Department Newsletter 8 (2019) [English] (original) (raw)
Miscellanea, Quest. Issues in Contemporary Jewish History, n. 7 (2014)
2014
The ‘Focus’ section of this edition of ‘Quest’ is composed of very diverse contributions, authored by both junior and senior scholars. The articles cover a wide range of topics, time periods and geographical areas. We open with the Greek Islands, considered from very different points of view: Cristina Pallini and Annalisa Scaccabarozzi offer us a study of urban history, analyzing Salonika’s lost synagogues, while Varvaritis presents the ‘Cronaca Israelitica’ – the first Jewish newspaper in the Ionian Islands – and the discussions of Jewish emancipation in the late XIXth century. Then we move on to Finland, with a contribution by Tarja Liisa Luukkanen that presents the 1897 discussion concerning the legal condition of the Jews that took place within the Finnish Diet, and in particular within the clergy, illustrating the role of antisemitism and the reception of Adolf Stoecker’s ideology. From the Baltic Sea we move back to Southern Europe, with an essay by Bojan Mitrović dedicated to the forms of social integration and of nationalization of Serbian Jewry as seen through a peculiar case study. Udi Manor’s article makes us leap to the North American continent, and to Jewish New York in particular, discussing Jewish 'identity politics' through the prism of the “Jewish Daily Forward” in the early XXth century. The last three articles concentrate on the second half of the XXth century. Rolf Steininger presents the figure of Karl Hartl, the first Austrian diplomat in Israel, and his perception of the country. Michele Sarfatti carefully reconstructs how foreign (non-Italian) historiography interpreted Fascist antisemitism between 1946 and 1986. Finally, the ‘Focus’ section is closed by Anna Baldini’s attentive depiction of Primo Levi’s role in shaping Italy’s memory of the Shoah.
2018
ELLIOTT HOROWITZ FIRST ENTERED my life with his characteristic brilliance and brio at the 1980 meeting of the Association of Jewish Studies. Mark Cohen, Theodore Rabb, and I were presenting our Princeton course on the Jews in Early Modern Europe, into which we had introduced topics from the new social history within a comparative European perspective. A distinguished elder scholar from Jerusalem rose from the audience to state that the course disfigured Jewish history and, eyeing me, that the field did not need contributions from outsiders. Whereupon a student from the Yale doctoral program came forward and defended our course as the wave of the future. Elliott Horowitz saved the day for us, as many of the younger listeners took copies of our syllabus.
The Cambridge Guide to Jewish History, Religion, and Culture
Cambridge University Press eBooks, 2015
The Cambridge Guide to Jewish History, Religion, and Culture is a comprehensive and engaging overview of Jewish life, from its origins in the ancient Near East to its impact on contemporary popular culture. The twenty-one essays, arranged historically and thematically and written specially for this volume by leading scholars, examine the development of Judaism and the evolution of Jewish history and culture over many centuries and in a range of locales. They emphasize the ongoing diversity and creativity of the Jewish experience. Unlike previous anthologies, which concentrate on elite groups and expressions of a male-oriented rabbinic culture, this volume also includes the range of experiences of ordinary people and looks at the lives and achievements of women in every place and era. The many illustrations and maps, the timeline, and the glossary of important terms enhance this book's accessibility to students and general readers.
Early Modern Jewish History: Ongoing Trends, Global Directions
Church History and Religious Culture , 2017
By contrast to many fields subsumed under the umbrella of minority or ethnic studies that have defined the subjects of their inquiries in opposition to the ethnic/race/gender normative of society, Jewish studies has, since its inception in the 19th century, been driven by an intense aspiration to fashion itself along the norms of the European/west-ern humanistic tradition. In this essay I suggest that the early modern era may offer a unique opportunity to revise this paradigm and offer two directions for the future of the field: the synthesis of the Jews' histories of persecution and integration in Europe; and the exploration of the Jews' role in global history.
The Jewish Journal of Sociology, 2014
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Southern Jewish History, v. 27 (2024), full issue
2024
COVER PICTURE: Portrait of Margaret Anne Goldsmith, by Maurice Grosser, c. 1947. Portions of Goldsmith’s memoir describing her lifelong relationship with the Black woman who raised her appear in this issue. (Courtesy of the Huntsville History Collection.) TABLE OF CONTENTS Mark K. Bauman, In Memoriam: Janice Oettinger Rothschild Blumberg (February 13, 1924 – February 21, 2024) Jay Silverberg, Houses Divided that Remained Standing: Conflicting Loyalties within an Extended Southern Jewish Family Leonard Rogoff, Matisse’s Cosmopolitans in the New South: The Cone Sisters Collect Modern Art Mary Jo O’Rear, The Constitution, Corpus Christi, and the Statue on the Bay Adrienne DeArmas, Primary Sources: The Shapell Roster of Jewish Service in the American Civil War: A Resource for Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century American Jewish History Lance J. Sussman and Lynda Barness, Transcending Race, Religion, and Class: Select Huntsville Memoirs by Margaret Anne Goldsmith BOOK REVIEWS Devery S. Anderson, A Slow, Calculated Lynching: The Story of Clyde Kennard, reviewed by Stephen Whitfield Mark K. Bauman, The Temple and Its People to 2018: The Hebrew Benevolent Congregation: Living Up to the Name and the Legacy, reviewed by Tobias Brinkmann Joel Gereboff and Jonathan L. Friedmann, Jewish Historical Societies: Navigating the Professional–Amateur Divide, reviewed by Dana Herman Jerome Novey, The Life and Letters of Samuel Ellsworth Fleet: An Immigrant’s Tale, reviewed by Marcia Jo Zerivitz Marlene Trestman, Most Fortunate Unfortunates: The Jewish Orphans’ Home of New Orleans, reviewed by Reena Sigman Friedman Diane Catherine Vecchio, Peddlers, Merchants, and Manufacturers: How Jewish Entrepreneurs Built Economy and Community in Upcountry South Carolina, reviewed by Scott M. Langston FILM REVIEWS People of the Crossing: The Jews of El Paso, reviewed by Bryan Edward Stone The Nita and Zita Project, reviewed by Rachel Merrill Moss EXHIBIT REVIEWS A Better Life for Their Children: Julius Rosenwald, Booker T. Washington, and the 4,978 Schools that Changed America, reviewed by Emily Rena Williams What is Jewish Washington?, reviewed by Andrew Sperling Infinite Poem, reviewed by Nora Katz WEBSITE REVIEW Synagogues of the South: Architecture and Jewish Identity, reviewed by Christopher D. Cantwell
Introduction: Jewish History Matters
Shofar, 2019
Since the early 2000s, podcasts have grown into an important global article introduces the Jewish History Matters podcast and situates it in within this broader history of podcasting and the role of aural culture in academia and Jewish studies. It details the origins and aspirations of the project and the possibility of podcasting as a means of scholarly communication, service, and reaching a broader public. Alongside this general introduction to the podcast, the article presents an edited transcript of a conversation on the podcast between Jeffrey Blutinger, Mirjam Thulin, and Jason Lustig reflectign on two centuries of modern Jewish studies, from the emergence of Wissenschaft des Judentums in 1818 to the present. We discuss why studying Jewish history mattered to nineteenth-century scholars of Jewish studies, why it is still significant in the present moment, how the field of Jewish studies has changed over the generations, and why this history of history matters in terms of understanding the modern Jewish experience and the past, present, and future of Jewish studies.
In his influential Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory, Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi analyzed brilliantly the transition in Jewish conceptions of Jewish history from premodern to modern times. The present paper discusses a number of alternative perspectives on this transition. Yerushalmi argued convincingly the importance of the traditional conception of Jewish history, which he labeled "Jewish memory," for Jewish survival. This paper challenges the terminology, agrees with the role played by the traditional Jewish thinking in Jewish survival, and emphasizes the premodern circumstances that made the traditional thinking so vital and effective. With respect to modern conceptions of Jewish history, which Yerushalmi associates with Jewish history writing, this paper argues that an examination of the circumstances of modernity reveals the creativity of this altered view of the Jewish past and the ways in which it in turn has fostered Jewish survival in the face of radically new challenges.
Writings on Jewish History: A Selected Annotated Bibliography
1974
This annotated bibliography is intended to help social studies teachers give students in grades 5-12 a better understanding of Jews from the Biblical times to the present. Its purposes are to supply information about the role of Jews in both world and Ame-ican history and to help teachers and students deveaop an informed perspective on intergroup relations. The bibliography lists works in Jewish history, culture, personalities, and contributions. The selections include fiction and nonfiction_books, historical texts and documents, biographies and autobiographies, and classic and modern literazy works. The listings_are arranged in two categories: books intended for young readers and those recommended for teenagers and adults. lnder each grouping the books are listed alphabetically by title within subsection of history, biography, and fiction. Tbe last section of the bibliography provides a list of basic reference works useful for teachers and researchers.