writes: “We do not find [in earlier periods] the practice which is widespread today, whereby a community, upon the death of its rabbi, appoints his son or son-in-law even if they are unworthy replacements. Previously, communities were not subject to this ‘dynastic imposition.’” Under the rule of the Ottoman Empire, in the seventeenth century, there are attestations of the rabbinical office becoming a dynasty reserved for certain families, notably Ṭayṭaṣaq, Ṣarfati and ‘Arameh, in Saloniki.Although the rabbinate was not perceived as the rightful monopoly of any particular family, interviews conducted with rabbis and community leaders on this point indicate that certain families had clearly been preferred over others. From the seventeenth century onwards this grew more pronounced: occasionally, the community would refrain from appointing a new rabbi and wait for a younger son to reach maturity so he could inherit his father's position.
Josephus' Interpretation of Jonah
Authors: Feldman Louis H.
Published: October 2009

Josephus has transformed what Bickerman has called a morality play, which, in the Bible, focuses upon the sinful people of Nineveh, their genuine repentance, and their forgiveness by God, into a historical episode centering upon the historical figure of Jonah, who, as a prophet, is closely akin to the historian, and upon his political mission. All the reasons why the book was chosen for thehaftarahof the afternoon service of the most sacred day of the Jewish calendar, the Day of Atonement, namely, to emphasize that God is the God of all mankind, that it is impossible to flee from His presence, and that He pities His creatures and forgives those who turn to Him in truth—all these are conspicuously absent from Josephus' account. The biblical version is more an unfulfilled prophecy than a book about a prophet, whereas Josephus' is about a prophet and, via Nahum, of a fulfilled prophecy. In an effort to appeal to his non-Jewish audience, he has emphasized the qualities of character of Jonah and muted the role of God. He has avoided taking responsibility for the central miracle of the book, the episode of Jonah in the big fish. Above all, in order not to offend his Roman hosts, who were very sensitive about proselytizing by Jews, he avoids subscribing to the biblical indications that the inhabitants of Nineveh had repented and had turned to Judaism, in whole or, at any rate, in part.
Against the Tide: The American Hebrew Yearbook, 1930–1949
Authors: Lederhendler Eli
Published: October 2009

Despite the survival of Hebrew as a language of prayer, and the pockets of Hebrew and Yiddish readers and speakers that exist in America today, American Jewry is overwhelmingly English-oriented in its cultural endeavors as well as everyday communication. That is one of the measures of American Jewry's successful integration in American society, and may thus be regarded as one of its achievements.
Constraints on socio-buffering around the Mantadia National Park in Madagascar
Authors: Shyamsundar Priya
Published: October 2009

Integrated conservation and development projects (ICDPs) involve the establishment of parks and reserves with protective or buffer zones around them. Socio-buffering provides local residents with alternatives to traditional land-use activities, but the actual implementation of socio-buffering programmes is difficult.

Socio-economic requirements and constraints to socio-buffering were assessed for the Mantadia National Park in eastern Madagascar based on five criteria. Previously unused lands for compensating people for loss of access to areas within the park were found to be insufficient. While there existed institutions and programmes for developing substitute land-use activities, successful adoption of these activities was crucially dependent on their economic viability. Socio-buffering activities need to not only provide goods that are substitutes for goods that are traditionally consumed, but they also need to be at least as profitable as traditional economic efforts. Also, if land and labour are not a constraint to agricultural expansion, socio-buffering activities can themselves result in increased deforestation. Finally, the long-term effectiveness of socio-buffering was likely to be dependent on the satisfaction of a number of stake-holder interests, and on explicit linkages developed between socio-buffering activities and conservation.
Conservation and utilization of medicinal plants in high hills of the central Himalayas
Authors: Farooquee Nehal A. , Saxena Krishna G.
Published: October 2009

Many high altitude regions of the world are still occupied by traditional communities of people, whose livelihood is closely related to a narrow base of locally available natural resources. A survey was conducted in 1991–94 of two villages inhabited by Bhotiya tribal people in Dharchula block of Uttar Pradesh, India. Medicinal herbs (14 abundant species, with Partitella ramitchadalis accounting for >50% by weight) constitute 12–13% of total income to the villages. The harvest is conducted by children during August to October, around summer settlements (up to 4100 m altitude) to which the villagers annually migrate. Fifteen cooperatives with a 1992 membership of 7009 herb collectors and salespeople exist in the Dharchula block, and marketing is through two specialist government agencies. Conservation measures, including protected areas and banning of direct trade with purchasing companies, have not generally been successful; pressure on the plant populations has increased and there is evidence for decline in the resource. Cultivation appears to represent a viable option for the resource, and thus for the income of the traditional peoples who still depend on it.