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Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry, Index to Volumes 1-12 (Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry)
This consolidated index to the first twelve volumes of Polin will be a vital tool for scholars and students interested in any area of Polish Jewish studies. * Table of contents by volume-each volume at a glance * Chronological table of contents-each historical period at a glance * Index of persons-more than 4,500 people * Index of subjects-almost 6,000 detailed entries * Index of books reviewed * Index of contributors-listings of scholars and their contributions * Notes on contributors * A chronological table of Polish history * Maps Over the years, Polin has attracted contributions from many disciplines-among them architecture; economic, social, and political history; literature and film studies; Holocaust studies; rabbinic; sociology; women's studies; and Yiddish studies-and from a wide variety of viewpoints. Every period of Polish-Jewish history and every area of settlement has been covered, in more or less detail. Some topics have been the subject of ongoing debate in successive volumes, and the coverage of the different towns and geographical areas has likewise often extended through several volumes. However, only since the Littman Library began to publish Polin (starting from volume 8) have any indexes been provided. This long-awaited volume will greatly facilitate serious research in the field of Polish-Jewish studies.
Polin: Polish-Jewish Relations in North America (Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry #19)
Poland today is a very different country from the Poland of the past, yet attitudes inherited from the past continue to affect Polish–Jewish relations in the present. In Poland itself, now a free society, memories of the Jewish place in Poland’s history, long suppressed by communism, are being re-evaluated. In America the attitudes that had divided the two sides in the Old Country seemed for a long time to be becoming more entrenched. This volume—probably the first comprehensive study of Polish–Jewish relations in North America—explores how this situation came about, and also considers the efforts being made to put the resentments caused by past conflicts to one side as the influences long dominant in the Polish–Jewish relationship in North America begin to lose their formative power. The contributors deal boldly with matters at the heart of the relationship. There is an attempt to quantify the attitudes of both sides to a number of key aspects of the Holocaust, and fascinating questions are raised about how the Holocaust has distorted the perceptions that Poles and Jews have of each other, and why the Holocaust remains a problem in Polish–Jewish relations. Stereotyping is confronted head-on. There is an investigation of how crude stereotypes of Polish peasants have found their way into Jewish history textbooks, crucially affecting the disposition of American Jews towards Poland, and of how the stereotyped world of the shtetl still haunts the American Jewish imagination, with great consequences for attitudes to Poles and Polish Americans. The way in which this stereotype is challenged by realities encountered in the context of the March of the Living is provocatively discussed, along with the options for dealing with a landscape ‘poor in Jews, but rich in Jewish ruins’. A number of chapters describe attempts to overcome mutual stereotyping, including a detailed and valuable account of the National Polish American–Jewish American Council, and of the attempts that have been made to steer the Jedwabne debate in a constructive direction. These small beginnings show that it is possible to go beyond past differences and to concentrate instead on what has linked Poles and Jews in their long history. As in earlier volumes of Polin, substantial space is given, in ‘New Views’, to recent research in other areas of Polish–Jewish studies.
Polin: Making Holocaust Memory (Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry #20)
Although the reconciliation of Jewish and Polish memories of the Holocaust is the central issue in contemporary Polish–Jewish relations, this is the first attempt to examine these divisive memories in a comprehensive way. Until 1989, Polish consciousness of the Second World War subsumed the destruction of Polish Jewry within a communist narrative of Polish martyrdom and heroism. Post-war Jewish memory, by contrast, has been concerned mostly with Jewish martyrdom and heroism (and barely acknowledged the plight of Poles under German occupation). Since the 1980s, however, a significant number of Jews and Poles have sought to identify a common ground and have met with partial but increasing success, notwithstanding the new debates that have emerged in recent years concerning Polish behaviour during the Nazi genocide of the Jews that Poles had ignored for half a century. This volume considers these contentious issues from different angles. Among the topics covered are Jewish memorial projects, both in Poland and beyond its borders, the Polish approach to Holocaust memory under communist rule, and post-communist efforts both to retrieve the Jewish dimension to Polish wartime memory and to reckon with the dark side of the Polish national past. An interview with acclaimed author Henryk Grynberg touches on many of these issues from the personal perspective of one who as a child survived the Holocaust hidden in the Polish countryside, as do the three poems by Grynberg reproduced here. The ‘New Views’ section features innovative research in other areas of Polish–Jewish studies. A special section is devoted to research concerning the New Synagogue in Poznan, built in 1907, which is still standing only because the Nazis turned it into a swimming-pool. CONTRIBUTORS: Natalia Aleksiun, Assistant Professor in Eastern European Jewish History, Touo College, New York; Jolanta Ambrosewicz-Jacobs, Head, Section for Holocaust Studies, Centre for European Studies, Jagiellonian University, Kraków; curator, International Centre for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust, Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum; Boaz Cohen, teacher in Jewish and Holocaust Studies, Shaanan and Western Galilee Colleges, northern Israel; Judith R. Cohen, Director of the Photographic Reference Collection, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington DC; Gabriel N. Finder, Associate Professor, Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, University of Virginia; Rebecca Golbert, researcher; Regina Grol, Professor of Comparative Literature, Empire State College, State University of New York; Jonathan Huener, Associate Professor of History, University of Vermont; Carol Herselle Krinsky, Professor of Fine Arts, New York University; Marta Kurkowska, Lecturer, Institute of History, Jagiellonian, University, Kraków; Joanna B. Michlic, Assistant Professor, Holocaust and Genocide Program, Richard Stockton College, Pomona, New Jersey; Eva Plach, Assistant Professor of History, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Canada; Antony Polonsky, Albert Abramson Professor of Holocaust Studies, Brandeis University and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington DC; Alexander V. Prusin, Associate Professor of History, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, Socorro; Jan Schwarz, Senior Lecturer, Department of Germanic Studies, University of Chicago; Maxim D. Shrayer, Professor of Russian and English, Chair of the Department of Slavic and Eastern Languages, Co-Director, Jewish Studies Program, Boston College; Michael C. Steinlauf, Professor of Jewish History and Culture, Gratz College, Pennsylvania; Robert Szuchta, History teacher, Stanislaw I. Witkiewicz High School, Warsaw; Joanna Tokarska-Bakir, Lecturer in Cultural Anthroplogy, Warsaw University; Chair, Department of Cultural Anthropology, Collegium Civitas, Poland; Scott Ury, Post-Doctoral Fellow, Department of Jewish History, Tel Aviv University; Bret Werb, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington DC; Seth L. Wolitz, Gale Chair of Jewish Studies and Professor of Comparative Literature,
Polin: 1968 Forty Years After (Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry #21)
In the mid-1960s, public opinion in Poland turned against the Gomulka regime for a variety of reasons. In an attempt to regain public support and divert attention from the real problems, Gomulka adopted an antisemitic stance. On 19 March 1968 he delivered a speech to party activists in which he divided Jews into three categories: 'patriotic Jews', 'Zionists', and those who were neither Jews nor Poles but 'cosmopolitans', who should 'avoid those fields of work where the affirmation of nationality is indispensable'. In consequence, nearly 15,000 Jews--a very large part of Poland's Jewish community--left for Israel, western Europe, and North America, effectively ending Jewish life in the country for over a decade. The events of 1968 were long ignored by scholars but in recent years their importance in the process which led to the collapse of communism has become increasingly evident. This volume illuminates the events that triggered the crisis, the crisis itself, and its consequences. Different aspects of this are examined by Dariusz Stola, Jerzy Eisler, and Wlodzimierz Rozenbaum, while the role of the the Polish Military Intelligence Service during 1945-1961 in precipitating the crisis is analyzed by Leszek Gluchowski.Several contributors consider the background to the crisis in terms of the concerns of the Jewish community. Audrey Kichelewski describes developments in the community between the consolidation of Gomulka's power in 1957 and the outbreak of the Six Day War. Malgorzata Melchior examines how Jews who had survived in Poland during the Second World War responded to the crisis. Joanna Wiszniewicz provides a group portrait of pupils of Jewish origin in Warsaw schools in the 1960s, a milieu from which important elements in the student opposition were drawn. Karen Auerbach sharpens the focus in her consideration of the situation of Yiddish writer Naftali Herts Kon, while Holly Levitsky describes the travails of the Jewish communist writer Sara Nomberg-Przytyk. The book also reprints the testimonies of several people who lived through these painful events: Jerzy Jedlicki, Henryk Dasko, and Miroslaw Sawicki. Bozena Szaynok analyses the rhetoric of the period and examines the role of 'Israel' in the crisis. The controversies which it still arouses are reflected in the exchange between generals Pioro and Jaruzelski concerning the impact of the purge of Jewish officers from the Polish People's Army and in the responses to the publication by Piotr Gontarczyk of a report on the role of Jacek Kuron in 1968. As in previous volumes of Polin, in the section 'New Views' substantial space is also given to new research into a variety of topics in Polish-Jewish studies. These include a study by Kalman Weiser of the Yiddishist Ideology of Noah Prylucki; an reassessment by Julian Bussgang of the role of Metropolitan Sheptytsky during the Holocaust; an account by Michael Beizer and Israel Bartal of the tragic career of Moses Schorr; an evaluation by Krzysztof Czyzewski of the work of the Polish poet Jerzy Ficowski; and a description of the reception in Poland of Art Spiegelman's Maus. CONTRIBUTORS Karen Auerbach, Israel Bartal, Michael Beizer, Teresa Bogucka, Julian Bussgang, Wojciech Czuchnowski, Krzysztof Czyzewski, Henryk Dasko, Jerzy Eisler, Leszek W. Gluchowski, Piotr Gontarczyk, Anna Jarmusiewicz, Wojciech Jaruszelski, Jerzy Jedlicki, Audrey Kichelewski, Holli Levitsky, Krzysztof Link-Lenczowski, Tomasz Lysak, Jacek Maj, Malgorzata Melchior, Joanna B. Michlic, Karol Modzelewski, Tadeusz Pioro, Wlodzimierz Rozenbaum, Maciej Rybinski, Dariusz Stola, Bozena Szaynok, Kalman Weiser, Joanna Wisniewicz, Tadeusz Witkowski, Piotr Wrobel, Rafal Ziemiewicz.
Polin: Jews in Krakow (Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry #23)
Few Polish cities have evoked more affection from their Jewish inhabitants than Kraków, and this volume brings together the work of leading historians from Israel, Poland, Great Britain, and the United States to explore how this relationship evolved. It takes as its starting point 1772, when Poland was partitioned between the Great Powers and Kraków came under Austrian rule, and examines the relationship between the Jewish minority and the Polish majority in the city in the different stages of its history down to the period of German occupation in the Second World War. An additional perspective is provided by a consideration of how Jewish life in Kraków has been remembered by Holocaust survivors, and how it is portrayed in post-war Polish literature. The main explanation for the specific nature of relations between Poles and Jews in Kraków as it emerges from these studies seems to be that Jewish acculturation to Polish culture was more pronounced in Kraków than anywhere else in Poland. The Jewish community as a whole opened itself up to contemporary currents and participated in the life of the city, above all in its cultural dimension, while nevertheless retaining a highly articulated sense of Jewish identity and unity. This meant that they were able both to defend their interests effectively and to establish links with the rest of the population from a position of strength. An additional important factor appears to have been the more tolerant atmosphere which prevailed in the Austro-Hungarian empire, which meant that ethnic tensions were less acute than elsewhere on the Polish lands. Furthermore, the fact that the city was largely pre-industrial and conservative, and was a spiritual and intellectual centre for both Catholics and Jews, may paradoxically have mitigated ethnic conflict, as did the fact that the two societies—Polish and Jewish—were largely socially separate. While the increase in antisemitism after 1935 and the consequences of the Holocaust are still etched in the minds of many, the city nevertheless has a special place in Jewish hearts and will continue to be remembered as one of the great centres of Jewish culture in east-central Europe. As in other volumes of Polin, the New Views section examines a number of important topics. These include a general investigation of the situation of the Jews in Galicia; an analysis of the position of Jewish slave labourers in the Kielce area under Nazi rule; an investigation into the resurgence after 1944 of the myth of ritual murder; and a discussion of the history of the Jewish settlement in Lower Silesia after the Second World War.
Polin: Jews and Their Neighbours in Eastern Europe Since 1750 (Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry #24)
Relations between Jews and their neighbours in eastern Europe have long been perceived, both in the popular mind and in conventional scholarship, as being in a permanent state of conflict. This volume counters that image by exploring long-neglected aspects of inter-group interaction and exchange. In so doing it broadens our understanding of Jewish history and culture, as well as that of eastern Europe. Whereas traditional historiography concentrates on the differences between Jews and non-Jews, the essays here focus on commonalities: the social, political, and economic worlds that members of different groups often shared. Shifting the emphasis in this way allows quite a different picture to emerge. Jews may have been subject to the whims of ruling powers and influenced by broader cultural and political developments, but at the same time they exerted a discernible influence on them - the social, cultural, and political spheres were ones that they not only shared, but that they also helped to create. This model of reciprocal influence and exchange has much to offer to the study of inter-group relations in eastern Europe and beyond. Designed to move the study of east European Jewry beyond the intellectual and academic discourse of difference that has long troubled scholars, this volume contributes to our perception of how members of different groups operate and interact on a multitude of different levels. The various contributions represent a wide cross-section of opinions and approaches - historical, literary, and cultural. Taken together they move our understanding of east European Jewry from the realm of the mythical to a more rational mode. In addition to essays considering interactions between Jews and Poles, other contributions examine relations between Jews and other ethnic groups (Lithuanians, Russians), discuss negotiations with various governments (Habsburg, Lithuanian, Polish, Russian, and Soviet), analyse exchanges between Jews and different cultural realms (German, Polish, and Russian), and explore how the politics of memory affects contemporary interpretations of these and related phenomena.
Polin: Jews in the Former Grand Duchy of Lithuania Since 1772 (Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry #25)
This volume of Polin, based on scholarship that has emerged since the fall of communism, is a wide-ranging contribution to the complex history of the Jews in Lithuania. Focusing on the specific character of Lithuanian Jewry, the volume opens by examining how their relationship with the surrounding society developed after 1772, both under tsarist rule and then in independent Lithuania. Moving to more recent times, the devastating impact on the Jewish community of the Soviet and Nazi occupations during the Second World War is discussed, as are the further negative consequences on Jewish life of the reoccupation of the country by the Soviets between 1944 and 1990. The volume concludes with material on the slow revival of Jewish life since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the re-emergence of an independent Lithuania, which was accompanied by the revival of many disciplines, such as the study of Jewish history, repressed by Soviet censorship. This revived interest in the country's Jewish past is now playing a key role in the broader transformation of historical memory of the post-Soviet era and the problem of coming to terms with the widespread local collaboration in Lithuania during the Holocaust - a process which has led to important scholarly advances but also to bitter controversy. Collectively, the studies in this volume contribute to a better understanding of the complex history of the Jews in Lithuania and of Lithuanian - Jewish relations and constitute a part of the necessary process of creating a more rounded and inclusive history of the country. CONTRIBUTORS Aelita Ambruleviciute, Marta Aleksandra Balinska, Egle Bendikaite, Michael Casper, Ellen Cassedy, Immanuel Etkes, David E. Fishman, Jack Jacobs, Grigory Kanovich, Saulius Suziedelis, Andrey Krotau, Larisa Lempertiene, Aearunas Liekis, Miriam Offer, Avi Ohry, Karin Ohry-Kossoy, Ausra Pazeraite, Antony Polonsky, Anna P. Ronell, Vladas Sirutavicius, Darius Staliunas, Saulius SuA iedelis, Vytautas Toleikis, Anna Verschik, Theodore R. Weeks, Mordechai Zalkin.
Polin: Jews and Ukrainians (Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry #26)
This volume provides a comprehensive and much-needed survey of the millennium-long history of Jews in the Ukrainian lands. The book challenges the stereotyped vision of the relationship between Jews and Ukrainians and offers in-depth studies of key periods and issues. The survey opens with a consideration of early Jewish settlements and the local reactions to these. The focus then moves to the period after 1569, when control of the fertile lands of Ukraine passed to the Polish nobility. Because it was largely Jews in the service of the nobility who administered these lands, they were inevitably caught up in the resentment that Polish rule provoked among the local population, and, above all, among the Cossacks and peasant-serfs. This resentment culminated in the great revolt led by Bohdan Khmelnytsky in the mid-17th century, in consequence of which the Jews were excluded from that part of Ukraine which eventually came under Russian rule when the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was partitioned. The Jewish response to the establishment of Russian and Austrian rule in the areas of Ukraine that had formerly been in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth is a second major theme of the book, and particularly the Jewish reaction to the emergence of Ukrainian nationalism and the subsequent Ukrainian struggle for independence. A third overarching theme is the impact of the sovietization of Ukraine on Jewish-Ukrainian relations, with a chapter devoted to the 1932-33 Famine (Holodomor) in which millions perished. The book also gives special attention to the growing rift between Jews and Ukrainians triggered by the rise of radical nationalism among Ukrainians living outside the Soviet Union and by conflicting views of Germany's genocidal plans regarding the Jews during World War II. With contributions from leading Jewish and Ukrainian scholars on these complex and highly controversial topics, the book places Jewish-Ukrainian relations in a broader historical context and adds to the growing literature that seeks to go beyond the old paradigms of conflict and hostility. CONTRIBUTORS: Howard Aster, formerly taught Political Science, McMaster University; Rachel Feldhay Brenner, Max and Frieda Weinstein-Bascom Professor of Jewish Studies and Professor of Modern Hebrew Literature, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Ivan Dzyuba, Ukrainian writer and literary critic; member, National Academy of Science of Ukraine; former Ukrainian Minister of Culture; Amelia Glaser, Associate Professor of Russian and Comparative Literature, University of California, San Diego; John-Paul Himka, Professor, Department of History, University of Alberta; Judith Kalik, teaches East European History, Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Myron Kapral, Director, Lviv Branch, Hrushevsky Institute of Ukrainian Archaeography and Source Studies, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine; Vladimir (Ze'ev) Khanin, Chief Adviser on Research and Strategic Planning, Ministry of Absorption, Israel; Victoria Khiterer, Assistant Professor of History and Director, Conference on the Hilocaust and Genocide, Millersville University, Pennsylvania; Taras Koznarsky, Associate Professor, University of Toronto Sergey R. Kravtsov, Research Fellow, Center for Jewish Art, Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Taras Kurylo, independent scholar, Calgary; Alexander J. Motyl, Professor of Political Science, Rutgers University-Newark; Jakub Nowakowski, Director, Galicia Jewish Museum, Kraków; Alexander Pereswetoff-Morath, Associate Professor and Academy Research Fellow, Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History, and Antiquities, Stockholm; Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern, Crown Family Professor of Jewish Studies and Professor of Jewish History, Northwestern University; Antony Polonsky, Albert Abramson Professor of Holocaust Studies, Brandeis University and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; Peter J. Potichnyj, Honorary Professor, East China University, Shanghai and Lviv Polytechnic National University; Professor Emeritus, McMaster University; Mykola Ryabchuk, Ukrainian writer and journalist; Vice President, Ukra
Polin: Jews in the Kingdom of Poland, 1815-1918 (Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry #27)
The Kingdom of Poland, also known as the Congress Kingdom or Russian Poland, was created by a decision of the Congress of Vienna as part of its attempt to set up a post-Napoleonic European order. It incorporated lands that for many decades had been the most important centres of Polish politics, finance, education, and culture, and which also had the largest concentration of Jews in eastern Europe. Because of these factors, and because its semi-autonomous status allowed for the development of a liberal policy towards Jews quite different from that of Russia proper, the Kingdom of Poland became a fertile ground for the growth of Jewish cultural and political movements of all sorts, many of which continue to be influential to this day. This volume brings together a wide range of scholars to present a broad view of the Jewish life of this important area at a critical moment in its history. In the nineteenth century, tradition vied with modernization for Jews’ hearts and minds. In the Kingdom of Poland, traditional hasidic leaders defied the logic of modernization by creating courts near major urban centres such as Warsaw and Łódź and shtiblekh within them, producing innovative and influential homiletic literature and attracting new followers. Modernizing maskilim, for their part, found employment as government officials and took advantage of the liberal climate to establish educational institutions and periodicals that similarly attracted followers to their own cause and influenced the development of the Jewish community in the Kingdom in a completely different direction. Their immediate successors, the Jewish integrationists, managed to gain considerable power within the Jewish community and to create a vibrant and more secular Polish Jewish culture. Subsequently Zionism, Jewish socialism, and cultural autonomy also became significant forces. The relative strength of each movement on the eve of the rebirth of Poland is extremely difficult to measure, but unquestionably the ferment of so many potent, competing movements was a critical factor in shaping the modern Jewish experience.
Polin: Poland and Hungary: Jewish Realities Compared (Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry #31)
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Jewish communities of Poland and Hungary were the largest in the world and arguably the most culturally vibrant, yet they have rarely been studied comparatively. Despite the obvious similarities, historians have mainly preferred to highlight the differences and emphasize instead the central European character of Hungarian Jewry. Collectively, these essays offer a different perspective. The volume has five sections. The first compares Jewish acculturation and integration in the two countries, analysing the symbiosis of magnates and Jews in each country’s elites and the complexity of integration in multi-ethnic environments. The second considers the similarities and differences in Jewish religious life, discussing the impact of Polish hasidism in Hungary and the nature of ‘progressive’ Judaism in Poland and the Neolog movement in Hungary. Jewish popular culture is the theme of the third section, with accounts of the Jewish involvement in Polish and Hungarian cabaret and film. The fourth examines the deterioration of the situation in both countries in the interwar years, while the final section compares the implementation of the Holocaust and the way it is remembered. The volume concludes with a long interview with the doyen of historians of Hungary, István Deák.
Polin: Jews and Music-Making in the Polish Lands (Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry #32)
With its five thematic sections covering genres from cantorial to classical to klezmer, this pioneering multi-disciplinary volume presents rich coverage of the work of musicians of Jewish origin in the Polish lands. It opens with the musical consequences of developments in Jewish religious practice: the spread of hasidism in the eighteenth century meant that popular melodies replaced traditional cantorial music, while the greater acculturation of Jews in the nineteenth century brought with it synagogue choirs. Jewish involvement in popular culture included performances for the wider public, Yiddish songs and the Yiddish theatre, and contributions of many different sorts---technical and commercial as well as creative---in the interwar years. Chapters on the classical music scene cover Jewish musical institutions, organizations, and education; individual composers and musicians; and a consideration of music and Jewish national identity. One section is devoted to the Holocaust as reflected in Jewish music, and the final section deals with the afterlife of Jewish musical creativity in Poland, particularly the resurgence of interest in klezmer music. The essays in this collection do not attempt to to define what may well be undefinable---what ‘Jewish music’ is. Rather, they provide an original and much-needed exploration of the activities and creativity of ‘musicians of the Jewish faith’.CONTRIBUTORS: Eliyana R. Adler, Michael Aylward, Sławomir Dobrzański, Paula Eisenstein-Baker, Beth Holmgren, Sylwia Jakubczyk-Ślęczka, Daniel Katz, James Loeffler, Michael Lukin, Filip Mazurczak, Bożena Muszkalska, Julia Riegel, Ronald Robboy, Robert Rothstein, Joel E. Rubin, Adam J. Sacks, Amanda (Miryem-Khaye) Seigel, Eleanor Shapiro, Carla Shapreau, Tamara Sztyma, Bella Szwarcman-Czarnota, Joseph Toltz, Maja Trochimczyk, Magdalena Waligórska, Bret Werb, Akiva Zimmerman
Polin: Jewish Religious Life in Poland since 1750 (Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry #33)
Following tremendous advances in recent years in the study of religious belief, this volume adopts a fresh understanding of Jewish religious life in Poland. Approaches deriving from the anthropology, history, phenomenology, psychology, and sociology of religion have replaced the methodologies of social or political history that were applied in the past, offering fascinating new perspectives. The well-established interest in hasidism continues, albeit from new angles, but topics that have barely been considered before are well represented here too. Women’s religious practice gains new prominence, and a focus on elites has given way to a consideration of the beliefs and practices of ordinary people. Reappraisals of religious responses to secularization and modernity, both liberal and Orthodox, offer more nuanced insights into this key issue. Other research areas represented here include the material history of Jewish religious life in eastern Europe and the shift of emphasis from theology to praxis in the search for the defining quality of religious experience. The contemporary reassessments in this volume, with their awareness of emerging techniques that have the potential to extract fresh insights from source materials both old and new, show how our understanding of what it means to be Jewish is continuing to expand.
Polin: Jewish Self-Government in Eastern Europe (Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry #34)
Few features have shaped east European Jewish history as much as the extent and continuity of Jewish self-rule. Offering a broad perspective, this volume explores the traditions, scope, limitations, and evolution of Jewish self-government in the Polish lands and beyond. Extensive autonomy and complex structures of civil and religious leadership were central features of the Jewish experience in this region, and this volume probes the emergence of such structures from the late medieval period onwards, looking at the legal position of the individual community and its role as a political actor. Chapters discuss the implementation of Jewish law and the role of the regional and national Jewish councils which were a remarkable feature of supra-communal representation in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.The volume reflects on the interaction between Jewish legal traditions and state policies, and offers an in-depth analysis of the transformation of Jewish self-government under the impact of the partitions of Poland–Lithuania and the administrative principles of the Enlightenment. Co-operation between representatives of the Jewish and non-Jewish communities at the local level is discussed down to the interwar years, when Jewish self-government was considered both a cherished legacy of pre-partition autonomy and a threat to the modern nation state.
Polin: Promised Lands: Jews, Poland, and the Land of Israel (Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry #35)
An in-depth and multifaceted investigation of how Polish Jews, Polish Zionism, and Polish culture influenced Israel’s cultural and political development, as well as of how the Zionist project influenced Jewish life in Poland. From its inception as a political movement, Zionism had as its main goal the creation of a ‘New Jew’ who could contribute to building a Jewish state, preferably in the historic homeland of the Jewish people, where Jews would free themselves from the negative characteristics which, in the view of the ideologues of Zionism, had developed in the diaspora. Yet, inevitably, those who settled in Palestine brought with them considerable cultural baggage. A substantial proportion of them came from the Polish lands, and their presence significantly affected the political and cultural life of the Yishuv, and later the State of Israel. In this volume, scholars from Israel, Poland and elsewhere in Europe, and North America explore different aspects of this influence, as well as the continuing relationship between Israel and Poland, up to the present day.
Polin: Jews in Independent Poland, 1918-1939 (Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry #8)
In the period between the two world wars, Poland's Jewish community was second only in size to that of the United States, and was the laboratory in which the ideological orientations which dominated the Jewish world - Zionism, Bundism, Neo-Orthodoxy, Assimilation - were tested. There has been much disagreement as to the character and strength of anitsemitism in Poland at that time, and the extent to which the experience of the Jews aided the Nazis in carrying out their genocidal plans. This latest volume of Polin includes contributions from Poland, western Europe, Israel, and North America, which together provide a clearer understanding of the issues which have in the past proved so divisive. It also includes a number of personal testimonies from people who experienced the interwar period at first hand. The result is a book that will be essential reading for all those interested in modern Jewish history and in the problems of ethnic minorities in post-Versailles Europe.
Political Quietism in Islam: Sunni and Shi’i Practice and Thought (King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies Series)
In recent years, Islam – whether via the derivatives of 'Political Islam' or 'Islamism' – has come to be seen as an 'activist' force in social and political spheres worldwide. What such representations have neglected is the strong countervailing tradition of political quietism. Political quietism in Islam holds that it is not for Muslims to question or oppose their leaders. Rather, the faithful should concentrate on their piety, prayer, religious rituals and personal quest for virtue. This book is the first to analyze the history and meaning of political quietism in Islamic societies. It takes an innovative cross-sectarian approach, investigating the phenomenon and practice across both Sunni and Shi'i communities. Contributors deconstruct and introduce the various forms of political quietisms from the time of the prophetic revelations through to the contemporary era. Chapters cover issues ranging from the politics of public piety among the women preachers in Saudi Arabia, through to the legal discourses in the Caucasus, the different Shi'i communities in Iran, Lebanon, Iraq and Pakistan, and the Gülen movement in Azerbaijan. The authors describe a wide range of political quietisms and assess the continuing significance of the tradition, both to the study of Islam and to the modern world today.
Political Theology Today: 100 Years after Carl Schmitt
Almost 100 years have passed since Carl Schmitt gave his controversial definition of the sovereign as the one who decides on the exception in his by now classic Political Theology (1922). Written at a time of crisis, the book sought to establish the institution of sovereignty, not from within a well-functioning governing machine of the state in a situation of normality, but rather as the minimal condition of state order in the moment of governmental breakdown. The book appeared anachronistic already at its publication. Schmitt went against Max Weber's popular thesis defining secularization as a disenchantment of the world characterizing modern societies, and instead suggested that the concepts of modern politics mirrored a metaphysics originating in Christianity and the church. Nevertheless, the concept of political theology has in recent years seen a revival as a field of research in philosophy as well as political theory, as studies in the theological sub-currents of politics, economics and sociality proliferate.
The Politics of Engaged Gender Research in the Arab Region: Feminist Fieldwork and the Production of Knowledge
Critical analysis of what we know - and do not know – about women in the Arab region is needed to support social change. But how is knowledge on women and gender produced in the region? How does this change when it is undertaken by Arab women researchers? Through a critical examination of local fieldwork experiences, the contributors of the volume - who are Arab women researchers themselves - answer these questions. The book examines the specific structural conditions that shape people's lives in the Arab region, from the effects of imperialism, settler colonialism and the neo-liberalization of economies, to racial capitalism, securitization, and embedded patriarchal ideologies and structures. The authors assess the implications of these different dynamics on undertaking research and also examine their own daily lives, the lives of their interlocutors, and the practices of their field. In doing so, they are able to escape hegemonic approaches and frameworks to the study of gender and to instead theorize from the local context to produce knowledge as they see it. This 'engaged gender research' challenges dominant discourses in academia, rejects the presumptions of 'Arab exceptionalism', and challenges liberal feminisms. It devises a new way of undertaking research on gender in the region to lay the foundation for a more just tomorrow.Covering Morocco, Tunisia, Palestine, Jordan, Syria, Iraq and the Arab Gulf, the book argues that an engaged gender research - which is feminist and critically analyses the historical, political, economic and social contexts of the research topic first - will transform how we understand women and gender, and the Arab World.
Politics of Religion: A Survey
This title explores some of the key issues which surround the politics of religion, an area which has historically been the cause of great controversy. Today religion is still the cause of a great deal of political debate, be it the teaching of the creationist theory in the United States or the relationship of church and state in Arabic countries. Four sections present a thorough overview of the politics of religion in historical perspective: Essay chapters written by a variety of academic and other experts on the major world religions and their relationship with politics, and on topics including religious fundamentalism, church and state and religious terrorism, providing background analysis of the links between religion and politics. A – Z glossary of religions, religious groups, ideas and issues, including entries on Agnosticism, Bradford Council of Mosques, Muslim Brotherhood, Nirvana, the World Council of Churches, etc. Entries are up-to-date and cross referenced for ease of use, and symbols at the end of each entry denote to which major religion(s) the entry refers. Maps for reference, showing adherents to major religions worldwide, adherents to religions in the Middle East, and adherents to the major sub-types of Christianity. This title offers up-to-date and unbiased information that will provide a wealth of information to students, academics, business people and general researchers.
Politics of Religion: A Survey
This title explores some of the key issues which surround the politics of religion, an area which has historically been the cause of great controversy. Today religion is still the cause of a great deal of political debate, be it the teaching of the creationist theory in the United States or the relationship of church and state in Arabic countries. Four sections present a thorough overview of the politics of religion in historical perspective: Essay chapters written by a variety of academic and other experts on the major world religions and their relationship with politics, and on topics including religious fundamentalism, church and state and religious terrorism, providing background analysis of the links between religion and politics. A – Z glossary of religions, religious groups, ideas and issues, including entries on Agnosticism, Bradford Council of Mosques, Muslim Brotherhood, Nirvana, the World Council of Churches, etc. Entries are up-to-date and cross referenced for ease of use, and symbols at the end of each entry denote to which major religion(s) the entry refers. Maps for reference, showing adherents to major religions worldwide, adherents to religions in the Middle East, and adherents to the major sub-types of Christianity. This title offers up-to-date and unbiased information that will provide a wealth of information to students, academics, business people and general researchers.
Practicing Sectarianism: Archival and Ethnographic Interventions on Lebanon
Practicing Sectarianism explores the imaginative and contradictory ways that people live sectarianism. The book's essays use the concept as an animating principle within a variety of sites across Lebanon and its diasporas and over a range of historical periods. With contributions from historians and anthropologists, this volume reveals the many ways sectarianism is used to exhibit, imagine, or contest power: What forms of affective pull does it have on people and communities? What epistemological work does it do as a concept? How does it function as a marker of social difference? Examining social interaction, each essay analyzes how people experience sectarianism, sometimes pushing back, sometimes evading it, sometimes deploying it strategically, to a variety of effects and consequences. The collection advances an understanding of sectarianism simultaneously constructed and experienced, a slippery and changeable concept with material effects. And even as the book's focus is Lebanon, its analysis fractures the association of sectarianism with the nation-state and suggests possibilities that can travel to other sites. Practicing Sectarianism, taken as a whole, argues that sectarianism can only be fully understood—and dismantled—if we first take it seriously as a practice.
Priests of Creation: John Zizioulas on Discerning an Ecological Ethos
Based on a constructive reading of Scripture, the apostolic and patristic traditions and deeply rooted in the sacramental experience and spiritual ethos of the Orthodox Church, John Zizioulas offers a timely anthropological and cosmological perspective of human beings as “priests of creation” in addressing the current ecological crisis. Given the critical and urgent character of the global crisis and by adopting a clear line of argumentation, Zizioulas describes a vision based on a compassionate and incarnational conception of the human beings as liturgical beings, offering creation to God for the life of the world. He encourages the need for deeper interaction with modern science, from which theology stands to gain an appreciation of the interconnection of every aspect of materiality and life with humankind. The result is an articulate and promising vision that inspires a new ethos, or way of life, to overcome our alienation from the rest of creation.
The Problem of Evil: Eight Views in Dialogue
One of those rare questions in philosophy that is not only technically recalcitrant but also engages the hearts and minds of the broad community is the so-called 'problem of evil': How can the existence of an absolutely perfect God be reconciled with the existence of suffering and evil? This collection of dialogues between eight philosophers of religion explores new ways of thinking about this longstanding problem, in the process reorienting and reinvigorating the philosophical debate around the relationship between God, goodness and evil: How exactly are these three notions connected, if at all? Is God the cause, or author, of evil and suffering? How is the goodness of God to be understood, and how is divine goodness related to human morality? Does God's perfect goodness entail that God must have reasons for permitting or bringing about suffering, and if so what could his reasons be? These questions are of momentous existential and theoretical interest, and they have exercised the finest intellects across the centuries. The time is ripe for a wholesale reconsideration of the problem of evil. To make progress towards this goal, eight distinct perspectives are placed in mutual dialogue, giving voice to both traditional and relatively unorthodox approaches. What emerges from these critical but friendly exchanges is a diversity of fruitful and innovative ways of thinking about the nature of divinity and its relationship to evil.
Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Democracy and Social Transformation (Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research #793)
This is an open access book. Faculty of Social and Political Science, State Islamic University Walisongo Semarang, has been playing significant roles in building global peace and justice by conducting scientific research and creating a space for academic dialogue and discussion. This goal is in line with our vision to be a Research Faculty based on the unity of sciences for humanity and civilization. As part of the efforts to create a space for academic dialogue at a global level, we organize an international conference which aims to develop scientific knowledge, build institutional capacity, and strengthen international networking. The conference is also held to support State Islamic University Walisongo Semarang in achieving its vision to be an Islamic world-class university. The conference raises the issue of democracy and social transformation to capture the social and political dynamics. The selection of this topic is based on the idea that technological development is becoming a crucial issue within modern society in which people tend to experience alienation within the rapid social and political transformation. Democracy as a political system that ensures transparency, citizen participation, and human rights protection is now under threat. Having the fact that there is a growing tendency of using transactional politics to win political interests such as the use of money and identity in political processes, therefore, political analysts consider this situation as the regression of democracy. Rapid social and cultural transformation as a consequence of advanced technology creates problems in modern society. On one hand, technology has made the life of people easier. However, on the other hand, the sense of humanity’s values and principles is declining. This situation can be observed in the decrease in social solidarity and the rise of individualism. Modernity that values productivity and economic growth has brought a negative impact on the life of human being and nature. The exploitative character of industrialization has created an ecological crisis. Advanced information technology has loosened social cohesivity and the rise of instrumental rationality has removed local genius or local wisdom from the life of society. Since the ultimate goal of humanity is respecting the dignity of human beings, hence, bringing back humanity to the center of the development program is crucial, especially in the current social and political dynamics. In the political context, humanity means respecting the basic rights of the citizen and putting them as a subject of political development and not perceiving citizens as only an instrument to win political power. Based on the above background, this conference is organized. The overall goal of the conference is to mainstream humanity in the current social and political change. The conference is also expected to be an arena for scholars and experts in social and political science as well as practitioners and policymakers to meet and exchange ideas and perspectives for a better future of our society.
Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Multidisciplinary Sciences for Humanity in Society 5.0 Era (Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research #811)
This is an open access book. Industrial Revolution 4.0 was started with the concept of the digital industrial era/information and communication technology era in Germany with 6 main pillars namely digital society, sustainable energy, smart mobility, healthy living, civil safety, and technology in the workplace. Indonesia has implemented Industry 4.0.The era of super smart society (society 5.0) was introduced by the Government of Japan in 2019, which was made in anticipation of the turmoil of disruption due to the Industrial Revolution 4.0, which led to a complex and ambiguous liberation. Where at that time Japan was experiencing a population reduction challenge that reduced the productive age population/workers, so Japan tried to improve this condition by implementing Society 5.0. It is feared that the invasion will erode the values of human character that have been maintained so far.Society 5.0 is a society that can solve various challenges and social problems by utilizing various innovations that were born in the era of the Industrial Revolution 4.0 such as the Internet of Things. Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, and robots to improve the quality of human life. Society 5.0 can also be interpreted as a concept of society that is based on humans and technology.In facing the era of society 5.0, the world of education plays an important role in improving the quality of human resources. In addition to education, several elements and stakeholders such as the government, Community Organizations, and the whole community also take part in welcoming the era of society 5.0.There are five elements in Society 5.0, namely: emotional elements, intellectual elements, physical elements, social elements, and spiritual elements. These five elements are related to each other in a balance. With the Society 5.0 concept, it is hoped that it can minimize the negative impact of robotic technology and artificial intelligence so that it does not dominate human life without adequate control, but humans are actors who control and control robotic technology and artificial intelligence. Thus, Society 5.0 is a foresight in organizing an ideal social life, as a response to the industrial revolution 4.0 which is feared will degrade the role of humans due to dependence on advances in robotic technology and artificial intelligence. With Society 5.0, it is hoped that there will be a balance of life between the use of technology and a more humane quality of human life.This conference aims to achieve the following objectives:Producing theories of Islamic studies, education, economics, and law from an Islamic perspective through investigations of contemporary issues in a disruptive era.Innovation of new models and methods of integrative Islamic studies, education, economics, and law which are in harmony with humanity and religiosity.Promote the importance and relevance of Islamic-inspired human sciences for the sake of human civilization.Building scientific networks between Muslim scholars and universities throughout Indonesia and the world in collaboration to disseminate and develop a sustainable agenda of "Islamic studies, education, economics, and law".Develop a research center for Islamic studies, education, economics, and law, inspired by Islamic teachings and intellectual traditions.Encouraging Muslim scholars to answer existing problems related to the humanitarian crisis in the current context through scientific forum meetings.