This book explores the image of Jews in India in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, looking at both the Indian attitudes towards the Jewish communities of the subcontinent and at the way Jews and Judaism in general have been represented in Indian discourse.
Despite the fact that the Indian Jewish population constitutes one of the country's tiniest minorities, the relations of the local Jews with other communities form an integral part in the history of Indian multiculturalism. This has become increasingly apparent over the last two centuries as Judaism and its image have been incorporated into the discussions of some of the most prominent figures of different religious and nationalist movements, leaders of independent India, and the Indian mass media. Furthermore, recent decades witnessed mass adoption of Israelite identity by Indians from two different regions and religious groups.
This is a topic that has hitherto received little attention and Jews and India seeks to rectify this situation by examining these developments and providing a fascinating insight into these issues. This volume will be of interest to scholars of Jewish and Indian cultural studies.

The Ugliness of Moses Mendelssohn examines the idea of ugliness through four angles: philosophical aesthetics, early anthropology, physiognomy and portraiture in the eighteenth-century. Highlighting a theory that describes the benefit of encountering ugly objects in art and nature, eighteenth-century German Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn recasts ugliness as a positive force for moral education and social progress. According to his theory, ugly objects cause us to think more and thus exercise-and expand-our mental abilities. Known as ugly himself, he was nevertheless portrayed in portraits and in physiognomy as an image of wisdom, gentility, and tolerance. That seeming contradiction-an ugly object (Mendelssohn) made beautiful-illustrates his theory's possibility: ugliness itself is a positive, even redeeming characteristic of great opportunity. Presenting a novel approach to eighteenth century aesthetics, this book will be of interest to students and scholars in the fields of Jewish Studies, Philosophy and History.

Previously published as a special issue of The Journal of Israeli History, this book presents the reflections of historians from Israel, Europe, Canada and the United States concerning the similarities and differences between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism primarily in Europe and the Middle East.

Spanning the past century, the essays explore the continuum of critique from early challenges to Zionism and they offer criteria to ascertain when criticism with particular policies has and has not coalesced into an ism of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism.

Including studies of England, France, Germany, Poland, the United States, Iran and Israel, the volume also examines the elements of continuity and break in European traditions of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism when they diffused to the Arab and Islamic.

Essential course reading for students of religious history.

More than forty years have passed since Louis Jacobs first put forward the argument that traditionally observant Jews have no reason to take issue with the results obtained by the historical critics in their investigation into the Bible and the other classical sources of Judaism. In his numerous works on Jewish theology and in lectures worldwide, Jacobs has argued that the traditional doctrine which claims that 'the Torah is from Heaven' can and should be maintained -- provided that the word 'from' is understood in a non-fundamentalist way to denote that there is a human as well as a divine element in the Torah: God revealing His will not only to but through the Jewish people in their historical experiences as they reached out to Him.

As a result of these views, which were first published in the still-controversial text. We Have Reason to Believe, the Anglo-Jewish Orthodox hierarchy banned Jacobs from serving as an Orthodox rabbi. This was the cause of the notorious 'Jacobs affair', which culminated in the creation of the New London Synagogue and, eventually, in the establishment of the Masorti movement in the UK with strong, affinities with Conservative Judaism in the United States.

In this new book, Louis Jacobs examines afresh all the issues involved. He does so objectively but with passion, meeting the objections put forward by critics from the various trends within the Jewish world, both Orthodox and Reform, and inviting readers to follow the argument and make up their own minds.

This book explores the extraordinary differentiation of the Baghdadi Jewish community over time during their sojourn in India from the end of the eighteenth century until their dispersion to Indian diasporas in Israel and English-speaking countries throughout the world after India gained independence in 1947. Chapters on schools, institutions and culture present how Baghdadis in India managed to maintain their communities by negotiating multiple identities in a stratified and complex society. Several disciplinary perspectives are utilized to explore the super-diversity of the Baghdadis and the ways in which they successfully adapted to new situations during the Raj, while retaining particular traditions and modifying and incorporating others. Providing a comprehensive overview of this community, the contributions to the book show that the legacy of the Baghdadi Jews lives on for Indians today through landmarks and monuments in Mumbai, Pune and Kolkata, and for Jews, through memories woven by members of the community residing in diverse diasporas. Offering refreshing historical perspectives on the colonial period in India, this book will be of interest to those studying South Asian Studies, Diaspora and Ethnic Studies, Sociology, History, Jewish Studies and Asian Religion.

The study of ethnicity, diaspora, and identity is one of the most expanding and exciting areas of contemporary historical research and publication in the UK today. There is an increasing body of literature being published on this subject, which was previously seen as the domain of the social sciences. Connecting Histories is an important addition to that trend as, whilst utilising sociological and anthropological theories, it is a historical and comparative assessment of ethnic identities and memories. It investigates how African-Caribbean and Jewish individuals and 'communities' remember their experiences, by examining 'life histories' and 'autobiographical acts', including autobiography, oral history, and travel writing. Its main focus is to assess how mythologies affect collective memory and influence personal identities. Key themes of exploration include the memories of migration and myths of the Mother Country and Promised Land, the re-remembering of racist riots in early twentieth century Britain, and reflections on community and diasporic identities. Its value and originality lies in juxtaposing two communities who have many parallels in historical experience, identity, and memory but who have rarely been compared to each other.

The Genius of the Jewish Joke focuses on what is distinctive and unusual about Jewish jokes and Jewish humor. Jewish humor is humor by Jews and about Jews, in whatever medium this humor is found. Jokes are defined as short stories, meant to amuse, with a punch line, though Jewish humor exists in many other forms--riddles, comic definitions, parodies--as well. The book makes a "radical" suggestion about the origin of Jewish humor--namely, that Sarah and Abraham's relation to God, and the name of their son Isaac (which, in Hebrew, means laughter), recognizes a special affinity in Jews for humor. Abraham does not sacrifice Isaac (humor) and, thus, humor and the Jews are linked early in Jewish history.

Berger discusses techniques of humor and how they can be used to analyze jokes. He also compares "Old World Jewish Humor"--the humor of the shtetl, with its fabulous schlemiels, schlimazels, schnorrers, and other characters--and "New World Humor"--the humor of Jewish doctors, lawyers, accountants, and other professional types living mostly in the suburbs nowadays. Jewish humor is contrasted with other forms of ethnic humor, such as Polish jokes and Italian American jokes.

This humor, in addition to providing pleasure, reveals a great deal about Jewish character and culture and, in addition, the human condition. Now available with a new introduction by the author, The Genius of the Jewish Joke is an entertaining and informative inquiry into Jewish humor that explores its distinctiveness, its unique spirit, and its role in Jewish identity.

"We will be judged in our own time and in the future by measuring the aid that we, inhabitants of a free and fortunate country, gave to our brethren in this time of greatest disaster." This declaration, made shortly after the pogroms of November 1938 by the Jewish communities in Sweden, was truer than anyone could have forecast at the time. Pontus Rudberg focuses on this sensitive issue - Jewish responses to the Nazi persecutions and mass murder of Jews. What actions did Swedish Jews take to aid the Jews in Europe during the years 1933-45 and what determined their policies and actions? Specific attention is given to the aid efforts of the Jewish Community of Stockholm, including the range of activities in which the community engaged and the challenges and opportunities presented by official refugee policy in Sweden.

Volume 16 of The Jewish Law Annual adds to the growing list of articles on Jewish Law that have been published in volumes 1-15 of this series, providing English-speaking readers with scholarly material meeting the highest academic standards. The volume contains seven articles diverse in their scope and focus, encompassing legal, historic, textual, comparitive and conceptual analysis, as well as a chronicle of cases of interest, and a survey of recent literature. Three of the articles, one of which explores references to Genesis in (western) canon law, make up a special section on the book of Genesis. The other topics covered are: suicide as an act of atonement in Jewish law; early interpretations of the Bible and Talmud as reflecting medieval legal realia; Ashkenazic codifiers in Spain; and authority, custom and innovation in the seventeenth-century Italian halakhic encyclopedia, Pahad Yitzhak.

The subject of anti-Semitism, not long ago thought to be a dead issue, has been revised due to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Maccoby traces the now topical discussion of the origins of Anti-Semitism, and especially its development in the modern world. The key questions that are addressed include:

• How is it that this medieval prejudice proved so lasting and potent?
• Are the roots of anti-Semitism religious? If so, how do these roots differ in Christianity and Islam?
• By what means did it bridge the gap between medievalism and Enlightenment?
• How was it that many of the most respected Enlightenment figures (such as Voltaire) dedicated as they were to tolerance and pluralism, retained a virulent anti-Semitism?

These questions, and many more, are dealt with as Maccoby explores the roots of the anti-Semitism, tracing it from its origins, and shows how it has changed in accordance with the shifting ideas of the modern world but without changing in its essence.

Antisemitism and Modernity is essential reading for those with interests in the development of anti-Semitism, its manifestation in the current world and its future.

This book brings together a collection of 16 essays that explore Jewish communities in North Africa, Turkey and Iraq. The discussions are located primarily in the 20th century but essays also examine the Jewish community in 16th-century Istanbul, and in early modern Morocco. Topics include traumatic departures of communities from countries of centuries-old Jewish residence, and relocations; pilgrimages to holy sites by Mizrahi Jews in Israel; resonances of Shabbetai Zevi in Turkey and Morocco; "otherness" and the nature of homeland; the Sephardi culinary heritage as realised in the cookbooks of Claudia Roden; sites of memory, such as Kuzguncuk in Turkey; and a controversial view of the exclusions and erasures that Arabized Jews have undergone. In this unique collection a major, but not exclusive, theme is that of the instability of memory, and the attempt to understand the interactions between memory and history as Jews recount their experiences of living in, and often leaving, their past homelands. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Modern Jewish Studies.

Centering on the first extant martyr story (2 Maccabees 7), this study explores the "autonomous value" of martyrdom. The story of a mother and her seven sons who die under the torture of the Greek king Antiochus displaces the long-problematic Temple sacrificial cult with new cultic practices, and presents a new family romance that encodes unconscious fantasies of child-bearing fathers and eternal mergers with mothers. This study places the martyr story in the historical context of the Hasmonean struggle for legitimacy in the face of Jewish civil wars, and uses psychoanalytic theories to analyze the unconscious meaning of the martyr-family story.

This book examines the role played by Arab-Palestinian culture and people in the construction and reproduction of Israeli national identity and culture, showing that it is impossible to understand modern Israeli national identity and culture without taking into account its crucial encounter and dialectical relationship with the Arab-Palestinian indigenous 'Other'. Based on extensive and original primary sources, including archival research, memoirs, advertisements, cookbooks and a variety of cultural products - from songs to dance steps - From the Arab Other to the Israeli Self sheds light on an important cultural and ideational diffusion that has occurred between the Zionist settlers - and later the Jewish-Israeli population - and the indigenous Arab-Palestinian people in Historical Palestine. By examining Israeli food culture, national symbols, the Modern Hebrew language spoken in Israel, and culture, the authors trace the journey of Israeli national identity and culture, in which Arab-Palestinian culture has been imitated, adapted and celebrated, but strikingly also rejected, forgotten and denied. Innovative in approach and richly illustrated with empirical material, this book will appeal to sociologists, anthropologists, historians and scholars of cultural and Middle Eastern studies with interests in the development and adaptation of culture, national thought and identity.

The White Terror was a movement of right-wing militias that for two years actively tracked down, tortured, and murdered members of the Jewish community, as well as former supporters of the short-lived Council Republic in the years following World War I. It can be argued that this example of a programme of virulent antisemitism laid the foundations for Hungarian participation in the Holocaust. Given the rightward shift of Hungarian politics today, this book has a particular resonance in re-examining the social and historical context of the White Terror.

Published in 1908, this book draws on a variety of sermons written by Rev. Morris Josephs, to provide a message on Judaism. Designed to create a discourse for universal readership this book covers topics such as the ethics of Jewish life, the perception of the world vs Judaism, and the religious experience of Judaism.

This book examines Jewish writers and intellectuals in Austria, analyzing filmic and electronic media alongside more traditional publication formats over the last 25 years. Beginning with the Waldheim affair and the rhetorical response by the three most prominent members of the survivor generation (Leon Zelman, Simon Wiesenthal and Bruno Kreisky) author Andrea Reiter sets a complicated standard for 'who is Jewish' and what constitutes a 'Jewish response.' She reformulates the concepts of religious and secular Jewish cultural expression, cutting across gender and Holocaust studies. The work proceeds to questions of enacting or performing identity, especially Jewish identity in the Austrian setting, looking at how these Jewish writers and filmmakers in Austria 'perform' their Jewishness not only in their public appearances and engagements but also in their works. By engaging with novels, poems, and films, this volume challenges the dominant claim that Jewish culture in Central Europe is almost exclusively borne by non-Jews and consumed by non-Jewish audiences, establishing a new counter-discourse against resurging anti-Semitism in the media.

The fragility of the liberal democratic state after 1789 is illustrated in the history of the European Jews from the French Revolution to the Holocaust. Emancipation and hope of emancipation amongst the European Jewish population created a plethora of Jewish identities and forms of patriotism. This book takes the original approach of studying European Jewish patriotism as a whole, with particular attention given to creative literature. Despite their growing awareness of racial, genocidal hatred, most European Jews between 1789 and 1939 tended to be patriotic toward the countries of their citizenship, an attitude reflected in the literature of the time. Yet, the common assumption among emancipated Jews that anti-Semitism would fade in a world governed by reason proved false. For millions of European Jews, the infinite possibilities they associated with emancipation came to nothing. The Jewish experience exposed many of the weaknesses and failings of the liberal multicultural state, and demonstrated that its survival cannot be taken for granted but is dependent on vigilance and struggle. By focusing on Jewish patriotism from 1789-1939, this book explores the nature of the liberal state, how it can fail, and the conditions needed for its survival.

Published in 1920, this anthology of children's stories reflect the lives and festivals celebrated by children in the Jewish colonies in early 20th century Palestine.

Published in 1908, this book details the development and establishment of Judaism and Jewish culture in contrast to the spread and presence of the Christian church and community. Focusing on the spiritual importance of Jewish scripture and its prominence in other Abrahamic religions, Goodman presents a discussion on spiritual and ethical perspectives in Judaism in comparison to Christianity.

This book tells the little-known story of a fascinating crypto-Jewish community through two centuries and three continents. Beginning as a precarious settlement of a few families in mid-eighteenth-century Mashhad, an Islamic holy city in northern Iran, the community grew into a closely-knit group in response to their forced conversion to Islam in 1839. Muslim hostility and a culture of memory sustained by intra-communal marriages reinforced their separate religious identity, vesting it in strong family and communal loyalty. Mashhadi women became the main agents of the cultural transmission of communal identity and achieved social roles and high status uncharacteristic for contemporary Jewish and Muslim communities. The Mashhadis maintained a double identity upholding Islam in public while tenaciously holding onto their Jewish identity in secret. The exodus from Mashhad after 1946 relocated the communal centre to Tehran, and later to Israel and after the Khomeini revolution to New York. The relationship between the formation and retention of communal identity and memory practices with interconnected issues of religion and gender draws upon existing research on other crypto-faith communities, such as the Judeoconversos, the Moriscos, and the French Protestants, who through the special blend of memory-faith and ethnicity emerged strengthened from their underground period. For the immigration period, the author challenges the old paradigm that modernity and religion are mutually exclusive. The book also explores the sometimes uncomfortable yet intimate relationships that exist between seemingly incompatible ways of seeing the past, both secular and religious.

The first part of this book presents a translation into English of the Hebrew compilation Sefer Abavat Nashim, the Book of Woman's Love, compiled in the late Middle Ages and preserved in a single copy of the work from Catalonia-Provence. Its contents are concerned with magic, sexuality, cosmetics and gynecology -- areas of knowledge essentially, though not exclusively, related to women. The second part is a historical study of Jewish women's lives and experiences during the late Middle Ages in the Mediterranean West. The object is to restore value to feminine knowledge and practices that were significant then and remain so today. The author focuses on the relation between women and medicine, and examines both women's knowledge and knowledge of science and scientific knowledge about women. This pioneering work makes a valuable contribution to the history of Jewish knowledge and Jewish women during the Middle Ages, and also makes a substantial contribution to the history of medicine.

"Masterful...An indispensable warning for our own time." -Samuel Moyn "Magisterial...Covers this dark history with insight and skill...A major intervention into our understanding of 20th-century Europe and the lessons we ought to take away from its history." -The Nation For much of the last century, Europe was haunted by a threat of its own imagining: Judeo-Bolshevism. The belief that Communism was a Jewish plot to destroy the nations of Europe took hold during the Russian Revolution and quickly spread. During World War II, fears of a Judeo-Bolshevik conspiracy were fanned by the fascists and sparked a genocide. But the myth did not die with the end of Nazi Germany. A Specter Haunting Europe shows that this paranoid fantasy persists today in the toxic politics of revitalized right-wing nationalism. "It is both salutary and depressing to be reminded of how enduring the trope of an exploitative global Jewish conspiracy against pure, humble, and selfless nationalists really is...A century after the end of the first world war, we have, it seems, learned very little." -Mark Mazower, Financial Times "From the start, the fantasy held that an alien element-the Jews-aimed to subvert the cultural values and national identities of Western societies...The writers, politicians, and shills whose poisonous ideas he exhumes have many contemporary admirers." -Robert Legvold, Foreign Affairs

The drawing of boundaries has always been a key part of the Jewish tradition and has served to maintain a distinctive Jewish identity. At the same time, these boundaries have consistently been subject to negotiation, transgression and contestation. The increasing fragmentation of Judaism into competing claims to membership, from Orthodox adherence to secular identities, has brought striking new dimensions to this complex interplay of boundaries and modes of identity and belonging in contemporary Judaism. Boundaries, Identity and Belonging in Modern Judaism addresses these new dimensions, bringing together experts in the field to explore the various and fluid modes of expressing and defining Jewish identity in the modern world. Its interdisciplinary scholarship opens new perspectives on the prominent questions challenging scholars in Jewish Studies. Beyond simply being born Jewish, observance of Judaism has become a lifestyle choice and active assertion. Addressing the demographic changes brought by population mobility and 'marrying out,' as well as the complex relationships between Israel and the Diaspora, this book reveals how these shifting boundaries play out in a global context, where Orthodoxy meets innovative ways of defining and acquiring Jewish identity. This book is essential reading for students and scholars of Jewish Studies, as well as general Religious Studies and those interested in the sociology of belonging and identities.

Philosemitism, Antisemitism and 'the Jews' both honours and carries on the work of The Rev. Dr. James Parkes (1896-1981), a pioneer in the many different fields involving the study of Jewish/non-Jewish relations. The collection is designed to examine both the specific and broader themes of Parkes' life work in relation to tolerance and intolerance. From antiquity to today, Jews have often been defined as 'aliens'; these essays consider the effects of such legislative and socio-cultural exclusion on the self-definition of the dominant society. Philosemitism, Antisemitism and 'the Jews' employs an interdisciplinary framework, bringing together the work of scholars from both sides of the Atlantic and Israel, who work in history, theology, political philosophy, legal theory and literary studies. Eminent historians and theorists of tolerance and intolerance, including Gavin Langmuir, David Theo Goldberg, Norman Solomon and Tony Kushner, are joined by younger scholars researching new developments in the field.

Between 1977 and 1985, some 20,000 Ethiopian Jews left their homes in Ethiopia and embarked on a secret and highly traumatic exodus to Israel. Due to various political circumstances they had to leave their homes in haste, go a long way on foot through unknown country, and stay for a period of one or two years in refugee camps, until they were brought to Israel. The difficult conditions of the journey included racial tensions, attacks by bandits, night travel over mountains, incarceration, illness, and death. A fifth of the group did not survive the journey.

This interdisciplinary, ground-breaking book focuses on the experience of this journey, its meaning for the people who made it, and its relation to the initial encounter with Israeli society. The author argues that powerful processes occur on such journeys that affect the individual and community in life-changing ways, including their initial encounter with and adaptation to their new society. Analyzing the psychosocial impact of the journey, he examines the relations between coping and meaning, trauma and culture, and discusses personal development and growth.