Why did the crowd think St Peter was drunk? An exercise in applied sociolinguistics

… And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. And they were amazed and wondered, saying, 'Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judaea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians, we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God. And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, 'What does this mean?' But others mocking said, They are filled with new wine'. But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them, 'Men of Judaea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my words. For these men are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day'     

Is there still a “Jerusalem School?” Reflections on the state of Jewish historical scholarship in Israel

This essay examines the study of Jewish history in Israel at the juncture of two currents: the ongoing expansion of an international community of Jewish studies scholars and the waning interest in the field in Israel itself. Mindful of the latter trend, it is easy to adopt a declensionist narrative, according to which the “Jerusalem School,” with its monolithic and Palestinocentric view of the past, has run its course. And yet, that framing occludes a number of novel tendencies in Israel, arising in the present “post-post-Zionist” moment, that expand the contours of Jewish historical scholarship in productive ways. They include: the well-known and controversial work of the “New Historians;” the work of a succeeding generation of scholars who have brought new intellectual and methodological openness to the study of Zionism; the work of Israeli scholars who have introduced a new measure of reflexivity through careful examination of the history of Jewish historiography; and the work of Israeli scholars who have eschewed the once-regnant view of an “immanent causality” in Jewish history. In conclusion, the article suggests that kernels of these trends were present in the founding generation of scholars at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, though the current generation of scholars is both more critical toward the Zionist nationalist narrative and more global in its orientation.     

“On That Day,His Feet Will Stand on the Mount of Olives”: The Mount of Olives and Its Hero between Jews,Christians, and Muslims

This article examines the changing Jewish attitudes toward the Mount of Olives, and toward the identification of its “hero” to come in the last days, in relation to the mount’s changing jurisdiction under Roman, Byzantine, and Muslim authority. It illustrates how the Christian appropriation of biblical ideas about the mountain—transforming the ascent and future descent of the Shekhinah into the ascent and future descent of Jesus—led the Jews to abandon those notions, and how the Muslim conquest then brought about a reinvigoration and expansion of the mountain’s original associations among Jews by relocating the appearance of the Messiah as well as apocalyptic scenes on the mount. In the first of these developments, the Byzantine prohibition against Jews approaching Jerusalem led to a distancing of the Jewish people from the biblical and postbiblical traditions that had been connected with the Mount of Olives and its environs during the Second Temple period. Subsequently, the Muslim occupation of the area neutralized that tension, allowing Jews to return to the mountain and restoring the traditions associated with it to the Jewish consciousness. The reaffirmation of the Jewish connection with the Mount of Olives and its ancient association with the future hero may be seen in two developments that took place under Muslim rule: its choice as the location for a yearly Hoshana Rabbah ceremony and its renewed identification as the site for the resurrection of the dead at the End of Days.     

Transculturality and tradition - renewing the continuous in late modernity

The status and sovereignty of Jerusalem remains one of the most difficult, not to say the most difficult issue to be resolved before a lasting peace can arrive to the Middle East region. This article assumes that any solution to the Jerusalem-issue should be strongly accompanied by a shared vision of it among Jews, Christians and Muslims. In order to explore and elucidate the religious importance and reconciliatory potential of Jerusalem, selected writings by the British scholar and Anglican bishop Kenneth Cragg are examined in light of metaphorical theory (Lakoff &; Johnson). The article demonstrates how the theological and interreligious elasticity of Cragg's approach related to core issues within Christian teaching, and in conversation with the Jewish and Islamic tradition, exhibits an attempt at negotiation and expansion of the meaning of Jerusalem. Such attempts are surely needed if this central metaphor is to be shared among people and traditions with high stakes in the Holy City.     

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.     

The kotel: Toward an ethnographic portrait

An ethnographic portrait of the ‘Western Wall’ (kotel) in Jerusalem, is presented. The kotel is viewed as a pilgrimage site, a ‘place of memory’, and a location linked to a story. Most discussions of the kotel stress its history and archaeology, while this study utilizes ethnography to understand the meanings of the site to a range of social categories. The challenge faced by ethnography is that the social context of the kotel is constituted by Jewish groups all over the world and by cultural distillates stemming from millennia of history. By providing both an overview of kotel activities, and a more detailed examination of several kotel occasions, the paper points to the potential contribution of ethnography to understanding national‐religious shrines.     

The Ottoman approach to Christians and Christianity in sixteenth‐century Jerusalem

The Ottoman Empire was a Muslim state not only by definition; in many fields it actually implemented Islamic policies. In Ottoman Palestine these policies could be discerned from the early sixteenth century onwards, and they were applied particularly in Jerusalem. Laden with memories of religious conflicts, encompassing a Christian (as well as Jewish) population and their holy sites, it would hardly be surprising to find anti‐Christian acts and perhaps even policies in Jerusalem. The sixteenth‐century formative Ottoman years witnessed several anti‐Christian incidents: expulsion of the Franciscan monks from their convent on Mount Zion in 1551, Muslim attempts to legally seize parts of the Monastery of the Cross near Jerusalem from the Georgians in the early sixties, and during the same years similar threats to the Coptic Dayr al‐Khadr monastery in town. These incidents should not be construed as part of an overall policy, but should rather be seen as illustrations of pressures exerted on the Ottoman authorities by local Muslim zealots. Official policies of the Sultan, and in most cases his actual orders, sought to protect and uphold the Christian presence in Jerusalem. The expulsion from Mount Zion was an exception to the general rule, and even in that case the local authorities provided the Franciscans with an alternative building within the larger Christian complex.     

Genetic Counseling for the Orthodox Jewish Couple Undergoing Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis

Orthodox Jewish patients who seek genetic counseling are often placed in a difficult position of having to choose between their desire to follow Jewish religious instruction (halacha) and following the advice of the genetic counselor. In this article we will present the work of the Puah Institute based in Jerusalem that is dedicated to assisting and guiding such couples to navigate through the medical system and medical recommendations and create a harmony between modern genetic counseling and the Orthodox Jewish tradition. In light of the expanding use of preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) for a variety of medical and non-medical conditions, this dilemma is even more poignant. There is an ethical debate regarding PGD and the correct parameters for its use. Here we present the Orthodox Jewish view of the use and abuse of PGD. We present three case studies that sought the assistance and guidance of the Puah Institute. Each of these cases raises ethical dilemmas for the genetic counselor and for the rabbinic counselor. We discuss; the status of the embryo, the status of a carrier of a genetic abnormality and whether PGD is an obligation or good practice. In addition we deal with whether PGD and the search for the desired traits can be defined as eugenics or not.     

Akiva Yosef Schlesinger—a forerunner of Zionism or a forerunner of ultra-orthodoxy

Rabbi Akiva Yosef Schlesinger (Pressburg 1838—Jerusalem 1922) is considered by some scholars to be a forerunner of ultra-Orthodoxy, but by others as a forerunner of Zionism. This article unravels this enigmatic personality, demonstrating that he was indeed a forerunner of ultra-Orthodoxy who was motivated by a complete rejection of modernity and promoted religious positions that were more radical than those of the Hatam Sofer. Those who associate Schlesinger with Zionism are misled by the fact that he encountered fierce opposition from his Hungarian colleagues and from the “Yishuv hayashan” in Jerusalem, advocated the use of the Hebrew language and promoted a “settlement” programme in Palestine. The article suggests that Schlesinger's programme was in reality designed to create a sacred utopian society, and was motivated by his desire to isolate the traditional Jewish community from modernity, rather than by a nationalist ideology. Furthermore, the opposition of the Jerusalem rabbis to Schlesinger's ideas was based largely on his unusual religious positions and his suggestion that the youth should be engaged in work. In analysing Schlesinger's legacy, the article also clarifies the distinctions between ultra-Orthodoxy and Zionism, as well as some common elements that they share.     

The Evolution of a Pauline Toxic Text

The earliest followers of Jesus authored their identity narrative within the metanarrative of Jewish faith, thereby creating a new Jewish-Jesus sect. The Christian identity narrative arose as a new story and could not call upon either a Jewish or a Pagan metanarrative for its justification. It was a new creation inspired by the Spirit and authored by Paul. With his guidance, the Pagan followers of Jesus, Christians, articulated their personal and communal experiences of empowerment by the Spirit in a new identity narrative that would in time establish itself as the dominant metanarrative for Western civilization. Members of the Jewish-Jesus community in Jerusalem immediately denied the validity of the Christian narratives. They sought to subjugate the new story to their official and dominant story: that one had to be Jewish in order to follow Jesus. Paul urges the Christians to remain faithful to their personal stories of empowerment by the Spirit. Unfortunately, he also resorts to the use of toxic texts to disenfranchise his Jewish opponents.     

Ethnography and Jewish Ethics

This essay offers a Jewish approach to ethnography in religious ethics. Following the work of other ethnographers working in religious ethics, I explore how an ethnographic account of reproductive ethics among Haredi (ultra‐Orthodox) Jewish women in Jerusalem enhances and improves Jewish ethical discourse. I argue that ethnography should become an integral part of Jewish ethics for three reasons. First, with a contextual approach to guidance and application of law and norms, an ethnographic approach to Jewish ethics parallels the way ethical decisions are made on a daily basis in Jewish communities. Second, ethnography bolsters the voices of those involved in ethical discourse. Third, ethnography facilitates the bridge between local ethical questions and global ethical discourse.     

Change in the cultural patterns of a Jewish society in crisis: Italian Jewry at the close of the sixteenth century

This article is a revised version of a paper delivered at the Conference on Jewish Societies in Transformation in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, held at the Van Leer Institute, Jerusalem, 1986.     

French Calvinism and Judaism

Abstract

Calvin's language against the Jews, as that of the other Reformers, is invariably harsh. Nevertheless, some of his doctrines—the quasi equal status of the two Testaments in matters of faith, but also Original Sin which transformed all human beings, the Jews among them, into sinners—make room for new attitudes: Jews are bad, corrupt and stupid, but Catholics are even worse. Calvin believes that there are still some elected among the Jews. With Beza, this legacy then deepens. Despite variations (millenarianism and irenism, the continually worsening status of the Huguenots), changed attitudes towards the Jews survive in the 17th century, and in the Refuge are reinforced by direct contact with Jews and new conceptions of Jewish history, which in Bayle and Basnage becomes normal human history. Persecutions are not divine punishment, but human evil, and parallelisms between Jewish and Huguenot history become evident. In France's ‘Desert’ clandestine and persecuted Huguenots identify themselves with the captive and persecuted Jews and Jerusalem under siege.     

Reflections by a nineteenth‐century convert to Islam on Judaism and Christianity in Ottoman Jerusalem

The Khalidi Library in Jerusalem contains a number of valuable works pertaining to Muslim‐Christian relations during the Ottoman period, and in this paper an effort is made to elucidate one such text, a unique anonymous essay entitled Al‐risala al‐sabi^ciyya fi ibtal al‐diyana al‐yahūdiyya. As the title suggests, the essay presents itself as a work of a Jewish convert to Islam; pressed to justify what he has done, he gives seven reasons for his conversion, and then lists two sets of seven similarities and differences between Islam and Judaism that have also served to encourage his conversion.

In this paper it is argued that the essay is actually the work of a Christian convert, probably one who wrote in Jerusalem in the late nineteenth century. Seeking to justify his conversion, but hesitant to reject openly the central doctrines of Christianity, he pretends to be a Jewish convert and argues for the superior position of Islam among the three monotheistic faiths. This tactic, while uncommon, is known from other parts of the Near East, and a convert in Jerusalem would have been in an excellent position to become aware of such writings.

While most of his arguments are familiar from the arsenal deployed in disputations of the past, this author's essay is valuable for its illustration of the hesitation and doubt that must have accompanied most acts of conversion, and for the way in which it draws attention to the fact that Christian—Muslim relations—especially in Jerusalem—have always proceeded within the broader context of relations. among the three great monotheistic religions in general.     

HOLOCAUST COMMEMORATIONS IN LONDON AND ANGLO‐JEWISH (DIS‐)UNITY

This study of selected episodes of Holocaust commemorations in London (UK) sheds light on the tense and ambiguous relationship between commemoration of the Holocaust and Anglo‐Jewish unity. Many have shared the aspiration for Anglo‐Jewish unity at Holocaust commemorations, but a narrow definition of “unity”, as taken to mean centralization, uniformity and consensus, has been restrictive and has not served the desired end. As these case studies demonstrate, despite the high level of cohesion achieved by the rituals of the ceremony and the collective mourning, Holocaust commemorations have also been occasions of conflict and disunity. It is the recent proliferation of commemorations in the 1990s, taking place in a diverse range of Jewish organizations and institutions rather than one combined memorial gathering, that has led to Anglo‐Jewry’s uniting in common moments of remembrance. These differing approaches to the nature, form and content of Holocaust commemorations should be perceived not only as a positive development for the future of Holocaust remembrance in Britain but also an indication of an increasingly healthy Anglo‐Jewry.     

Hugo Kauder's unexpressed philosophical concept: Schelling's transcendence,Nietzsche's visions and Buber's Israel

Hugo Kauder, born in 1888 near Prague, composer, instrumentalist, theoretician and music-philosopher, came to Vienna in 1905, left Austria after the Novemberpogrom 1938 and reached New York via the Netherlands and England in 1940. In 1938 Tel Aviv was also one of his intended havens (parts of Kauder's estate are kept at the National Library of Israel, Jerusalem). Engaged in the crisis discourse in Vienna's postwar period of the early 1920s, Kauder drafted his philosophical ideas under the influence of Friedrich Schelling and Friedrich Nietzsche, also speculating on music-teleology, mysticism and cosmology. Corresponding with the German philosopher Rudolf Pannwitz, with the authors Karl Wolfskehl and Erich von Kahler, Kauder expressed his Jewishness – much more as a mindset than an active Jewish identity. Coming from a system of transcendental and natural philosophy combined with Christian ideas, Kauder moved to a more complex syncretism also reflecting on Jewish topics. Kauder did not organize his ideas into a concept, they are, rather, the theoretical framework of his educational books and are widespread in his essays and letters.     

BRITISH JEWISH PREACHERS IN TIME OF WAR (1800–1918)

Beginning in the eighteenth century, occasions related to war became a significant new venue for Jewish preaching. The declaration of war or its conclusion, a government‐proclaimed Day of National Fasting and Prayer or of Thanksgiving, a major victory or defeat of the nation’s armed forces – all generated sermons by Jewish preachers, who not infrequently publicized what they said beyond the synagogue walls. These sermons reflect the patriotic identification of Jews with the nation where they resided, the desire to demonstrate this loyalty to the larger society, the homiletical application of classical texts and historical precedents to new situations, the challenge presented by war to assumptions about human progress, the theological conundrum of enemy nations praying for victory to the same God, the poignant agony of Jews fighting against other Jews. This article reviews Jewish sermons delivered by British preachers mobilizing the rhetorical resources of Jewish and general literatures to express absolute identification with the Crown, the Government and the Empire, as well as sermons that express deep discouragement about the devastating cost of war in material, cultural, psychological and religious terms.     

The emergence and development of tradition in reform Jewish worship, 1970–1999

It is axiomatic to note the increased amount of traditional ritual, customs, ceremonies and observances in Reform Jewish worship in the past three decades. These include hakafot, talitot, kippot and bowing the head and bending the knee during prayer. Although we may disagree about when to mark the beginning of this increase (Maurice Eisendrath, then president of the umbrella organization of Reform congregations, insisted in his 1964 autobiography, Can Faith Survive?, that he “wanted no neo-Orthodoxy in Reform today”), I argue that the end of the dignified English service with hymns such as “All the World has Come to Serve Thee” became widespread only in the 1970s, primarily because of the influence of a generation of Reform rabbis who, beginning in 1970, were required to spend a year in Jerusalem. I explore the use of the word mitzvah as a test case, noting its absence before this period, the continued discomfort with it on theological grounds (the increase in tradition was not accompanied by any return to traditional theological categories), but the comfort with it when used as an equivalent for tsedakah or tikkun olam. And I use several synagogues as case studies of the implications — better, ambivalence — about this phenomenon.     

Rassenschande,Genocide and the Reproductive Jewish Body: examining the use of rape and sexualized violence against Jewish women during the Holocaust?

Rape and sexual violence against Jewish women is a relatively unexplored area of investigation. This article adds to the scant literature on this topic. It asks: how and why did women's reproductive bodies (gender), combined with their status as Jews (race), make them particularly vulnerable during the Holocaust? The law against Rassenschande (racial defilement) prohibited sexual relations between Aryans and non-Aryans. Yet, Jewish women were raped by German men. Providing a more nuanced account than is provided by the dehumanization thesis, this article argues that women were targeted precisely because of their Jewishness and their reproductive capabilities. In addition, this piece proposes that the genocidal attack on women's bodies in the form of rape (subsequently leading to the murder of impregnated women) and sexualized violence (forced abortions and forced sterilizations) must be interpreted as an attack on an essentialized group: woman-as-Jew.     

Jewish pioneers on Canada’s prairies: The Lipton Jewish agricultural colony

This article offers a detailed analysis of the forces that shaped the Lipton colony in its 50-year existence, one of several dozen attempts to establish Jewish agricultural settlement on Canada’s Western prairies. Comparing both the particularities and the common features of Lipton with those of other colonies will allow strengthening some of the commonly accepted generalizations regarding these colonies, while at the same time showing other assumptions to be questionable or even myth. * A detailed discussion of the Jewish agricultural colonies in Western Canada may be found in Yossi Katz and John C. Lehr, The Last Best West: Essays on the Historical Geography of the Canadian Prairies (Jerusalem, 1999). Other sources discussing the colonies and the reasons for their establishment and ultimate disappearance are: Louis Rosenberg, “Jewish Agriculture in Canada” YIVO Annual of Social Sciences 5 (1950), 205–215; Louis Rosenberg, Canada’s Jews: A Social and Economic Study of the Jews of Canada in the 1930s (Montreal, 1931); Abraham J. Arnold, “The Contribution of the Jews to the Opening and Development of the West” Transactions of the Manitoba Historical Society Series 3 no. 3, (Winnipeg, 1968–’69).