Dvora Research Articles

Difficult texts: 2 Kings 6.24—7.20 – Israelite woman cooks her own son?

A mother in Israel invited other mothers to cook and eat their children? The story in full appears in 2 Kings 6.24—7.20. The passage is essentially about the siege of Samaria by the Syrian army. It includes tales about the siege of Samaria, cannibalism, the unbelief of a centurion, and four lepers. Although the section on cannibalism is mentioned only momentarily, it has become controversial and has captured the attention of Bible readers.

8. Mémoire de la destruction du cimetière juif de Thessalonique : quand un passé longtemps enfoui refait surface

The history of the destruction of Thessaloniki’s Jewish cemetery is now well documented. Thanks to the work carried out by Greek and international historians, it is indeed established that German occupiers destroyed the immense Jewish necropolis of Thessaloniki in early December 1942 at the instigation of the local Greek authorities, including the municipality of Thessaloniki and the Governor-General of Macedonia-Thrace, who had long wanted to claim the several-hundred-acre area for themselves, claiming that it hindered the “natural” expansion of the city to the east. In the hours and days following the demolition order given by Max Merten, head of the Kommandantur of Thessaloniki, at the suggestion of local politicians, dozens of municipal employees razed the old Jewish cemetery. The tombstones, the oldest of which dated back to the 15th century, were then left to be pillaged. As a result, many funerary materials were scattered throughout parts of the former “Jerusalem of the Balkans” and are still visible today.Aside from providing a few essential reminders to help readers understand the circumstances under which the largest Jewish cemetery in the Sephardic world was destroyed during the Second World War, this draft article will not examine the history of this event, but rather the way—or more precisely, the ways—it is remembered, which is separate from the Final Solution in occupied Greece.We plan to address the following questions in our article : what were the conditions surrounding the way in which the destruction of Thessaloniki’s Jewish cemetery was remembered in post-war Greece? Why has this record been kept almost exclusively by Thessaloniki’s Jewish community for decades? Conversely, who were the non-Jewish groups who kept this history alive in Greece? What exact role did certain Thessalonian writers, such as Giorgos Ioannou (1927-1985), play in the emergence of this history at a time when this event in particular and the Holocaust in general were met with a deafening silence in Greece (late 1940s-late 1970s)? Beginning in the early 1990s, what evidence have Greek and international historians used to tell the story of the demolition of the Jewish cemetery in Thessaloniki? Finally, can it be said that the history of the destruction of a graveyard tied to the centuries-old presence of Sephardic Jews in the “Jerusalem of the Balkans” is now inscribed in the collective and/or cultural memory of the inhabitants of Thessaloniki?After a brief historical review of the circumstances that led to the destruction of the Jewish cemetery in the former “Mother of Israel,” we will look at why this event was almost entirely forgotten in post-war Greece (mid-1940s to the end of the Regime of the Colonels). We will then discuss why the event’s history gradually reemerged at the same time as the first historical works on the Holocaust were being published in Greece (1990s and 2000s). Finally, this article will explore the weight of the memory that the destruction of the old Jewish cemetery now holds among the citizens of Thessaloniki. Will the commemorative ceremonies that have been held since November 2014—at the initiative of the city’s Jewish community and Yannis Boutaris, then mayor of Thessaloniki—be enough to perpetuate its memory among the younger generations? This is the question that we will attempt at least in part to answer.

Biblical Deborah and Mary Mitchell Slessor – A Comparison in Time and Space

This paper investigates “Biblical Deborah and Mary Mitchell Slessor – A Comparison in Time and Space and Lessons for Contemporary Africa.” Worthy of note is the fact that, for some of the religions of the world women are a problem; from time immemorial they have been subordinate to men, second-class in the family, politics and business, with limited rights and even limited participation in worship. This was not different from the epochs of both biblical Deborah (Judges 4-5) and Mary Mitchell Slessor, the White Queen of Okoyong. In the time where patriarchy was the rule of the day, there arose two women at different places, times yet with similar circumstances to salvage the people and bring about God’s mission to the human race. Though both operated within the context of the mission of the church, theirs was missio dei not missio ecclesia, because in their age, missio ecclesia used more of patriarchal instruments while mission dei was/is involve in using human and the entire inhabited world (oikoumenē). The peculiar things about the epochs of both Deborah and Mary Slessor are best described in the text, "...in the days of Jael, the roads were abandoned; travelers took to winding paths. Village life in Israel ceased, ceased until I, Deborah, arose, arose a mother in Israel” (Judges 5:6-7). Both characters are worth studying in close comparison with each other, and this is one of the reasons for this paper. Drawing insights from both characters using historical methodology in the study of religion and the Feminist Biblical Hermeneutics of the Reconstruction of Biblical History among other feminist theories as approaches in evaluating Judges 4 & 5 and content analysis research methodology in respect of the life of Biblical Deborah and the life of Mary Mitchell Slessor, the work concludes that in the missio dei, God’s whose plan is for an egalitarian society uses all genders equally to bring to pass God’s mission. The significant of this work lies not only in it providing a tool for further academic research but in the lessons to be drawn for the present political and religious dispensation in Africa in particular and the world in general.

Yitz Greenberg and Modern Orthodoxy: The Road Not Taken ed. by Adam S. Ferziger, Miri Freud-Kandel and Steve Bayme

Reviewed by: Yitz Greenberg and Modern Orthodoxy: The Road Not Taken ed. by Adam S. Ferziger, Miri Freud-Kandel and Steve Bayme Lance J. Sussman (bio) Yitz Greenberg and Modern Orthodoxy: The Road Not Taken. Adam S. Ferziger, Miri Freud-Kandel, and Steve Bayme eds. Boston: Borderlines, 2019. viii + 300 pp. Yitz Greenberg and Modern Orthodoxy: The Road Not Taken is the most recent book, both academic and popular, on the Greenbergs, Blu and Rabbi Dr. Irving, a scholarly and activist married couple who have profoundly impacted American Judaism for over half a century. The growing list of titles about one or the other of the Greenbergs includes Steven T. Katz and Stephen Bayme's edited collection Continuity and Change: A Festschrift in Honor of Irving Greenberg's 75th Birthday (2011); Darren Kleinberg's Hybrid Judaism: Irving Greenberg, Encounter, and the Changing Nature of American Jewish Identity (2016); and Devorah Zlochower's edited collection You Arose, A Mother in Israel, A Festschrift in Honor of Blu Greenberg (2017). Moreover, both have been the subject of numerous articles in a wide variety of academic and intellectual publications despite the fact, as Greenberg himself states, "Modern Orthodoxy has not taken the road I advocated" (7). Hence the Robert Frost-alluding subtitle of this anthology of scholarly articles. Essentially, Yitz Greenberg and Modern Orthodoxy is the published record of a 2014 conference attended by "sixteen scholars around the globe gathered at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies in the bucolic Yarnton Manor in the Oxfordshire countryside, for the first (now annual) Oxford Summer Institute on Modern and Contemporary Judaism" (1). The book includes twelve articles from the 2014 conference as well as an insightful autobiographical "Retrospective View" by Greenberg. The contributors, some of whom previously contributed to the 2011 festschrift, represent a broad spectrum of scholars, including historians, philosophers, and sociologists. [End Page 636] This new study of Greenberg is divided into two parts: "Law and Theology," which mostly focuses on his thought, and "Past and Present," which expands to include a variety of studies on Modern Orthodoxy in general. The editors' forward succinctly explains that "the current volume offers readers the opportunity to examine in-depth the trenchant and candid efforts of one of the most thoughtful and earnest voices to emerge from within American Orthodoxy to address the theological and moral concerns that characterize our times" (5). Greenberg's opening autobiographical statement, one of several he has shared throughout his long career, is helpful to a scholarly assessment of his self-understanding at the beginning of the third decade of the twenty-first century. Organized chronologically, it also provides a taxonomy of many the leading issues he has confronted over the decades including, in part, "Growing up in Modern Orthodoxy," "Rabbi Soloveitchik's Influence," "The Holocaust Transforms My Thinking," "The 1960s and Their Impact," "Recoil from the '60s and the Rise of Ultra-Orthodoxy," "Working for CLAL Yisrael as a Modern Orthodox Jew; Losing Ground in Modern Orthodoxy," and "The Decline and Rebirth of (Post) Modern Orthodoxy." The fork in the road in Greenberg's life clearly came in the 1960s and was profoundly conditioned both by the general upheavals of that decade as well as, in academic religious circles, a particular interest in theology that later faded from mainstream American religious discourse. In her insightful contribution to the anthology, Sylvia Barak Fishman places special emphasis on the now well-known April 28, 1966, interview in The Commentator, the Yeshiva University student newspaper, written by Hillel Goldberg and entitled, "Orthodoxy, YU, Viet Nam & Sex" as a turning point in Greenberg's career. However, Greenberg himself points to a 1965 exchange with a Reform theologian, Rabbi Jakob Petuchowski, about the place of women in Jewish law as having "crystallized my nascent pluralism" (18). The 1966 Commentator interview also gave rise to a lengthy response to Greenberg by Rabbi Dr. Aharon Lichtenstein which is analyzed in the book's final chapter, "'The Road Not Taken' and 'The One Less Traveled': The Greenberg-Lichtenstein Exchange and Contemporary Orthodoxy" by Adam S. Ferziger, one of the book's three editors and author of Beyond Sectarianism: The Realignment of American Orthodox Judaism (2015). Correctly...

Matrices of motherhood in Judges 5

In Judges 5, patterns of motherhood weave throughout the poem, forming an intrinsic component of the fabric of the text. In pursuing these threads, I focus on the construction of Deborah as ‘mother in Israel’, both through this plain attribution and through the intriguing ordering of the Israelite tribes. A focus on Deborah as Israelite matriarch—a counterpart to Jacob—brings into sharp relief the counterpoint between the tribes of Deborah and the Canaanites. The imagined anxieties of the mother of Sisera serve to implicate mothers in a justification of violence against women. The poem thus prods readers/audiences to consider Israelite and their own perceptions of their enemies. The striking climax of the poem comes with the blessing for Jael and her killing of Sisera, the captain of Israel’s enemy, with the figure of Jael forming a point of triangulation in the intriguing interplay between these pivotal mothers.

Historical Books: Joshua–2 Kings

Historical BooksJoshua–2 Kings Christopher T. Begg, Isaac M. Alderman, and Paul R. Redditt 1825. [Joshua; Genesis 37–50] Hulisani Ramantwana, “The Levites’ Exclusion from Land Allotment: The Joshua Story in Dialogue with the Joseph Story,” OTE 30 (2017) 785–804. In this paper, R. uses an African proverb which translates as “the baboons who get to eat are the big ones” as a lens for engaging the issue of the exclusion of the Levites from land ownership. In particular, R., with the proverb in view, reads the Joshua story (esp. Josh 14:16–17) in dialogue with the Joseph story. On this basis, R. argues that the Levites’ exclusion from land ownership was the result of a power play by the Joseph tribes under the leadership of Hoshea (Joshua) son of Nun from the tribe of Ephraim. The Levites’ exclusion thus reflects a privileging of the power-holding Joseph tribes at the expense of the tribe [End Page 636] of Levi, which was thereby relegated to second-class status. R.’s paper also engages with the current South African politico-economic context, in which those with political power enrich themselves by grabbing whatever they can to the detriment of ordinary people. [Adapted from published abstract—C.T.B.] 1826. [Joshua 22–24; Numbers 13–14; 32] Lissa M. Wray Beal, “The Past as Threat and Hope: Reading Joshua with Numbers,” BBR 27 (2017) 461–83. In the Transjordanian altar narrative of Joshua 22, a perceived threat against Israel is presented and overcome. The chapter is literarily connected with Numbers 13–14 and 32. While historical-critical scholars might attribute such connections to the activity of P authors, B.’s article works with the canonical text and a literary method to explore these intertextual connections. Extending her exploration throughout the Book of Joshua, B. further demonstrates that the literary resonances in question contribute to various significant themes in the book. More specifically, her article addresses two questions: (1) How do Numbers 13–14 and 32 serve to shape the message of Joshua 22 as well as the book’s epilogue (Joshua 22–24) as a whole? And (2) do Numbers 13–14 and 32 function in Joshua similarly to how they function in Numbers itself? B. concludes that the above chapters of Numbers profoundly shape the message of Joshua 22 and of the book’s epilogue, of which the latter text is a part. They do so by showing that Israel’s future is open to hope of promises fulfilled, as it is open to the possibility of future failure and sin. [Adapted from published abstract—C.T.B.] 1827. [Judges 4–5] Mirosław Janinski, “Prorokini Debora—‘wskrzesicielka’ nadziei Izraela: Studium egzegetyczno-teologiczne Sdz 4–5 [The Prophetess Deborah, the “Reviver” of Israel’s Hopes: An Exegetical and Theological Study of Judges 4–5],” BibAn 7 (2017) 415–39. “Deborah, the wife of Lappidoth, was a prophet who was judging Israel at that time” (Judg 4:4). With these words, the author of Judges introduces readers to a new hero of his narrative, one who will dominate the segment Judges 4–5. This solemn and expansive introduction of Deborah is noteworthy in its concentrated deployment of the figure’s titles in a single verse. In this essay, J. seeks to clarify the meaning of the honorific titles used of Deborah in 4:4 and to make clear that their application to her is fully justified. The article unfolds in three parts. First, J. reviews the major problems associated with the dating of Judges 5 and the relationship between the Song of Deborah there and the narrative of Judges 4. He then turns to the elucidation first of Deborah’s designation as “judge” and then of her “prophetess” title. The upshot of the account in Judges 4–5 is that Deborah, the judge and prophetess, emerges also as “a mother in Israel” (Judg 5:7). [Adapted from published abstract–C.T.B.] 1828. [Judges 6–8] Jacob L. Wright, “The Evolution of Gideon,” Supplementation, 105–24 [see #2032]. Examining supplements to the original Gideon account (Judges 6–8), W. suggests...

Jeremias, die dritte Taube und Rahel als Friedensbringer: Zu Stefan Zweigs gewagten biblischen (Um)Deutungen

While a number of Stefan Zweig's works echo biblical themes, his play Jeremias and his two legends, "Die Legende der dritten Taube" and "Rahel rechtet mit Gott," might be his most radical departures from the biblical account. Zweig's Jeremias, who anachronistically quotes passages from the Hebrew Bible as well as the New Testament, appears as a Christ figure. The syncretism Zweig employed can be seen as an attempt to amplify Jeremias' pacifist message. In "Die Legende der dritten Taube" Zweig expresses his yearning for peace during World War I, while Rahel, "the Mother of Israel," takes on God in "Rahel rechtet mit Gott ." In his most provocative legend, Zweig depicts Rahel as a proto-feminist who, unlike her husband Jacob, succeeds in her physical and quite erotic struggle with God and brings peace to the people of Israel.

La alegría de Jako: A Judeo-Spanish Song as a Reflection of Linguistic and Cultural Syncretism

Traditional songs have always held a particularly prominent role in the daily life and celebrations of the Sephardim, the descendants of Jews expelled from the Iberian Peninsula, or Sepharad, in 1492 and beyond. The Sephardic diaspora, which from the end of the fifteenth century expanded across the Ottoman lands of the Mediterranean basin and parts of Western Europe, saw the consolidation of a unique supra-national space where Jewish, Hispanic and local cultural elements converged to give way to a remarkable example of cultural and linguistic syncretism. It was within this environment that Salonika (Thessaloniki) established itself as City and Mother in Israel and became an unprecedented example of an urban settlement where Sephardic Jews represented, until the first half of the twentieth century, the most numerous demographic group. In this article, I choose a traditional Sephardic song from Salonika, 'La alegria de Jako' (The Joy of Jako) in order to illustrate how its hybrid textual and musical characteristics reflect the diversity of life in a city which became a symbol of the vitality of Sephardic culture in the Diaspora.

The “Mother of Israel” or the “Sephardi Metropolis”? Sephardim, Ashkenazim, and Romaniotes in Salonica

Although Sephardim and Ashkenazim are often considered to be two distinct Jewish groups that rarely intersected, a close look at the case of Salonica (Thessaloniki), a port city in present-day northern Greece, reveals the permeability and mobility among Jewish communities over the generations. Although often imagined as the capital of the Sephardi Jewish world, Salonica became home not only to Jews expelled from Spain but also to those from Portugal, Italy, and elsewhere prior to and after 1492. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, industrialization, urbanization, and major political upheavals such as the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire propelled Jews from the region and beyond to seek refuge in Salonica. During this period of transition, some Jews from the Balkan town of Monastir, Greek-speaking Romaniote Jews from Thessaly, and Ashkenazi Jews from eastern and central Europe played key roles in Salonican Jewish society, whereas others experienced marginalization.

Abraham and Sarah as Father and Mother of Israel: Cleanness line 112

THE first extended Biblical narrative in the Middle English poem Cleanness is the poet’s paraphrase of the Matthean parable of the ‘Son’s Wedding and the Guest without a Wedding Garment’ (Matthew 22:1–14).1 The parable concerns a king who holds a wedding feast. When the preparations are all ready, the persons who had been invited to the feast offer excuses and refuse to come; some of the invited guests even mistreat and kill the servants who were sent to invite them. The king then destroys the city where these malefactors lived. Afterwards, to fill the place of those unwilling to come, the king sends his servants out into the highways and they invite anyone they can find to come to his feast. When, however, one of these newly invited guests is found to be dressed inappropriately, the king has his servants cast him into outer darkness for his presumption. Although the language of the poem is not explicit, it would seem that the Cleanness poet interprets the conclusion of the parable in terms of sexual purity, a concern that is one of the central themes of the poem. The phrasing of the beginning of this narrative, however, is quite difficult, and the poet’s account of the summoning of the newly invited wedding guests includes one line in particular which the various editors and commentators have not satisfactorily explained. Thenne þe sergauntez, at þat sawe, swengen þeroute, And diden þe dede, þat demed as he deuised hade, And with peple of alle plytez þe palays þay fyllen; Hit weren not alle on wyuez sunez, wonen with on fader. Wheþer þay wern worþy oþer wers, wel wern þay stowed, Ay þe best byfore and bryʒtest atyred,(109–114)2 Then the officers, at that word, rush outside And performed the deed which was appointed, as he had specified. And they fill the palace with people of all conditions. [They] were not all the sons of one woman, begotten by one father. Whether they were of higher or lower rank, they were well placed, With those of highest rank and most splendidly attired always in front.

Fashioning the “Mother of Israel”: The Ottoman Jewish Historical Narrative and the Image of Jewish Salonica

Using sources in Judeo-Spanish, French, German, and Hebrew, this article explores the complex processes through which Ottoman Jewish intellectuals fashioned their own vision of Ottoman Jewish history, positioned Salonica at the center of that narrative, and in the process popularized an image of the city as the “mother of Israel.” Ottoman Jewish history writers internalized Enlightenment discourses about “regeneration,” “civilization,” and “modernity” that also shaped the nineteenth-century historiography of Greek Christian, Ottoman Muslim, French Jewish, and German Jewish intellectuals. This article focuses on how Ottoman Jewish intellectuals translated French Jewish and German Jewish historical narratives about Ottoman Jewry into Judeo-Spanish, adapted and rewrote them, and ultimately overturned them. Discovering that German Jewish historians portrayed Ottoman Jews as being in decline while French Jewish writers adopted a more sympathetic perspective, Ottoman Jewish intellectuals recast their own former narrative of tragedy as an exceptional story of Jewish redemption and romance in the Ottoman realm. In reclaiming Ottoman Jewish history they sought to strengthen their position within the Ottoman Empire and to elevate their status in the eyes of world Jewry. The Salonican Jewish intellectuals who participated in this effort presented an image of their city and its storied Jewish past as an idealized symbol of the broader Ottoman Jewish experience and founded a Salonican Jewish historiography that still shapes our understanding of the city’s history today.

The Jezebel Letters: Religion and Politics in Ninth-Century Israel (review)

Reviewed by: The Jezebel Letters: Religion and Politics in Ninth-Century Israel Beth Alpert Nakhai The Jezebel Letters: Religion and Politics in Ninth-Century Israel, by Eleanor Ferris Beach. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005. 220 pp. $19.00. Eleanor Ferris Beach’s new book about Jezebel, the ninth-century BCE Israelite queen, contributes to the growing body of research into the roles women fulfilled in ancient Israelite society. Beach, who teaches biblical studies at St. [End Page 163] Ambrose University, received her doctorate from Claremont Graduate University and has worked on several archaeological projects. That she writes in a popular style, creating a fictitious archive of personal correspondence, detracts from the book’s scholarly value—but makes it accessible to the non-specialist. So, too, does the author’s website, with its FAQ’s and Study Aid questions designed with the non-academic reader in mind. Beach presents Jezebel as a creative social and political force in ninth-century Israel, who used her intelligence and ingenuity to improve the lives of Israelites, Phoenicians, and Judaeans alike. The Jezebel Letters addresses several issues pertinent to the reconstruction of ninth-century Israel and its neighbors. Most important is the role of women, and here Beach counters traditional ideas about ancient women as passive and powerless. Foregrounding Jezebel, Beach explores the position of the royal woman and presents an interesting, if controversial, reconstruction of the ways in which she functioned within the king’s court. According to the Bible, Jezebel was a villain infamous for subverting justice, perverting religion, corrupting Israel’s king Ahab (her husband), and contributing to the downfall of the Dynasty of Omri (her father in-law). Beach takes an alternate perspective, writing that “[t]he destiny of kings is shaped as much by strategies in the women’s quarters as by tactics on the battlefield” (p. 139). Utilizing research by Susan Ackerman and others, which explores the role of gevira or queen mother in Israel and Judah, she has the protagonist capitalize upon familial connections with Phoenicia (as the daughter of Ethbaal, king of Tyre) and Judah (as the mother of Atalyah, who married a Judaean king and then ruled independently for a brief period of time). Whether the ancient gevira exerted as much authority as does Beach’s Jezebel is uncertain. Where Beach depicts the gevira as kingmaker, the Bible emphasizes the role of the prophet. Other aspects of The Jezebel Letters are intriguing, as well. Highlighting Israel and Judah’s separate trajectories, it places them within the political configuration of the ninth-century Levant and emphasizes their many complex interactions. Indeed, the contextualization of the many small city-states and nations of the region, interacting with each other and reacting to the growing Assyrian menace, is one of the strengths of this book. Beach’s reconstruction of Jezebel as a mediator among rulers from three nations is speculative, but the complexity of international affairs that this reconstructed role underscores is authentic. Similarly intriguing is the fact that The Jezebel Letters privileges Israel over the biblically favored Judah. The Bible speaks with the voice of Judaeans, Jerusalemites, Davidic loyalists, and Temple priests. Here, though, the story is presented from the perspective of the northern nation, its capital Samaria, its [End Page 164] kings non-Davidic, its religion not Temple-based. Beach goes further, portraying Jezebel as the protector of not only her own Tyrian and Israelite royal families, but also of the Jerusalemite House of David. The Jezebel Letters effectively evokes a sense of time and place. Its epistolary device allows the author to present details of daily life that are often neglected in traditional histories. Particularly effective is Beach’s evocation of the natural setting in which Israelites and their neighbors lived, and the ways in which those varied ecological niches supported varied subsistence communities. Urban and rural centers, including Samaria (the capital of Israel), Jezreel (the royal summer palace), and Jerusalem (the capital of Judah) also figure into the narrative. The book incorporates ancient documents, and they provide historical grounding for the fictional narrative. The primary resource, of course, is the Hebrew Bible, especially passages from I–II Kings and I–II Chronicles. The former is our...

The Role of Yiddish in Early Dutch-Jewish Haskalah

Amsterdam after 1675. An increasing number of immigrants arrived from Germany and Poland, lured by the economic possibilities and religious freedom of the city and mother in Israel'. The influx of Ashkenazim continued until the mid-eighteenth century and Amsterdam became by far the largest Jewish community in the Ashkenazi Diaspora. In 1675, the Sephardim still outnumbered the Ashkenazim by 2,230 to 1,830, but in 1750, the Ashkenazi population of Amsterdam had grown to 14,000, while the Sephardi community stood at 2,800 that year.1 Most of the immigrants adapted quickly to their new environment.

Margaret Fell Fox and feminist literary history: A “mother in Israel” calls to the jews

Margaret Fell Fox and feminist literary history: A “mother in Israel” calls to the jews

Pseudo-Philo's Song of Hannah: Testament of a Mother in Israel

Pseudo-Philo's Song of Hannah: Testament of a Mother in Israel

Book Reviews : A Mother in Israel?

Book Reviews : A Mother in Israel?

Articles in Quaker Periodicals

ARTICLES IN QUAKER PERIODICALS By Lyman W. Riley Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College The American Friend "Caesars Creek Centennial" by Edith L. Haines is a brief outline of the history of Caesars Creek Monthly Meeting, Wilmington, Ohio.— Nov. 10, 1949, p. 363. The Evangelical Friend Louise Ellett sketches the history of Damascus Meeting, Damascus, Ohio.—Sept., 1949, pp. 7-8. The Friend (London) The great-granddaughter of Luke Howard, F.R.S., tells briefly of the contact between Howard and Goethe, who admired the English Quaker not only for his meteorological work but also for his religious faith; "Goethe and the Quakers" by Elizabeth F. Howard.—Aug. 26, 1949, pp. 686-687. Stephen J. Thorne, Recording Clerk of London Yearly Meeting, outlines the history of the Meeting for Sufferings in explanation of the origin of the name and its appropriateness for the present.—Sept. 16, 1949, pp. 749-751. The Friend (Philadelphia) In "Friends and the Imitation Again," Henry J. Cadbury notes that many Friends, including as prominent ones as Penn and Woolman, were very familiar with and influenced by this devotional classic.— Nov. 3, 1949, pp. 134-135. Margaret Pascoe, high school exchange teacher from England, graphically describes the life of the people in "The England of William Penn."—Nov. 17, 1949, pp. 151-152. Leslie D. Shaffer describes the "Doukhobor Jubilee" of July, 1949, which celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the arrival of these refugees from Russia.—Dec. 1, 1949, p. 169. (Also in the Friends Intelligencer, Sept. 10, 1949, pp. 505-506, and The Canadian Friend, Oct., 1949, pp. 3-4,16). Friends Intelligencer The rise and fall of Quakerism in Nantucket is recounted by Fritz Eichenberg in "Quakers and Whalers in Nantucket"; he suggests that the isolation and pride of the islanders had much to do with the breakup of the Friends meetings there.—Sept. 24, 1949, pp. 532-534. Elizabeth Marshall announces the "250th Anniversary of Gwynedd Monthly Meeting, Pa." and tells of a few incidents in the meeting's history.—Oct. 1, 1949, p. 549. 57 58Articles in Quaker Periodicals Job Scott, Quaker minister of the 18th century, might have been a "quietist" Friend, but according to contemporary accounts his preaching , physically, was vigorous and uninhibited; "Coatless Quietist" (Letter from the Past No. 104) .—Oct. 1, 1949, p. 550. Katherine Seeler and Robert J. Leach contribute additional data about Quakerism in Nantucket, to supplement and correct Fritz Eichenberg 's article of Sept. 24, 1949; "More About Nantucket."—Nov. 12, 1949, pp. 641-642. "Elias Hicks in 1813: Notes from the Diary of Miers Fisher" by Frederick B. Tolles quotes comments on Hicks, partly doubtful and partly favorable, by Miers Fisher (1748-1819), a Philadelphia Quaker lawyer.—Dec. 3, 1949, p. 680. "Now and Then" remarks that Friends usually called Washington General rather than President, but in spite of his being a man of war they admired and respected him; "General Washington" (Letter from the Past No. 105) .—Dec. 10, 1949, pp. 699-700. A great deal of George Fox's time was taken up with lobbying activities, for the earliest Friends, no less than those of today, were filled with a "Concern for National Legislation" (Letter from the Past, No. 106) .—Dec. 17, 1949, pp. 715-716. The Friends Quarterly Evelyn Southall Whiting finds, in "Thomas Traherne: Poet: Contemporary of George Fox," that this Church of England clergyman shared much of the spirit and even some of the views of George Fox.— Jan., 1949, pp. 56-64. Brian Sparkes reminisces admiringly about several prominent Quaker teachers of a generation ago, in an article he calls " 'Others Have Laboured.'" April, 1949, pp. 70-82. "A Mother in Israel" by T. Edmund Harvey is an appreciative interpretation of the life of Margaret Fell, based on the recent biography Margaret Fell, Mother of Quakerism, by Isabel Ross.—July, 1949, pp. 182-189. Maurice Creasey, in his article "A Reasonable Faith," discusses the book of that name by Francis Frith, William Edward Turner, and William Pollard, published in London in 1884. He suggests that the issues raised then, and hotly argued, are worthy of attention today.— Oct., 1949, pp. 196-206. "One Hundred Years of Friends' Service...