Refine
Year of publication
- 2016 (24) (remove)
Document Type
- Article (18)
- Working Paper (4)
- Postprint (1)
- Preprint (1)
Language
- English (24) (remove)
Is part of the Bibliography
- no (24) (remove)
Keywords
- CARICOM (1)
- Caribbean (1)
- Carlos IV (1)
- Colonialism (1)
- Compensation (1)
- Humboldt (1)
- International Court of Justice (1)
- Law of State Responsibility (1)
- Plantes Équinoxiales (1)
- Reparation (1)
Institute
- Institut für Slavistik (8)
- Vereinigung für Jüdische Studien e. V. (5)
- Berlin Potsdam Research Group "The International Rule of Law - Rise or Decline?" (4)
- Department Linguistik (3)
- Institut für Geowissenschaften (1)
- Institut für Romanistik (1)
- Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Fakultät (1)
- Strukturbereich Bildungswissenschaften (1)
After the mass immigration to Israel from 1948 to 1950, about 2000 Jews remained
in Yemen. These Jews lived in small communities and continued to maintain their
religious environment as it was. In the years that followed, many of them, however, moved from Yemen to Israel with the assistance of the Jewish Agency and the Joint
Distribution Committee (JDC). The community was of a small size and the fact that it
was dispersed throughout the predominantly Muslim areas, created a certain closeness
between the two groups. About ten percent of the Jews chose to convert to Islam, many
of them in groups. In about twenty cases, the husbands chose to convert to Islam while
their wives emigrated to preserve their Judaism. Some of the converts refused to grant
their wives a divorce, because, according to Muslim law, conversion is enough to sever
the marital relationship. This procedure is called ʿAgunot. Meaning, women bound in
marriage to a husband and they no longer lived together, but the husband didn’t formally
‘released’ her from marriage union. The article follows the efforts undertaken
to release the ʿAgunot, and shows that Jewish and Muslim scholars were able to find
solutions to the ʿAgunot problem and, at times, managed to bridge the gap between the
two religions.
Well-developed phonological awareness skills are a core prerequisite for early literacy development. Although effective phonological awareness training programs exist, children at risk often do not reach similar levels of phonological awareness after the intervention as children with normally developed skills. Based on theoretical considerations and first promising results the present study explores effects of an early musical training in combination with a conventional phonological training in children with weak phonological awareness skills. Using a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest control group design and measurements across a period of 2 years, we tested the effects of two interventions: a consecutive combination of a musical and a phonological training and a phonological training alone. The design made it possible to disentangle effects of the musical training alone as well the effects of its combination with the phonological training. The outcome measures of these groups were compared with the control group with multivariate analyses, controlling for a number of background variables. The sample included N = 424 German-speaking children aged 4–5 years at the beginning of the study. We found a positive relationship between musical abilities and phonological awareness. Yet, whereas the well-established phonological training produced the expected effects, adding a musical training did not contribute significantly to phonological awareness development. Training effects were partly dependent on the initial level of phonological awareness. Possible reasons for the lack of training effects in the musical part of the combination condition as well as practical implications for early literacy education are discussed.
This paper investigates an unnoticed difference in Mandarin between the Q-adjectives and the gradable adjectives of quality and shows that this observation follows straightforwardly from a theory that differentiates gradable predication of quantity and that of quality (e.g., Rett 2008; Lin 2014; Solt 2015; a.o.).
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.
Recent work in semantics has shown that languages can vary in whether or not they include degrees (that is, elements of type < d >) in their semantic ontology. Several authors have argued that their languages of study lack degrees, including Bochnak (2013) for Washo (isolate, USA), Pearson (2009) for Fijian (Austronesian, Fiji), and Beck, et al. (2009) for Motu (Austronesian, Papua New Guinea). In this paper, I follow the tests proposed in Beck, et al. (2009) to assess the status of degrees in Warlpiri (Pama-Nyungan, Australia).
I use Warlpiri data collected following the Beck, et al. survey to argue that Warlpiri gradable predicates do not combine with a degree argument. (Like many other Australian languages, adjectival concepts like big and small are expressed using nouns in Warlpiri (Dixon 1982, Bittner & Hale 1995, among others). I refer to these lexical items as “gradable predicates” in this paper.) This paper represents a first pass at assessing the status of degrees in an Australian language, which have otherwise been unexamined from the point of view of degree semantics.
Ever since our first research into Alexander von Humboldt's stay in Spain, the absence of an ensuing relationship between the wise Prussian and the Spanish Crown and Authorities had always surprised us. On starting new research, we found that indeed he sent his first work to Carlos IV from Rome accompanied by a letter of gratitude for the protection he had received during his American trip and submission to the Spanish Crown, which we now present. This first literary fruit of his voyage, which Alexander von Humboldt alluded to in the letter is the first instalment of his work Plantes Équinoxiales, Recueillies au Mexique, dans l’ile de Cuba, dans les provinces de Caracas, de Cumana etc., published in Paris in 1805.
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 paper undertakes a preliminary assessment of current developments of international law for the purpose of mapping the ground for a larger research project. The research project pursues the goal of determining whether public international law, as it has developed since the end of the Cold War, is continuing its progressive move towards a more human-rights- and multi-actor-oriented order, or whether we are seeing a renewed emphasis of more classical elements of international law. In this context the term “international rule of law” is chosen to designate the more recent and “thicker” understanding of international law. The paper discusses how it can be determined whether this form of international law continues to unfold, and whether we are witnessing challenges to this order which could give rise to more fundamental reassessments.
In June 2013, widespread flooding and consequent damage and losses occurred in Central Europe, especially in Germany. This paper explores what data are available to investigate the adverse impacts of the event, what kind of information can be retrieved from these data and how well data and information fulfil requirements that were recently proposed for disaster reporting on the European and international levels. In accordance with the European Floods Directive (2007/60/EC), impacts on human health, economic activities (and assets), cultural heritage and the environment are described on the national and sub-national scale. Information from governmental reports is complemented by communications on traffic disruptions and surveys of flood-affected residents and companies.
Overall, the impacts of the flood event in 2013 were manifold. The study reveals that flood-affected residents suffered from a large range of impacts, among which mental health and supply problems were perceived more seriously than financial losses. The most frequent damage type among affected companies was business interruption. This demonstrates that the current scientific focus on direct (financial) damage is insufficient to describe the overall impacts and severity of flood events.
The case further demonstrates that procedures and standards for impact data collection in Germany are widely missing. Present impact data in Germany are fragmentary, heterogeneous, incomplete and difficult to access. In order to fulfil, for example, the monitoring and reporting requirements of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 that was adopted in March 2015 in Sendai, Japan, more efforts on impact data collection are needed.