The Jewishness of Jesus and ritual purity by Cecilia Wassen

“…The article also investigates questions concerning what Jewish identity in the late Second Temple period entails and how we may characterize the Judaism of Jesus’ time, especially in relation to purity concerns. …”
Get full text

Marqueurs d’oralité et proximité énonciative dans la traduction italienne de Dreyfus… de J.-C. Grumberg by Françoise Favart

“…Grumberg’s plays, Dreyfus..., places Jewish identity at the centre of its dramaturgy. The article first presents the theoretical framework in which our reflection takes place, focusing on orality in the literary text and also on J.…”
Get full text

The "Malestrom" at Christie Pits: Jewish Masculinity and the Toronto Riot of 1933 by Monda Halpern

“…This article argues that Jewish masculinity helped shape both the character and collective memory of the riot through the “macho-mensch” model, which highlighted the attributes of male physicality, ethics, and Jewish identity, and which excluded the role and commemoration of women.…”
Get full text

Representing the unrepresentable: Victor Klemperer's Holocaust diaries by Jerry Schuchalter

“…These narratives constitute important source material describing the mentality of the Jewish identity in Germany.…”
Get full text

“We Are Cousins. Our Father Is Abraham…”: Combating Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism with the Abraham Accords by Miriam F. Elman, Raeefa Z. Shams

“…This article highlights the unique framework for peacebuilding that underpins the Abraham Accords and discusses how it has generated a new flourishing of Jewish life in its signatory countries, including unprecedented efforts to address antisemitism and an acknowledgement of the centrality of Zionism to contemporary Jewish identity. We juxtapose these positive developments with the growing ostracism and demoralization of those Jews in the diaspora who identify with Israel and highlight how the Abraham Accords offers a different narrative for fruitful dialogue.…”
Get full text

Fra Praga e la Palestina: l’incontro di Kafka con Jakob Rabinowitz by Guido Massino

“…This paper attempts to throw light on a hitherto unknown episode in Kafka’s life in which two different paths of literature and Jewish identity delineate themselves, two paths which, according to Rabinowitz, exclude each other: the abstract-calculating path of the western Jewish writers and the path bound to the sanctity of «Reality» of future Hebrew literature in Palestine.…”
Get full text

“Jewish” Politics or the Politics of “Jews”?: On Israeli Nation-Statehood by Yaacov Yadgar

“…Schematically labelling these as Jewish politics versus the politics of Jews (and derived from these, the outlook of Israel as a “Jewish state” versus the notion of it being solely a “state of Jews”), I argue that the conflicting political and ideological constructions are nourished by different readings of Jewish identity and authenticity, which were first developed in Europe by leading (self-identified secular) Zionist ideologues, and later shaped mainstream readings of Israeli politics. …”
Get full text

Jews, Gentiles, and “in Christ” Identity: A Post-Supersessionist Reading of Philippians by Christopher Zoccali

“…Interpretations of Philippians have commonly suggested that the letter seeks to demonstrate the worthlessness of Paul’s own (former) Jewish identity, and thus that the Philippians should not be led astray by those who would persuade them to adopt the Jewish Law. …”
Get full text

"The great sin of today is the 'politicization' of our Judaism, the great need, the 'Judaization' of our politics": Leon Roth and the possibilities of a Jewish critique of Zionist... by Yadgar, Y

“…Specifically, the article focuses on three main themes: (a) the relation between Judaism and Jews, questioning the “ethnicist” foundation of Zionist ideology; (b) the relation between religion and politics as the two are constructed in modern European discourse, questioning the nationalist premise of the supremacy of nation-statist politics over religion; and (c) the meaning of Jewish secularism, questioning the Zionist claim to a “non-religious” Jewish identity. I argue that Roth’s critique of the moral failures of Zionism offers an illuminating explication of a Jewish critique of “the Jewish state”, while ultimately failing to form a coherent political voice because of its commitment to the concept of modern, nation-statist sovereignty.…”

Israel and the diaspora: problems of cognitive dissonance by Safran, W

“…Jews in the diaspora believe that Israel will be better supported by their hostland’s political right rather than its left; that Israel can be saved, despite itself, by a kind of ‘tough love’ bestowed upon it by the diaspora or its hostland governments; and that Jewish identity and survival, based on an autonomous and largely secular culture, can be assured regardless of whether Israel exists or not. …”

“Jewish” politics or the politics of “Jews”?: On Israeli nation-statehood by Yadgar, Y

“…Schematically labelling these as Jewish politics versus the politics of Jews (and derived from these, the outlook of Israel as a “Jewish state” versus the notion of it being solely a “state of Jews”), I argue that the conflicting political and ideological constructions are nourished by different readings of Jewish identity and authenticity, which were first developed in Europe by leading (self-identified secular) Zionist ideologues, and later shaped mainstream readings of Israeli politics. …”

Justly Forgotten or Unjustly Overlooked? Reconsidering Howard Jacobson’s Coming from Behind by Petr Anténe

“…Devoting close attention to the portrayal of British Jewish identity, intertextuality, and the use of comic and satirical elements, this article seeks to answer the question to what degree Jacobson’s debut novel laid foundations for his later fiction. …”
Get full text

Relocated from an Elevator to a Cattle Car: Intergenerational Transmission of Trauma in Thane Rosenbaum’s Elijah Visible by Stanislav Kolář

“…Despite his obsession with the Holocaust, Rosenbaum stresses his conviction that the Holocaust should not be the sole formative element of Jewish identity for his generation. The present article attempts to illuminate the mediation of traumatic experience between two generations and to show that the intergenerational transmission of trauma complicates relationships between survivors and their children, who have often felt burdened by the survivors’ silence about the Holocaust, resulting in the alienation of the post-Holocaust generation from their parents. …”
Get full text

The Deportation of Juan: Migration Rhetoric as Decolonial Strategy in Revelation by Mata Roberto

“…Rather than migrating to a place, believers embody the eschatological Exodus by rejecting food offered to idols and upholding the boundaries of Jewish identity as they wait for the full realization of God’s kingdom in the New Jerusalem. …”
Get full text

The Hebrew Bible in Ancient Jewish Education by Catherine Hezser

“… After the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple and the end of the sacrificial service in 70 CE rabbis made Torah study and observance the basis of Jewish identity. Since no organised Jewish school system existed in Roman Palestine, only a very small proportion of the mostly male Jewish population would have been able to read, and few people had access to Torah scrolls. …”
Get full text

Chabad on Ice by Mercédesz Viktória Czimbalmos, Riikka Tuori

“…They strongly rely on people’s sense of Jewish identification and Jewish identity. Individuals in the community ‘consume’ Chabad’s activities vicariously, ‘belong without believing’ or ‘believe in belonging’ but do not feel the need to apply stricter religious observance. …”
Get full text

Israel and the diaspora: problems of cognitive dissonance by Safran, W

“…Jews in the diaspora believe that Israel will be better supported by their hostland’s political right rather than its left; that Israel can be saved, despite itself, by a kind of 'tough love’ bestowed upon it by the diaspora or its hostland governments; and that Jewish identity and survival, based on an autonomous and largely secular culture, can be assured regardless of whether Israel exists or not. …”

Judaïsme et homosexualité. Entretien avec Frank Jaoui, porte-parole du Beit Haverim by Martine Gross

“…Its development also references transformations of the French Jewish world, marked by questioning of the place of religion in Jewish identity. While Jewish places of socialization, synagogues, and cultural centers do not allow gay or lesbian affirmation, Beit Haverim allows its member to not only live their homosexuality with a dimension of collective identity, but also to find support for another dimension of identity, their Jewishness. …”
Get full text

Rejected Children: On Kamil Kijek’s “Dzieci modernizmu: Świadomość, kultura i socjalizacja polityczna młodzieży żydowskiej w II Rzeczypospolitej” by Kornelia Sobczak

“…Using young people’s diaries which were sent to three competitions held in the 1930s by the Jewish Scientific Institute (YIVO), Kijek studies the ways young Jewish people described themselves, their visions of Jewish or Polish-Jewish identity, and the influence exerted on their attitudes and ideological choices by schooling, the activities of political youth organizations and the antisemitism of interwar Polish culture. …”
Get full text

Russian Jews in the Global City of Toronto: A Pilot Study of Identity and Social Integration by Larissa Remennick

“…Few Canadian studies of the resettlement experiences of Russian Jews focused on the issues of Jewish identity and its change upon migration. This exploratory ethnographic study included in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and observations of natural contexts of immigrants’ lives with the goal of comparing some key aspects of social integration between direct arrivals from the FSU and secondary migrants from Israel. …”
Get full text