A New World Babylonia

2021 ◽  
pp. 252-275
Author(s):  
Deborah Dash Moore
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New World ◽  
Jewish Life ◽  
Church And State ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Jews ◽  
Jewish Culture ◽  
Profound Impact ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The Creation

This chapter discusses the distinctive rise of American Jews as a new center of Jewish culture. It focuses on the conditions in the United States, especially separation of church and state, which encouraged religious creativity, and the genocide of the Holocaust that spurred the transfer of aspects of European religious and intellectual Jewish life. It argues that feminism encouraged women to contribute in vital ways to the creation of Jewish culture that had a profound impact throughout the Jewish world. America has exemplified a new Babylonia, one that would produce influential forms of Judaism shaped by women as well as men.

A Time to Gather

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Lustig
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Jewish Life ◽  
Birth Certificate ◽  
The United States ◽  
Historical Records ◽  
Jewish Culture ◽  
Communal Life ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
And Control

A Time to Gather: Archives and the Control of Jewish Culture examines Jewish archives in Germany, the United States, and Israel/Palestine and argues that historical records took on potent value in modern Jewish life as both sources of history and anchors of memory, precisely because archives presented one way of transmitting Jewish culture and history from one generation to another. Creating archives was one means for Jews to take control of their history, especially after the Holocaust, when efforts at archive restitution removed looted archives from the hands of perpetrators. Such efforts also raised complex questions of who could actually “own” this history. This book contends that twentieth-century Jewish archival efforts served as a proxy for wide-ranging struggles over the meaning and control of Jewish culture: whether in Israel’s claims to be a successor to European Jewry, the reality of American Jewry’s rising prominence, or the question of the continued vitality of Jewish life in Germany after the Holocaust, gathering archives was a means to assert dominance over Jewish culture by making claims of ties to the past and constituting a kind of “birth certificate” or legitimization of communal life. A Time to Gather presents archive making as a metaphor with the dispersion and gathering of documents falling in the context of the Jews’ long diasporic history. In the end, a rising urgency of archival memory in Jewish life and the importance of history’s traces meant archives were powerful but contested symbols of control of the past, present, and future.

Ofira Seliktar. Divided We Stand: American Jews, Israel, and the Peace Process. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002. xvi, 272 pp.

AJS Review ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 412-413
Author(s):  
Harold M. Waller
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Jewish Life ◽  
Peace Process ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Jews ◽  
Jewish State ◽  
Central Importance ◽  
Israeli Government ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Run Up

Israel, and before that the idea of a Jewish state in the traditional homeland, has long captured the imagination of many, if not always most, American Jews. The close connection between Jews in Israel and the United States intensified as the events of the last century unfolded, especially the Holocaust, the struggle for Israel's independence, and then the unending effort to safeguard that independence and ensure security. The 1967 Six-Day War, the run-up to which conjured up images of another calamity, had a profound effect in the Diaspora, driving home the reality of Israel's precarious security and the state's central importance in modern Jewish life. That watershed produced a relatively short-lived period when it seemed that American Jews were united in their support for Israel. But, since 1977, that “sacred unity” has been called into question as sharp divisions have appeared—exacerbated by controversial Israeli government decisions and the pressures of the peace process since 1991.

So What Are Jews For?

2020 ◽  
pp. 264-290
Author(s):  
Adam Sutcliffe
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
New World ◽  
Jewish Life ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
European Jewish ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

This chapter reviews the question on what Jews are for. It talks about the anxiety over the long-term viability of Judaism that threatened to overwhelm the question across much of the Jewish world in the late twentieth century. It describes the European Jewish life in the aftermath of the Holocaust that was shadowed by a sense of dutiful traditionalism and anxiety over the continued presence of antisemitism. The chapter also analyzes the temptation and increasing ease of assimilation that was perceived as a threat to Jewish continuity in Europe, in the United States, and elsewhere in the New World. It points out how it was clear to some Jewish leaders, while faced with the prospect of a “vanishing diaspora,” that the postwar focus on communal survival lacked the inspirational power to renew Jewish life.

scholarly journals Islam in a More Conservative Western World

1996 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 246-249
Author(s):  
Ali A. Mazrui
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Church And State ◽  
Nobel Laureate ◽  
The United States ◽  
Good News ◽  
Western World ◽  
American Jews ◽  
Minority Religions ◽  
Reverence For Life ◽  
Secular State

My findings are tentative and subject to further research. This presentationrests on three paradoxes of great relevance to Muslims in the West.The first paradox is that, from the point of views of Muslims in the West,western secularism might be good news and western materialism might bebad news. In other words, western secularism is perhaps a blessing in disguisefor Muslims, whereas western materialism is a curse. The secondparadox is that recent Republican, rather than Democratic, foreign policyhas been more friendly to Muslims, wherea Democratic, rather thenRepublican, domestic policies are probably more friendly to Muslims. Thethird paradox concerns the two Islams in the United States: indigenou andimmigrant. In the United States, western secularism has protected minorityreligious groups by insisting on the separation of church and state. Thisis as major reason why American Jews have been among the greatestdefenders of the separation of church and state, for any breach could leadto the imposition of some practices of the religious majority, such as forcingJewish children to participate in Christian prayers at school.The secular state permits religious minorities to practice their religionsin relative peace. Of course, like all doctrines, secularism has its fanaticwho sometimes want to degrade, rather than protect, the sacred. But at itsbest, a secular state is a refuge of safety for minority religions. It is in thissense that western secularism is a friend of Muslims living in the West.But while secularism represents a divorce from formal religion, materialismis a dilution of spirituality. One can be without a formal religion andstill be deeply spiritual in a humanistic sense. John Stuart Mill and BertrandRussell, for example, had no formal religion, yet each had deeply spiritualvalues. Albert Schweitzer, the Nobel Laureate for Peace and an eventualagnostic, remained deeply committed to the principle of reverence for life,even to the extent of protecting the lives of insects in Africa ...

Embodying Musical Heritage in a New–Old Profession: American Jewish Cantorial Schools, 1904–1939

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-52
Author(s):  
JUDAH M. COHEN
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Jewish Life ◽  
The United States ◽  
Training Models ◽  
Digital Repositories ◽  
Historical Materials ◽  
Musical Tradition ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
American Jewish

AbstractCurrent scholarship on music in Jewish life generally views American cantorial training as a postwar process of transplantation, translating a culture decimated by the Holocaust into a higher education program in the United States. Recently available digital repositories of historical materials, however, show at least five organized efforts to establish American cantorial schools between 1904 and 1939. I closely examine these efforts here, which reveal during this period a complicated and active negotiation surrounding the role of the cantor—and music more generally—in American Jewish life. Organizers of these schools engaged in active dialogue with cantorial colleagues in central and eastern Europe, subsequently creating institutional training models that imbued the cantor with a character, history, musical repertoire, and professional lifecycle compatible with the United States’ religious marketplace. Understanding the urge to establish these schools in the first half of the twentieth century, and the tendency to forget or minimize these efforts after World War II, offers insight into the flexibility of musical tradition as it sought to reassert itself on American soil.

Religion and the Great Depression

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison Greene
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Great Depression ◽  
Church And State ◽  
The United States ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Social Suffering ◽  
American Jews ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
International Activism

The Great Depression of 1929–1941 brought not only economic and social crisis, but also forced families, churches, and religious organizations to reckon with individual and social suffering in ways that they had not done in the United States since the Civil War. This reckoning introduced a period of both theological and institutional transformation. Theologians wrestled not only with the domestic depression, but also with international instability as they faced questions about pacifism, economic and racial justice, and religious persecution. Ordinary people prayed for rain and revival. Many turned to their religious communities to wrestle together with the troubles they faced, or turned from those communities in disappointment and despair. During the decades before the Great Depression, religious institutions across the United States had expanded their charitable efforts and their social reform campaigns, but the Depression wiped out the support for that work just as Americans needed it most. The New Deal brought a new set of questions about the relative roles of church and state in welfare and reform and introduced a period of religious ferment and church–state realignment. At the same time, the discontent and dislocation that the Great Depression wrought on local communities meant that individuals, families, and communities wrestled with deep theological questions together, often in ways that fractured old religious alliances and forged new ones. For American Jews and some Catholics, events in Europe proved even more troubling than those at home, and local communities reorganized around international activism and engagement.

“The Edge of the Abyss”: The Origins of the Israel Lobby, 1949–1954

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Doug Rossinow
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Jewish Life ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Affairs ◽  
American Jews ◽  
The West ◽  
American Jewish ◽  
Main Components ◽  
State Of Israel ◽  
Israeli Soldiers

The main components of the Israel lobby in the United States were organized in the spring of 1954, six years after the State of Israel declared independence, in response to a crisis in U.S.–Israel diplomacy that erupted in October 1953. Israeli soldiers had massacred more than sixty Palestinian villagers in Qibya, on the West Bank, eliciting widespread condemnation; American Jews, in reply, mobilized to defend Israel in new ways. The American Zionist Committee for Public Affairs (later renamed AIPAC) and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, established at this time, displayed two outstanding features. They were Jewish united front organizations that brought together Zionist with “non-Zionist” groups. They also emerged from transnational contacts with Israeli leaders and realities. A staunch near-consensus in defense of Israel in the most trying circumstances established a lasting framework in American Jewish life.

A Consumer’s Guide to Eggs

EDIS ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 (11) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeanine Beatty ◽  
Karla Shelnutt ◽  
Gail P. A. Kauwell
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Fatty Acid ◽  
New World ◽  
The United States ◽  
Omega 3 ◽  
Bottom Line ◽  
Christopher Columbus ◽  
Food Stores ◽  
Omega 3 Fatty Acid ◽  
Chicken Eggs

People have been eating eggs for centuries. Records as far back as 1400 BC show that the Chinese and Egyptians raised birds for their eggs. The first domesticated birds to reach the Americas arrived in 1493 on Christopher Columbus' second voyage to the New World. Most food stores in the United States offer many varieties of chicken eggs to choose from — white, brown, organic, cage free, vegetarian, omega-3 fatty acid enriched, and more. The bottom line is that buying eggs is not as simple as it used to be because more choices exist today. This 4-page fact sheet will help you understand the choices you have as a consumer, so you can determine which variety of egg suits you and your family best. Written by Jeanine Beatty, Karla Shelnutt, and Gail Kauwell, and published by the UF Department of Family Youth and Community Sciences, November 2013. http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/fy1357

The dimensions of the Moroccan position on the Gulf crisis 1990-1991

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (11) ◽  
pp. 179
Author(s):  
Nazhan Hammoud Nassif Al Obeidi ◽  
Abdul Wahab Abdul Aziz Abu Khamra
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United States Of America ◽  
New World ◽  
World Order ◽  
The United States ◽  
New World Order ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
Gulf Crisis ◽  
The Subject

The Gulf crisis 1990-1991 is one of the important historical events of the 1990s, which gave rise to the new world order by the sovereignty of the United States of America on this system. The Gulf crisis was an embodiment to clarify the features of this system. .     The crisis in the Gulf was an opportunity for the Moroccans to manage this complex event and to use it for the benefit of the Moroccan situation. Therefore, the bilateral position of the crisis came out as a rejection, a contradiction and a supporter of political and economic dimensions at the external and internal levels. On the Moroccan situation, and from these points came the choice of the subject of the study (the dimensions of the Moroccan position from the Gulf crisis 1990-1991), which shows the ingenuity of Moroccans in managing an external crisis and benefiting from it internally.

Out of the Whirlwind Reconsidered

2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Michael Berkowitz
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Personal History ◽  
Historical Writing ◽  
Holocaust Literature ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
History Of ◽  
Mutual Accountability ◽  
Union College

This article argues that Albert Friedlander’s edited book, Out of the Whirlwind (1968), should be recognised as pathbreaking. Among the first to articulate the idea of ‘Holocaust literature’, it established a body of texts and contextualised these as a way to integrate literature – as well as historical writing, music, art and poetry – as critical to an understanding of the Holocaust. This article also situates Out of the Whirlwind through the personal history of Friedlander and his wife Evelyn, who was a co-creator of the book, his colleagues from Hebrew Union College, and the illustrator, Jacob Landau. It explores the work’s connection to the expansive, humanistic development of progressive Judaism in the United States, Britain and continental Europe. It also underscores Friedlander’s study of Leo Baeck as a means to understand the importance of mutual accountability, not only between Jews, but in Jews’ engagement with the wider world.

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