Jewish Responses Research Articles

Jewish Responses to Copernican Thought: A Conceptual Replication of John Hedley Brooke’s Chapter on Scientific and Religious Reform

This article explores how replication might work in the study of history through the presentation of a test case. Specifically, chapter 3 of historian John Hedley Brooke’s seminal book Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives (1991) was chosen for this experiment by an interdisciplinary team, as it is a cornerstone study in the history of science and religion. This article details the “conceptual replication” undertaken, that is, a study in which the research protocol of the original study was modified while the main research question stayed the same. Brooke studied the responses of Protestants and Roman Catholics to Copernican thought to examine the widely held belief that those who had recently gone through the Protestant Reformation would be more open to the new astronomy than Catholics. Our conceptual replication investigates what historians have written about Jewish responses to Copernican thought and how these findings impact the question of the relationship between religious and scientific reform. The preliminary conclusion of this replication study is that historians of the Jewish responses to the new astronomy seem to support Brooke’s view that such responses were determined by more than just theological or denominational considerations, since other factors (e.g., social ones) played a more constitutive role.

The Unique and Important Jewish Responses to Proposition 8 and Marriage Equality

ABSTRACTMarriage equality is a nascent and fragile civil right in the United States. To protect this civil right we must articulate and preserve diverse religious, ethical, and legal positions from the marriage equality debates. Sadly, and incorrectly, both the popular and scholarly narratives of religions' public role and ethics on marriage equality have been told with a Christocentric and “God versus Gay” framing. Here I push the borders of that frame to include the crucially important story of Judaism and the Prop 8 marriage equality debates. Judaism made and still makes vital and unique contributions to the battle for marriage equality: the majority of Jewish congregations and organizations are in favor of marriage equality, as opposed to the majority of Christianities which are against it. Judaism models diversity within the tradition, for example how to be opposed to same‐sex marriage but not expect that it will be illegal. Jewish positions on marriage equality in the public sphere model how the civil rights of marriage equality and religious liberty can coexist and thrive.

Melmoth Irreconcilable? Supersessionism and Jewish and Christian Responses to the Wandering Jew Legend

Charles Maturin’s Melmoth the Wanderer (1820) draws from the legend of the Wandering Jew, infusing the figure with Faustian characteristics in an evolution already begun in William Godwin’s St. Leon (1799). Maturin’s Melmoth also reflects the anti-Judaism inherent in the Wandering Jew legend, especially supersessionism, which views Christianity as the true fulfillment of Jewish prophecy. The influence of supersessionism endures in discernible, but very different forms, in works influenced by Melmoth in French and in Yiddish. Drawing on Carol Davison’s analysis of Gothic antisemitism and Karen Grumberg’s important exploration of ‘Hebrew Gothic’, this essay discusses how Jewish writers, including Uri Zvi Greenberg (1896–1981), a poet of Yiddish and Hebrew from Lviv, Polish-born Yiddish novelist Sholem Asch (1880–1957), and contemporary U.S. novelist Dara Horn (b. 1977) have appropriated and adapted the legend of the eternal wanderer in ways that could be seen as reflecting a distinctly Jewish response to the gothic.

Psalm 45 between Abraham and Jesus: A Palestinian Rabbinic Polemic and Its Shelf Life

Abstract: This article describes an interpretive shift that occurred in Roman Palestine during the amoraic period (ca. 200–650 CE). It argues that rabbis of this era and in this region began to identify parts of Psalm 45 in light of Abraham as a form of anti-Christian polemic, a way to present Abraham as the Jewish response to Christ. It then shows that this exegetical framework, which originated as a polemic, developed a life of its own. As late antiquity slowly transitioned into the early Middle Ages, some Jews read other parts of the psalm—and then the entire psalm—as pertaining to Abraham.

The Jewish Reception of the Ars Notoria: Preliminary Insights into a Recent Discovery

Recent advancements in studying the Ars Notoria, notably through Julian Véronèse’s critical edition, have provided insights into its manuscripts and various interpretations. This progress sets the stage for exploring a less examined area: the Jewish reception of the Ars Notoria, a topic ripe for investigation in the current scholarly landscape. This article explores the Jewish engagement with this Christian text, particularly through its Hebrew translation Melekhet Muskelet, as well as a notable discovery that links the Ars Notoria’s notae to the Kabbalistic ten sefirot. This connection suggests an early Jewish interest in this Christian magical text. The study, using textual and visual analysis, offers insights into the interplay between medieval Jewish Kabbalah and Christian magical texts, underscoring the need to reevaluate their mutual influences during the 13th and 14th centuries.

Catholic Preaching on Jews and Judaism: The Challenge from Surveyed Good Friday Homilies

Abstract: To assess the reception in the American Catholic Church of the significant shift in Catholic doctrine on Jews and Judaism since the promulgation of Nostra Aetate at Vatican II, a study was conducted of a dataset of thirty-two Catholic Good Friday homilies from a sermons database that the Pew Research Center collected from the Internet in 2019. Relying on conciliar and post-conciliar Catholic teaching documents and using deductive qualitative content analysis, the survey analyzed the texts based on their treatment of six issues: (1) the Jewish identity of Jesus and his disciples, (2) respect for the Jewish people and their religious heritage, (3) the role Jews had in Jesus’ passion and death, (4) the reading from the Hebrew Scriptures/Old Testament, (5) the Pharisees, and (6) the gospel reading. The survey found that none of the homilies directly addressed the ahistorical, negative treatment of “the Jews” in John’s Gospel. None of the homilies commented on the Jewish identity of Jesus and his disciples. Only two homilies mentioned the Pharisees, one in a positive way and another in a negative way. As to respect for the Jewish people and their religious heritage, most homilists were silent on this matter, although some still trafficked in Jewish stereotypes, claiming, for example, that Jewish pride was evident at the crucifixion. As to Jewish responsibility for Jesus’ death, most homilists said that the sins of humanity brought Jesus to the cross, but some homilists still claimed that Jews were responsible for the crucifixion in direct contradiction to modern Church teaching. Of the homilists who referred to the Hebrew Scriptures/Old Testament, most read them in a typological way, not showing any concern for the texts in their historical context. As to the treatment of the Gospel of John, most homilists who commented on it showed little awareness of contemporary biblical scholarship, reading the text in a literalist way.

Evolution and the Genre of Scripture: Why Evolution Shouldn’t Bother Jewish Theology

ABSTRACT I outline a Jewish response to theological problems emerging from Darwinian biology and contemporary cosmology. This response is rooted in an argument from genre, regarding the relationship between divine revelation and fiction. I then bring this Jewish response into conversation with Shoaib Ahmed Malik’s Islam and Evolution.

Like Giants Sitting on the Dwarf’s Shoulders: Religious Anarchism and the Making of Modern Zionist Historiography

German and Central European Jews shaped many primary Jewish responses to modernity. The religious renewal, or the alleged “Jewish Renaissance” among German Jews in the first decades of the 20th century, offers a radical encounter with tradition as part of Jewish modernism. In this paper, I aim to examine a group of revolutionary young intellectual anarchists, striving for a new religious excitement free of the traditional binding part of established religions. In various forms, religiosity became the only possible way of radical political thinking, a kind of antinomian liberation theology. In the absence of traditional communal ties of orthodox praxis and systematic theological speculation, these political intellectuals turn to historical discourse as their leading theological super-structure. Their critique of modernism was merged into a nostalgic rethinking of pre-modern religious forms and cultural patterns. The Zionists among them contributed much to the ammunition of the sacred covenant of Land, Blood, disrespect toward any form of legal normativity, and solid messianic expectation. This fatal combination is responsible for many disturbing elements in the contemporary Israeli public sphere.

Minorities aiding minorities? British Jewish response to Armenian suffering in the late Victorian era

ABSTRACT This essay delves into the humanitarian response of British Jews towards the suffering of the Armenians during the Hamidian massacres (1894–7). The essay argues that this humanitarian act is a very early and hardly known attempt by Jews to aid members of other non-Jewish groups. This “external” humanitarian act perhaps fits the scholarly argument concerning the nineteenth century’s watershed of humanitarianism: the transition from an earlier more inward-looking based relief action, to aiding, in the name of all humanity, other, distinct religious or ethnic groups. Most importantly, as this essay argues, these Jewish humanitarian activities mainly derived from rational, practical reasons, primarily resulting from Jewish vulnerability. Rational rather than sentimental humanitarianism, hence, was the main cause for the humanitarian response of British Jews. Indeed, the essay argues, the endorsement of the Armenians was an influential affair in Britain, moving the public as well as British Jews into action. However, some British Jews, and interestingly also German Jews objected to any formal or even non-formal support that might endanger their Jewish brethren in the Ottoman Empire. The support of the Armenians, thus, was also controversial, arousing inner conflicts within the community and even between British Jews and German Jews.

Women and Torah: The Orthodox Jewish Response to Second-Wave Feminism

This paper explores the effects of second-wave feminism in the 1970s on the Orthodox Jewish movement within the United States. During this time, the feminist movement challenged the way women were viewed and treated in American society, leading to other denominations of Judaism soon enacting policies to reflect such change. The paper examines how this movement was received and responded to by the Orthodox Jewish leadership and seeks to explore the contradictions that arose as a result of the collision between feminism and Orthodox Judaism. Ultimately, it concludes that the feminist movement of the 1970s had a profound impact on the Orthodox Jewish movement, leading to changes in milestone events, education, and representation within the community, but also contributing to a complex and ongoing debate about the meaning and practice of Jewish tradition.

Contemporary Catholic Approaches to the People, Land and State of Israel. Edited by Gavin D’Costa and Faydra L. Shapiro

Recognizing the multidimensional challenge of the Israeli–Palestinian situation, the editors (lay Catholic and Orthodox Israeli academics) led a June 2018 conference in Jerusalem where Catholic scholars presented papers before Jewish and Arab respondents. Many revised their papers in light of questions and discussions. The book contains twelve essays in four sections. Sections include essays written around the themes of “Listening Again to Scripture,” “Mining the Tradition,” and “Seeking Justice and Peace,” with a final section containing two Jewish responses. The biblical heritage is examined from the perspective of the Second Vatican Council, its Declaration on the Church’s Relation to Non-Christian Religions (Nostra aetate), and recent developments in the Catholic teaching authority. Lawrence Feingold (USA) sees the Jewish return to the Land as a sign pointing to the fulfillment of history with the coming of the Messiah, but without reference to certain Evangelical Protestant interpretations. Etienne Vetö (Rome) explores the place of Palestinians (Christian and Muslim) in the Land under Jewish control. He argues that “what is at stake is a purified or transfigured conception of the land … which includes a call to share the land” (p. 23). Christian Rutishauser SJ (Switzerland) discusses the Land and State of Israel with a sketch from the Hebrew Bible to the present, pointing to the final days. He draws attention to major questions to be discussed by Catholics in contact with Jewish scholars, especially with regard to Israel. Gavin D’Costa (England) discusses the biblical background for a Catholic view of Jews in the State of Israel. Palestinians have a right to a state/homeland as well. David Neuhaus (Israel–Palestine) offers a decades-long personal experience that bridges the dichotomies of life in Israel and the West Bank. All should “be at home and enjoy citizenship in a political entity that guarantees the common good” (p. 190).

Heidegger and His Jewish Reception by Daniel M. Herskowitz

Heidegger and His Jewish Reception by Daniel M. Herskowitz

Loren R. Spielman. Jews and Entertainment in the Ancient World

Loren R. Spielman. <i>Jews and Entertainment in the Ancient World</i>

‘Wogs’ and ‘Kikes’: the Jewish Tribune – West Indian World Controversy of 1978

ABSTRACT In early 1978 a conflict emerged between the Orthodox Jewish newspaper Jewish Tribune and the Black British West Indian World. After Tribune published a seemingly offensive Yiddish language editorial cautioning against Jewish public solidarity with West Indians, it was leaked to West Indian World who splashed it on their front page. This article will give a full account of the largely forgotten affair, focusing on the responses to it in the Black and Jewish press and examining what it illustrates about Jewish responses to issues of race relations in late 1970s Britain.

The Jewish Mockery of Suicide: Counterculture in Early Twentieth-Century Hungarian Jewish Literature

This article examines secular Hungarian Jewish writing about suicide in the first third of the twentieth century. In nineteenth- and twentieth-century Hungary, suicide was a culturally respected and prevalent societal occurrence. Hungarian Jewish writers created a countercultural narrative that criticized suicide through mockery, satire, and irony. I argue that in the diverse political climate of the period, Hungarian Jewish literature was in dialogue with Hungarian suicide culture and formed part of a careful negotiation of Jewish presence in Hungarian society. Both Hungarian suicide culture and the Jewish response to it were cultural trends unaffected by political upheavals. Literature allowed Jewish writers to explore their place in society and to engage with Hungarian culture via the diverse dynamics of mockery expressed in their stories of suicide. They chose satire, their modern literary specialty, as a safe way to articulate secular social criticism. It shielded them from both antisemitism and moralizing religious critiques. To this end, they engaged with their surroundings through narratives of death as a joke.

Racialization of Disease: The Typhus-Epidemic, Antisemitism and Closed Borders in German-Occupied Poland, 1915–1918

This article analyses responses to the typhus epidemic in German-occupied Poland during the First World War. The German conquest of the Kingdom of Poland in 1915 not only instated a new political regime, but also brought about social misery on an unprecedented scale. Especially in larger cities, the poor segments of the population were made homeless or cramped into tiny apartments and suffered from hunger and disease. From 1915 outbreaks of typhus occurred in major cities, often found amongst the Jewish population. The German occupiers forcefully responded by fumigating houses, quarantining suspected cases, and forcing thousands of families into delousing facilities. These measures particularly targeted Jews as German medical officials identified them as the carriers and spreaders of the disease – some of them characterized typhus itself as a ‘Jewish disease’. In an effort to prevent the spread of the disease to Germany and to protect the German Volkskörper, Polish Jews – for the fact that they were Jews – were from 1918 onwards barred from crossing the border and thousands of Jewish migrant workers in German industry were arrested and deported. The article examines both the political and the medical context in which these policies were employed and analyses Jewish responses to both the spreading of the disease and the German anti-Jewish policies. It shows the close connection between health policy and antisemitic and nationalist ideological narratives and projects, and identifies this racialization of disease as a key moment in the development of German antisemitism.

The Jewish Anthological Imagination in the Holocaust, 1940−1945

In this paper the author analyzes five anthologies published in Yiddish, Hebrew and English. They represent individual and collective Jewish responses to the Holocaust both inside and outside the occupied war zone. When we read synoptically, each of them can be perceived as different national, transnational or communal Jewish response to the catastrophe. When we read dialogically, however, each anthology betrays a dissonant or discordant voice, and it is precisely the anomalous utterance that calls out the Holocaust’s screaming contradictions. By “listening anthologically,” combining a synoptic and dialogical reading, the Jewish anthological imagination in wartime becomes audible in all its tragic complexity

Passing on the Periphery: A Call for the Critical Reconsideration of Research on Identity ‘Passing’ as a Jewish Response to Persecution During the Holocaust

ABSTRACT This article calls for a revisitation and reevaluation of passing experiences in Holocaust research and remembrance. In this article, passing denotes the concealing of one’s Jewish identity by adopting a non-Jewish, non-persecuted identity in the attempt to function as Gentile, ‘Aryan,’ or as a member of another, more protected group. In recent years, passing narratives have become more visible in Holocaust canon. However, these accounts are most often integrated into frameworks of hiding, resistance, and Gentile-directed rescue, if at all, and are largely discounted in Holocaust memory. Incorporating passing experiences as a mere element in dominant commemorative narratives of evasion and defiance elides the stories and experiences of individuals who attempted to survive in plain sight. Moreover, their exclusion and minimization preclude deeper inquiry into passing as a Jewish response to persecution. The diversity of experience among passers, as well as its day-to-day nuances, provide critical insight that helps us understand and engage with more diverse survival experiences during the Holocaust and offers greater insight into both the field at large and to broader interdisciplinary arenas. This article highlights the distinctiveness of passing as a method of survival, assesses the ways in which it has been silenced in broader perspectives, and comments on its place in Holocaust memory.

Gendering Revealed Knowledge? Prophecy, Positionality, and Perspective across Sibylline and Enochic Discourses

Abstract This article is an experimental exploration of how gender shapes the conceptualization of knowledge, both among ancient Jews and among modern scholars of ancient Judaism. It focuses on the Sibylline Oracles, putting recent specialist research on their earliest strata into conversation with theoretical discussions of positionality. Attention to the anachronism of modern scholarly assumptions about embodiment and knowledge opens the way for analyzing the different meanings made by the female positioning of the Sibyl in antiquity. This article argues that her gender functions differently even in the Hellenistic-era and the Roman-era strata of the Third Sibylline Oracle. To read its Hellenistic-era strata with an eye to the gendering of knowledge, moreover, adds much to our analysis of Jewish responses to Greek paideia, while also enriching our understanding of the transformation of biblical prophecy in other Hellenistic-era Jewish writings, like the Enochic Book of the Watchers.

Wolf Gruner. The Holocaust in Bohemia and Moravia: Czech Initiatives, German Policies, Jewish Responses. New York: Berghahn, 2019. Pp. 454.

Wolf Gruner. The Holocaust in Bohemia and Moravia: Czech Initiatives, German Policies, Jewish Responses. New York: Berghahn, 2019. Pp. 454.