‘Remember the Sabbath’: a history of technological decisions and innovation in Orthodox Jewish communities

ABSTRACT

The relationship of Modern Orthodox Jewish communities to technology is mediated by the calendar, following requirements to keep the Sabbath holy. As nineteenth-, twentieth-, and twentyfirst-century inventions reshaped work, public spaces, and domestic living, rabbis intensely debated whether, how, and why observant Jewish people should avoid using electric switches, kitchen appliances, elevators, and other everyday devices on the Sabbath. To justify their decisions, rabbis interrogated minute technical details of these objects. Sabbath prohibitions promoted innovation, as rabbis collaborated with Jewish engineers to create what they judged to be Sabbath-compliant adaptions of everyday technologies. Given that prominent rabbis often disagreed about proper technology use on the Sabbath, Jewish families had the opportunity to decide for themselves what counted as authentic devotion in handling personal and domestic technologies.     

Occipitalization of the atlas with reference to its embryological development

A skull is described from the St Bride's collection in which the atlas is fused to the occiput. The mechanism of occipitalization or assimilation is described in the light of the embryological development of the upper axial skeleton.     

Age estimation from the pars basilaris of the fetal and juvenile occipital bone

The pars basilaris of the human occipital bone is reported to be of considerable value for age estimation in juvenile skeletal remains between early fetal periods and 6 years of age, when it fuses to the remainder of the bone. The aim of this investigation was to examine the relationship between various dimensions of the pars basilaris, and assess their reliability for accurate age estimation. The results confirm the usefulness of the bone in this respect and they are discussed in the light of differential growth of the pars basilaris, and in the increase in dimensions of the boundaries of the foramen magnum.