Search

The fifth part of Rabbi Khalifa Ben-Malka's Kaf naki (Clean Hand), Meshovah nizahat (Triumphant Response) portrays a series of interreligious disputations that he conducted with Christian colleagues in Agadir during the first half of the eighteenth century. A study of Meshovah nizahat reveals that, while these debates represent a direct continuation of medieval interreligious polemic, occasionally the traditional arguments took on a new garb--for example, those proofs relying on the era's geographic or scientific discoveries. Ben-Malka was well-versed in the intricacies of theological debate and was familiar with the most sophisticated tools the medieval polemical tradition had to offer, as well as with post-medieval Jewish anti-Christian literature. His writing opens a window onto eighteenth-century Jewish-Moroccan intellectual history while simultaneously raising a number of questions. Further study will be necessary to paint a fuller and more diverse picture. Key words: Agadir (Morocco), early modern period, Jewish-Christian polemic, Rabbi Khalifa Ben-Malka was born in Safi in western Morocco during the second half of the seventeenth century. Though he was orphaned at an early age, in his youth he [...] more...

This article addresses a lacuna in scholarship: the burial and mourning rites for pre-modern Jewish children's deaths. I explore three genres of sources from western and central Europe: bylaws, custom books, and epitaphs. I argue that communal leaders regulated the process of grieving one's children, marking those deaths in ways that are different from how an adult is memorialized. Nevertheless, by creating additional rites or by permitting parents to circumvent certain norms, communal leaders acknowledged and even facilitated more intense expressions of parental loss. Key words: burial, children, death, early modern, Hevrah Kadishah, In the winter of 1747, Rechel, the daughter of the rabbi of Mainz, and her almost seven-year-old son Shmuel, died approximately three months apart. Their respective deaths are commemorated in [...] more...

This article examines the work of Rabbi Yosef Knafo (1823–1900), a prolific author writing for the Jewish masses of Essaouira in Morocco. In this article, I suggest that Knafo's work should be read in the light of the local Jewish community's turbulent social context. Through his books, Knafo joined the ranks of the local advocates of modernity, dedicating himself to forging a more egalitarian Jewish society and providing spiritual backing to those struggling for societal democratization. Rather than representing a break with religious tradition or a form of westernization, Knafo's vision of modernity was a rearticulation of Jewish tradition in order to mobilize it toward social change. Using the printing press to subvert the local authority and reach new audiences, Knafo was also the first person in Morocco to quote and translate Hasidic works and he pioneered the diffusion of Judeo-Arabic literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

The Italian Fascist government of the island of Rhodes established a rabbinical seminary in 1928. The aim was not only to train rabbis, giving them a modern education, but also to create vectors of Italian influence in the Sephardi communities where the rabbis would assume duties once they graduated. The establishment of this institution was a response to the acute crisis in the education and formation of modern rabbis, especially chief rabbis, among the Sephardim of the Levant. The new seminary relied on the financial support of the Italian government and on subsidies from Jewish communities. The seminary closed because of financial difficulties in 1938, at the same time that antisemitic legislation was introduced in Italy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

This article examines the mezuzah's role in the construction of social spaces in antiquity. Located on the threshold, the mezuzah could be associated with a house's interior or exterior. Philo and the tannaitic rabbis envisioned different social constituencies engaging the mezuzah on different sides of the threshold. Philo imagines a broad public including fetus and gentiles in teracting with the mezuzah, such that the mezuzah adds a distinctively Jewish moral and aesthetic presence to an already culturally and ethnically diverse urban environment. The tannaitic rabbis, on the other hand, stress the importance of the mezuzah for a Jewish householder's dependents (zoomen, slaves, and minors), embedding him in the center of a community of his dependents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

In this article, I examine the critiques of the rabbinate expressed by four major groups within eighteenth-century Polish Jewish society: the communal leadership, the maskilim, the rabbinic elite, and adherents to the nascent Hasidic movement. All were agreed that contemporary rabbis were venal, ignorant, and dependent on the Polish nobility for their posts. In proposing solutions to this problem, the communal leadership and the maskilim favored a severe reduction in rabbinic power and even the abolition of the post, whereas the rabbinic elite and Hasidic leaders proposed a renewal of spiritual leadership through the creation of a new learned elite. However, whereas the rabbinic elite favored a withdrawn ascetic group of scholars, Hasidic leaders favored scholars who were deeply involved in social affairs. Noting that the basic outlines of this critique had been made nearly two centuries previously, I suggest that the problems it identified did not constitute a crisis brought on by external factors but, rather, a structural development that arose in response to the Jews' place in the early modern polity. Thus, the idea that modernization took place as the result of a crisis overtaking a static ''traditional society'' should be replaced with a model of incremental change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Through an examination of the innovative halakhic efforts of the French rabbinate during the nineteenth century to resolve tensions and contradictions between civil and Jewish law in the thorny area of marriage, this article sheds light on the extent to which French rabbis were prepared to harmonize Judaism with French civic norms. I first analyze rabbinic responses to clandestine religious marriages, which were illegal according to French law but technically valid according to Jewish law. I then discuss the efforts of the French rabbinate to harmonize conflicts between Jewish and civil law that arose from the collective naturalization of Algerian Jewry in 1870. Finally, I address two controversial rabbinic proposals for the harmonization of Jewish and civil divorce following the reinstitution of civil divorce during the Third Republic. As I show, in addressing the problems of clandestine marriages, recalcitrant brothers-in-law, and recalcitrant spouses, the religious leaders of French Jewry exercised moderation as they did in other religious matters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

The article focuses on reconsidering the tale of Rabbi Yosef Maman and the Bukharan Jewish diaspora. Since the publication of Yaari's works, scholars and journalists have come to refer to the story of isolation and reunion as a critical chapter in the history of the Bukharan Jews. Indeed, over the years this portrayal has been so widely disseminated that it has been commonly accepted as fact and Yaari is often no longer cited. In fact, there is no concrete evidence pointing to the isolation of Central Asia's Jews from the neighboring Jewish communities or evenfrom the Jewish centers in Europe. more...

This article documents the career of Rabbi Samuel Holdheim, one of the most controversial Jewish religious reformers in Germany. In contrast to his contemporaries, Rabbis Abraham Geiger and Zacharias Frankel, none of Holdheim's works was fully reprinted or translated in the twentieth century. He has been discussed only within the context of larger subjects, such as the history of the Reform movement or the history of Judaism in Germany. A fresh look at Holdheim, dwelling on the contradictory images that he presented to his contemporaries, his development from ahistorical iconoclast to advocate of Jewish loyalty, his interpretation by later historians, and his significance in the subsequent history of modern Jewish religion and scholarship, reveals a complex individual of considerable daring, whose concerns and objectives continued to be relevant long after his death. more...

The article explores the representative responsa of leading Ashkenazic Orthodox rabbis to the issue of conversion and intermarriage developed among Orthodox Jewish legal authorities in Central Europe, during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Responsa of Rabbis Yeheil Yaakov Weinberg and Simcha Levy are considered, as they represents the transition from lenient to stringent halakhic attitudes. The analysis aims to understand why the stringent Orthodox responsa has obtained a near total monopoly in the Orthodox camp. more...

The article examines the role that the Chief Rabbinate of Palestine played during the period of the Mandate from 1936 to 1945 which was marked by the flaring up of tensions in Palestine and the worsening of the troubles of Jews in the diaspora. Several issues are discussed which include the prominent role in the political scene of action and the meager authority and weaknesses in budget and administration. The paper also discourses related issues concerning the establishment of the First Yishuv institution was recognized by the people of Great Britain. more...

The article focuses on the book "Eichmann in Jerusalem," by Hannah Arendt. The topics discussed by Arendt in the book include the conduct of the trial, the nature of the defendent and his crime, and the behavior of the Jewish victims during the Holocaust. The author has tried to interpret Jewish history through her book. According to the reviewers of the book there are plenty of factual errors, inconsistencies, omissions in the author's interpretations of Jewish behavior during the Holocaust. Arendt blamed the Jewish leaders of helping their enemies and enjoying the powers given to them by the Nazis. more...

The article discusses the importance of rabbinic responsa or legal decisions of the Ottoman rabbis. One of the most unmatched events in pre-modern Jewish history is the boycott of the port of Ancona in 1556. The responsa or legal decisions are the most valuable sources for Jewish social and communal history. All the powerful political personalities including Pope Paul IV, Suleiman the Magnificent, and Guidobaldo II were confronting each other vehemently during the boycott. Merchants and traders in Italy and throughout the Ottoman Empire got fortunes during this dramatic episode of boycott. more...

The article reports on Andries Salomonsz, a rabbi and doctor in the Jewish Community in Leiden, the Netherlands. It is informed that Salomonsz was not a doctor among the Jews only; he had patients who were Christians as well. There were 1553 lawsuits, which refer to Salomonsz's medical activities, but these medical lawsuits are not particularly noteworthy. The lawsuits are a part of the thousands of those cases which business and professional people brought as a normal bill-collecting procedure. more...