High Holidays Research Articles

‘We thought we would be welcomed with open arms’: Holocaust refugees in Dutch Caribbean internment

ABSTRACT The trajectories and experiences of more than a hundred Jewish refugees, who arrived in the Dutch colony of Suriname in December 1942, shed light on the complex connections and tensions between colonial hierarchies, Jewish heritage and antisemitism. Furthermore, De Jong's article highlights the often-overlooked role of the Dutch Caribbean during the Second World War, particularly in providing refuge to Holocaust survivors. The article first delves into the broader colonial context and the sociopolitical dynamics of wartime Suriname. The refugees, initially interned and subjected to restrictive regulations, struggled with their diminished status and the obligatory domestic chores, especially in this colonial setting. De Jong also touches on the complex interplay of racial hierarchies in the colony and antisemitism, shedding light on the refugees’ position within this new environment. Second, De Jong examines intra-Jewish tensions in Suriname through two case studies of conflict: the first surrounding a Purim celebration and the second concerning a request for a separate Ashkenazi service during the High Holidays. These conflicts reveal the challenges faced by the refugees and the established Jewish community in negotiating cultural and religious identities. The disputes were significant but eventually resolved, demonstrating the resilience and flexibility of both groups. The study provides a multifaceted understanding of the refugees’ experiences in Suriname by integrating traditional archival documents with personal narratives and oral histories. It underscores the Dutch Caribbean as a significant site of refuge and Jewish interaction during the Second World War, contributing to broader discussions on colonial spaces in Holocaust Studies

The forced migration from Ukraine after the full scale Russian invasion: dynamics and decision making drivers

ABSTRACT The Russian invasion into Ukraine prompted a large-scale population exodus. The data reveal fluctuating cross-border movements characterized by an initial outflow (February–April 2022), followed by a period of return and stabilization (May–September 2022), then a renewed outflow caused by missile attacks on civilians (October 2022–February 2023), and oscillating migrations during Spring 2023. These oscillations during Spring 2023 are possibly linked to refugees visiting Ukraine for Easter and the activation of border crossings due to the high holiday season that began in late spring. This essay reviews several data sources to address decisions of Ukrainians to relocate. It argues that immobility perspective is crucial to understand the dynamics of migration in Ukraine.

‘The Breath of Every Living Thing’: Zoocephali and the Language of Difference on the Medieval Hebrew Page

Abstract The most remarkable feature of the Hammelburg Mahzor, a fourteenth-century German High Holiday book, is the inclusion of zoocephalic figures: humans with beastly heads. The purpose of this essay is to explore the semiotics and phenomenology of this specifically Jewish visual idiom, and to suggest that its presence lies at the intersection of language, philosophy, poetry, and history. In the Mahzor, zoocephaly signals distinction that collapses temporalities, tests the limits of alterity, and engages in a sophisticated word–image play that strives to establish visceral connections with the community of the manuscript's users. Hammelburg zoocephali invoke the fragility of the human condition by establishing reverberating relationships between themselves and other inhabitants of the Mahzor's pages: echoes of many, avatars of none. Outwardly monstrous yet emphatically human, these zoocephali prove to be particularly excellent images to think with about the place of Hebrew manuscripts in the long history of medieval visual culture.

German Jewish Soldiers and the Celebration of Yom Kippur in Wartime: Patriotic Images and Jewish Aspirations

Abstract: One of the enduring themes in German Jewish history has been the deep-seated desire of Jews to be fully accepted as equals by other Germans, including the right to worship freely. Their conscription and voluntary service in the military during both the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871) and World War I (1914–1918), provided an opportunity for Jews to demonstrate their fealty to the nation. Moreover, their requests for Jewish military chaplains were granted, enabling them to celebrate their traditional High Holy Days services. This article tells the story of Jewish religious worship on Yom Kippur during both wars as depicted by German artists. We examine contemporaneous accounts of the scenes depicted, and find that while some were accurate with respect to venue and mood, the most popular images of throngs of Jewish soldiers worshiping on open-air battlefields were fictionalized images of events that never took place. These pictorial images, exaggerated, romanticized, and idealized, portrayed Jews as patriotic Germans, fully engaged with the wartime goals of the German government while practicing their unique forms of worship. German Jews and Jews throughout the diaspora clung to these images which became widely available on postcards, lithographs, and cloth wall hangings. They continued to be proudly displayed in Jewish homes as symbols of Jewish patriotism, until the end of World War I when blatant antisemitism falsely blamed the Jews for Germany’s defeat.

German Jewish Soldiers and the Celebration of Yom Kippur in Wartime: Patriotic Images and Jewish Aspirations

One of the enduring themes in German Jewish history has been the deep-seated desire of Jews to be fully accepted as equals by other Germans, including the right to worship freely. Their conscription and voluntary service in the military during both the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871) and World War I (1914-1918), provided an opportunity for Jews to demonstrate their fealty to the nation. Moreover, their requests for Jewish military chaplains were granted, enabling them to celebrate their traditional High Holy Days services. This article tells the story of Jewish religious worship on Yom Kippur during both wars as depicted by German artists. We examine contemporaneous accounts of the scenes depicted, and find that while some were accurate with respect to venue and mood, the most popular images of throngs of Jewish soldiers worshiping on open air battlefields were fictionalized images of events that never took place. These pictorial images, exaggerated, romanticized, and idealized, portrayed Jews as patriotic Germans, fully engaged with the wartime goals of the German government while practicing their unique forms of worship. German Jews and Jews throughout the diaspora clung to these images which became widely available on postcards, lithographs, and cloth wall hangings. They continued to be proudly displayed in Jewish homes as symbols of Jewish patriotism, until the end of World War I when blatant antisemitism falsely blamed the Jews for Germany’s defeat.

FAKTOR PENENTU PENGLIBATAN KOMUNITI DALAM PEMBANGUNAN CHALET DI PINGGIR PANTAI DAERAH MARANG, TERENGGANU

Coastal zone and island resorts are one of the main focuses of the tourism industry especially in the accommodation facilities sector such as beach resorts, chalets, and homestays. With the development of chalets or tourist resorts in line with the passage of time, the number of these resorts increases with the occurrence of high holiday demand from tourists. The objective of the study was to identify the determinant factors of community involvement in chalet enterprises on the coast of Marang district. This study used purposeful sampling techniques which is an interview method for chalet entrepreneurs who are local communities. In addition to it, the observation method of location was also done in this study. The results of the study found that each chalet operator has its own determining factor in getting involved in the chalet industry in Marang. The most dominant factor is a family heritage. The development of this coastal chalet has an impact and brings about changes to the socioeconomic as well as the living standards of the local community. Thus, active and dynamic community involvement is not only as entrepreneurs, but they also play a role in encouraging the involvement of other residents to participate in advancing the development of coastal chalets in this district.

Queer Nuns and Genderbending Saints: Genderf*cking Notions of Normativity

Queer Nuns and Genderbending Saints: Genderf*cking Notions of Normativity Jessi Knippel What connections are there between the international queer activist group called the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence (hereafter the Sisters) and the female saints of the early Christian Church? The bearded yet bedazzled, glittery contemporary queer activists dress as nuns to advocate for “the promulgation of universal joy” and “expiation of stigmatic guilt.” Conversely, early Christian female martyrs and saints once donned male dress and assumed male personae as a means to remain faithful and unencumbered by the expectations and obligations of femininity within their cultural context. Certainly, both groups have adopted the dress and aspect of the opposite gender for very different purposes: The drag nuns seek to parody the Church as outsiders, whereas the cross‐dressing saints sought to assimilate into it as insiders. But by taking their parody seriously, this paper locates the Sisters within a long lineage of genderbending saints. This paper builds upon the recent ethnographic research of Melissa Wilcox in her book Queer Nuns: Religion, Activism and Serious Parody. It seeks to explore the connections between the Sisters’ use of serious parody and their performativity of gender and fruitfully compare it with the historic female saints’ presentation of “masculine” identities. How does the performativity of gender in each cultural context challenge and potentially uphold the assumed notions of normative gender? Is it possible to understand the Sisters’ actions and presentation as a part of a history of religious “genderf*ck” performativity within the Christian tradition that originated with the genderbending or cross‐dressing saints of the early church? Might a similar action be present, for example, in Sister Soami Deluxe’s (formerly Sister Missionary Position or Mish) donning a full nun’s habit with customary bushy beard, and the fourteenth‐century Saint Wilgefortis, with her flowing hair and full, bushy beard? To engage in this conversation, we will begin with an overview of the Sisters, their history, and the key element of parody that they are incorporating into their activism. From there, we will move into the historical narratives of the genderbending or cross‐dressing saints, focusing on the ways in which gender is contextualized in the narratives of Perpetua (d. 202/3 CE), Marinus (Marina) in the fifth (alt. eighth) century, Pelagius (Pelagia) in the fourth to fifth century, and Wilgefortis in the fourteenth century. It will conclude by discussing how the Sisters both live into and counter the tradition of the genderbending saints. Origins of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence The origin story of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence starts on a high holy day filled with boredom. As it has been told both in the history of the order and to Dr. Wilcox, a professor of Religion and Queer/Transgender studies at University of California‐Riverside, the first manifestation of the queer nuns was on Holy Saturday of Easter weekend in 1979. Ken Bunch (Sister Adhanarisvara, later renamed Vicious Power Hungry Bitch), Fred Brungard (Sister Missionary Position, later known as Somai), and friend Baruch Golden donned habits with whiteface makeup, props (most notably a toy machine gun), and a camera to document the whole affair. They strolled through San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood and on to a nude beach at Lands’ End, and finally ended up at a coffee shop in the wealthy Pacific Heights neighborhood. After the reactions the trio received during this impromptu drag session, Burch recalls seeing what he termed ‘psychological car wrecks’ as people gaped at the clearly male nuns, one in makeup holding a toy gun, strolling through the city. ‘We realized we had a stick of dynamite,’ Burch recalls, ‘and that we should do something productive with it. We should use it as a tool for social change, for the change that we want to see.’ This desire to create change led to other manifestations of the Sisters throughout 1979 that included other founding members of the order not present during its first incarnation. Early on The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence fused religious imagery with performance experiences. These included outsider performance art and dance, drag, and skag drag or genderf*ck. The latter term refers to a version of drag performance that plays with...

'Avinu, Malkeinu, Kin(g) of All the Earth': A Yom Kippur D’var Torah

This talk explores the image of divine Kingship that is central to the liturgy of the Jewish High Holidays. The divine King is our sovereign and judge, and that image might even suggest a God Who is painfully transcendent and even austere. But the metaphor is much richer and multi-layered than that. The notion of divine Kinship emphasizes God’s immanence as much as God’s transcendence. It is a token of God’s engagement with the world and of God’s responsibility to the world. Moreover, in the Kabbalistic imagination, the attribute of “Malkhut,” divine Kingship, is associated with the Shekinah, the indwelling presence of God, the part of God that lives with us in exile, usually thought of as the feminine aspect of God. And it is at least worth noting that the Anglo-Saxon root of king – “cyning” – just meant “member of the kindred.” This text ends with a postscript that further explores the image of divine Kingship in the context of our contemporary sensibilities about gender hierarchies and the understandable aversion to employing apparently unapologetic masculine language about God.

High holidays on the high seas: the voyage experience of Jewish migrants sailing to Australia in the mid-nineteenth century

ABSTRACTFor emigrants who undertook the long and treacherous voyage to Australia’s distant shores in the mid-nineteenth century, their faith sailed with them. While voyages of Jewish migrants have often been described as a ‘secularising’ experience, this article offers a new perspective, based on unpublished archival sources. The religious practices of Jewish emigrants continued on-board ships as well as in their later lives in the colonies. Ship voyages for Jewish passengers sailing to Australia entailed contact with Christianity and at times conflict with Gentile emigrants, producing voyages which were anything but secular.

Religious Innovation under Fatimid Rule: Jewish and Muslim Rites in Eleventh-Century Jerusalem

Abstract This paper describes religious innovations introduced by Muslims in the (arguably) holy month of Rajab, and by Jews on the High Holidays of the month of Tishrei, in eleventh-century Jerusalem. Using a comparative perspective, and grounding analysis in the particular historical context of Fatimid rule, it demonstrates how the convergence of sacred space and sacred time was conducive to “religious creativity.” The Muslim rites (conducted on al-Ḥaram al-Sharīf / the Temple Mount) and the Jewish rites (on the Mount of Olives) shared a particular concern with the remission of sins and supplication on behalf of others, and a cosmological world view that envisioned Jerusalem as axis mundi. The Jewish rite was initiated “from above” by the political-spiritual leadership of the community, was dependent on Fatimid backing, and was inextricably tied to specific sites. The Muslim rite sprang “from below” and spread far, to be practiced in later periods all over the Middle East.

The High Holidays: Psychological mechanisms of honesty in real-life financial decisions

Research in psychology has established that activation of religious ideas affects individuals’ behavior. We hypothesize that religious and honesty mechanisms activated on the High Holidays, the ten days before Yom Kippur, when people seek repentance, amplify people's anxiety and affect their financial decision-making. We find that returns during the High Holidays are abnormally low; implied volatility, measured by VIX and VXO, as well as realized volatility estimates, are abnormally high; and the abnormal increase in implied volatility overshoots future volatility. Using these results, we devise a simple trading rule that investors may consider to maximize returns during the High-Holidays period.

Dining Across the Decades in Rajasthan, India: A Culminating Feast on a High of Religious Holidays

I tell tales of dining and drinking across three decades in Rajasthan, India, evoking memories of challenge and character defining choices. From whom and with whom I dine or drink proves to be an act expressing relative purity (shuddha) and adherence to principle (dharma). Each heartfelt choice leaves he investigators from a foreign land wondering about consequences upon our stature and rapport for subsequent research. Meanwhile the local community and I research a folk system of knowledge and practice in irrigated farming. Farmers are guardians of a legacy reshaping the landscape to harvest rainfall to recharge the aquifer for lift irrigation. Successful in this arid zone, they want to be heard. A celebratory meal culminates our decade-long endeavor to persuade government administrators, engineers, and hydrologists to listen. In this pluralistic world of multiple castes, classes, and ethnicities, we, prove through our history of dining to be the perfect guests suited for this occasion. The feast is spontaneously arranged, an epiphany arising from our success that day, uniting administrator, researchers, and farmers. So gathered, Hindu, Muslim, Christian, and Jew, we discover how auspicious (shubh) is this moment, occurring on a high holiday according to the calendars of four separate religions. Everything has fallen into place. To quote a saying I heard in my fieldwork: “Shubh āve hae. 11 Words and sentences spoken in Marwari of northwestern Rajasthan are written in italics, with a dash over long vowels, a diacritical dot under retroflex consonants, and aspirations shown by adding “h,” while nasalization are left unrecorded. When “-ji” is added to a personal name it is an honorific often used in conversation. The auspicious happens.” The trajectories of our separate pathways in life have joined, making this the most serendipitous of occasions. By turning the gaze from subjects to our joined intimacy of encounters, I have chosen narrative, rather than a conversation among scholars, to emphasize the primary conceptions underlying everyday concerns and aspirations in South Asian society.

The birth of poetry from the music of disaster: divine violence in the poetry of Meir Wieseltier

ABSTRACTThis article explores the poetic and political-theological nexus of power, violence and sovereignty in Meir Wieseltier's work. No poet seems to have inserted himself quite so powerfully into the narrow crack between the authority of the political sovereign and that of the divine sovereign, warning against the dangerous link between the theological and the political in Israel's messianic discourse. Wieseltier seems to draw inspiration from the theological-political sovereignty which relies on “an act of exception”, then to perform it poetically (“an exceptional verb”) to found his sovereignty and authority. Wieseltier's poetry arises from the divine music of catastrophe, based on a great intimacy with the ancient sources. It includes musical syntactic structures, like the mishnaic catalogue syntax, or the apocalyptic language of liturgical poetry in the prayers for the High Holy days with their outrageous “music of curses”.

Moral Conscience through the Ages

Moral Conscience through the Ages

Parking the Ark in Niagara Falls: Mordecai Manuel Noah and the Imposition of Meaning in Jewish American Literary History

Parking the Ark in Niagara Falls: Mordecai Manuel Noah and the Imposition of Meaning in Jewish American Literary History

Does pain take holidays? Non-attendance rates at a hospital-based pain clinic are elevated during the Jewish high-holidays

BackgroundPatient non-attendance is an expensive and persistent problem worldwide with rates between 5–39% reported in the literature. The objective of the study was to assess whether there is a higher incidence of non-attendance in a hospital-based pain clinic during the period of the Jewish High Holidays (Rosh-Hashanah to Sukkot) and whether this is further compounded by other factors, such as demographic characteristics and previous visits to the clinic.MethodsRecords were taken from the Lowenstein Rehabilitation Hospital appointment scheduling system. Data was gathered from two time-periods: High-Holidays and Control for each year, over a total of 6 years 2008–2013. Non-attendance was analyzed by period, by age, by gender and by previous visits to the clinic.ResultsIn the entire population studied (666 distinct records), the non-attendance rate was higher during the High-Holidays as compared to the Control period (32 vs. 24.1%; p = 0.030). Non-attendance rates were significantly higher during the Holidays among repeating patients (28.6 vs. 14.8%; p = 0.002) and among women (34.6 vs. 20.7%; p = 0.004).DiscussionOur data suggest that non-attendance is elevated during the High-Holidays in specific groups of patients, namely, repeating patients and women. Despite no direct inquiry into the reasons for non-attendance, we speculate that the elevated well-being and familial support during the holidays contribute to the patients’ ability to cope with persistent pain and possibly directly reduce the amount of pain, leading to patients missing their pain clinic appointments.ConclusionOur results, provided they can be corroborated by larger-scale studies, can assist in scheduling policy adjustments such as avoidance of appointments during the High-holidays for specific patient populations and more rigorous reminder efforts during these times of the year that may lead to reduction in overall non-attendance rates in the pain clinic. Further, our data provide an impetus for further studies of non-attendance patterns among pain clinic patients, in order to acquire a better understanding of the reasons for non-attendance and develop strategies to reduce it and thus contribute to the continuous improvement of the Israeli health systems as well as others worldwide.

Update on Conflict and Diplomacy

This update summarizes bilateral, multilateral, regional, and international events affecting the Palestinians and the future of the peace process. It covers the quarter beginning on 16 August and ending on 15 November 2016. The surge of violence that escalated during the Jewish High Holidays in 9/2015 continued to subside this quarter. This year's holidays passed without major incidents. While the Palestinian Authority and Israeli government reached deals on electricity and postal service, neither altered their positions on a return to final-status negotiations, despite ongoing initiatives from the international community. The Palestinian leadership advanced initiatives in international institutions, including the United Nations Security Council. The recently reshuffled Israeli govt. instituted a new carrot-and-stick policy for administering the occupied Palestinian territories while struggling with internal differences over Amona, an illegal Israeli settlement outpost, as well as with the settlement enterprise itself. Donald Trump was elected president of the United States, ushering in a Republican-dominated U.S. government that portends significant changes to the U.S. position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Prayers for the Community: Parallelism and Performance in San Juan Quiahije Eastern Chatino

Prayers for the Community:Parallelism and Performance in San Juan Quiahije Eastern Chatino Hilaria Cruz (bio) Introduction This essay examines parallelism and other essential features of ritual discourse in San Juan Quiahije, Eastern Chatino. The Chatino languages are spoken in the highlands of Oaxaca, Mexico. The essay focuses on the poetic and discursive features found in two impromptu prayers within a corpus of civic/religious ritual petitions that the members of the community refer to as La42 qin4 kchin4,1 or "Prayers for the Community."2 The "Prayers for the Community" are part of a ritual carried out regularly by elders and traditional San Juan Quiahije (SJQ) authorities in their official capacity as community representatives. These dignitaries come together at dawn on the first day of each month and on high holidays—the most important feast day is that of the patron saint of SJQ, Saint John the Baptist, June 24th—to petition for the well-being of the entire community, and especially for the younger generations. Both of the petitions analyzed in this essay were made at the same ceremonial event on June 24, 2009 at 5:00 a.m. in the Catholic church. The prayers were said by Simón Zurita and Wenceslao Cortés, two elders from the SJQ community. On the evening prior to the prayers, a group of municipal envoys visited select elders of the community, including Simón Zurita, and formally invited them to join the municipal officials and participate in the worship. Wenceslao Cortés, serving his final elected position in the SJQ municipality, had instructed the envoys to invite the elders to the ceremony. The elders who agreed to accompany the authorities to the ceremony were instructed to come to City Hall at around 4:15 a.m. to begin the ritual. A total of six elders participated in the petition and began to arrive at City Hall by 4:00 a.m. At 5:00 a.m. the group walked together from City Hall to the church. Upon arriving at the doorsteps of the church, they all knelt and crossed themselves. Then all proceeded to walk on their knees for three to four minutes toward the main altar holding the offerings in their hands while reciting their individual prayers. The church attendants (catechists), lower ranking authorities (including helpers of City Hall), and members of the community who wished to be blessed by the elders' supplications were present at the church. Upon concluding their prayers, the community representatives stood in a row facing the church door, clutching their candles and flowers, in order to allow residents to touch and kiss the offerings they had brought for their petition. The petitioner's goal is to move and persuade the spiritual intermediaries (such as saints and ancestors) to grant his wishes. Translation is as much an art as a science. Literary and cultural translations are challenging because cultural concepts frequently do not map one to one from one language to the next. When translating a poetic text, the translator must take into account the different layers of meaning in the source text including aesthetics, phonics, and polysemy (Barnstone 2010:4). These challenges are exacerbated when the source and target languages come from completely different language families. For example, Chatino and English idioms and metaphorical phrases have very little in common. One of the challenges I encountered when I translated the two prayers studied here is that Chatino poetics make extensive use of positional and existential predicates to achieve poetic tension, imagery, and metaphor. Verses 1-2 of example (7) illustrate this point. The positional expression tyi20 ton1 literally means "s/he or they will stand," and tyi20 tqen24 means "s/he or they will exist or spread out on the ground." However, in this context these expressions are being used metaphorically to express that the new generation will one day take charge and step up and stand for the community. For this reason I have chosen to translate these expressions as "now they are about to rise up and now they are about to establish themselves," to convey the movement and agency that form part of the...

Passover and Hanukkah in A. B. Yehoshua's Opus and Ethos

To explore whether secular culture in Israel can be more than a "thin brittle crust" that will crumble "at a time of crisis or conflict," A. B. Yehoshua constructs fictional scenarios in which holidays are celebrated under particularly stressful circumstances for his characters. A Late Divorce (1982) races toward a Passover seder and engages systematically with this holiday's theme of freedom. Friendly Fire (2007) is set during Hanukkah and tallies each candle that Amotz Ya'ari lights with family members in Israel, while his wife lights none in Africa. Yehoshua's two historical novels, Mr Mani (1990) and A Journey to the End of the Millennium (1997), incorporate the high holiday season into their plots, generating a historiosophic conversation about Jewish beliefs and behaviors in the past and the present. Although Yehoshua's holiday scenarios undermine religious belief, his engagement with them actually aims to reinvigorate the relevance of historical markers of Jewish identity. He argues that national reform does not entail "easing the burden imposed by religion," but rather exposure of the traditional commandments "to the complexities of life, to observe them while changing them." Yehoshua's holiday scenarios thus operate as much more than mere folkloric backdrop to position his fiction within a Jewish timeframe: he uses holiday settings to critique traditional practices and beliefs, yet he does so to paradoxically strengthen a modern program of national Jewish reformation. This essay showcases Yehoshua's critique of national identity through holiday scenarios in A Late Divorce (Passover) and Friendly Fire (Hanukkah).

Yom Kippur’s Call for Environmental Repentance

Yom Kippur’s Call for Environmental Repentance