Memory and History: Liturgical Time and Historical Time

This article investigates the differential structure and representation of time in memory and history. It examines two moments in Jewish historical thought—in the Middle Ages, and in works written within and after the Holocaust—and demonstrates the fundamentally liturgical nature of Jewish historical memory in selected texts from these two periods. Following the groundbreaking work of Yerushalmi, it seeks to demonstrate that for Jews, historical experience is incorporated into the cyclical reenactment of paradigmatic events in Jewish sacred ritual. Recent or contemporary experiences acquire meaning only insofar as they can be subsumed within Biblical categories of events and their interpretation bequeathed to the community through the medium of Scripture, that is to say, only insofar as they can be transfigured, ritually and liturgically, into repetitions and reenactments of ancient happening. In such liturgical commemoration, the past exists only by means of recitation; the fundamental goal of such recitation is to make it live again in the present, to fuse past and present, chanter and hearer, into a single collective entity. History, in the sense that we understand it to consist of unique events unfolding within irreversible linear time, is absorbed into cyclical, liturgical memory.
This article argues that the question of Jewish history—both medieval and post-Holocaust—poses in a compelling fashion the question of the relationship between memory and history more generally, and serves to contest the current tendency in academic historiography to collapse history into memory. It claims that to the extent that memory "resurrects,""re-cycles," and makes the past "reappear" and live again in the present, it cannot perform historically, since it refuses to keep the past in the past, to draw the line, as it were, that is constitutive of the modern enterprise of historiography.     

“六日战争”对美国犹太人族群认同的影响

20世纪60年代,"大屠杀"话语的传播引发了美国犹太人对族群命运的担忧。在"六日战争"前,面对阿拉伯国家的反犹宣传及其对以色列的重重围困,美国犹太人担心"再次大屠杀"会发生,从而促使美国犹太人对以色列的生存产生深度忧虑。美国犹太社团逐渐把维护以色列的特殊利益和争取美国社会对以色列的同情与支持,作为游说活动的主要目标。美国犹太游说组织通过舆论引导、公开呼吁、经济动员等方式积极进行游说。"六日战争"后,美国与以色列之间的特殊关系迅速发展。美国犹太人的民族自信心和自豪感显著提升,并自觉地将以色列与自身的命运紧密相连。他们在归属意愿、宗教情感、对以色列的文化兴趣、青年群体族群意识等层面表达对以色列的认同,以色列在美国犹太人族群认同中发挥的作用凸显。     

A TEXTILE WEB

The 1830s has been singled out as the decade in which the Swedish consumer market really started to expand. In the same period, cotton textile production expanded in the Gothenburg area. A small group of immigrant Jewish families played an important role in this development. The impact of Jewish merchants on the growth of the consumer goods market is consistent with international research. Their entrepreneurial activities and renewal of textile production and trade have been emphasized. This has, however, not been paid much attention to in the Swedish research. This article discusses what impact the Jewish immigrants had on the increase of the textile market in Gothenburg and its surroundings. Through a couple of case studies and examples, we want to elucidate the significance of Jewish textile production and trade: Jewish calico printers started up mass production of fashionable fabrics in the 1820s. Furthermore, Jewish merchants spread their goods to customers in the countryside in cooperation with Swedish pedlars. The authors also discuss different reasons why the Jews played such a significant role during this particular period: The role of the legislation, the Jewish textile tradition, access to capital, networks, effective distribution, a growing consumer demand, and the geographical context.     

信仰与历史的互动：犹太历史发展的神学思考

本文从神学角度探讨犹太民族历史发展的内在动因,认为犹太民族独特的神权历史观是促成其民族从流散到回归、从分散到集中的根本原因;信仰与历史的互动促成了犹太民族的产生、发展和强盛,信仰与历史的互动是犹太精神的内核和实质。时至今日,以色列国的复兴在很大程度上讲也是信仰与历史互动的产物。     

Nigeria's Igbo Jews: Jewish identity and practice in Abuja

The now widespread Igbo belief in a Jewish ancestry goes back to the 18th century. However, it was during and after the Nigerian civil war (1967–1970), in which at least one million Igbo died in the failed bid for Biafran independence, that Igbo identification with and as Jews concretized. Igbo saw themselves as sufferers of genocide, like the Jews of World War II in Europe, and as inhabitants of a beleaguered plot of land surrounded by hostile forces, similar to the state of Israel. The civil war and its disastrous consequences initiated a still ongoing period of intense questioning among the Igbo concerning their history, present predicaments, and future prospects. A small number of Igbo began to question why, if they were in fact Jews, they should continue practising Christianity. Their community now numbers between 2,000 and 5,000 people throughout Nigeria. There are three established Nigerian synagogues in Abuja, the federal capital, most of whose members are Igbo. The significance of Biafra, the centrality of the state of Israel, pride in Jewish ancestry and practice, and questions surrounding the range of Jewish skin colour, predominate in Igbo Jews' discussions of their identity. In contrast to the vast majority of Igbo who, if they maintain a sense of Jewish identity, do so while practising Christianity, Igbo Jews have severed themselves from the now dominant religion. Understanding themselves to be part of the global Jewish community of the diaspora and the state of Israel, the Igbo practising Judaism in Nigeria are eager for religious and political recognition from world Jewry and the Jewish state. However, self‐identifying Jewish groups without documented historical connections to more established Jewish communities face considerable challenges in gaining such recognition, particularly as genealogical Jews.     

Moroccan Jewish first-places: contraction,fabrication, dissipation

Abstract

The idea of first places is inevitably linked with diasporas. At the heart of this idea and since the very start, there has always been the Jewish case. The diaspora of the Jews of Morocco, in the periphery, was presented by some authors, as a good case with which to relativize the theoretical pertinence and conceptual inspiration of the Jewish model. Focusing on Jewish history, heritage, and travelling in Morocco, I will continue to question the paradigm of social studies based on the bi-polar center-diaspora model. I will testify to the emergence and fabrication of new Jewish ‘first-places’, a process attending the aging and departure of the last Jews of Morocco and with the support of the Kingdom, while following current, and disruptive trends of contraction, commutation and dissipation of ‘first-places’ in different Jewish practices and narratives. The individualization of religious practice in post-secular societies allows and includes – and often merges – secular, ethnic and political approaches of what once was purely designated as religious identity. Heritage Moroccan landscape (and landscaping) allows different approaches and thus probably why one can think of it as an emerging ‘first-place’ for some.     

Imagining the Beloved: Gender and Nation Building in Early Twentieth‐Century Hebrew Literature

This article traces the gender dimensions of Zionist nation building by examining literary texts written in the first three decades of the twentieth century. It offers a gender‐oriented analysis of a range of canonic and marginal literary texts and their historical contexts, and pays special attention to the ways in which literary production in general, and in Hebrew in particular, became an essential component in the effort to create an image of a ‘New Hebrew Man’. This highly gendered image was a central foundation of the Zionist project of nation building in Europe, and in the Jewish community in Palestine. Hebrew poems, stories and novels produced and sustained the symbolic economy of gender of the Zionist cultural project. At the same time, I argue that some Hebrew writers resisted the overt and implicit ideological demands of this project by calling attention to the internal contradictions inherent in the feminine figuration of the nation and the attempts to transform Jewish masculinity.     

Ethnogenesis from the Geographical Point of View (Landscape and Ethnos,IX)

The author deals with the question whether the biological evolution of the species Homo sapiens is continuing under conditions of established civilizations. He replies in the affirmative, but qualifies his answer. The evolution of modern man affects behavioral patterns rather than anatomical or physiologic traits, and is reflected in a greater capacity for adaptation and an expansion of the area of settlement rather than in the improvement of a particular phenotype. The evolution is analyzed best in terms of the ethnos, or ethnic group. Two states of the ethnos are distinguished: a persistent (static) state, in which the ethnos may be said to stagnate, each generation copies the behavioral patterns of the previous generation, and the life patterns are adapted to the landscape; a historical (dynamic) state, in which the new generation breaks new paths, the landscape is adapted to the needs of the economy, and the ethnos strives to expand its area of settlement.     

Socio‐spatial mix and inter‐ethnic attitudes: Jewish newcomers and Arab‐Jewish issues in the Galilee

Urban and regional planners tend to recommend spatial mix of socially diverse populations as an appropriate strategy to achieve social equity and improve inter‐group relations. However, the actual impact of such a mix on social relations in general, and inter‐ethnic attitudes in particular, has been subject to on‐going, yet inconclusive, debates among social scientists. This paper adds to the study of these issues by examining the inter‐ethnic attitudes of residents in Jewish ‘new settlements’ (elsewhere termed ‘community settlements’, or ‘mitzpim'), which were established some 15 years ago among the Arab villages of Israel's central Galilee region. We found that despite certain strands of ethnocentrism, most Jewish settlers hold significantly more moderate views on Arab‐Jewish issues than: (a) the general (non‐Galilee) Jewish public in Israel; and (b) the region's Arab population. The influence of the socio‐spatial mix on the moderation of hostile attitudes, at least among the Jews, is analyzed and explained by comparing our data with the findings of previous research on the topic. On the basis of that comparison we conclude that the Arab — Jewish mix in the Galilee, along with socio‐economic characteristics of the Jewish population and the existence of a ‘penetrating group phenomenon’, have combined to moderate Jewish attitudes in the study region. Planners are called upon to use this knowledge.     

East and West in Jewish nationalism: conflicting types in the Zionist vision?

ABSTRACT. This article analyses the ethnic and civic components of the early Zionist movement. The debate over whether Zionism was an Eastern‐ethnic nationalist movement or a Western‐civic movement began with the birth of Zionism. The article also investigates the conflict that broke out in 1902 surrounding the publication of Herzl's utopian vision, Altneuland. Ahad Ha'am, a leader of Hibbat Zion and ‘Eastern’ cultural Zionism, sharply attacked Herzl's ‘Western’ political Zionism, which he considered to be disconnected from the cultural foundations of historical Judaism. Instead, Ahad Ha'am supported the Eastern Zionist utopia of Elchanan Leib Lewinsky. Hans Kohn, a leading researcher of nationalism, distinguished between ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’ nationalist movements. He argued that Herzl's political heritage led the Zionist movement to become an Eastern‐ethnic nationalist movement. The debate over the character of Jewish nationalism – ethnic or civic – continues to engage researchers and remains a topic of public debate in Israel even today. As this article demonstrates, the debate between ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’ Zionism has its foundations in the origins of the Zionist movement. A close look at the vision held by both groups challenges Kohn's dichotomy as well as his understanding of the Zionist movement.     

Joseph Levenson and the possibility for a dialogic history

In contrast to the criticism that his work represents a Euro-centric view of China, we argue that Joseph Levenson’s understanding of China involves a third dimension – Judaism – at the level of his historical perspective and methodology. Built on in-depth analysis of Levenson’s work, in particular his Confucian China and Its Modern Fate, as well as his unfinished yet profound writings on Judaism and Jewish history, we find that his understanding of Jewish tradition plays a crucial role in his analysis of the history of modern China. We argue that what Levenson practiced was a historical methodology that we name “dialogic history.” We believe that dialogic history provides us a potential answer to the question of how we can understand another culture without being imperialists, essentialists, or Orientalists. Dialogic history is also history in action because when this kind of dialogue is conducted, a new space can be created in which history is no longer a one-sided monologue.     

Imperial nostalgia: mythologizing Habsburg Trieste

This article reviews three recently published books on Habsburg Trieste, inquiring into the reasons for increased interest in this topic. The author suggests that this represents a type of 'imperial nostalgia' for the world we have lost, in particular for a political experiment in religious and ethnic diversity (as embodied by the flourishing of imperial Trieste's Jewish community) outside of the nation-state form. This nostalgia, in turn, reflects current concerns with identity, including scholarly attempts to theorize the contemporary situation in which the power of the nation state has been transformed. The analysis reveals that certain authors misread the realities of imperial Trieste through the lens of contemporary meanings of cosmopolitanism and tolerance. As an alternative, the article sketches out what the 'actually existing cosmo­politanism' of the Habsburg city consisted in.     

Archaeological Perspectives on the Ranquel Chiefdoms in the North of the Dry Pampas,in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries

In this article, I present some results of the archaeological study about the cultural manifestation of the Ranquels. This Indian group occupied the north part of the province of La Pampa, Argentina, from the late eighteenth century until the end of the nineteenth century. Through a perspective that links the theoretical and methodological purposes of historical archaeology of the landscape, I analyze the settlements' distributions, the access to natural resources, the methods of circulation, and the strategies of interethnic conflict with the national army and the colonists on the border area. Taking into consideration the archaeological record and its contrast with written sources, I have defined some indicators about the process of culture change. My special interest concerns changes in nineteenth-century Ranquel material culture produced before the dissolution of the ethnic groups because of the military actions of the “desert conquest.”     

The violent frontline: space,ethnicity and confronting the state in Edwardian Spitalfields and 1980s Brixton

This article examines the relationships between space, ethnic identity and anti-state violence in twentieth century London. It will do so by comparing the Spitalfields violence of 1906 and the Brixton unrest of 1981. The association of physical metropolitan space with ‘difference’ in the Edwardian East End and post-consensus South London, and how this ‘othering’ was influenced both by the state and the anti-migrant far right will be analysed. The paper will then dissect relationships between the police and working class Jewish and Caribbean communities, and how these deteriorating relationships exploded into extreme violence in 1906 and 1981.     

Wired Communities in the City: Sydney,Australia

Questions relating to the ability of particular groups in society to access information and communications technologies (ICTs) have become a growing part of the academic and policy literature. The issues raised in this literature have revolved around a number of themes, many of which can be subsumed under concerns about a growing digital divide whereby society is being divided into information rich and information poor sectors. This differentiation can be between particular social groups irrespective of place, or between people in particular places be these large regional areas (e.g. metropolitan versus non‐metropolitan) or localities and communities within an urban area. This paper focuses on the existence of a ‘digital divide’ across the Sydney metropolitan area. Using ABS 2001 census data the paper presents an analysis of computer and internet access and use for clusters of local communities and focuses on how usage differs across communities as differentiated by socio‐economic status, household and family status and ethnic background.     

The Italian government's response to the problem of Jewish refugees 1945–1948∗

This article deals with the fall of Palestinian-Arab Jaffa in the 1948 war. As the largest Arab city in Palestine, its accelerated social and military collapse came as a surprise to many, despite Jewish dominance in the Jaffa region. While previous research has mostly neglected this question, the present study aims at revealing the underlying causes, besides Jewish military pressure, for Jaffa's collapse and the resulting exodus of its Arab population. The article describes the precarious social and military Palestinian-Arab situation in Jaffa as a case study for Palestine as a whole during the December 1947–May 1948 inter-communal war.     

Structure and Agency in the Holocaust: Daniel J. Goldhagen and His Critics

A striking aspect of the so-called "Goldhagen debate" hasbeen the bifurcated reception Hitler's Willing Executioners hasreceived: the enthusiastic welcome of journalists and the public was as warm as the impatientdismissal of most historians was cool. This article seeks to transcend the current impasse byanalyzing the underlying issues of Holocaust research at stake here. It argues that a "deepstructure" necessarily characterizes the historiography of the Holocaust, comprising atension between its positioning in "univeralism" and"particularism" narratives. While the former conceptualizes the Holocaust as anabstract human tragedy and explains its occurrence in terms of processes common to modernsocieties, the latter casts its analysis in ethnic and national categories: the Holocaust as anexclusively German and Jewish affair. These narratives possess important implications for thebalance of structure and human agency in the explanation of the Holocaust: where theuniversalism narrative emphasizes the role of impersonal structures in mediating human action,the particularism narrative highlights the agency of human actors. Although historical accountsusually combine these narratives, recent research on the Holocaust tends in the universalistdirection, and this bears on the sensitive issue of responsibility for the Holocaust byproblematizing the common-sense notion of the perpetrators' intention and responsibility.Goldhagen is responding to this trend, but by retreating to the particularism narrative andemploying an inadequate definition of intention, he fails to move the debate forward. It is time torethink the concept of intention in relation to events like the Holocaust.     

Accepting Jewish roots for a pair of shoes: identity dilemmas of Jewish children in Poland during the Second World War and in the early post-war years

Jewish children who managed to survive Nazi attempts to exterminate them are a clear, yet still under-examined, example of a group who managed to resist the path to genocide. It was only by changing their individual social identity that they were able to survive. By more or less consciously breaking their ties with Judaism and converting to Catholicism, they abandoned membership of the group destined for extermination and strove to become unidentifiable as Jews. This article focuses on the issue of the identity of the Jewish children raised or born in Poland during the Nazi persecution and who survived the Shoah under an assumed non-Jewish identity. It will examine the war's impact on these Polish ‘hidden children’ and its consequences for their ethnic and religious identity. Many children were intentionally deprived of their Jewish identity by their parents or saviours since such a renunciation was the only way to survive. Therefore the role of non-Jewish rescuers and the attitude of the Jewish authorities towards these children's fate during and after the war is also discussed. The survival of these children hinged upon questions of identity and how successfully they were able to conceal their life-threatening origins and adopt the much safer disguise.