By: Helena Palmer,
on 10/1/2015
Anglo-Saxon England may seem like a solidly monochrome Christian society from a modern perspective. And in many respects it was. The only substantial religious minority in early medieval Western Europe, the Jews, was entirely absent from England before the Norman Conquest.
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By: Carolyn Napolitano,
on 9/5/2015
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are considered kindred religions--holding ancestral heritages and monotheistic belief in common--but there are definitive distinctions between these "Abrahamic" peoples. The early exchanges of Jews, Christians, and Muslims were dominated by debates over the meanings of certain stories sacred to all three groups.
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By: Helena Palmer,
on 8/30/2015
Together with Ulysses, Abraham is the earliest culture hero in the Western world. More precisely, as Kierkegaard, who called him ‘the knight of faith,’ reminds us, he has remained, throughout the centuries, the prototype of the religious man, of the man of faith. The wandering Aramean from the Book of Genesis, who rejected his parents’ idols and native Mesopotamia to follow the call of the One God to the land of Canaan, started a saga reverberated not only in early Jewish literature, but also in the New Testament (Galatians 3: 6-8), and in early Christian literature.
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By: Shelf-employed,
on 2/4/2015
Wiseman, Eva. 2012. The Last Song. Plattsburgh, NY: Tundra.
Some locations and eras appear regularly in historical fiction - the US during the Civil War, the Midwest during the Dust Bowl Era, the British Isles in the medieval period, Europe during the Holocaust, the list goes on ... but seldom does it include Spain during the Inquisition.
In this first-person, chronological account, teenager Doña Isabel learns her family's deepest secret - her parents are not devout Catholics as she was raised to be. Secretly, they practice the Jewish faith - a practice punishable by death under the rule of Ferdinand and Isabella, and their Grand Inquisitor, Tomás de Torquemada. Set in Toledo, Spain, 1491, Isabel is the daughter of the King's physician, a position that has always kept the family in wealth and privilege. As the Inquisition grows more brutal, suspected heretics are forced to wear sambenitos (sackcloth), they are beaten, tortured, murdered, and burned alive at autos-da-fé.
I looked around to keep awake. The church's walls were festooned with the sambenitos of the heretics who had been burned alive at the stake during different autos-de-fé.
"So many sambenitos," I whispered to Mama. "They should take them off the wall."
She rolled her eyes. "They are supposed to be reminders to the families of the condemned heretics. They are warnings to them not to follow in the footsteps of their relatives," she whispered. "They are a warning to us all."
Her words filled me with fear.
By: Sara Pinotti,
on 8/17/2014
On 1 July 2014, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) announced its latest judgment affirming France’s ban on full-face veil (burqa law) in public (SAS v. France). Almost a decade after the 2005 controversial decision by the Grand Chamber to uphold Turkey’s headscarf ban in Universities (Leyla Sahin v. Turkey), the ECHR made it clear that Muslim women’s individual rights of religious freedom (Article 9) will not be protected. Although the Court’s main arguments were not the same in each case, both judgments are equally questionable from the point of view of protecting religious freedom and of the exclusion of Muslim women from public space.
The recent judgment was brought to the ECHR by an unnamed French woman known only as “SAS” against the law introduced in 2011 that makes it illegal for anyone to cover their face in a public place. Although the legislation includes hoods, face-masks, and helmets, it is understood to be the first legislation against the full-face veil in Europe. A similar ban was also passed in Belgium after the French law. France was also the first country to ban the wearing of “conspicuous religious symbols” – directed at the wearing of the headscarf in public high schools — in 2004. Since then several European countries have established policies restricting Muslim religious dress.
The French law targeted all public places, defined as anywhere not the home. Penalties for violating the law include fines and citizenship lessons designed to remind the offender of the “republican values of tolerance and respect for human dignity, and to raise awareness of her penal and civil responsibility and duties imposed life in society.”
SAS argued the ban on the full-face veil violated several articles of the European Convention and was “inhumane and degrading, against the right of respect for family and private life, freedom of thought, conscience and religion, freedom of speech and discriminatory.” She did not challenge the requirement to remove scarves, veils and turbans for security checks, also upheld by the ECHR. The ECHR rejected her argument and accepted the main argument made by the government: that the state has a legitimate interest in promoting a certain idea of “living together.”
By now, it is clear that Article 9 of the European Convention does not protect freedom of religion when the subject is a woman and the religion is Islam. While this may seem harsh, consider the ECHR’s 2011 judgment in Lautsi v. Italy, which found the display of the crucifix in Italian state schools compatible with secularism.
In Lautsi case, the Court argued that the symbol did not significantly impact the denominational neutrality of Italian schools because the crucifix is part of Italian culture. Human rights scholars have not missed the contrast between the Italian case and the earlier 2005 decision in Leyla Sahin v Turkey where the Court found that the wearing of the headscarf by students was not compatible with the principle of laicité or secularism.
The Court did not make a value judgment in SAS case about Islam, women’ rights in Islamic societies, or gender equality, as it did in earlier cases where they upheld bans on the wearing of the headscarf by teachers and students in France, Turkey and Switzerland. In all cases involving Islamic dress codes, the ECHR emphasized the “margin of appreciation” rule, which permits the court to defer to national laws.
The ECHR acted politically and opportunistically not to challenge France’s strong Republicanism and principles of laicité, sacrificing the rights of the small minority of Muslims who wear the full-face veil. Rather than protecting the individual freedom of the 2000 women, the ECHR protected the majority view of France.
The ECHR is the most powerful supra national human rights court and its decisions have widespread impact. Several countries in Europe, such as Denmark, Norway, Spain, Austria, and even the UK, have already started to discuss whether to create similar laws banning the burqa in public places. This raises concerns that cases related to the cultural behavior and religious practices of minorities could shift public opinion dangerously away from the principles of multiculturalism, democracy, human rights and religious tolerance.
The most recent law bans the full-face veil, but tomorrow, the prohibitions may be against halal food, circumcision, the location of a mosque or the visibility of a minaret; even religious education might be banned for reasons of public health, security or cultural integration. Muslims, Roma, and to some extent Jews and Sikhs, are already struggling to be accepted as equal citizens in Europe, where right wing extremism is rising, in a situation of economic crisis.
The ECHR should be extremely careful in its decisions, given the growth of nationalism, xenophobia, and anti-immigrant sentiment in Europe.Considering this context, the EHCR’s main argument in this latest judgment is worrisome, since it accepted France’s view that covering the face in public runs counter to the society’s notion of “living together,” even though this is not one of the principles of the European Convention.
The Court recognized that the concept of “living together” was problematic (Para 122). And, even in using the “wide margin of appreciation” rule, the Court acknowledged that it should “engage in a careful examination” to avoid majority’s subordination of minorities. Considering the Court’s own rules, the main reasoning for the full face veil ban—“living together” seems to be inconsistent with the Court’s own jurisprudence.
Further concerns were raised about Islamophobic remarks during the adoption debate of the French Burqa Law, and evidence that prejudice and intolerance against Muslims in French society influenced the adoption of the law. Such concerns were more strongly raised by the two dissenting opinions. The dissent found the Court’s insensitivity to what’s needed to ensure tolerance between the vast majority and a small minority could increase tensions (Para 14). The dissenting opinion was especially critical of prioritizing “living together,” not even a Convention principle, over “concrete individual rights” guaranteed by the Convention.
While the integration of Muslims and other immigrants across Europe is a legitimate concern, it is vitally important the ECHR’s constructive role. The decision in SAS v France is a dangerous jurisprudential opening for future cases involving the religious and cultural practices of minorities. The French burqa law has created discomfort among Muslims. By upholding the law, the European court deepens the mistrust between the majority of citizens and religious minorities.
Headline image credit: Arabic woman in Muslim religious dress, © Vadmary, via iStock Photo..
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By: Alice,
on 4/14/2014
Today, observant Jews the world over are selling off their leavened foodstuffs (chametz) in preparation for the Passover holiday, which begins with a seder this evening and is followed by eight days of eating matzah, macaroons, and other unleavened products.
But in Eastern Europe, where the vast majority of American Jews have roots, the sale of leavened products not only used to be more widespread, it was more complicated. Many East European Jews—almost 40%—made their living selling beer, wine, and rye-based vodka in taverns leased from the Polish nobility. Passover was a forced holiday for them.
Henryk Rodakowski, “Karczmarz Jasio,” z cyklu Album Pałahickie, 1867, akwarela na papierze, 32 x 23 cm.
During the eight days of Passover, Jewish tavernkeepers had to “sell” all of their leavened products to non-Jewish neighbors. Rabbis drew up contracts for the fictitious sales similar to those utilized today, a loophole meant to prevent economic ruin.
Problems emerged in the early nineteenth century, when the government attempted to drive Jews out of rural tavernkeeping (ostensibly to protect the peasants from drunkenness and ruin) by imposing heavy concession fees on them. The Hasidic master Moses Eliyakim Beriyah of Kozienice lamented that “several of the [Jewish] villagers were forced to apostatize because of their need to make a living.”
The main issue for the numerous traveling Jewish merchants, who relied on Jewish-run taverns for hospitality, was not that those proprietors had converted to Christianity. It was that, according to Jewish law, the proprietors were technically still Jewish. Yet who could be sure that they were “selling off” their leaven products to gentiles during the intermediate days of Passover? This cast doubt on the ritual fitness of everything they sold. A governmental investigation, preserved in Polish archival records, confirms that most Jewish customers refused to purchase liquor from apostate tavernkeepers on these grounds.
Thus, conversion to Christianity did not turn out to be much of a solution for Jewish tavernkeepers struggling under the weight of discriminatory legislation. Instead, many began to evade concession fees by going underground—permanently installing Christians as “fronts” for their taverns. They did this with the full knowledge and participation of their Christian neighbors, a beautiful reflection of Jewish-Christian coexistence at the local level during the rise of absolutism!
Glenn Dynner is Professor of Jewish Studies at Sarah Lawrence College and the author of Yankel’s Tavern: Jews, Liquor, and Life in the Kingdom of Poland. He has been a Fellow at the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, a member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University, and is currently the NEH Senior Scholar at the Center for Jewish History in New York.
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Hello everyone, first I want to wish you all a very Happy New Year. It has been a hard year for many of us and lots had happened. Now is the time to start a fresh in 2013. I want to welcome Scholastic Inc. to my every growing publisher list. I am very happy to have them aboard. Last update I reviewed three Young Adult Novels. In this update I will be reviewing three picture books.
Picture Books
1) "The Never- Ending Greenness. We made Israel Bloom."- The book was written and illustrated by Neil Waldman. Published by Boyds Mills Press Inc. 1997. Originally published by: NY Morrow Junior Books 1997. Summary: "When his family comes to live in Israel after the end of World War II, a young boy begins planting and caring for trees, a practice that spreads across the whole Country." The author tells us the story of one Jewish family who escaped the horrors of the Holocaust and settled in Israel. After witnessing the terror of World War II and the bareness of his town of Vilna, a boy decides to plant trees to bring the spark of life to his new home. The amazing Illustratrations add vividness to the story.
2) "Has a Donkey Ever Brought you breakfast in bed"- This book was written by Pat Brannon and illustrated by Karen Deming. Published by Freedom of Speech Publishing Inc., Leawood KS 2012. This author creates a funny world of "mighty" animals who can: "juggle lemons," "wear red go-go boots", or "tap dance all day long." It is a funny book with very simple illustrations that catch the eye. Even though it does not focus on one character, it is still a good story. Your child will be laughing and pointing out the wacky animal events in the book. If you want your child to have a good time get a copy.
3) "Dawn"- This book was written and illustrated by Uri Shulevitz. Published by Sunburst Books an imprint of Farrar, Straus and Giroux 1974. This is the second edition 1987. It is a great book to read to your children before they go to sleep. Simple words and simple illustrations make them live and feel in the moment. We usually do not take a moment to observe our own surroundings: the star shining in the sky above, the bird singing, or the blooming flower below our feet. This book will encourage your children to live in the moment. I highly recommend this book for everyone. It is amazing how one picture and a few words can tell a story. Go out there and get your child a copy of this wonderful book.
Thank you everyone for following me on my blog. I will be celebrating two years in February, and I will try my best to make an update twice a month. Happy 2013 let your life shine life. Next time I will review Middle Grade books.
By: Nicola,
on 12/13/2012
When the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, neither the Atomic Bomb nor the Holocaust were on anybody’s agenda. Instead, the Nazi’s top aim was to rid German culture of perceived pollution. A priority was science, where paradoxically Germany already led the world. To safeguard this position, loud Nazi voices, such as Nobel laureate Philipp Lenard, complained about a ‘massive infiltration of the Jews into universities’.
The first enactments of a new regime are highly symbolic. The cynically-named Law for the Restoration of the Civil Service, published in April 1933, targeted those who had non-Aryan, ‘particularly Jewish’, parents or grandparents. Having a single Jewish grandparent was enough to lose one’s job. Thousands of Jewish university teachers, together with doctors, lawyers, and other professionals were sacked. Some found more modest jobs, some retired, some left the country. Germany was throwing away its hard-won scientific supremacy. When warned of this, Hitler retorted ‘If the dismissal of [Jews] means the end of German science, then we will do without science for a few years’.
Why did the Jewish people have such a significant influence on German science? They had a long tradition of religious study, but assimilated Jews had begun to look instead to a radiant new role-model. Albert Einstein was the most famous scientist the world had ever known. As well as an icon for ambitious young students, he was also a prominent political target. Aware of this, he left Germany for the USA in 1932, before the Nazis came to power.
How to win friends and influence nuclear people
The talented nuclear scientist Leo Szilard appeared to be able to foresee the future. He exploited this by carefully cultivating people with influence. In Berlin, he sought out Einstein.
Like Einstein, Szilard anticipated the Civil Service Law. He also saw the need for a scheme to assist the refugee German academics who did not. First in Vienna, then in London, he found influential people who could help.
Just as the Nazis moved into power, nuclear physics was revolutionized by the discovery of a new nuclear component, the neutron. One of the main centres of neutron research was Berlin, where scientists saw a mysterious effect when uranium was irradiated. They asked their former Jewish colleagues, now in exile, for an explanation.
The answer was ‘nuclear fission’. As the Jewish scientists who had fled Germany settled into new jobs, they realized how fission was the key to a new source of energy. It could also be a weapon of unimaginable power, the Atomic Bomb. It was not a great intellectual leap, so the exiled scientists were convinced that their former colleagues in Germany had come to the same conclusion. So, when war looked imminent, they wanted to get to the Atomic Bomb first. One wrote of ‘the fear of the Nazis beating us to it’.
Szilard, by now in the US, saw it was time to act again. He knew that President Roosevelt would not listen to him, but would listen to Einstein, and wrote to Roosevelt over Einstein’s signature.
When a delegation finally managed to see him on 11 October 1939, Roosevelt said “what you’re after is to see that the Nazis don’t blow us up”. But nobody knew exactly what to do. The letter had mentioned bombs ‘too heavy for transportation by air’. Such a vague threat did not appear urgent.
But in 1940, German Jewish exiles in Britain realized that if the small amount of the isotope 235 in natural uranium could be separated, it could produce an explosion equivalent to several thousand tons of dynamite. Only a few kilograms would be needed, and could be carried by air. The logistics of nuclear weapons suddenly changed. Via Einstein, Szilard wrote another Presidential letter. On 19 January 1942, Roosevelt ordered a rapid programme for the development of the Atomic Bomb, the ‘Manhattan Project’.
Across the Atlantic, the Germans indeed had seen the implications of nuclear fission. But its scientific message had been muffled. Key scientists had gone. Germany had no one left with the prescience of Szilard, nor the political clout of Einstein. The Nazis also had another priority. On 20 January, one day after Roosevelt had given the go-ahead for the Atomic Bomb, a top-level meeting in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee outlined a “final solution of the Jewish Problem”. Nazi Germany had its own crash programme.
US crash programme – on 16 July 1945, just over three years after the huge project had been launched, the Atomic Bomb was tested in the New Mexico desert.
Nazi crash programme – what came to be known as the Holocaust rapidly got under way. Here a doomed woman and her children arrive at the specially-built Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination centre.
As such, two huge projects, unknown to each other, emerged simultaneously on opposite sides of the Atlantic. The dreadful schemes forged ahead, and each in turn became reality. On two counts, what had been unimaginable no longer was.
Gordon Fraser was for many years the in-house editor at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, in Geneva. His books on popular science and scientists include Cosmic Anger, a biography of Abdus Salam, the first Muslim Nobel scientist, Antimatter: The Ultimate Mirror, and The Quantum Exodus. He is also the editor of The New Physics for the 21st Century and The Particle Century.
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Image credits: Atomic Bomb tested in the New Mexico desert. Photograph courtesy of Los Alamos National Laboratory; Auschwitz-Birkenau, alte Frau und Kinder, Bundesarchiv Bild, Creative Commons License via Wikimedia Commons.
The post How Nazi Germany lost the nuclear plot appeared first on OUPblog.
By: shelf-employed,
on 4/26/2012
By: Lauren,
on 6/1/2011
In a rousing speech before Congress on May 24, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected peace talks with the newly unified Palestinian government because it now includes — on paper at least — officials from the terrorist (or, in its own eyes, “resistance”) group Hamas. In a striking moment, Netanyahu defiantly declared, “Israel will not negotiate with a Palestinian government backed by the Palestinian version of al Qaeda,” a statement greeted with resounding applause from the assembled members of Congress.
But hold on a minute. Yes, Hamas, like al Qaeda, is an Islamist group that uses terrorism as a strategic tool to achieve political aims. Yes, Hamas, like al Qaeda, rejects Israel and has opposed the peace talks that moderate Palestinians have tried to move forward. And sure, the Hamas charter uses language that parallels the worst anti-Semitism of al Qaeda, enjoining believers to fight Jews wherever they may be found and accusing Jews of numerous conspiracies against Muslims, ranging from the drug trade to creating “sabotage” groups like, apparently, violent versions of Rotary and Lions clubs.
But the differences between Hamas and al Qaeda often outweigh the similarities. And ignoring these differences underestimates Hamas’s power and influence — and risks missing opportunities to push Hamas into accepting a peace deal.
While Congress was quick to applaud Bibi’s fiery analogy, U.S. counterterrorism officials know that one of the biggest differences is that Hamas has a regional focus, while al Qaeda’s is global. Hamas bears no love for the United States, but it has not deliberately targeted Americans. Al Qaeda, of course, sees the United States as its primary enemy, and it doesn’t stop there. European countries, supposed enemies of Islam such as Russia and India, and Arab regimes of all stripes are on their hit list. Other components of the “Salafi-jihadist” movement (of which al Qaeda is a part) focus operations on killing Shiite Muslims, whom they view as apostates. Hamas, in contrast, does not call for the overthrow of Arab regimes and works with Shiite Iran and the Alawite-dominated secular regime in Damascus, pragmatically preferring weapons, money, and assistance in training to ideological consistency.
Hamas, like its parent organization, the Muslim Brotherhood, also devotes much of its attention to education, health care, and social services. Like it or not, by caring for the poor and teaching the next generation of Muslims about its view of the world, Hamas is fundamentally reshaping Palestinian society. Thus, many Palestinians who do not share Hamas’s worldview nonetheless respect it; in part because the Palestinian moderates so beloved of the West have often failed to deliver on basic government functions. The old Arab nationalist visions of the 1950s and 1960s that animated the moderate Palestinian leader Mahmood Abbas and his mentor Yasir Arafat have less appeal to Palestinians today.
One of the greatest differences today, as the Arab spring raises the hope that democracy will take seed across the Middle East, is that Hamas accepts elections (and, in fact, took power in Gaza in part because of them) while al Qaeda vehemently rejects them. For Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Ladin’s deputy and presumed heir-apparent, elections put man’s (and, even worse, woman’s) wishes above God’s. A democratic government could allow the sale of alcohol, cooperate militarily with the United States, permit women to dress immodestly, or a condone a host of other practices that extremists see as for
By: shelf-employed,
on 2/5/2011
The holiday season has officially begun. And along with it is my first Holiday Readathon running from December 2nd to 5th and all I needed to do was make a pledge for charity. My pledge is 5¢ per page read to the Salvation Army and a can of food for each book read to a local food bank.
You too can sign up at Holiday Readathon
I am beginning the Readathon with books for Chanukah because last night was the first night of Chanukah and the world’s largest Menorah was lit at Grand Army Plaza in Manhattan (59th Street and Fifth Avenue.) Chanukah is a joyous festival of lights, hope and miracles. And last night we did have a bit of a miracle when the horrible rain and strong winds stopped just in time for the lighting. If you would like to know more about this holiday, including how to make and play with a Dreidel and why children receive Chanukah Gelt, be sure to visit Chanukah on the Net
By: Kirsty,
on 9/11/2008
Regular OUPblog readers will know that we have a series of posts around our Very Short Introductions series, where authors answer a few questions on their topic. Today I’m doing something a little different. Steven Beller is the author of Antisemitism: A Very Short Introduction. I asked him what he saw as the main reasons for there being such a high level of antisemitism throughout world history, and why he thought so much irrational hatred was leveled at the Jewish faith. His answer was so in depth and interesting that I thought it deserved a post all of its own. Check back next week for the rest of his fascinating Q&A.
It is true, as I state at the beginning of my book, that antisemitism can be and has been defined as an almost “eternal hatred” of Jews that has stretched from Antiquity to the present. But that is not the definition I operate with in my VSI, because in the end I do not think it is all that helpful in getting to grips with the central problem of antisemitism in the modern era, as a political and ideological movement, starting in the second half of the nineteenth century. I define antisemitism as that modern political and ideological movement, and one of my main points in the book is that it is wrong to think that the previous history of anti-Jewish prejudice and persecution in European history made the emergence of antisemitism as a movement inevitable. It is another major point of my book to dispute the notion that the emergence of antisemitism as a potent political and ideological force before 1914 meant that there was anything inevitable (until it happened that is) about the triumph of Nazism in Germany in the 1930s and the ensuing Holocaust.
I do not even think that it is all that accurate to assume that antisemitism has been present “throughout history”. Even when we define antisemitism in the “eternal” variety, as any form of anti-Jewish hatred, whether religiously, politically, socially, ideologically or economically based, there are vast swathes of time and recorded space in which it was not present, or at least of little consequence. Chinese and Indian history, and pre-Columbian history and Sub-Saharan African history, accounting for most of human historical experience, knew little or no animus against Jews before the modern era, mainly because Jews were an unknown or insignificant group. Anti-Jewish hatred was really a phenomenon of Middle Eastern and European history, and only spread to the rest of the world with the triumph of Eurocentric modern civilization. Even within Europe, and in what I see as the bastion of modern antisemitism, Central Europe (German-speaking and otherwise), there were periods when anti-Jewish hatred could be dismissed as an insignificant atavism; even in its era of major success around 1900 in Central Europe, there were many areas and centres, such as German Prague, Budapest and Breslau (Wroclaw) where the message of antisemitism was rejected or simply ignored.
It is true that anti-Jewish hatred has a very long history, going back (one assumes) to the Egyptians and the Romans, but I think some of this sense of “eternal hatred” is a consequence of a Judaeocentric view of the world, and I do not think that, until the emergence of Christianity, there was anything all that unique about anti-Jewish hatred. Jews were just one of the peoples in the Mediterranean world that needed to be dealt with by others, and I do not think the Romans, for instance, hated the Jews more than they had hated, let us say, the Carthaginians. With Pauline Christianity came a special animus against Jews resulting from the fact of Christianity’s Jewish roots; there is a similar special character about the pre-modern Muslim, religiously-based animosity to Jews, because, ironically, of the shared religious heritage. In European history it was the Christian need to be proved the true faith that led to anti-Jewish hatred being so ingrained into European culture and thought. Even so, this animosity was not the same as antisemitism, and in many eras, such as the late eighteenth century, was very much on the wane. It took further developments in modern European history to enable such underlying, religiously-based prejudices to be transformed into modern antisemitism. Antisemitism is thus a subject of modern history and not simply the study of an atavistic survival.
To talk of “irrational hatred” suggests that there is such a thing as “rational hatred”, and it is another point of my book to at least suggest that there are indeed many more “reasons” for anti-Jewish animosity and hence for antisemitism than many students of the subject are prepared to admit. This does not mean that such hatred is morally right, or acceptable, but it does open up the possibility that it is not irrational. Hence, Christian animosity towards Jews is based on a non-rational belief in the divinity of Christ that Jews can never share—is Christian animosity towards Jews because of this refusal to accept the “truth” (in Christian terms) irrational, therefore? I am not sure it is. But it should not be too surprising that Christian societies have tended to be anti-Jewish as a result of this fundamental theological conflict, and it is this religiously based difference which is at the heart of European society’s animosity towards Jews. At the same time, the Freudian/Nietzschean claim that it was precisely the fact that Christianity imposed “Jewish” moral, anti-hedonistic, repressive values on pagan European societies also has much going for it: Jews end up being blamed for both rejection and origination of the imposed faith. This might explain why the Jewish religion, seen as the original monotheism, has been such a focus of animosity within Christian societies. At the same time, I would like to stress that this particular strength of hatred of the Jews compared to “other faiths” was not historically a constant. Jews might have been restricted and persecuted in medieval Christendom, but they were allowed to exist within it as Jews, unlike any other heretical Christian group, or indeed Muslims or other faiths. In North America there are examples, such as Peter Stuyvesant’s New Amsterdam, where Jews were a tolerated minority, but other groups, such as Quakers, were not. So we need to be careful not to assume that Jews have always and everywhere been the most hated faith.
I am also intrigued by the use of the term “faith”. There is, I would agree, a foundation of religious conflict to both Christian and Muslim animosity towards Jews. Yet faith is only a part of it, and there is also a very strong group or ethnic component to this animosity, especially after the emergence of nationalism, and this has very little to do with Jews as a community of faith, and everything to do with them being perceived as a group of others. When it comes to this ethnic animosity, then Jews have also been historically the premier example of the consequences of “irrational hatred”, as in the Holocaust; on the other hand, the animosity directed and the horrors perpetrated against all kinds of other minority ethnic or religious groups, such as the Armenians in Turkey, the Chinese in Southeast Asia, the Igbo in Nigeria, or African-Americans in the United States (or even once upon a time Catholics in the United kingdom) should remind us that Jews are far from being alone in being the object of such hatred and persecution.
By: Laurel Snyder,
on 9/8/2008
If you’ll go…
Really! We’ll get a whole slew of fun Jewish-type people, and we’ll all move to this sweet little town, where we’ll live next door to each other and make a lot of soup, and do crafts and it’ll be like… like… like…
Only way more fun.
No, seriosly, it’ll be the eruv of cool. Within whose boundaries we will rejoice in our coolness and share beer. All the beer will be communal in the eruv of cool.
OR! Better yet, we should encourage all the remaining communist Jews to go there, and create a utopian society. Like a kibbutz.
Or maybe all the orthodox Jews with SAD should go there, and then it can become like Postville. Only less slaughtery.
In any case it will be awesome, AWESOME!
Is Chabad there already? I assume so. If not, they will be soon!!!
By: Claire Louise Milne,
on 4/5/2007
This is my current WIP - a white wool felted purse knitted up with moss stitch. The fabric in the picture is going to be the lining.
The other project I just finished is for the sewing corner - a lattice covered cork board. I see these in magazines all the time and decided to finally make one after finding a cork board at Goodwill for $0.99.
The first stage was to cover it with fabric. The frame was too securely attached to remove, so I had to find a way to attach the fabric and still have it look tidy. I used a light blue cotton cut to the same size as the frame. Then I used a pencil to mark the dimensions of the cork part.
The pencil line marks the hem allowance which you fold over. Then you pin the fabric in place and make sure it's tidy and even all the way around. I used a staple gun to attach the fabric to the cork.
The last part is the lattice. (I wonder why I love lattices so much?) The little white bookshelf has a lattice inset too, so it's kind of a theme in that corner. I made the cork board lattice by marking off even intervals then pinning bias tape in place with silver tacks.
The bias tape is single fold, which works best. (I just found out the difference myself - previously I'd only bought double fold which wouldn't have looked quite right for this project.) Also, the tape is cut on the bias of course, which means it has a little bit of stretch, so after pinning it snugly in place, it will hold your odds and ends without the need of extra pins.
Here it is in the sewing corner - I also added a hook to the wall for my aprons. I think I'm finally done now! Thank you all so much for all the comments on my crafts corner, I'm happy to have inspired so many people, because I think every crafter should have their own little corner to work in.
0 Comments on Some Holiday Books - Chanukah as of 1/1/1900
I thought this book was fascinating. Such an interesting way to introduce the Holocaust to children and stress the importance of paying attention to family stories/history.
I haven't read the book but I did watch the movie last year with my then 13-year-old daughter. It was very memorable!
I have never heard of this book- but it sounds fascinating. I like Jane Yolen and I enjoy books written about this time period. I will have to read the book and watch the movie. Thanks so much for sharing!
~Jess