Pub Date : 2023-11-01DOI: 10.1353/ajs.2023.a911526
Benjamin Porat
Abstract: A legal system may limit its jurisdiction, so that its laws apply exclusively within its territorial borders. In an alternate conception, a legal system may opt to apply its laws extraterritorially, so that its subjects are bound to them in any place they find themselves. The theoretical foundations of these two conceptions of law are profoundly distinct. Using this jurisprudential framework, this article explores anew the transition from the biblical (pentateuchal) conception of law to the conception of law found in the writings of the early rabbis. It then examines whether this legal difference corresponds with a parallel theological transition. Revealing the possible relationships between these two transitions makes clear that theology and law are intertwined.
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Pub Date : 2023-11-01DOI: 10.1353/ajs.2023.a911553
Mark L. Smith
Reviewed by: The Holocaust and the Exile of Yiddish: A History of the Algemeyne Entsiklopedye by Barry Trachtenberg Mark L. Smith Barry Trachtenberg. The Holocaust and the Exile of Yiddish: A History of the Algemeyne Entsiklopedye. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2022. 293 pp. With this book, Barry Trachtenberg has achieved an enviable success in the fields of Yiddish and Holocaust studies. It will now be impossible to speak of the Yiddish encyclopedia without citing Trachtenberg’s comprehensive history, just as it is impossible to speak of YIVO without citing Cecile Kuznitz, or of Emanuel Ringelblum’s Oyneg Shabes Archive without citing Samuel Kassow. After two tantalizing articles and a dozen lectures over the past decade and a half, Trachtenberg has delivered a masterful treatment of the history of the Yiddish encyclopedia. [End Page 495] If he had written nothing more than his first introductory article in 2006,1 we would have the basic facts about the first and only encyclopedia to be published in Yiddish. Di algemeyne entsiklopedye (The general encyclopedia) was founded in Berlin in 1930 by leading Yiddishist scholars closely associated with YIVO, issued its first volumes in Paris from 1934 to 1940, and came to completion in New York from 1942 to 1966, as its creators relocated urgently to each of these centers of Yiddish culture. We would, likewise, know that its original goal of offering modernizing education to the prewar Yiddish-reading public—with ten alphabetical volumes of general knowledge, plus one devoted to Jewish topics—was ultimately transformed into a memorial project that ceased publishing general topics after five volumes (covering alef and most of beys) and produced seven volumes on Jewish topics (concluding with two on the Holocaust). But Trachtenberg has not spent the past sixteen years merely reading deeper in the Yiddish encyclopedia. He has attacked the underlying question: how best to recover and interpret a nearly forty-year story that moves, like the Yiddish lullaby “Ofyn pripetchik,” from starting to learn the alphabet at alef to discovering the many tears that lie within, when all that remains of the melody is a set of finely printed volumes. If Trachtenberg’s original article was a work of textual analysis, of cultural anthropology in which the encyclopedia was his chief source for reconstructing the conditions that created it, his book now reverses the process. He has mined archives across Jerusalem, New York, Amsterdam, Southampton, Cape Town, Boston, and Washington, to uncover correspondence, personal papers, financial records, speeches, advertisements, and press accounts. He has researched the biographies of the participants and the social, economic, and cultural circumstances of each of the centers in which they worked. He has accomplished his task by writing two books in one, intertwined page by page. One is a historical work that, if it barely touched on the encyclopedia, would itself be a not
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Pub Date : 2023-11-01DOI: 10.1353/ajs.2023.a911544
Sara Halpern
Reviewed by: International Jewish Humanitarianism in the Age of the Great War by Jaclyn Granick Sara Halpern Jaclyn Granick. International Jewish Humanitarianism in the Age of the Great War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. 418 pp. My step-grandfather, who directed the JDC’s (American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee) Jerusalem office, once told me: “The JDC went to help the Jews in Europe during World War I and then it was going to get out of business. Then there were crises in the 1920s, so the JDC stayed to solve those and then it’d get out of business. That didn’t happen. It’s been a hundred years and it’s still in business!” His words echo Jaclyn Granick’s meticulous research in her International Jewish Humanitarianism in the Age of the Great War. This book chronicles how American Jewish organizations, the JDC especially, expanded and transformed their philanthropic work overseas between 1914 and 1929. In contrast to non-sectarian American counterparts such as the American Relief Association (ARA) and American Red Cross, American Jewish organizations’ ethnic and religious ties to Jewish beneficiaries in east central Europe, the Soviet Union, and Palestine complicated their departure after 1921. They lingered via philanthropy, credit lending, loans, and advising in social and medical welfare. Granick argues that their leaders regarded American Progressive values and practices as superior to Western European ideas of solving the “Jewish question” in those regions. This proposition also worked as both complementary and antithetical to Zionism, which Granick tenaciously illustrates. Conversely, Jewish participation in social and economic welfare widens the interpretation of “humanitarianism” beyond Christian and nonsectarian frameworks in the United States and Western Europe. The book’s chapter structures betray seemingly infinite moving parts in the planning and execution of humanitarian work as American Jews sought to import social scientific expertise and formalize relationships with surviving Jewish communities and organizations. The targeted population numbered seven million, making their “scale, ambition, modern sophistication, and institutional insurance” [End Page 476] (26) unprecedented in the history of Jewish institutions. With rich evidence from twenty archives and five languages in four countries and an impressive synthesis of national studies, Granick argues that American Jewish humanitarian concerns for Jews in Europe and Palestine as an institution occurred “a full generation earlier” than acknowledged (20). American Jews engaged with the State Department and multiple Jewish and international financial networks to assist Jewish victims of the Great War for the first time. The introduction of Progressivism and rehabilitation as a path to self-sufficiency marked a clear departure from the European path in the historiography of Jewish solidarity and participation in imperialism. Yet it did not mean that American Jewis
书评:《一战时期的国际犹太人人道主义》作者:杰奎琳·格兰尼克。一战时期的国际犹太人人道主义。剑桥:剑桥大学出版社，2021。我的继祖父是JDC(美国犹太人联合分配委员会)耶路撒冷办事处的负责人，他曾经告诉我:“第一次世界大战期间，JDC去帮助欧洲的犹太人，然后它就要倒闭了。然后在20世纪20年代出现了危机，所以JDC留下来解决这些问题，然后它就倒闭了。但这并没有发生。已经100年了，它还在营业!”他的话呼应了杰奎琳·格兰尼克在她的《一战时期的国际犹太人人道主义》一书中细致的研究。这本书记录了1914年至1929年间，美国犹太组织，尤其是犹太共同委员会，是如何扩展和转变他们在海外的慈善工作的。与美国救济协会(ARA)和美国红十字会(American Red Cross)等非宗派的美国同类组织不同，美国犹太组织与东欧、苏联和巴勒斯坦的犹太人受益人在种族和宗教上的联系使他们在1921年后的离开变得更加复杂。他们通过慈善事业、信用贷款、贷款以及在社会和医疗福利方面提供咨询而徘徊。格兰尼克认为，他们的领导人认为美国进步主义的价值观和做法优于西欧解决这些地区“犹太人问题”的理念。这一主张也起到了补充和反对犹太复国主义的作用，格拉尼克顽强地说明了这一点。相反，犹太人参与社会和经济福利扩大了对“人道主义”的解释，超出了美国和西欧的基督教和非宗派框架。这本书的章节结构暴露了在人道主义工作的规划和执行中看似无限的活动部分，因为美国犹太人试图引进社会科学专业知识，并与幸存的犹太社区和组织建立正式关系。目标人口达到700万，这使得他们的“规模、野心、现代复杂性和制度保障”(End Page 476)在犹太机构的历史上前所未有。根据来自四个国家的二十份档案和五种语言的丰富证据，以及令人印象深刻的民族研究综合，格兰尼克认为，美国犹太人对欧洲和巴勒斯坦犹太人的人道主义关怀作为一个机构，比人们所承认的“早了整整一代人”(20)。美国犹太人首次与国务院以及多个犹太和国际金融网络合作，帮助第一次世界大战的犹太受害者。进步主义和复兴作为自给自足之路的引入，标志着犹太人团结和参与帝国主义的欧洲历史道路的明显背离。然而，这并不意味着美国犹太人道主义者会愉快地旅居他乡，为饥民提供食物，成为救世主。相反，他们面对的是，正如一位犹太犹太人委员会的工作人员所描述的那样，“一场规模巨大的灾难”(2)。在公众持续抵制美国参与全球事务的背景下，美国犹太组织开始与国务院就外交政策和帝国建设领域进行谈判，以便能够执行他们的使命。明确地说，格兰尼克调查了美国犹太人组织，特别是犹太共同委员会，如何通过输出进步主义价值观和文化，在提供食品、职业培训和医疗保健方面，在海外社区运用软实力。通过使美国模式适应当地社区的文化和需求，并促进犹太人的团结，他们希望这种现代化的方式能够稳定散居在脆弱地区的犹太人的未来。这本书探讨了多年来美国“集体主义犹太福利主义计划”(19)。在第一章中，Granick深入研究了JDC的官僚结构，这使得它看起来像“国家”，并引起了受益者对微观管理的批评(21)。这个讨论描绘了上城区的犹太银行家如何在国务院内部建立关系，越过敌线，并利用欧洲犹太人的金融网络来分配资金和物资。在第二章中，重点转移到(借用Peter Gatrell的话)随着帝国的崩溃，“第一次世界大战使犹太人成为一个整体的散居者”的后果(6)。JDC和希伯来移民援助协会(HIAS)重新设计了他们的紧急救援路线图，以与非宗派的美国组织和美国之友保持一致……
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Pub Date : 2023-11-01DOI: 10.1353/ajs.2023.a911523
Albert Evan Kohn
Abstract: This essay traces the development of the custom of singing table songs known as Shabbat zemirot during Shabbat meals in medieval Europe. Though a popular custom, its medieval formation has yet to receive scholarly attention. Informal Shabbat table singing was likely common for centuries, yet the earliest extant instructions to sing specific songs were written in thirteenth-century northern France and appeared shortly thereafter in Ashkenaz and Italy. The many manuscripts containing Shabbat zemirot reveal the custom's spread, growth, and popularity in these regions. Though preserved in writing, Shabbat zemirot and their tunes were primarily disseminated orally by families singing within their homes. Such orality encouraged flexibility and diversity in how the custom was performed. Once the songs were printed in the sixteenth century, a more rigid construction of the practice and its repertoire took shape. Included as appendices are lists of manuscripts containing Shabbat zemirot and tables of the most common songs.
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Pub Date : 2023-11-01DOI: 10.1353/ajs.2023.a911531
Amy Kalmanofsky
Reviewed by: The Death Wish in the Hebrew Bible: Rhetorical Strategies for Survival by Hanne Løland Levinson Amy Kalmanofsky Hanne Løland Levinson. The Death Wish in the Hebrew Bible: Rhetorical Strategies for Survival. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. 275 pp. Most of us have used some version of “kill me now” to apply rhetorical punch to an expression of dislike or frustration. We intentionally employ hyperbolic speech to make clear our distaste and objections. When we hear others use such expressions, especially those for whom we are responsible, we must assess how seriously we should take these statements. Similarly, when we encounter biblical characters who express death wishes, we should consider how literally to interpret them. Despite its morbid topic, Hanne Løland Levinson offers a fascinating, accessible, and even enjoyable analysis of biblical death-wish texts. In The Death Wish in the Hebrew Bible: Rhetorical Strategies for Survival, Løland Levinson examines the rhetorical intent of biblical texts within which characters express their desire to die or to be dead, a difference Løland Levinson explicates in her study. By placing these death-wish texts in conversation with each other, Løland Levinson discovers a variety of reasons characters express the desire to die or to be dead. Death wishes can reflect a character’s genuine desire to die. They can also express a character’s pain and are used as a negotiation tactic for altering their life’s circumstances. In the introductory first chapter, Løland Levinson presents the criteria for identifying death-wish texts and her methodology for analyzing them. Formulated in direct speech, generally addressed to someone in the second person, whether human or divine, death wishes frequently appear as conditional statements that can be direct appeals to die or be killed, or as indirect statements that question a character’s life’s worth. The dialogical element of death-wish texts is critical to Løland Levinson, who employs conversation analysis, the systematic analysis of talk in everyday interactions, in her case studies of these texts. Chapter 2 considers the death wish as a negotiation strategy in which the weaker party in the negotiation ups the stakes of the negotiation by uttering a death wish. Rachel in Genesis 30 and Moses in Numbers 11 provide Løland Levinson with convincing examples of characters who bargain with their lives. Rachel wants sons and Moses wants help managing the rebellious Israelites. In Løland Levinson’s reading, both characters express existential distress, but they do so to alter their circumstances. Their strategy works. Rachel has a son and Moses gets help with the appointment of the seventy elders. Chapter 3 examines death wishes that communicate anger and despair. The prophets Elijah and Jonah do not negotiate with their lives, as Moses and Rachel do. Instead, these prophets express a genuine desire to die. According to Løland Levinson, Elijah wishes to di
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Pub Date : 2023-11-01DOI: 10.1353/ajs.2023.a911525
Edna Nahshon
Abstract: This essay focuses on the compulsory Hebrew-language dubbing of Yiddish sound films during 1930s and 1940s in Mandatory Palestine (1920–1948). The term “dub” is a shortened version of the word “double” and denotes the practice of supplanting a film’s original language with another, mostly (though not exclusively) for translation purposes. Hebrew dubbing was a practical compromise that made it possible for Yiddish films to be screened in Palestine, albeit not in their original tongue. This was an arrangement that bridged the gap between the rigid ideological language restrictions commanded by the Hebraist leadership of the Yishuv, and the general population’s desire to enjoy films that represented a culture beloved by many. The topic of enforced dubbing, standing at the intersection of national language policy and popular entertainment, showcases the tension between the ideal of total Hebraization and the consumption of foreign-language cultural products.
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Pub Date : 2023-11-01DOI: 10.1353/ajs.2023.a911535
Rachel Furst
Reviewed by: In This Land: Jewish Life and Legal Culture in Late Medieval Provence by Pinchas Roth Rachel Furst Pinchas Roth. In This Land: Jewish Life and Legal Culture in Late Medieval Provence. Toronto: PIMS, 2021. 168 pp. The Jews of medieval Provence, positioned between the venerable settlements of Ashkenaz to the north and Sepharad to the south, have long drawn the attention of historians, thanks, in part, to the region’s rich municipal archives. Noted for their participation in local commerce and crafts and celebrated for their achievements in philosophy, linguistics, and the natural sciences, Provençal Jews have been hailed as purveyors of an idiosyncratic hybrid culture that bound together communities from three distinct political realms. In his recently published monograph, Pinchas Roth breaks new ground by highlighting this society’s engagement with and contributions to rabbinic scholarship, a field that has received far less attention than its economic foundations or more secular academic pursuits. Yet the real achievement [End Page 454] of this carefully crafted volume is methodological. Capitalizing on the author’s remarkable command of rabbinic literature from across medieval Europe, it pushes the boundaries of how halakhic sources can and should be read by historians, setting new standards in the study of both Jewish history and legal history at large. The book’s title, In This Land, echoes a rabbinic moniker for the region that stretched along the Mediterranean coast of southern France from Narbonne to Marseille. Through a close reading of rabbinic texts, Roth demonstrates that the Jews who lived in this area had a clear sense of group identity that defied the region’s political incoherence, an identity that expressed itself in the distinctiveness of their religious traditions, as well as in linguistic and cultural terms. Waves of English and especially French Jewish émigrés who arrived in Provence following expulsions at the turn of the fourteenth century challenged many of these local norms, believing their own to be superior. Yet rabbinic discourse reveals that Provençal Jews held their ground, resulting in what Roth dubs a “precocious multiculturalism” (26) that foreshadowed events precipitated by the mass eastward emigration of Jews from Spain and Portugal two centuries later. The book’s introduction familiarizes the reader with responsa, the genre of rabbinic writing that serves as the primary source material for this study. Here the author spells out the challenges of working with these often-arcane records of legal correspondence. At the same time, he argues for their potential to expose aspects of the internal lives and everyday realities of medieval Jews that other types of sources render opaque. This approach moves beyond classic halakhic history, which has concentrated either on rabbinic biographies or on the economic, social, and religious forces that impacted halakhic decision-making in different eras. Chapter 1 int
书评:《在这片土地上:中世纪晚期普罗旺斯的犹太人生活和法律文化》，作者:平查斯·罗斯在这片土地上:中世纪晚期普罗旺斯的犹太人生活和法律文化。多伦多:PIMS, 2021年。中世纪普罗旺斯的犹太人，位于北部古老的阿什肯纳兹定居点和南部的西法拉德定居点之间，长期以来一直吸引着历史学家的注意，部分原因是该地区丰富的市政档案。普罗旺斯地区的犹太人以参与当地商业和手工艺而闻名，并因其在哲学、语言学和自然科学方面的成就而闻名，他们被誉为一种特殊混合文化的提供者，这种文化将来自三个不同政治领域的社区联系在一起。在他最近出版的专著中，平查斯·罗斯(Pinchas Roth)开辟了新的领域，强调了这个社会对拉比学术的参与和贡献，拉比学术远不如其经济基础或更世俗的学术追求受到关注。然而，这本精心编写的书的真正成就在于方法论。利用作者对中世纪欧洲各地拉比文献的卓越掌握，这本书突破了历史学家可以和应该如何阅读哈拉基文献的界限，为犹太历史和法律史的研究树立了新的标准。书名《在这片土地上》(In This Land)呼应了拉比语对法国南部地中海沿岸从纳博讷(Narbonne)一直延伸到马赛(Marseille)地区的称呼。通过对拉比文本的仔细阅读，罗斯证明了生活在这个地区的犹太人有一种明确的群体认同感，这种认同感蔑视该地区的政治不一致性，这种认同感通过他们宗教传统的独特性，以及语言和文化的方式表达出来。一波又一波的英国人，尤其是法国犹太人在14世纪初被驱逐后来到普罗旺斯，他们挑战了许多当地的规范，认为自己的规范更优越。然而，拉比的论述表明，普罗旺斯地区的犹太人坚持了自己的立场，导致了罗斯所谓的“早熟的多元文化主义”(26)，这预示了两个世纪后犹太人从西班牙和葡萄牙大规模向东移民所引发的事件。这本书的介绍熟悉读者的回应，拉比写作的流派，作为主要来源材料的这项研究。在这里，作者详细说明了处理这些通常晦涩难懂的法律通信记录所面临的挑战。与此同时，他认为它们有可能揭示中世纪犹太人的内部生活和日常现实，而其他类型的资料都不透明。这种方法超越了经典的哈拉基历史，后者要么集中在拉比传记上，要么集中在不同时代影响哈拉基决策的经济、社会和宗教力量上。第一章介绍了罗斯在法律人类学家的启发下称之为“哈拉基文化”的概念——即社会规范、实践、价值观和动态，这些社会规范、实践、价值观和动态依次影响了犹太法律，并受其影响。这一章为整本书的核心主张奠定了基础:在这一时期，哈拉基话语不仅影响了撰写所有书面文本的男性知识精英，还涉及了广泛的普通犹太人。罗斯认为，法律概念构成了犹太人日常生活的基本词汇，他认为哈拉卡(Halakhah)表达了“妇女、非拉比知识分子、商人和农业工人”的事务和关切(32)，而不考虑他们对其具体规定和要求的忠诚。他打算用连续的五章来证明这一论断，这些章节按时间顺序从十三世纪下半叶开始，一直到一个世纪后普罗旺斯瘟疫爆发后的几年。每一章都展示了来自该地区的拉比学者，他们的方法和作品代表了当地法律环境的一个独特方面。因此，第二章关注的是Mordekhai Kimḥi，他是一个杰出的学者家庭的后裔，在十四世纪前后在拉比法庭任职。在这一时期，见证了罗马法在法国南部的融合，普罗旺斯的犹太人越来越多地求助于当地的公证人和法官处理民事事务，从本质上说…
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Pub Date : 2023-11-01DOI: 10.1353/ajs.2023.a911539
Hanoch Ben Pazi
Reviewed by: Towards the Mystical Experience of Modernity: The Making of Rav Kook, 1865–1904 by Yehudah Mirsky Hanoch Ben Pazi Yehudah Mirsky. Towards the Mystical Experience of Modernity: The Making of Rav Kook, 1865–1904. Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2021. 392 pp. I would like to consider this book from two different perspectives: the first, from an academic point of view, and the second, from a cultural perspective. It is not immediately clear which of these perspectives is more important, and, in fact, this suggests that both perspectives should be considered alongside one another, as they work in parallel. Rabbi Avraham Yiẓḥak ha-Cohen Kook was one of the prominent figures of the rabbinate and Zionist thought in the twentieth century. His name and reputation became iconic in Israeli society, and his theology was instructive in the formation of Israeli Religious Zionist thought. However, his teachings are neither studied nor familiar in Jewish circles outside of Israel. Yehudah Mirsky rejuvenates Jewish discourse about Rav Kook’s writings, and resituates his theology on the global philosophical landscape, through a new perspective on the search for the idea of mystical experience. The unique thought of Rav Kook has preoccupied Israeli research for about forty years, whether in terms of its historical context, its political context, or the kabbalistic tradition. Despite Rav Kook’s significance in these fields and his role as the chief rabbi of ʾEreẓ Yisraʾel, he only reached his special status as forerunner of Religious Zionist thought through the development of Israeli right-wing politics. In the years after the Six-Day War, Rav Kook’s later writings came to characterize his persona and thought. His books began to be viewed as part of the classic literature of Religious Zionists, who found in them spiritual inspiration as well as a strong religious authority upon which to build their national Zionist concept. As a result, the entire engagement with Rav Kook referred to his writings after his immigration to Israel in 1904, regarding the Zionist movement, Zionist struggles, and the theological meaning of Zionist history. The writings of his youth have all but disappeared from research and are conspicuously missing from the classic bookshelves of his writings. Mirsky’s book, which is the result of in-depth and comprehensive research, reveals hitherto unknown information and conclusions on the early period of Rav Kook’s life. This includes the author’s close examination of the period of Rav Kook’s life in Ziemel (Ziemelis, Lithuania) as well as of his first rabbinate in Boisk (Bauska, Latvia). Mirsky succeeds in doing what many have tried and failed to do. Instead of seeking out the hidden roots of Rav Kook’s [End Page 465] thinking, he dares his readers to honestly engage with the literature and thought of these different eras of his life and their historical and conceptual context. By reflecting on and analyzing Kook’s eastern European perio
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Pub Date : 2023-11-01DOI: 10.1353/ajs.2023.a911554
Joel Stokes
Reviewed by: Screen Shots: State Violence on Camera in Israel and Palestine by Rebecca L. Stein Joel Stokes Rebecca L. Stein. Screen Shots: State Violence on Camera in Israel and Palestine. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2021. 234 pp. Rebecca Stein’s 2001 Screen Shots is an ethnography of the camera. The book charts the relationship and respective agency between the camera, its bearer, and the photographic subject(s), set against the often violently and politically contested spaces of Israel-Palestine. While Stein’s source material is now several years old (collected since 2010), this book is as much a glimpse into the future of the Israeli-Palestinian context as its recent (2000 to present) history. Interviews with employees of Israeli NGO B’tselem, numerous Palestinian activists, Israel [End Page 497] Defense Forces (IDF) officials, and Jewish settlers in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) create a rich ethnographic narrative that grapples with the realities of the ever-more complicated ethical and legal frameworks of violent footage. Stein’s writing is lucid; presenting the reader with a well-constructed and considered argument. Despite the book’s quality and readability, it is not, however, a text for Israel-Palestine studies beginners. For educators, supplementary texts on Israel’s occupation over Palestinians such as Saree Makdisi’s Palestine Inside Out (2008) and Rashid Khalidi’s The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine (2020) are advisable. The need for additional material is compounded by Stein’s mini-malist introductory outline of related literature. This is not a criticism but worth noting. As a researcher/educator working in Israel-Palestine, I found that Stein’s work evidences extensive ethnographic research potential. In chapter 1, Stein begins her thesis framing the camera as an agent caught between being a tool for change or further conflict, alluding to later discussion regarding Israeli and Palestinian claims of legitimacy and authenticity. In doing so, Stein sets out for the reader the human stakes in the study context, most poignantly how possession of mobile phones (and therefore portable cameras) in Gaza between 2008–2009 made Palestinian civilians “legitimate” targets for aggression under IDF policy. Although detailed and well written, Stein’s early analysis can at times be repetitive, and could be sharpened. The introductory chapter brings the reader’s attention to the second of many photographs included in the book, notably that of Elor Azaria on the cover of Makor rishon magazine as “Man of the Year.” Here is as good of a place as any to note that, given the content of the book, Stein’s use of pictures throughout is refreshing in that it does not seek to entertain images for a shock factor. Stein’s interpretation of photographs is sophisticated, considered, and multifaceted. This is a strength of Stein’s work that should not be overlooked. In the second chapter, Stein continues to follow the work of B’tselem
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Pub Date : 2023-11-01DOI: 10.1353/ajs.2023.a911547
Ken Koltun-Fromm
Reviewed by: Authentically Jewish: Identity, Culture, and the Struggle for Recognition by Stuart Z. Charmé Ken Koltun-Fromm Stuart Z. Charmé. Authentically Jewish: Identity, Culture, and the Struggle for Recognition. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2022. 301 pp. The title to Stuart Charmé’s thoughtful book Authentically Jewish reads as provocation: What could “authentically Jewish” plausibly mean? Who commands the authority to decide what counts as authentic? And how do we recognize others as authentically or, even worse, inauthentically Jewish? If readers hold these skeptical questions in mind even before turning the first page, then the title has done its work, for Charmé believes these are precisely the rhetorical stances we should take toward the question of Jewish authenticity. Nowhere does Charmé decide matters of authenticity as he traces through a litany of modern Jewish texts and communities; instead he offers a framework for how to think well about claims to authenticity and the judgments we make about others who seek recognition for their Jewish practices. If some regard the notion of authenticity as an outdated and problematic term, Charmé appeals to a more nuanced, self-critical concept of authenticity that recognizes its cultural and political force. He draws upon his expertise in Sartrean existentialist philosophy to offer a thesis seeking to upend essentialist claims to authenticity by replacing them with nonessentialist, dynamic ones: “An authentically Jewish sense of self is always to some degree unstable and [End Page 483] unsettled. . . . Only in this way is it possible to transform an essentialist kind of genetic and cultural authenticity rooted only in the past into an existentialist one based on continually reaffirming the meaning of being a part of this group” (157). This “active dynamic sense of self” (157) is “a fluid process” (214) that requires “the forms of recognition that these constructions receive from others” (215). And so the subtitle to this work: claims to authenticity are (1) constructed out of fluid, nonfoundational identities and cultures, and (2) such claims seek out recognition from cultural authorities. Those who maintain essentialist views of authenticity—they all assume, Charmé argues, “some underlying core or solid foundation” (14)—will not be convinced by any of this. But for those struggling for recognition from outside or from within contemporary Jewry, Charmé’s text might read as a helpful scholarly approach that defends progressive models of authenticity. Essentialist claims arrive in two general forms: historical accounts that focus on “roots and origins” determined to be “old and uncorrupted” (11), and expressivist notions that “reflect or express something about their unique, innermost selves” (12). Both make claims to purity in some form that are decidedly nonfluid. These kinds of claims are generally taken up by “those who have successfully gained power and authority” in the Jew
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