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- Vereinigung für Jüdische Studien e. V. (204) (remove)
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.
‚Ma‘oz tsur jeshu‘ati‘
(2017)
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.
Die Rezeption des Propheten Jona im Koran setzt dessen biblischen Narrativ im Wesentlichen voraus und deutet diesen vor allem dort aus, wo man um eine Korrektur seines Prophetenbildes bemüht ist. Im Fokus stehen dabei die Buße, Umkehr und Erlösung Yūnus’ und seines Volkes. Nachkoranische Prophetenerzählungen (qisas alanbiyā’) füllen die narrativen Leerstellen der ‚Jona-Suren‘ wiederum mit erklärendem Erzählmaterial auf und schöpfen dafür auch aus dem umfangreichen Fundus biblischer und rabbinischer Traditionen, die sie sich im äußeren Rahmen der koranischen Yūnus Überlieferung schöpferisch zu eigen machen. So entstehen Erzählkompositionen, die sich als dialogische Auseinandersetzung mit religiösen Themen von gemeinsamer Relevanz lesen lassen. Der Artikel reflektiert gezielt Entwicklung und Verhältnis der Rezeptionen Jonas im Koran sowie in den Prophetenerzählungen von Ibn-Muhammad at-Ta‛labī und Muhammad ibn ‛Abd Allāh al-Kisā’i, in stetiger Auseinandersetzung mit der jüdischen Jona-Tradition.
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.