Orthodox Jews Research Articles

Keeping up the separatist tradition: Hungarian Orthodoxy in interwar Austria, Yugoslavia, and Italy

ABSTRACT In recent decades several studies had reviewed Hungarian Jewry and its unique characteristics, especially the official separation between Orthodox and non-Orthodox communities. Throughout the ages, despite having individuals who were lax in their religious conduct, the Jewish community was always regarded as a cohesive body which was willing to readmit its deviant members who repented. This was known as the concept of Klal Israel. The Orthodox–non-Orthodox separation meant that this historical principle was abandoned in favour of a new one: communal separation. This meant that Orthodox Jews concentrated on self-preservation by increasing religious standards, while allowing their former brethren to drift away from Jewish traditions and to adopt more modern ideologies. Scholars have traced these processes in the major Hungarian-speaking territories in Hungary itself, and also in Transylvania, Slovakia, and Karpatorus. Little attention was paid to the former Hungarian Jews in the territories that were annexed to Austria, Yugoslavia, and Italy, where the number of Jews was smaller and the proportion of the Orthodox Jews among them was lower. This article shows how Orthodox Jews in these territories also sought to maintain their religious legacy, through the formal separation between the Orthodox and the non-Orthodox communities.

Jewish public libraries in interwar Poland

This article presents the genesis and the organizational structure of the Jewish public libraries (also referred to as secular or modern in the literature) in interwar Poland (1918-1939). The origins of these institutions date back to the 19th century and are associated with the Haskalah movement. Due to the strong opposition of the Orthodox Jews and local authorities, the majority of the first libraries were established secretly and run illegally on private premises. Against what were then the odds, progress prevailed and the libraries flourished in the interwar period. In 1937 it was estimated that there were approximately 1,000 Jewish public libraries in Poland.
 
 

Dynamics of Transcendence and Urbanism: The Latent Mechanisms of Everyday Religious Life and City Spaces

ABSTRACT This paper examines the negotiated everyday experiences of Jewish Litvish people in London and Jerusalem, exploring ideas of transcendence and immanence in these spaces. By uncovering the relations between religious identity and boundary-making in urban settings, the paper exposes the latent social, organizational, and spatial mechanisms that determine communal demarcation lines in the everyday life of city spaces. We argue that to examine such processes, one must refer to the social system that drives local processes and the values that communities draw their strength from. Empirically, we compare the mechanisms the Haredi (strictly orthodox Jews) -Litvish communities in Jerusalem and London use to delineate areas between immanence and transcendence in city life. The findings point to planners’ need to better understand how individuals cooperate and how community leaders are involved in developing urban structure.

Medical students' personal experiences, religion, and spirituality explain their (dis)comfort with a patient's religious needs.

BackgroundPhysicians often avoid discussing patients’ religious and spiritual concerns, even though most patients (i.e., 50-94%) want integrated care. To address this gap, medical students interviewed a Standardized Patient (SP) who was upset because the daughter did not confront her fiancée about converting to Orthodox Judaism. Students reflected on how their own religion and spirituality affected engaging with their patient.MethodsWith a 97% response rate, 231 first-year medical students responded to open-ended questions about their patient encounter. For this quantitative content analysis, we used inductive reasoning, identifying three themes: (1) impact of students’ own religion on their comfort, (2) change in comfort, and (3) their learning. We used deductive reasoning to compare qualitative results from half of the students who began the curriculum with a questionnaire about their own spirituality with the other students completing afterwards.ResultsMost students said being religious positively influenced their comfort, whether they were also Orthodox Jewish or from a different religion. Among uncomfortable students (6.5%), some attributed this to not being religious. Some students (4.8%) grew more comfortable discussing the religious issue, and 18.2% became uncomfortable due to lacking knowledge of Orthodox Judaism and the awkwardness of the topic. Students who had completed the questionnaire beforehand gave more comments about connecting with their patients than students who completed the questionnaire afterwards (X2=11.047, p<.001).ConclusionsStudents’ own religion influenced their comfort with discussing religious concerns, with some feeling more connected and others becoming uncomfortable. This finding helps inform medical educators about teaching mind-body-spirit care.Résumé

Assessing the Threat of Antisemitic Harassment and Attack in France—Paris in Focus

Reports of antisemitic harassment and attacks against Jews in France have become frequent in the French and international media. However, such reports are mostly anecdotal and provide only limited information on how widespread these attacks are or if they are increasing over time. Has antisemitism become a frequent experience for French Jews? Are certain community members especially targeted? How likely is it that a Jewish visitor to France is attacked? How threatened do Jews feel and what is the impact of the perceived threat? This paper reviews official statistics on antisemitic incidents (1), attitude surveys of the general population in France (2), and surveys among Jews (3). All three indicators have their weaknesses but taken together they can help to assess the threat that Jews in France face today of becoming victim of antisemitic harassment or attacks. Keywords: France, antisemitism, physical attacks, Orthodox Jews, Paris

Analyzing spatial variability in night-time lights using a high spatial resolution color Jilin-1 image – Jerusalem as a case study

In recent decades, there has been an increase in artificial lighting in the world due to urbanization and the revolution of LED lighting. Artificial lighting is an indicator of human activity, but can adversely affect natural ecosystems and people due to negative impacts of light pollution. Space-borne and airborne imagery as well as ground-based measurements enable to measure the intensity and spectra of artificial lights. One of the challenges in remote sensing of night-time lights is how to ground truth night-time imagery acquired by satellites, and how much do space-borne measurements represent the brightness as perceived by organisms. Most of the studies on night-time lights to-date were done using panchromatic sensors at large spatial extents, which did not allow to examine intra-urban variation in night light intensity and spectra. The aim of this study was to test the capability of the new Chinese satellite Jilin-1, which is the first commercial satellite to offer multispectral night-light imagery at a spatial resolution below 1 m, to characterize the night-time properties of urban areas. We examined the correspondence between light intensities as measured from different sensors at different spatial resolutions: two Jilin-1 images of the Jerusalem metropolitan area (0.89 m), VIIRS/DNB (500 m), Loujia-1 (130 m), unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) color image (0.05 m) and hemispherical color photographs taken by a calibrated ground DSLR (digital single-lens reflex camera). In all the comparisons between different remote sensing tools, as the spatial resolution coarsened, the Pearson correlation coefficient increased, reaching r > 0.5 (after resampling to 100 m). Stronger correlations were found for the red band, and weaker correlations were found for the blue band, probably due to atmospheric scattering. By identifying specific objects such as buildings and lightings, we found good correspondence (R2=0.51) between Jilin-1 and the ground-based measurements of night-time brightness. We further examined the variability of night lights within different land use types and within different ethnic/religion composition of statistical areas. We found that residential areas of Orthodox Jews were characterized with the highest brightness at night compared with residential areas of Arabs in the West Bank that had the lowest brightness. At the statistical zone level (n = 299), more than 50% of the variability in night-time brightness, was explained by land cover properties (NDVI), infrastructure (roads and built volume) and the ethnic/religious composition. In addition, we found that the spectral ratio index which was based on the red and green bands, enabled to better distinguish between land use classes, than the spectral ratio index which was based on the green and blue bands. The availability of night-time multi-spectral imagery at fine spatial resolution now enables to study urban land-use and spatial inequality, and to better understand the factors explaining night-time brightness.

A Jewish Religious Perspective on Cellular Agriculture

Clean Meat is an emerging technology which promises to revolutionize the global food market. Alongside technological developments, the social impact of this innovation is being explored. Consumer acceptance will depend on multiple factors. For Orthodox Jews, the critical question will be whether the food can be defined as Kosher. In the absence of an exact precedent in Talmudic case law, scholars have begun to examine which set of principles would govern the status of the meat product. Traditionally, meat is permitted for kosher consumption only when it derives from a kosher species which has been kosher slaughtered in accordance with strict regulations. There is room to suggest that this same set of rules would determine the status of any product derived through cellular agriculture, and thus the source cells would have to be extracted from a kosher species and only after kosher slaughter. Another approach would be to view the process as so different from the traditional growth of meat that it may be defined as kosher, even where traditional meat would not. Three determining factors will be: 1. The source of the original cells from which clean meat will be produced (animal species and cell type) 2. The nature of the growth medium and 3. The exact nature of the process involved, which will determine whether the final product is considered a new entity or merely an inheritance of the starter cells. An authoritative ruling must be based on an in-depth appreciation of the scientific methods involved.

Osporavanje Nirnberškog procesa od strane romske nacionalne zajednice

World War II is considered to be the largest and longest bloody conflict in recent history. It began with the German attack on Poland on September 1, 1939. The war lasted six years and ended with the capitulation of Japan on September 2, 1945. The consequences of the war are still present in many countries today. "German, Italian and Japanese fascists waged a war of conquest with the aim of dividing the world and creating a New Order in which it would have economic, political and military domination, establish a rule of terror and violence and destroy all forms of human freedom, dignity and humanism. Only a few thousand Roma in Germany survived the Holocaust and Nazi concentration camps. Trying to rebuild their lives, after losing so many family members and relatives, and after their property was destroyed or confiscated, they faced enormous difficulties. The health of many was destroyed. Although they have been trying to get compensation for that for years, such requests have been constantly denied Based on established facts, eyewitnesses, witnesses, historical and legal documents, during the Second World War, the crime of genocide against Orthodox Serbs, Jews and Roma of all faiths except Islam was committed. The attempt to exterminate the Roma during the Second World War must not be forgotten. There was no justice for the survivors of the post-Hitler era. It is important to note that the trial in Nuremberg did not mention the genocide of the Roma at all. The Nuremberg trial is basically the punishment of the losers by the winners. This is visible even today because these forces rule the world. Innocent victims, primarily Roma, have not received justice, satisfaction or recognition from the world community. The Roma were further humiliated because they were not given a chance to speak about the few surviving witnesses about the victims and the horrors they survived. The Roma for the Nuremberg International Military Court and the Nuremberg judges simply did not exist, which called into question the legal aspect of the process, which has not been corrected to date. The Roma national community is committed to revising history, to reviewing the work of the Nuremberg tribunal.

Homosexuality, Transsexuality, Psychoanalysis and Traditional Judaism ed. by Alan Slomowitz and Allison Feit

Reviewed by: Homosexuality, Transsexuality, Psychoanalysis and Traditional Judaism ed. by Alan Slomowitz and Allison Feit Richard Ruth and Joseph Kosowsky Alan Slomowitz and Allison Feit, eds. Homosexuality, Transsexuality, Psychoanalysis and Traditional Judaism. New York: Routledge, 2019. Pp 370. Hardcover, paper, and ebook. ISBN 9781138749498, 9781138749467, 9781315180151. This pioneering book comes at an important historical moment. To some publics, both psychoanalysis and Orthodox Judaism constitute marginal, and marginalized, belief systems, and their adherents are small minorities with little importance or impact. However, psychoanalytic therapies are winning increased recognition as more effective than other treatment models,6 and both the percentage and growth rate of U.S. Jews identifying with Orthodoxy are increasing steadily.7 Thus, the communities, intellectual traditions, and bodies of practice this book brings into dialogue are wellsprings of influential contemporary developments. Feminist scholarship, with which we identify, asks that we acknowledge the grounding of our thinking in our personal contexts. One of us (RR) grew up in a Yiddishist family as a secular Jew; he found his way toward religion and observance, as a Reconstructionist, when he and his male partner decided to marry. A psychologist-psychoanalyst, he has done research on how Freud's conflictual relationship with his Jewish identity influenced his theory of the psychoanalytic method. The other of us (JK) grew up in a traditional Orthodox Litvish/yeshivish community as a frum cisgender male. When he became aware of his sexuality, he felt there was no possibility to [End Page 138] live as both Jewish and gay. Currently, through his reading and through organizations for queer Jewish people, he is coming to appreciate his intersectional identities and possibilities. He is simultaneously a student in a psychodynamically oriented doctoral program in clinical psychology. The diverse perspectives and voices that enter the conversation in Homosexuality, Transsexuality, Psychoanalysis and Traditional Judaism echo these reviewers' own journeys. Contributing authors are men and women, spanning generations, most from Orthodox backgrounds (whether or not currently observant) and some not; there are learned and respected Orthodox rabbis (of diverse views), psychoanalysts (mostly from the interpersonal tradition), psychoanalytically oriented clinicians, and research biological and social scientists. Lesbian, gay male, and transgender perspectives are represented, as are thoughtful contributions from family members of LGBTQ Orthodox Jews. The styles of writing, too, range—from poetic personal accounts, to clinical and basic scientific contributions, psychoanalytic theory, and Jewish textual and halachic exegesis. In its compendium of included material, the book is reminiscent of the tone and breadth of a satisfying volume of Talmud. Valuable new ideas often emerge when lines of deep thinking from different contexts meet up. Two examples stand out among the psychoanalytic contributions to this volume. Interpersonal psychoanalysts have developed the notion that the self is not unitary, but composed of shifting self-states; some, because they are intolerable, dissociated. Conceptualizing these unintegrated "not me" states, it is argued in this book, offers a way of understanding how some LGBTQ Jews dissociate their LGBTQ, or Jewish, identities. Winncott's notion of the true and false selves8 is used in the volume to help understand how LGBTQ Jews navigate the overlapping domains of community, family, social, and self experience in Orthodox environments. Novich, a contributing author, draws out how LGBTQ Jews, valuing the relationships and sense of community they develop in the Orthodox experience, may develop false selves not just in infancy, as Winnicott proposed, but throughout development, as a way to protect the emerging queer true self from both intrapsychic and community pressures. The contributions from rabbinic and lay Orthodox perspectives acknowledge the specificity of daunting halachic and sociocultural challenges LGBTQ Orthodox Jews face, from gender-segregated roles in worship and ritual to expectations of heterosexual marriage and child-rearing. These writers serve both Orthodox and non-Orthodox readers by tracing and explicating textual sources that guide dominant halachic practices and normative Orthodox community customs, including source texts traditionally interpreted as prohibiting lesbian and gay male sexual acts and transgender and non-binary gender identities and expressions. There is no flinching from hard questions, though no contributing writer supports conversion therapy. Yet what stands out in Homosexuality, Transsexuality, Psychoanalysis and Traditional Judaism is consensus, among writers differing on much else, on [End...

Making Judaism Safe for America: World War I and the Origins of Religious Pluralism by Jessica Cooperman

Reviewed by: Making Judaism Safe for America: World War I and the Origins of Religious Pluralism by Jessica Cooperman David Weinfeld (bio) Making Judaism Safe for America: World War I and the Origins of Religious Pluralism. By Jessica Cooperman. New York: New York University Press, 2018. 224 pp. In February 1943, the SS Dorchester, a US military vessel, was sunk by a German submarine. As the vessel went down, four military chaplains [End Page 147] gave up their lifeboats, sacrificing themselves to save their comrades. They led the crew in prayers as the ship sank, representing America's three major religions: two Protestants, one Catholic, and one Jew. It's a great story, but it was not the first time the military served as a laboratory for religious pluralism in the United States. Jessica Cooperman's excellent book convincingly demonstrates that the framework for "Tri-Faith America," a phrase generally applied to the post-World War II era, in fact began with American involvement in the First World War. Government policies and institutions begun in 1917 "unintentionally" challenged Protestant domination and "created space for Judaism and Catholicism to enter the pantheon of American religions" (8). Cooperman helps elucidate American religious pluralism, an ideal that championed shared values and loyalties while allowing distinctions in beliefs to be maintained. She demonstrates the importance of a narrow time frame—the bulk of the action occurs in 1917–1918—in the Americanization of Jews and Judaism. American Jewish military service in World War I strengthened the major Jewish denominations and flattened the differences between Jews of German and Eastern European origin. Cooperman's story is mostly about the Jewish Welfare Board (JWB), an organization created in 1917 by the War Department whose function was to care for the social, cultural, and religious needs of the soldiers. The JWB operated as the equivalent to the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA), which catered to Protestants, and the Knights of Columbus, which served Catholics. The JWB crowded out other organizations to become the official group in charge of the welfare of Jewish servicemen on bases at home and overseas. The JWB had a direct influence on nearly 250,000 American Jewish soldiers in a way that the Young Men's Hebrew Assocation, B'nai Brith, and the American Jewish Committee (AJC) did not. The JWB founders were "elite New Yorkers" often affiliated with the AJC (41). These included some well-known figures, including lawyer Louis Marshall, financiers Jacob Schiff and Felix Warburg, and, most importantly, Cyrus Adler, the president of the Jewish Theological Seminary, the flagship institution of Conservative Judaism. Jacob Rader Marcus, future rabbi and American Jewish historian, served as an army clerk and unofficial JWB representative during World War I and was another important actor in this drama. These lay leaders sought to create a recognized space for Judaism in America, but also to create a new kind of Jew. Most American Jews serving in the military during World War I were of eastern European origin. A third were born outside the US; many spoke mostly Yiddish. Some were Orthodox, while others were Zionists or radical socialists. The JWB helped these soldiers Americanize [End Page 148] through classes in English language and American history and civics, as well as more modernized prayer services. Their efforts led to a few hiccups. When some Jewish soldiers and civilians requested kosher food, their request was ultimately denied, as offering different food was seen as too divisive. The JWB put more energy into directing forms of worship. Unlike dietary laws, religious services had a direct Protestant and Catholic equivalent. It was more important that the troops ate together than that they prayed together. Unsurprisingly, the JWB's attempt to standardize prayer services for Jewish soldiers met with complaints. Orthodox Jews felt they were being coerced into adopting Reform Judaism, while Reform Jews disliked the JWB's prayer book, thinking it too traditional. These divides emerged again in the selection of military chaplains. Orthodox rabbis often lacked the qualifications required by the War Department, like a secular college degree, while, in Adler's words, "Reform Rabbis 'do not touch the spot,' but that is not the fault of the...

"Was I afraid to get up and speak my mind? No, I wasn't": The Feminism and Art of Jewish Orthodox and Haredi Women. An Introduction

"Was I afraid to get up and speak my mind? No, I wasn't": The Feminism and Art of Jewish Orthodox and Haredi Women. An Introduction

"Was I afraid to get up and speak my mind? No, I wasn't": The Feminism and Art of Jewish Orthodox and Haredi Women

"Was I afraid to get up and speak my mind? No, I wasn't": The Feminism and Art of Jewish Orthodox and Haredi Women

National update on measles cases and outbreaks — United States, January 1 – October 1, 2019

During January 1-October 1, 2019, a total of 1,249 measles cases and 22 measles outbreaks were reported in the United States. This represents the most U.S. cases reported in a single year since 1992 (1), and the second highest number of reported outbreaks annually since measles was declared eliminated* in the United States in 2000 (2). Measles is an acute febrile rash illness with an attack rate of approximately 90% in susceptible household contacts (3). Domestic outbreaks can occur when travelers contract measles outside the United States and subsequently transmit infection to unvaccinated persons they expose in the United States. Among the 1,249 measles cases reported in 2019, 1,163 (93%) were associated with the 22 outbreaks, 1,107 (89%) were in patients who were unvaccinated or had an unknown vaccination status, and 119 (10%) measles patients were hospitalized. Closely related outbreaks in New York City (NYC) and New York State (NYS; excluding NYC), with ongoing transmission for nearly 1 year in large and close-knit Orthodox Jewish communities, accounted for 934 (75%) cases during 2019 and threatened the elimination status of measles in the United States. Robust responses in NYC and NYS were effective in controlling transmission before the 1-year mark; however, continued vigilance for additional cases within these communities is essential to determine whether elimination has been sustained. Collaboration between public health authorities and undervaccinated communities is important for preventing outbreaks and limiting transmission. The combination of maintenance of high national vaccination coverage with measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine (MMR) and rapid implementation of measles control measures remains the cornerstone for preventing widespread measles transmission (4).

Do religious patients need religious psychotherapists? A naturalistic treatment matching study among orthodox Jews

Religion is professed by the majority of the general population, but a minority of mental health practitioners. We evaluated whether religious patients benefited more from treatment with religious psychotherapists in a naturalistic study among adult Orthodox Jewish (n = 117) and control patients (n = 91) receiving psychotherapy from Orthodox Jewish (n = 15) and other (n = 7) psychotherapists at a New York based outpatient clinic. Groups did not differ with respect to diagnoses (χ2(200) = 7.5, p = .76), likelihood of having an Orthodox Jewish therapist (χ2(200) = .06, p = .81), or number of therapy sessions (t(206) = .73, p = .47). Multilevel regression modeling revealed that Orthodox patients reported lower initial anxiety (t(198) = 3.71, p < .001, d = .54) and depression (t(198) = 3.71, p < .001, d = .54, d = .50), but were equivalent to controls at termination (Anxiety t(189) = .36, p = .72; Depression t(182) = 1.00, p = .32). Interactions between patient and therapist religious affiliations were not significant. These results suggest that religious (and non-religious) patients may benefit equally from treatment delivered by religious and non-religious therapists.

The New American Judaism: How Jews Practice Their Religion Today by Jack Wertheimer (review)

Reviewed by: The New American Judaism: How Jews Practice Their Religion Today by Jack Wertheimer Pamela S. Nadell Jack Wertheimer. The New American Judaism: How Jews Practice Their Religion Today. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018. 379 pp. doi:10.1017/S0364009419000758 In this impressive book Jack Wertheimer maps the new American Judaism that contemporary Jews have invented amid a recession among almost all American religions. Using three lenses, he considers first the religious beliefs and practices of ʿamkha, the people, illuminating their lived religion, what they believe and do. Wertheimer plumbs what they feel about God (mostly skepticism), what compels a relatively small proportion of Conservative and Reform Jews to worship regularly (not prayer), and why tikkun ʿolam, reinvented as social justice, has become a "surrogate religion" (universalism) (42). No one will be surprised to read that for non-Orthodox Jews, key sites of religious performance are child-centered rituals and peak life-cycle events. Obviously, these are important also to the Orthodox, but their lived religion is wider and deeper. Structural differences set the Orthodox apart. Marrying earlier, becoming parents sooner, and having more children than other American Jews, they transition quickly as young adults into communal institutions. They join synagogues within walking distance of their homes and send their children to day schools. Whether they are Haredi, Modern Orthodox, or Sephardic—an often-overlooked minority—Orthodox Jews remain different from the rest of America's Jews. Despite pronouncements to the contrary, Orthodoxy, encompassing a variety of beliefs and practices, has always been affected by wider currents. Today they come in the form of new technologies enabling and challenging observance. Orthodox Jews can turn their high-end refrigerators to a Sabbath setting to avoid violating religious law by inadvertently turning on a light as they open the door. Meanwhile, thanks to the Internet's limitless resources, rulings, once the province of a small elite, are open to all. Today some Orthodox Jewish women and men act as their own legal decisors. Wertheimer's second lens focuses on the Jewish denominations, "leaky vessels" that have already lost much of their influence (101). As is well known, Reform Judaism is now the largest of the movements. Open for decades to the intermarried, who now make up large segments of its synagogue members, Reform Judaism centers autonomy, choice, and social justice at its core. Despite its successes, Wertheimer is pessimistic about its future. Few Jews raised Reform join the movement's synagogues when they grow up. Few attend regular worship. Some Reform rabbis despair over their congregants' "terrible Judaism" (115). [End Page 484] For Reform Judaism, Wertheimer starts with success and portends decline. With the Conservative movement he opens with its failures—the hemorrhaging of members, mostly to Reform, some to Orthodoxy, and who knows how many to assimilation; the graying of those left behind; and the historic rift in praxis and belief between rabbis and laity. This time, however, he ends optimistically, finding renewed vitality among the movement's remaining synagogues as they experiment with new forms of spirituality and energize their services with song and dance. He takes comfort in reminding us that when it comes to levels of religious observance, only Orthodox Jews score higher than the Conservative. But surely, this has long been true among American Jews. Is Wertheimer unduly hopeful? The reader should remember that he has spent his entire career at the Jewish Theological Seminary, training Conservative Judaism's future rabbis and leaders. As for the Modern Orthodox, despite apparent success in transmitting their values to the next generation, they too face difficulties. Their population remains static while the Haredim, with their much larger families, make up a growing share of the Orthodox world. Wertheimer rightly points to the disturbing cognitive dissonance Modern Orthodox Jews experience over women's limited religious status, especially their inability to initiate divorce, which violates the gender norms these men and women uphold elsewhere in their lives. With denominationalism under critique across American religion, Wertheimer writes positively about successful transdenominational initiatives, such as Birthright with its free Israel trips for youth, the many communal Jewish adult education programs, and day schools. Nevertheless, expecting the movements to survive, he prescribes what...

“We Need to Worship Outside of Conventional Boundaries”: Jewish Orthodox Women Negotiating Time, Space and Halachic Hegemony Through New Ritual

This article focuses on the experiences, practices and perceptions of the women who participate in the amen meal ritual. The primary goal is to determine what we might learn from them about the mechanisms and social processes in contemporary Israeli religious communities. The amen meal is practiced by a broad spectrum of Jewish women in communities from the Ultra-Orthodox to the secular. It has a ritualistic-religious intention of maximizing the number of blessings recited by the participants and thereby the number of “amens” responded. I conducted a qualitative-ethnographic-feminist study using in-depth interviews and participant observations. The central insight is that the amen meal ritual quietly undermines the gender regime. The practices and perceptions of the participants toward amen meals enable us to reach a new understanding of the terms “time” and “space” in the Jewish halachic hegemony. These relatively new rituals reconstruct these heretofore clearly defined hierarchic terms, transforming them into un-defined and non-hierarchic ones. Moreover, the participants’ very perceptive critiques of rabbinic/halachic attitudes indicate that they also perturb the underpinnings of the fundamental Orthodox rules of male halachic hegemony throughout their daily practice.

Da Ester la regina alla concubina senza nome: ruoli e professioni delle donne tra Bibbia, Mishnah e percorsi interpretativi

The article examines the state of presence/absence of women in the Bible and in the Talmud, highlighting the importance of education as a tool to gain a position in society and in their own community, but also as an instrument against the power that tends to create submission at home and in the public sphere. The analysis of some female figures (Ester the scribe, Beruria the scholar, the pious daughters of Zelofcad), offers an insight into the narration of Jewish history and constitutes a reference model for the reading of current situation of the woman in the Jewish Orthodox world, particularly in Israel.

National Update on Measles Cases and Outbreaks - United States, January 1-October 1, 2019.

During January 1-October 1, 2019, a total of 1,249 measles cases and 22 measles outbreaks were reported in the United States. This represents the most U.S. cases reported in a single year since 1992 (1), and the second highest number of reported outbreaks annually since measles was declared eliminated* in the United States in 2000 (2). Measles is an acute febrile rash illness with an attack rate of approximately 90% in susceptible household contacts (3). Domestic outbreaks can occur when travelers contract measles outside the United States and subsequently transmit infection to unvaccinated persons they expose in the United States. Among the 1,249 measles cases reported in 2019, 1,163 (93%) were associated with the 22 outbreaks, 1,107 (89%) were in patients who were unvaccinated or had an unknown vaccination status, and 119 (10%) measles patients were hospitalized. Closely related outbreaks in New York City (NYC) and New York State (NYS; excluding NYC), with ongoing transmission for nearly 1 year in large and close-knit Orthodox Jewish communities, accounted for 934 (75%) cases during 2019 and threatened the elimination status of measles in the United States. Robust responses in NYC and NYS were effective in controlling transmission before the 1-year mark; however, continued vigilance for additional cases within these communities is essential to determine whether elimination has been sustained. Collaboration between public health authorities and undervaccinated communities is important for preventing outbreaks and limiting transmission. The combination of maintenance of high national vaccination coverage with measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine (MMR) and rapid implementation of measles control measures remains the cornerstone for preventing widespread measles transmission (4).

Shouldering Moral Responsibility: The Division of Moral Labor among Pregnant Women, Rabbis, and Doctors

ABSTRACTThis article contributes to the anthropology of morality through an ethnographic focus on the consultations of religiously observant Jews with rabbis and medical specialists regarding dilemmas surrounding prenatal diagnosis of fetal anomalies. Our ethnography looks at religious couples who consult rabbinic authorities on their reproductive dilemmas rather than making autonomous decisions and the procedures of decision‐making that rabbis enact. We examine the rabbis’ emic practice of dividing moral labor and outsourcing it in a chain reaction to various medical and rabbinic experts. The purpose of outsourcing moral decisions and aggregating expert opinions is to lighten the heavy weight of moral responsibility for consultees as well as for the rabbinic consultants. In seeking expert consultations, people might actually be opting for liberation from freedom of choice—at least as defined in the model of autonomous decision‐making—rather than merely submitting to an authoritative doctrinarian power, whether of religion or biomedicine. [moral labor, religion, prenatal diagnosis, biomedicine, Orthodox Jews]

Les tuteurs de résilience dans un univers juif orthodoxe. Partie II

After defining the salient features (“marqueurs”) of a Jewish orthodox society (part I) we try to expose the resilient factors for this microsociety. To this end, we are reflecting on the link between salient features (“marqueurs”) and resilient factors (“facteurs de resilience”). ObjectivesWe emphasize this microsociety's resilient factors and we hypothesize the following idea: what about disembodied tutors? the resilient factors could be not embodied values in a world merely based on belief. MethodAfter describing this world (“Resilience tutors … - part I”), we asked them about a difficult par of their life: the Holocaust. Thus, in a situation of transmission to their children, we perceive the resilient features. They exercised self-censorship (don’t speak about the worst events, the worst sensations, the worst feelings), but they wish to express the basis of their strength, that we called resilient factors. ResultsWe propose four “concepts-resilient factors” (“concepts-tuteurs de résilience”): (1) the silence of the spouse, (2) the law, (3) the filiation, (4) the daily ritual based on practicticing jewish life. DiscussionThe notion of “concept-resilient factors” is not linked to a human being who knew how to overcome the lack of an attachment pattern but to an absolute element of faith, which would give to this microsociety the ways to its proper resilience. ConclusionTo validate this hypothesis, we should generalize the study the link between faith and religion. Otherwise, the idea of conceptualized tutor is particularly interesting in a context where it's merely the faith, which put them in considerable danger.