Normative Judaism? Jews, Judaism and Jewish Identity
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Normative Judaism? Jews, Judaism and Jewish Identity Proceedings of the British Association for Jewish Studies (BAJS) conference 2008 Normative Judaism? Jews, Judaism and Jewish Identity Proceedings of the British Association for Jewish Studies (BAJS) conference 2008 Supplementary Volume No.1 (2012) EDITORS Daniel R. Langton and Philip S. Alexander EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Francesca Frazer A publication of the Centre for Jewish Studies, University of Manchester, United Kingdom. Co-published by © University of Manchester, UK. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this volume may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher, the University of Manchester, and the co- publisher, Gorgias Press LLC. All inquiries should be addressed to the Centre for Jewish Studies, University of Manchester (email: [email protected]). Co-Published by Gorgias Press LLC 954 River Road Piscataway, NJ 08854 USA Internet: www.gorgiaspress.com Email: [email protected] ISSN 1759-1953 This volume is printed on acid-free paper that meets the American National Standard for Permanence of paper for Printed Library Materials. Printed in the United States of America Melilah: Manchester Journal of Jewish Studies is distributed electronically free of charge at http:// www.mucjs.org/MELILAH/ Melilah is an interdisciplinary journal concerned with Jewish law, history, literature, religion, culture and thought in the ancient, medieval and modern eras. It was launched in 2004 by Bernard Jackson and Ephraim Nissan under the auspices of the Centre for Jewish Studies at the University of Manchester as the New Series of the journal of the same name founded by Edward Robertson and Meir Wallenstein and published (in Hebrew) by Manchester University Press from 1944 to 1955. Five substantial volumes, each of around two hundred pages, were produced before the series was discontinued. In his editorial foreword to the first edition, Robertson explained that Melilah had been established to promote Jewish scholarship in the face of the threat posed by the War and its aftermath. The title of the journal refers to the ears of corn that are plucked to rub in the hands before the grains can be eaten (Deut. 23:25). Normative Judaism? Jews, Judaism and Jewish Identity CONTENTS Preface ...................................................................................................................................1 PHILIP S. ALEXANDER In Defence of Normativity in the Study of Judaism ..................................................3 DANIEL DAVIES Maimonidean Margins .............................................................................................15 DANIEL LANGTON Theoretical Approaches to Defining Jewish Identity, and the Case of Felix Mendelssohn ....................................................................................................28 BILL WILLIAMS The Ordinariness of Being Jewish: Jewish ‘Normality’ in Manchester, 1830 –1880 ................................................................................................................43 MARC SapERSTEIN ‘Normative Judaism’ in the Crisis of War: Sermons by Abraham Cohen and Israel Mattuck’ .........................................................................................................52 GEORGE WILKES Ambivalent Normativity: Reasons for Contemporary Jewish Debate Over the Laws of War ......................................................................................................66 RUTH ROSENFELDER Whose Music? Ownership and Identity in Jewish Music .........................................82 HANNAH HOLTSCHNEIDER Are Holocaust Victims Jewish? Looking at Photographs in the Imperial War Museum Holocaust Exhibition .........................................................91 PREFACE This collection of essays had its origins in the JudaicaFest conference in Manchester, UK, in 2008. This comprised end-on conferences of the British Association for Jewish Studies (on the theme ‘Normative Judaism’ organised by its president Philip Alexander and its secretary Daniel Langton), The Jewish Law Association (Fifteenth Biennial Conference, organised by its president Bernard Jackson) and a colloquium on Jewish Culture in the Age of Globalisation (organised by Cathy Gelbin). It is with considerable warmth and pride that my co-editor Philip Alexander and I look back upon this conference and we wish to express our profound thanks to our colleague, Bernard Jackson, the conference’s primary organiser, without whom the JudaicaFest would not have been the highly productive and successful event that it turned out to be. The JLA published its proceedings as Leib Moscovitz, ed., The Manchester Conference Volume (Liverpool: Deborah Charles Publications, 2010; Jewish Law Association Studies XX). The Globalisation colloquium published its proceedings as Cathy Gelbin and Sander Gilman, eds., Jewish Culture in the Age of Globalization, European Review of History 18:01 (2011). And the BAJS conference proceedings have now been published as a supplementary volume of Melilah: The Manchester Journal of Jewish Studies in 2012. We would also like to express our gratitude to the journal’s editorial assistant, Francesca Frazer for her assistance with proofreading. The co-editors have collected together a selection of papers from the BAJS conference with the sincere hope that it will engender serious debate on the question of normativity in the study of Judaism and Jewish identity. The contributions, which take the form of case- studies mainly but not exclusively from the modern period, seek to address questions that relate to how and why certain aspects of Jewish life and thought come to be regarded as authoritative or normative, rather than inauthentic or marginal. No attempt has been made to synthesize or harmonize their conclusions; rather, the approach adopted is to allow the presentations from a variety of disciplines, including philosophy, musicology, history, Jewish law, and cultural studies, to speak for themselves. The case-studies include the medieval philosopher Moses Maimonides, the composer Felix Mendelssohn, the self-perception of communal leadership in Manchester during the late nineteenth-century, sermons of Anglo- Jewish Reform rabbis during the Second World War, Orthodox rabbinic debate about war in general, the idea of Jewish music, and representations of Jews in recent photographic exhibitions. The collection begins with a stout defence of normativity in the academic study of Judaism. Daniel R. Langton and Philip S. Alexander Centre for Jewish Studies, University of Manchester Manchester, 2012 IN DEFENCE OF NORMATIVITY IN THE STUDY OF JUDAISM Philip Alexander* Normativity, as defined here in relation to Jewish religion, has two levels of meaning: firstly, the discovery and articulation of norms in relation to beliefs, practices and social structures characteristic of Judaism, and, secondly, an analytical category that facilitates the evaluation of any group that defines itself as Jewish as being marginal/central, radical/conservative, or innovative/traditional. This methodological approach is by no means essentialist. It is rather a pragmatic approach whose utility can be seen, for example, in resolving the practical challenges faced when prioritising which of a multitude of materials should be included in a university undergraduate introductory course to Judaism. It is premised on a criterion of universality: the more universal a phenomenon (in relation to Jewish self-perception and across space and time), the more it qualifies for inclusion as normative. The case of the Beta Israel and the question of their Jewish identity provides one illustration of the way in which such a methodological approach, which is fundamentally historical in character, can result in a conclusion that is at odds with many social, religious, and political claims. In the end, the problem to be faced whatever approach is adopted is whether normativity as determined by academic criteria and analysis, and normativity as determined within the faith communities, carry any implications for each other in the real world. Preamble I have found as I have grown older and garnered more experience in teaching and researching Jewish Studies that I have become more reflective about what I do. In particular I have become fascinated by the problem of normativity in the academic study of Judaism. Does normativity have a role to play in our discipline, and if so what should it be? So I decided to make this the theme of our conference. I started with the distinct impression that normativity is not a concept to which colleagues warm easily (after all, isn’t description and explanation rather than prescription the cardinal rule of the academy?), and this is why I have given the title of my paper an apologetic ring, ‘In defence of normativity in the study of Judaism’. What I am about to argue probably goes against the grain of current thinking, against colleagues’ deepest instincts, but the issues are important, and I think it is worth saying. Normativity: a preliminary definition When I sent out the call for papers I deliberately did not attempt to define what I meant by normativity, and I have been intrigued by how people have reacted to the term. Clearly it * Emeritus Professor of Post-Biblical Jewish Literature, University