Abstract:Epidemics were a part of early modern, and are still a part of modern, life. Yet, one catastrophic epidemic looms above others in popular historical thinking: the Black Death. A historical catastrophe, the Black Death carries a particular resonance in Jewish history, as the event provoked the outbreak of violence against Jewish communities across Europe and the massacre of Jews in large numbers. A popular reckoning of this episode suggests that Christians blamed Jews for the outbreak or spread of the plague on the belief that whereas Christians were perishing in droves, Jews had escaped the worst of the plague's lethal impact. Although the claim was without basis, in time writings by and for Jews came to accept the premise of Jewish resistance to plague, but they transvalued the meaning and memory of the Black Death persecutions from conspiratorial accusations to indications of Jewish prudence and sanitary behavior. Historical writing about Jews and the Black Death over the centuries—both frequently appearing yet limited in scope—reflects a history of both the changed political circumstances in which such writing was produced and the impact of advances in understandings of medical theory as it furnished authors with a structuring narrative about collective identity in the past.
{"title":"Imagined Immunities: Medieval Myths and Modern Histories of Jews and the Black Death","authors":"Joshua Teplitsky","doi":"10.1353/ajs.2022.0045","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ajs.2022.0045","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Epidemics were a part of early modern, and are still a part of modern, life. Yet, one catastrophic epidemic looms above others in popular historical thinking: the Black Death. A historical catastrophe, the Black Death carries a particular resonance in Jewish history, as the event provoked the outbreak of violence against Jewish communities across Europe and the massacre of Jews in large numbers. A popular reckoning of this episode suggests that Christians blamed Jews for the outbreak or spread of the plague on the belief that whereas Christians were perishing in droves, Jews had escaped the worst of the plague's lethal impact. Although the claim was without basis, in time writings by and for Jews came to accept the premise of Jewish resistance to plague, but they transvalued the meaning and memory of the Black Death persecutions from conspiratorial accusations to indications of Jewish prudence and sanitary behavior. Historical writing about Jews and the Black Death over the centuries—both frequently appearing yet limited in scope—reflects a history of both the changed political circumstances in which such writing was produced and the impact of advances in understandings of medical theory as it furnished authors with a structuring narrative about collective identity in the past.","PeriodicalId":54106,"journal":{"name":"AJS Review-The Journal of the Association for Jewish Studies","volume":"172 1","pages":"320 - 346"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73928031","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
of Jewish doubt in the first decade of the twentyfirst century, Hasidic communities began to express increased resistance to the Internet, seeing it explicitly as a moral threat to the sanctity of the Jewish home. Using language of addiction and mental illness to frame discourse around smartphones and technology, women experienced increased pressure to take an active role in protecting their homes from this danger and to ensure children were properly educated about the evils of the Internet. In one of the most emotional chapters of the book, Fader explores the impact of carrying “family secrets” and the struggles of those living adjacent to lifechanging doubt. Here, we see the profound struggles of those complicit in the double life of a spouse or parent, whether by enabling it or ignoring it. What is it like for a child or spouse to hold a family secret that they know might jeopardize their standing in the community? And what are the ethical implications of “rearing children to participate in a dominant public ideology, while simultaneously and secretly undermining that ideology” (207)? The tension Fader’s subjects experience between the desire to conform alongside a deep longing for personal autonomy and selfexpression are very modern and profoundly relatable for all of us living with contradiction in this digital age. Amid a global pandemic where so much of our lives has shifted to online spaces, it is normal to navigate between “real lives” and virtual spaces in a reality that is shaped by social media curation, fake news, and “deepfakes.” What does Jewish doubt look like in an age ruled by doubt where the simulacra of digital media mock any attempt to hold on to absolutes? Indeed, the story of Jewish doubt Fader presents in Hidden Heretics is so compelling and relatable precisely because in some ways, we have all become double lifers.
{"title":"The Divine in Modern Hebrew Literature by Neta Stahl (review)","authors":"Chen Mandel-Edrei","doi":"10.1353/ajs.2022.0070","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ajs.2022.0070","url":null,"abstract":"of Jewish doubt in the first decade of the twentyfirst century, Hasidic communities began to express increased resistance to the Internet, seeing it explicitly as a moral threat to the sanctity of the Jewish home. Using language of addiction and mental illness to frame discourse around smartphones and technology, women experienced increased pressure to take an active role in protecting their homes from this danger and to ensure children were properly educated about the evils of the Internet. In one of the most emotional chapters of the book, Fader explores the impact of carrying “family secrets” and the struggles of those living adjacent to lifechanging doubt. Here, we see the profound struggles of those complicit in the double life of a spouse or parent, whether by enabling it or ignoring it. What is it like for a child or spouse to hold a family secret that they know might jeopardize their standing in the community? And what are the ethical implications of “rearing children to participate in a dominant public ideology, while simultaneously and secretly undermining that ideology” (207)? The tension Fader’s subjects experience between the desire to conform alongside a deep longing for personal autonomy and selfexpression are very modern and profoundly relatable for all of us living with contradiction in this digital age. Amid a global pandemic where so much of our lives has shifted to online spaces, it is normal to navigate between “real lives” and virtual spaces in a reality that is shaped by social media curation, fake news, and “deepfakes.” What does Jewish doubt look like in an age ruled by doubt where the simulacra of digital media mock any attempt to hold on to absolutes? Indeed, the story of Jewish doubt Fader presents in Hidden Heretics is so compelling and relatable precisely because in some ways, we have all become double lifers.","PeriodicalId":54106,"journal":{"name":"AJS Review-The Journal of the Association for Jewish Studies","volume":"36 1","pages":"447 - 449"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74842588","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
and punished more harshly for crimes compounded this issue. In a lengthy and valuable discussion in the introduction, ShohamSteiner traces how and why Wissenschaft scholars, Zionist historians, and Orthodox Jewish historiography steered clear of this topic, even consciously omitting sources that dealt with crime from collections of rabbinic responsa. He also notes that the tendency to write lachrymose history rendered Jewish crime a subject that was antithetical to broad narratives of Jewish history. Joining a host of other scholars of medieval and early modern Europe who have focused on daily life, ShohamSteiner’s work nevertheless stands out as exemplary for his choice to analyze sources that had been purposefully disregarded. The book concludes with eleven appendices in which ShohamSteiner translated some of the rich sources that are prominent in his book. These will prove extremely useful to readers who cannot read the original Hebrew sources. Jews and Crime in Medieval Europe is thus an innovative work of scholarship that is accessible to and relevant for students and scholars alike, providing new insights into a topic that was willfully neglected by previous generations of scholars.
{"title":"Iberian Moorings: Al-Andalus, Sefarad, and the Tropes of Exceptionalism by Ross Brann (review)","authors":"Isabelle Levy","doi":"10.1353/ajs.2022.0056","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ajs.2022.0056","url":null,"abstract":"and punished more harshly for crimes compounded this issue. In a lengthy and valuable discussion in the introduction, ShohamSteiner traces how and why Wissenschaft scholars, Zionist historians, and Orthodox Jewish historiography steered clear of this topic, even consciously omitting sources that dealt with crime from collections of rabbinic responsa. He also notes that the tendency to write lachrymose history rendered Jewish crime a subject that was antithetical to broad narratives of Jewish history. Joining a host of other scholars of medieval and early modern Europe who have focused on daily life, ShohamSteiner’s work nevertheless stands out as exemplary for his choice to analyze sources that had been purposefully disregarded. The book concludes with eleven appendices in which ShohamSteiner translated some of the rich sources that are prominent in his book. These will prove extremely useful to readers who cannot read the original Hebrew sources. Jews and Crime in Medieval Europe is thus an innovative work of scholarship that is accessible to and relevant for students and scholars alike, providing new insights into a topic that was willfully neglected by previous generations of scholars.","PeriodicalId":54106,"journal":{"name":"AJS Review-The Journal of the Association for Jewish Studies","volume":"60 1","pages":"415 - 417"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"91239743","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
and divergent identities emerged in part from a more empathetic acknowledgment of the ”rupture, confusion, and displacement“ that marks so many of Kandiyoti’s multicultural examples. This brings me to a final remark about the ideological stance of the book itself, which in my view is marred occasionally by animosity against certain identities, especially Zionist and Orthodox Jews. This is an uncharitable dimension in a book that otherwise offers an enlightening account of literary and cultural experiences—Turkish, Latinx, Native American, Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Spanish, and French—seldom gathered together in such an erudite and brilliantly crafted discussion.
{"title":"The Memory Work of Jewish Spain by Daniela Flesler and Adrián Pérez Melgosa (review)","authors":"D. Kandiyoti","doi":"10.1353/ajs.2022.0067","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ajs.2022.0067","url":null,"abstract":"and divergent identities emerged in part from a more empathetic acknowledgment of the ”rupture, confusion, and displacement“ that marks so many of Kandiyoti’s multicultural examples. This brings me to a final remark about the ideological stance of the book itself, which in my view is marred occasionally by animosity against certain identities, especially Zionist and Orthodox Jews. This is an uncharitable dimension in a book that otherwise offers an enlightening account of literary and cultural experiences—Turkish, Latinx, Native American, Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Spanish, and French—seldom gathered together in such an erudite and brilliantly crafted discussion.","PeriodicalId":54106,"journal":{"name":"AJS Review-The Journal of the Association for Jewish Studies","volume":"32 1","pages":"441 - 443"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81206614","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Planet Auschwitz: Holocaust Representation in Science Fiction and Horror Film and Television by Brian E. Crim (review)","authors":"Monica Black","doi":"10.1353/ajs.2022.0060","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ajs.2022.0060","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":54106,"journal":{"name":"AJS Review-The Journal of the Association for Jewish Studies","volume":"72 1","pages":"425 - 427"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73416377","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"ברכת \"שלא עשנ י גוי\" וחלופותיה: לגלגוליה של ברכה אחת במרחב היהוד י הגרמנ י במאה התשע עשרה","authors":"אסף ידידיה","doi":"10.1353/ajs.2022.0079","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ajs.2022.0079","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":54106,"journal":{"name":"AJS Review-The Journal of the Association for Jewish Studies","volume":"150 1","pages":"? - ?"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75761042","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Retrospective Imagination of A. B. Yehoshua by Yael Halevi-Wise (review)","authors":"Adia Mendelson-Maoz","doi":"10.1353/ajs.2022.0071","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ajs.2022.0071","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":54106,"journal":{"name":"AJS Review-The Journal of the Association for Jewish Studies","volume":"32 1","pages":"450 - 452"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87924354","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:In November 1968, Leo Rosten published his best-selling lexicon, The Joys of Yiddish. The present essay traces the reception history of this iconic text, framing its analysis with the three Yiddish variations of "joy" that Rosten includes in his volume: naches, simcha, and mechaieh. These terms circumscribe both the positive and negative reception of his work, alternately highlighting the enthusiasm of devoted readers and fueling the ire of the most enraged. The paper further identifies moments in the reading history of Rosten's work when the wager of postvernacular Yiddish culture brushes up against the interpretive perspectives of Yiddish activists. Examining both the "joys" that Rosten includes and those he does not brings into relief the emotional goals and strategies of the volume and situates this paper in the emerging debates in Jewish studies concerning affect.
{"title":"The Joy of Joys: A Reception History of Leo Rosten's Yiddish Lexicon","authors":"Sunny S. Yudkoff","doi":"10.1353/ajs.2022.0047","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ajs.2022.0047","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:In November 1968, Leo Rosten published his best-selling lexicon, The Joys of Yiddish. The present essay traces the reception history of this iconic text, framing its analysis with the three Yiddish variations of \"joy\" that Rosten includes in his volume: naches, simcha, and mechaieh. These terms circumscribe both the positive and negative reception of his work, alternately highlighting the enthusiasm of devoted readers and fueling the ire of the most enraged. The paper further identifies moments in the reading history of Rosten's work when the wager of postvernacular Yiddish culture brushes up against the interpretive perspectives of Yiddish activists. Examining both the \"joys\" that Rosten includes and those he does not brings into relief the emotional goals and strategies of the volume and situates this paper in the emerging debates in Jewish studies concerning affect.","PeriodicalId":54106,"journal":{"name":"AJS Review-The Journal of the Association for Jewish Studies","volume":"25 1","pages":"374 - 397"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80757438","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:This article discusses the biographies of two well-known ultra-Orthodox rebbetzins (rabbis' wives): Sarah Sonia Diskin (1816–1906) from the Old Yishuv of Jerusalem and Alte Feige Teitelbaum (1912–2001) from the Satmar court of New York. While reviewing the lives of Rebbetzins Diskin and Teitelbaum, the paper explores the function of the ultra-Orthodox rebbetzin and explores how this position allows some women a degree of freedom and recognition. The paper presents the sociological model of the "two-person single career," whereby a husband and wife jointly enhance the man's vocation, thereby also elevating the social status of his wife, and examines the extent to which this model is applicable in the case of the rebbetzins discussed in this paper.
{"title":"The Sociological Model of Haredi Rebbetzins: \"Two-Person Single Career\" vs. \"Parallel-Life Family\"","authors":"M. Keren-Kratz, M. Inbari","doi":"10.1353/ajs.2022.0043","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ajs.2022.0043","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This article discusses the biographies of two well-known ultra-Orthodox rebbetzins (rabbis' wives): Sarah Sonia Diskin (1816–1906) from the Old Yishuv of Jerusalem and Alte Feige Teitelbaum (1912–2001) from the Satmar court of New York. While reviewing the lives of Rebbetzins Diskin and Teitelbaum, the paper explores the function of the ultra-Orthodox rebbetzin and explores how this position allows some women a degree of freedom and recognition. The paper presents the sociological model of the \"two-person single career,\" whereby a husband and wife jointly enhance the man's vocation, thereby also elevating the social status of his wife, and examines the extent to which this model is applicable in the case of the rebbetzins discussed in this paper.","PeriodicalId":54106,"journal":{"name":"AJS Review-The Journal of the Association for Jewish Studies","volume":"64 1","pages":"270 - 290"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90143318","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
vanquished in 1945. As Crim puts it, “It is not [The Omen’s] Damien, or even Satan, who should frighten us; it is our complacency, our powerlessness, and ultimately our complicity in making the Antichrist’s victory inevitable” (125). In his conclusion, Crim crystallizes his case for a rigorous examination of works of the imagination as keys both to our collective postHolocaust consciousness and to our understanding of the past. Holocaust imagery forms a cultural “reservoir,” Crim writes, an “archive comprising indelible and recyclable images” (196). What happens to those images once they are released and recombined is unpredictable and can be profoundly disturbing. Not all science fiction and horror films that take the Holocaust as their theme are worthy of discussion in quite the same way or qualify equally “as a form of ethical confrontation” (6). Crim is very candid about that fact. But he also underscores Dan Stone’s key point that while historians talk about the Holocaust as the event that puts the lie to the idea of “Western civilization,” we often write about it in “aloof, methodical” terms that “may inadvertently normalize genocide” (2). After all, knowing “the facts” does not necessarily produce empathy or enlightenment. But sometimes, perhaps, fiction can.
{"title":"Mystifying Kabbalah: Academic Scholarship, National Theology, and New Age Spirituality by Boaz Huss (review)","authors":"Jeremy Brown","doi":"10.1353/ajs.2022.0061","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ajs.2022.0061","url":null,"abstract":"vanquished in 1945. As Crim puts it, “It is not [The Omen’s] Damien, or even Satan, who should frighten us; it is our complacency, our powerlessness, and ultimately our complicity in making the Antichrist’s victory inevitable” (125). In his conclusion, Crim crystallizes his case for a rigorous examination of works of the imagination as keys both to our collective postHolocaust consciousness and to our understanding of the past. Holocaust imagery forms a cultural “reservoir,” Crim writes, an “archive comprising indelible and recyclable images” (196). What happens to those images once they are released and recombined is unpredictable and can be profoundly disturbing. Not all science fiction and horror films that take the Holocaust as their theme are worthy of discussion in quite the same way or qualify equally “as a form of ethical confrontation” (6). Crim is very candid about that fact. But he also underscores Dan Stone’s key point that while historians talk about the Holocaust as the event that puts the lie to the idea of “Western civilization,” we often write about it in “aloof, methodical” terms that “may inadvertently normalize genocide” (2). After all, knowing “the facts” does not necessarily produce empathy or enlightenment. But sometimes, perhaps, fiction can.","PeriodicalId":54106,"journal":{"name":"AJS Review-The Journal of the Association for Jewish Studies","volume":"1 1","pages":"427 - 429"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88779728","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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