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The struggle for postzionism is a conflict over national memory and the control of cultural and physical space. Laurence J. Silberstein analyzes the phenomenon of postzionism and provides an intervention into this debate.
Is Jewish identity flourishing or in decline? Community leaders and scholarly researchers continually seek to determine the attitudes, beliefs, and activities that best measure Jewish identity. At issue, according to these studies, is the very survival of the Jewish community itself. But such studies rarely ask what actually is being examined when we attempt to assess "Jewish identity" or any identity. Most tend to assume that identity is a preexisting, relatively fixed frame of reference reflecting shared cultural and historical experiences. Drawing on recent work in such fields as cultural studies, poststructuralist theory, postmodern philosophy, and feminist theory, Mapping Jewish Identit...
Cultural boundaries and group identity are often forged in relation to the Other. In every society, conceptions of otherness, which often reflect a group's fears and vulnerabilities, result in deep-rooted traditions of inclusion and exclusion that permeate the culture's literature, religion, and politics. This volume explores the ways in which Jews have traditionally defined other groups and, in turn, themselves. The contributors, a distinguished international group of scholars, explore the discursive processss through which Jewish identity and culture have been constructed, disseminated, and perpetuated. Among the topics addressed are: Others in the biblical world; the construction of gende...
The Post-Zionism Debates applies a framework drawn from contemporary cultural studies to explore the debates provoked by post-zionism. This conflict is one of national memory that can call into question historical narratives of Israel.
This volume, the first in the series New perspectives on Jewish studies, published by the Berman Center for Jewish Studies and NYU Press, draws upon recent Israeli and North American historiography to shed new light on fundamental social, political, and cultural issues surrounding the emergence of the State of Israel. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Impossible Images brings together a distinguished group of contributors, including artists, photographers, cultural critics, and historians, to analyze the ways in which the Holocaust has been represented in and through paintings, architecture, photographs, museums, and monuments. Exploring frequently neglected aspects of contemporary art after the Holocaust, the volume demonstrates how visual culture informs Jewish memory, and makes clear that art matters in contemporary Jewish studies. Accepting that knowledge is culturally constructed, Impossible Images makes explicit the ways in which context matters. It shows how the places where an artist works shape what is produced, in what ways the space in which a work of art is exhibited and how it is named influences what is seen or not seen, and how calling attention to certain details in a visual work, such as a gesture, a color, or an icon, can change the meaning assigned to the work as a whole. Written accessibly for a general readership and those interested in art and art history, the volume also includes 20 color plates from leading artists Alice Lok Cahana, Judy Chicago, Debbie Teicholz, and Mindy Weisel.
In this volume a distinguished group of international scholars draws from history, folklore, political anthropology, historiography, and cultural criticism to reexamine critical issues surrounding the birth of Israel. The authors explore such issues as the transition form yishuv to state, early state policy toward the Arab minority, the origins of the Palestinian refugee problem, the conflict over myths and symbols in the early state, early attitude toward Holocaust victims and survivors, Arab historiography of the 1948 war, Israel-Diaspora relations, and the shaping of Israeli foreign policy. The contributors to the book include: Myron J. Aronoff (Rutgers University), Uri Bialer (Hebrew Uni...
The Institute of Jewish Studies, founded in 1954 by the late Alexander Altmann, is dedicated to the promotion of all aspects of scholarship in Jewish Studies and related fields. Its programmes include public lectures, seminars, and annual conferences. All lectures and conferences are open to the general public. Jewish history has been extensively studied from social, political, religious, and intellectual perspectives, but the history of Jewish consumption and leisure has largely been ignored. The hitherto neglect of scholarship on Jewish consumer culture arises from the tendency within Jewish studies to chronicle the production of high culture and entrepreneurship. Yet consumerism played a central role in Jewish life. This volume is the first of its kind to deal with the topic of Jewish consumer culture. It gives new insights on Jewish belongings and longings and provides multiple readings of Jewish consumer culture as a vehicle of integration and identity in modern times
This reader provides a broad spectrum of innovative and highly controversial views on Zionism and its place in the global Jewish world order in the 21st century. Essays explore attitudes about Jewish homeland and diaspora as well as ways in which zionist discourse marginalizes minority groups.
Zionism was inspired as a movement--one driven by the search for a homeland for the stateless and persecuted Jewish people. Yet it trampled the rights of the Arabs in Palestine. Today it has become so controversial that it defies understanding and trumps reasoned public debate. So argues prominent British writer Jacqueline Rose, who uses her political and psychoanalytic skills in this book to take an unprecedented look at Zionism--one of the most powerful ideologies of modern times. Rose enters the inner world of the movement and asks a new set of questions. How did Zionism take shape as an identity? And why does it seem so immutable? Analyzing the messianic fervor of Zionism, she argues tha...