Jewish Service Research Articles

How Organizations Change Their Purpose: Purpose Renewal at a Jewish Services Organization

How Organizations Change Their Purpose: Purpose Renewal at a Jewish Services Organization

The Stones of Lifta by Marc Kaminsky

Reviewed by: The Stones of Lifta by Marc Kaminsky Marc Jampole (bio) the stones of lifta Marc Kaminsky Dos Madres Press www.dosmadres.com/shop/the-stones-of-lifta-by-marc-kaminsky 77 Pages; Print; $17.00 "Hineni" (or "Hinani") is the heartfelt song the cantor sings before he begins leading the recitation of the Amidah—typically the longest prayer in Jewish services—on Yom Kippur. The cantor sings that although he is praying on behalf of all those present, only he should be blamed when he fails to do it right, not the entire community. The prayer starts with the Hebrew, "Hineni," which means "Here I am," the very words Moses utters when the Jewish god appears before him in the desert. For both the cantor and Moses, "Here I am" announces a willingness to take action to propitiate the deity on behalf of the community. Thus, when Marc Kaminsky uses the phrase "Unworthy as I am …" to begin "Hinani," the first poem in his latest poetry collection, The Stones of Lifta, he signals, at least to knowledgeable Jews, that these poems will deal with a communal guilt that he feels unworthy to assuage or explain away. And in fact, we could conceive of the entire collection as an attempt to expiate the communal guilt of Israelis and all Jews regarding the violence perpetrated against Palestinians since the founding of the state of Israel in 1948. The Lifta of the title was a Palestinian village on the outskirts of Jerusalem with distinctive stone houses that never held more than about 2,250 inhabitants. During the 1947–48 civil war in Palestine, Arab leaders asked Lifta's residents to abandon the village; some did and some of these came back. Arabs fought several battles with Jewish forces at the site before every Palestinian finally abandoned Lifta. Later Lifta housed Jewish refugees. After the war many Jewish families settled there, but all left at the end of the 1960s. The Israeli government then briefly used parts of the village as a drug rehabilitation clinic and a high school. In 2017 the last Jewish residents left Lifta, and the village, decrepit stone structures and all, was declared an Israeli nature preserve. In these poems—all about Lifta, its inhabitants and its history—Kaminsky [End Page 125] presents the views of a wide range of nuanced voices, mostly Palestinian, but also of Israelis and American Jews. We read—and feel—the full range of emotions and rationales expressed by peoples of both nations fighting over one territory. Various Palestinian voices mourn the loss of land and people, offer justifications of terrorism, swear defiance against torture and economic mistreatment, evoke nostalgia for a past life, or express hatred of Jews. The Jewish voices in these poems reference the Holocaust as a justification for claiming the land, evoke the threats to the state of Israel and Israeli Jewish lives posed by the Arab world, and remind the reader of the Jews' ancient claims to the land. "First Cousins," for example, is an argument between two first cousins, one Israeli, one an American Jew (who likely is supposed to be the author). At Lifta, the American cousin expresses deep sympathy for the Palestinians, which the Israeli cousin mocks with: And you come wheeling in your baggageof opinions, stuffed with unearnedcompassion for victims of the Nakba. and Aren't you just anotherself-hating Jew? Note that "Nakba" is what the Arab world calls the mass migration that occurred in 1948 when 700,000 Arab residents of the territory under control of the Israelis either fled or were expelled from their homes. By the end of "First Cousins," the American cousin recognizes that deep inside himself lurks a blood-thirsty nature that would have responded to the Palestinian presence and threat with exactly the same violence as Jewish settlers did and Israelis have done: And I see Lifta is the only gatethrough which I could have come to Jerusalemto face the rage and perplexity of contending with youand the horror of encountering the murderous tribesman in myself. A number of the other poems, including "Constellations of Lifta" and "The Coffee House at...

Epilogues

The annual International Jewish-Christian Bible Week runs from a Sunday to a Sunday, allowing for the celebration of the Jewish Shabbat and the Christian Sunday by attending one another’s religious services. During the five years covered in this issue, it has been the author’s privilege to offer the sermon on the Saturday morning during the Jewish service. This enables him to explore new perceptions of the texts we have been studying that have arisen during the Week, but also to reflect on broader issues that might have arisen in the multiple interactions – interfaith, intercultural and interpersonal – that have taken place during the Week. Given the occasional negative associations that accompany the word ‘sermon’, I have preferred to use the term ‘epilogues’ to characterise these responses to the texts and experiences of the Week. The term also covers a more imaginative reflection on the Book of Proverbs (Hebrew: mishlei) that we have been studying – a visit to the City of Mishlei.

Music, History, and Culture in Sephardi Jewish Prayer Chanting

This article presents the study of a Jewish liturgical genre that is performed in main sections of Jewish prayer services. This liturgical genre is called “prayer chanting”. The term refers to the musical performance by the cantor of the prose texts in Jewish prayer services. The genre of prayer chanting characterizes most Jewish liturgical traditions, and its central characteristic is a close attachment of the musical structure to the structure of the text. The article will examine musical, cultural, and historical characteristics of prayer chanting of two Sephardi Jewish traditions and will explain how this liturgical genre reflects historical and cultural features related to these liturgical traditions. The study presented here is based on field work that includes recordings of prayer and interviews of well-known cantors of the two traditions as well as observations in synagogue of the two liturgical traditions.

The boundary between “Judaism” and “Aryanism”: Anti-Semitic logic, litigation, and bureaucratic practices relating to the classification of “half-Jews” in Occupied France (1940-1944)

Under the Occupation, the French Jewish Statute made no provisions for an intermediary status for individuals of mixed heritage (who the administration called “half-Jews”), to the contrary of Nazi legislation in Germany. Consequently, there were no first- or second-degree mixed-heritage people in France; one was either Jewish or not. But the criteria for defining whether or not “half-Jews” were of “the Jewish race” varied between German and French texts, case law, and the practices of specialized bureaucrats. The boundary between “Jewish” and “non-Jewish” was tenuous, often arbitrary, and shaped by religious affiliation, a divorce, a marriage, or other fact of life. Being classified on the “good” or “bad” side of the “barricade” (according to the formulation of George Montandon, the ethno-racial expert of the Paris Prefecture of Police and the Commissariat-General for Jewish Affairs [CGQJ]) was very often a matter of life or death. The administration (mainly the “Jewish Service” of the Prefecture of Police and the CGQJ) and the courts had to rule on thousands of “ambiguous cases.” The CGQJ delivered over 11,000 “Certificates of Non-Belonging to the Jewish Race” after painstaking investigations. This article considers the categories that agents of the State used to sort out these borderline cases, and tries to understand the root causes of this dogged quest to determine the legal and political boundary between “Jew” and “non-Jew.”

New Children of Israel: Emerging Jewish Communities in an Era of Globalization by Nathan P. Devir

Reviewed by: New Children of Israel: Emerging Jewish Communities in an Era of Globalization by Nathan P. Devir Edith Bruder Nathan P. Devir. New Children of Israel: Emerging Jewish Communities in an Era of Globalization. Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press, 2017. 310 pp. doi:10.1017/S0364009419001028 Nathan Devir's survey refers to a remarkable phenomenon in recent decades: a vast number of individuals or groups in Africa, India, and elsewhere, with no historical ties to Jewish life, who have chosen to become part of the Jewish people and to adopt Jewish traditions. Referring to pioneering scholarship on so-called Judaizing movements, Devir's comparative ethnographic study explores oral histories and heritage narratives, the historical background, and the circumstances of this motivation through case studies in Ghana, Cameroon, India, and other postcolonial places. He examines in depth the typologies and modalities of the inclusion of the "New Children of Israel" in the Jewish world and what this tells us about the contemporary construction of new Jewish identities. Leaving aside the evidentiary data that might corroborate claims of Israelite ancestry and the notion of the "authenticity" of these communities, Devir investigates the practical and symbolic ways in which these communities construct their ideas about what Jewishness means. The "House of Israel" community in Ghana claims that their heritage narratives indicate a precolonial Jewish history, which is emblematic of the first wave of African communities that asserted they are the heirs of the Lost Tribes of Israel. Through testimonies and interviews, Devir reconstructs a detailed description of how the journey of this community to normative Judaism began. From the discovery of similarities between the traditional customs of the Sefwi—including circumcision eight days after birth, a Saturday Sabbath, burial and food taboos, the ritual slaughter of animals, and menstrual seclusion of women—and those found in the Tanakh, the founders of this community have adopted and developed versions of their tribal history emphasizing that, prior to the arrival of colonial missionaries, they practiced a form of Judaism. As a result, they considered that their "lost" traditions have revealed that they belong to the Hebrew people. While Devir does consider the frequently mentioned commonalities between Ashanti and Jewish customs in the anthropological discourse, he emphasizes a series of interactions that relate to post-colonially influenced notions of chosenness in a context where colonists denigrated traditional religions. For the author, this rhetoric of Old Testamentism is the expression of a return-to-roots countermovement, even if it is not limited to that alone. Without taking into account any such apparently inherited similarities, the more recent adoption of Judaism of the Beth Yeshouroun of Cameroon at the beginning of the twenty-first century is construed along the lines of religious affiliation by spontaneous conversion. The study of Hebrew Scriptures is the basis of their belief. As noticed by Devir, this community's founding members were inspired by a deep spiritual desire and have freed themselves from a racial-genealogical definition of Jewishness. Globalized media and technology have played a salient role in the construction of this community, which began to practice [End Page 203] Judaism according to information found on the Internet, without any prior personal interaction with other Jews. That the Beth Yeshouroun adopted Jewish spirituality and traditions via online practice led Devir to point out the transnational and decentralized nature of the current communication paradigm and its effects on the evolution of Judaism and more generally on religions. As he relates, these "Internet Jews" have meticulously studied online videos of Jewish services abroad; they follow normative Jewish religious practice, and the religious service in their synagogue might seem identical to a Conservative or Modern Orthodox service that can be witnessed in Europe, Israel, or the Americas. They see the Jewish entity as a kinship group whose defining characteristics are to observe the commandments. In joining Judaism they became Jews and sought formal recognition as Jews. The case of the Bene Ephraim movement of south India enhances the comparative significance of Devir's research on new Jewish communities in the developing world. The Bene Ephraim are a group of formerly Christianized "untouchables" (dalits) who claim descent from a Lost Tribe of...

Nathan P. Devir. New Children of Israel: Emerging Jewish Communities in an Era of Globalization. Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press, 2017. 310 pp.

Reviewed by: New Children of Israel: Emerging Jewish Communities in an Era of Globalization by Nathan P. Devir Edith Bruder Nathan P. Devir. New Children of Israel: Emerging Jewish Communities in an Era of Globalization. Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press, 2017. 310 pp. doi:10.1017/S0364009419001028 Nathan Devir's survey refers to a remarkable phenomenon in recent decades: a vast number of individuals or groups in Africa, India, and elsewhere, with no historical ties to Jewish life, who have chosen to become part of the Jewish people and to adopt Jewish traditions. Referring to pioneering scholarship on so-called Judaizing movements, Devir's comparative ethnographic study explores oral histories and heritage narratives, the historical background, and the circumstances of this motivation through case studies in Ghana, Cameroon, India, and other postcolonial places. He examines in depth the typologies and modalities of the inclusion of the "New Children of Israel" in the Jewish world and what this tells us about the contemporary construction of new Jewish identities. Leaving aside the evidentiary data that might corroborate claims of Israelite ancestry and the notion of the "authenticity" of these communities, Devir investigates the practical and symbolic ways in which these communities construct their ideas about what Jewishness means. The "House of Israel" community in Ghana claims that their heritage narratives indicate a precolonial Jewish history, which is emblematic of the first wave of African communities that asserted they are the heirs of the Lost Tribes of Israel. Through testimonies and interviews, Devir reconstructs a detailed description of how the journey of this community to normative Judaism began. From the discovery of similarities between the traditional customs of the Sefwi—including circumcision eight days after birth, a Saturday Sabbath, burial and food taboos, the ritual slaughter of animals, and menstrual seclusion of women—and those found in the Tanakh, the founders of this community have adopted and developed versions of their tribal history emphasizing that, prior to the arrival of colonial missionaries, they practiced a form of Judaism. As a result, they considered that their "lost" traditions have revealed that they belong to the Hebrew people. While Devir does consider the frequently mentioned commonalities between Ashanti and Jewish customs in the anthropological discourse, he emphasizes a series of interactions that relate to post-colonially influenced notions of chosenness in a context where colonists denigrated traditional religions. For the author, this rhetoric of Old Testamentism is the expression of a return-to-roots countermovement, even if it is not limited to that alone. Without taking into account any such apparently inherited similarities, the more recent adoption of Judaism of the Beth Yeshouroun of Cameroon at the beginning of the twenty-first century is construed along the lines of religious affiliation by spontaneous conversion. The study of Hebrew Scriptures is the basis of their belief. As noticed by Devir, this community's founding members were inspired by a deep spiritual desire and have freed themselves from a racial-genealogical definition of Jewishness. Globalized media and technology have played a salient role in the construction of this community, which began to practice [End Page 203] Judaism according to information found on the Internet, without any prior personal interaction with other Jews. That the Beth Yeshouroun adopted Jewish spirituality and traditions via online practice led Devir to point out the transnational and decentralized nature of the current communication paradigm and its effects on the evolution of Judaism and more generally on religions. As he relates, these "Internet Jews" have meticulously studied online videos of Jewish services abroad; they follow normative Jewish religious practice, and the religious service in their synagogue might seem identical to a Conservative or Modern Orthodox service that can be witnessed in Europe, Israel, or the Americas. They see the Jewish entity as a kinship group whose defining characteristics are to observe the commandments. In joining Judaism they became Jews and sought formal recognition as Jews. The case of the Bene Ephraim movement of south India enhances the comparative significance of Devir's research on new Jewish communities in the developing world. The Bene Ephraim are a group of formerly Christianized "untouchables" (dalits) who claim descent from a Lost Tribe of...

PATH TO THE PEOPLE: ENGAGING CULTURALLY AND EDUCATIONALLY DIVERSE OLDER ADULTS IN PROBLEM-BASED PSYCHOSOCIAL INTERVENTIONS

1/5 of older adults are of a diverse ethnic or racial background. Older minorities with depression report higher levels of disability and are more persistently ill than non-Hispanic white older adults despite lower utilization of mental health care. In addition, 40% of homebound older adults have a psychiatric illness but have limited access to mental health services. Despite increased illness burden, both minority and homebound older adults are underrepresented in clinical trials. Furthermore, the education level of participants in clinical trials tends to be higher than what is observed in a culturally diverse clinic population. Problem Solving Therapy (PST) is an effective intervention to treat depression and disability in older adults. While most PST trials have been conducted in ambulatory settings, the Program to Encourage Active, Rewarding Lives for Seniors (PEARLS) intervention was developed as a home-based intervention for medically ill, homebound older adults with depression. Given the high prevalence of cognitive disorders in homebound older adults, Kiosses and colleagues developed Problem Adaptation Therapy (PATH) for older adults with depression and cognitive impairment. This psychosocial intervention utilizes compensatory strategies, environmental adaptations and caregiver involvement. Montefiore Home Care (MHC) serves a culturally and educationally diverse patient population. In 2016, the MHC-Geriatric Psychiatry Program pursued two funding opportunities to provide problem based psychosocial interventions in the home. The first was a New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene grant to partner with the Jewish Services for the Aged to provide PEARLS to homebound older adults in the Bronx. Secondly, MHC partnered with Weill Cornell, under the leadership of Dr. Dimitris Kiosses, on a Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation grant to pilot PATH for depressed and cognitive impaired older adults. Over ¾ of the patients served by these programs are minority older adults, most of which have less than 12 years of education. Moreover, Kiosses and colleagues found that PATH not only reduced depression and disability, but it improved cognitive outcomes over 24 weeks. During this session, presenters will describe disparities in clinical trial recruitment, present strategies to overcome these difficulties, and discuss how MHC incorporated both PEARLS and PATH into a clinical setting. Presenters will share results from the Home-Delivered PATH vs. Supportive Psychotherapy study for older adults with depression and mild cognitive impairment. Finally, presenters will discuss how these findings will inform the translation of study interventions into clinical care for culturally and educationally diverse populations.

French Bureaucrats and Anti-Jewish Persecution: The “Jewish Service” of the Paris Police Prefecture, 1940–1944

French Bureaucrats and Anti-Jewish Persecution: The “Jewish Service” of the Paris Police Prefecture, 1940–1944

The value of medical students in support of asylum seekers in the United States.

The global refugee/migrant crisis of displacement because of persecution and conflict carries staggering implications of ambiguity and loss for the individuals affected. In 2013, approximately 25,000 displaced people sought asylum in the United States; many of whom have experienced state-sponsored physical and psychological torture. With Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), several medical student clinics work closely with immigration attorneys and University and Community based clinicians to assist U.S. asylum seekers in their asylum claims. The Western New York Center for Survivors of Torture (WNYCST) was established in 2014 through Jewish Family Service of Buffalo and Erie County to aid asylum seeking torture survivors by providing person-centered and trauma informed care. The Center and the Human Rights Initiative at the University at Buffalo (UB) work together to provide forensic examinations for clients seeking asylum to document sequelae of torture. The students have organized the clinic such that all medical school years (1-4) are represented. Approximately 90 medical students from all years have received specific forensic training to enable them to act as scribes for the forensic exams. Students receive training in cultural diversity, the use of interpreters, and trauma informed care. Students integrate with local refugee communities and begin to understand interactions between the legal, health, social, and justice systems. The concerted efforts by student run clinics like the HRI at UB through organizations like the WNYCST can help to mitigate the trauma, and leave students with skills that will be of use for them throughout the trajectory of their medical training. (PsycINFO Database Record

Reverberations of the Reform Jewish Service in Synagogue Music of Northern Croatia from the 1880s to the 1950s

The Jewish Reform Movement which developed under the infl uence of Haskalah and European Enlightenment thought brought about major changes in the synagogue service and the accompanying music performance. Instruments, choir and organ were reintroduced into the service. In the latt er part of the 19th century in the territory of northern Croatia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, synagogues accommodating the reform Jewish service were built (neological direction). Each of them had an organ and a choir which participated in the service together with the cantor (hazzan). Croatian composer and violinist Antun Schwarz (1823-1891) studied cantorial singing at the school of Salomon Sulzer (1804-1890) in Vienna. Following his return to his native Zagreb he brought the spirit of reform Judaism to the Zagreb Jewish community and to Croatian culture of the day. In Croatia, some collections of synagogue music have been preserved, such as the collections of cantors Joseph Weissman (1872-1941), Isak Hendel (1883-1944), Bernard Gruner (1888-1955) and David Meisel (1885-1941). Those collections testify to the existence of reformed service music in Croatian synagogues before the beginning of the World War II, which is when most of the cantors, synagogues and music sheets disappeared in the Holocaust.

Reverence and Integration: Boy Scouts, Jewish Camping and American Orthodoxy

Reverence and Integration:Boy Scouts, Jewish Camping and American Orthodoxy Adam S. Ferziger (bio) and Hillel D. Spielman (bio) During my marathons I bonded with runners of all backgrounds… symbolic of my people’s position in America was the presence at a designated place for a prerace minyan at the marathon staging area—readily available, if I chose to attend. This Jewish place rested comfortably next to the Catholic Mass tent and the Protestant prayer area.1 “Young Israelites” at a Camporee In 1947, Harold Jacobs (1912–1995) was president of the Young Israel of Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn. Among the activities sponsored by this then thriving Modern Orthodox synagogue was the “Shomer Shabbat” (Sabbath observant) Boy Scout Troop 404, whose ranks included two of Jacobs’ sons. Jacobs, who in subsequent years was to become a national lay leader of American Orthodoxy, accompanied the group on a weekend “camporee.”2 In his portrayal of the event, he first describes an “Orthodox” application of the Boy Scout motto “Be Prepared”3—making sure [End Page 271] that all was in order on Friday afternoon such that the troop members could properly observe the Sabbath laws throughout the evening and following day. He then writes of the public prayer and Sabbath meals that took place and were experienced by the Orthodox participants. But what stands out in the description is that the Young Israel group was not alone. Regarding the “inspiring [morning] service—uniformed Boy Scouts, in their taleisim (prayer shawls), and reading from their siddurim (prayer books),” he notes “even non-Jewish troops and their leaders were awed by the sight.” Furthermore, on Sunday, when the Christian groups had their scheduled prayers, “the Camp Master approached me to conduct a Sunday morning service (l’havdil).”4 Jacobs reports that over seventy additional Scouts who were at the camporee joined Troop 404 for the “makeshift” Jewish service that he orchestrated.5 Jacobs’ depiction of this “mini-camp” captures some of the basic characteristics of Orthodox Boy Scout camping since the 1920s. Boy Scout Camps were not designed as exclusively or officially “Jewish environments” and certainly not “Orthodox” ones. On the contrary, they were by definition nonsectarian frameworks that integrated Jewish and non-Jewish troops and were generally directed by non-Jews or non-Orthodox Jews.6 With advanced planning and cooperation from the camp authorities, the Orthodox troop leaders were able to construct a setting that would enable their Scouts to conduct public prayer, maintain their religious dietary restrictions, observe the Sabbath, and even work towards earning special Jewish emblems.7 The visibility of the Orthodox contingents also attracted Jewish Scouts from other troops to their rituals. Yet as far as the Scouting activities and programming that took place during camp were concerned, the Orthodox Scouts were under the authority of the camp leadership and were fully incorporated into the program with the rest of their fellow Scouts. [End Page 272] The Orthodox Boy Scout experience, as such, differed profoundly from the predominant model of the Jewish and especially the Orthodox summer camp that was emerging during just the same period that Jacobs attended a weekend camporee. The current article, then, aims to outline and contextualize a strand in Jewish organized camping that to date has eluded academic scholarship. In parallel, the evolution of Jewish Boy Scout camping offers a lens through which to perceive a number of key themes in the history of American Orthodoxy. The following examines these questions: How does the Orthodox Boy Scout Camp experience compare with other forms of Jewish Camping, especially denominationally-affiliated ones? How has Orthodox Boy Scout Camp changed over time? What novel perspectives does this example offer in regard to broader changes in American Orthodoxy? The discussion is based on archival records, journalistic articles, secondary studies, and written exchanges and personal interviews with Jewish Scouts, leaders, rabbis–some who were active as far back as the 1940s–and others who are still intensively involved. It is not intended to be comprehensive, but seeks to offer insight into the main contours of the distinctive Orthodox Jewish camping model that evolved in Boy Scout Camp. Reverence Founded in 1910, the main constituency of the Boy...

An Evaluation of the Effects of Jail Diversion and Reentry for Mentally Ill Offenders

Jewish Family Services (JFS) is a nonprofit agency that assists mentally ill offenders in southern New Jersey. In an effort to steer misdemeanants to treatment rather than jail or probation, JFS established agreements with police to provide pre- and postbooking diversion for misdemeanants whose offenses appear to be a product of mental illness. JFS also participates in reentry planning services for incarcerated mentally ill offenders who are serving county jail sentences. Data were collected for cases involving clients who were diverted or participated in reentry and people who were referred to JFS and either were ineligible for reasons other than criminal offense type or drug and alcohol addiction or were eligible but unable to be contacted by JFS. Treatment participants remained in the community before being incarcerated for an average of 218 days longer than the members of the comparison group, and this difference remained statistically significant when controlling for other relevant variables.

Tamquam domino proprio: Contesting Ecclesiastical Lordship over Jews in Thirteenth-Century Castile

Abstract Bishoprics and monasteries in many parts of Western Christendom possessed various combinations of jurisdictional and fiscal rights over Jewish communities. Prelates placed high value on their rights as the Jews’ temporal lords for the same reason secular rulers did: having Jews under one’s protection brought substantial benefits. Yet, with the growth of lay institutions—royal as well as communal—many of these prelates found their jurisdictional rights disputed by secular powers eager to wrest control over Jewish communities from the church. Anchoring the argument in two case studies from Northern Spain (Sahagun and Palencia, in Castile), the present study suggests that of far greater concern to local ecclesiastical leadership than any ideological program directed at the Jews was the growing competition for Jewish services and revenues between church authorities, royal governments, and municipal councils.

Dimensions of the Shekhinah: The Meaning of the Shiur Qomah in Jewish Mysticism, Liturgy, and Rabbinic Thought

The article discusses a Jewish mystical text that paradoxically takes up the measurements of the body of G-d in the context of a tradition that forbids corporeal, finite, or tangible depiction of the Deity. Consequently, scholars have been at a loss concerning its interpretation. Many resort to invective, labeling the work “a monstrosity” or “a malignant growth on the body of Judaism.” But others note its metaphorical or midrashic character, insofar as it appears to draw out the meaning of biblical texts that project a sense of G-d’s corporeal presence, and its gargantuan physical dimensions for the body of G-d that are beyond normal human comprehension. Three major aspects of the Shiur Qomah are considered: its relation to biblical texts that appear to describe G-d in physical terms; the incomprehensibility of the measurements given; and its liturgical character, with the descriptions of G-d’s body interspersed among elements of prayer and benediction that point to some form of heavenly worship. The paper concludes that the liturgical dimension is key: the readers are confronted with G-d’s unimaginable size in the context of a heavenly but recognizably Jewish service and thereby prompted to consider before whom they pray.

Unmasking the ‘muscle Jew’: the Jewish soldier in British war service, 1899–1945

ABSTRACT Constructions of Jews in twentieth-century Europe have been riddled throughout with inconsistencies and contradictions. However, some themes have been surprisingly persistent, none more so than constructions of Jews as weak, effeminate and cowardly. Schaffer looks at one significant set of responses to such characterizations, specifically at the rise of the ‘muscle Jew’ in Jewish and non-Jewish thinking. After the term was coined by Max Nordau at the turn of the twentieth century, the idea of the ‘muscle Jew’ came to represent a dominant current of Jewish identity reformulation. More recently, a series of scholars have come to understand the idea as a manifestation of Zionist ideology, a statement of a nationalist desire for Jewish reinvention in the face of endemic European antisemitism. By using the example of British Jewish service in the Boer War, the First World War and the Second World War, Schaffer argues rather that the idea of the ‘muscle Jew’ can be better understood as a reflection of Jewish desire for European integration, an attempt to present Jewish soldiers as equal to their non-Jewish equivalents. Moreover, he contends that the ‘muscle Jew’ needs to be understood as an idea rooted in the longue durée of Jewish history, one that represents only one strand of Jewish self-imagining.

“Carmina autem quaecumque in laudem dei dicuntur hymni vocantur” (Isidore of Seville, De ecclesiasticis officiis 1.6)

In his Confessions, Augustine describes how in 386, prior to his baptism, he was deeply moved by the singing of hymns in the church of Ambrose in Milan. He also reports that the singing of hymns was a recent innovation inspired by eastern examples. His account makes clear that singing entailed emotional dimensions in addition to the eschatological message of the words proper. Because singing had been important in Jewish services as well as in pre-Christian Roman religion, its introduction into the Christian church can be considered as a concession to pre-Christian cultural practices, which caused Jerome to make clear that he did not approve. With reference to passages in Augustine and other near contemporary authors and attention to the technical meaning of terms such as “dicere,” “loqui,” and “canere,” it is argued here that there was great disagreement in the western church in Late Antiquity as to the way hymns should be performed, and that the views of Augustine have been followed too uncritically by modern writers.

Antisemitic myths: a historical and contemporary anthology

Antisemitic Myths: A Historical and Contemporary Anthology, edited by Marvin Perry and Frederick M. Schweitzer. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008. 352 pp. $24.95. Antisemitic Myths, an anthology of approximately 90 documents intended to illustrate the character and evolution of those antisemitic myths that ultimately culminated in the Holocaust and continue to threaten Jews today (p. vii), vividly demonstrates the peculiar persistence of intolerance, hatred, and persecution of Jews throughout history. By compiling these documents in one volume, historians Marvin Perry and Frederick Schweitzer fiU a surprising void in the existing literature and provide a helpful resource for teaching about stories, stereotypes, and Ues about Jews that have incited both fear and violence. Despite providing this important service, the book suffers from several shortcomings stemming from a lack of transparency regarding document selection criteria, context described in explanatory essays, and provenance of the texts. Antisemitic Myths is divided into three sections according to chronology of the documents. Part I presents examples of traditional Christian anti-Judaism from the medieval and early periods. first text, from 386-87 A.D., is an excerpt of a speech by St. John Chrysostom warning Christians against Judaizing (or attending Jewish services and practicing Jewish rituals) by demonizing jews as killers of Christ and comparing them to animals. Other documents contain examples of accusations of ritual murder, host desecration, and responsibility for spreading the Black Plague by poisoning water sources. This section also includes texts concerning the expulsion of Jews from Spain, torture of Jews during the Spanish Inquisition, and Portuguese persecution of Jews and Marranos, as well as passages from Martin Luther's treatise On the Jews and Their Lies. Part II addresses modern antisemitism, from the Enlightenment and emancipation of Jews in Europe to the rise of Social Darwinism and racialist thinking to the frightening relationship between nationalism and antisemitism. It begins with excerpts from Voltaire, who opposed all organized religion and expressed particulat hostility toward Judaism. Other texts representative of antisemitic themes include an excerpt from Karl Marx's essay The Jewish Question, in which Marx characterizes as a religion of usury that worships money; selections from Edouard Drumont's antisemitic newspaper La libre parole concerning the Dreyfus Affair; and an excerpt from Richard Wagner's essay Judaism in Music, which exemplifies Volkish antisemitism, claiming that Jews debased German music and were incapable of being artists. These writers' language is so vitriolic and their assertions so extreme that they seem almost inconceivable, notwithstanding the gravity of the impact of their words. In addition, this section includes accounts of pogroms in Tsarist Russia and selections from Protocols of the Learned Elders ofZion and Henry Ford's International Jew that iUustrate belief in a world-wide Jewish conspiracy. It concludes with chapters on German antisemitism, Adolf Hitler's worldview, Nazi racial theory, Nazi propaganda, and the Holocaust, including accounts by survivors and victims, as weU as Nuremberg court testimony by perpetrators. Part III concerns contemporary antisemitism (after 1945). It begins with two somewhat incongruous chapters on how and to what extent Catholic and Protestant churches have acknowledged and repudiated their antisemitic pasts. These are followed by texts illustrating state-sponsored Soviet antisemitism and the persistence of popular antisemitism in Russia; neo-Nazism in Germany; and American neo-Nazism, from which its German counterpart draws significant inspiration. …

Bloomsday, 5664: Casing the Promised Land, the Torah, and Ulysses

Bloomsday, 5664:Casing the Promised Land, the Torah, and Ulysses Lily Corwin (bio) Bloomsday, the now-celebrated day on which James Joyce set the action of his groundbreaking Ulysses, was 16 June 1904. It was also, on the Hebrew calendar, 3 Tamuz, 5664. While numerous studies of what was happening in Dublin on or around 16 June 1904 have been undertaken, little attention appears to have been paid to what meaning the Hebrew dating of the novel may reveal. This is not to suggest that Joyce chose the date for the book with the corresponding Hebrew date in mind, but that, as he did so exhaustively with all his facts, he researched it, was aware of it, and incorporated it into his all-encompassing novel. Every week in the Hebrew calendar has corresponding Torah and Haftorah portions assigned to it. Because the Hebrew calendar is a lunar one, every 16 June would not necessarily correspond to the same Torah portion. The passages assigned to be read on Shabbat look forward to the next week, so that in 1904 the readings assigned to 28 Sivan, or Saturday, 11 June, would have applied to Bloomsday. The term Torah, while sometimes used to refer to all Jewish sacred writings, here refers solely to the Pentateuch, which comprises the first five books of the Bible, believed to have been written by Moses. The Torah is read completely from beginning to end every year, with sections of it assigned to each week so that it begins again every year in the High Holiday season. The Haftorah refers to passages taken from the books of the prophets, the Nevi'im, which, along with the Ketuvim, or writings, make up the rest of the Hebrew Bible. Oppressed for many years in lands not their own, Jews were not allowed to read the Torah but were able to read the Haftorah. The division of the Haftorah into portions that tried to relate to or comment on what the Torah portion for each week had said was, and is, uniformly used throughout the Diaspora so that all Jews would be studying the same section each week. The Torah portion for the week in which Bloomsday occurred is known as Shelah-Lekha and consists of Numbers 13:1-15:41; the corresponding Haftorah portion is Joshua 2:1-24. Both of these texts, which deal with the scouting out of the Promised Land, connect to and illuminate our reading of Ulysses. [End Page 291] The bases on which a closer examination of the relationship between these texts and Ulysses can be justified are manifold. Joyce was, as we know, a meticulous researcher whose allusions to matters geographic, literary, political, mythic, and religious are so densely woven into his masterwork that most readers need extended notes to aid them. Although I can produce no precise evidence that he researched the Hebrew date and the sacred readings that related to his chosen date on the Julian calendar, it can be established that Joyce was aware of the existence of the Hebrew calendar. John McCourt, in his study of Joyce's years in Trieste, reveals that the author bought and read Maurice Fishberg's The Jews: A Study of Race and Environment during that time.1 Published in 1911, Fishberg's book makes it very clear that Jews in the Diaspora still "had their own calendar" (477). In his chapter "Assimilation versus Zionism," Fishberg notes the Zionists' displeasure that "very few native Western Jews . . . know the exact day of the Hebrew calendar on a given day" (479). Ira B. Nadel notes too that "Jewishness expressed as time appears in Joyce's central texts,"2 and references to Jewish holidays and the rituals of the Jewish day appear throughout Ulysses. Furthermore, according to Nadel, "in the notebooks for the Wake, Joyce listed the Hebrew months," including Tamuz, the month in which Bloomsday falls (25). On 15 September 1907, Stanislaus Joyce recorded in his diary that his brother had gone that day to a Jewish service at a synagogue for the first time and asked many questions; three days later, he wrote, "today until sundown was a Jewish holiday. Jim and I walked through some...

Inspiring a joint Jewish and Muslim treatment service

Few cultural clashes receive more press coverage than the Jewish and Muslim conflict. Beyond the headlines, both communities suffer from the same social problems ‐ drink and drug misuse. Though these are not uncommon, especially among young people, both communities suffer from shame and cultural blindness to their problems. In a controversial and bold pilot, an East London treatment service is uniting Jewish and Muslim communities by establishing the UK's first Jewish and Muslim drug and alcohol treatment service. Though still in its infancy, the project is drawing great acclaim, including that of Tony Blair.