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The concept of three journeys as a way to denote spiritual development was introduced
by Dhu al-Nun, one of the founding fathers of Islamic mysticism. The use of this
concept was later refined by combining it with the Sufi technique of adding different
prepositions to a certain term, in order to differentiate between spiritual stages. By
using the words journey (Safar) and God (Allah) and inserting a preposition before the
word God, Sufi writers could map the different roads to God or the stations (Maqamat) on this road. Ibn al-'Arabi, in the beginning of the thirteenth century, speaks of three
different ways: from God, toward God and in God. Tanchum ha-Yerushalmi, the Judeo
Arabic biblical commentator from the end of this century, speaks of the three journeys
as three stations of one continuous way. A nearly identical description we can find in
the writing of the Muslim scholar Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, a generation later. Later in
the fourteenth century, in the writing of the Sufi writer al-Qashani, the three travels
become four, although the scheme of three prepositions is preserved. Near the end of
the fourteenth century, in the writings of R. David ha-Nagid, we find only two journeys:
to God and in God. All this tells us that Judeo Arabic literature can help us map
with greater precision the historical development of Sufi ideas.
Enlisted History
(2018)
Zeev Jawitz (1847–1924) was active in all spheres of culture: history, language, literature and pedagogy, all the while striving for harmonization with the Orthodox outlook. He understood that a people returning to its homeland needed a national culture, one that was both broad and deep, and that the narrow world of the Halakhah would no longer suffice. His main work was the multi-volume Toldot Israel (History of Israel, published 1895–1924) which encompasses Jewish history from its beginning – Patriarchs – until the end of the 19th century. His historical writing, with its emphasis on internal religious Jewish sources, the unity and continuity of Jewish history, and respect of Orthodox principles, comes as an alternative to the historiography of the celebrated historian Heinrich Graetz. The alternative that Jawitz tried to substitute for Wissenschaft des Judentums, was influenced not only by Orthodox ideology, which he supported, but also by his nationalist ideology. He saw himself and his disciples as the “priests of memory,” presenting the true and immanent history and character of the Jewish nation as a platform to the Jewish future in the land of Israel.
This article considers one of the major weaknesses in the existing historiography of Irish Jewry, the failure to consider the true extent and impact of antisemitism on Ireland’s Jewish community. This is illustrated through a brief survey of one small area of the Irish-Jewish narrative, the Jewish relationship with Irish nationalist politics. Throughout, the focus remains on the need for a fresh approach to the sources and the issues at hand, in order to create a more holistic, objective and inclusive history of the Jewish experience in Ireland.
This paper describes an almost forgotten chapter in the relatively short history of Jewish- Buddhist interactions. The popularization of Buddhism in Germany in the second half of 19th century, effected mainly by its positive appraisal in the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer, made it a common referent for both critics of Judaism and Christianity as well as their defenders. At the same time, Judaism was viewed by many as a historically antiquated religion and Jewish elements in Christianity were regarded as impediments to the progress of European religiosity and culture. Schopenhauerian conception of “pessimistic” Buddhism and “optimistic” Judaism as the two most distant religious ideas was proudly appropriated by many Jewish thinkers. These Jews portrayed Buddhism as an anti-worldly and anti-social religion of egoistic individuals who seek their own salvation (i. e. annihilation into Nothingness), the most extreme form of pessimism and asceticism which negates every being, will, work, social structures and transcendence. Judaism, in contrast, represented direct opposites of all the aforementioned characteristics. In comparisons to Buddhism, Judaism stood out as a religion which carried the most needed social and psychological values for a healthy modern society: decisive affirmation of the world, optimism, social activity, co-operation with others, social egalitarianism, true charitability, and religious purity free from all remnants of polytheism, asceticism, and the inefficiently excessive moral demands ascribed to both Buddhism and Christianity. Through the analysis of texts by Ludwig Philippson, Ludwig Stein, Leo Baeck, Max Eschelbacher, Juda Bergmann, Fritz-Leopold Steinthal, Elieser David and others, this paper tries to show how the image of Buddhism as an antithesis to Judaism helped the German Jewish reform thinkers in defining the “essence of Judaism” and in proving to both Jewish and Christian audiences its enduring meaningfulness and superiority for the modern society.
Mothers of Seafaring
(2023)
The article aims to trace the contribution of Jewish women in the Yishuv’s maritime history. Taking the example of Henrietta Diamond, a founding member and chairperson of the Zebulun Seafaring Society, the article seeks to explore the representation and role of women in a growing Jewish maritime domain from the 1930s to the 1950s. It examines Zionist narratives on the ‘New Jew’ and the Jewish body and studies their relevance for the emerging field of maritime activities in the Yishuv. By contextualizing the work and depiction of Henrietta Diamond, the article sheds new light on the gendered notions that underlay the emergence of the Jewish maritime domain and illustrates the patterns of inclusion and exclusion in it.
Hilfe für Erez Israel
(2020)
Jacob Brandon Maduro’s Memoirs and Related Observations (Havana, 1953) speak to the lasting yet malleable legacy of Jewish Caribbean/Atlantic mercantile communities that defined early modern settlement in the Americas. A close reading of the Memoirs, alongside relevant archival records and community narratives, lends new perspectives to scholarship on Port Jewries and the Atlantic Diaspora. Specifically concerned with Jacob’s adoption of such leading intellectual and political tropes as the Monroe doctrine, José Martí’s Nuestra America, and a Zionism that evolved from an ideology to a reality, the Memoirs reveal a narrative at once defined by the tremendous upheavals of the first half of the 20th century, and an enduring sense of Jewish diasporic peoplehood defined through a Port Jew paradigm whereby the preservation of Jewish ethnicity is understood as synonymous with the championing of modernity.
Dieser Text geht der Frage nach, wie die wissenschaftliche Auseinandersetzung mit den nationalsozialistischen Ghettos in der Zeit von 1945 bis 1960 im englischen Sprachraum betrieben wurde. Werke, die jüdisches Erleben und Handeln mitsamt der gesellschaftlichen Organisation in den Mittelpunkt rücken, sind in diesem Zeitraum deutlich stärker vertreten, als dies nach einer Lektüre der Sekundärliteratur zu erwarten wäre. Ein wissenschaftlicher Ansatz, der die Juden nicht nur als namenlose Masse von Opfern wahrnimmt, tritt also durchaus schon früh auf. Ebenso wird die Politik der jüdischen Führungsschichten, der so genannten ‚Judenräte‘, deutlich differenzierter verhandelt als vermutet; neben vernichtenden Urteilen finden sich Kontextualisierungen, die ihr Agieren aus verschiedenen Blickwinkeln beleuchten und einordnen. Auch wenn diese Forschungsanliegen zunächst nur bedingt rezipiert wurden und vor allem universitär marginal blieben, lassen sich doch von dieser Seite Traditionslinien besonders in die entstehende israelische Holocaustforschung beobachten.
Halakha and Microhistory
(2010)
Shifra was a Jewish businesswoman in Moravia in the fifteenth-century. In 1452 due to financial fraud she was arrested in Brno. Her life was saved by some members of the local Jewish community, who renounced their financial claims against their Christian neighbours in the exchange of Shifra’s life. However, one member of the community consented to the agreement only on condition that the other members would pay his losses. The case was extensively discussed in the correspondence of contemporary rabbis, among them Israel Bruna and Israel Isserlein. Their letters about the Shifra-affair reveal some important characteristics of the rabbinic authority in the late medieval Ashkenaz.
Jiddischforschung in Japan
(2008)
Im vorliegenden Beitrag werden einige zentrale Berichte und Motive aus den frühen Quellen des Islam über die militärischen Konflikte des Propheten Muhammad mit den
Juden von Medina beleuchtet. Als Grundlage der Untersuchung dient die Prophetenbiografie des Gelehrten Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq (gest. 150 nach der Hedschra), die auch heute noch maßgeblich ist. Im Beitrag wird unter anderem aufgezeigt, dass es sowohl innerhalb der Gattung der Sīra-Literatur, der Ibn Isḥāqs Werk angehört, als auch in den frühen Traditionen der islamischen Rechtswissenschaft, der Koranexegese sowie im Korantext selbst zahlreiche Hinweise auf alternative Darstellungen dieser Konflikte gibt. Diese gerieten in den ersten Jahrhunderten des Islam infolge des Siegeszuges von Ibn Isḥāqs Werk zunehmend aus dem Blickfeld, sind aber für zeitgenössische Diskurse um das Verhältnis des Islam zu Nichtmuslimen durchaus von Interesse. Ziel der Untersuchung ist es die normative Aussagekraft der unterschiedlichen Szenarien für Grundsatzfragen insbesondere für das Verhältnis zwischen Muslimen und Juden herauszuarbeiten. Einen inhaltlichen Schwerpunkt im Beitrag bilden dabei unterschiedliche Zugänge zum berühmten Bericht über die Vernichtung des jüdischen Stammes der Banū Qurayza im Anschluss an die Grabenschlacht.
Due to the lack of acceptance of Wissenschaft des Judentums in academia, modern Jewish scholarship in the nineteenth century organized itself along networks of institutions such as rabbinical seminaries, contacts with related disciplines like Oriental Studies, and personal relationships. This last pathway of communication was essential for the cohesion of modern Jewish scholarship. Therefore, my essay portrays the correspondence between David Kaufmann and Leopold Zunz as an example of this channel of communication. By analyzing the exchange of letters and personal encounters between the two scholars, particular attention will be paid to the following questions: How were the letters transmitted until today? What were the main topics of the correspondence between these representatives of two generations of Wissenschaft des Judentums? Which were the positions of Kaufmann and Zunz towards the present and future of modern Jewish scholarship? How did Kaufmann become the first biographer of Zunz?
When the Jewish Theological Seminary in Breslau opened its doors in 1854, it established a novel form of rabbinical education: the systematic combination of Jewish studies at the seminary in parallel with university studies. The Breslau seminary became the model for most later institutions for rabbinical training in Europe and the United States. The seminaries were the new sites of modern Jewish scholarship, especially the academic study of Judaism (Wissenschaft des Judentums). Their function and goal were to preserve, (re)organize, and transmit Jewish knowledge in the modern age. As such, they became central nodes in Jewish scholarly networks. This case study highlights the multi-nodal connections between the Conservative seminaries in Breslau, Philadelphia, New York, Budapest, and Vienna. At the same time, it is intended to provide an example of the potential of transnational and transfer studies for the history of the Jewish religious learning in Europe and the United States.
In this article we will present a few examples of the theme of “calling for help and redemption” in Arabic and Hebrew poetry, with particular focus on eleventh and twelfth century Muslim Spain. More particularly, we will offer a glimpse into the life and oeuvre of two medieval poets (one Muslim, one Jewish); both were active in Muslim Spain in the same period and shared a similar fate of exile and wandering: on the one hand, the Sicilian Arabic poet Ibn Ḥamdīs (c. 1056–c. 1133) and on the other hand, the Spanish Jewish poet Moses ibn Ezra (1055–1138). We will take into account the impact of exile and wandering on the profusion of the theme of “calling for help and redemption” as well as the related theme of “yearning for one’s homeland” through an analysis and comparison of poetic fragments by the two aforementioned poets as well as additional Andalusian Jewish (Judah ha-Levi) and Muslim (Ibn Khafāja, al-Rundī and Ibn al-Abbār) poets.
In 1810, Moses Lackenbacher, together with two of his children, Israel and Heinrich, and Moses Löwenstein created the company “Moses Lackenbacher & Compagnie” with headquarters in Nagykanizsa and a branch in Vienna. The main profile of the company was army purveyance. The business activity resulted in a high spatial mobility which led to socio-cultural acculturation and conversions to Christianity within the kinship. This paper explores the connection between kinship and the operation of the company on the basis of the prominent yet little-researched Lackenbachers in the early 19th-century Habsburg Monarchy. Central questions are how the relatives organized a company during the Napoleonic wars, as well as the impact of operating a business; how familial bonds and kinship links were affected, and, in this context, how relatives together evolved into a multi-religious network of kinship.
Desperados at Sea
(2023)
Pirates are fortune-seeking fighters at sea. Their exploits fire the imaginations of their victims and admirers, drawing a veil over individuals who rarely bear a real name and pursue their adventurous occupations as buccaneers, filibusters, freebooters, privateers, pirates, or corsairs. Piracy, corsairing, and contraband trade were epidemic among the Egyptians and the Phoenicians, the Greeks and the Vikings, the Spaniards and the Ottomans, the Muslims, and the Christians. And the Jews.
Von Budapest nach Straßburg
(2014)
Der ungarische Kantor Marcel (Martón) Lorand trat 1964, von der neologen Großen Synagoge Budapest kommend, die Kantorenstelle an der orthodoxen Synagogue de la Paix in Straßburg an. Dieser Beitrag nähert sich seinem Leben und Wirken über seine Schallplatten-Aufnahmen sowie über Erinnerungen von Zeitgenossen. Am Beispiel Lorands soll betrachtet werden, mit welchen Herausforderungen ein Kantor beim Wechsel von einer Gemeinde in eine andere konfrontiert sein kann. In einer der wichtigsten Gemeindefunktionen, als Leiter des Synagogengottesdienstes, muss ein Kantor flexibel sein und sich an ortsgebundene liturgische Bräuche anpassen können.
Abgelegte Musik
(2023)
Gershom Scholem (1897–1982) portrayed modern Zionist historical scholarship as both a rejection and a corrective fulfillment of earlier eras of Wissenschaft des Judentums. Through attacks on his scholarly predecessors, Scholem detailed his vision for the potential of this renaissance of Wissenschaft to entail both objective research and a commitment to treating Judaism as a “living organism,” an approach that would ultimately ensure the scholarship could deliver value to the Jewish community. This article will explore the tensions that arise from Scholem’s commitments, his occasional admissions of these tensions, and his attempts to overcome them.
Der Beitrag widmet sich dem Genre der „galizischen“ Ghettogeschichte und bezieht sich auf Nathan Samuelys zweibändige Cultur-Bilder aus dem jüdischen Leben in Galizien (1885 und 1892) und auf Karl Emil Franzos’ Novellenzyklus Die Juden von Barnow (1877) sowie stellenweise auf ausgewählte Texte aus Franzos’ Band Aus Halb-Asien. Culturbilder aus Galizien, der Bukowina, Südrußland und Rumänien (1876). Durchgeführt wird eine punktuelle Analyse der literarischen Typologie und der Handlungsräume in den genannten Texten, wobei die Ghettogeschichten in ihrer Gesamtheit als ein komplexes soziokulturelles Konstrukt einer Mikrogesellschaft problematisiert werden.
Rabbi Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler (1892–1953) is often portrayed as antagonistic to secular studies. However, his writings show more of an intellectual hierarchy that places Torah wisdom at the top and all other wisdom a distant second. R. Dessler expended great effort promoting Torah scholarship while generally refraining from disparaging secular studies. Looking at the writings of his predecessors in the Mussar (moralist) movement, one can see that there was no disapproval of worldly education there, either: In fact, R. Dessler and his predecessors were well-educated in many secular disciplines. This essay looks to places R. Dessler’s attitude toward Wissenschaft des Judentums within the context of his life’s mission to advance talmudic study and his consequent unwillingness to countenance anything that detracted from furthering the learning of Torah. I argue that, whereas his extreme opposition to Wissenschaft was the result of his aversion to its aims, methods and conclusions, his nuanced relationship to Orthodox Wissenschaft was the result of the hierarchy through which he viewed secular as opposed to talmudic study.
‚Maise Jeschurun‘
(2023)
The 1920s witnessed a growing appearance of individual American Jews–
largely from wealthy and prominent families – who received training by Asian teachers and pursued Buddhist practices in Asian-founded Buddhist groups. Some of these American Jews gained prominence and leadership status in Buddhist communities and also ran their own semi-established Buddhist groups, with limited success. The social position and material success of these Jewish Buddhists allowed them the time and means to study and practice Buddhism. This paper illustrates these developments through the story of Julius Goldwater, a member of the prominent German Jewish family that included Senator Barry Goldwater. After encountering Buddhism in Hawaii and being ordained in Kyoto, Goldwater moved to Los Angeles to become one of the first European-American Jodo Shinshu ministers in America. This paper demonstrates how he was an early convert, teacher, and wartime proponent of American Buddhism.
“Creating a Maritime Future”
(2023)
This article explores the importance of the port city of Hamburg in the evolving discourses on the creation of a maritime future, a vision which became influential in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. While some Jewish representatives in the city aimed at preserving and intertwining Hanseatic and Jewish traditions in order to secure a Jewish presence in the port city under the pressure of the Nazi regime and thereafter, others wanted to create new emigration opportunities, especially to Mandatory Palestine, and create a Jewish maritime future in Eretz Israel. Different Zionist organizations supported the newly evolving maritime ideas, such as the “conquest of the sea”, and promoted the image of a Jewish seafaring nation. Despite the difficulties in the 1940s, these concepts gained influence post-1945 and led to the foundation of the fishery kibbutz “Zerubavel” in Blankenese/Hamburg. However, the idea of a Hanseatic Jewish future also remained influential and illustrates how differently a “Jewish maritime future” was imagined and used to link past, present and future.
As mid-19th-century American Jews introduced radical changes to their religious observance and began to define Judaism in new ways, to what extent did they engage with European Jewish ideas? Historians often approach religious change among Jews from German lands during this period as if Jewish immigrants had come to America with one set of ideas that then evolved solely in conversation with their American contexts. Historians have similarly cast the kinds of Judaism Americans created as both unique to America and uniquely American. These characterizations are accurate to an extent. But to what extent did Jewish innovations in the United States take place in conversation with European Jewish developments? Looking to the 19th-century American Jewish press, this paper seeks to understand how American Jews engaged European Judaism in formulating their own ideas, understanding themselves, and understanding their place in world Judaism.
Nachruf
(2013)
Am 31. Januar, kurz vor einer Vortragsreise nach Israel, erlitt William Hiscott einen Herzinfarkt, fiel ins Koma und verstarb am 6. Februar 2013 im Herzzentrum in Berlin. Damit verloren wir an der Universität Potsdam völlig überraschend einen engagierten und äußerst beliebten Nachwuchsforscher und jungen Kollegen.
Scholars of modern Jewish thought explore the hermeneutics of “translation” to describe the transference of concepts between discourses. I suggest a more radical approach – translation as transvaluation – is required. Eschewing modern tests of truth such as “the author would have accepted it” and “the author should have accepted it,” this radical form of translation is intentionally unfaithful to original meanings. However, it is not a reductionist reading or a liberating text. Instead, it is a persistent squabble depending on both source and translation for sustenance. Exploring this paradigm entails a review of three expositions of the Korah biblical narrative; three readings dedicated to keeping an eye on current events: (1) Tsene-rene (Prague, 1622), biblical prose; (2) Yaldei Yisrael Kodesh, (Tel Aviv, 1973), a secular Zionist reworking of Tsene-rene; and (3) The Jews are Coming (Israel, 2014–2017) a satirical television show.
A Secular Tradition
(2021)
This article focuses on the social philosopher Horace Kallen and the revisions he made to the concept of cultural pluralism that he first developed in the early 20th century, applying it to postwar America and the young State of Israel. It shows how he opposed the assumption that the United States’ social order was based on a “Judeo-Christian tradition.” By constructing pluralism as a civil religion and carving out space for secular self-understandings in midcentury America, Kallen attempted to preserve the integrity of his earlier political visions, developed during World War I, of pluralist societies in the United States and Palestine within an internationalist global order. While his perspective on the State of Israel was largely shaped by his American experiences, he revised his approach to politically functionalizing religious traditions as he tested his American understanding of a secular, pluralist society against the political theology effective in the State of Israel. The trajectory of Kallen’s thought points to fundamental questions about the compatibility of American and Israeli understandings of religion’s function in society and its relation to political belonging, especially in light of their transnational connection through American Jewish support for the recently established state.
Anhand von Beispielen aus der sephardischen Presse und aus Übersetzungen von deutschsprachigen Werken wird der Frage nachgegangen, wie Orts- und Personennamen aus dem deutschen Sprachraum im späten 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhundert in das judenspanische Sprach- und Schriftsystem transferiert wurden. Dabei zeigt sich, dass der Ort der Publikation eine entscheidende Rolle spielte. Während in Wiener Publikationen im Allgemeinen die Transkription der Namen gemäß der deutschen Aussprache bevorzugt wird, macht sich in Drucken aus anderen Städten der Einfluss von Mittlersprachen bemerkbar. Mit zunehmender Entfernung und abnehmender Kenntnis der deutschen Sprache und Realität nehmen außerdem die Druckfehler deutlich zu, so dass das Entziffern und Identifizieren von deutschen Namen in judenspanischen Texten zuweilen einem Detektivspiel gleicht.
“Israel am Meere”
(2023)
For Jews in Germany, the period following the Nazis’ rise to power in January 1933 was a period of decision-making on many levels: How should they respond to the persecution? If they decided to emigrate, many more decisions had to be made: How does one leave a country, and where should one go? A key moment in the process and in the cultural practice of emigration is the beginning of the sea voyage – when the need for departure and the hope for a new arrival jointly create a period of liminality. Looking at reports from sea voyages of exploration and emigration from the 1930s, this contribution discusses the question whether, and in what ways, such reflections can be read in the context of religious experiences and in the search for Jewish identities in times of turmoil.
Inhalt: 1) Die Berliner Jahre 1920-24 2) Die Berichterstattung für den Forverts 1940-45 2.1) Bolschewistische und nationalsozialistische Herrschaftspraxis im Vergleich 2.2) Die Lage der Juden in Europa und die Haltung der amerikanischen Juden 2.3) Die Auseinandersetzung mit der deutschen Gesellschaft und der nationalsozialistischen Ideologie
Ismar Elbogen (1874–1943) and Franz Rosenzweig (1886-1929) were both pioneers in Jewish thought and culture. Elbogen authored the most comprehensive study on Jewish liturgy, while Rosenzweig’s magnum opus The Star of Redemption has emerged as one of the twentieth century’s most innovative and elusive works of Jewish thought. Even though Rosenzweig is not known for his work on or appreciation for the Wissenschaft des Judentums, this article will explore this overlooked aspect of his thought by exploring the influence of Ismar Elbogen. Commentaries to Rosenzweig’s views on prayer are numerous, yet none mention the work of Elbogen. This is a problem. By comparing Elbogen’s work on Jewish liturgy with Rosenzweig’s writings on prayer in the Star, we are able to demonstrate how methods seminal to the Wissenschaft des Judentums helped articulate several of Rosenzweig’s most innovative contributions to Jewish thought.
The figure of Moses constitutes an important link between Jewish and Muslim traditions.
Muslims consider him to be one of the five elite prophets of God, his story therefore
has a prominent place in the Qurʼan. While there are minor differences, the story
of Moses found in the Qurʼan confirms the account of the Torah; the life of Moses thus
is considered a model for all Muslims to follow. Though elements of his story are found throughout the Qurʼan, it is in chapter 7 where it is given in its greatest detail. As the
focus point of this article, chapter 7 discusses many events in Mosesʼ life, which are important for both Muslims and Jews, and reveals his great importance and Godliness. It also demonstrates how truly similar Islamʼs Moses and Judaismʼs Moses are. Therefore,
through an examination of the various elements of the story of Moses as found in
the Qurʼan, this article will show how by following him, Jews and Muslims can come
together in friendship, harmony and peace. Moses is the common ground on which
Jews and Muslims can come together in order to open up a dialogue and further their
shared commitment to the worship of the One God.
The article examines the work of Rabbi Yitzhak Isaac Halevy, arguably the most significant Orthodox response to the Wissenschaft des Judentums school of historiography. Halevy himself exemplified the Orthodox struggle against Wissenschaft, yet his work expressed a commitment to modern historiographical discipline that suggested an internalization of some of the very same premises adopted by Wissenschaft. While criticizing the representatives of Wissenschaft, Halevy was, at the same time, fighting for the internalization of its innovative characteristics into Orthodox society. He saw himself as a leader of a movement working towards the development of Orthodox Jewish studies and his application of modern historiographic principles from an Orthodox worldview as creating critical Orthodox historiography. Halevy’s approach promotes an understanding of Orthodoxy as a complex phenomenon, of which the struggle against modern secularization is just one of many characteristics.
This study deals with the impacts of the Holocaust on the identity of the Jewish community in Slovakia. The author is interested in the question (whether and) in which form God remained among the survivors after Auschwitz. The available ethnological material has shown that suffering during the Holocaust often resulted into abandoning the religion, and particularly in Judaism. Many survivors broke up their contacts with Jewry. They often decided to join the communist party (either due to their conviction or opportunism.) Our research has indicated that for the majority of the Slovak Jews, God after the Holocaust is rather an abstract concept or non existing. However, he is definitely not the biblical God of the Tora and micvot, to which our ancestors used to pray.
Angestoßen durch Adolf von Harnacks Buch ‚Das Wesen des Christentum’ begann sich Leo Baeck (1873 – 1956) mit dem Judentum, und in dem Zusammenhang auch mit den Anfängen des Christentums in polemischer Art auseinanderzusetzen. Im Gegensatz zum Christus der Kirche möchte Baeck den Juden Jesus wieder entdecken. Dafür wertet er die Pharisäer auf und stellt Jesus in diese Gruppierung. Weiter rekonstruiert Baeck ein jüdisches Urevangelium, anhand dessen er aufzeigt, dass Jesus mit seiner Lehre vollständig innerhalb des Judentums geblieben sei. Im Gegensatz dazu vermische Paulus, der zwar als Jude geboren wurde, jüdische Inhalte mit denen der Mysterienkulte und erschaffe so etwas Neues, nämlich das Christentum. Diese Auffassung entwickelt Baeck in verschiedenen Schriften bis 1938. Nach der Shoah hat Paulus sogar mit seinen messianischen und apokalyptischen Vorstellungen für Baeck Platz im Judentum. Paulus verlasse es erst mit der positiven Antwort auf die Frage, ob der Messias schon gekommen sei. Leo Baeck war einer der Initiatoren des christlich-jüdischen Gesprächs. Seine Schriften geben den Impuls, über die strittigen Begriffe Gesetz und Gebot neu ins Gespräch zu kommen.
Inhalt: Die Entstehung des Theaterensemble GOSET Der Umzug nach Moskau Marc Chagall als Bühnenbildner Einführung in das Jüdische Theater GOSET in Berlin Das Repertoire in Berlin von April bis Mai 1928 Die Presse und ihre Kritiken Granovskys Weggang und das Ende von GOSET Alexander Granovskys Artikel in den literarishen bletern
Between history and legend
(2010)
In the early modern period, Jewish historiography moved from the Hebrew domain into the Yiddish one. Jewish writers have succeeded to match the historical literature to the particular needs of their audience. The most popular Yiddish chronicle of this kind was written in Amsterdam in the 18th century by Menachem Man Amelander, following both the Jewish and Christian genre. This paper briefly surveys the genre characteristics of this chronicle and the way it served the purpose of guarding Jewish memory and tradition.
When Jesus Spoke Yiddish
(2015)
In this paper, I wish to bring some evidences from a Yiddish manuscript of the “Toledot Yeshu” which has not yet been the object of research: MS. Günzburg, 1730 kept in the Russian State Library in Moscow and dated 17th century. The manuscript is part of the so-called ‘Herode-tradition’ of the “Toledot Yeshu”. This means that the Yiddish manuscript is connected to the version printed in Hebrew and accompanied by a Latin translation by the Swiss pastor and theologian Johann Jacob Uldrich (Huldricus, 1683–1731) in Leiden in 1705, bearing the title “Historia Jeschuae Nazareni”. Given the uncertainty about the exact dating of the Yiddish manuscript, a comparison between the Hebrew and the Yiddish can still allow some remarks concerning the characteristics of the Yiddish version and posit some questions about the transmission and the reception of this challenging and intriguing text.
Inhalt: 1. Introduction 2. Summary of the narratives 3. Classification and structure of the narratives 3.1 The Death of R. Johanan's Tenth Son 3.2 The King's Son and His Three False Friends 4. The context of the narratives in Beer Sheva and Glikl's Memoirs 4.1 The context in Beer Sheva 4.2 The context in Glikl's Memoirs 5. Conclusion
Jüdische Friedhöfe in Europa
(2009)
Kotzo shel yod by Y. L. Gordon (1832–1892) – one of the prominent intellectuals of the Jewish Enlightenment period – is a well-known Hebrew poem. This poem is characterized by a daring, sharp criticism of the traditional Jewish institutions, which the author felt required a critical shake-up. Gordon’s literary works were inspired by the Jewish Ashkenazi world. This unique and pioneering literary work was translated into Judeo-Spanish (Ladino). The aim of this article is to present the Sephardic version of Gordon’s poem. The article will attempt to examine the motives behind the translation of this work into Ladino, the reception of the translated work by its readership and the challenges faced by the anonymous translator who sought to make this work accessibleto the Ladino-reading public, in the clear knowledge that this version was quite far removed from the Ashkenazi original from which it sprang.
Der Musiker, Komponist, Produzent und Labeleigner John Zorn ist eine der einflussreichsten Persönlichkeiten der New Yorker Downtown-Szene. Seit Anfang der 1990er Jahre verleiht er seiner jüdischen Identität mit dem von ihm initiierten Programm einer „Radical Jewish Culture“ einen künstlerisch und diskursiv wirkmächtigen Ausdruck. In diesem Artikel werden einige Gestaltungsmerkmale der produzierten CDs, die darin abgedruckten Zitate und liner notes sowie die Bandnamen und Titel der Stücke näher betrachtet und mit judaistischem Hintergrundwissen kommentiert. Zwei Quellen, die Zorn für die hebräischen Titelbezeichnungen herangezogen hat, konnten verifiziert werden: „Oedipus Judaicus“ von William Drummond und „Sefer Yetzirah“ von Aryeh Kaplan.
Die Idee für den Workshop war entstanden im Rahmen der Nachwuchstagung Judaistik/Jüdische Studien der Vereinigung für Jüdische Studien e. V., die im Februar 2012 in Bamberg stattgefunden hatte. Dort äußerte sich ein großer Bedarf nach größerer überregionaler Vernetzung. Als sehr wünschenswert wurde festgehalten, in Ergänzung zur Nachwuchstagung auch regelmäßige Treffen in kleineren Arbeitsgruppen zu etablieren. Der Workshop in Veitshöchheim war die erste Veranstaltung, die diese Idee zeitnah, acht Monate nach der Nachwuchstagung, umsetzte. Der Workshop fand in Kooperation zwischen der Vereinigung für Jüdische Studien mit dem Lehrstuhl für fränkische Landesgeschichte an der Universität Würzburg statt.
In 1945, Zinovii Shenderovich Tolkatchev (1903–1977), a Soviet artist of Jewish origin, created a striking series of five images entitled “Jesus in Majdanek”. The series was the culmination of Tolkatchev‘s intensive preoccupation with the experience he, as a Red Army soldier, endured upon taking part in liberation of the concentration camps Majdanek and Auschwitz. Shocked by the actual sights he witnessed, he depicted Jesus as an actual camp inmate, wearing a striped uniform marked by every possible defamation sign – the Jewish yellow star, the red triangle of political prisoners, and the individual prison number, the numerical tattoo on his lower arm can also be seen. The different stages of camp life are portrayed as the traditional Passion of Christ. While showing the actual situations the artist based himself upon the well known European Renaissance paintings canonically depicting Jesus‘ suffering. The article places Tolkatchev‘s series in a broader cultural and visual context by exploring the development of the ‘historical Jesus’ in the 19th century European thought and Russian realist art, and by examining the impact of the German avant-garde. By doing so, a deeper understanding of the universal message Tolkatchev’s works entail is offered.
The article is a study research that attempts to reconstitute one facet of the Jewish cultural history, represented by the Jewish typographical activity in a geographic and historic context, i.e. North Transylvania at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries. The core of the study is represented by a detailed research of the typographical activity of Jacov Wieder’s printing house that he had set up in 1897 at Seini, a small locality in the county of Satu Mare. Wieder’s printing house, where some 150 Hebrew book titles were printed, was activated alongside with some other 20 Hebrew printing houses of the same county until 1944. The Hebrew books printed at Seini are thoroughly examined from the point of view of their subject and authors. The high technical quality of the print of Wieder’s printing house and not less the prestige of the authors contributed to its fame and reputation. The books were distributed throughout the world and reached the Jewish communities from countries in the immediate proximity Eastern, Central and Western Europe and even North America and the Land of Israel.
This article explores the multi-directional geographic trajectories and ties of Jews who came to the United States in the 19th century, working to complicate simplistic understandings of “German” Jewish immigration. It focuses on the case study of Henry Cohn, an ordinary Russian-born Jew whose journeys took him to Prussia, New York, Savannah, and California. Once in the United States he returned to Europe twice, the second time permanently, although a grandson ended up in California, where he worked to ensure the preservation of Cohn’s records. This story highlights how Jews navigated and transgressed national boundaries in the 19th century and the limitations of the historical narratives that have been constructed from their experiences.
The political and social changes with which the 19th century began in the Balkans after a great part of their territories were taken over by the Austrian Empire, also resulted in social and intellectual activity and created a new framework in the relationship with the Ottoman Empire. Vienna turned into the shelter of many citizens from the Balkans who then became the transmitters of innovation to their co-citizens through their contact with central European culture. In this sense, the members of Jewish communities participated as much as members of other ethnical and social groups. The most prominent of these Jews was Israel Hayim de Belogrado (‘of Belgrade’), who developed an important intellectual work in the Austrian capital between 1813 and 1837. He even reformed Judeo-Spanish spelling and introduced new methodologies for learning Hebrew as a second language, based on the use of a trilingual nomenclature (Hebrew, Judeo-Spanish, German) when presenting the lexical repertoire.
The article explores the pedagogical dimension of contemporary visual art which takes the Holocaust as a main subject of representation. It asks how a work of art can offer a viable alternative to the already existing methods or practices of Holocaust education, whose traditional aim is to endow the apprentice with an ‘absolute knowledge’ of the Holocaust. The article analyzes the characteristics and the effectiveness of a ‘performative’ approach to teaching about the Holocaust, which relies on an element of interaction and on critical self-reflection, by undertaking a close analysis of Your Coloring Book, – an art installation created by Israeli artist and representative of the third generation after the Holocaust, Ram Katzir.
Das „Reichsinstitut für Geschichte des neuen Deutschlands“ begann im Jahr 1942 mit dem Projekt „Sicherstellung des historischen und anthropologischen Materials der Judenfriedhöfe in Deutschland“. Die Aufnahme des Projektes und die Anweisung zur fotografischen Friedhofsdokumentation erfolgten vordergründig aufgrund der bevorstehenden Auflassung der jüdischen Friedhöfe im deutschsprachigen Gebiet, eigentlich intendierten die Institutsmitarbeiter aber die systematische genealogisch-demographische, migrationsgeschichtliche und „rassenkundliche“ Erfassung der jüdischen Bevölkerung. Mittels einer fotografischen Dokumentation von Grabsteininschriften sollten diese Vorarbeiten zeitlich ausgeweitet und nunmehr auch die Juden erfasst werden, die vor Einführung der Personenstandsregister in deutschen Territorien lebten und deren Nachkommen auf diese Weise im Sinne der nationalsozialistischen Rassen- und Abstammungspolitik „nachgewiesen“ werden konnten. Dieser Artikel soll dazu beitragen, Kenntnis über erhaltene Dokumente, Korrespondenzen und Fotografien zu erlangen, die in Archiven, Nachlässen oder Sammlungen konserviert bzw. in regional- und lokalgeschichtlichen Aufsätzen verarbeitet wurden und denen bisher keine Aufmerksamkeit als Bestandteil einer überregionalen, auf Reichsebene durchgeführten Aktion beigemessen wurde.
In diesem Beitrag soll es darum gehen, anhand der Distinktion von Jetztzeit und Erinnerung scheinbare Einheiten im lyrischen Werk der Nelly Sachs zu hinterfragen. Ein Nexus der Jesusfigur zur Shoah ist in den Gedichten nicht zu übersehen; inwieweit eine Korrelation beider Diskurse zwischen dem perennierenden Leiden der Opfer und dem am Kreuz Gemarterten besteht, ist der Gegenstand dieser Untersuchung. Jesus wird im lyrischen Oeuvre auf der zeitlichen wie inhaltlichen Ebene neu figuriert: nicht als christologisch-dogmatische Erlöserfigur, sondern als der qualvoll gemarterte Mann, dessen Schrei im 20. Jahrhundert eine neue Lesbarkeit generiert: als leidender Mit-Bruder. Der historische Index der Jesus-Gestalt wird in der Passionsszenerie, die jedoch transformativ modifiziert wird, manifest.
This article explores childhood discourses in the Jewish society of the Russian Empire. It focuses on images of parents, while exploring the differences between pre-modern and modern narrative types in Jewish autobiographies. In the pre-modern paradigm, mothers are barely present while fathers appear more often, although neither parent demonstrates emotional affection toward the child. In the modern paradigm, parents are either equally present or the mother is more prominent, they engage in the everyday activities with the child, and do not hesitate to show their emotional love. Moreover, the notions of inner world and child’s individuality emerge. These changes correspond to major shifts in discourses shaping the attitude toward children in the European society.
Tu felix Camelot nube!
(2020)
This article explores the ways in which the Yiddish Arthurian romance Viduvilt (sixteenth ct.) reworks its Middle High German model text, Wirnt von Grafenberg’s Wigalois (1210/1220), for an early modern Jewish audience. Through seemingly minor changes, the adaptor creates a story world in which family politics play an essential role and become the driving force behind the story development. Part of this change is the reevaluation of female figures, in particular mothers. In contrast to its model, the Arthurian knight in Viduvilt is created as a figure that relies and depends largely on the decisions made by mothers, who are portrayed as powerful matres familias.
The success of Buddhism in the West, and in America in particular, since the middle of the twentieth century, gave birth to a new hyphenated religious phenomenon: the Jewish-Buddhists. While a growing number of scholars have been addressing this phenomenon, all of the studies published so far speak of “Jewish-Buddhists” as if they could be described in the same way it was in the seventies. In this paper, I take issue with the monolithic, reified approach towards the phenomenon of the “Jewish-Buddhists”, and will try to show their evolution from their early days at the dawn of the emerging Counter Culture until today. Following findings derived from diachronic and ethnographic fieldworks, conducted since 2009, I will suggest that this evolution has undergone three main phases, which I call the three “ages”: the age of challenging, the age of claiming, and the age of re-claiming.
Jakob Dymont (1880–1956) stammte aus Litauen und lebte seit seinem 15. Lebensjahr in Berlin. Von 1908 bis 1938 war er Chorleiter an der orthodoxen Berliner Gemeinde „Adass Jisroel“. 1936 wurde er außerdem Lehrer an dem neugegründeten „Beth- Hachasanim“ (Kantorenseminar) der Jüdischen Privaten Musikschule Hollaender. Zu diesem Zeitpunkt war er als begabter Komponist und einer der ersten Autoren von modernen deutsch-jüdischen liturgischen Kompositionen bekannt. Seine Freitagabendund Sabbatmorgenliturgien wurden 1934 bzw. 1936 in der Synagoge Rykestrasse uraufgeführt und fanden eine sehr positive Resonanz. Dymont konnte 1938 Deutschland verlassen. Er lebte dann in New York, wo er sich der Ausbildung jüdischer Kantoren widmete. Dymonts Schaffen der 1930er Jahre ist im Kontext einer Erneuerungsbewegung in der deutsch-jüdischen Synagogenmusik jener Zeit zu betrachten. Seine Werke präsentieren eine fruchtbare Synthese der osteuropäischen jüdischen Tradition mit modernen westeuropäischen Musikformen.
This article explores the little-known author Friedrich Korn (1803–1850). Korn developed a theory of universal revelation which, among other things, claimed that the Jewish people descended from India. His theory is an amalgamation of the Romantic ideas about India, the historical criticisms as expounded by David Friedrich Strauß, and the desire to see his own conversion from Judaism to Protestantism as congruent with the historical progress of religion. Situating Korn in the intellectual context and theological debates of his time allows us to take a closer look at how he tried to reconcile many opposing stances, namely arguing for a genealogical lineage between India and the Jewish people, while calling for the conversion of the Jewish people to Christianity, and steadfastly believing in universal revelation, while holding on to the tools of historical criticism. These different positions made Korn an untimely author, out of sync with his peers and the scholarly attitude towards Judaism, India, and religion in general.
In this article we analyze several examples of the syntactic structure ansí un...(Eng. such a...) apparently calqued from the German expression so ein... that can be found in different Judeo-Spanish texts since the second half of 19th Century. Although the eldest examples appeared in Judeo-Spanish translations of German novels, published in Vienna – what suggests that they could be mere cases derived from a kind of translation too attached to the original –, we can also find more examples in Sephardic texts produced outside the German speaking area (Bosnia, Bulgaria, etc.), not being necessarily translations of a German original. Dealing with all these cases, we will try to trace (and explain) the spread of the ansí un syntactic structure in modern Judeo-Spanish prose.
Archaeology can be understood as a tool used in the process of identity formation,
contributing to a sense of belonging and unity within a diverse set of communities.
Research was conducted with the intention of analyzing the wide range of perceptions
regarding archaeological sites in the mixed city of Lod, Israel. I explored the impact of
urban cultural heritage on shaping the identity of local Jewish and Arab children, who
were chosen as the youngest active members of society living in the city, and who
participated in the 2013 archaeological excavation season at the Khan al-Hilu. Israel is
an ideal location for such research, due to its nature as simultaneously being the focus
of extensive archaeological excavations as well as being the setting of an intractable conflict. Ancestral attachment to the land serves as a foundation for the collective
identity of both Jews and Arabs. Yet, each community and individual may relate differently
to the surrounding archaeological sites, which is further shaped by their sense of
societal hierarchy and cultural heritage.
Genealogical documents offer crucial information on various aspects of Jewish history. They are still underappreciated by many historians, and there is little overlap between academic researchers and the genealogical community, for whom such documents serve a different purpose, as they retrieve individual family histories. The article provides an overview of the material held by Leo Baeck Institute Archives and Library as well as other digital resources for family research today.
Vom Symbol zum Schweigen
(2013)
Die christliche Kabbala des deutschen Humanisten Johannes Reuchlin ist entscheidend von seiner Vorstellung vom Wesen und von der Funktion des Symbols bestimmt. Dieser Beitrag sucht nach dem Ursprung von Reuchlins Symbolbegriff und stellt die These auf, dass Dionysius Pseudo-Areopagitas Bemerkungen über eine symbolica theologia Reuchlins Sicht auf die jüdische Mystik grundlegend beeinflusste. Darüber hinaus wird die Frage diskutiert, ob Reuchlins Idee von einer symbolischen Theologie, die auch in der modernen Forschung fortwirkt, den frühen Kabbalisten tatsächlich gerecht wird, oder ob Reuchlins Rezeption nicht vielmehr einer neuplatonischen Literatur geschuldet ist, die den jüdischen Mystikern überhaupt nicht zugänglich war.
Die Seele der Sprache
(2012)
Eine der faszinierendsten Facetten der jüdischen Sprachmystik ist die Betrachtung der hebräischen Vokale als Träger der göttlichen Wirkkraft. Mit der aufblühenden Kabbala im 12. und 13. Jahrhundert entstanden in unterschiedlichen Zusammenhängen zahlreiche Theorien über die symbolische Bedeutung der Vokale, deren Form, Klang, Schreibweise oder auch grammatikalische Funktion Anlass zu mystischen Spekulationen gaben. In diesem Beitrag wird anhand ausgesuchter Beispiele der Versuch unternommen, die unterschiedlichen Lesarten der Vokale vorzustellen und die wichtigsten vokalmystischen Schulen herauszuarbeiten.
Two 19th century rabbis born in Vilna and educated in its raditionalist rationalism interacted with India’s temple Hinduism in different ways. Both were fascinated with Hindu worship and images, but David d’Beth Hillel entered temples and disputed with priests, while Jacob Sapir observed from outside, composing written pictures of Hindu images using a biblical vocabulary of abomination. D’Beth Hillel employed Hebrew linguistics to uncover secret meanings of Hindu words. However, both travelers interpreted Hindu religiosity similarly, as idolatrous worship. They explained this Hinduism historically as a survival of Judean idolatry brought to India by Jewish migrants, or as a survival from an ancient culture of idolatry that once filled the world. Both rabbis also perceived Jewish elements in Hinduism, which they explained from Jewish migrations of the past. The similarities in their conceptualizations of Hinduism point to a common Jewish worldview that constructed the world as opposing realms of revelation and idolatry, and also to common theories about how cultural change occurs through survivals, corruptions, and diffusion.
Karäer in Konstantinopel
(2013)
Die Erforschung der Entstehung des Karäertums auf byzantinischem Boden und seines Werdegangs ist durch das Fehlen von historiographischen Quellen im engeren Sinne überaus erschwert. Die vorliegende Arbeit ist als Einführung in die Thematik zu betrachten und beschäftigt sich mit der Problematik der Siedlungsorte und -geschichte sowie der sukzessiven kommunalen Entwicklung des Karäertums in Byzanz. Anhand der Analyse der Niederlassungsgeschichte wird der Konfliktdiskurs aufgezeigt, in dem sich die nach Byzanz aus dem Nahen Osten zugewanderten Karäer in Nachbarschaft mit den romaniotischen und später den sephardischen Gemeinden befanden. Aus diesem Konfliktdiskurs heraus entstand und festigte sich das Bewusstsein der Karäer in Südosteuropa. Dieses neugewonnene Verständnis ermöglicht eine neue Sicht auf die geistige Entwicklung und literarische Tätigkeit nicht nur der Karäer selbst, sondern auch ihrer Nachbarn, der Rabbaniten.
On the example of the women’s magazines in Yiddish “Yidishe Froyenvelt” (1902- 1903), “Di Froy” (Vilnius1925-1933), “Froyen-Shtim” (Warsaw 1925) and “Di Froyen-Velt” (New York 1913) this article presents: • how feminist postulates are connected with questions of Jewish identity in a religious and political context • how the model image of a modern Jewish woman is presented • what the main spheres of feminist interests presented in the magazines are (a struggle for equal rights within the Jewish community as well as other social spheres, searching for and presenting outstanding women in the Jewish and world history, descriptions of women’s professional activities, psychological analysis of a woman's nature, establishing ties and a feeling of solidarity between women’s movements of other nations) • how the traditional women's roles are presented (mother, wife, housewife) • what degree of women’s participation in the edition of these periodicals is (a list of articles' authoresses and literature works appearing on columns of the periodicals) • whether and how a feminist discourse affects a language structure of the periodicals Comparing magazines from the beginning of the 20th century and the latter part of 1920s the article answers the question what direction did Jewish feminism evolve to and what content rose or fell in importance.
Dieser Beitrag zeigt anhand von Canettis autobiographischem Werk Aspekte des interreligiösen Zusammenlebens in Wien anfangs des 20. Jahrhunderts. Canetti beschreibt in seiner mehrbändigen Autobiographie den Stolz der Sepharden auf ihre Abstammung und Abgrenzungsstrategien gegenüber anderen Gruppen. Wien wird bei Canetti als Schwelle zu einer anderen Welt dargestellt, das in Opposition zu einer traditionellrückständischen Heimat in Bulgarien steht. Symbolhaft steht die Stadt für Fortschritt und bildet einen Teil von Canettis neuem Leben, in dem das Judenspanische als Sprache des Ausdrucks und der Zugehörigkeit vom Deutschen abgelöst wird. Gleichzeitig wird Wien als Ort inszeniert, wo durch das Zusammentreffen einer Vielfalt der Kulturen Integration innerhalb eines intellektuellen Umfelds größere Bedeutung erhält. Die Auswirkungen pluralistischer Einflüsse innerhalb einer multikulturellen Gesellschaft auf Selbst- und Fremdbilder stehen im Fokus des Artikels.
The essay compares the dichotomous concepts of corporeality and spirituality in Judaism and Christianity. Through the ages, deviations from normative principles of beliefs could be discerned in both religions. These can be attributed either to the somewhat confrontational interaction between Jews and Christians in the Medieval urban environment or to the impact of Hellenic civilization on both monotheistic religions. Out of this dynamic impact emerged Christian art with a predilection to expressed corporeality, whereas Jewish religiosity found its artistic expression in a spiritual noniconographical mode. A genuine Jewish art and iconography could develop only after a certain degree of assimilation and secularization. Marc Chagall was the first protagonist of a mature expression of Jewish iconography.
Schechita und Kaschrut
(2007)
Die jüdischen Künstler Maurycy Gottlieb (1856–1879) und Marc Chagall (1887–1985) stellten Jesus als gläubigen Juden, eingebettet in die jüdische Umwelt seiner Zeit, dar. Der jüdische Jesus wird für sie zu einer Auseinandersetzung mit den jüdischen Wurzeln des Christentums und mit dem Antisemitismus, und sein Martyrium zu einem Symbol des jüdischen Leidens. Der vorliegende Aufsatz untersucht, wie ihre Bilder diese Botschaften transportieren und analysiert Kontinuitäten und Brüche über einen langen Zeitraum hinweg.
Indian Sufism in Israel
(2018)
This paper explores Indian Sufi influences in Shye Ben Tzur’s music. Ben Tzur is a Jewish Israeli musician who composes Sufi poetry in Hebrew and plays it to qawwālī music, the traditional North Indian Sufi music. Ben Tzur’s songs are devotional and there are many Sufi references that invoke Islamic terminology. His music has been reviewed in numerous newspapers and his Jewish identity, coupled with Sufi themes, evokes questions regarding religious belonging. Even though Ben Tzur openly discusses Sufi influences, his music has remained uncontroversial. This article interprets this as a sign that the symbolic repertoire of Ben Tzur’s music evokes associations with India and not with Islam and more specifically with India as a spiritual rather than religious space. The image of India as a spiritual land manages to subsume references to Islam and render them part of the “mystical East” allowing Ben Tzur’s audience to consume Muslim themes outside Middle Eastern politics.
„Wer ist wer?!“
(2013)
Dieser Beitrag liefert eine historische Übersicht zur Entwicklung des polemischen Diskurses,der sich über zwei Jahrtausende hinweg aus der biblischen Esau/Jakob Narrative bis ins zwanzigste Jahrhundert entwickelt hat. Dabei werden die Bedeutungen einige seiner herausragenden und wenig beachteten Erscheinungen hervorgehoben; besonders die Komödie Jakob und Christian (1937) des deutschen Zionisten Sammy Gronemann (1875–1952). Sie wird im Detail analysiert und gezeigt wie sich durch Gronemann Esau und Jakob in Symbolfiguren des aschkenasischen Judentums und des nationalsozialistischen Deutschtums verwandeln. Gronemanns Innovation besteht darin, dass er mit Hilfe eines rabbinischen Axiom betreffs Purim die überlieferte dichotomische Polarität zwischen Esau und Jakob zugunsten einer humanistischen Menschensicht mittels emphatischer Dialektik auflöst. Dieses exemplarische Phänomen wird eingehend beschrieben, sowie die Rezeption des Stückes in Wien und Tel Aviv.
Der deutsch-jüdische Dichter und Anarchist Erich Mühsam (1878–1934) rekurrierte in seinem schriftstellerischen OEuvre wiederholt auf die Figur Jesus’. Im Versuch, diese Beziehungsgeschichte zu rekonstruieren und zu deuten, rücken Einflussgeber aus dem Umfeld der literarischen Avantgarde Berlins sowie der Lebensreformbewegung in den Blick. In einer Verschränkung von quasireligiöser Renaissance und Aufbruchstimmung hin zum ‚Neuen Menschen‘ war Jesus in diesen Zirkeln um die Jahrhundertwende ein beliebtes Motiv und prägte sich, vermittelt über Freundschaften und Wegmarken, auch in Mühsams Schreiben ein. Neben Kain ist es Jesus, der bei Mühsam zur den fünften Stand revolutionierenden Lichtgestalt wird. In diese Bezugnahme spielen Mühsams konfliktreiches Verhältnis zu seinem Vater und dessen Assimilation an das deutsche Bürgertum mit hinein, das keineswegs gänzlich jene aufgeklärten Werte lebte, auf die es sich nominell berief: Statt Freiheit und Gleichheit prävalierten neue Zwänge, Begrenzungen und Ressentiments, wie Mühsam bemerkte. Über Gustav Landauer fand er nicht nur zum Anarchismus, sondern auch zu einer neuen Sprache für die verschüttete Tradition und prägte hierüber seiner Jesusfigur sein Verständnis eines rebellischen Judentums ein, das Mühsam selbst als Revolutionär verkörperte.
What did Cain say to Abel?
(2009)