Antimodernism and Orthodox Judaism's Heretical Imperative: An American Religious Counterpoint

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-272
Author(s):  
Zev Eleff ◽  
Seth Farber
Keyword(s):  
Jewish History ◽  
Orthodox Judaism ◽  
American Religious History ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Orthodox Jewish ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Modern Life ◽  
Modern Jewish History ◽  
The Right ◽  
Modern Orthodox

AbstractThis article argues that the case of religious authority within Orthodox Judaism is an important counterexample to the broader and understudied developments in American religion during the final decades of the twentieth century. Using an array of untapped primary sources and drawing on themes addressed by scholars of American religious history and modern Jewish history, this article demonstrates how Orthodox Jewish elites used “approximational heresies” to police their faith community. In so doing, Orthodox leaders furnished “indicators” of apostasy that were unknown in previous epochs and served to stand in for traditional types that proved otherwise insufficient to counteract new trends in modern life and culture. Orthodox Jewish “antimodernism” was animated by a need to demonstrate what was “in” and what was “out” of bounds as well as by the emergence of a triumphalism that was unique among American faiths. Likewise, the rank-and-file abided because they either agreed with these measures or feared becoming “outsiders.” This outlook contrasts with the attitudes of other religious groups—on the “left” and the “right”—that absorbed a spirit of “inclusiveness” and, therefore, eschewed heresy hunting and the boldness evinced by Orthodox elites during this period. The article concludes that the pervasiveness of this counterculture among the Orthodox Jewish community was so powerful that it, counterintuitively, introduced the strategies of the antimodernists to the American-acculturated, so-called Modern Orthodox community.

The Case for Muslim Constitutional Interpretive Activity

1990 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-75
Author(s):  
Kathleen Moore
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Substantial Contribution ◽  
Constitutional Rights ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Racial Hatred ◽  
Special Diet ◽  
Court Record ◽  
Religious Associations ◽  
Islamic Faith ◽  
The Right

Muslim Involvement: The Court Record 1.Prisoners' RightsCan we rely upon the courts to protect Islam and Muslims from discriminatory treatment? Have the courts considered Islam to be a 'religion' worthy of constitutional protection? The issue of First Amendment protection of Muslim beliefs and practices has arisen most often in cases brought by African-American Muslims who are incarcerated. In fact, the area of law to which Muslims have made their most substantial contribution to date is the area of prisoners' rights litigation. African-American Muslim inmates have been responsible for establishing prisoners' constitutional rights to worship. Cases brought by Muslims have established that prisoners have the right to assemble for religious services; to consult a cleric of their faith; to possess religious publications and to subscribe to religious literature; to wear unobstrusive religious symbols such as medallions; to have prepared a special diet required by their religion; and to correspond with their spiritual leaders. The court record demonstrates that Muslim inmates' religious liberty claims, challenging prison regulations that impinge on the free exercise of the Islamic faith, have been accepted only under certain circumstances. In brief, the responsiveness of the courts to Muslim inmates' claims has turned on a number of factors including: (1) the issue of equality of treatment of all religious groups in prison; (2) the courts' reticence to reverse the decisions of prison officials; (3) the degree to which the inmates' challenges would undermine the fundamental interests of the state (e.g. in prison security and administrative efficiency); and (4) the showing that Islam is parallel in significant ways to the conventional Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish faiths.Constitutional protection of Islamic practices in prison and elsewhere, however, has not been automatic. Many Muslim organizations, the Nation of Islam in particular, have been treated as cults, or suspect and dangerous groups, due in part to the perception that Muslims teach racial hatred, and have not been regarded in the same respect as 'mainline' religious groups. It has been argued before the courts that Muslim doctrine contains political aspirations and economic goals as well as racial prejudice and should be suppressed in the interest of society. The gist of this argument is that certain Muslim groups are primarily political and not religious associations and thus ...

La recherche appliquée: le cas du « Katholiek Sociaal Kerkelijk Instituut (KASKI) » aux Pays-Bas

1971 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 621-637 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adolf Holl ◽  
Hyacinthe Crépin
Keyword(s):  
Professional Competence ◽  
Rapid Change ◽  
Religious Life ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
The Political ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
The People ◽  
Pastoral Planning ◽  
Senior Research ◽  
The Right

Following Vatican II changes are rapidly taking place within Dutch Catholicism — the bishops no longer make decisions in an authoritarian way: religious practice is de clining ; priests and religious are decreasing in numbers and many religious and pastoral experiments have come into being. KASKI has the responsibility of keeping pace with the Church during this process of change. In order to do this it makes use of several modes of work — the production of statistics relating to the position of religion in Society, the planning of religious and pastoral institutions and the study of new forms of the religious life in orders and congregations. For the first task it has used the same instruments for twenty- five years and the censuses thus produced yield valuable infor mation. As far as pastoral planning is concerned, it works in the field, playing the role of catalyst for those who have to make decisions and the people who have to carry out these decisions. This was the case, for instance, in the pastoral planning of the town of Eindhoven. Finally, when dealing with the new forms of communal religious life it adopts the method of studying through participation so that two of its researchers working in this sector are themselves members of religious groups. Applied research poses important problems, both from the methodological and from the political points of view. Amongst them may be noted the difficulty of determining precisely what constitutes rapid change in religious life, and the political choice of the persons for whom the research is being con ducted; the latter inevitably imposes a certain degree of conformity upon the perspectives of the work. (For example, the choice of the Dutch hierarchy which was to follow the general lines given by a large majority of Catholic opinion when it was tested particularly on questions like the liturgical and parochial changes). The fact, also, that the director of KASKI himself has a personal commitment to what may be described as the « right of centre » position in Dutch Catho licism poses problems for the work of the Institute. Political and religious radicalism is not a strong characteristic of the more senior research workers. KASKI is a rare example of a centre which brings socio logists together and uses their professional competence to accompany change in religious institutions.

Jewish Representation in the Independent Ukrainian Governments of 1917-1920

Slavic Review ◽  
1991 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 542-550 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henry Abramson
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Jewish History ◽  
Revolutionary Movement ◽  
Jewish Communities ◽  
Linguistic Barriers ◽  
Modern Jewish History

The experience of Ukrainian Jewry from 1917 to 1920 is a paradox in modern Jewish history. At the same moment that the leaders of the Ukrainian revolutionary movement extended unprecedented civil rights to Ukrainian Jews, pogromists operating in the name of that same movement brutally terrorized hundreds of Jewish communities with violence and robbery. This strange incongruity has not been satisfactorily addressed; studies of the period have either concentrated on the pogroms or focused on Jewish socialists in Ukrainian politics. Linguistic barriers and subsequent developments, notably the 1926 assassination of Symon Petliura, have further polarized an already dichotomous history. This article attempts to synthesize these two trends.

On Modern Jewish History

1959 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 204
Author(s):  
B. Weinryb ◽  
Howard M. Sachar
Keyword(s):  
Jewish History ◽  
Modern Jewish History

Diplomacy of the Concil of Lithuania in Entente powers

2021 ◽  
pp. 55-64
Author(s):  
Sandra Grigaravičiūté
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Peace Treaty ◽  
National Council ◽  
Central State ◽  
Direct Indication ◽  
Soviet Russia ◽  
State Archives ◽  
The Right ◽  
Academy Of Sciences

The research reveals appointment, competence and type of activities of the authorized representatives of the Council of Lithuania delegated to represent the Council of Lithuania, Lithuania’s interests or affairs abroad (in neutral and “belligerent countries”) from 22 October 1917 to 11 November 1918. The Entente Powers include the United States, Great Britain, France and also Italy in some cases. Russia, which also belonged to the Entente, is left outside the scope of the research, because after Soviet Russia signed the Peace Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (3 March 1918), it did no longer fight on the side of the Entente. The research on the diplomacy of the Council of Lithuania in the Entente Powers was carried out on the basis of published (press, memoirs, published documents) and unpublished sources (from the Lithuanian Central State Archives, Manuscripts Department of the Wroblewski Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences). The study employed the methods of analysis and comparison, the descriptive method, and the comparison of sources and literature. While processing the primary sources, in particular in French and German languages, the logistic-analytical method was applied (the notional content and information analysis was carried out). The research consists of two parts. In the first part of investigation the author analyzes the appointment and competence of the authorized representatives of the Council of Lithuania in neutral and “belligerent countries” and concludes, that the analysis of the circumstances of appointment and chronology of the authorized representatives of the Council of Lithuania in neutral and “belligerent countries” as well as the content of their authorizations made it clear that permanent authorized representatives, Juozas Purickis and Vladas Daumanatas-Dzimidavičius, who were appointed on 22 October 1917, had their residence in Lausanne and constituted a part of the collegial body of Lithuanian National Council, were authorized to represent the Council of Lithuania; however, only Purickis’ authorization included the phrase “to represent Lithuania’s interests abroad”; there was no indication as to what countries were meant. An equivalent wording – “to represent Lithuania’s interests abroad” – was also included in the texts of authorizations of non-permanent authorized representatives – Augustinas Voldemaras and Konstantinas Olšauskas. The material contained in the minutes of the meetings of the Council of Lithuania entails that “representation in belligerent countries” also meant representation in the Entente Powers, though no direct indication was included. In the second part of the study the author reveals the specific type of activities of the authorized representatives of the Council of Lithuania (October 1917 – November 1918) and states, that Permanent representatives of the Council of Lithuania, who were based in Lausanne and formed a part of the collegial Lithuanian National Council, did not always coordinate their diplomatic steps in the Entente Powers or in their embassies in Bern; hence, the Council of Lithuania had to deny or dissociate itself from certain statements made by the Lithuanian National Council (in Lausanne) (the declaration of separation from Russia of 25 December 1917; the protest telegram of June 1918). Both permanent and non-permanent representatives of the Council of Lithuania authorized to represent Lithuania’s interests abroad shared the same goal of seeking “the recognition of the right to self-determination for the Lithuanian nation” and the recognition of independence declared by the Council of Lithuania (on the basis of Part I of the Act of 11 December 1917 and the Act of 16 February 1918).

Manichaeism and Gnosticism in the Papyri

2011 ◽  
pp. 622-643
Author(s):  
Cornelia Römer
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Decisive Role ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Church Fathers ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Christian Church ◽  
The People ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Church

The church fathers were appalled in particular by the Gnostics' condemnation of creation. But the fact that much of their teaching was in many respects not so far from Christian dogma must have disturbed the advocates of the “real” Christian church. In some of these Gnostic systems, Christ was the main savior figure; in others, it was the forefathers of the Old Testament who guaranteed salvation; in Manichaeism, it was the new Messenger of Light, the apostle Mani, who, coming after Christ, would finally give the right revelation to the people and excel Christ in doing so. This article deals with religious groups such as these as they existed in Egypt in the Roman and late antique periods. Papyrology has played a decisive role in our understanding of the religious movements of the first centuries ce in Egypt and elsewhere in the Mediterranean.

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