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Displays of Jewish ritual objects in public, non-Jewish settings by Jews are a comparatively recent phenomenon. So too is the establishment of Jewish museums. This volume explores the origins of the Jewish Museum of New York and its evolution from collecting and displaying Jewish ritual objects, to Jewish art, to exhibiting avant-garde art devoid of Jewish content, created by non-Jews. Established within a rabbinic seminary, the museum’s formation and development reflect changes in Jewish society over the twentieth century as it grappled with choices between religion and secularism, particularism and universalism, and ethnic pride and assimilation.
Since turning to the field of Jewish art over twenty years ago, Vivian Mann has concentrated on investigating Jewish ceremonial art within the dual contexts of Jewish law, and the history of decorative arts in general, including the ceremonial art made for the Church and the Mosque. The introduction to this volume considers classic rabbinic attitudes toward art and its relationship to spirituality. The remaining essays are divided into three groups: the first concerns medieval ceremonial art; the second, articles on the Jewish art of Muslim lands beginning with the early Middle Ages; and the third consists of essays on Judaica during the periods of the Renaissance and rococo.
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This essential resource offers guidance for educators to expand the teaching repertoire on a range of issues in modern Jewish history, culture, religion, and Society.
In this bold interdisciplinary work, Geoffrey Galt Harpham argues that asceticism has played a major role in shaping Western ideas of the body, writing, ethics, and aesthetics. He suggests that we consider the ascetic as "the 'cultural' element in culture," and presents a close analysis of works by Athanasius, Augustine, Matthias, Grünewald, Nietzsche, Foucault, and other thinkers as proof of the extent of asceticism's resources. Harpham demonstrates the usefulness of his findings by deriving from asceticism a "discourse of resistance," a code of interpretation ultimately more generous and humane than those currently available to us.
New York Jews, so visible and integral to the culture, economy and politics of America's greatest city, has eluded the grasp of historians for decades. Surprisingly, no comprehensive history of New York Jews has ever been written. City of Promises: The History of the Jews in New York, a three volume set of original research, pioneers a path-breaking interpretation of a Jewish urban community at once the largest in Jewish history and most important in the modern world.