Hasil untuk "Judaism"

CJS Editors

Roy Shukrun

Hünkar Karaca Yalçın

Along with individuals lives, literary works address shared mental worlds of societies, historical milestones, beliefs, and cultures. The concept of belief is also one of the factors that shape societies’ identities and art-literary works. Turkish authors have discussed both the societies they were born into and the beliefs of the “other” societies, as well as the cultural characteristics arising from their beliefs, in their works from the past to the present. When these beliefs are examined, it is clear that the religions of the Zoroastrians and Yazidis, both of whom are considered minorities, are at the forefront. In novels, these two beliefs were compared with Islam, Christianism, and Judaism, and their underlying philosophies, their effects on rituals in ceremonies such as weddings and funerals, and how the belief and “national” identities became an entrenched structure were discussed. Furthermore, the novels discussed how these societies perceived minorities maintained their value judgments in the Middle East, where dominant cultures and religions are present, as well as their conflicts with strong states in the region. In this study, the reflections of Yezidism and Zoroastrianism in Turkish novel has been discussed.

Zsuzsanna Toronyi

Giancarlo Lacerenza

Nel 1988 nel corso di scavi nel sito di San Clemente presso l'area dell'antica Nuceria Alfaterna, in Campania, furono rinvenuti due epitaffi giudaici. Grazie a questo ritrovamento, fu possibile documentare, per la prima volta con certezza, la presenza ebraica anche in quest'area relativamente interna della Campania antica nel periodo tardoantico. In questo contributo vengono ridiscussi i due epitaffi alla luce di una terza lastra, rinvenuta nello stesso sito nel 1966 e rimasta inedita, su cui è visibile solo una menorah.

Zev Eleff

Jackie Feldman

Drawing on auto-ethnographic descriptions from four decades of my own work as a Jewish guide for Christian Holy Land pilgrims, I examine how overlapping faiths are expressed in guide–group exchanges at Biblical sites on Evangelical pilgrimages. I outline several faith interactions: Between reading the Bible as an affirmation of Christian faith or as a legitimation of Israeli heritage, between commitments to missionary Evangelical Christianity and to Judaism, between Evangelical practice and those of other Christian groups at holy sites, and between faith-based certainties and scientific skepticism. These encounters are both limited and enabled by the frames of the pilgrimage: The environmental bubble of the guided tour, the Christian orientations and activities in the itinerary, and the power relations of hosts and guests. Yet, unplanned encounters with religious others in the charged Biblical landscape offer new opportunities for reflection on previously held truths and commitments. I conclude by suggesting that Holy Land guided pilgrimages may broaden religious horizons by offering an interreligious model of faith experience based on encounters with the other.

Batia Siebzehner, Leonardo Senkman

The article discusses some aspects of the dynamics of conversion to Islam and of the return to orthodoxy in Judaism. The objective is to consider the extent to which comparative criteria can be established to understand more comprehensively the phenomenon of the expansion of religious orthodoxies in Buenos Aires and São Paulo during the last decades. There is a dissimilar diversity of the Argentine and Brazilian religious field, and differences in belief systems, as in Islamic and Jewish institutions (both religious and ethnic). Nevertheless, through an inductive analysis of both similar and differential characteristics, it is intended to understand the dynamics and patterns of renewal of the diverse monotheistic religious traditions. The present preliminary stage is based on fieldwork, still under execution, which analyses the conversion to Islam and the return to Judaism in Buenos Aires and San Pablo, and whose result still requires further elaboration. The basic analytical assumption is that religious affiliation is built across boundaries and strategies for maintaining them.

Mahmut Salihoğlu, Şefaat Bedir

Mordecai Kaplan, the founder of the Reconstructionist movement, has been highly influential on American Jewish society with his ideas and works. Kaplan observed that modernism caused a fragmentation in Jewish life and endeavored to make Judaism more meaningful for modern Jews by reconstructing it. To this end, in his book called Judaism as a Civilization, Kaplan not only offered a comprehensive reconstructing program to revive American Jewish life, but also provided an impressive analysis of the challenges which the new generation of Jews were facing. In this book, Kaplan redefined Judaism as an evolving civilization and developed a different interpretation of religion within Judaism. Many concepts of Kaplan such as synagogue center and bat mitzvah ceremony, have been accepted by the majority of American Jews. Kaplan has also pioneered many innovations within the American Jewish community that will take place towards women’s rights and gender equality, through the Restructuring movement.

Cass Fisher

Recent scholarship on both ancient and modern Judaism has criticized the identification of Judaism as a religion. From the perspective of the modern period, what has remained unaddressed is the very peculiar religion that Jewish philosophers and theologians have formed. Numerous scholars with varying philosophical and religious commitments depict Judaism as a religion in which belief plays a negligible role and reference to God is tenuous if not impossible. This article charts three trends in modern and contemporary Jewish thought on the subject of theological reference: restricted referentialism, ostensive referentialism, and theological referentialism. The article concludes by discussing new developments in the theory of reference that can further the work of the theological referentialists and help revitalize Jewish theology.

Giancarlo Lacerenza

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Risimati Synod Hobyane

Narratives are never meant to be neutral in their rhetorical intent. They have power not onlyto reveal realities and prevail worldviews but also to create new realities and new worldviewsby refuting illusions and falsehood, and affirming the truth. The Judith narrative is a goodexample for the exploration of this claim. This article contributes by employing the thematiclevel of analysis, the veridictory square in particular, of the Greimassian approach to narratives,to map out the possible illusions and affirming the truth within the second temple Judaism.The study of the veridictory square as informed by the level of analysis, mentioned above,seems to persuade the reader by first, extracting the truth from illusion and thereafter exposingand shaming falsehood in Judith. Subsequently, the article asserts that Judith is not neutral in itsintent but was designed to deal with illusive ideas that might have been impacting the wellbeingof the second temple Judaism.

Moisés Orfali, Federico Corriente, Elisabeth Fernández Martín

Eugenio Benedicto Gracia

El autor presenta en este estudio la edición de varios documentos que contienen las últimas voluntades de diez judíos (cinco varones y cinco mujeres), nueve de Huesca y uno de Calatayud, fechados, excepto el primero, en las décadas centrales del siglo XV, y que fueron formalizados ante notarios cristianos. En la medida de lo posible se ha procurado esbozar un perfil biográfico de los testadores con ayuda de datos espigados de los protocolos notariales del Archivo Histórico Provincial de Huesca. Se incluyen una serie de consideraciones relacionadas con la vida económica y los vínculos familiares entre judíos y conversos, todo ello a partir de su reflejo en la documentación escrita.

Késia Rodrigues de Oliveira

A figura mitológica do diabo é elemento recorrente tanto no imaginário popular quanto em personagens da literatura ocidental sendo atribuída a ele a representação da maldade. Entretanto, é no período colonial mineiro que tal figura aparecerá, para além da conjuntura religiosa, simbolizando na forma de livros, as ideias iluministas franceses. Este artigo pretende a partir de uma leitura crítica do ensaio "ʺO diabo na livraria do cônego"ʺ, de Eduardo Frieiro, e do conto "ʺ1789-­1790"ʺ, de Maria José de Queiroz, analisar, sob o contexto histórico da Inconfidência Mineira, as referências aos livros e ao diabo, alegoria das ideias libertárias, e sua relação com o espaço da biblioteca.

Vívien Gonzaga e Silva

A partir da leitura de poemas que compõem o livro Memórias de Sefarad, de Leonor Scliar-Cabral, no qual se evidenciam vários traços da tradição sefardita, pretende-se abordar o fenômeno do “marranismo”. No século 15, ao mesmo tempo em que se instituía a designação de “cristão-novo” para o judeu convertido por ordem dos reis de Espanha, o rótulo “marrano” ‒ implicando aquele que simulava a conversão ao catolicismo enquanto mantinha a prática clandestina da fé judaica ‒ parece infiltrar-se no imaginário lentamente construído em torno do judeu de origem ibérica. Assim, o que poderia ficar circunscrito a um episódio da história do povo judeu, parece migrar no tempo e no espaço, acompanhando-o na diáspora, da sombra dos tribunais da Inquisição até os nossos dias. Acredita-se que a literatura pode constituir um espaço de problematização do marranismo como performance identitária, à medida que, no espaço da linguagem, como se verá na poesia de Scliar-Cabral, permite estabelecer um diálogo entre presente e passado como estratégia de resistência.

Anders Klostergaard Petersen

This essay - representing an elaborated version of the author's inaugural lecture as an associate professor at the Department of the Study of Religion - is a critical survey of the classical scholarly discussion of Hellenism that particularly focuses on the Judaism-Hellenism dichotomy. By an exposition of the intellectual history of the background to the debate (notably Droysen), the author argues that the discussion has to a great extent been subject to the influence of a perceptual filter, representing a Christian apologietic concern - the scope of which is not fully recognised. Hellenism has served as a significant flottant capable of being attributed almost any meaning, but ultimately the category itself stems from a Christian concern, i.e. to construct a period serving as a legitimising cultural and religio-historical foilage for the appearance of early Christianity. Although some important cultural changes do occur subsequent to Alexander the Great (an increased tendency towards urbanisation, important military innovation, for example), they do not constitute tendencies that may be extended to include a universal sultural watershed common to the entire Mediterranean and extra-Mediterranian world and uniting it across the centuries. In addition to that, the discussion is suffering from a deficient interpretation of culture and identity. tghe meeting of different cultures and the confusions of different cultural traditions are perceived in terms of 'pure cultures'. Culture is ontologised or naturalised to the exten that a meeting of cultures is conceived of in terms of separate and fundamentally different cultures that are simultaneously understood to be internally homogenous. Each person is thought to be a carrier or container of his or her culture, thus for instance the Jew incarnating or representing Judaism in its entirelt. From this perspective divergent, modes of dultures are perceived in  terms of cultural or religious contaminataion. Culture, however, does not exist - except as an abstraction - in such pure forms. It is per definition a messy affair. In conclusion I think that in future research we should refrain from using the category of Hellenism is the all-sweeping manner in which it has been used. In fact we should be very careful, when using Judaism, Hellenism or any other taxonomic abstraction, not to commit an 'ontological dumping', reifying concepts which exist only by virtue of scholarly categorisations. Rather than to continue to use a misunderstandable term and an ideologically biased category strongly dependent on a Christian perceptual filter, we should begin looking for the decisive innovations, the important cultural and religious changes, which at particular places and in specific periods may allow us to construe cultural watersheds.

Bella Briansky Kalter

Moshe Safdie