The Karaite Community in Interwar Poland

1986 ◽  
Vol 14 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 101-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Warren Green
Keyword(s):  
Jewish Community ◽  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Jewish Law ◽  
Interwar Poland ◽  
The Common ◽  
Jewish Holidays ◽  
Dietary Laws ◽  
Theological Argument ◽  
Common Era

The Karaites are a schismatic Jewish sect which severed itself from the Babylonian Jewish community in the eighth century of the Common Era. The Karaites contended that the Rabbinites, the adherents to the Rabbinic tradition of Judaism, had perverted the Torah (Pentateuch) by superseding it with the Talmud (the compendium of the oral tradition of Jewish law). As a result of this theological argument, the Karaites adopted a fundamentalist approach to scriptural exegesis. The two groups differed in such areas as: observance of religious laws, the order of prayers, dietary laws and determining the dates of Jewish holidays.

Food in the Rabbinic Era

2020 ◽  
pp. 59-82
Author(s):  
David C. Kraemer
Keyword(s):  
First Century ◽  
Jewish Law ◽  
Biblical Law ◽  
Rabbinic Judaism ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Dietary Laws ◽  
Eating Practices ◽  
Common Era

Jews continued to live in the Mediterranean region during the first ten centuries of the Common Era, and their diet remained based around the Mediterranean triad of wine, olive oil, and bread. Because the Israelite system of sacrificial worship ended at the end of the first century CE, the role of food in the economy and religion changed significantly. Religious scholars known as rabbis emerged and expanded the biblical concept of Torah and the scope of biblical law and produced an abundant literature—including the Talmud—representing their traditions, opinions, practices, and halakha (practical Jewish law). They developed food blessings and rituals for daily, Sabbath, and holiday observances as well as kashrut, the Jewish dietary laws, which restricted food choices, combinations, and foods prepared by non-Jews. By the end of this era, Jews appear to have accepted Rabbinic Judaism and were distinctive in their eating practices and food-centered rituals.

scholarly journals Jødisk humor hver fredag

Ingen spøk ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 179-202
Author(s):  
Gunnar Haaland
Keyword(s):  
Jewish Community ◽  
Biblical Narratives ◽  
Jewish Humor ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Common Notion ◽  
The Common ◽  
Dietary Laws ◽  
International Character

For six years (2011–2017), the weekly newsletter of the Jewish Community of Oslo included «The Joke of the Week» on the last page. The present study of these jokes provides a) a mapping of predominant themes and b) expositions of jokes representative of these themes, addressing cultural and religious contexts and characteristics and employing – when applicable – the typology of Jewish jokes developed by Richard Raskin (1992). Predominant themes include marriage, family, dietary laws, holiday observance, God and the rabbis, biblical narratives and heroes, and intercultural and interreligious encounters. This collection of jokes reflects the international character of the Jewish community in Norway and confirms the common notion that Jewish humor typically is self- disparaging. Jokes at the expense of non-Jews are rare, a handful of slightly disrespectful jokes about Jewish–Catholic encounters being the main exceptions. Even the jokes about interreligious encounters usually make fun of the Jewish protagonist. Anti-Semitic stereotypes of Jewish cleverness, cunning and love for money appear prominently. There is striking silence, however, when it comes to topics that have sparked humor controversies in Norway: circumcision, the Holocaust, and Israeli military aggression and superiority towards the Palestinians.

The Word of God in One’s Hand: Touching and Holding Pendant Koran Manuscripts

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 338-357
Author(s):  
Cornelius Berthold
Keyword(s):  
Haptic Feedback ◽  
The Body ◽  
Word Of God ◽  
Rare Occurrence ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Solid Objects ◽  
Cylindrical Form ◽  
The Common ◽  
Common Era

AbstractKoran manuscripts that fit comfortably within the palm of one’s hand are known as early as the 10th century CE.For the sake of convenience, all dates will be given in the common era (CE) without further mention, and not in the Islamic or Hijra calendar. Their minute and sometimes barely legible script is clearly not intended for comfortable reading. Instead, recent scholarship suggests that the manuscripts were designed to be worn on the body like pendants or fastened to military flag poles. This is corroborated by some preserved cases for these books which feature lugs to attach a cord or chain, but also their rare occurrence in contemporary textual sources. While pendant Korans in rectangular codex form exist, the majority were produced as codices in the shape of an octagonal prism, and others as scrolls that could be rolled up into a cylindrical form. Both resemble the shapes of similarly dated and pre-Islamic amulets or amulet cases. Building on recent scholarship, I will argue in this article that miniature or pendant Koran manuscripts were produced in similar forms and sizes because of comparable modes of usage, but not necessarily by a deliberate imitation of their amuletic ‘predecessors’. The manuscripts’ main functions did not require them to be read or even opened; some of their cases were in fact riveted shut. Accordingly, the haptic feedback they gave to their owners when they carried or touched them was not one of regular books but one of solid objects (like amulets) or even jewellery, which then reinforced this practice.

Marking Religious and Ethnic Boundaries: Cases from the Ancient Golan Heights

2000 ◽  
Vol 69 (3) ◽  
pp. 519-557 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert C. Gregg
Keyword(s):  
Rhode Island ◽  
Religious Identity ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Small Communities ◽  
Rural Settings ◽  
The Common ◽  
Late Roman Period ◽  
Common Era

In the aftermath of the 1967 “Six Days' War,” 254 ancient inscribed stones were found in forty-four towns and villages of the Golan Heights—241 in Greek, 12 in Hebrew or Aramaic, and 1 in Latin. These stones, along with numerous architectural fragments, served as the basis of the 1996 book by myself and Dan Urman, Jews, Pagans, and Christians in the Golan Heights—a study of settlement patterns of people of the three religions in this region in the early centuries of the common era.1 The area of the Golan heights, roughly the size of Rhode Island, was in antiquity a place of agriculture and, for the most part, small communities. Though historians of religions in the late Roman period have long been aware of the “quartering” of cities, and of the locations of particular religious groups in this or that section of urban areas, we have had little information concerning the ways in which Hellenes, Jews, and Christians took up residence in relation to each other in those rural settings featuring numerous towns and hamlets— most presumably too small to have “zones” for ethnic and religious groups. The surviving artifacts of a number of the Golan sites gave the opportunity for a case study. Part 1 of this article centers on evidence for the locations and possible interactions of members of these religious groups in the Golan from the third to the seventh centuries and entails a summary of findings in the earlier work, while part 2 takes up several lingering questions about religious identity and ways of “marking” it within Golan countryside communities. Both sections can be placed under a rubric of “boundary drawing and religion.”

scholarly journals JEWISH LAW, STATE, AND SOCIAL REALITY: PRENUPTIAL AGREEMENTS FOR THE PREVENTION OF DIVORCE REFUSAL IN ISRAEL AND THE UNITED STATES

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-88
Author(s):  
Amihai Radzyner
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Jewish Woman ◽  
Main Tool ◽  
The United States ◽  
Western World ◽  
Jewish Law ◽  
State Law ◽  
Jewish Women ◽  
The Common ◽  
Official Status

AbstractRabbinical courts in Israel serve as official courts of the state, and state law provides that a Jewish couple can obtain a divorce only in these courts, and only strictly according to Jewish law. By contrast, in the Western world, especially the United States, which has the largest concentration of Jews outside of Israel, the Jewish halakha is not a matter of state law, and rabbinical courts have no official status. This article examines critically the common argument that for a Jew committed to the halakha, and in particular for a Jewish woman who wants to divorce her husband, a state-sponsored halakhic system is preferable to a voluntary one. This argument is considered in light of the main tool that has been proven to help American Jewish women who wish to obtain a halakhic divorce from husbands refusing to grant it: the prenuptial agreement. Many Jewish couples in the United States sign such an agreement, but only a few couples in Israel do so, primarily because of the opposition of the rabbinical courts in Israel to these agreements. The article examines the causes of this resistance, and offers reasons for the distinction that exists between the United States and Israel. It turns out that social and legal reality affect halakhic considerations, to the point where rabbis claim that what the halakha allows in the United States it prohibits in Israel. The last part of the article uses examples from the past to examine the possibility that social change in Israel will affect the rulings of rabbinical courts on this issue.

The Religious Perspective of the Judge's Role in Talmudic Law

2009 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 357-377 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuval Sinai
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Civil Law ◽  
Jewish Law ◽  
Religious Perspective ◽  
Intended Application ◽  
Legal Question ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
Human Conduct ◽  
The Common ◽  
Western Law

Unlike modern Western law, which is generally assumed to be the product of human deliberation about the common good, at least in democratic countries, Jewish law is a normative system in which adjudication is subject to religious commandments. The judge bears responsibility not only to the litigants standing before him but also to God, an allegiance which most modern Western judges do not, at least explicitly, recognize.Because of the systems' assumptions that law is made by humans and thus can be understood by human judges given the appropriate information, modern Western legal systems infer that judges are under obligation to render a decision on any legal question brought before them, even in doubtful cases. Secular-civil law views the resolution of a dispute as preferable to its non-resolution, even if the judge has reservations about his decision. The judge who is hesitant to decide a case is considered to have failed to properly discharge his judicial role, the very essence of which is the regulation of human conduct in one form or other. The obligation of the judge to render a decision on every legal question both implies and requires that a judge exercise creative discretion in at least some cases where the law or its intended application are not clear to ensure the rendering of a clear and unequivocal decision on any legal question brought before him. As a consequence of this unequivocal demand that the judge decide, most judges must make peace with the possibility that their rulings may later be discovered or determined to have been mistaken.

Advancing community-led research into the climate of the Common Era

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah S. Eggleston ◽  
Steven Phipps ◽  
Oliver Bothe ◽  
Helen V. McGregor ◽  
Belen Martrat ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Science ◽  
Global Changes ◽  
Present Climate ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Past ◽  
Third Phase ◽  
The Common ◽  
Common Era ◽  
Scientific Questions ◽  
New Phase

<p>The past two thousand years is a key interval for climate science. This period encompasses both the era of human-induced global warming and a much longer interval when changes in Earth’s climate were governed principally by natural drivers and unforced variability. Since 2009, the Past Global Changes (PAGES) 2k Network has brought together hundreds of scientists from around the world to reconstruct and understand the climate of the Common Era using open and collaborative approaches to palaeoclimate science, including virtual meetings. The third phase of the network will end in December 2021. Here we highlight some key outputs of PAGES 2k and present the major themes and scientific questions emerging from recent surveys of the community. We explore how these might boost a new phase of PAGES 2k or a successor project(s). This year we will further reach out to the community through Town Hall consultations, vEGU and other meetings, and a PAGES 2k global webinar series. The aim of these activities is to foster development of post-2021 community-led PAGES initiatives that connect past and present climate.</p>

Anthropomorphic ‘tombstones’ of the Gorgippia necropolis

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Е.М. Алексеева
Keyword(s):  
Black Sea ◽  
Sacred Places ◽  
Black Sea Region ◽  
Funeral Ritual ◽  
Conventional Meaning ◽  
Ancient City ◽  
The Common ◽  
Common Era ◽  
Burial Grounds

Traditionally, anthropomorphic sculptures from the necropolis of the ancient city of Gorgippia are flattened half-shapes without detailed face and body contours, merely trunks and heads. In the Northern Black Sea region such monuments are characteristic of the IV–II centuries BC, but some date back to the first centuries of the Common Era. There is a reason to believe that they were used for ceremonial purposes rather than as markers of particular burial grounds or gravestones in the conventional meaning. Faceless half-shapes in Greek necropolises are associated with rites of the worship of Persephone, who dies (as represented by faceless sculptures) and then resurrects (by sculptures with painted faces) as seasons change. They could be used like special posts – ‘cippi’ – for marking sacred places within necropolises with libations and sacrifices in honor of gods with chthonic properties. Such incarnations are observed in Persephone (Kore), Demeter, Aphrodite, Artemis and their male counterparts – Dionysus, Hercules, Hermes, Eros. Epitaphs and carved scenes related to traditions of the funeral ritual on the anthropomorphic objects turned them into tombstones dedicated to specific deceased individuals. 

Karaite Synagogue Poets

1997 ◽  
pp. 408-432
Author(s):  
Leon J. Weinberger
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Jewish Law ◽  
Prayer Book ◽  
Verse Forms

This chapter examines the Karaite synagogue poets. The Karaites, a Jewish sect originating in the first half of the eighth century, are distinctive mainly because of their refusal to accept the authority of the talmudic-rabbinic tradition. Although the Karaites were at odds with their Rabbanite brethren in matters relating to Jewish law, they readily adopted the latters’ models in hymnography. The Karaite liturgy, which in the early years of the sect consisted of recitation from the Psalms and other scriptural readings, soon developed into rich and varied genres for fasts and feasts. The new hymnography was preserved in the thirteenth-century Karaite prayer-book edited by the scholar-poet Aaron b. Joseph the Elder from Crimea and Constantinople. Like their Rabbanite counterparts, Karaite hymnists served a didactic function, instructing the laity in their religious obligations. Karaite poets also used the liturgy as a means of instructing their congregations in current philosophical issues, particularly those relating to Jewish Neoplatonism and the nature of the soul. In their aesthetic function, Karaite hymnists resembled the Rabbanite Hispanics, favouring Arabic quantitative metres and verse forms. Caleb Afendopolo (d. 1525) of Kramariya (near Constantinople) was the master of this poetic art, as seen in his liturgical (and secular) writings.

The Neighborhood, the City, and Beyond

Yeshiva Days ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 43-78
Author(s):  
Jonathan Boyarin
Keyword(s):  
Jewish Community ◽  
Jewish Population ◽  
Orthodox Jewish ◽  
Jewish Law ◽  
Lower East Side ◽  
East Side ◽  
The People ◽  
Short Biography ◽  
The City

The chapter presents a short biography and the shiur of the Rosh Yeshiva. It introduces the people who came to the Lower East Side, and the people who were born in the area, which created a network of institutions that has been gradually dwindling for decades. The chapter also tackles how Nasanel wound up at Mesivtha Tifereth Jerusalem (MTJ). Unlike some larger yeshivas, especially perhaps those in Israel, there do not seem to be any formal recruiting efforts at MTJ. Other than those who are from the neighborhood, people find their way to MTJ either because of the Rosh Yeshiva's reputation as a leading authority on Orthodox Jewish law, or because, like Nasanel, they have somehow gotten the sense that the place will be right for them. The chapter then takes a look at the lives of Yisroel Ruven in the Lower East Side, Asher Stoler, Rabbi Canto, both regular at the beis medresh, and the Orthodox Jewish community. Ultimately, it illustrates a neighborhood where the Jewish population has been declining for roughly a century, and where buildings to house Jewish institutions have been progressively emptied out.

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