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Since the immensely influential work of J. Louis Martyn, many Johannine scholars have interpreted John's [phrase omitted] passages (9:22, 12:42, 16:2) as reflective of the gospel's outsider position in relation to Jewishness. In Martyn's model, as well as in the model of his contemporary Raymond E. Brown, 'the synagogue' functioned as synecdoche for 'Judaism,' leading both scholars to the conclusion that John's [phrase omitted] passages reflected the experience of a late first-century community that was on its way out of the 'household of Judaism.' In this article, I draw upon recent advances in scholarship on ancient synagogues to problematize the equation of 'the synagogue' with 'Judaism' in toto, still a very prominent analytical framework in Johannine studies today. I then argue that John's expulsion passages are helpfully illuminated when the sociohistorical context of the events described in the text itself are viewed from the broader perspective of expulsions from public assemblies in Jewish and Greco-Roman antiquity. From this angle, John's story of [phrase omitted] can be read as an account of the contentious politics of popular assemblies, in which there were winners and losers in the competition over political influence, rather than as part of a compositional strategy of disaffiliation from Jews and Judaism tout court., I. JOHN AND 'THE SYNAGOGUE'? In 2015, Raimo Hakola noted that, since the immensely influential work of J. Louis Martyn, many Johannine scholars have interpreted John's [phrase omitted] ('put out [...]

Until the late 1970s, Israeli Haredim were known for their strict observance of halakha, their deference to their rabbis, the strictly Orthodox education of their children, and their reliable vote for Haredi political parties. Apart from these mores, most Haredim were comfortable leading a normal Israeli life: dressing as they pleased; living wherever their social, cultural, and economic needs were met; choosing an occupation or place of work that suited their capabilities and professional experience; and taking pride in the state which had accepted them as equal citizens after the Holocaust, supported their particular religious needs, and enabled them to follow their Haredi lifestyle to the full. In the wake of a process which began in the mid-1950s and culminated in the late 1970s, Israel's Haredi society adopted a way of life and attitudes which were different from those they had previously followed. The transformation was driven by three main factors: a growing frustration and the realization that the society, public space, and governing bodies of the country were becoming increasingly secularized. A second factor was the rise to power of Rabbi Menachem Mann Shach who became Haredi society's foremost leader during these years. And the third was the 1977 political turnaround when for the first time, right wing parties established the government. This provided Rabbi Shach with the political opportunity to lead the Haredi sector away from its former lifestyle which sought to integrate into Israeli society, and towards a disdain for Israel, Zionist ideology, and non-Haredi society. Rabbi Shach achieved this by imposing strict and unprecedented religious and social norms, glorified as the return to a 'golden age' that never really existed. Keywords: Haredi/Ultra-Orthodox Society, Contemporary Haredism, Rabbi Menachem Shach, Contemporary Israeli Society, Contemporary Judaism., INTRODUCTION THE EARLIEST STUDIES ON ISRAEL S HAREDI SOCIETY BEGAN TO appear in the second half of the 1980s, but the first book on the subject written by Menachem Friedman, [...]

1. Introduction Interest in Emilia Lanier (1569-1645) emerged slowly after the re-discovery of her book of poems, Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum, by John Buxton in 1954. It accelerated rapidly when [...]

Philosophers are supposed to be doubters. When we think of Socrates, the patron saint and martyr of philosophy, we usually fix on the early Platonic dialogues, which depict him as [...]

In this essay, Greenberg explores trans and gender-nonconforming ways of being in contemporary Judaism, through a televised version of Abraham, as portrayed in the award-winning Amazon series Transparent. Transparent's challenge to the gender divide is made by citing, referencing, and reimagining the mythological call to the biblical figure of Abraham: 'Go forth from your land, your birthplace, your father's house, to the land that I will show you' (Gen 12:1). The interconnection between the text's temporal and spatial gaps allows for a polysemic reading. It not only gives way to a renewed exploration of the two parts of the verse (the divine call to Abraham 'Go forth,' and 'from your father's house') but also adds another possible transfeminist reading of the conclusion to Abraham's story: 'Return to your parent's house, to care for your community,' urging action and spiritual leadership. Keywords: Abraham, Genesis, Judaism, nonbinary, television, trans, transfeminism, The award-winning Amazon series Transparent became well-known for telling the story of Maura Pfefferman's gender transition at an older age while parenting three adult children. (1) The first three seasons [...]

This short article expresses how one's own experience affects one's reading of the Bible, and how reading the Bible helps the reader to understand their reality differently. Stories that are presented in the Bible are stories in which one can find him/herself. This brief work focuses on what the sages say about shoah and times of crisis. Two verses are considered: Prov. 1:27 and 3:25, where the author gives advice to the reader on how to live wisely in times of distress. Shoah is presented here as a lived experience of the author after being forced to leave their hometown and escape the storm that hit the lives of so many people. Reading the Bible while being a displaced person put us very much in line with the exiled Israelites who lived the experience of loss and shame after 587 BC. Keywords: exile, proverbs, Shoah, tragedy, wisdom, Introduction: Reading the Bible in Exile The Bible relates stories of people who had different tragic experiences; they could be personal or communal stories, such as the story of the [...]

This article, originally presented as the Jewish lecture at the 44th International Conference for Dialogue between Jews, Christians and Muslims, explores the Jewish view on welcoming refugees and migrants anchored in an exploration of the communal narrative of the Jewish people from biblical times as well as in a reflection on the author's personal life story. It asks how our societies live up to the values of our faith tradition and explores examples of how Jewish communities are trying to positively address the challenges of global migration. Keywords: interfaith dialogue, Jewish values, migration, refugees, social action, It must have been a most memorable experience: you would take the best, the most beautiful of the first fruits of your harvest, place them in a basket and make [...]

This article examines the Welsh contribution to the history of Britain's Orthodox synagogues between the late eighteenth and early twenty-first centuries. It draws on spatial theory to address the communal, constructive, and performative nature of Wales's synagogues and offers the first nationwide examination of the country's Jewish houses of worship. It also makes a plea for Welsh historians to consider the synagogue when discussing Wales's sacred places and spaces, as well as a call to scholars of Jewish studies, particularly those who employ England's metropolitan synagogues as metonyms for British synagogues, to appreciate the importance of both the shared and varied synagogal experiences of British Jewry. How the history of Wales's synagogues both resembled and differed from those found elsewhere in the British Isles is at the core of this article, as is the powerful role of geographical place and topography in shaping this experience. It also challenges established historical narratives of some of Wales's synagogues and examines their fluidity and transformational nature throughout the last two centuries. Keywords: Jewish, Wales, Judaism, communities, congregations, synagogues, In May 1818, Swansea's Jewish community, then celebrating its fiftieth anniversary, laid the foundation stone for its first purpose-built synagogue. Erected in Waterloo Street, it served a population of around [...]

George Steiner, who died earlier this year, was one of the most influential Jewish intellectuals of the last half-century. He produced a foundational text in the philosophy of translation, the [...]

In the recent past all Jewish life has been so overshadowed by the tragedy of the holocaust and the hope of Israel that we could only cry or act. Now a new time has come. Israel has solved every problem except the Arab problem and that is the only important problem now worth solving. A dialogue with the Islamic world is long overdue. We were hounded out of Europe, and we were one of the factors which pushed or helped to push another people out of Palestine. This was a sin--whether knowingly or unknowingly. Israel and Arabs are political entities. Behind them stand two other and greater beings--Judaism and Islam. It is possible that the goodness inherent in them can achieve what the politicians cannot. Unfortunately, neither is spiritually efficient, as all religion has been perverted in our society. The Israel problem poses the crucial test for Judaism itself. As for Islam, it is almost an unknown religion to most Jews. It has also encountered the full onslaught of the West in a short time, and like us, many of its adherents also failed to see the moral wood for the halachic and legalist trees. We can help each other, for we have much in common; and, God willing, we may yet find even more common ground. Keywords: Lionel Blue, Islam, Israel-Palestinian conflict, Judaism, peace-making, I write this article for those Jews who expect their Rabbis to tell the truth as they see it as honestly as they can. Truth is not an easy thing [...]

Isaiah Berlin's famous essay about Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, called 'The Hedgehog and the Fox' (1), takes its title from a tag by an ancient Greek poet, who said something like [...]

When I was a child my favourite stories, and the substance of endless fantasies, were the legends of Robin Hood. Naturally, in all those fantasies, I was Robin Hood, not [...]

Abstract Drawing on her poetry as well as her theology, this article explores Sheila Shulman's multiple engagements with feminisms that have transformed patriarchal traditions within Judaism and opened new spaces [...]

Any study of religiosity in the Graeco-Roman world must include an account of the Jewish experience, so often seen as precursor or shadowy reflection, of the Christian. Here the primary sources are archaeological and epigraphic, with literary texts reflecting the intentions of sometimes hostile observers. Exploring these sources affords more glimpses than might be expected of the impact of religious identity on social and domestic life, but also demonstrates the fluidity between the categories of domestic or family and institutional, provoking questions that are equally applicable to the 'pagan' and Christian contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most current sociological literature on migration examines international moves to the United States and internal migration. Scant research addresses religious migration out of the United States. Utilizing in-depth, semi-structured interviews, we explore motivations behind recent American Jewish migration to Israel and how Jewish identity plays a role in the decision to move. We find that a combination of religious and cultural factors, Zionism, social networks, and the desire for a new start play a major role in motivating migration to Israel. Jewish identity is a common thread across these motivations. Many participants created a strong bond between their Judaism and Israel, viewing their connection to Israel as a way to belong to a larger community and demonstrate their attachment to Judaism. We discuss the implications for studying religious emigration from the United States that move beyond traditional economic models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On a superficial level, the differentiation between “Jews” and “non-Jews” functions as one of the best-known lines of demarcation in the representation of Jewish culture and religion. It draws on a hermeneutical boundary between “insiders” and “outsiders” with regard to the understanding of specific “Jewish experiences.” In this article, I add that this division, often supported by theologians and scholars in the scientific study of religion\s, influences the organizational structure of academic institutions as well, bestowing more “authenticity” on the research of Jewish scholars than on that of non-Jewish scholars. I furthermore assert that, from a methodological point of view, this form of insider–outsider distinction can be seen as part of the discourse on first-order essentialism in Jewish Studies, which includes significant regional differences. Whereas many European scholars are oriented toward mono-cultural images of Jewish religions, scholars from the United States are often eager to explore the plurality of the increasingly diverse religious field. In Israel the insider–outsider distinction occurs on quite a different level, since more and more Israeli scholars criticize ethnicized patterns in Jewish studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I'm wearing this tee-shirt (which is classy but nonetheless still a tee-shirt) today for two reasons. The first is to remind you that this year marks the fiftieth anniversary of [...]

Following the First Crusade, a body of Hebrew literature emerged that both lamented the persecution of entire communities and celebrated instances of collective ritual suicide. Authors introduced episodes of Kiddush ha-Shem by structuring the scenery and urban topography in a way that strongly resembled biblical descriptions of the Temple in Jerusalem. Rendering the Jewish communities as sacrificial offerings to the Lord, these accounts not only provided an authoritative justification for unthinkable acts of suicidal-slaughter, but also offered a compelling theodicic interpretation of the events. Modern scholars have argued that the articulation of Kiddush ha-Shem in First Crusade literature became a defining motif in the way medieval Jews imagined their reaction to violence. This essay, however, sets out to redress the claim that Jewish communities adopted this ideology without reservation and idealized its emulation. Turning to the work of Ephraim of Bonn (d. ca. 1200), it argues that authors throughout the late middle ages invoked Kiddush ha-Shem as a literary motif in innovative, possibly critical, ways. In place of a language that uses urban imagery to draw on the Temple as a site of sacrifice, Ephraim employed a spatial framework in which the mountains and terrain invoke the Temple rather as a site of refuge and pilgrimage. With this redeployment of Jewish symbolic topography Ephraim redrew the landscape of persecutions and oriented it toward a new biblical typology., INTRODUCTION In the spring of 1096, the first wave of pilgrims took the cross in response to Pope Urban II's call for Crusade, and embarked upon the journey eastward. While [...]

The present article examines the aniconic polemics of the Hebrew Bible in an attempt to appreciate better their role in defining Israelite cultural boundaries and belief. The first part of [...]

The divine religions i.e. Islam, Christianity and Judaism have numerous features in their respective legal systems. They have common or distinctive provisions (ahkam) about various sins such as murder, theft, adultery, bribery, false witnessing, oppression and injustice. In addition to the legal rulings pertaining to these cases, respect for parents and elders have always been an issue of critical nature. In the aforementioned universal religions, respect for parents and elders constitutes a religious obligation. Therefore, by complying with this order one deserves to be rewarded and one who fails to comply with it would be severely punished. This article deals with perception of parents in Judaism. It endeavours to ascertain the status of the parents in Jewish culture by examining a number of Judaic sources regarding this issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the theologies of DNA in Messianic Judaism and North American Judaism. Topics discussed include an outline of the Jewish ancetry through DNA testing, the association of gene talk with the American culture, the DNA marker of cultural difference, and the Jewish communal narratives.

Studies examining the relationship between Shakespeare's and Marlowe's plays often discuss Judaism in The Merchant of Venice and The Jew of Malta. Most recently, Michelle Ephraim's Reading the Jewish Woman [...]

Rabbinic texts legislate for a slave society, biblical law incorporates slaveholding, slavery is well documented within the two primary cultures in which rabbinic Judaism took shape, and multiple sources of evidence demonstrate that Jews could be slaveholders or held as slaves. Yet most scholars now agree that it is problematic to read the prescriptions of rabbinic slave law as straightforward representations of actual social practices. This difficulty has had the effect of making the issues that follow from recognizing rabbinic culture as a slave culture not fully visible. Nonetheless, the permeating presence of slavery in these texts suggests a critical need for a fundamental reconsideration of rabbinic rhetoric in this area. This article focuses on the intersection of slavery and the construction of female sexuality in rabbinic thought. This example demonstrates the difference that foregrounding the rabbinic acceptance of slavery can make to a discussion of Jewish marriage and sexual ethics today., [There was] a certain deaf-mute in the neighborhood of Rabbi M'lakhyu. He [Rabbi M'lakhyu] allowed him to marry a woman/wife, (1) and he wrote for her 400 zuz [as a [...]

A concise study of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Protestant Hebraica does not immediately suggest a provocative contribution to contemporary debates about secularization, religion, and politics. But that is what Eric Nelson's [...]

ABSTRACT Ideations of corporeality are situated at the crux of 'muscular Judaism' in early twentieth-century Europe. The sporting event was viewed as a battlefield for equalization. In the ideological context [...]

The interaction between rabbis and women demonstrates the accessibility of halakhic authority to women. This accessibility is influenced by a number of factors and occurs at varying levels and frequencies in different communities. Not only the frequency, but also the content of the questions asked by women of rabbis has varied. This paper will examine the questions women have addressed to Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, Rabbi Hayim David Halevy, and the Internet portal www.kipa.co.il. I will address both the frequency and the nature of questions asked by women. The different findings in each case reflect not only the religious roles and expectations of women within their respective communities, but also the mediums of communication that exist between women and rabbis. I argue that the Internet has in a sense changed the rules of the game by allowing women almost unbridled access to rabbinic authority. How this access will affect religious society as a whole waits to be seen., Introduction There are many stories about women asking rabbis questions. Most of the time, they involve a woman, a dead chicken and a rabbi, the point of the story being [...]

Alicia Ostriker: Alana, As soon as I read Clare's message I thought of you. We could tell each other about how we discovered ourselves to be feminist Jews--and/or what being [...]

This article explores the religious and social underpinnings of family as a central social structure to Jewish life. Torah and Talmudic sources, conceptual papers, and empirical research that address the [...]

Jewish responses to social issues, like those of any other group, are, in part, a function of the group's interests. As a small minority of the American population, Jews have [...]

This article examines halakhic (Jewish legal) passages that relate to homosexuality and marriage between two males. The article sets forth the respective positions of contemporary Jewish denominations in regard to homosexual marriage. Homosexual marriage is a case of first impression in Judaism and requires new decisions and new marriage contracts. The principal thesis of the article is that contemporary Judaism can accommodate philosophically--but also legally--a halakhic framework of thinking, same-sex marriage between men. Judaism does not have to opt for the perspectives of Reform and Reconstructionist Judaism, which have, to a major extent, freed themselves from the traditions and rituals of Jewish law. After examining marriage contracts in Rabbinic literature, specific examples are presented of how homosexual marriage between two males may be implemented. KEYWORDS. Homosexuality, Judaism, Talmud, marriage, kiddushin

The article, based on fieldwork conducted among an extremist Hasidic group, demonstrates how religious fundamentalism may be linked to modernism through the way in which modern ideas infiltrate fundamentalist culture. The authors examine the contract that is signed annually by members of the group, which reaffirms their acceptance of stringent regulations. The contract is signed by every individual by means of a performative act that consolidates the separatist Hasidic social fabric on the basis of contractual legal rationality and creates categories and values that bind the individual to the community, an act that circumscribes that cultural enclave. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Amidah, the core prayer recited by Jews thrice daily for more than two millennia, opens with a declaration and a reminder that the patriarchs of the nation are Abraham, [...]

ABSTRACT During the Second Intifada, Israel started to construct a separation barrier, officially aimed at preventing Palestinian terrorists from penetrating into its territory. Previous Palestinian attacks caused the death and […]

In 1950, Raphael Patai published his research on Venta Prieta, a Mexican town in which some residents lived as Jews despite having little knowledge of Judaism. Like other visitors, Patai was perplexed. Why did they wish to live as Jews? While Patai never answered this question to his satisfaction, he believed the answer would be found by developing a psychological profile of the residents, an approach in keeping with culture and personality theorists of the day. The present article provides a different solution. Drawing on additional sources, and short visits, we argue that Venta Prieta was not only a stop on the Jewish tourist circuit by 1950 but also developed out of a unique exchange. While U.S. Jews, as evangelical Protestants before them, provided a model for upwardly mobile Mexicans, Venta Prieta enabled middle-class tourists to experience Judaism in a pastoral setting and to 'repair the world' (tikkun). [Keywords: Judaism, tourism, dialogical anthropology, social change, social mobility]

I recently read two seemingly dissimilar books: Jerold Auerbach's Are We One? Jewish Identity in the United States and Israel, and Adam Seligman's Modernity's Wager. The first of these volumes [...]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports published within the issue including the history of Hasidism, the teachings of Hasidism, and the social, cultural, and sexual roles of men and women in society.

It is difficult to ascribe to Hasidism sets of distinctive regional characteristics, because Hasidism transcended both communal and national boundaries. Aware of this problem, the authors of this article seek to characterize Hasidism in Russia, while eschewing the essentialist assumption that Hasidism in Russia had a Russian character. The article describes Hasidism in Tsarist Russia from several perspectives. From an internal Jewish perspective, it discusses features of dynasties of hasidic leaders and the courts they lived in. This is followed by a discussion of relations between hasidic centers (the courts) and hasidic peripheries (the local communities). Relations between Hasidism and the Russian administration are also analyzed, as are the various ways in which hasidim in Russia adapted to the challenges of modernity, while hasidic leaders in Galicia and Hungary were usually more hostile towards modernization. Finally, the article describes the consequences of the upheavals of the First World War, Bolshevik Revolution, and the Civil Wars that followed. During these dramatic events and in their aftermath, the majority of the hasidic leaders in Russia moved to other places in Europe, America, and Palestine, and only some of them remained under the Soviet regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]