Cooperation in Turbulent Times: Strategies of Jews and Muslims in Amsterdam

Relations between Jews and Muslims in Amsterdam grew tense after the conflicts between Gaza and Israel in 2014, the violent attacks on Jewish targets in Brussels (2014), Paris (2015) and Copenhagen (2015) and local incidents of online, verbal and sometimes physical discrimination. Nevertheless, these factors also inspired Jews and Muslims to launch cooperation projects and strengthen the bonds already existing between them. Cooperation in turbulent times is not always easy. The data collected for this research show how Jews and Muslims in cooperation projects use to strategies to solve some of the problems confronting them. The three most widely used strategies that were found are ‘searching for similarities’, ‘decategorizing’ and ‘avoidance’. These strategies do not emerge in a vacuum, however, but at a certain moment in time, in specific fields. Therefore, this article, will describe the usage of the three strategies and explain the interaction between strategies and their contexts.     

Family size and psychological functioning in the Orthodox Jewish community

Caring for children is a known psychosocial stressor; however, its effects on psychological functioning may have substantial cross-cultural variance. We explored relationships between family size and a variety of psychological outcomes among Orthodox Jews in four separate studies: (1) an international treatment-seeking sample (n?=?82), (2) a community sample from Canada (n?=?226), (3) an out-patient clinical sample from greater New York (n?=?82), and (4) a large dyadic sample of Israeli couples (n?=?789). Surprisingly, results suggested that family size was not associated with greater stress, anxiety, depression, global functioning, family functioning, family communication, family satisfaction, or even parenting stress. It is possible that the high religious value placed on family life as well as structural adaptions in families buffer against potential stressors associated with child rearing, and further research on these potential effects is warranted.     

After the Shoah: Continuity and change in the postwar Jewish community of the Netherlands

The Dutch Jewish community is part of Western European Jewry and as such is part of what Bernard Wasserstein describes as the vanishing Diaspora. The community is one of Europe's smallest and it was also the Western European Jewish community most heavily damaged by the Shoah; it lost 75% of its population. It is surprising that the community still exists. It has gone through many changes, most notably in the 1960s. Progressive Judaism and the Lubavitcher Habad movement have made considerable inroads in the religious community, but the population has become largely secular, and new secular Jewish networks have been established. Dutch Jews have redefined their identity, shifting from “Dutchmen of the Israelite religion” to “Jews” or “people with a Jewish background,” belonging to a social and cultural minority. A small population exchange has taken place between Israel and the Netherlands. The brief baby boom after the Shoah and the newly formed networks outside the religious framework have revitalized the community. But most Jews in the Netherlands are married to non-Jews, and in spite of unique efforts to integrate the Israelis into the community, the future seems uncertain. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Introduction: the phenomenological method today

Continental Philosophy Review -     

Invention and convention: Jewish and Christian critique of the Jewish fixed calendar

The institution of the Jewish fixed calendar has provoked muchcontroversial discussion not only among Jewish, but also Christian scholars. The significant contributions to the subject by two of the great sixteenth-century polymaths, the Jew Azariah de' Rossi and the Christian Sebastian Münster, pinpoint the delicate nature of calendrical investigation. Münster's frequent use of one particular piyyut (a religious poem) to undermine the basis of the Jewish fixed calendar is intended to defend the contradictory calendrical data in the Gospels. De' Rossi implicitly attacks Muenster for his recourse to this unhistorical text. Yet de' Rossi himself is intent on proving that the Jewish fixed calendar is a late post-talmudic convention, an iconoclastic approach which was not welcome in certain rabbinic circles. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

犹太哲学:一种命定的宗教哲学--评《现代犹太哲学》

如果有人说西方哲学里有一种“基督教哲学” ,那么没人会感到惊讶 ,但是 ,如果说有一种“犹太哲学” ,那么许多人即使不感到惊讶 ,也会觉得很陌生。当《现代犹太哲学》 (傅有德等著 ,人民出版社 ,1 999,1 2 )一书摆在笔者面前时 ,我多少就有这种感觉。犹太民族贡献给西方世界乃至全人类的最伟大财富是以《圣经·旧约》为核心的一神教信仰。作为一种文明看 ,这种一神教信仰与古希腊文明的不同就在于 ,前者强调的是在践行神圣律法这种活生生的信仰实践中去领会上帝存在的真实性 ,去追寻和接受生活与世界的真实意义 ,而后者则要求在思想中 ,在…     

论犹太教崇拜手段——祈祷

以无形言辞的祈祷代替有形物质的献祭,被认为是古代犹太教的伟大创举之一.祈祷是宗教抽象化的一种重要表现,也是犹太教崇拜的一种手段.了解和认识犹太教中的祈祷及其作用,对于我们把握犹太教是十分重要的.本文以此为出发点,展开对犹太教崇拜手段--祈祷的论述.     

Abortion: A Jewish view

A practicing physician reviews the contribution of Jewish ethics, as it relates to the structure of Jewish law, to the issue of abortion. The topics approached include the status of the fetus, the relationship of fetus to mother, abortion and murder, therapeutic abortion, and the rights of the mother. The discussion describes rabbinic answers to abortion requests and is followed by a summary of the Jewish attitudes toward termination of fetal life. An appendix is provided, dealing with central aspects of Jewish ethics, the structure of Jewish law, their relationship, and a note on abortion legislation in Israel.     

Smoking: A Jewish view

The issue of smoking and Jewish law is explored. After the dangers from smoking are cited, various precedents in Jewish law are presented as the basis for confronting the matter of smoking. Arguments are suggested for strictly prohibiting smoking. The matter of the effects of smoking on the non-smoker is the subject of much research, and the dangers posed to the innocent bystanders are an added dimension pointing to the hazards of smoking and therefore indicating that it should be prohibited.Rabbi Dr. Reuven P. Bulka is editor of theJournal of Psychology and Judaism, published by Human Sciences Press for the Center for the Study of Psychology and Judaism in Ottawa, Canada.     

Soviet Jewish Refugee Women:

In the following article, you will meet some typical Soviet Jewish refugee women. Three came to America more than a decade ago, the others within the last eighteen months. Although they are from different regions and diverse backgrounds, their stories bear a common thread of the effects of living under totalitarian rule. They suffered anti-Semitism on the streets and sexual harassment in the work place. Yet even wife battering, overcrowded living conditions, and daily governmental repression would not induce any of them to seek professional help. Stress and trauma were never mentioned outside of the family.     

Biology and the Jewish question after the revolution: one Soviet approach to the productivization of Jewish labor

In the 1920s a group of health professionals and biologists in the Soviet Union embraced the nascent eugenics movement in order to justify the promotion of physical labor among Jews. Eugenics offered a scientific approach to solving the “Jewish question” through the productivization of Soviet Jewry. Drawing upon the work of Jean Baptiste de Lamarck, this group linked the settlement of Jews on the land to the belief that the physiognomy of Jews engaged in physical labor would be genetically passed on to their offspring. The goal was to overcome the perceived debilitating psychological and physical traits of shtetl Jewry by mobilizing Soviet Jewry for the building of socialism. By the late 1920s, however, eugenics fell victim to the Kremlin’s materialist conception of human society that emphasized social engineering and voluntarism and excluded biological influences on the transformation of Soviet society.     

Pilgrimage today: the meaning-making potential of ritual

Pilgrimage on the Road to Santiago is flourishing, even in late modern times characterised by detraditionalisation, individualism and pluralism. A large number of these pilgrims is either not explicitly religious at all, or only moderately religious. Why, then, do they submit to this ancient Christian ritual, and what are the psychological consequences? After a short introduction to the study of implicit religiosity and different perspectives on rituals from the past to today, current research on pilgrimage is reviewed and pilgrimage to Santiago is analysed as a personal ritual from a perspective of implicit religiosity. In the psychological theory of implicit religiosity, rituals are identified as one of three universal religious structures (along with myths and experiences of transcending) with strong meaning-making potential. Personal rituals are defined as formalised patterns of action, pointing beyond the actual event to a particular meaning imbued by the actor. Data from 85 pilgrims on the Road to Santiago are presented. Motives for peregrination, base-line sources of meaning, experienced meaningfulness and crises of meaning are reported, as well as changes in sources of meaning, meaningfulness and crises of meaning immediately after the pilgrimage and four months later. The majority of pilgrims (about two third) is motivated by a “need for clarification.” Multidimensional scaling shows that pilgrims either travel for explicitly religious reasons (conviction) or in search of clarification (quest); they either draw motivation from vertical transcendence (religiosity or spirituality) or from apparently purely secular reasons, such as athletic challenge. Religious and spiritual motives are mostly reported by highly religious individuals. A need for clarification is primarily stated by individuals who suffer from a crisis of meaning. Crises of meaning are significantly more frequent among pilgrims before the journey than in the general population. For the entire sample of pilgrims, the meaning-making potential of pilgrimage is supported by the data. Directly after the journey, as well as four months later, pilgrims experience life as significantly more meaningful, and crises of meaning are overcome. Pilgrims also report a strengthened commitment to vertical selftranscendence, horizontal selftranscendence and selfactualisation. These changes occur independently of the motivation for pilgrimage.