A Taytsh Manifesto: Yiddish, Translation, and the Making of Modern Jewish Culture

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 186
Author(s):  
Zaritt
Keyword(s):  
Jewish Culture

Fagin's Coin of Truth: Economic Belief and Representation inOliver Twist

2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 122-138
Author(s):  
Keith Clavin
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Economic Value ◽  
Central Feature ◽  
Secondary Markets ◽  
Jewish Culture

This essay examines Fagin from Oliver Twist as a villain whose construction joins Victorian anxieties about counterfeiting and economic deceptiveness with separate yet related concerns about the author's role in representing criminal life. Dickens triangulates Fagin's identity through cultural fears about Jewish participation within secondary markets, increased distance between purchaser and seller in an expanding credit economy, and moral ambiguities in respect to fiction-making. Read against non-literary Victorian writing about counterfeiters and crime, Fagin can be understood as a forger of identities and narratives. His ability to exploit interpersonal belief and economic value is a central feature of his villainy and one with precedent in other aspects of Victorian financial life. Dickens critiques capitalist culture by associating it with the imitative, fictional, and Jewish culture. In contrast, he aligns sincerity and truth with the middle-class, normative characters. Throughout, he marks the distinction between these two groups with comic incidence. The marginalised figures are fodder for humour and irony, while the conventional heroes are earnest.

From Performance to Casket Copy

2008 ◽  
Vol 2 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 190-208
Author(s):  
Cordell M. Waldron
Keyword(s):  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Jewish Culture ◽  
Greek Culture ◽  
Written Texts ◽  
Standard Of Comparison

Does the central role of the Iliad and the Odyssey in ancient Greek culture indicate that they functioned as scripture? Taking the role of the Tanakh in Jewish culture as the standard of comparison, this essay argues that, while the Tanakh and the epics functioned similarly as foundational texts in their respective cultures, the ways in which Homer was used in Hellenic culture differ markedly from the ways in which the Tanakh was used in ancient Jewish culture. The Homeric epics were primarily thought of as orally delivered or performed events throughout most of their history, only coming to be thought of as primarily written texts in the Hellenistic era and later, whereas almost from its origins the Tanakh commands and exemplifies a textcentered community in which that which is written is most important.

"HOW PUISSANT HIS MIRACLES ARE!" CONNECTIONS BETWEEN THE BIBLICAL NARRATIVE AND THE FOLK STORIES ABOUT THE RIBNITZER REBBE

2020 ◽  
pp. 40-67
Author(s):  
Natalya M. Kireeva ◽  
◽  
Maria M. Kaspina ◽  
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Biblical Narrative ◽  
Jewish Culture ◽  
Folk Stories

The article focuses on legends about miracles in Judaism. Particular attention is paid to miracles in the context of the early Biblical period of the prophets and modern Hasidism; similarities in motives and plots are found between the narratives of different times. The authors analyze in detail two 20th-century plots about miracles related to Chaim Zanvl Abramovich, known as the Ribnitzer Rebbe (1902–1995). The miracles that are told about him have many parallels with the legends about miracles performed by the founder of the Hasidic movement, Israel Baal Shem Tov (BeShT), who lived in the middle of the 18th century. The article reveals a connection between the Biblical and Hasidic miracle stories not only at the level of how the miracle is functioning in Jewish culture in general.

The Emergence of Rabbinic Culture from the Perspective of Qumran

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 253-274
Author(s):  
Vered Noam
Keyword(s):  
Early Stage ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Test Case ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
Jewish Culture ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Set Up

The rabbinic halakhic system, with its many facets and the literary works that comprise it, reflects a new Jewish culture, almost completely distinct in its halakhic content and scope from the biblical and postbiblical culture that preceded it. By examining Jewish legislation in the area of corpse impurity as a test case, the article studies the implications of Qumranic halakhah, as a way-station between the Bible and the Mishnah, for understanding how Tannaitic halakhah developed. The impression obtained from the material reviewed in the article is that the direction of the “Tannaitic revolution” was charted, its methods set up, and its principles established, at a surprisingly early stage, before the destruction of the Second Temple, and thus at the same time that the Qumran literature was created.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nurit Yaari
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
The Political ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Jewish Culture ◽  
The Past ◽  
Future State ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
State Of Israel

This chapter examines the lack of continuous tradition of the art of the theatre in the history of Jewish culture. Theatre as art and institution was forbidden for Jews during most of their history, and although there were plays written in different times and places during the past centuries, no tradition of theatre evolved in Jewish culture until the middle of the nineteenth century. In view of this absence, the author discusses the genesis of Jewish theatre in Eastern Europe and in Eretz-Yisrael (The Land of Israel) since the late nineteenth century, encouraged by the Jewish Enlightenment movement, the emergence of Jewish nationalism, and the rebirth of Hebrew as a language of everyday life. Finally, the chapter traces the development of parallel strands of theatre that preceded the Israeli theatre and shadowed the emergence of the political infrastructure of the future State of Israel.

Sourcing Callirhoe

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Whitmarsh
Keyword(s):  
Firm Boundaries ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Jewish Culture ◽  
Greek Novel

Chariton’s Callirhoe is the earliest extant example of the Greek novel. What preceding texts are there that resemble it? Martin Braun demonstrated in the 1930s that many of the motifs that we think of as characteristically novelistic are found in Josephus’s retelling of the story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife. Does that tell us that Josephus was influenced by now-lost novels? Or that Jewish storytelling influenced the course of the novel? Or that these motifs were shared between Greek and Jewish culture, without firm boundaries of genre?

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