Showing papers in "Scripta in 1970"

Positioning oneself and being positioned in the 'community': An essay on Jewish ethnography as a 'Jew-ish' ethnographer.

Abstract: This article offers a reflexive and anthropological contribution to the current volume of Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis. It reflects on the experience of conducting anthropological work at home – or across homes – I considered this research to be an experience of ‘Jewish ethnog-raphy’ as a Jewish ethnographer. However, my own ‘Jew-ish’ background meant that I had become ‘neither- fish nor fowl’ within the field-site, which proved both to be an obstacle to, and an opportunity for, conducting the research. It utilises this experience to challenge the conceptual use of the term ‘community’, which encapsulates considerable diversity but obscures the nuanced differences that can pervade a social body. These reflections demonstrate how positionality can be used as a tool for postgraduate students to untangle the complexities of conducting ethnographic research at ‘home’ or in relation to religious minority groups, where significant intra-group differences of practice and worldviews exist, but may otherwise be concealed by the image of ‘community’.

The Jewishness of Jesus and ritual purity

Abstract: T oday it is commonplace for historical Jesus scholars to emphasize Jesus’ Jewishness. At the same time most New Testament scholars deny that he cared about the Jewish purity system, which was a central aspect of early Judaism. This article examines how such a reconstruction of the historical Jesus would influence his Jewishness, arguing that it indeed would make such a Jesus figure ‘less Jewish’. The article also investigates questions concerning what Jewish identity in the late Second Temple period entails and how we may characterize the Judaism of Jesus’ time, especially in relation to purity concerns. Finally, I examine key Gospel texts that are commonly used as evidence to prove Jesus’ alleged disinterest in purity laws. On the basis of a proper understanding of how the purity system functioned in Jesus’ time, I conclude that there is no evidence for the view that Jesus was disinterested in matters of purity; quite the opposite.

Repatriation and restitution of Holocaust victims in post-war Denmark

Abstract: Jewish Holocaust survivors faced severe economic and emotional difficulties on returning home to Denmark in 1945. Jewish families had used their savings, sold valuables and property and obtained improvised private loans in order to finance their escape to Sweden. Homes, businesses and property had been subject to theft and abuse. During and after the German occupation, however, Danish authorities worked to mitigate and ameliorate the consequences of Nazi persecution and the Danish government implemented one of the most inclusive and comprehensive restitution laws in Europe, taking into account Jewish victims of deportation as well as victims of exile. The restitution process underlines the dedication of the Danish authorities to the reintegration of the Jewish community and their interest in allaying potential ethnic conflict. Furthermore, the process is a remarkable – but overlooked – missing link between the social reforms of the 1930s and the modern Danish welfare state.

Trauma, memory, testimony: phenomenological, psychological, and ethical perspectives

Abstract: How can severely traumatized persons re-present the past and its impact on the present if (due to blackout, repression, or dissociation) they could not witness what they went through, or can hardly recall it? Drawing on Holocaust testimonies, this article explores the crisis of witnessing constituted by the Shoah and, more generally, problems of integrating and communicating traumatic experiences. Phenomenological, psychological, and ethical perspectives contribute to a systematic investigation of the relation between trauma, memory and testimony. I will argue that preserving personal continuity across the gap between past and present presupposes not only an ‘inner witness’ – which can, according to a long philosophical tradition, be identified with a person’s conscience – but also a social context in which one is addressed and can respond. An attentive listener can bear witness to the witness by accepting the assignation of responsibility implied in testimonial interaction, and thereby support the dialogic restitution of memory and identity.

Jewish history as a history of immigration: an overview of current historiography in the Scandinavian countries

Abstract: This article provides a first critical overview of the historiography of Jewish immigration and integration in Sweden, Denmark and Norway. While the experience of immigration has been crucial for Scandinavian Jewry, scholarly interest in Jewish migration history only emerged during the 1980s in connection with the focus on migration and ethnicity in Swedish research and the adaptation of sociological concepts of migration in general historiography. By analysing key historio-graphical works, focusing on their approaches and main narratives, this article aims at a critical methodological self-reflection. It identifies two major approaches to Jewish immigration history in current Scandinavian historiography: the demographic and social history approach, focusing in particular on the role of Jewish immigrants in the labour market, their settlement and housing conditions and their social mobility; and the cultural history approach, reconstructing and preserving the vanished world of Yiddish immigrant culture.

Formes de mystique dans le Nord préchrétien

Abstract: In this paper, the author explores mysticism found in a Nordic context, exemplified by different forms of mystic experiences in old Norse religion described in old Scandinavian poetry and literature.

Mysticism, historical and contemporary

Abstract: An evident experience of God's presence is the basis for all religion Mysticism is considered to be piety in so far as primary importance is attached to inner religious experience, to religion as occurring in the soul Mysticism is pure religious introversion The special religious experience of mysticism, its epistemology and its ascetic ethics or technique, occur with startling likeness in widely different times and types of religion This does not, however, exclude a multitude of variations and differences The way of mysticism includes different stages, but the state which generally distinguishes mystical experience is ecstasy or rapture It is, however, often impossible to isolate this from the preparatory physical and spiritual training and even less from the revolutionary consequences for the whole life of the mystic It can result in complete devotion to the service of one's neighbour, and the not infrequent accusation that the mystic gives himself up to a selfish and anti-social enjoyment of God is not entirely justified

Meditation and perception: some notes on the psychology of religious mysticism

Abstract: The study of mysticism must be carried on with more attention paid to the meditative techniques used by mystics and to the problems of perception. In this paper the author presents some remarks on the difference between Saint Teresa and Saint John of the Cross, and then mentions some recent studies of meditation and some problems of perception. If meditative techniques have become of great importance in psychotheraphy, the organismic approach of the "mindcurers" and their results will permit us to complete phenomenological descriptions of mystic conscious states with more exact information of their physiological conditions. In this way "mystical experiences" in general can be seen as results of meditative techniques and we need not regard "an hysterical predisposition" of the subject as their necessary condition.

A articulação de orações através de mecanismos de oposição

Abstract: Este trabalho analisa alguns meios de expressao da oposicao em Portugues – oposicao lato e stricto sensu – apoiando-se na macrossintaxe argumentativa (Ducrot) e no estudo semiolinguistico das relacoes logicas (Charaudeau), com base num corpus de 300 cartas opinativas, ou de reclamacoes, extraidas da midia impressa.

Celsus, Toledot Yeshu and Early Traces of Apology for Virginal Birth of Jesus

Abstract: In this article New Testament passages referring to the birth of Jesus are related to Celsus’ anti-Christian arguments and the Jewish Toledot Yeshu tradition with a new question: Why it was so difficult to speak about the virgin birth of Jesus? It is argued that the concept of the virgin birth of Jesus was seen to be problematic for two reasons: 1) The concept was liable to result in scurrilous rumours, even scoffing and parodic episodes revolving on its sexual aspects. 2) Every attempt to explain that God was in some way the agent when a young girl conceived came too close to Gen. 6:1–4 – the text which explained in ancient Judaism the origin of the demonic world. Therefore, some New Testament authors (for example, the writer of the Gospel of John) deliberately avoided speaking about the virgin birth and instead presented the birth of Jesus in terms of the idea of an incarnated, personified, divine Wisdom. In order to avoid erroneous connotations relating to Gen. 6:1–4, Matthew and Luke followed a tradition where the Holy Spirit (a feminine word in Hebrew and Aramaic) played an active role in the pregnancy.

William Blake's visions and the Unio Artistica

Abstract: To Blake art was a vision of the spiritual world, as he could talk about "Poetry, Painting & Music, the three Powers in Man of conversing with Paradise, which the flood did not Sweep away." Every work of art is an open window into eternity. God appears to man in art. Artistic inspiration is the same as the union with God. There is an unio artistica, a sister to the unio mystica. Blake accepts that reason cannot grasp the divine vision and understand it. That is why he always talks of the vision as appearing in stronger and better lineaments, and a stronger and better light than nature can produce or mortal and perishing organs can apprehend. But art can grasp it. The central conception of mysticism, the undescribable unio mystica, is present in Blake. He is a mystic. The only difference between Blake and the classical mystics is in terminology. When they say "God" Blake very often says "Art".

ʿĂqēdōt: the binding of Isaac in early modern Polish-Lithuanian Karaite poetry

Abstract: This article deals with early modern Polish-Lithuanian Karaite poems which are based on the biblical narrative of the binding of Isaac (Gen. 22). These liturgical poems ( ʿ aqēdōt ) were recited during the ten days between the New Year and the Day of Atonement, known in Karaite tradition as the ten days of mercy. Their main function is to express the frame of mind of the congregants during this yearly period of repentance, eventually culminating in the sounding of the Shofar on the Day of Atonement. The article demonstrates that the Polish-Lithuanian Karaite poets do not only draw from the biblical narrative but rewrite it by using later midrashic and medieval interpretations of the binding of Isaac.

Creativity, Community, Change: Functions of and motives for singing niggunim

Abstract: Jewish musical practices stemming from Kabbalah and Hasidic mystical traditions are currently the object of growing attention among a variety of different Jewish communities in Europe and North America, as well as in non-Jewish spiritual circles. This article focuses on contemporary practices of niggunim – the (mostly) wordless melodies with roots in Hasidic Jewish traditions, sung, chanted and sometimes danced in preparation for, or as a form of, ardent prayer. The practice is seen as an example of the expressive, engaging, emotional and embodied forms of prayer that currently attract many Jews of different institutional attachments. As niggunim travel into new contexts, they are reframed and reconsidered in order to meet the needs and expectations of contemporary religious communities, characterised by a liberal and egalitarian, global and transformative religiosity. The article seeks to explore the different functions niggunim are put to today and the motives which drive different people to engage in the practice. The analysis is based on ethno-graphic material in the form of in-depth interviews conducted among progressive Jews in the London area. As a conclusion, the article suggests an approach to contemporary niggunim practices that incorporates perspectives from both literature and ethnography in order to deepen the understanding of the motives for and functions of singing niggunim today.