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Forms the first part of a project to classify and describe the Arabic portion of the Genizah Collection.
When the Turkish government demanded the cancellation of all lectures on the Armenian Genocide at Israel's First International Conference on the Holocaust and Genocide, and that Armenian lecturers not be allowed to participate, the Israeli government followed suit. This book follows the author’s gutsy campaign against his government and his quest to successfully hold the conference in the face of censorship. A political whodunit based on previously secret Israel Foreign Ministry cables, this book investigates Israel’s overall tragically unjust relationship to genocides of other peoples. The book also closely examines the figures of Elie Wiesel and Shimon Peres in their interference with ...
The unique emotional power of each chronicle may be felt in the translation. The Chronicle of Solomon bar Samson is a moving narrative concerning the Rhineland massacres. The second chronicle, that of Eliezer bar Nathan, interprets some of the same events in elegiac style and liturgical language while the third chronicle, the Mainz Anonymous though fragmented, is highly analytical in nature. The fourth chronicle, Sefer Zekhirah, is a personal description of the Second Crusade, full of poignant detail. Together, the chronicles present a moving human record of these events, of value not only to professional historians but to all who seek to broaden their understanding of the Jewish experience.
Mussar is an illuminating, approachable, and highly practical set of teachings for cultivating personal growth and spiritual realization in the midst of day-to-day life. Here is an accessible and inspiring introduction to this Jewish spiritual path, which until lately has been best known in the world of Orthodox Judaism. The core teaching of Mussar is that our deepest essence is inherently pure and holy, but this inner radiance is obscured by extremes of emotion, desire, and bad habits. Our work in life is to uncover the brilliant light of the soul. The Mussar masters developed transformative teachings and practices—some of which are contemplative, some of which focus on how we relate to others in daily life—to help us to heal and refine ourselves.
Emotions in Jewish Music is an insider’s view of music’s impact on Jewish devotion and identity. Written by cantors who have devoted themselves to the study and execution of Jewish music, the book’s six chapters explore a wide range of musical contexts and encounters. Topics include the spiritual influence of secular Israeli tunes, the use and meaning of traditional synagogue modes, and the changing nature of Jewish worship. The approaches are both personal and scholarly, describing the experiential side of Jewish music in both practical and philosophical terms. Emotions in Jewish Music reveals much about the emotional aspects of Jewish musical expression.
How are martyrs made, and how do the memories of martyrs express, nourish, and mold the ideals of the community? Sanctifying the Name of God wrestles with these questions against the background of the massacres of Jews in the Rhineland during the outbreak of the First Crusade. Marking the first extensive wave of anti-Jewish violence in medieval Christian Europe, these "Persecutions of 1096" exerted a profound influence on the course of European Jewish history. When the crusaders demanded that Jews choose between Christianity and death, many opted for baptism. Many others, however, chose to die as Jews rather than to live as Christians, and of these, many actually inflicted death upon themsel...
Analyzes the causes of the anti-Jewish violence of the First Crusade. The spiritual revival and rapid growth of the 10th-11th centuries led both to Church reform and the Crusades, an attempt to direct feudal violence against the enemies of the Church. Under the impact of popular frenzy and loss of control by the papacy, the traditional Church doctrine of both denigration and toleration of the Jews broke down. The crusading bands' ideological motivation is reflected in contemporary Hebrew chronicles and in two Christian accounts. Discusses the Jewish response of martyrdom in preference to conversion. Contends that 1096 was not a turning-point - the destroyed communities were quickly resettled, and in later Crusades anti-Jewish excesses were prevented by the Church. The massacres indicated a change in Christian attitudes, including the view of Jews as enemies of Christendom, ritual murder accusations, and the demand for the Jews' total destruction or conversion. The appendix (pp. 223-297) contains an English translation of the texts of the two chronicles.
In her authoritative new book, Maite Conde introduces readers to the crucial early years of Brazilian cinema. Focusing on silent films released during the First Republic (1889-1930), Foundational Films explores how the medium became implicated in a larger project to transform Brazil into a modern nation. Analyzing an array of cinematic forms, from depictions of contemporary life and fan magazines, to experimental avant-garde productions, Conde demonstrates the distinct ways in which Brazil’s early film culture helped to project a new image of the country.
This work focuses on English cultural attitudes toward Jews from roughly 1660 to 1830. Frank Felsenstein describes the persistence through the period of certain negative biases that, in many cases, can be traced back at least to the late Middle Ages
Rod Mengham's new offering comprises two complementary halves: a poetic meditation on a place (the Bronze Age site of Grimspound on Dartmoor); and a series of short essays on different cultural habitats. Grimspound is a four-part work combining prose and verse, composed on site over the course of ten years. It combines a 'wild analysis' of Hound of the Baskervilles (whose climactic scene takes place at Grimspound), a portrait of the Victorian excavator Sabine Baring-Gould, and a series of poems that draw on the Russian linguist Aharon Dolgopolsky's experimental Nostratic Dictionary. Inhabiting Art gathers essays on cultural history in relation to landscape and cityscape, viewed either episodically or in the form of a palimpsest, where the present state of the habitat both reveals and conceals its own history and prehistory.