The Yiddisher Kultur Farband in Argentina: Progressive and Communist Jews (1917–1956)

Progressive and Communist Jewish identity in Argentina flourished between the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Cold War. In 1937, during the Popular Front period, Jewish Communist intellectuals organized an International Congress of Yiddish Culture in Paris. Twenty-three countries were represented, and the Congress formed the Yiddisher Kultur Farband (YKUF). In 1941, this Congress was replicated in Argentina, where the YKUF sponsored an important network of schools, clubs, theaters, socio-cultural centers, and libraries created by Yiddish-speaking Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. The Ykufist or Progressive Jewish identity reflects a particular construction that is as ethnic as it is political. As “Jewish,” it aimed to transmit the secular heritage of the Yiddishkeit devastated in Europe during World War II, but as “progressive,” “radical” or “Communist,” it postulated its yearning for integration into a universal socialism led by the Soviet model. Progressive Jewish identity was shaped in the antifascist culture and by permanent tensions between Jewish ethnicity and the guidelines of the Communist Party. Above all, it was framed by a fervent aspiration of the immigrants and their children to integrate into their Argentine society.

Larangan Intermarriage dalam Nehemia 13: 23-27: Suatu Upaya Hermeneutis Post-Modern melalui Pendekatan Sosial-Antropologis

This article is a post-modern hermeneutic study of Nehemiah 13: 23-27 with a socio anthropologicalapproach. This text talks about the prohibition of intermarriage between the Jewish community and foreign nations in the post-exilic era. This prohibition still alive now, not only in the Jewish community but also in other Abrahamic religions. Liquidity of cultural and religious identities today does not mean denying those people who still keep their tradition, culture, and group identities. The latest socio-anthropological and archeologicalstudies of the Bible show the text as Nehemiah and text editor effort to bequeath cultural memories to build the purity of Jewish identity. With intertextual studies, I will show that Old Testament Books is not ‘one voice’ about intermarriages. This ambiguity challenges us to rethink the prohibition on intermarriage without discrimination and segregation to the Other. Abstrak Artikel ini adalah upaya hermeneu􀆟 s post-modern terhadap teks Nehemia 13:23-27 dengan pendekatan sosio-antropologis. Teks ini berbicara tentang larangan kawin campur (intermarriage) antara komunitas Yahudi pasca-pembuangan dengan bangsa-bangsa asing. Larangan ini nyatanya masih terjadi hingga saat ini, bukan hanya di tengah-tengah komunitas Yahudi masa kini, namun juga agama-agama Abrahamik lainnya. Cairnyaidentitas budaya dan agama saat ini tidak berarti menafikan mereka yang masih memegang teguh tradisi, budaya dan pelestarian identitas kelompoknya. Studi sosio-antropologis dan arkeologi Alkitab terbaru memperlihatkan teks sebagai upaya Nehemia maupun redaktur teks mewariskan ingatan budaya dalam rangka membangun kemurnian identitas bangsa Yahudi pasca-pembuangan. Penulis juga memanfaatkan studi intertekstual dalam rangka memperlihatkan bahwa kitab Perjanjian Pertama (PP) tidak unisono dalam memperlihatkan larangan intermarriage. Ambiguitas ini menjadi tantangan bagi kita untuk memikirkan ulanglarangan intermarriage tanpa diskriminasi dan segregasi terhadap mereka yang berbeda.

How do you Jew in Finland?

Review of Mercédesz Czimbalmos's Intermarriage, Conversion and Jewish Identity in Contemporary Finland. A Study of Vernacular Religion in the Finnish Jewish Communities (Åbo Akademi University).

Georgian Israelites or Jews of Georgia

The paper explores the evolution of Georgian-Jewish identity in different political, ideological, and cultural contexts from the late nineteenth to the early twenty-first centuries. It is focused on the beginning of the twentieth century when religious and national dimensions of Georgian-Jewish identity were developed as competing identity models. This paper addresses the impact of these identity models on contemporary Georgian-Jewish identity.

Jewish-Christian Identities in Conflict: The Cases of Fr. Daniel Rufeisen and Fr. Elias Friedman

The status of Jewish identity in cases of conversion to another religion is a contentious issue and was brought to the forefront of public attention with the 1962 court case of Oswald Rufeisen, a Jewish convert to Christianity known as Br. Daniel, which led to a shift in the way that the state of Israel defines Jewish identity for the purposes of citizenship. At the same time, however, another test case in conflicting interpretations of Jewish identity after conversion was playing out in Rufeisen’s own monastery, hidden to the public eye. Of the fifteen monks who lived together in the Stella Maris Monastery in Haifa, two were Jewish converts, both of whom converted during the Second World War and later immigrated to Israel. Both outspoken advocates for their own understanding of Jewish identity, Rufeisen and his fellow Carmelite Fr. Elias Friedman expressed interpretations of Jewish-Christian religious identity that are polarized and even antagonistically oppositional at times. This paper argues that the intimately related histories and opposing interpretations of Rufeisen and Friedman parallel the historical contestation between Judaism and Christianity. It investigates their overlapping and yet divergent views, which magnify questions of Jewish identity, Catholic interpretations of Judaism, Zionism, Holocaust narratives, and proselytism.