{"title":"Hasidic Attitudes Toward the Non-Jewish World","authors":"M. Wodziński, W. Tworek","doi":"10.2979/jewisocistud.25.3.02","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/jewisocistud.25.3.02","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This article surveys the spectrum of Hasidic-gentile relations, from Hasidic perceptions of non-Jews to aspects of their everyday interactions as expressed in various Hasidic and non-Hasidic sources. We explore perspectives on non-Jews presented in Hasidic speculative teachings and consider the impact of these theories on the nature of Hasidic-gentile daily relations. We put particular emphasis on the level of egalitarian contacts among rank-and-file Hasidim and their neighbors. Additionally, we examine the cultural exchange between Hasidim and non-Jews as the least ideologized form of interaction between the two groups. By turning attention to Hasidic attitudes toward gentiles and their day-to-day relations, we aim to shed light on the understudied aspect of the Hasidic experience in Eastern Europe—an experience that took place among, and in complex interaction with, the Hasidim's non-Jewish neighbors.","PeriodicalId":45288,"journal":{"name":"JEWISH SOCIAL STUDIES","volume":"25 1","pages":"35 - 70"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2020-07-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48358640","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Territoriality and the Jewish Question: Otto Bauer and the Problem of Negative Identity, 1905–14","authors":"Eric Oberle","doi":"10.2979/jewisocistud.25.2.01","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/jewisocistud.25.2.01","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This article examines the writings of Austrian parliamentarian, editorialist, and social theorist Otto Bauer concerning the Jews of western, eastern, and central Europe. Though Bauer has been seen as a champion of the concepts of national and cultural autonomy in general, there is considerable scholarly confusion as to his views on whether the Jews did or could constitute a nation. Reconstructing Bauer’s role as a Marxian theorist of nationalism in the historical context of the Habsburg Empire between the first Russian Revolution and World War I, I make a case for the multilayered sophistication of Bauer’s concern with the central- and eastern-European question of nationalities, its relation to class struggle, and the place of the Jews in the dynamics of both. Bauer’s analysis of the Jews as a nation without a state, his interest in a theory of Jewish cultural hybridity, and his concern with the precarity introduced with any scheme of state partition or redefinition are all specifically grounded in the unique circumstances of the late Habsburg Empire but came to be of much broader relevance to twentieth-century theorists because they speak to an age of universal vulnerability. Exploring the proposition that Bauer’s concept of national identity always incorporated reflections on the “negative,” exclusionary, and weaponized dimensions of identity and group belonging, I argue that Bauer’s unique analyses of antisemitism and its relation to caste and class economies offer rich resources for reinterpreting the role of Jews alongside the problem of antisemitism in European history.","PeriodicalId":45288,"journal":{"name":"JEWISH SOCIAL STUDIES","volume":"25 1","pages":"1 - 48"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2020-02-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47865493","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Arab Labor, Jewish Humor: Memory, Identity, and Creative Resistance on Israeli Prime-Time Television","authors":"S. Goren","doi":"10.2979/jewisocistud.25.2.04","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/jewisocistud.25.2.04","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:The prime-time television comedy Arab Labor, created by Israeli-Palestinian writer Sayed Kashua, allows viewers to reconceptualize Israeli collective memory, rendering it more inclusive for non-Jewish citizens of the state. A close visual and textual analysis of one particularly bold episode, titled “Memorial Day” (Zikaron), reveals that the episode aims to bridge an existing gap between two formative narratives: the celebratory Jewish War of Independence and the Nakba, the Palestinian disaster of 1948. This daring cultural suggestion, indeed an antidiscourse, identifies productive intersections between these competing narratives. Moreover, by employing humor, irony, and the genre of the sitcom, the creators of the series mask a volatile criticism of prevailing social conventions and norms in contemporary Israeli society. The creative resolutions to the various crises the storyline raises—resolutions that on many occasions transgress social boundaries—create a meaningful space for identity negotiation and cultural intervention in the Israeli sociopolitical arena.","PeriodicalId":45288,"journal":{"name":"JEWISH SOCIAL STUDIES","volume":"25 1","pages":"107 - 126"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2020-02-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45914345","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Beyond Particularity and Universality: Moishe Postone and the Possibilities of Jewish Marxism","authors":"V. Murthy","doi":"10.2979/jewisocistud.25.2.05","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/jewisocistud.25.2.05","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Marx notoriously claimed that Judaism was particularistic and must be sacrificed in the process of universal human emancipation. In the past few decades, some Marxists have responded to Marx’s alleged antisemitism and attempted to rethink his work in relation to Jewish identity by supplementing his theory with poststructuralist critiques of universality. However, such methods risk ontologizing both Jewish identity and universal emancipation, being blind to how their conditions change historically. Moishe Postone’s rereading of Marx’s work enables us to avoid the political pitfalls associated with both the violent teleology of the universal and the radical indeterminacy of the particular by historicizing them in relation to capitalism. This article brings Postone’s work into dialogue with other Marxists and argues that he presents a Jewish, nonteleogical reading of Marx’s theory of history, which is especially relevant for us today.","PeriodicalId":45288,"journal":{"name":"JEWISH SOCIAL STUDIES","volume":"25 1","pages":"127 - 167"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2020-02-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42244079","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Yehudit Hendel’s Spectral Journey to Poland","authors":"Guy Ehrlich","doi":"10.2979/jewisocistud.25.2.03","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/jewisocistud.25.2.03","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Yehudit Hendel’s Le-yad kefarim sheketim (Near Quiet Places, 1987), which follows her 1986 visit to Poland, is read mostly as part of a broader discussion of Israeli Holocaust literature rather than as a vital part of Hendel’s oeuvre. This paper seeks to weave this work “back” into her corpus and to offer a new reading of one of her less discussed books. Although Hendel states that her journey followed a spur-of-the-moment decision, the intense presence of the Holocaust in her work from its inception suggests a different story. Furthermore, the evidence of material from Hendel’s literary estate requires not only that we rethink the trips she planned but never carried out during her journey but also that we take a fresh look at some trips that may have taken place yet were left out of her book. Hendel’s journey is a spectral, melancholic journey, which, as manifested in Le-yad kefarim sheketim, proves to be the only one possible.","PeriodicalId":45288,"journal":{"name":"JEWISH SOCIAL STUDIES","volume":"25 1","pages":"106 - 79"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2020-02-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44570542","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Israeli Aid and the “African Woman”: The Gendered Politics of International Development, 1958–73","authors":"D. Heller","doi":"10.2979/jewisocistud.25.2.02","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/jewisocistud.25.2.02","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:In the late 1950s, the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s Division for International Cooperation launched an initiative to present the state of Israel as a champion of women’s advancement in the developing world. One of Israel’s earliest initiatives for African women was the Kenya-Israel Rural Social Workers Training School. Drawing upon archival material from Israeli aid workers and politicians, United Nations advisors, and British officials who remained in Kenya after independence, this article explores the gendered dimensions of Israel’s international development program in Africa. The article brings into focus the importance of African domestic affairs for the evolution of Israeli development aid, the tensions that sometimes characterized relations between Israeli government officials and aid workers, and the discrepancy between the image of Israeli women’s empowerment promoted by Israel’s Foreign Ministry and the experiences of Israeli women working in Africa as technical experts.","PeriodicalId":45288,"journal":{"name":"JEWISH SOCIAL STUDIES","volume":"25 1","pages":"49 - 78"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2020-02-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47262633","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Creating a Cold War Boogeyman: Aron Vergelis's Political Career","authors":"Estraikh","doi":"10.2979/jewisocistud.25.3.04","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/jewisocistud.25.3.04","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45288,"journal":{"name":"JEWISH SOCIAL STUDIES","volume":"25 1","pages":"103-129"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69735960","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}