Praying at the Grave of Franz Rosenzweig (original) (raw)

Jewish Mourning in the Aftermath of the Holocaust. Tending Individual Graves in Occupied Germany, 1945-49

German-Jewish Studies. Next Generations. Edited by Kerry Wallach and Aya Elyada, Berghahn Books, 2023

The historiography of the Holocaust has so far failed to recognize the care taken by German Jewish refugees over the individual graves of deceased family members. This chapter examines letters written by refugees to the rabbis of their former communities asking about family graves, demonstrating the ways burial sites continued to matter to German Jews abroad at a time when so many Jews who had died lacked a proper resting place. Analyzing these letters helps us understand how Jewish rites and mourning practices became a symbol of cultural belonging and Jewishness for the living in a time of mass death.

Ritual Practices Within the Frame of Pilgrimage to the Tombs of the Just in Judaism

The article explores the associated beliefs and rituals, Shrines are the graves of righteous saints among the Jews. The practices and rituals performed by visitors to the graves of the righteous among the Jews were analyzed and discussed, and these actions were discussed extensively so that the reader would forget to understand the nature of these rituals and actions that take place at the grave of the righteous according to the point of view, religion, justice and traditions of the Jewish religion. It must be noted that to this day, there are still many people who still perform and in similar practices participate. Relationships existing between different population groups.

From Collective Shiva to a Fast for the Ages: Religious Initiatives to Commemorate and Mourn the Victims of the Holocaust, 1944–1951

Religions, 2022

Religious Jewish tradition has specific rituals for mourning the loss of a relative. They include receiving visitors during shiva, the recitation of the Kaddish in the first year, and the annual marking of the Yahrzeit. There are also customs for commemorating collective disasters. Foremost among the mare the diminution of joy on specific dates, and setting permanent fast days. Towards the end of World War II, when the extent of the destruction became apparent, initiatives began around the world to process the collective mourning and to perpetuate the disaster in religious settings. Many survivors later joined these initiatives, seeking to establish new customs, out of a deep sense that this was an unprecedented calamity. The growing need to combine private and collective mourning stemmed from an awareness of the psychological and cultural power of private mourning customs. Proposals therefore included the observance of a community Yahrzeit, a collective Jewish shiva, along with a fast for the ages. This article explores the initiatives undertaken between 1944 and 1951—the time when intensive processing was needed for the survivors and the relatives of those who had perished—discussing their motivations, unique characteristics, successes and failures, and the reasons for them.

Prayer on the Tombs of the Righteous and Other Virtues

זהויות, כתב-עת לתרבות ולזהות יהודית, גיליון 7, 2016

Religion, tradition, and belief can assume many and diverse forms. There can be many different practices, a proliferation of affiliations, and weird and different customs. All those who trumpet the slogan of “accepting the Other” must find a way to live in harmony with those whose customs and rituals are the polar antithesis of their own. Those who feel that this is asking too much should at least stop persecuting the practitioners of what they see as strange or different customs and allow them to celebrate their traditions as they see fit. From the preface, Zehuyot (Identities), Journal of Jewish Culture and Identity, vol. 7, 2016 זהויות, כתב-עת לתרבות ולזהות יהודית, גיליון 7, תשע"ו, 2016

Experiencing The Space: Visiting Cemeteries On All Saints' Day Experiencing The Space: Visiting Cemeteries On All Saints' Day and an Ordinary Day and an Ordinary Day

Qualitative Report, 2021

This paper is a description of collaborative research that was done together with students during the class “Contemplative Sociology. Experiencing Self, No-Self and the Lifeworld.” The goal of the research was to introduce the students to the contemplative methods that could be used to research lived experiences and the vision of the lifeworld through contemplation of the mind, bodily sensations, and emotions. A project was started on experiencing the cemetery space. The space for experiencing was chosen to sensitize the students to concerns (such as death, religious holidays, everyday life, suffering, etc.) that could be investigated from the first-person perspective by using contemplation as an alternative to survey-sociological methods, psychological methods and ethnography. The students learned the contemplative techniques of meditation, body awareness, self- observation, and self-description to face their concerns, including the ultimate ones. However, the main concern was the role of the mind, body and emotions in cognition and creating the mood.

Experiencing The Space: Visiting Cemeteries On All Saints’ Day and an Ordinary Day

The Qualitative Report, 2021

This paper is a description of collaborative research that was done together with students during the class “Contemplative Sociology. Experiencing Self, No-Self and the Lifeworld.” The goal of the research was to introduce the students to the contemplative methods that could be used to research lived experiences and the vision of the lifeworld through contemplation of the mind, bodily sensations, and emotions. A project was started on experiencing the cemetery space. The space for experiencing was chosen to sensitize the students to concerns (such as death, religious holidays, everyday life, suffering, etc.) that could be investigated from the first-person perspective by using contemplation as an alternative to survey-sociological methods, psychological methods and ethnography. The students learned the contemplative techniques of meditation, body awareness, self- observation, and self-description to face their concerns, including the ultimate ones. However, the main concern was the ...

Contemporary Saint Veneration in Israel and Beyond: What we Learn from Moments of Surprise and Discomfort

Center for the Study of Conversion and Inter-Religious Encounters, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, 2019

On 4 Shvat, which fell on 10 January this year, the small town of Netivot in the Negev becomes a pilgrimage destination for those who venerate Rabbi Israel Abu-Hatsera, better known as Baba Sali, who died in 1984. While the Moroccan saint is popular among Sephardi Jews, the hillulah-the commemoration of his death-draws Israelis from a variety of ethnic and religious backgrounds to his grave. A German anthropologist and an American historian of Christianity, both non-Jewish members of the Center for the Study of Conversion and Inter-Religious Encounters (CSoC), had jumped at the chance to participate in this excursion to the Negev town of Netivot sponsored by CSoC along with the departments of Jewish history, sociology and anthropology, and Middle Eastern studies at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU).