History of the Jews

Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum was born in 1887 to his father Rabbi Hanania Yom-Tov Lipa Teitelbaum, chief rabbi of Sighet, the capital of Maramureş County, Hungary. The father was a Rebbe to his Hasidim, headed the local yeshiva, and was one of the top leaders of Hungarian Orthodoxy. During his childhood, Rabbi Yoel was known as a prodigy but was not destined to continue the family’s Hasidic or rabbinic dynasty, as this role was reserved for his older brother - Rabbi Haim Tzvi. At seventeen, soon after his father’s death and the ordination of his older brother as his successor, the newlywed Rabbi Yoel and his wife were forced to leave Sighet.

They settled in nearby Satmar (Satu Mare) where Rabbi Yoel began gathering a small group of disciples. Several years later he was elected as chief rabbi of the remote village Orshiva, but during World War I he returned to Satmar and established a small yeshiva, dividing his time between Satmar and Orshiva. In 1926 he was elected as chief rabbi of Kroly (Carei) in Transylvania, Romania and two years later he was elected chief rabbi of Satmar. This appointment faced substantial public opposition and it took Rabbi Yoel six years of fierce and scandalous struggle until he eventually took office in 1934. During that waiting period he also tried to run for a rabbinate office in other communities, including that of the Edah Haredit (the ultra-Orthodox community) of Jerusalem.

Rabbi Yoel was known to have a stubborn, controversial and argumentative personality. Wherever he wanted to serve, public debates arose and the newspapers accused him in using improper means during the election process. At the same time, he was also known as a religious zealot, and several extremist Orthodox groups acknowledged him as their spiritual leader. Following his ordination as chief rabbi of Satmar, Rabbi Yoel gained an important leadership role among the extreme-Orthodox, and became known for his unwavering opposition to modernity, Zionism and even to the ultra-Orthodox party Agudat Israel. In the late 1930s, after a long public campaign, he was elected to the leadership of the Central Bureau of the Orthodox Jewish communities of Transylvania. In that position he was able to influence the lives of over one hundred and fifty thousand religious Jews in that region.

In his personal life, Rabbi Yoel suffered a series of tragedies. After losing his father at an early age, he was expelled from his hometown, Sighet. He and his wife could not give birth to a son, and two of their three daughters died young and childless. His chronically ill wife died soon thereafter, as well as Rabbi Yoel’s mother and brother. He married again, but although his wife was young and healthy, she too did not bear him any children. Following this second marriage, Rabbi Yoel and his only daughter became estranged and they hardly spoke until she died, also at a young age. This surviving daughter was also barren meaning that Rabbi Yoel had no grandchildren to succeed him.

During World War II Rabbi Yoel was involved in various rescue operations for refugees who fled Poland. As danger grew, he sought to get a certificate that will allow him and his close family to immigrate to Palestine. Failing that, he abandoned his community and escaped along with a small group of friends from Satmar, but was caught and sent to the ghetto of Cluj. He was spared from being sent to Auschwitz as he was included in the small group saved by Zionist activist Israel Kasztner’s rescue train. He and the rest of the passengers were taken to Bergen-Belsen, where they were detained for a few months. Later the group was released to Switzerland where Rabbi Yoel stayed for a few months. He did not return to lead and to comfort the survivors that returned to Satmar after the Holocaust, nor did he join the relief operations conducted by other rabbis in the refugee camps in Germany.

After his stay in Switzerland, Rabbi Yoel decided to settle in Jerusalem. The leaders of the ultra-Orthodox community, who were aware of his aggressive and argumentative personality, shunned away from him. As a result, the institutions he established failed and he was on the verge of bankruptcy. His only hope to repay his tremendous debt was by raising funds in the United States. Humiliated and destitute Rabbi Yoel was forced to travel to the land he always considered the most hostile and spiritually dangerous environment for Orthodox Jews.

After arriving in the United States, it became clear to Rabbi Yoel that he will never be able to raise enough funds to save his institutions in Jerusalem. Having no place to return to, he decided to settle in New York. Oddly enough, it was in this notorious “New World” that Rabbi Yoel was able not only to establish his own congregation, but also to significantly expand and develop it. Within a few years he attracted a large circle of supporters and devotees and created a congregation which, he claimed, resembled that of an East-European “Shtetel.”

However, in order to succeed in his mission, Rabbi Yoel had to apply significant un-traditional innovations that were inconceivable in the East-European “Shtetel.” He established a Hasidic education system, including one for girls, which introduced secular teachings and summer camps. He also encouraged his followers to go to work or to establish their own small businesses. His delegates cooperated with government and municipal officials who helped the poor Hasidim to get public housing, professional training and social benefits. That innovative spirit was one of the main reasons his Hasidic court grew rapidly and prospered economically. Rabbi Yoel used funds gathered by his adherents to support the Eda Haredit in Jerusalem, and in 1952, just a few years after he was forced to leave Jerusalem, he returned triumphant to be declared president of the Edah Haredit.

One of the reasons for Rabbi Yoel’s unparalleled success, beyond his personal charisma and leadership qualities, was his anti-Zionist and Extreme Orthodox ideology. His views were published in two major books, Va-Yoel Moshe – published in the late 1950s, and Al Ha-Geula Ve-Al Ha-Temura – published after the Six Days War. These books were re-printed numerous times, and new editions are still being printed to this day. The radical ideas expressed in these books still affect and guide the Satmar Hasidic court and some of the other Hungarian courts, as well as some marginal groups of zealots, also known as Neturei Karta.

At the time of his death, in 1979 and still today, Rabbi Yoel was undoubtedly one of the most recognized and influential Jewish leaders in the post-Holocaust era. His community had tens of thousands of Hasidim and the education system he established was amongst the largest in the Jewish world outside Israel. Ideas expressed by Rabbi Yoel have influenced the rest of Orthodox society and thus the Jewish society in general. Today, about forty years after his death, the “Satmar” trademark is still strong and still synonymous with religious zealotry. The spiritual and practical foundations laid by Rabbi Yoel continue to fuel the ever-growing expansion of the Satmar Hasidic court that today has more than a hundred thousand followers worldwide.

In 1900, the German Empire was extremely shaken by a violent crime. To the east of the country , in the province of West Prussia in the town of Chojnice (Ger. Konitz), a junior high school student, Ernst Winter, was murdered. The circumstances of the case and the manner of the crime led the local population to believe that the boy had been killed by the Jews in order to win his blood for ritual purposes. The accusation of the local Jewish population resulted in a rapid increase in the hostility of Christians (Germans and Poles) towards their Semitic neighbours. The lie about the guilt of the Jews quickly went through the entire province, and then reached the furthest corners of Germany. In Chojnice, riots and numerous attacks on Jews and their property took place. Anti-Jewish excesses have spread rapidly in West Prussia. The course of the investigation and its relationship with the anti-Jewish riots was described by the main representative of the Polish press in West Prussia – Gazeta Toruńska. Słowa kluczowe: antysemityzm, mord rytualny, przesądy, Żydzi, katolicy, Chojnice, ekscesy anty-żydowskie, Prusy Zachodnie, oskarżenie, Rzesza Niemiecka, " Gazeta Toruńska " W XIX wieku prasa stała się głównym środkiem rozpowszechniania informacji. Było tak do czasu zmonopolizowania rynku medialnego przez telewizję w XX wie-ku. Za pośrednictwem gazet propagowano różne idee społeczne i polityczne, w tym antysemityzm, który wzmógł się w Niemczech po 1871 roku. Rynek prasowy w zjed-noczonej Rzeszy był jednym z najlepiej zorganizowanych w Europie – obok Anglii i Francji. Z każdą dekadą poprawiała się jakość i szybkość dziennikarstwa na szczeb-lach lokalnych, gdzie prowadzono dyskusje o palących kwestiach, opisywano afery kryminalne lub nawoływano do głosowania do sejmiku itp.

Il contributo affronta, tramite l'utilizzo di fonti archivistiche, il ruolo svolto dagli ebrei di Messina nel commercio degli schiavi in Sicilia tra tardomedioevo e prima età moderna. L'obiettivo è una prima ricostruzione dell'inserimento di alcuni componenti della comunità giudaica peloritana nel lucroso traffico di questa preziosa "merce umana" e dell'atteggiamento dell'aljama nei confronti di importanti problematiche come la redenzione degli ebrei ridotti in schiavitù.

ערב רב: פנים וחוץ בוויכוח הפרנקיסטי הוא ספר מרתק וחדשני החושף את סיפורה הייחודי של התנועה הפרנקיסטית, תנועה יהודית אפיקורסית שצמחה בפולין והתפשטה במרכז אירופה במחצית השנייה של המאה ה-18.

בעיני רוב היהודים פרנק היה 'משיח שקר' ידוע לשמצה. בעיני נוצרים נאורים ומיסיונרים מילנריסטים היה יהודי-נוצרי ואדם חופשי בדעותיו, שלו קשרים מסתוריים והוא משתמש במגיה ובמאגרי עושר סודיים. עבור מאמיניו היה למבשר שחרור מן המסגרות המקובלות המדכאות של מגדר, הלכה, מעמד, משטר ודת.

התנועה הפרנקיסטית עוררה הדים והיתה סלע מחלוקת גם בקרב גורמים דתיים ופוליטיים לא יהודיים: יוזף השני, קתרינה הגדולה, גתה, קזנובה ואחרים. תורותיו של יעקב פרנק, מנהיג התנועה, הציבו אתגר בפני היהדות הנורמטיבית, אך גם בפני האסלאם וזרמים בנצרות. הספר מברר מחלוקות פנימיות ביהדות המודרנית אך דן גם ביחסים בין יהודים לסביבתם במאות ה-18–ה-19.

ערב רב מבוסס על מקורות פנימיים שחיברו פרנק ומאמיניו, על מקורות יהודיים פולמוסיים אנטי פרנקיסטיים, ועל מקורות שכתבו גורמים לא יהודיים בני הזמן. דרכו המוקצנת של יעקב פרנק עוררה עניין רב בו ובתנועתו, ולקורא מוגש ניתוח מעמיק של פרשה היסטורית ייחודית זו.
המחבר, ד"ר פאבל מצ'ייקו מן האוניברסיטה העברית בירושלים, חוקר את תולדות היהודים בפולין-ליטא בעת החדשה. נולד בוורשה וקיבל תואר דוקטור מאוניברסיטת אוקספורד. פרסומיו הרבים זיכו אותו בפרסים, במלגות ובמענקי מחקר רבים. שימש מרצה אורח באוניברסיטאות שונות, בארצות הברית, בצרפת, בגרמניה ובפולין.

Despite their numerous similarities, Marranos in inquisitorial Spain and Recusants (and the so-called ‘Church Papists’), English Crypto-Catholics, in the wake of the English religious reforms, have rarely been studied concurrently. In this paper I will argue that secrecy was a central feature of the daily lives of both these minorities, and it helped them function as groups despite their internal diversity, experiencing a wide array of expressions of belonging. The elasticity of the groups’ religious practices clearly contributed to the rise of new forms of worship and to the creation of new ritual objects which could be validated by diasporic belief systems. As a consequence, beyond criticisms, these communities functioned as significant vectors of change in how their entire religious groups practiced their faiths. Ultimately, it appears that both Crypto-Jews and Crypto-Catholics existed as cohesive groups as much because their members shared religious practices as due to the diasporic culture of martyrdom.

Researchers have long questioned how debunked myths such as the blood libel – the notion that Jews used Christian blood in their ceremonies – were able to persist for so long. This essay explains the social function of such myths in one context by presenting a public debate on Judaism carried out in the pages of the two leading Christian periodicals of the early eighteenth century in Germany. One journal put forth the orthodox Lutheran viewpoint, the other that of “Pietist” reformers. Through these journals, a battle took place for control of the Lutheran church, and thus for much of public life in Protestant Germany. Because Pietists believed Jews to hold a special place in God’s plan, they sought to rehabilitate Jews to their Christian readers and to argue for better conditions for Jewish communities. Orthodox Lutheran leaders quickly identified Pietists’ “Jew-friendly” policies as an Achilles’ heel. To attack Pietists, the orthodoxy dredged up and re-publicized centuries-old anti-Judaic propaganda, negative images that the orthodoxy linked to Pietists. Representatives of the Lutheran orthodoxy thus deployed anti-Judaic stereotypes in order to shore up their own church-political hegemony. Through this media manipulation, the Lutheran state church was able to seed fear among Christian readers and to argue that Pietist reformers and Jews were pollutants that needed to be cleansed from church and society.

History in general and the study of religious fundamentalism in particular, as well as the ongoing conflicts between various Muslim groups in the Middle East, teach us not only the importance of religious identity but also about the lengths that those who seek to hold on to a specific identity are prepared to go. This article addresses one minor manifestation of this vast phenomenon.

From the mid-19th century onward, Hungarian Jews began to acquire a unique religious and social identity that set them apart from other European Jews. Its single most distinctive feature was the formal separation between Orthodox and Non-Orthodox Jews, almost as if they belonged to two different “Jewish churches.” For the first and only time in Jewish history, the Orthodox Jews were able to administer their own communities in accordance with halachic laws and were no longer forced to compromise with non-Orthodox Jews.

Following WWI, Transylvania, a former Hungarian district, was annexed to Romania. Consequently, its Jews were cut off from their Hungarian homeland, which had previously enabled them to establish their own Jewish identity. Reluctant to lose their distinct characteristics, they sought and received governmental permission to establish communities and institutions in accordance with their former lifestyle. This led to the establishment of a religiously and culturally autonomous enclave within which the Jews of Transylvania, many of whom were Orthodox, led their public life differently from all the other Romanian Jews.

This article focuses on the development of the separate Orthodox institutions and communities in Transylvania. It surveys the characteristics and inner conflicts of Transylvanian Orthodoxy. It then proceeds to demonstrate how the unique set of circumstances that evolved during the interwar period facilitated the strengthening of Orthodoxy’s radical wing, which I call Extreme Orthodoxy, which sought to establish itself as an enclave within an enclave.

This sector’s achievement, however, ended with catastrophic results. The uncompromising leaders of this ultra-conservative, anti-Zionist and separatist camp hampered the efforts of other Orthodox leaders to prepare for the impending Holocaust. This, consequently, led to the almost complete annihilation of North-Transylvanian Orthodox Jewry. Nevertheless, the radical ideas of Transylvania’s Extreme Orthodoxy endured, and after the Holocaust were disseminated throughout the Jewish world by the camp’s best known survivor and its prominent spokesman – Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum, the Satmar Rebbe.

As Ordenações Afonsinas constituem a primeira compilação de direito pátrio. Destinavam-se essencialmente a carrear para o seu articulado as leis régias dispersas na Chancelaria Real. Relativamente ao povo hebraico esta compilação legislativa não contém nenhuma norma inovadora. Na sua maioria as normas recolhidas são provenientes de diversas fontes legislativas, nomeadamente do direito anónico e do direito romano. A presente exposição tem como objectivo dar a conhecer a legislação pátria contida nas Ordenações Afonsinas,
relativamente à comunidade judaica, sobretudo os seus privilégios e limitações de direitos.

The “Ordenações Afonsinas”, the first compilation of Portuguese Law,
was intended essentially to compile the scattered royal laws, in the Royal
Chancellery. For the Hebrew people, this legislative compilation does not
contain any innovative norms regarding them. Most of the rules collected
are from various legislative sources, in particular from Canon and Roman
Law. This small article aims to make known the legislation contained in the “Ordenações Afonsinas” regarding the Jewish community, namely its privileges and limitations of rights.

Andrea Morpurgo, Il cimitero ebraico in Italia: Storia e architettura di uno spazio identitario, Macerata: Quodlibet, 2012, 215 pp.

Andrea Morpurgo, architetto e storico dell'architettura, passa in rassegna dal Medioevo al ventesimo secolo la storia del cimitero ebraico in Italia. Il tema principale del libro, come indica il sottotitolo, è l'importanza del cimitero come spazio per l'espressione dell'identità ebraica. La lettura non richiede conoscenze pregresse e, inoltre, vengono definiti concetti di base quali cosa sia una sinagoga o un ghetto. Il libro riassume, a secondo degli argomenti trattati nei diversi capitoli, la storia degli ebrei d'Italia: vengono descritte le condizioni sociali e politiche della popolazione ebraica, il rapporto tra ebrei e cristiani e lo sviluppo e consolidamento dell'identità ebraica. La ricerca è basata in gran parte sulla letteratura e la stampa ebraica italiana del periodo, ma è evidente che l'autore ha anche condotto un approfondito lavoro di ricerca, come dimostrano le note che rimandano a documenti conservati in ventisette archivi.
Il centro della riflessione riguarda il periodo che va dalla fondazione dello stato italiano moderno, nel 1861, fino al ventennio fascista. Dopo un breve capitolo introduttivo sul periodo pre-moderno, si arriva all'era moderna, a partire dall'invasione dell'Italia da parte dell'esercito napoleonico, per poi approfondire la rilevante questione della cristallizzazione dell'identità ebraica moderna. Il terzo capitolo è dedicato alle moderne sinagoghe (Torino, Firenze, Milano, Roma e Trieste), che furono per lo più realizzate in stile orientale. Morpurgo passa in rassegna la storia della progettazione e della costruzione degli edifici, senza trascurare le sinagoghe meno conosciute che furono realizzate nella seconda metà del diciannovesimo secolo. Vengono inoltre confrontate le nuove sinagoghe realizzate in Italia con quelle di altri paesi europei, come ad esempio Germania e Francia.
Tra le rivoluzioni che caratterizzarono il diciannovesimo secolo vi fu anche quella relativa all'atteggiamento verso l'istituzione cimitero. Molti paesi sostituirono le aree di sepoltura, fino ad allora situate vicino alle chiese cittadine, con nuovi grandi cimiteri pubblici costruiti fuori dalle mura della città. Dal quarto al settimo capitolo il libro descrive quindi le storie dei cimiteri ebraici in Italia: le nuove aree di sepoltura di antiche comunità ebraiche (Trieste, Firenze, Livorno), i cimiteri ebraici situati all'interno dei cimiteri comunali (Torino, Genova, Roma, Modena), i cimiteri edificati da parte di nuove o risorte comunità (Bologna, Milano, Napoli) ed infine i cambiamenti che subirono i cimiteri di antiche comunità (Ancona, Venezia, Ferrara). Questi capitoli sono accompagnati da numerose illustrazioni e disegni, che chiariscono in particolar modo le questioni di carattere architettonico dei vari progetti.
I cambiamenti introdotti dagli ebrei d'Italia nelle modalità di sepoltura a partire dal diciannovesimo secolo sono il tema dell'ottavo capitolo. In particolare viene analizzata l'importanza di tali mutazioni riguardo alla formazione della moderna identità ebraica, in costante equilibrio tra la preservazione della tradizione e l'adattamento allo spirito dei nuovi tempi di integrazione e talvolta di totale assimilazione nella società. Il capitolo si conclude occupandosi dei cambiamenti nel disegno delle lapidi, delle iscrizioni e degli apparati decorativi.
Il nono capitolo tratta delle ostilità mostrata dai cristiani verso i funerali degli ebrei, che spesso si tramutavano in vere e proprie manifestazioni di violenza. Morpurgo sottolinea come i cimiteri ebraici e i riti di sepoltura furono “disturbati“ non solo nel periodo pre-moderno, ma anche nel periodo successivo all'unificazione dello stato italiano e naturalmente durante il periodo fascista.
Il libro termina con un catalogo dei cimiteri ebraici presenti sul territorio italiano, divisi per regione e organizzati in ordine alfabetico. Le voci includono dettagli sulla posizione del cimitero e un riassunto della sua storia. Una ricca serie di illustrazioni, mappe e un lessico di termini ebraici concludono il libro.
Il libro di Morpurgo pur non essendo uno studio completo e definitivo rappresenta tuttavia il primo tentativo di riassumere l'argomento, e raggiunge questo obiettivo attraverso un linguaggio chiaro, semplice ed una metodologia di ricerca encomiabile.

Prof. David Malkiel
Full Professor, Department of Jewish History, Bar Ilan University (Israel)

Yakov Leshchinsky’s 1928 essay, here translated from the Yiddish, provides the first cross-national analysis of the migration and class transformation of world Jewry in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It draws on diverse and widely scattered official and historical sources in German, Polish, Russian, Yiddish and other languages. A careful, complex and empirically grounded work, it helped to boost Leschinsky’s scholarly reputation. Before long, its author was routinely referred to as “the father of Jewish demography” and “the dean of Jewish sociologists.”

Статията изследва живота и съдбата на еврейската общност в Самоков в периода 1939-1989 г. и събития, които са свързани с нея: депортация, спасение, Народен съд, преселение в Израел и др. Периодът след 1950 г. е представен пред съдбите на три личности.

Trata-se de um fragmento, modificado no que respeita ao estilo, da tese de doutoramento do autor (não submetida a provas académicas) sobre a Inquisição e os cristãos-novos do Rio de Janeiro na primeira metade do século XVIII.
Como se indica no subtítulo deste pequeno trabalho, ele corresponde a uma tentativa de aproximação relativamente às perspetivas, inquietações e sofrimentos dessas vítimas da repressão, utilizando um tipo de fontes pouco abundante mas muito elucidativo;  e serve de contraponto ao estudo das motivações e procedimentos dos inquisidores e de quem os legitimava e estimulava, que empreendi no âmbito da mesma tese,  em diferentes capítulos, como se pode constatar pela leitura de diversos textos que tenho vindo a divulgar publicamente em Academia.edu.

In early modern times, Ontagnano was a border village between the Venetian and Austrian territories of Friuli. Since the late 16 th century, it hosted a group of Jews. In the following centuries, the settlement grew up with families from both the Venetian lands and Habsburgian dominions. Their mainly activities were credit management, trade, livestock farming and tax collecting. The coexistence with local Christian society was peaceful and mutual until the Heads of Commune tried to expel them at the beginning of 18 th century. This was a temporary crisis since the Jews' residence in Ontagnano persisted until the end of the century. Considering the Economic Turn developments in Jewish History, this paper provides a panoramic reconstruction of this small community.

En 1240, le duc de Bretagne expulse tous les juifs du duché. Cet épisode peu connu signe la fin de la présence d’une communauté juive en Bretagne au Moyen Âge. Elle s’explique par la conjugaison du fanatisme religieux et la volonté d’effacer les dettes d’aristocrates bretons envers des prêteurs juifs. Cette expulsion faisait suite à des massacres qui auraient coûté la vie à 3 000 juifs, suscitant la réprobation du pape.

The Yemen, is the birth place and hub for a number of monotheistic religious convictions . In its North West region, just 243 kilometers away from San'aa, the official capital of the Republic of Yemen , lies a spiritual center, a holy metropolis known as Saa'da  .
It is to Zaidi Islam as Qum is to Shia Islam and Mecca is to Sunni Islam. It is where the scholars dwell, to read, learn and teach their disciples to carry on the doctrine and preserve the faith throughout history.
It is here that the Houthi phenomenon first appeared.
This study focuses on the very beginnings of Houthism as a phenomenon, it's source and affiliations. It is but the first part of a series of papers that will delve into the movement as it expands over time.

Podczas II wojny światowej nieliczni ocalali z zagłady Żydzi znaleźli schronienie w szeregach Armii Krajowej. W artykule przedstawione zostały losy tych Żydów, którzy w latach 1943–1944 służyli w oddziałach partyzanckich zorganizowanych i działających w Okręgu Radomsko-Kieleckim AK. Z powodu skromnej bazy źródłowej w sposób przyczynkarski przedstawione zostały ich motywacje, okoliczności wstąpienia w szeregi Sił Zbrojnych w Kraju, przebieg służby, a czasem i dalsze losy. Sylwetki żołnierzy i ich świadectwa stanowią potwierdzenie faktu, że w strukturach AK Żydzi mogli służyć i rzeczywiście służyli.

The article is dedicated to an analysis of the Holocaust uniqueness against the backdrop of other genocides. Most of all, the text follows the clues from Berel Lang, who interprets
the Nazi Crime as a perfect genocide, that is, such a genocide that implemented its ideological assumptions fully for the first time in human history. What transpired then was in fact a comprehensive synthesis of “idea” and “actions.” Therefore, the relation between the Holocaust and other genocides turns out to be one-sided: the Holocaust is a genocide but no other genocide is the Holocaust. The category of genocide was, first of all, introduced into international circulation by a Polish lawyer of Jewish origin Rafał Lemkin during the final decade before the outbreak of World War Two. Genocide has become an almost universally acknowledged term, reinforced by the UN declaration of 1947. Mass crimes occurred in human history since the time immemorial. However, their character fundamentally changed with the advent of modernity, when powerful nation states within the framework of ideological postulates managed to give a new dimension to their politics, the one including actions meted out against entire communities: ethnic groups or nations. The Nazi crime of the Holocaust seems to be a unique exemplification of “modernity” (the term introduced in this sense by Zygmunt Bauman), that is, the combination of technicalisation and mass production with strong bureaucratic structure, which resulted in an unimaginable deed of murdering millions of Jews while utilising technical methods. The killing took a form of “production tasks,” which made the moral problems of responsibility and guilt appear in a different light. In the article an attempt is made to show implications stemming from the acceptance of the Holocaust’s uniqueness as “a perfect genocide,” both in its political and social as well as philosophical and moral dimensions.

An attempt was made to describe the fact that the quantity of the magazine “Voshod” subscribers dramatically decreased in Moscow in the early 1890’s. A lot of Jews, who hadn’t right to live out of the Pale of Settlement, were evicted. Based on the population census data and magazine’s statistics, the author concludes, that some of the subscribers had no rights either, lived in Moscow illegally and were also evicted.

It is a critical study of the most important biblical beliefs, which are the Promised Land, and the chosen people of God, and the promise of God to them with a land based on the texts of the Holy Bible itself.


The book is available on Google Play:
https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=LIOVDwAAQBAJ

Asumiendo la pluralidad de respuestas que encierra hoy la pregunta sobre el ser judío, el siguiente trabajo buscará abrir un camino para la interpretación del proceso de construcción histórica de la identidad judía, a través del estudio de la indumentaria en su dimensión simbólica y desde su carácter dialéctico: como marcador de pertenencia a la comunidad judía y como marcador de no-pertenencia al contexto socio-cultural dominante. Se propondrá comprender el mosaico de identidades que conforman hoy el judaísmo a través del concepto de resiliencia, como una forma de adaptación al medio.

Assuming the plurality of answers to the question " what does it means to be Jewish today? " , this article aims to open up the interpretation about the Jewish identity making process through the study on clothing on its symbolic dimension and its dialectic characteristics: as mark of Jewish community membership and as a mark of no-membership to the dominant socio-cultural context. This article proposes to understand the identity mosaic that the Judaism constitutes today as an adaptation way to the environment through the concept of resilience.

In this paper we take issue with both the new antisemitism thesis and its most ardent critics. We argue that a correlation exists between antisemitism and anti-Israelism, but the correlation varies widely in strength by social context. It follows that, in some cases, extremists on both sides of the debate are correct. However, in most cases they are not. We make our case by examining the Canadian context and referring to research from Canada and other countries. Specifically, we demonstrate that the level of antisemitic sentiment in Canada is relatively low. Moreover, with the exception of the actions of a small number of extremists, antisemitic incidents are not skyrocketing in frequency, contrary to the claims of some observers. We also argue that, while antisemitism and anti-Israelism are correlated in some categories of the population, circumstantial evidence leads one to believe that, in the population at large, the correlation is weak. This finding suggests that antisemitism and anti-Israelism are typically independent attitudinal and behavioral dimensions, with the overlap between them varying by context. It further implies that strong emotional attachment to the Jewish state is compatible with a critical stance toward the current state of political and social affairs in Israel, even a highly critical stance.

Ilse Aichinger zählt zu den besten österreichischen SchriftstellerInnen, wovon ihr bemerkenswerter Roman Die größere Hoffnung aus dem Jahr 1948 zeugt. Diese vorliegende Bachelor-Arbeit hat zum Ziel, diesen Roman in einigen wichtigen Standpunkten zu bearbeiten. Die Abschlussarbeit gliedert sich in zwei Teile. Der erste Teil beschäftigt sich mit der Frage der Autobiographie. Da Die größere Hoffnung Aichingers erster und einziger Roman ist und unmittelbar über das Alltagsleben der Kinder während der Zeit des II. Weltkrieges handelt, wird die Handlung oft mit dem Leben der Autorin verglichen, die ebenfalls ihre Kindheit während des Krieges verbrachte. In diesem Teil der Arbeit wird sich mithilfe bestimmter Argumente und Zitate aus dem Werk herausstellen, in wie fern dieser Vergleich unternommen werden kann. Zuerst befasst sich dieser Teil der Arbeit mit Ilse Aichingers Biographie. Dementsprechend wird auch die Hauptfigur Ellen vorgestellt und analysiert. Da die Erzählerform in diesem Roman von großer Wichtigkeit ist, wird auch sie mithilfe der Literaturtheorien in das Thema des ersten Teiles miteinbezogen. Zuletzt wird ein Vergleich zwischen der Beziehung der Autorin mit dem Vater, der Mutter und Großmutter im wahren Leben und ihre Einstellung zu denselben Figuren in ihren Werken gemacht. 
Der zweite Teil bearbeitet das wichtigste Motiv des Romans und zwar die durch den Glauben an Gott und an das Jenseits erzeugte Hoffnung. Der Titel des Romans deutet darauf hin, dass es irgendwo eine „größere“ Hoffnung gibt, eine Hoffnung, die viel mehr bietet, als diejenige auf der Erde. Demzufolge wird zuerst der politische Hintergrund bearbeitet, um das Nachträgliche deutlicher darstellen zu können. Demnach wird das Hauptmotiv bearbeitet, das die „größere Hoffnung“ repräsentiert. Der Glaube an das Jenseits gibt den Kindern Mut und Kraft, um weiterspielen zu können, denn im Leben nach dem Tod gibt es keine Verbote und niemand wird jemals als „falsch“ angesehen. Zum Schluss befasst sich die Arbeit mit dem Motiv der Natur, die eng mit dem Glauben und mit den Gefühlen der Kinder in Verbindung steht.

This text on the religious legacy of Polish Jews has appeared, accompanied by many illustrations, as a chapter in the book Legacy of Polish Jews (ed. by Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett and Tamara Sztyma, Warsaw: POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, 2021, pp. 47-65). To quote, please refer to that book.

The study focuses on the Jewish family of the Brachs, which belonged to the foremost
brewer families in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and later in Czechoslovakia. The
heyday of entrepreneurial and public activities of the members of this family was
violently interrupted by the onset of Nazism. Some of them died in concentration
camps, others in various complicated ways left Europe. Their descendants nowadays
live in the United States.