Jewish Environment Research Articles

Protecting the Deli: Jewish Nostalgia and Social Justice in E. Lockhart's Whistle: A New Gotham City Hero

ABSTRACT: In this article, I analyze E. Lockhart's comic Whistle: A New Gotham City Hero (Burbank, CA: DC Comics, 2021) as a distinctively American Jewish text. I argue that Whistle draws upon nostalgia for an imagined Jewish past by creating an alternative present infused with the material culture of American Jewishness. In so doing, I show how the comic develops features of mainstream American Jewishness—such as eating at Jewish delis, holding a nostalgic attachment to American Jewish history, and working for social justice—in the construction of a superhero narrative. I explore how Whistle's visual depiction of Jewish food and space construct an authentically Jewish environment. Lastly, I suggest that, as a superhero comic book written for teenage readers, Whistle promotes nostalgia and the pursuit of social justice as components of American Jewishness.

The Joles Jewish Hospital: A Short-lived Dutch Small City Hospital With an Unusual Resurrection

The Joles Jewish Hospital in Haarlem (a small city in the Netherlands) was established in 1930 to provide a Jewish milieu for local patients. Mozes Joles, a wealthy Jewish businessman, bequeathed his fortune to the Haarlem Jewish community to accomplish this objective, and its spiritual leader, Rabbi Simon Philip de Vries, was the driving force in successfully achieving this goal. The Joles Hospital was forcibly closed by the Nazis in 1943, and the postwar leadership of the Haarlem Jewish community decided not to reopen it. Instead, they used the Joles inheritance to build old age homes in both Haifa, Israel, and Haarlem, thus ensuring a Jewish environment for elderly care in both locales. The realization of one man's charitable act bettered the lives of both ill and elderly individuals.

Хасидські громади діаспори як актори впливу на етнополітичні процеси в сучасній Україні

The article examines the influence of the mass pilgrimage of representatives of the foreign Hasidic communities on the dynamics of the development of Ukrainian-Jewish relations in particular, and, on the ethnopolitical processes of modern Ukraine in general. The relevance of the research determined, firstly, by insufficient study of the specified phenomenon in domestic science; secondly, the fact that the number of pilgrims who visit our country every year significantly exceeds the number of parishioners of local Jewish communities. The specificity of the Hasidic creed requires that believers have to regularly visit the burial places of their leaders. Therefore, since the mentioned religious movement originated in Ukraine, the connection with it of many foreign Jewish religious communities is maintained at a high level, regardless of the circumstances. Neither the pandemic nor the war significantly reduced the number of visitors to the places of burial of the teachers of Hasidism. The facts provided by the author reveal two contradictory trends in the reaction of local residents to the arrival of numerous followers of the Jewish religious-mystical movement: 1. The spread of hostile attitudes and actions directed against foreigners; 2. Growing interest in the development of pilgrimage and increasing of the tolerance. The first trend is caused by significant differences in worldview, culture, and everyday habits. It is also a result of corruption problems, since the municipal authorities enter only a small part of the funds obtained from the pilgrims into the local budgets. The second trend is determined by the interest of local residents in earning money related to the service of pilgrims and tolerance, which is spreading more and more in society. The conclusions note that the development of friendly relations between the local population and Hasidic pilgrims contributes to the positive dynamics of the image of Ukrainian society not only in the Jewish environment, but also in numerous communities of the modern Western world that are not directly involved in Judaism. This, in turn, will help Ukrainian post-war reconstruction. For solving problems related to pilgrimage the author recommends a number of educational activities for the local population, regional officials and the pilgrims themselves.

‘We were not even trained to have an opinion’: Political socialization of Arabs in Israel

There are two main paradigms regarding political socialization. The early-years-of-life hypothesis emphasizes the importance of political socialization in the early years, while the life-long hypothesis argues that political socialization is shaped continuously throughout life. The literature on the topic concentrates on seminal events and their impact on political socialization. In this study, we examined these hypotheses in the unique context of Arab teachers in Jewish schools in Israel. The teachers spoke about the culture of silence about politics that characterized their childhood and their inhibitions regarding engaging in politics. Entering work in a predominantly Jewish environment highlighted the social mechanisms and minority–majority power relations that preserve Arab citizens’ political oppression. The teachers all indicated a process by which they become more politically aware, while their willingness to be politically active varies. The political dialogue between the Jewish and Arab teachers begins hesitantly but increases with time. The findings demonstrate political socialization as a life-long process that is shaped by everyday contact with the majority group and not only by historical/seminal events. It is demonstrated that schools cannot be sterilized from political influences, and the potential of Arab teachers in Jewish schools in defusing the polarization in Israeli society is emphasized.

Jews and Carolingians — Cooperation, Publicity, Slave Trade and Administrative Resource

The prohibitions on the possession of Christian slaves, adopted at the beginning of the 5th century, squeezed Jews out of the industrial sphere of activity, i.e. from agriculture and handicrafts, to trade and financial and economic services, previously not very revered in the Jewish environment. Since the trade of that period was predominantly the slave trade, Jews became the main slave traders of the early Middle Ages. The texts of sources of the 5th-7th centuries indicate that during this period of time Jewish merchants were not public and hid under Greek pseudonyms — Anthony, Vasily, Priscus. The Saxon Wars of Charlemagne, which began in 770, became manna from heaven for Jews - they gained access to the almost unlimited demographic resource of the pagans, whose sale in slavery was not limited to the Catholic Church. By gifts of Asian luxury items at the beginning of the 9th century Jews were able to significantly strengthen their position in the French court. In 825, Jews received official bulls from Louis the Pious on permission to sell foreign slaves (mancipia peregrina) to countries located “below our empire” (infra imperium nostrum). Here, for the first time, we see elements of publicity — the judgments contain the names of Rabbi Donatus and Samuel (most likely from Paris), David and Joseph from Lyon and Abram from Saragossa. From the letters of Bishop Agobard of Lyons for the period 826-828 follows that these permissions were not purely declarative — in the event of conflicts between Jewish slave traders and the local administration, a “Master of Jewish Affairs” (Iudęorum magister) arrived and settled the situation. In conclusion, we comment on the economy of the Elba-Cordoba slave trade route and give a brief overview of the Jewish slave trade of the 9—11th centuries.

Moyshe Kulbak's and Zalman Shneour's Vilnius: Poetic Reality versus Gloriours Contruct

During the interwar period, many attempts were made to perceive and interpret the legacy of Jewish Vilnius, both in the city itself and abroad. Many of the images of the city created in that period betray nostalgic and half-mythological features, even while they present a living and breathing Jewish environment. This essay is a comparative case study of two literary texts that might provide some answers to these questions. One is the Hebrew poem Vilna by Zalman Shneour (1919), and the other is the Yiddish poem ‘Vilne’ by Moyshe Kulbak (1926). Each poet, the paper argues, set opposing goals for himself: for Shneour, it was creating an ode to a legendary centre of Jewish learning and spirituality; while Kulbak attempted to capture the pulse of the actual city that he lived in. Accordingly, Shneour essentially reiterated every traditional rhetorical trope of Jewish Vilnius, without creating a new poetic vision of it; whereas Kulbak used the potential of modernised Yiddish and Expressionist poetics to paint a vibrant and exciting portrait of the city. However, after the trauma of the physical loss of Jewish Vilnius during the Second World War, it was Shneour’s stylistic approach and depiction of the city that would prevail.

Reminiscences from the past: Giorgio Levi Della Vida and Samuel Miklos Stern: the Islamic city

ABSTRACT This paper depicts two great scholars who respected one another academically and culturally, moved in similar circles, and had in common a passionate though rational interest in human sciences and Arabic-Islamic Studies: Samuel Stern and Giorgio Levi Della Vida. In the first section, Fitzroy Morrissey and the author outline the intellectual and cultural life of Levi Della Vida, his critical but independent approach to faith and religion, the Italian intellectual environment that forged his character, and the Jewish cultural environment that surrounded him during his American exile. In the second section, the author recounts her personal encounters with Samuel Stern at Levi Della Vida’s house at Via Po in Rome. Stern had already begun his research on the Islamic city. Though separated by an age gap of almost thirty-five years, Stern came to Levi Della Vida for guidance. The article depicts the long meetings between the two scholars and their scholarly discussions, based on the author’s reminiscences. The final sections deal with Stern’s lecture at the international colloquium at All Souls College, Oxford in 1965 and his chapter in The Islamic City (1970). The paper concludes by discussing the influence of Stern’s work on future research.

Program aniconism in theology of Devarim (Deuteronomy)

The article explores the formation of the aniconic position in ancient Judaism. A reference to biblical texts shows that the aniconic doctrine, which put forward the demand for a cult without an image was formulated and theologically substantiated in the book of Devarim. Here, the prohibition on creating images follows YHWH’s statement of formlessness and is seen as its logical consequence. The invisible God cannot be adequately embodied in a visual material image and does not need it, because he has a different way of interacting with his people. Deities of other nations manifest themselves in temple statues, providing their worshipers the opportunity to approach them through a cult, but the God of the Jews, in accordance with the Devarim doctrine, chose a different way of communicating with people. He does not need statues, he remains with the people mainly not because of the correctness of the ritual, but because of the carefully executed law (only a small part of which is the ritual). In fact, in Devarim the scheme is reversed compared to the usual view of things at that time. The creation of images and worship of them does not bring the deity closer to people, but on the contrary threatens him with a distance. Comparison with the statements regarding the images in the book of Shemot (Exodus) suggests the following: a consistent aniconic program corresponding to clearly articulated monotheism and a specific cult paradigm was first announced in Devarim, and began to be established in the Jewish environment, probably not earlier than the end of VII c. BC.The religion of the ancient Jews was not static, strict aniconism was not inherent in Judaism initially, but it took shape and developed over many centuries.

Flores de Mayo in Rehovot

A Catholic Filipino community in Rehovot, Israel, celebrates the traditional feast of Flores de Mayo every year within a totally Jewish environment. Drawing on long-term ethnographic observation of...

Rereading Durkheim in light of Jewish law: how a traditional rabbinic thought-model shapes his scholarship

When studying the work of Émile Durkheim, scholars must consider how his intellectual development in a traditional Jewish environment contributed to and informed his ideas. This article details how Durkheim’s upbringing endowed him with a traditional rabbinic thought-model. The author analyzes five of Durkheim’s major works to argue that the system of classification, language, and style of argument Durkheim used to define concepts in his scholarship mirror streams of rabbinic thought. The article builds off the sociology of knowledge to illuminate how Durkheim employed his codified knowledge of biblical texts and modern Jews to bolster his arguments, and reveals the subtler ways he demonstrates his tacit knowledge of the texts and argument styles. The article ends with an exploration of how conceptual frameworks from the sociology of knowledge may be applied to other leading sociological thinkers—how the modes of thinking instilled during formative years may orient scholarship and the benefits and limitations of this approach.

“Privileged” under Nazi-Rule: The Fate of Three Intermarried Families in Vienna

ABSTRACTIn this article, I highlight the daily life of three intermarried families in Vienna during the interwar years, the Nazi oppression and the immediate postwar period. All three families led secular lives with varying ties to their Jewish and non-Jewish environment. After the Nazi takeover in March 1938, intermarried families along with the Jewish population experienced immediate discrimination and ostracism. This paper aims to outline how the Nazi takeover affected these families in their day-to-day encounters with non-Jews as well as their relationships with friends and family members. “Mixed marriages” and their families navigated between Jewish and non-Jewish worlds, usually not fully belonging to any side. Thus, most of them experienced social isolation and a lacking sense of belonging, while others – mostly younger generations – sometimes found new forms of community. During the last years of the war their protection became more precarious and even trivial infractions against Nazi laws could lead to imprisonment and deportation. Since “mixed marriages” and their families did not officially learn about the key factors of their safeguarding, they were left to their own instincts on how to uphold their protection.

Between Jew and Nature: Tracing Jewish Ethics in the Ecological Imagination of Bernard Malamud’sDubin’s Lives

ABSTRACTThe idea that Jews are “ecophobes” is a favorite shtick of American comedy. But does it reflect the truth? This article offers an alternative reading of the Jewish cultural production in twentieth-century American literature that goes beyond the stereotypical image of the “unnatural Jew.” Principally focused on Bernard Malamud’s novel Dubin’s Lives, this article frames Malamud’s work within the context of post-war environmental thought, American Jewish literature, and Jewish environment ethics. I hope to provide an alternative vision of modern American Jewish imagination and its relation to the nonhuman environment. I argue that this relation takes shape in Jewish culture due in part to its historical context: a context marked by Diaspora and assimilation. I enlist Emmanuel Lévinas’s ethics of asymmetry and Hans Jonas’s ontological ethics to show how Judaism and Jewish philosophy can be an ally in the creation or expansion of contemporary environmental ethics. Textual or performative Jews, to whom American literature and humor have accustomed us, are finally “two with Nature” (as Woody Allen says) not because they are Jewish but, perhaps, because they are not “Jewish” enough.

Research on the Jewish Community in Polish Social Sciences: Achievements, Perspectives and Scientific Challenges over the Last Two Decades

In my paper, I would like to focus on the achievements of researchers studying the Jewish community and culture in Poland. In recent decades, there have been numerous publications in this area. It must be admitted that most of them are historical works. However, I would like to draw attention to slightly dispersed studies in the field of social sciences (sociology, psychology, pedagogy). Who are the researchers who deal with Jewish themes? What are the common and individual elements of their scientific approaches? Are all of these elements part of the discourse of research on the ‘renaissance of the Jewish community and identity’? I would like to look at the explorations of both researchers connected with the Jewish environment and ‘outsiders’ (including young foreign researchers interested in Polish Jews). The scope of their research is therefore quite diverse and includes issues such as: building Jewish identity and institutional structures; religious life and the activities of religious and secular associations; relations with dominant culture; informal education, Jewish education and family upbringing.

Between Jew and Nature: Tracing Jewish Ethics in the Ecological Imagination of Bernard Malamud’s <em>Dubin’s Lives</em>

ABSTRACT The idea that Jews are “ecophobes” is a favorite shtick of American comedy. But does it reflect the truth? This article offers an alternative reading of the Jewish cultural production in twentieth-century American literature that goes beyond the stereotypical image of the “unnatural Jew.” Principally focused on Bernard Malamud’s novel Dubin’s Lives, this article frames Malamud’s work within the context of post-war environmental thought, American Jewish literature, and Jewish environment ethics. I hope to provide an alternative vision of modern American Jewish imagination and its relation to the nonhuman environment. I argue that this relation takes shape in Jewish culture due in part to its historical context: a context marked by Diaspora and assimilation. I enlist Emmanuel Lévinas’s ethics of asymmetry and Hans Jonas’s ontological ethics to show how Judaism and Jewish philosophy can be an ally in the creation or expansion of contemporary environmental ethics. Textual or performative Jews, to whom American literature and humor have accustomed us, are finally “two with Nature” (as Woody Allen says) not because they are Jewish but, perhaps, because they are not “Jewish” enough.

"Girded for the Superhuman Task": American Jews and the Trope of the Zionist Pioneer, 1925–1956

"Girded for the Superhuman Task":American Jews and the Trope of the Zionist Pioneer, 1925–19561 Mark A. Raider (bio) The America-Israel nexus has long intrigued scholars of the American Jewish experience, modern Jewish history, and American religion. Seymour Martin Lipset and Earl Rabb dub Israel "the X-factor in American Jewish existence" and suggest it shapes Jewish life in "fundamental ways … not often fully fathomed, either by American or Israeli Jews."2 Viewed historically, Naomi W. Cohen observes, the trajectory of this phenomenon has been nothing short of meteoric. While Zionism was largely an "in-house affair" up until the Balfour Declaration of 1917, it thereafter emerged in the public square as "an Allied war aim" enmeshed with US domestic politics and foreign policy.3 "The course of Zionism and especially of American Zionism," Cohen concludes, "from then until the establishment of Israel some thirty years later, was significantly shaped by American opinion."4 Jonathan D. Sarna emphasizes the centrality of "Zion of the American Jewish imagination," especially in the first half of the twentieth century, as a reflection of the "yearnings and dreams" of American Jews even as it helped them "to counter the malicious [End Page 303] slurs of their enemies."5 Michael Brown enhances our understanding of the America-Israel "connection" by examining the parade of Zionist luminaries who spent extended time in the United States and played a crucial role cultivating American Jewry's relationship to "the apparently infertile soil of the Yishuv" (pre-state Israeli society).6 Vladimir Jabotinsky, Golda Meir, David Ben-Gurion, and other Palestine emissaries, as he demonstrates, worked assiduously to fashion ties between political Zionism's fledgling institutions and a loose but developing nationwide coalition of American Jewish communal leaders, voluntary organizations, and synagogue movements. Such a transnational web of activity, Michael Berkowitz points out, was consonant with the Western Jewish milieu of the early twentieth century including the American Jewish environment where the Zionist project was "styled increasingly as a rescue mission and object of philanthropy."7 The present study seeks to complement the foregoing discussion by investigating the theme of Zionist heroism, specifically the cultural myth of the haluz (Zionist pioneer) and its dynamic impact on American Jewry's relationship to Zionism and the Yishuv (and later Israel).8 Taking a page from scholars of folklore and semiotics who consider "textual shifts as signs of cultural shifts," American Jewry's romantic perception of haluziyut (Zionist pioneering), it will be argued, offers a useful lens for assessing the evolving cultural-political and transnational matrix of Zionism in the American setting.9 The contours of this [End Page 304] phenomenon came into focus in the decades that spanned the 1920s through the 1950s, a period in modern Jewish history framed by, on the one hand, US restrictions on eastern European Jewish immigration, the Fourth Aliyah (the wave of middle-class Polish Jewish immigration to the Yishuv), and Jewish land acquisition and colonization in Palestine's Jezreel Valley, and, on the other, the rise of the State of Israel and what historian Arthur Goren describes as American Jewry's "golden decade" (1945–1955), during which Zionism and Israel became integral to the "communal consensus."10 Folklore scholar Dan Ben-Amos explains that while forms of popular cultural expression may be "classified" into discrete categories such as "history, tradition, dance, music, games, and tales," they nevertheless possess "symbolic significance reaching far beyond the explicit content of the particular text, melody, or artifact."11 "Legend," Ben-Amos asserts, "often signifies a chronological truth; myth symbolizes a religious truth; and parable implies a moral truth … All these forms are but different phases in the same process."12 In a similar vein, art historian Carol Zemel notes the "cultural space of a minority population" can be "fluid and irregular," defying "a fixed geography," and should be considered "interactively, as cultural life in relationship to—and with—a neighbor, a contiguous but different society."13 The salience of such insights for modern Jewish history is not to be underestimated.14 Indeed, they can be productively applied to unpacking the image of the Jewish hero in the West and, by extension, the trope of the...

Innovative Implementations in Painting of Transcarpathia in the First Half of XX Century

The aim of the research. The aim of this article is to find basic principles of creative method for art center of Transcarpathia and innovative implementations in best practices of a cohort of artists who worked in the region. Based on the example of art individuals and analysis of their works an attempt is made to define and highlight their innovative principles. In this context peculiarities of interrelations between European artistic centers and creative environment of Transcarpathia in the first half of the XX century are considered. Methodology of investigation . Using means of comparative characteristic, and methods of comparison and historicism the levers of influence of artistic environment in the Central Europe on regional innovative implementations are considered. Scientific novelty . In the mentioned article separate constituents of processes which lead to interaction of Ukrainian, in particular Transcarpathian and Jewish artistic environment, are considered. Complicated processes of interaction between art centers and the regional art school are clarified. Basic fundamentals for forming innovative ideas in the context of Transcarpathian art development in the first half of XX century are grounded. Main landmarks for development of innovative implementations in the system of visual art of Transcarpathia, in particular painting, are demonstrated. Considering common artistic events in European area several meaningful artistic events are defined, which took place on the territory of the region and beyond its boundaries and which allowed to define main tracks in development of innovative solutions for several artists based on their creative methods. Conclusions . As the result of the investigation it is stated that in the first half of the XX century active exhibition movement takes place, including creative interchange which proved itself in the system of artistic and educational processes in common European area. Within the flow of such events visual art in the region went through the period of establishment and was finally formed. In this context a tendency of innovative implementations in painting of individual artists is traced. It should be mentioned that in this context separate internal and external features of ethnic romanticism can be seen. Its internal content was formed based on the background of regional traditions of folk art which became an internal reserve for creative innovations of numerous artists who worked in the region. Ethnic and cultural motives are specifically displayed in creative and methodical best practices and build up a base for works of the founders of Transcarpathian art school and first group of students. An important event which contributed to innovative solutions, was active plein-air, exhibition, artistic and educational processes. This tendency allowed to trace innovational solutions in the system of creative method for separate artists. It should be stated that a phenomenon of Transcarpathian painting school specifically stood out for its own stylistic and visual phenomenon of regional specificity of painting. Such system is built on traditions of folk culture in the region through the prism of innovative European tendencies of art.

Two Jewish studies related postdoctoral projects in Scandinavia

Wally V. Cirafesi of University of Oslo and Katharina E. Keim of Lund University briefly present their postdoctoral projects within the area of Jewish Studies. Cirafesi has just completed his dissertation on the Gospel of John within its first-century Jewish environment, entitled ‘John within Judaism: Religion, Ethnicity, and the Shaping of Jesus-oriented Jewishness in the Fourth Gospel’, and has received a postdoctoral fellowship at the Norwegian School of Theology, Religion, and Society (Menighetsfakulteten). Keim completed her dissertation on a work of Jewish bible interpretation at the University of Manchester in 2014, published since as Pirqei deRabbi Eliezer: Structure, Coherence, Intertextuality (Brill, 2016). She has recently begun a postdoctoral fellowship in Jewish studies at Lund University. Both projects are interdisciplinary and concern interaction between Jews and Christians in Antiquity, and in Keim’s case also interaction with Islam.

Sinners and Sinfulness in Luke: A Study of Direct and Indirect References in the Initial Episodes of Jesus’ Activity

This revised doctoral thesis examines the literary meaning and function of references to sin and sinners in Luke’s initial presentation of Jesus’s public ministry (Luke 5:1–6:11). Szkredka engages in a preliminary examination of Luke 1–4 and notes that this section of Luke prepares the reader for the fact that God’s intervention to address human sin is underway in the coming of God’s messianic agent. This messianic agent has the divine authority to challenge how others perceive their sinfulness and to provide release from sin.Szkredka examines five discrete pericopes that highlight sin and sinfulness. He notes that Jesus’s calling of Simon Peter models “the realization that sinfulness can be properly understood only on Jesus’s terms. Having asserted a distance between himself and Jesus on account of his own sinfulness, Simon ultimately submits to Jesus’s call, indirectly recognizing Jesus’s authority to cross and eliminate the alienation caused in Simon’s mind by his sin” (p. 64). While Luke narrates nothing directly about sin or sinfulness in the next scene, where Jesus heals a leper, Szkredka says that the leper “indirectly confessed his illness” when he, like Peter, falls at the feet of Jesus and so “the issues of sinfulness and alienating disease . . . become related and mutually illuminating” (p. 77). At the very least, the reader sees that Jesus is able to eliminate both sin (with Peter in 5:1–11) and illness (the leper in 5:12–16). Jesus’s healing of the paralytic (5:17–26) works well for Szkredka’s argument, as Jesus heals the man but also provides for his release from sin. Ironically, the Pharisees and scribes’ labeling of Jesus as a sinner demonstrates their inadequate understanding of sin and sinners. The story of Jesus’s calling of Levi and offer of release from sin (5:27–32) further expands on this theme when Israel’s leaders complain over Jesus’ table fellowship with sinners and tax collectors. Their “refusal to believe in Jesus is now indirectly characterized as something sinful. . . . Such a Christological expansion of the content of sinfulness makes faith in Jesus an act of the highest religious import, since the refusal of that faith amounts to sin” (p. 99, 105). The final pericopes Szkredka examines are the Sabbath disputes between Jesus and Israel’s leaders in 6:1–11. There are no direct references to sin in this episode, but Szkredka suggests that their refusal to submit to Jesus means they are characterized as foolish.Szkredka presents a helpful synthesis of his conclusion on pp. 128–31. He argues that Luke’s portrait of Jesus refocuses the question toward “who are the sinners in the eyes of Jesus?” Further, Luke’s view of sin is thoroughly relational, meaning that sinners are “depicted in relation to Jesus. Sinners are those whose sinfulness Jesus sees, whose recognition of sinfulness he triggers, whose recognition of sinfulness he invites, whose sins he forgives in response to faith in him” (p. 128). Therefore, the theme of sinners and sinfulness ultimately highlights the authority of Jesus and his mission.Szkredka makes a helpful contribution to an underappreciated theme in the Gospel of Luke. His argument that Luke uses strategies to align the reader with the perception of Jesus as the one who determines sin is persuasive but probably not too controversial (though I confess I am unsure whether it is appropriate to refer to “indirect” references to sin in Luke 5:12–16 and 6:1–11). The argument is, however, quite slender and at times underdeveloped. I understand his desire to focus on Luke’s literary themes and strategies, but a more robust interpretation would have gone further in situating this theme within the notion of sinfulness and sinners in Second Temple Judaism. This would allow the reader to appreciate Luke’s distinct contribution within his literary environment. Likewise, there is very little discussion of the actual meaning of sin—both in Luke’s Gospel and in the broader Jewish environment. Finally, a small quibble perhaps, but the author index contains only a very tiny fraction of the authors he engages throughout his study.

Jews as Criminal Figures in Western Belarus in The Interwar Period (Based on the State Archives of the Grodno Region)

The interwar period is characterized by changes in social and economic structure of the Jewish population of Poland. The policy of state regulation caused sharp decline in living standards and the social status of broad masses of the Jewish population here. It could not but cause violations of processes of socialization. In general the number of the penal acts made by Jews in the territory of the Western Belarus during the interwar period was lower, than the number of the crimes committed by other citizens of Poland: the number of criminals in the Jewish environment was half less, than among representatives of other nationalities. It is explained by a number of factors. But in the Jewish environment did not do without crimes. Poles more often than Jews, judged for theft, a robbery, for murders and also for the crimes committed for political motives. Jews in turn are more often mentioned in the affairs connected with economic crimes: buying up and sale stolen, fake of money, trade in foreign currency, falsification of documents. Article is written on the basis of the analysis of materials of the State archive of the Grodno region. Here as the most widespread in the Jewish environment the following crimes are recorded: theft, speculation, illegal crossing of border and also murder.

Transformation of Early Christian Ideas about Judaism (Based on the Analysis of Christian Polemic Literature of the II-III c. and its Historical and Cultural Context)

II–III c. gave the world what is now called “Judaism” and “Christianity”. Two religions, which are now perceived as original and separate from each other, at that time had many intersection points. Christianity had not yet rid itself of its Jewish past, and in the Jewish environment there were many people who accepted Jesus’ messianism and converted to a new faith. However, more gentiles people in the II c. come to the Christian community, while the Jewish are closing themselves from the outside world. Christian literature directed against the Jews (Adversus Judaeos) contributed to this. Although studying the treatises created in this period from in different provinces of the Roman Empire, we can see how much more refined and reasoned these works become. However, it is evident that, in the process of the development of the Adversus Judaeos texts Christian authors rarely invest their own knowledge of Judaism, but only draw us the image of the Jew of that time, borrowing arguments from the writings of their predecessors. In this article we will trace the transformation of the image of the Jews and the emergence of the concept of “Judaism” in the Christian environment on the basis of three polemic works — Justin’s “Dialogue with Trypho” (mid-2nd c.), “On the Passover” by Melito (160–170) and Tertullian’s “Against the Jews” (2nd half of 3rd c). At the same time, the analysis of the historical and cultural context of the places there the treatises were created, shows that the extent to which the image of Judaism was perceived in the Christian anti-Judaic treatises was influenced by the position of these two communities in ancient society. Furthermore, the notion “Judaism” emerges in the Christian environment, which Christian authors counter posed to “Christianity”, creating a counterculture, through which they indicated the distinctive features of their religion, showed its advantage.