Fr. Tadeusz Sroka. Dziennik izraelski czyli religijny wymiar ludzkiego losu (An Israeli diary, or the religious dimension of man's fate). Warsaw: Spokania. 1985.

2004 ◽  
pp. 411-415
Author(s):  
Stanisław Krajewski
Keyword(s):  
Capital Punishment ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Jewish History ◽  
Jewish People ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Religious Dimension ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Political Events ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The World

This chapter looks at Fr. Tadeusz Sroka's An Israeli Diary, or the Religious Dimension of Man's Fate (1985). An Israeli Diary takes the form of excerpts from a diary written in the years 1970–71. Each entry opens with press news about political events in the Middle East, followed by pondering over the Bible or the fate of the Jewish people. There are hardly any data concerning contemporary Israel, except a few facts showing Arab intransigence and the hopeless situation of Israel ‘in human terms’. The author says very little about Jewish history and nothing about Judaism; the Talmud is not mentioned, even in places where it could have been useful, for example in reflecting on capital punishment. The author's perspective is metaphysical; he assumes that the election of Israel is eternal. This, incidentally, is the official standpoint of the Catholic Church today, confirmed more than once by John Paul II. As a result, Israel is seen as the centre of the world. Next, the fate of the Jews reveals the ultimate perspectives of the human condition: on one pole the Holocaust, on the other the re-creation of the state by visionaries, in defiance of reason. Israel is a sign for the world, and today's secular Israel is an appropriate sign for the contemporary materialistic world.

Jerusalem — the heart of the Jewish people in рoetry and song

2018 ◽  
pp. 49-53
Author(s):  
Nitza Davidovitch
Keyword(s):  
Jewish History ◽  
Jewish People ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The World

There are many cities all over the world, but our hearts have always yearned for one particular city throughout Jewish history. Jerusalem is a city that is a symbol. In this paper, we present several texts that have found a place in the nation’s heritage and influenced many generations, including adages found in the Bible that have left an imprint in numerous locations across the world. Sometimes it seems that writers across generations wrote similarly about Jerusalem, whether they were in Spain, Yemen, Morocco, or Poland. Jerusalem has been and remains a source of inspiration through the ages.

Sacrifice in Jewish Tradition

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David L. Weddle
Keyword(s):  
Jewish People ◽  
Jewish Tradition ◽  
God's Will ◽  
Redemptive Suffering ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Tikkun Olam ◽  
The World ◽  
The One ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Temple

After Roman destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70CE, Jewish tradition reimagined animal sacrifices as devotional acts, such as prayer, fasting, and study of Torah, as well as giving up individual desires to fulfil God’s will. Rabbis interpreted the story of Abraham’s binding Isaac for sacrifice (the Akedah) as the model of absolute obedience to divine commands (mitzvoth) and as the basis for the election of the Jewish people to bear witness to the one God. Their commentary, however, included the horrified reaction of Sarah’s scream to the news of Abraham’s act, ending in her death, indicating dissent from sacrifice as religious ideal. Rabbinic tradition transferred the site of sacrifice from temple to synagogue in rituals of High Holy Days, to the family table in Passover and Sabbath rituals, and to the individual will in submission to Torah. In the mystical teaching of Kabbalah, God sacrifices to create the world and Jews are called to sacrifice to redeem the world (tikkun olam). Such vocation of redemptive suffering was called into question by the Holocaust, and some contemporary Israeli poets refer to the Akedah in expressing misgivings about calls to sacrifice in defense of Israel.

scholarly journals Jung, Aquinas, and the Aurora Consurgens:  Establishing a Relationship with God

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Barrie Davis
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Similar Process ◽  
Greek Philosophy ◽  
Relationship With God ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Medieval Text ◽  
In The Beginning ◽  
The Trinity

<p>The reunion of a man with God is the subject of a medieval text which aggregates excerpts from the Bible and Arabic alchemical texts that had recently become available in Europe. The Aurora Consurgens personifies God as Wisdom, a spiritual being who not only formed the world in the beginning but is also a guide to men to return to God subsequent to their separation at the Fall. The union of feminine Wisdom and a man is aligned with pairs of opposites such as spirit and soul, and is also conflated with the union of a man and a woman. While the text is perhaps falsely ascribed to St. Thomas, it is consistent with his ideas so that it may be explicated using his writings on the Trinity, psychology, angels, and Greek philosophy. From there, correspondence is established with C. G. Jung‘s concept of archetypes, and the text is subsequently interpreted from the perspective of analytical psychology. It is identified how interaction of archetypes associated with the union of a man and a woman provide an explanation for the process of redemption given in the Aurora. A similar process of redemption is identified in other writings from the beginning of the Christian era up to the modern teachings of the Catholic Church.</p>

The ‘New Nazis’ or the ‘People of our God’? Jews and Zionism in the Latin Church of Jerusalem, 1948–1962

2017 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-107
Author(s):  
MARIA CHIARA RIOLI
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Jewish People ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Situation ◽  
The People ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Changing Attitudes ◽  
State Of Israel ◽  
The Church

In the aftermath of the Holocaust the elaboration of Catholic perceptions of the Jewish people has been particularly problematic. The weight of a long tradition of Christian antisemitism and its influence on the Nazi extermination programme, as well as the revision of this attitude before and after the Shoah in various Catholic circles as a means of promoting a rapprochement, made it difficult to redefine the image of Jewish people in the Catholic imagination, and gave rise to different and conflicting interpretations. Some members of the Latin Catholic Church of Jerusalem began to argue for an analogy between Nazism and Zionism. This assertion took different forms as the political situation in Palestine evolved and in response to changing attitudes within the Church towards the Jews. This paper will reconstruct the ‘new Nazis’ paradigm in the Jerusalem Church, analysing three key periods: the 1947–9 Arab-Israeli war; the consolidation of the State of Israel in the 1950s; and the Eichmann trial of 1961–2.

Genocide, the Bible, and Biblical Scholarship

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-71
Author(s):  
Shawn Kelley
Keyword(s):  
Complex Relationship ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
Genocide Studies ◽  
Death Of Jesus ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The World ◽  
Two Generations ◽  
Argument Proceeds

This essay makes the case that the ongoing scholarly conversation around divinely sanctioned violence can be enriched by engaging with the emerging field of comparative genocide studies. The argument proceeds in four parts. Part 1 introduces the term genocide and the scholarly debates that have emerged around it. I posit the existence of two generations of genocide scholarship, with the first focusing on definitional issues and appropriate terminology and the second on the historical-structural conditions that make genocide possible. Regarding the latter, particular attention shall be devoted to the emerging consensus that, far from being an atavistic irruption outside the world of civilized modernity, genocide is made possible by the very structure of modernity itself. Parts 2 and 3 look closely at genocide in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament era, respectively. These parts will examine the extermination campaigns of ancient empires (Assyria, Babylon, Rome) that brought destruction upon the biblical Israelites and will compare these imperial actions with modern settler and colonial genocides. This is one area where biblical scholars could fill in a lacuna in comparative genocide studies, since the topic has received modest attention in that particular field. I pay attention to the ways that the Bible appears complicit in genocide, whether through the command to exterminate the Canaanites or through the Gospels’ tendency to cast blame upon the Jews for the death of Jesus. I also analyze a variety of hermeneutical approaches developed to respond to these thorny issues, paying particular attention to the presumed views of genocide in each hermeneutical position. The final part of the essay explores the issue of genocidal ideology itself, emphasizing that the content of genocidal ideology is much broader than usually assumed by scholarly critiques of anti-Judaism and that genocidal ideology maintains a complex relationship to the actual practice of genocide. This part encourages scholars to reexamine the widely held beliefs on the ways that biblical ideology led to horrific events like the Holocaust and to take seriously the widely held conclusion that ideology alone is an inadequate explanation for genocide. The essay will conclude by suggesting possible future directions that could be taken by scholars who wish to confront the legacy of genocide in the Bible and its interpretation.

scholarly journals Jung, Aquinas, and the Aurora Consurgens:  Establishing a Relationship with God

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Barrie Davis
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Similar Process ◽  
Greek Philosophy ◽  
Relationship With God ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Medieval Text ◽  
In The Beginning ◽  
The Trinity

<p>The reunion of a man with God is the subject of a medieval text which aggregates excerpts from the Bible and Arabic alchemical texts that had recently become available in Europe. The Aurora Consurgens personifies God as Wisdom, a spiritual being who not only formed the world in the beginning but is also a guide to men to return to God subsequent to their separation at the Fall. The union of feminine Wisdom and a man is aligned with pairs of opposites such as spirit and soul, and is also conflated with the union of a man and a woman. While the text is perhaps falsely ascribed to St. Thomas, it is consistent with his ideas so that it may be explicated using his writings on the Trinity, psychology, angels, and Greek philosophy. From there, correspondence is established with C. G. Jung‘s concept of archetypes, and the text is subsequently interpreted from the perspective of analytical psychology. It is identified how interaction of archetypes associated with the union of a man and a woman provide an explanation for the process of redemption given in the Aurora. A similar process of redemption is identified in other writings from the beginning of the Christian era up to the modern teachings of the Catholic Church.</p>

scholarly journals Shmuel Zygielbojm (1895–1943) as a Figure in Polish Historical Discourse

2020 ◽  
pp. 131-150
Author(s):  
Michał Trębacz ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Jewish People ◽  
National Council ◽  
Contemporary Debate ◽  
Historical Discourse ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The World ◽  
The Republic

Szmul Zygielbojm, activist of the socialist Bund, member of the National Council of the Republic of Poland in London, on the night of May 11-12, 1943, committed suicide. It was a deliberate act of protest against „the inaction with which the world is staring and allowing the Jewish people to exterminate.“Quite early this universal act of opposition to evil became an argument showing Polish merits and non-Polish faults in informing the world about the Holocaust. How did historians and publicists talk about Zygielbojm? What role was assigned to him in the discourse about the Holocaust and Polish-Jewish relations? Why has the Bundist figure returned in contemporary debate?

scholarly journals Historical Museums in Israel: Semiotics of Culture

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (01) ◽  
pp. 43
Author(s):  
Gabriel Mayer
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Jewish History ◽  
New York Times ◽  
Jewish People ◽  
The State ◽  
Historical Museums ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Biblical History ◽  
Museum Culture ◽  
State Of Israel

<p>Tiny by physical size, the State of Israel retains some of the world’s most important cultural treasures, along with many other great cultural institutions. Archeological treasures have yielded much information as far as biblical history and have been well adapted to a Zionist narrative by both the Jewish press and international news organizations, such as the New York Times whose archives are replete with reports of Jewish history being dug up by the Jewish people. Once the State of Israel gained independence in 1948, the course was set for the development of historical museums whose discourse would reflect the most significant events in Jewish history, most especially the Holocaust and the state of constant warfare that continues to imbue the cultural consciousness of its citizens. In this paper we outline, through categorization, the various historical museums, which are currently operating. Furthermore, this article hopes to shed some light upon the cultural sensibilities conveyed through these institutions. This paper is about Israeli culture, mythology, and collective needs, as formed by and informed through a variety of historical museums. The working assumption is that in a historical museum culture is partially formed and at the same time the culture is influencing the contents and narratives on display inside the museum. It should be clear from the start that the discussion is held about Israeli museums as viewed by a Jewish population and created by and for Jews. Notwithstanding the multifaceted collective of Israeli society, this work is confined to and circumscribed by this demarcation. In the following sections, I intend to provide an explanation for this viewpoint from a historical perspective and also provide a framework of what constitutes a historical museum and justify the methodology of its employ. This will be followed by a discussion of the main categorical types of historical museums present in Israel, and finally a detailed accounting of specific museums.</p>

scholarly journals Gustav Meyrink’s 'Golem' and Leo Perutz’s 'Nachts unter der steinernen Brücke': A literary expression of the Jewish experience during the twentieth century

SURG Journal ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 40-45
Author(s):  
Caitlin Vito
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Jewish History ◽  
Jewish People ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Literary Interpretation ◽  
Literary Expression ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
Jewish Experience ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Authority Figures

Gustav Meyrink’s novel Der Golem [The Golem], published in 1915, and Leo Perutz’s 1953 novel Nachts unter der steinernen Brücke [By Night under the Stone Bridge] communicate the authors’ image of the Jewish experience and treatment during the period of the twentieth century. Uncanny and fantastical elements are used throughout both texts to help portray the Jewish condition. Meyrink conveys the animosity between nationalistic Jews and middle-class assimilated Jews and highlights the rising anti-Semitism among Gentiles by associating Jews with the decay and corruption of modernity. At the same time, however, Jews are also depicted as a model of higher spirituality. Nachts unter der steinernen Brücke places the Holocaust within the greater context of Jewish history and conveys Perutz’s assessment that the tragedy of the Holocaust is one in a series of devastating events which have plagued the Jewish people. Moreover, the text casts doubt on the benevolence of Jewish and non-Jewish authority figures and even the mercifulness of God. The doubt raised in the novel regarding central Jewish beliefs mirrors the Jewish experience of disorientation and confusion following the horrors of the Holocaust. Perutz also conveys the need for Jewish history to be passed down to future generations as it is their past which helps form their Jewish identity. Keywords: Der Golem [The Golem] (Meyrink, Gustav); Nachts unter der steinernen Brücke [By Night under the Stone Bridge] (Perutz, Leo); Jewish experience (portrayal of); twentieth century; uncanny and fantastical literature; literary interpretation

Food of the Scattered People

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica B. Harris
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New World ◽  
Jewish History ◽  
Jewish People ◽  
The United States ◽  
West African ◽  
Immigration Laws ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The World ◽  
Voluntary Basis

From time immemorial, the world’s peoples have been in movement. Groups have been scattered, resulting in communities in regions and parts of the world with which they have no historic connection. In the 21st century, with more access to travel and the relaxing of immigration laws, the movement continues. Increasingly, those leaving their traditional homelands for other destinations are said to be in diaspora. This is the reason that tikka masala is now considered the national dish of the United Kingdom; that chop suey is found throughout the United States, but not in the same style as in China; and that variants of West African fritters are found throughout the New World. While the word ‘diaspora’ is now ubiquitous, and is used in relation to the patterns of movement of almost any people on an enforced or voluntary basis, its origins are more focused. It is derived from the Greek dia, meaning ‘across’, and speirein, meaning ‘scattered’. As noted by Kenny (2013), its earliest use is commonly held to be in relation to the migration of Jews, as referred to in the books of Genesis and Exodus from the Hebrew Bible. The Jewish people were led ‘...from Babylonia (in present-day Iraq) to Canaan, which they named Eretz Israel. Famine soon drove Abraham’s descendents out of Canaan to Eqypt...’ (p. 3). Applied to ancient Jewish history, the term has come to mean imposed exile and suffering, and subsequent efforts to return.

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