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Třebíč is the only Czech town, but one of several in the world, to have its Jewish quarter separately listed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. For more than twenty years, this small town has held not one but two events related to Jewish culture: Shamayim Jewish Culture Festival and Jewish Town Revived, a cultural and historical festivity. Based on long-term and repeated fieldwork from 2017 to the present, the article explains how the acquisition of the UNESCO World Heritage status of the local Jewish quarter determined the reinterpretation and appropriation of the tangible monuments and immaterial references to Jewish culture from a more or less tolerated and dilapidated relic of the past into an essential and prestigious identity marker of today’s completely non-Jewish Třebíč. What elements other than Jewish material cultural heritage do the Třebíč festivities refer to, and how do today’s music/dance/theatre performers – who are overwhelmingly non-Jewish – present them? How do the festivities relate to the local Jewish past and where are the limits of imagination and reference to historical realia? What other purposes do the festivities serve today and how do they affect the revitalization of the quarter? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the debate over an ‘antisemitic Marx’ in the French context. Since the republication of On the Jewish Question in the aftermath of the Six-Day War, the French intellectual field has seen continuous conflict between supporters of this ‘thesis’ (Mishari, Kaplan, Birnbaum) and their detractors, who are sometimes militant (J. Aron, Bensaïd) and sometimes academic (De Fontenay, Traverso), including those involved in the Grande édition Marx et Engels (Clochec). First, the article examines at length the French debate which spans over 50 years. Second, building on the insights garnered from this debate, it tackles the limits of materialist criticism of religious views. In light of the contemporary crisis of secularism in France, this problem forces Marxist and critical thinkers (Tosel, Meziane) to reassess the issue of religious minorities and their ‘assimilation’ to the ‘national majority’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author examines the marginalization of Jewish identities in multicultural clinical education and supervision amid rising antisemitism in the U.S., proposing the use of cultural democracy to address these issues. He critiques the erasure of Jewish identity due to the neglect of Jewish backgrounds in key theories and inaccuracies in clinical literature. He further underscores the importance of Jewish cultural considerations, including accommodating Jewish practices such as holidays, Sabbath observance, mourning customs, and dietary laws, while advocating for flexibility and sensitivity. Finally, he addresses considerations when supervisees experience antisemitism from a person at the center of a clinical encounter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: The management of type 2 diabetes mellitus has advanced in the last two decades since the introduction of glucagon‐like peptide‐1 receptor agonists (GLP‐1RAs). However, multiple factors may interfere with achieving better glycaemic control. This study evaluated the differences between various GLP‐1RAs in efficacy, adherence and persistence. Materials and Methods: We conducted a retrospective cohort study using the electronic medical database from Clalit Health Services. Adults with type 2 diabetes mellitus who purchased any GLP‐1RA between 2009 and 2021 were included. The Index Date was defined as the date of the first purchase of any GLP‐1RA. We evaluated the adherence, persistence and glycaemic control after GLP‐1RAs initiation. Baseline glycaemic and post‐treatment glycaemic controls were analysed. Results: In total, 70 654 patients were included. The mean age was 11.7 ± 60.4, and 51% were females. A significant reduction in glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c) was observed in all patients who received GLP‐1RAs. However, the percentage of changes in the HbA1c was higher among weekly GLP‐1RA than daily initiators (14.6% vs. 10.2%, p < 0.001). The proportion of subjects with any decrease in HbA1c was higher among the once‐weekly compared with the daily dose (82.4% vs. 74.7%) and mainly patients initiated semaglutide or dulaglutide, with 16.0% and 14.7% reduction. The frequency of good adherence (the proportion of days covered ≥80%) was significantly higher among the weekly group odds ratio = 1.25 (95% confidence interval 1.21–1.28). Good adherence was reported in older age, female gender, Jewish ethnicity and high socio‐economic status (p < 0.001). Conclusions: Weekly GLP‐1RAs initiators were more adherent, persistent to therapy and achieved better glycaemic control. Epidemiological variables might play a role in achieving this goal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 1947 and Siegfried Kracauer's seminal From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film, Weimar Film Studies has been dominated by discussions on the representation of power, which has only recently begun to fall away. This article breaks away from this tradition and contributes to a new range of approaches to Weimar cinema, which centre upon figures belonging to a group that has largely been excluded from the existing narrative: 'the Jew'. Though Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau's Nosferatu (1922) does not contain any characters explicitly identified as Jewish, I consider how the titular character is imbued with antisemitic tropes and thus steps into a similar role as enemy of mainstream German society. This article thus explores the notion of antisemitism as a socially generated projection formulated in response to the social experience of modernity, projected onto a representative of 'Jewishness' as the ultimate enemy of the national community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although Jewish people in the US are often racialized (i.e., perceived by others) as White, Jewish Americans vary in the extent to which they consider themselves White, and in how strongly they identify with being Jewish. Based on prior findings that identifying with a White ethnic subgroup (e.g., Irish, Italian) can reduce prejudice toward racial and ethnic minorities, we predicted that strongly identified Jewish Americans would exhibit less intergroup bias than weakly identified Jewish Americans. For the present research, we recruited participants whose religious affiliation was Jewish but who self-identified as racially White. In a preregistered correlational study, Jewish identification was associated with lower bias, whereas White identification was associated with greater bias, toward Whites relative to racial/ethnic minorities. The relationship between Jewish identification and intergroup bias was accounted for by high Jewish identifiers’ perceptions that they could personally contribute to diversity in groups and organizations. Across three meta-analyzed experiments, participants whose religious minority (Jewish) identity was made salient exhibited less intergroup bias than did control participants, and in one preregistered experiment, perceived personal contributions to diversity mediated the effect of condition on intergroup bias. Implications for the forms of ethnic identity that predict more versus less intergroup bias in an increasingly multicultural society are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conflicts arising from identity differences often resist resolution, and leave lasting consequences for generations. These conflicts often result from groups' perception of identity threats. This study examines the impact of identity threat on social group relations through a case study of Jews during their history of exile and the construction of the State of Israel. Drawing upon the theoretical framework of social identity, intergroup relations, and identity threat, this paper explores the historical experience of Jews, highlighting the preservation of Jewish identity and the emergence of perceptions of identity threats in intergroup relations between Jews and other communities. This study emphasizes the importance of addressing identity-based fears for sustainable peace-building. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Moroccan Jewish writer Ruth Knafo Setton’s novel, The Road to Fez, challenges the Eurocentric silencing of Sephardic female agency. Setton depicts a reverse exile through her main character, Brit, whose return to Morocco subverts the dispossession and uprooting of the Moroccan Sephardim following their forced exile. Central to Setton’s novel is an effort to put emphasis on the Moroccan Judeo-Islamic landscape and mythology. In re-vindicating Moroccan Jewish-Muslim heritage, The Road to Fez further questions the exclusion of Sephardic female voices in Eurocentric readings of Jewishness. Setton presents an alternative Jewish perspective through Moroccan Judeo myths and legends. This article analyzes Setton’s magical realist integration of Moroccan spirituality and superstition into her narrative as an attempt to de-Orientalize the Sephardic female experience. The article argues that Setton incorporates supernatural elements like spell-making and “djnoun” into a realistic setting to express the rich mosaic of Sephardic Moroccan culture and to destabilize pan-Arabist, Zionist and colonial occlusions of Arab Judeo identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses Israel Zangwill's play The Melting Pot (1908) and Horace M. Kallen's essay 'Democracy versus the Melting Pot' (1915) as two different visions of future Jewish inclusion. Zangwill's play and Kallen's response reflect social changes at the time, and both visions consider Jewish history exemplary for the world-to-come. Both show how conceptions of Jewishness were turned into universalist teleologies, but of different kinds. Zangwill's play opened in Washington at the height of immigration, urbanisation and social change, and it swiftly exemplified a vision of the American nation in the making, emphasising concepts of amalgamation more than old historical identities. In opposition, Kallen's response in 1915 emphasised historical identities and rejected the metal melting metaphors, replacing them with a Darwin-inspired spontaneous 'symphony'. Zangwill and Kallen both imagined the future world as profoundly shaped by Jewishness, albeit with different consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1947, Emmanuel Levinas published a short essay entitled “Being Jewish” (“Être juif”) in the magazine Confluences. Starting from a reflection on “the Jewish question” or “problem” (Judenfrage), Levinas inquiries into the “reason for being” or justification of Jewish existence. His essay has been the subject of a reappropriation by some interpreters who make Levinas’s claim of “being Jewish” the fulcrum of an ontological conversion or Heideggerianization of his thought. This paper aims to critically analyze one of these hermeneutic perspectives, that of Sarah Hammerschlag, addressing two decisive questions opened by Levinas’s text: Jewish identity and Judaism in history. An alternative approach to the 1947 text is set out, which involves another way of understanding the meaning of Levinas’s analysis of being Jewish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I explore the intersections of gender and ethnic categories in the book of Judith. The entire book—titled after a character whose name means "Jewess"—is suffused with commentary on both Judith's womanhood and her Jewish identity. Here, I focus on chapters 10, 11, 12, and 14 of the book, which contain the language of both gender and ethnicity. Judith's Jewish identity is discussed in the same breath as her gender and beauty, presenting an opportunity to examine how the categories of womanhood and Jewishness are invoked and how they complicate one another. This article will use the figure of the belle Juive, or "beautiful Jewess," to discuss how gender and Jewishness interact in Judith. I will discuss how the conversations between Judith and the Assyrians play with assumptions the Assyrians have about women and Jews, and how meeting Judith shapes the Assyrians' ideas about the rest of her people. We can read this encounter as engineered by the character of Judith, with attention to the complicated dynamics of gender and national identity, to produce exactly the result she gets: an Assyrian army and general that unwittingly hands her the power to achieve her goal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the theory of post-Judaism proposed by Darío Sztajnszrajber in response to the crisis of institutionalized Judaism in Buenos Aires (Argentina). Contrary to any traditional and regulatory concept of Jewishness, the post-Judaism project is considered a deconstruction that is able to bring down the walls of traditional Judaism and, at the same time, give voice to those Jews who are not accommodated by the institutional infrastructures of the community. I hypothesize that this conceptual architecture aims to liberate the Jewish identity and legitimize a new form of servitude: adapting identity to market fluidity. To demonstrate this, I reflect on how post-Judaism rethinks the traditional community from the postmodern philosophical framework to propose a Judaism of contradictions, a Judaism based on a constant work of self-creation that appeals to pluralism, openness, and freedom from any regulation or dogma. This strategy allows me to demonstrate how self-creation leads to radical narcissism, a result of the postmodern dynamics of transformation of subjectivity founded on emotion and creative individuality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I focus on the cultural and political work the IHRA definition of antisemitism carries out to explain why it has been adopted by hundreds of actors. I offer three key reasons to explain its effectiveness: First, it operates on an affective level, interpolating people who identify as Jews to also identify with Israel and Zionism; Second, it ties the right to Jewish difference with a Jewish State and Jewish sovereignty; Third, the definition provides a defence of a regime I call 'democratic apartheid'. The analysis reveals that the IHRA definition of antisemitism serves as a counterinsurgency tool aimed at shielding Israel from resistance to its oppressive form of racial governance and, following its recent war on Gaza, from accusations of genocidal violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In times of rising group-focused enmity and toxic polarizations between conflicted groups worldwide, a differentiated debate about the transgenerational complexities of German and Jewish posttraumatic entanglements of identity is needed. This article focuses on one specific and limited clinical phenomenon: the "adoption" by a few people in Germany of a Jewish identity that is not present in their own biography. An introduction to the phenomenon from clinical practice is followed by a brief historical and social contextualization, as well as theoretical models of explanation for the adoption of a potentially oppressed minority status. With reference to theories on social trauma and its transgenerational transmission to both victims and perpetrators, the psychoanalytic examination of a single case is used to develop the thesis that posttraumatic Jewish identity confusion and constructions are to be understood not only as an individual variant of "false-self," but also as a form of transgenerational repercussion of the social trauma of the Shoah. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the experiences of young members of Alevi, Christian, and Jewish religious minorities in Turkey, a secular country with a Sunni Muslim majority. Data was collected through semi structured interviews with 29 participants aged from 17 to 24. A thematic analysis was employed to explore patterns of discrimination and exclusion in their everyday lives. The experiences of Jewish and Christian participants are characterized by ostracism, increased vulnerability to injury, and passing as a member of the majority. Alevi participants report being subjected to intense pressure to become assimilated into majority Sunni practices, as well as frequent exposure to harshly unfavourable stereotypes, and ongoing rejection of Alevi theology as a 'true' belief system. The discussion centres on the issue of misrecognition and, particularly, denial of identity, contextualizes the findings into broader dynamics of nation‐state politics, and focuses attention on the agency of minorities and majorities. Limitations of the study and recommendations for future research have also been presented. Please refer to the Supplementary Material section to find this article's Community and Social Impact Statement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During World War II, tens of thousands of Polish Jewish refugees spent several years in Soviet Central Asia. Yet, little of the intriguing character of the Silk Road remains in their memories. Rather, these convey the years of exile as a desperate attempt to survive in conditions where refugees' lives depended on the confusingly numerous and varied power actors in the region. Drawing on first-person narratives, the article describes how navigating between these actors affected the postwar identities of Polish Jews. Their refugee history ran the gamut from criminalization (by the Germans and Soviets) to discrimination (by the Polish state in exile). It turns out that the experience of Polish antisemitism and civic exclusion that caught up with them in this remote region was one of the strongest affects in their memory. By analyzing eastern destinations (Central Asia) as a space of refugee accommodation, we can appreciate the significance of this geography for the postwar disidentification of Jewish survivors with Poland. It was not only the attitude of fellow Poles in the German-occupied country during the war, but also their treatment of the citizenship of Polish Jewish refugees in Central Asia as significantly inferior that cast a lasting shadow over the emotions of surviving Jews toward their country of origin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cynthia Ozick is often considered one of the few writers willing to identify herself specifically as a Jewish writer. Yet this characterization of Ozick obscures more than it illuminates. By attending to the understudied themes of genealogy and sexuality in Ozick's work, a more complicated picture of her relation to Jewish identity emerges. This article shows how Ozick figures the ambivalent relation of Jewish identity and literature through deviant sexualities and genealogical breakdown, through a reading of her novella "Envy; or Yiddish in America" (1969). Drawing on studies of the biological imagination in Jewish literature, post-vernacular Yiddish histories, and recent critical scholarship on identity in Jewish literary study, I read Ozick as a theorist of the entanglement, tense but generative, of literature and desire. My reading seeks not only to revise our scholarly relation to this canonical figure, but also to use genealogy to ask how literature complicates normative models of identity in Jewish studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Claire Weeda's book, "Ethnicity in Medieval Europe, 950–1250: Medicine, Power and Religion," explores the shifting perceptions of ethnic stereotypes in northern Europe during the High Middle Ages. Weeda argues that environmental theory played a significant role in defining medieval ethnic stereotypes, with northern Europeans using this theory to assert their superiority over other communities. The book examines how ethnic characteristics were cataloged and how they influenced ideas of nationhood, military power, and gender. Weeda's work contributes to the study of pre-modern ethnicity and challenges the notion that nationality and ethnicity have specific origins. However, the book could benefit from further exploration of religious and geographic differences within ethnic groups. [Extracted from the article]

Zionism is a Jewish movement of national liberation and self-determination that emerged as a response to antisemitism and the loss of Jewish national identity in European society. It restored Jews' ability to express themselves as a nation and a political entity, giving them the freedom to live comprehensively. The idea of Jewish national independence has a deep historical significance and has been sustained through centuries of exile. The Zionist movement called upon Jews to return to their ancestral homeland and rebuild their lives, providing hope and strength after the Holocaust. Israel has become the central Jewish home worldwide, with a strong Jewish identity and culture. Anti-Zionism is seen as an assault on Jewish history, identity, and narrative. The State of Israel serves as a model for colonized and downtrodden peoples seeking freedom and self-determination. [Extracted from the article]

Abstract Although Jewish people in the US are often racialized (i.e., perceived by others) as White, Jewish Americans vary in the extent to which they consider themselves White, and in how strongly they identify with being Jewish. Based on prior findings that identifying with a White ethnic subgroup (e.g., Irish, Italian) can reduce prejudice toward racial and ethnic minorities, we predicted that strongly identified Jewish Americans would exhibit less intergroup bias than weakly identified Jewish Americans. For the present research, we recruited participants whose religious affiliation was Jewish but who self-identified as racially White. In a preregistered correlational study, Jewish identification was associated with lower bias, whereas White identification was associated with greater bias, toward Whites relative to racial/ethnic minorities. The relationship between Jewish identification and intergroup bias was accounted for by high Jewish identifiers’ perceptions that they could personally contribute to diversity in groups and organizations. Across three meta-analyzed experiments, participants whose religious minority (Jewish) identity was made salient exhibited less intergroup bias than did control participants, and in one preregistered experiment, perceived personal contributions to diversity mediated the effect of condition on intergroup bias. Implications for the forms of ethnic identity that predict more versus less intergroup bias in an increasingly multicultural society are discussed.

Life-story interviews with 39 Jewish supporters of a football club whose quasi-Jewish identity is the catalyst for antisemitic abuse were used to explain the under-researched everyday experiences among members of the Anglo-Jewish community. All interviewees said their experiences of antisemitism within English men's football supporter culture were much worse than in wider society. All interviewees believed references to Hitler and the Holocaust exceeded any threshold of acceptability and that the death of 6 million people should never be associated with football. While denigration of Jewish rituals and practices was offensive and problematic for some, Jewish stereotypes tended to be downplayed, dismissed, or tolerated by most interviewees as part of the "banter" endemic in English supporter culture to lessen or disrupt the impact of the hate speech they endure. These responses indicate complex processes of anger, acceptance and rationalisation as recipients attempt to make sense of and deal with everyday antisemitism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article addresses the meaning of the two notions of God's and human δικαιοσύνη ('justice') as employed in Rom 3.21–5.11. Special focus is given to the function of God's χάρις ('gift') and the resulting πίστις ('trust') in chapter 4. The core text of 3.21–5.11 is first situated within the argument of Rom 1.18–8.39 as a whole, with summarizing analyses of 1.18–3.20, 6.1–8.13, and 8.14–39. Next, the core text is addressed. The article argues for an understanding of God's χάρις (given wholly undeservedly) and the corresponding πίστις that situates them within an overarching, fully Jewish understanding of God's justice in deservedly rewarding 'good works' (including 'works of the Law') and punishing 'bad acts' (cf. 2.6–11). No specifically 'Christian' understanding of God's χάρις and δικαιοσύνη as such and the corresponding human πίστις and δικαιοσύνη is involved. Once God's χάρις has been given once and for all in the Christ event out of God's ἀγάπη, God's δικαιοσύνη as defined by 2.6–11 remains in place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers an anthropological and theoretical-archeological comparative exploration of agency, responsibility, and alterity in the Late Ancient Iranian Talmud and its reading in contemporary Manhattan. The guiding question is how the classical rabbinic imagery and conceptualization of the "Goy" or "non-Jew" are implicitly recast in the modern framework of subjectivity, in a social context of quasi-traditionalist Talmud study. The specific Talmudic texts examined focus further on the role that the difference and analogy between humans and other animals plays in this reimagination of the "Goy's" persona. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Communist regime in Hungary had an ambivalent and contradictory attitude towards Jews, people of Jewish origin, and the Jewish identity during the Rákosi era. While Zionism was tolerated previously, after the Communist takeover, it began to persecute Zionists through (amongst other means) a series of show trials. In these trials, the weight of different accusations (Zionism, anti-Semitism, cosmopolitanism) changed due to various factors, and therefore the anti-Jewish/anti-Semitic characteristics of the court proceedings also changed dynamically. This study draws on archival sources and the Hungarian historical literature to present a comprehensive view of this time and these circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents literary criticism focuses on the communicative power of the crucifixion motif in Chaim Potok's 'My Name is Asher Lev' as it relates to themes of atonement. Topics include the complexities of the crucifixion in the context of Jewish identity, the contrasting views of critics on its significance, and the incorporation of Hasidic theology regarding atonement through the character Asher Lev.

The research on Arab Jewishness in the Middle East has developed in recent years across the disciplines of cultural and intellectual history and cultural studies. In this article, I present a unique Arab Jewishness, as expressed in North-African Jewish communities during the colonial period, through the case of Elie Malka, ethnographer, interpreter, legal expert and lexicographer from Morocco. The article discusses Malka's overall endeavour and shows the centrality of Arabic language and culture in it. Malka conducted linguistic, ethnographic and legal studies, translated Latin-language texts into Arabic and Judeo-Arabic and vice versa, edited French-Arabic dictionaries, and taught Arabic to certain Jewish community sectors. I posit that Malka's Arab Jewishness was unlike the Arab Jewishness that developed organically in the Middle East, but rather constituted a mutation within the general colonial mutation that evolved in North Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the complexity of and threats to American Jewish identity, little is known regarding how it is strengthened in adulthood. The purpose of this quantitative descriptive stitdy was to understand the types of activities and minority experiences that strengthen Jewish identity and how this may di/Ter Aom those with higher religious and cultural identification. Participants included 546 Jewish adults from 39 states who completed a survey covering topics related to Jewish activities, minority experiences, belongingness, coitti, tuity, Jewish identity, and demographics. Results indicated that regardless of cultural or religious identification, there were many similarly endorsed activities and minority experiences, even negative ones, that strengthen Jewish identity among adults, Implications for multicultural counseling conipetency when working with American Jews and ethno - religious identity are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the use of month names and numbering in the Book of Esther, specifically focusing on the shift from numbered months to Babylonian-named months in Esther 9:1. It suggests that this change reflects the book's diasporic Jewish ideology, which prioritizes loyalty to the Persian Empire over a Jerusalem-centric worldview. The article also explores the ideological background of numbered months in Hebrew Scriptures and highlights the contrast between this ideology and the diaspora ideology expressed in Esther. Additionally, the author discusses different scholarly perspectives on the dating and interpretation of the Book of Esther, with the use of Babylonian month names seen as either an expression of Jewish particularism or a critique of Persian Jews' adaptation to diasporic life. [Extracted from the article]

This paper uses the embodied, Jewish identities of its three authors, and the experimental methodology of kibbitzing as a form of collective inquiry and self-reflexive praxis in order to demonstrate the limitations of chatbots to produce humorous narratives from an explicitly Jewish epistemology. By contrasting the affordances of large language models (LLMs) and their associated chatbots with the context-based logics of Jewish joke craft and storytelling, this article goes on to demonstrate the risk of cultural erasure that is posed by the positivist, denotative meanings associated with ChatGPT's attempts at producing jokes for, or about, Jews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Laura Arnold Leibman's book, "Once We Were Slaves: The Extraordinary Journey of a Multiracial Jewish Family," explores the complex issue of Afro-Jewishness and challenges traditional definitions of Jewish identity. Leibman delves into the personal lives of a multiracial Jewish family, tracing their experiences and highlighting the ambiguities of Jewish identity and race. The book also examines the historical relationship between Jews and enslaved and free people of African descent, shedding light on the presence of rape, sexploitation, and other types of sexual relationships between light-skinned Jewish men and women of color. Leibman's research is rooted in archival sources and offers a fresh perspective on early American Jewish history. [Extracted from the article]

Efraim Sicher's works, "Postmodern Love in the Contemporary Jewish Imagination" and "Re-envisioning Jewish Identities," explore the collapse of traditional Jewish identity in a postmodern world. Sicher argues that Jewish identity is no longer defined by religion, ethnicity, or nationality, but is instead influenced by gender, sexuality, and historical Jewish customs. The books analyze various Jewish literary texts, examining themes such as love, trauma, national belonging, and the role of women in Orthodox Judaism. Sicher's works highlight the diverse perspectives and ongoing evolution of Jewish identity in contemporary literature and art. [Extracted from the article]

Within Orthodox Jewish early childhood programs, gender roles of the Shabbat Party promote heteronormative gender expectations that contend with values about children, teaching, and Judaism. Interviews with 15 educators suggested tensions between gender flexible attitudes and beliefs that gender unfolds naturally. Pretend play was considered a safe space for challenging gender, regulated by perceived sociocultural and religious boundaries. Conversely, the Shabbat Party roles were rigidly instituted without much examination of their implications for gender and Jewish identity development. While a few dissenting voices revealed an emerging gender consciousness, the ongoing need for dialogue, reflection, and gender flexible practices are recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Students in Yiddish supplementary schools used texts produced by educators steeped in a diaspora nationalist pedagogy that reflected the ideological coupling of Yiddish and Yiddishkeit: the Yiddish language informed one's sense of Jewishness. By the 1960s, doodles students left in their schoolbooks challenged this coupling of language and identity. Though it is generally supposed that Yiddish primers ultimately tell us more about the aspirations of adults than they do about the experiences of children, reading these texts together reveals that children evolved their own relationship between Yiddish and Jewishness that was far more subtle than what they encountered in their textbooks. Postwar primers emphasize maintaining the Yiddish language on American soil, to the exclusion of the external culture; children's doodles argue that more important than preserving the language was locating Yiddishkeit in the culture around them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This text explores the challenges faced by Jewish communities in Europe in the 21st century, including rising right-wing parties, racism, xenophobia, and antisemitism. It also discusses the concerns of Jews regarding the actions of the Israeli government and the role of digital platforms in shaping European Jewishness and facilitating interactions between different ethnic and religious groups. The text emphasizes the need for non-Jews to address these challenges and create a secure and inclusive home for Jews in Europe. It concludes by questioning the future of Jewish life in Europe and the potential of digital spaces to preserve Jewish presence despite current crises. [Extracted from the article]

In an era of profound antisemitism, it is essential that higher education leaders and campus communities provide additional, direct support to Jewish students. In this space, we introduce recent literature on Jewish identity expressions and campus climates for bolstering Jewish appreciation in hopes of catalyzing necessary conversations with respect to Jewish students. We specifically consider Jewishness—its expressions(s) of religion, race, and ethnicity—as central aspects of students' college experiences and provide considerations for engaging the complexity of Jewish identity. Drawing on findings from a large‐scale national study, we further suggest that climatic features which support Jewish appreciation (e.g., space for expression; productive interfaith exchange) not only benefit Jews, but all students. We then introduce practical recommendations along three areas: affirming Jewish identity expression, providing structural and organizational supports, and uncompromisingly combating antisemitism. We close on a hopeful tone that this piece can guide and motivate efforts toward repairing college communities for Jews and their allies. Practical Takeaways: Jewishness is a complex identity space encompassing religion, race, ethnicity, and integrated forms of expression. Understanding this complexity is essential to creating welcoming collegiate learning environments for Jewish students.Robust findings support the claim that colleges can be instrumental in developing undergraduates' appreciative attitudes toward Jews. Colleges should strive to achieve this outcome by creating climates that support religious expression and encouraging productive exchanges across worldview differences.Affirming Jewish identity expression, leveraging structural and organizational changes to directly include and support Jewish students, and vigorously confronting pronounced antisemitism and violence against Jews must be high priorities for campus leaders and college communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the increasingly diverse societal landscape in Greece for more than three decades within a context of migration, understandings of its fragile histories are still limited in shaping a sense of belonging that is open to 'otherness'. While Greek communities have utilised history as a pathway to maintain identity, other parallel histories and understandings do not resonate with 'Greekness' for most, such as the case of Greek Jewry. Critical historical perspectives can benefit from tracing 're-membering' as a feminist practice in the reassessment of societal values of inclusivity. Histories of violence and injustice can also include elements of 'difficult histories' and must be embraced to seek acknowledgement of these in promoting social change and cultural analysis for public humanities informing curation and curricula. Between eduscapes, art heritage spaces, an entry into contested and conflictual histories can expand a sense of belonging and the way we imagine our own connected histories with communities, place and nation. Greek Jews do not constitute a strong part of historical memory for Greeks in their past and present; in contrast to what is perceived as 'official' history, theirs is quite marginal. As a result, contemporary Greeks, from everyday life to academia, do not have a holistic understanding in relation to the identities of Jews in Greece, their culture or the Holocaust. Given the emergence of a new wave of artistic activism in recent years in response to the ever-increasing dominance of authoritarian neoliberalism, along with activist practices in the art field as undercurrents of resistance, in this intervention I bring together bodies of works to create a dialogic reflection with historical, artistic and feminist sources. In turn, the discussion then explores the spatiotemporal contestations of the historical geographies of Holocaust monuments in Greece. While interrogating historical amnesia, I endeavour to provide a space to engage with 'difficult histories' in their aesthetic context as a heritage of healing and social justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with the presentation of the media system as not only a platform enabling mass social interaction but also spreading hate-speech regarding promoting the superiority of one's group (such as ethnicity, nationality, values or other). The article focuses on the topic of spreading ethnic stereotypes (e.g. those related to Jewish ethnicity). Attention is also focused on the issue of the credibility of such media content and its creators. The authors use a theoretical base to clarify several innovative possibilities brought not only technologically, but also culturally reformed "new digital age", the so-called Web 2.0, or Web 3.0. in Central European context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides an introduction to the life and work of Sammy Gronemann, a German Jewish humorist and playwright. Gronemann's humor was characterized by a blend of traditional messianism and modernity, and he challenged both German and Jewish cultural norms through his wit, satire, and humanist humor. Despite facing discrimination and a sense of alienation due to his outsider status, Gronemann made significant contributions to German-Jewish literature. The article discusses the growing interest in Gronemann's work among scholars and highlights areas for future research, emphasizing the enduring fascination with his life and writings. [Extracted from the article]

Reflecting on her English translation of Sammy Gronemann's novel Tohuwabohu (originally published in German in 1920), which was released under the title Utter Chaos in 2016, Penny Milbouer's essay reconstructs the enthusiastic reception of the novel by Albert Einstein, a discerning and knowledgeable reader. Milbouer explores the resonance between Gronemann's and Einstein's perspectives on modern German Jewish identity, nationalism, and antisemitism. Her essay examines Einstein's disillusionment with American Jews' assimilationist tendencies and analyses reasons for the failure to recognize Gronemann's satire. Delving into Einstein's experiences with antisemitism in America, Milbouer describes his evolving views on Zionism, contrasting American and European Jewish identities in the "little mirror" of Gronemann's novel. Her conclusion highlights the contemporary relevance of Gronemann's satire and Einstein's warnings about the persistence of antisemitism, confirming that American Jews cannot escape confronting their identity or responding to discrimination and persecution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the dual challenges faced by Joseph Heller throughout his career, particularly in relation to the comedic aspects of his writing and his Jewish identity. It highlights how Heller's landmark novel Catch-22 set a high bar for expectations that he struggled to meet in subsequent works, often at odds with both audience and critical perceptions.

This article offers a new interpretation of the phrase “Jewish weight,” especially as it is used in the Greek papyrus known as CPJ 3.519. The Roman-era papyrus preserves part of a work of otherwise unknown fiction, probably a script of a comedic mime about an athletic contest in a gymnasium. Contrary to previous interpreters, a new reading of the “Jewish weight” proposes that the fictional athlete is neither Jewish nor circumcised, but rather a non-Jew who is described as looking Jewish based on the appearance of his genitalia in the nude. “Jewish weight” thus means “an exposed glans, such as Jews have.” This meaning could also work for the only other extant usage of the phrase, in a bawdy Latin epigram of Martial about which classical scholars have disagreed. The argument is bolstered by ancient medical literature that attests to non-circumcised, non-Jewish men who had congenitally short foreskins. These “lipodermic” men could be liable to mockery in settings of nudity, since they bore a sign of imperfect masculinity according to a dominant Hellenistic and Roman cultural ideology of manhood. The article concludes with supporting examples from the Graeco-Roman social context and analogies to other forms of attempted humour that combine sexuality and ethnicity.

Scapegoating and Conspiracy Theories during COVID-19 Antisemitism has unfortunately persisted throughout history, and the COVID-19 pandemic has not been an exception to this troubling trend. The conditions created by the pandemic, such as fear, uncertainty, and anxiety, have fueled the emergence and spread of conspiracy theories targeting various groups, including Jewish communities. The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered a plethora of baseless beliefs and conspiracy theories about its causes, which have contributed to the rise of antisemitism during this time. Pandemics, including the COVID-19 pandemic, inherently create anxiety and uncertainty among populations. This change has affected many areas, both political and social. Conspiracy theories that base the cause of the emergence of COVID-19 on Jewish identity are an essential factor for this study. Tendencies toward antisemitism and scapegoating have supported these conspiracy theories. In this study, how antisemitism manifested itself in media and online discourse during COVID-19 and how Jewish identity is affected by the process.

Building on current research into space and religion, this article explores how religious identity is negotiated in the small Modern Orthodox Jewish community in the Norwegian city of Trondheim. The focus is on Jews who question the synagogue as an Orthodox site with its strict definitions of who has access to the religious services and sections of the synagogue, which reflects the ongoing construction of Jewish identity among Jews in Trondheim. Three significant factors constitute this negotiation: loyalty towards the first generations of Jewish immigrants who established the Orthodox tradition in Trondheim and founded an Orthodox congregation, the desire to create a congregation that lives up to the contemporary ideal of gender equality, the desire to be affiliated with a congregation for those who identify as Jews. This article argues that the way religious space is contested has much to say about the way Jewish identity is currently understood in the Nordic countries. A focus on space and place also proves useful when analysing religious identity in Europe more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

School counselors play a crucial role in preventing, disclosing, and intervening in child sexual abuse cases (CSA) and in maintaining safe and protected school environments. However, research on their experiences coping with CSA remains limited. The purpose of the present study was to describe and analyze the coping experiences of Israeli Jewish and Arab school counselors with CSA disclosure, particularly the consequences for their processes of professional identity construction (the ongoing process through which they develop and refine their sense of self in their profession). Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 21 Israeli Jewish and Arab school counselors working in elementary schools (grades 1–6) with significant experience in coping with CSA. Two themes surfaced, reflecting the counselors' professional identity construction: (1) Counselors' professional identity transformation following encounters with CSA among their students; (2) Integrating professional knowledge, attitudes, and engagement behaviors into professional identity. The findings describe a trajectory of transformation and professional development among the counselors, beginning with defining and refining their professional roles and followed by the integration of professional knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors into their professional routines. Arab counselors also highlighted specific sociocultural challenges within this process, relating to the gap between cultural values and role expectations. Implications for future research, policy, and practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article attempts to contextualize the situation of the Jewish community recognized as a minority group in the Treaty of Lausanne within a wider framework of Turkish nationalism during the first decade of the Republic. It will claim that the ruling elite of the Republic concurrently defined 'Turkishness' on inclusive and exclusive terms. While in theory, Turkish nationalism was a 'civic' nationalism defining 'Turkishness' based on citizenship, when it came to practice, all citizens of the Republic were not privy to this identity; some of them, especially Jews, were expected to prove their loyalty in order to become equal members of the nation. This article claims that the contradictory attitude of the ruling elite – keeping the definition of 'Turkishness' ambiguous – had the purpose of constructing a cohesive and homogenous national community. In line with this ambiguous definition of 'Turkishness', the ruling elite developed an ambivalent attitude towards non-Muslim minorities and their place in the nation and the Jews of Turkey were affected the most by this precarious attitude. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jewish ritual objects are rather niche products and yet, the advertisements, as well as other factors, indicate an industrial scale production during the German Second Empire (1871–1918) and the Weimar Republic (1918–1933). As I will argue, these advertisements provide us with intriguing insights into the Jewish community, and how German Jewry was perceived by the non-Jewish population. Especially when companies used methods of ethnic marketing, I surveyed how they addressed the different strata of the Jewish community. In addition, some company advertisements bear traces of an understanding of Judaism on equal footing with Christian denominations. Yet, I also find hints of industrial overproduction which, as I argue, might have been stimulated by stereotypes of Jews. Perhaps in response to the overproduction, some retailers advertised Jewish ritual objects as "decorative" rather than religious items, and therefore veiled their link to Judaism. While this might have been a protective measure against anti-Semitic slurs, it ties in well with the observation that producers and retailers might have expected higher sales. Overall, analysing advertisements for Jewish ritual objects helps us to develop a more nuanced understanding of the positioning of Jewish consumers within the market in Germany before the Shoah. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study uses advertisements for matzah from two prominent American Jewish language newspapers – Forverts in Yiddish, La Vara in Ladino – to demonstrate that matzah was a common cultural and religious symbol among Sephardim and Ashkenazim. For that reason, it was a way for Sephardim to begin fashioning a unique consumer identity that would resonate with the Ashkenazi majority on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. But first, Ashkenazim had to recognize Sephardim as fellow Jewish American consumers by marketing their Ashkenazi-owned matzah brands on the pages of La Vara. Sephardim then used this opportunity to engage in a process of translation, interpretation, and redesigning of Yiddish matzah advertisements into Ladino to assert their place within the broader American Jewish community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An interest in Jewish topographies involves looking at Jewish presence in locations that help relocalize Jewish space. In this article, we argue that the task of reading Jewish identity as a diaspora community calls for a location and geography specific response, especially in aesthetic discourses that unfold Jewish identity situated outside the Eurocentric contexts. Such location-specific readings can enable a "provincializing" of the West-centric construct of Jewish identity. We argue that Malayalam author Sethu's novel Aliyah: The Last Jew of the Village is an interesting case in point. Set in the middle of the twentieth century, the novel deals with the ways in which the Jews living near Cochin, an island-city in the southern province of Kerala in India, respond to the call for a "return" to Israel. As the Jews and other communities respond to the developments around a possible return, the Jewish and non-Jewish characters in the novel all unpack a different discourse about how Jews belong to Cochin, a phenomenon that can be appreciated once one begins to understand that Jews, as a quintessential diaspora community, have had multiple histories of inhabiting geographies. Foregrounding these locations, through provincializing, might offer possibilities of challenging stereotypes in literary critiques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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