Carol Zemel, Looking Jewish: Visual Culture and Modern Diaspora. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2012. 198 pp.

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Visual Culture ◽  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Jewish Studies ◽  
Indiana University ◽  
Analytical Term ◽  
Jewish Art ◽  
The Status ◽  
Visual Artifacts ◽  
Historical Accounts

This chapter reviews the book Looking Jewish: Visual Culture and Modern Diaspora (2012), by Carol Zemel. In Looking Jewish, Zemel explores normative historical accounts of “Jewish art.” She probes a “diasporic position” between the Scylla and Charybdis of the nation and the modern, offering a detailed analysis of an array of visual artifacts and their creators. The book features “pictures by Jewish artists that deal with the status and character of Jews in modern diasporic communities.” The art and artists are characterized by the notion of standing on a threshold—at the edge of place, on the cusp of time. Through her meticulous and engaging readings of images in their historical context, Zemel examines the notion of diaspora as an analytical term and its particular meaning for Jewish studies.

The Carved Wooden Torah Arks of Eastern Europe

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bracha Yaniv
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Religious Art ◽  
Artistic Development ◽  
Jewish Art ◽  
Visual Metaphors ◽  
Jewish Heritage ◽  
Religious Understanding

The carved wooden Torah arks found in eastern Europe from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries were magnificent structures, unparalleled in their beauty and mystical significance. The work of Jewish artisans, they dominated the synagogues of numerous towns both large and small throughout the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, inspiring worshippers with their monumental scale and intricate motifs. Virtually none of these pieces survived the devastation of the two world wars. This book breathes new life into a lost genre, making it accessible to scholars and students of Jewish art, Jewish heritage, and religious art more generally. Making use of hundreds of pre-war photographs housed in local archives, the author develops a vivid portrait of the history and artistic development of these arks. Analysis of the historical context in which these arks emerged includes a broad survey of the traditions that characterized the local workshops of Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine. The author provides a detailed analysis of the motifs carved into the Torah arks and explains their mystical significance, among them representations of Temple imagery and messianic themes — and even daring visual metaphors for God. Fourteen arks are discussed in particular detail, with full supporting documentation; appendices relating to the inscriptions on the arks and to the artisans' names will further facilitate future research. The book throws new light on long-forgotten traditions of Jewish craftsmanship and religious understanding.

MORAL OBLIGATION AFTER THE DEATH OF GOD: CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON CONCERNS FROM IMMANUEL KANT, G. W. F. HEGEL, AND ELIZABETH ANSCOMBE

2010 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 317-340 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Tristram Engelhardt
Keyword(s):  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
Moral Obligation ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Important Change ◽  
Moral Pluralism ◽  
Moral Obligations ◽  
European Continent ◽  
Presence Of God ◽  
Thing In Itself ◽  
The Status

AbstractOnce God is no longer recognized as the ground and the enforcer of morality, the character and force of morality undergoes a significant change, a point made by G.E.M. Anscombe in her observation that without God the significance of morality is changed, as the word criminal would be changed if there were no criminal law and criminal courts. There is no longer in principle a God's-eye perspective from which one can envisage setting moral pluralism aside. In addition, it becomes impossible to show that morality should always trump concerns of prudence, concerns for one's own non-moral interests and the interests of those to whom one is close. Immanuel Kant's attempt to maintain the unity of morality and the force of moral obligation by invoking the idea of God and the postulates of pure practical reason (i.e., God and immortality) are explored and assessed. Hegel's reconstruction of the status of moral obligation is also examined, given his attempt to eschew Kant's thing-in-itself, as well as Kant's at least possible transcendent God. Severed from any metaphysical anchor, morality gains a contingent content from socio-historical context and its enforcement from the state. Hegel's disengagement from a transcendent God marks a watershed in the place of God in philosophical reflections regarding the status of moral obligations on the European continent. Anscombe is vindicated. Absent the presence of God, there is an important change in the force of moral obligation.

Jewish Art, Naturally

Images ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-28
Author(s):  
Carol Zemel
Keyword(s):  
Visual Culture ◽  
Cultural Issues ◽  
Jewish Art ◽  
Erwin Panofsky ◽  
Art Production ◽  
Cultural Historiography ◽  
Aby Warburg

AbstractThis essay sets out an agenda for the study of modern Jewish visual culture. Topics and issues raised encompass questions of idolatry, the ethics of visuality and picturing the unrepresentable, nationalism in traditional cultural historiography, diasporic art production, and a suggested review of Jewish cultural issues in theorists such as Aby Warburg, Erwin Panofsky and others of the interwar generation.

Max Scheler’s Pluralistic Conception of Knowledge

2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (9999) ◽  
pp. 83-94
Author(s):  
Stanisław Czerniak ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
Scientific Communities ◽  
Late Work ◽  
Types Of Knowledge ◽  
Knowledge Types ◽  
The Status ◽  
Philosophy Of Knowledge

This article aims to reconstruct Max Scheler’s conception of three types of knowledge, outlined in his late work Philosophical Perspectives (1928). Scheler distinguished three kinds of knowledge: empirical, used to exercise control over nature, eidetic (essential) and metaphysical. The author reviews the epistemological criteria that underlie this distinction, and its functionalistic assumptions. In the article’s polemic part he accuses Scheler of a) crypto-dualism in his theory of knowledge, which draws insufficient distinctions between metaphysical and eidetic knowledge; b) totally omitting the status of the humanities in his classification of knowledge types; c) consistently developing a philosophy of knowledge without resort to the research tools offered by the philosophy of science, which takes such analyses out of their social and historical context (i.e. how knowledge is created in today’s scientific communities).

scholarly journals Bella Abzug, queer rights, and disrupting the status quo

2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Trevor G Gates ◽  
Margery C Saunders
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Social Action ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
The United States ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Working Environment ◽  
Field Analysis ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Status

Workers who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ)-identified have always been a part of the workplace in the United States, yet there has been a lack of awareness about how to advocate for the needs of these people. This lack of awareness was challenged by Congresswoman Bella Abzug. Abzug’s campaign for creating an equal working environment for sexual minorities initiated gradual changes in the public discourse concerning workplace and other broad equality measures for these communities. To frame these gradual transformations within a historical context, we use Lewin’s force field analysis framework to examine the change efforts of Abzug. Abzug had beginning success in thawing the status quo yet her visions for equality for LGBTQ people have yet to be realized. Using Abzug’s social action as an example, this article concludes that allies must continue to challenge societal oppression, power, and privilege and to demand civil rights protections for LGBTQ individuals.

scholarly journals Territorial Delimitation between Altai, Omsk and Semipalatinsk Provinces in 1925

2021 ◽  
pp. 371-383
Author(s):  
K. B. Korzhenevsky
Keyword(s):  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Border Line ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of

A detailed analysis of the process of demarcation of the Altai province from the Omsk province of the RSFSR and the Semipalatinsk province of the Kirghiz (since June 1925 — Kazak) ASSR, which were first involved in scientific circulation is carried out on the basis of the archival documents. It is shown that it consisted in an attempt by the Altai authorities to withdraw the territory of the Narrow Steppe from under their jurisdiction and transfer it to the adjacent provinces in the first half of 1925. The history of this border issue, which arose as a result of the inclusion of the Korostelevskaya steppe in the Kyrgyz ASSR, is investigated. The course of discussion of changes in the border line between the authorities of the three provinces and Moscow is described. Various arguments proposed by the parties, options for resolving the problem that have arisen are considered; and also, it is explained why, in the end, the disputed border territory remained part of Siberia. It is noted that the attempts of the leadership of the Altai province to transfer part of the territory of the Uglovsky district with the “Narrow Steppe” tract under the control of the Omsk and Semipalatinsk provinces are noted. It is concluded that the issue of the status of the Narrow Steppe during the nationalterritorial demarcation between Siberia and Kazakhstan was one of the most difficult and went beyond the traditional ways of solving similar problems.

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