An Atlantic Jewish republic of letters?

Atlantic port Jews began publishing English-language periodicals, pamphlets, and books during the 1840s as a means to advance an enlightened, observant form of Judaism, identified in large part with Sephardic rather than Ashkenazic religious culture and history. Three of their Jewish periodicals, the Voice of Jacob, edited by Jacob Franklin, Morris Raphall and David Aron de Sola and published in London, the Occident and American Jewish Advocate, edited by Isaac Leeser and published in Philadelphia, and the First Fruits of the West, edited by Moses N. Nathan and Lewis Ashenheim, and published in Kingston, Jamaica, provide historical evidence of the persistence of Atlantic port Jewish networks of commerce, communication, kinship and community well into the Victorian era. Publishing in a non-Jewish vernacular, and printing almost entirely in a non-Hebrew alphabet, this new “Atlantic Jewish republic of letters” did not however represent a secularizing trend. Rhetorically, ancient Jewish wisdom was invoked as the foundation, not the antithesis, of progress. The primary forces against which these editors, authors, and translators were reacting were religious, not secular in nature, namely Christian proselytizing and Jewish religious reform. Their self-conscious, programmatic activities led to the establishment of new kinds of enlightened religious educational institutions. Taken together, these phenomena constituted an Atlantic haskalah. I offer here my deep thanks and appreciation to Jonathan Karp, David Ruderman, Lois Dubin, and Kenneth Stow for their close readings and criticisms of earlier versions of this paper.     

Reliability and Validity of Scores From the Inventory of Drug Use Consequences

Psychometric properties of the Inventory of Drug Use Consequences (InDUC; W. M. Miller, J. S. Tonigan, & R. Longabaugh, 1995), a self‐report assessment of negative consequences associated with alcohol and other drug use, were investigated. The InDUC demonstrated sound psychometric characteristics and can be a valuable clinical tool for chemical dependency counselors.     

Relationship of Mental Health and Illness in Substance Abuse Patients

This study examined the latent structure of a number of measures of mental health (MH) and mental illness (MI) in substance use disorder outpatients to determine whether they represent two independent dimensions, as Keyes (2005) found in a community sample. Seven aspects of MI assessed were assessed - optimism, personal meaning, spirituality/religiosity, social support, positive mood, hope, and vitality. MI was assessed with two measures of negative psychological moods/states, a measure of antisociality, and the Addiction Severity Index's recent psychiatric and family-social problem scores. Correlational and exploratory factor analyses revealed that MH and MI appear to reflect two independent, but correlated, constructs. However, optimism and social support had relatively high loadings on both factors. Antisociality and the family-social problem score failed to load significantly on the MI factor. Confirmatory factor analysis supported the existence of two obliquely related, negatively correlated dimensions. Study findings, although generally supporting the independence of MH and MI, suggest that the specific answers to this question may be influenced by the constructs and assessments used to measure them.     

Effects of cultural background on WAIS‐III and WMS‐III performances after moderate‐severe traumatic brain injury

The assessment of cognitive function in individuals of culturally and linguistically diverse background poses considerable challenges for the psychologist, particularly when English proficiency is limited. This study explored the effects of diverse cultural background and non‐Western educational background on Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale‐Third edition (WAIS‐III) and Wechsler Memory Scale‐Third Edition (WMS‐III) performances in moderate‐severe traumatic brain injury within an outpatient rehabilitation setting. Participants were aged 16–65 years and met careful selection criteria. IQ, index and age‐scaled subtest scores were compared across three groups: (a) English‐speaking background (n = 130), (b) culturally and linguistically diverse background and education completed in English (n = 33), and (c) culturally and linguistically diverse background and non‐English education (n = 33). Cultural backgrounds included people of Asian, European, Middle Eastern, African and Oceania origin. Results were that the English‐educated culturally and linguistically diverse group performed lower than the English‐speaking background group on some verbal WAIS‐III measures; effect sizes were small‐moderate. The non‐English‐educated culturally and linguistically diverse group performed lower than both groups on several WAIS‐III and one WMS‐III measure, with large effect sizes. Clinical implications included the need for caution in interpreting test scores to avoid diagnostic errors and the need for further development of valid assessment tools.