Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi,the Royal Alliance,and Jewish Political Theory

This article examines Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi’s views of the realities and myths of the “royal alliance” in medieval and modern Jewish history as a seminal contribution to Jewish political history and theory as well as a revealing entrée into his overall historiographical approach. Elaborating the ideas of his teacher Salo Baron and drawing upon Hannah Arendt’s insights into the relationship between Jews and modern states, Yerushalmi ultimately used his own understanding of Jewish political experience to argue against her indictment of wartime Jewish leaders. For Yerushalmi, Jews’ awareness of their tendencies to forge vertical alliances with the highest authorities served to fortify and console them; he considered these perceptions generally realistic and, though at times tragically blinding, still ultimately anchored in historical experience. This essay situates the royal alliance within Yerushalmi’s broader conceptions of Jewish community, political agency, and domicile as diasporic survival strategies. It also views this concept as part of his post-Holocaust commitment to chart the paradoxes of Jewish hope and to regenerate Jewish hope, both collective and individual. Yerushalmi is often celebrated as a pioneering thinker who contrasted modern critical historiography to traditional collective memory and who explored the individual, existential, psychological, and skeptical dimensions of modern Jewish identity. Yet, this essay suggests, a traditionalist strain may be heard in his profound identification with the Jewish people and his deriving hope from their political and historical experience—in both its continuities and its ruptures.     

Yerushalmi’s Germany

Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi came late to Germany, but he developed a close, almost intimate relationship to it during the last fifteen years of his life. After staying in Munich for a year in 1996–97 he returned regularly. He was able to enjoy the positive responses to German translations of his works and met colleagues who engaged with his ideas. It was here that his first collection of essays appeared, and some of his publications, such as his contribution to the debate on Jewish historiography at a Schloss Elmau conference, appeared only in German. His fascination with German society was founded in his admiration for German culture and language and for such diverse figures as Thomas Mann and Sigmund Freud, as well as in his attempt to understand more deeply the causes of the Jewish catastrophe of the twentieth century.     

Child survivors and childbearing; memories from the Holocaust invading the present

In this article—based on 40 video-taped interviews with Jewish child survivors—the author discusses how memories from the Holocaust invade the present and affect one of the most sensitive phases of the life cycle, the period of reproduction. This is discussed as applied psychoanalytic research of oral testimonies. Four areas of knowledge—history, autobiography narrative, cognitive memory research and psychoanalytical theory—are argued to help to elucidate memories and understand the tremendous force which the intersection exerts on them in the present, which is the fundamental idea of this article. The author discusses both the possibility to work through massive traumas, and the distorted concept of time. The Nazi deeds which were intended to eliminate women and children, to split families, that is, break down the continuity of life, affected both those who were directly involved, and those women and men who witnessed these deeds.     

Jewish education and formation in Glasgow: a case study

This article explores the formational provision within a faith community when faith schooling ends at the primary stage. A case study, part of a larger multi‐faith study, examined the Jewish community in the greater Glasgow area—a small, and shrinking, community with a long history of relatively peaceful integration but increasingly pressurised by secularisation, assimilation and emigration. There is a well‐attended Jewish primary school, but no secondary school. A range of approaches to youth formation and education for children of secondary age has evolved—approaches linked to a variety of conceptions of Jewish identity. The aim, ultimately, is to include all Jewish children, no matter how they construct their Jewish identity, in the community.     

Swaying in Three Directions: Ilya Galant in Russian/Ukrainian-Jewish Historiography

This article explores the life and work of an important but little-known Jewish-Russian-Ukrainian historian and political liberal, Ilya Galant, and examines his vision of Jewish history in Ukraine. Galant wanted to legitimize the rights of Jews in Russia and “normalize” their presence in Ukraine. To accomplish this goal he interpreted history creatively, demonstrating Jewish-Ukrainian friendship as well as Jewish contributions to Ukraine. He also appealed to the Russian intelligentsia to foster a liberal coalition of forces in favor of Jewish rights. This essay illuminates contexts that have not received proper scholarly attention: Jewish historiography on Ukraine, Jewish liberals in Russia, the development of Russian-Jewish historiography, the image of Jews in Polish-Ukrainian history, and Jewish scholarship in Soviet Ukraine.

     

Identity,Incentives, and Religious Defense of Human Rights: Marshall Meyer and the DAIA in Argentina's Dirty War

Whether religious groups advance or limit human rights has been a topic of recent debate among human rights scholars. This article studies the conditions under which religious leaders advance human rights in the context of Argentina's Jewish community during the country's 1976–1983 military dictatorship. Three major influences on religious support for human rights—autonomy from a religious community's establishment, a missionary-reformer identity, and congregational mobilization—are highlighted. Original archival research from the papers of U.S.-born rabbi Marshall T. Meyer illustrates his defense of human rights in Argentina, contrasting his work with the inaction of a major established Jewish organization. Quantitative cross-national analysis extends the case study findings by showing a relationship between religious institutions’ autonomy from the state and defense of human rights.     

INSTRUCTIONAL MANUALS OF BOUNDARY‐WORK: PSYCHOLOGY TEXTBOOKS,STUDENT SUBJECTIVITIES,AND DISCIPLINARY HISTORIOGRAPHIES

This article aims to provide an overview of the historiography of psychology textbooks. In the overview, I identify and describe in detail two strands of writing histories of introductory textbooks of psychology and juxtapose them to provide an integrated historiography of textbooks in psychology. One strand is developed by teachers of psychology—first as a general approach for investigating textbooks in a pedagogical setting, and then later upgraded into a full history of psychology textbooks in America. The other strand follows a more familiar perspective of historians of science and historians of psychology who build on various post‐Kuhnian and post‐Foucauldian perspectives on textbooks. I make an argument for integrating these two views for a more comprehensive historiography of textbooks in psychology, recasting textbooks as objects of research and sources that are interesting sui generis for historians of psychology in their investigations.     

Yerushalmi and the Conversos

In his work on Iberian Jews—openly practicing ones and conversos, on and off the peninsula, before 1492 and 1497 and after—Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi made few explicit methodological statements. But from his earliest work, he made his historiosophical commitments clear and rarely wavered from them. Those commitments included basic trust in inquisitorial sources, the investigation of both marginal and normative Jewish practices, interest in the history of mentalities, and, above all, a focus on the relationship between “immanent” and external causes in Jewish history. This article traces the influence of several mid-twentieth-century historians on Yerushalmi’s work and examines his place in twentieth-century debates on conversos and the Inquisition; it also discusses his relationship to microhistory and the problem of historical distance and perspective. The article concludes by considering the apparent contradiction between Yerushalmi’s emphasis on the agency and subjectivity of Jews and his trust in the records of an institution that some have characterized as pervasively anti-Jewish.     

Why High School Students Aspire to Emigrate: Evidence from Greece

This paper investigates why Greek high school students aspire to emigrate, in relation to their educational and socio-economic background. Through fieldwork research conducted at three specialist high schools in Thessaloniki, three main conclusions have been drawn. Firstly, potential emigrants are ambitious, with high educational and professional expectations and a clear migration plan. Secondly, they are middle and upper middle class and excel at school—in socio-economic and educational terms, they therefore constitute the most dynamic Greek youths. Thirdly, in a period of recession on a European level, the alarming fact is that student emigration can undermine recovery for a country in crisis such as Greece. That is, middle-class shrinkage caused by the recession can be aggravated by emigration, which in turn might cost the loss of developmental human resources for Greece and a deepening of the recession. This can further stimulate migration, resulting in a vicious circle between crisis and emigration. Furthermore, if potential emigrants do not return because temporary emigration for studies becomes permanent migration for work, the economic crisis is worsened, and Greece’s prospects for development are further undermined.     

The New Anti-Semitism in Europe: The Islamic Dimension of,and Jewish Belonging in,the EU

This article examines the sense of Jewish vulnerability and exclusion in Europe that has resulted from manifestations, and Jewish perceptions, of the “new anti-Semitism,” and the role of Islamic communities in Europe in propagating this form of hatred of Jews. First emerging in 2000 with the outbreak of the second Palestinian Intifada, and tied in with the Middle East conflict, anger at Israel is directed at Diaspora Jewish communities. This “new anti-Semitism” targets the Jewish collective with the characteristics of anti-Semitism previously aimed at individual Jews. The article focuses on the wave of anti-Semitism that erupted as a result of the 2014 Israeli–Hamas War. Based on an analysis of European Jewish communities, it considers the active part played by European Muslim communities in perpetrating the new anti-Semitism. Using an analysis of survey data, emigration statistics and newspaper opinion articles by leading European Jewish intellectuals, the article considers how the new anti-Semitism is adversely affecting Jewish–Muslim relations and the concomitant sense of “belonging” of European Jewry. The article considers what is required to overcome the new anti-Semitism propagated by Muslim communities to restore a greater sense of Jewish belonging to, and identification with, Europe.     

ENVISIONING JEWISH CENTRAL EUROPE: FRIEDRICH TORBERG,THE AUSTRIAN ÉMIGRÉS,AND JEWISH EUROPEAN HISTORY

This essay uses the Viennese remigré writer and journalist, Friedrich Torberg (1908–1979), his Austrian Jewish cohort, and their invented “Central Europe” and “Austrian Literature” to argue for a paradigmatic shift in émigré historiography. The cosmopolitan narrative predominating in émigré historiography has marginalized traditional Judaism. By shifting the focus from the German to the Austrian émigrés, and from the European nation state to the Austrian Empire, historians can reclaim traditional Jewish culture and pluralize the hegemonic narrative. Late imperial Austria, constitutionally federalist and ethnically and culturally diverse, made room for a Jewish national culture in ways that Germany did not. The Austrian émigrés shaped visions of Central Europe that foregrounded Jewishness and provided wider space for Jewish life than comparable visions of leading German émigrés. Yet, even Austrian émigré visions remained largely incognizant of rabbinic culture, the core of traditional Jewish life. To make traditional Jews agents of Jewish European history, European historiography must now move to incorporate rabbinic culture.     

Blond, tall, with honey-colored eyes: Jewish ownership of slaves in the Ottoman Empire

Hundreds of Hebrew written sources, dozens of official decrees, judicial records (sijillat), and reports of European travelers indicate that slaveholding – particularly of females of slavic origin – in Jewish households in the urban centers of the Ottoman Empire was widespread from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. This halachically and legally problematic habit was an unparalleled phenomenon in any other Jewish community in the early modern period. The presence of slaves in Jewish households effected family life in many ways. I dealt with two of them: The first is cohabitation of Jewish men with female slaves, usually non-Jewish, who in effect served as their concubines and bore them legitimate children; the second is marriage with manumitted slaves who converted to Judaism and became an integral part of the community. These phenomena attest once again to the great extent to which Jewish society and its norms and codes were influenced by Muslim urban society, and the gap between rabbinic rhetoric ideals and the dynamic daily existence of Jews from all social strata. Research for this article was carried out during my postdoctoral fellowship as a Mandel Scholar at the Scholion Interdisciplinary Research Center, the Mandel Institute of Jewish Studies, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The article is based on a lecture delivered at a conference in honor of Prof. Amnon Cohen in June 2005 at the Ben-Zvi Institute, Jerusalem; and in Ankara, Turkey, in October 2005. I thank Prof. Kenneth Stow for his kind and friendly guidance.     

FORWARD,TO THE EAST: NAPTHALI HERZ IMBER'S PERCEPTION OF KABBALAH

Naphtali Herz Imber is famous as the author of the Jewish national anthem, “Hatikvah” (“The Hope”). He is also quite well known for his non-conformism, vagabond lifestyle, and excessive drinking. However, his interest in the occult and Kabbalah are much less known. Imber wrote several articles on Jewish mysticism, translated some kabbalistic texts, and published the first journal on Kabbalah—Uriel: A Monthly Magazine Devoted to Cabbalistic Science (of which only one issue appeared). Although much scholarly literature has been devoted to Imber and his famous poem, his interest in the occult and Jewish mysticism has not been investigated. This article will discuss Imber's encounter with late-nineteenth-century esotericism, specifically the doctrines of Laurence and Alice Oliphant and the Theosophical Society. It presents Imber's notions concerning Jewish mysticism and examines the impact that the Theosophical Society and the Oliphants' principles had on his perception of Kabbalah. Finally, it discusses the connection between Imber's Zionism and his interest in Kabbalah and shows that his perception of Jewish mysticism, which was greatly influenced by Western esoteric ideas, was shaped in the framework of fin de siècle Orientalism and Jewish nationalism. Imber's positive evaluation of Jewish mysticism and its nationalistic interpretation anticipates the position of later Zionist scholars of Jewish mysticism, whose vision of Kabbalah and Hasidism largely shaped the way Jewish mysticism is perceived and studied today.     

Crisis and lachrymosity: on Salo Baron, Neobaronianism, and the study of modern European Jewish history

Salo Baron (1895–1989) remains an iconic figure among historians of the Jews, who routinely cite his dissent from the ‘lachrymose conception of Jewish history’ as a ideal to be upheld. Contemporary historians have generally understood the Baronian imperative to favor a historiography that seeks continuities instead of ruptures, deemphasizes Jews’ victimhood in favor of their achievements and successful integration, and affirms diaspora creativity in opposition to Zionist disparagement of exile. They have also affirmed that imperative equally for all periods and places in Jewish history. Close analysis of Baron’s corpus suggests that such a reading is better termed ‘neo-Baronian,’ for Baron himself employed his injunction against lachrymosity in reference to the middle ages only, whereas his depiction of the modern era stressed sustained crisis, conflict, and insecurity throughout the Jewish world. Such a depiction is fully consistent with his conception of the conditions under which Jews were most likely to find safety and prosperity. That conception, which posited the preferability of ‘states of nationalities’ to ‘nation-states’ and stressed the need for a strong international order capable of checking unrestrained state sovereignty, was evidently born out of Baron’s own experience as a refugee in Vienna during and after the First World War.     

MANY QUESTIONS,FEW ANSWERS: THE HOLOCAUST IN THE THEOLOGY OF LOUIS JACOBS

Louis Jacobs identified the Holocaust—and the creation of Israel—as the two most significant events influencing contemporary Jewish consciousness. Yet his engagement with the theological implications of the Holocaust is notably limited. Since many of his writings are focused on issues facing those he termed “the Jew in the pew,” this absence of detailed consideration of the theological questions posed by the Holocaust seems particularly perplexing. This paper will consider if there is an explanation for this lacuna.     

Impact of Summer Trip to Israel on the Self-Esteem of Jewish Adolescents

Psychological research has identified many positive effects of adolescents being aware of their religious and cultural backgrounds (Fiese, 1992). Religious rituals and community support facilitate developmental transitions. They also instill a stronger sense of identity. Mainstream North American society's emphasis on autonomy and individuality has meant that people are less reliant on religious and cultural rituals as a source of community strength. The lack of defined traditions and spiritual goals has left many of today's American adolescents confused. Jewish American adolescents, in particular, may not achieve a full sense of their religious and cultural background due to the preponderance of Christian symbols and ideology as well as to a de-emphasis of religion due to America's scientific/secular world view. A trip to Israel, the Jewish homeland, gives Jewish adolescents the chance to meet other Jewish people and to spend time in an environment which promotes Jewish ideology, history, and culture. Although past research on Jewish adolescents has found that a trip to Israel enhances a sense of Jewish identity, personality, and leadership skills (Kafka, London, Bandler, & Frank, 1990), no recorded empirical research has looked at possible changes in self-esteem. The goal of this research project was to determine if learning about and experiencing Israeli religious practices and culture foster greater Jewish self-esteem, Jewish identity, and/or self-concept for Jewish adolescents. The compiled data reveal that Jewish identity and Jewish self-esteem have a direct and positive bearing on each other. Jewish adolescents with a strong sense of Jewish identity are more likely to develop a higher level of Jewish self-esteem. Likewise, enhanced Jewish self-esteem is connected to a greater sense of Jewish identity. Although scores on the Jewish Identity and Jewish Self-Esteem Scales did not significantly correlate with self-concept scores on the Piers-Harris Children’ Self Concept Scale (1984), and the Piers-Harris scores did not significantly change over time, these results may be due to the above average pre-test self-concept scores of the participants. Adolescents from both the Camp and Israel groups scored in the above average range on the Piers-Harris Self-Concept Scale prior to and following the summer excursion. Directed at parents, scholars, and communities, this study calls attention to the importance of religiosity and culture to adolescent development. This research project also confirms this study's hypothesis that sending all Jewish adolescents to Israel between Middle and Late Adolescence lessens developmental ambiguity and strengthens self-esteem. By gaining an understanding of roots, identity, and self-esteem, adolescents and adults may become more accepting of themselves, thus enhancing their ability to be open and accepting of others—much needed qualities.     

THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BRITAIN

This article explores the theme of a purported lack of seriousness or superficiality in Anglo‐Jewish historiography. It begins with an analysis of the role this idea played as a catalyst for the first generation of organised or professionalising Anglo‐Jewish historians. It argues that the idea of “success”—whether economic, political or social—has been a thorn in the side of British Jewish historians since the late nineteenth century, and that the conceptualisation of Anglo‐Jewish history has been to a large degree a response to an ambivalence about Anglo‐Jewish “success”. After a consideration of early Anglo‐Jewish historians, the article turns to the work of contemporary historians of Anglo‐Jewry, and explores how this anxiety over success and seriousness has remained a spur, in both senses of the term: “Success” continues to be both an irritant and a catalyst for re‐interpretation.     

Between the Diaspora and Zion: Cecil Roth and his American friends

Near the start of his career (1925–1930) Cecil Roth developed a vision of the significance of the Diaspora to Jewish life, which he articulated during his tenure at the Intercollegiate Menorah Society Summer School of 1930. For Roth, Jewish creativity could be expressed only by possessing a firm grasp of Jewish history and its essentials. In his summer school lectures Roth sought to integrate Jewish history into the broader sweep of European history, while at the same time he introduced students to historical sources beyond traditional Jewish texts. In the aftermath of World War II Roth entered into a prolonged correspondence with the American Jewish historian Jacob Rader Marcus, who had recently founded the American Jewish Archives, whose purpose was to forward the study of Jewish history by collecting the documents that would enable future research. In their correspondence, Roth and Marcus enunciated an approach to Jewish history that would influence the field for a generation.     

Four chapters in the history of crypto-Judaism in Brazil: the case of the northeastern New Christians (17th–21st centuries)

The present work examines the history of a group of New Christians who were imprisoned by the Portuguese Inquisition between 1730 and 1740 in the northeastern Brazilian Captaincy of Paraíba. Our purpose is to assess the importance of Jewish interventions to the maintenance or resurgence of Jewish practices and Jewish identity among Portuguese conversos. Our point of departure is a discussion of three specific periods in the history of the New Christians of the Brazilian northeast: First, a period during which an openly-professing and Jewish community existed legally in Pernambuco under Dutch rule (1630–1654); second, the post-Dutch period, when a crypto-Jew who was not related to the group and harbored a stronger faith than its members, revived crypto-Jewish practices and instilled a crypto-Jewish identity among them. Third, we examine a much more recent period, beginning in the 1970s, in which historiography itself has played a central role in causing the local resurgence of crypto-Judaic practice and identity. We attempt to demonstrate that, contrary to the claims of traditional historiography on conversos, the Judaic practices and beliefs of the descendants of the Iberian Jews who converted to Christianity during the fifteenth century did not survive or reappear as a consequence of an uninterrupted cultural transmission of Jewish precepts; rather, these beliefs and practices survived because of external influences that the New Christians experienced in the course of their history.     

Homosexuality,the Halacha,and the helping professions

The position of Jewish writings on homosexuality is the topic of inquiry. Overt homosexuality, child homosexuality, and lesbianism are examined in the light of Jewish Halacha (law). Though Talmudic writings view homosexuality with severe disapproval, a sprrit of tolerance and compassion is also voiced in them. It is suggested here that Jewish law placed overt homosexuality in the category of illness to evoke compassion for it Halachic insights also suggest that homosexualities be viewed differentially. Activities involving minors and lesbians are not given equal weight in the realm of retribution. There are efforts to obviate social stigma. Prevention and rehabilitation are given major concern. To conclude the article, the role of the Jewish religious practitioner and his responsibilities vis-à-vis the homosexual client are given a brief examination.