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ERSPECTIVESERSPECTIVES AJSPPThe Magazine of the Association for

IN THIS ISSUE:

Orthodoxy Then and Now

SPRING 2008 AJS Perspectives: The Magazine TABLE OF CONTENTS of the Association for Jewish Studies President From the Editor...... 3 Sara R. Horowitz York University Editor From the President ...... 5 Allan Arkush From the Director ...... 7 Editorial Board Howard Adelman Orthodoxy Then and Now Queen's University Alanna Cooper University of Massachusetts Amherst Becoming Orthodox: The Story of a Denominational Label Jonathan Karp Jeffrey C. Blutinger ...... 8 Binghamton University Heidi Lerner Historicizing Orthodoxy Stanford University Frances Malino Jay Berkovitz ...... 12 Wellesley College Vanessa Ochs Thoughts on the Study of the Orthodox Community: After Thirty-Five Years Riv-Ellen Prell Samuel Heilman ...... 16 University of Minnesota Shmuel Shepkaru Religious Feminism in : A Revolution in Process Abe Socher Irit Koren...... 20 Oberlin College Shelly Tenenbaum Haredi Counter : Some Theoretical Clark University and Methodological Aspects Keith Weiser York University Nahum Karlinsky ...... 26 Steven Zipperstein Stanford University Haredim and the Study of Haredim in Israel: Managing Editor Reflections on a Recent Conference Karin Kimmy Caplan and Nurit Stadler...... 30 Executive Director Rona Sheramy Graphic Designer Perspectives on Technology: Matt Biscotti Wild 1 Graphics, Inc. Researching Orthodox Online Heidi Lerner ...... 36 Please direct correspondence to: Association for Jewish Studies Ethnographic Sketches from the Future of Jewish Studies Center for 15 West 16th Street Marcy Brink-Danan ...... 42 New York, NY 10011 Voice: (917) 606-8249 Reflections on Jewish Studies, Twenty Years Later Fax: (917) 606-8222 E-Mail: [email protected] Howard Tzvi Adelman...... 46 Web Site: www.ajsnet.org AJS Perspectives is published bi-annually by the Association for Jewish Studies. AJS Perspectives encourages submissions of articles, announcements, and brief letters to the editor related to the interests of our members. Materials submitted will be published at the The Association for Jewish Studies is an discretion of the editors. AJS Perspectives reserves the right to reject articles, affiliate of the Center for Jewish History. announcements, letters, advertisements, and other items not consonant with the goals and purposes of the organization. Copy may be condensed or rejected because of length or style. © Copyright 2008 Association for Jewish Studies AJS Perspectives disclaims responsibility for statements made by contributors or advertisers. ISSN 1529-6423 who have tended to accentuate the The first six articles in this issue innovative character of Orthodox trace the lineaments of quite a few FROM Judaism but also indicating some of of what Samuel Heilman has called the ways in which he believes their “the many faces of Orthodoxy,” but THE conclusions need to be modified. far from all of them. There is a limit, I am afraid, to what we can EDITOR Samuel Heilman casts a look do in a single issue of a fairly small backward not at the origins of magazine. To help readers take a Dear Colleagues, Orthodoxy but at what he now closer look for themselves at some takes to be its general trajectory of the missing visages, Heidi Lerner s is well known, the English over the decades he has devoted to has supplied an up-to-date and word echoes the the study of its contemporary highly informative guide to A translation into ancient manifestations. He relates how his Orthodox resources on the Greek of the Hebrew beit . own work as well as that of some Internet. Another Greek-derived term that is other scholars has come to focus just as much a part of our everyday on the ultra-Orthodox world, The final two articles in this issue vocabulary about Judaism has no where, in their opinion, the are concerned with entirely such history. The word Orthodox “action” has increasingly tended to different matters. Marcy Brink- has in fact moved—and only rather be, but he concludes by observing Danan provides a lively and recently—in the opposite direction, new signs of vitality in the modern revealing report on the first from Greek through German and Orthodox community. Irit Koren, a American Academy for Jewish English into modern Hebrew. How scholar who is herself a product of Research (AAJR) Workshop for did a word that stems not only from the Israeli branch of that Early Career Faculty in Jewish a non-Jewish language but from community, describes an ongoing Studies at the University of Christian religious discourse “feminist ritual revolution” that has Michigan’s Frankel Institute for become the standard term for been taking place in its midst but Advanced Judaic Studies. Howard designating the most tradition- also in kindred Diaspora settings. Adelman reconsiders a piece about minded ? Jeffrey Blutinger, Jewish studies that he wrote for the who has written on this subject We turn from this turbulent sector Chronicle of elsewhere in greater detail, starts off of modern Orthodoxy to the twenty years ago in the light of his our issue devoted to Orthodoxy precincts of ultra-Orthodoxy. subsequent experiences. What he with a brief recapitulation of some Nahum Karlinsky provides a brief has to say touches on a number of of his main findings. overview of the existing scholarship vitally important questions by ultra-Orthodox historians of concerning the relationship between Whether is their own society and examines the Jewish community and Jewish simply a new term for something some of the ways in which such studies, questions that we plan to very old or whether it is itself scholars have selectively utilized address in our next issue. Readers basically a product of modernity is a modern research methodologies “to are invited to submit their responses question that has generated a beat modernity on its own turf.” to Adelman’s article for inclusion in considerable amount of scholarly Kimmy Caplan and Nurit Stadler the fall issue. discussion in recent decades. Jay report on a very recent conference Berkovitz presents an overview of in devoted to surveying Allan Arkush this issue, appreciatively assessing ultra-Orthodoxy from a variety of Binghamton University the work of Katz and others different vantage points.

The Association for Jewish Studies wishes to thank the Center for Jewish History and its constituent organizations—the American Jewish Historical Society, the American Sephardi Federation, the Leo Baeck Institute, the University Museum, and the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research— for providing the AJS with office space at the Center for Jewish History.

3 AJS INSTITUTIONAL MEMBERS The Association for Jewish Studies is pleased to announce the following Institutional Members for the 2007-08 membership year: Case Western Reserve University, Samuel Rosenthal Center United States Holocaust Memorial Museum for Judaic Studies The University of Arizona, Arizona Center for Judaic Studies The Center for Cultural Judaism University of , Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary , Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies Jewish Life , Jewish Studies Program University of Denver, Center for Judaic Studies DePauw University, Jewish Studies Program University of Massachusetts - Amherst, Department of Judaic and Near Duke University Department of Jewish Studies Eastern Studies Foundation for , The Frankel Center for Judaic Studies Georgetown University, Program for Jewish Civilization University of North Carolina Asheville, Center for Jewish Studies University of Oregon, Harold Schnitzer Family Program in Judaic Studies Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion University of Pittsburgh, Jewish Studies Program Indiana University, Robert A. and Sandra S. Borns Jewish Studies Program University of Tennessee, The Fern and Manfred Steinfeld Program in Judaic Studies The Jewish Theological Seminary, The Graduate School The University of Texas at Austin, Schusterman Center for Jewish Studies Louisiana State University, Jewish Studies University of Virginia, Jewish Studies Program Michigan State University, Jewish Studies Program University of Washington, Jewish Studies Program, Jackson School of , Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies International Studies , The Crown Family Center for Jewish Studies Vanderbilt University, Program in Jewish Studies The Ohio State University, Melton Center for Jewish Studies Washington University in St. Louis, Program in Jewish, Islamic, and Near Old Dominion University, Institute for Jewish Studies Eastern Studies and Interfaith Understanding Pennsylvania State University, Jewish Studies Program Yeshiva University Museum Reconstructionist Rabbinical College YIVO Institute for Jewish Research Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies York University, Centre for Jewish Studies Stanford University, Taube Center for Jewish Studies UCLA, Center for Jewish Studies If your program, department, or institution is interested in becoming an AJS institutional member, please contact Rona Sheramy, AJS Executive Director, at [email protected] or 917.606.8249.

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4 affairs. We have an engaged membership, it is no small feat to membership that is largely involved produce a journal that makes work FROM with what AJS does. This has been across disciplines accessible to its my strong impression for some time readers. It has long been a labor of THE now, one built on my experiences love for its editors and editorial on various AJS publications, the board—and I would emphasize PRESIDENT program committee, as program both terms in that formula, love and chair, and as the current president. labor. As Hillel J. Kieval and Martin Dear Colleagues, Now this impression has been Jaffee complete their term as co- confirmed by the recent survey of editors of the Review, I would like n a recent email exchange with members. While we have not yet to thank them for the conceptual the leadership of several fully analyzed the responses, the vision and attention to detail that Iother learned societies and high rate of response—more than they brought to their editorial academic institutions, a number of 30 percent—in and of itself collaboration, which has ensured my correspondents made a similar indicates an engaged and active the high caliber of the journal. observation: it frequently falls to a membership that wants a voice in Needless to say, the Review bears small number of people to shape molding the direction of the the fingerprints of countless other the mandate and priorities of an organization. While the survey AJS members who contribute their organization. shows that many of us are also work, review books, and evaluate members of at least one other submissions. I am delighted that Many of us have encountered this learned society, members invest Bob Goldenberg and Elisheva phenomenon in the universities at energy in AJS, bringing the fruits of Carlebach have agreed to serve as which we work. Often a few people, their research to our annual co-editors of the journal. They driven by altruism, a cause, an conference, and bringing their bring experience, depth, and agenda, shape an institution or a creativity and intelligence to AJS intelligence, and, as a team, will society such as ours, largely because publications and committees. maintain the excellence of the most members remain relatively publication and keep it evolving. unengaged. And indeed, one AJS has strongly invested in keeping wonders how it could be otherwise. our practices transparent and Our 2007 conference—climatic Most of us already have so much on participatory, and our activities challenge notwithstanding—was our plate: writing, teaching, open to our members. Relative to broadly attended, and, by all program building, administration, the size of our membership, AJS accounts, sessions were superb. supervision, the myriad other boasts the largest board, drawing Indeed, the conference is our best activities that shape our academic our directors from a diversity of indicator of the engagement of our lives. What time and energy remains academic fields, institutional members. The vast majority of AJS we devote to our personal lives. Yet affiliations, and geographic locales. members participate each year, this state of affairs may leave us Much of what AJS does well reflects bringing the best of our work to a unsatisfied. As my email the initiative and creativity of its place that challenges us to open our correspondents noted, learned members. One need only look to thinking to the insights that cross societies follow democratic the pages of this publication, traditional disciplinary boundaries procedures, but those procedures reinvented under the editorship of and cross-fertilize our scholarship. cannot by themselves guarantee a Riv Ellen Prell as a magazine keenly In contrast to at least some other member-driven organization that attuned to cutting edge scholarship learned societies, our members reflects and builds consensus. And and emerging new perspectives. participate in our annual meeting to the more smoothly run the Now honed by its current editor engage in the scholarly exchanges organization, the more inclined Allan Arkush and nourished by the so vital to our work, even when we many of us may be simply to let ideas of its editorial board and are not seeking to obtain positions things run their course. We allow contributors, Perspectives is a keeper or to fill them on behalf of our our organizations to serve us, as with a long shelf-life. institutions. The success of our they are intended, so that we may conference—measured not only in turn our focus elsewhere. AJS Review, a fine interdisciplinary numbers of presentations and journal, provides a vehicle for the sessions but by the general In the course of the email exchange dissemination of research to a excellence of work—is largely due it became clear to me that the broad-based interdisciplinary to the fact that a cadre of our Association for Jewish Studies has readership. Given the range of colleagues take on the enormous been an exception to this state of methodologies and fields of our task of conceptualizing and 5 planning the program. The division AJS, looking for ways we can come, as it always has, through your heads carefully read and evaluate a support and also learn from creative vision and energy. We are large number of proposals, often colleagues in Eastern Europe and fortunate in our executive director, advising submitters on building elsewhere. We will continue to seek Rona Sheramy, whose good panels and framing abstracts. Most ways to support Eastern European , intelligence, and focus take an activist role, not only scholars and to reach out to helps us turn our ideas into soliciting papers and panelists, but scholars in other parts of the world, actualities—concrete programs and offering thoughtful ideas for future but look to our members for activities, buttressed whenever conferences, and advocating on building on the work of this possible by grants and other behalf of their discipline or area. important initiative. Similarly, the resources. With the assistance of the The program committee looks at AJS Women’s Caucus, founded over fine staff she has put together— the shape of the conference as a two decades ago by a small group Kristen Loveland, Aviva Androphy, whole, meeting for several days of of women, has nurtured scholarship Karin Kugel—Rona is a partner to intensive work under the guidance on women and attended to the all of us in our endeavors for AJS, of Marsha Rozenblit, the program status of women in the field. By its facilitating the work of each of our chair who masterminds the presence and programs, it has committees, encouraging the conference. helped bring about a sea change in development of new ideas. Our the composition of AJS, and capable staff is small, however, and Together with the annual enriched the methodological we rely on the generous conference, the publications—and approaches of Jewish studies. volunteerism of all of you to the people who work in various Needless to say, this is not meant to accomplish what we wish. facets on all of these—determine be an exhaustive list of the the shape of AJS today and important work of our members, More than ever, AJS is poised to tomorrow. but just some examples of the embrace member initiative—to possible, the attainable. In these continue doing what we do well as In other ways, as well, individual and other initiatives, excellence our organization grows, and to members have pushed the happens because of the energy and develop new ways to serve our organization to expand its mandate creativity of individual members members, the field, and the and its reach. To cite but a few who bring vision to our society. profession. More than ever, we examples: The Committee on invite your vision, your energy, your International Cooperation, created The recent membership survey is initiative. at the initiative of its outgoing one instrument to help gauge the chair, Berel Lang, has focused on will of AJS members. But successful Sara R. Horowitz expanding the international reach of innovation and development will York University

THECALLAJS IS PLEASED TOFOR ANNOUNCE THEAPPLICATIONS RECIPIENTS OF THE 2007 CAHNMAN GRANTS: CAHNMAN PUBLICATION SUBVENTION GRANTS The Association for Jewish Studies is now accepting applications for the Cahnman Publication Subvention Grants, a program underwritten by a grant from The Cahnman Foundation of New York. Cahnman Publication Subventions will help subsidize costs associated with the preparation of first books for publication. Scholarly manuscripts that explore Diaspora Jewry’s engagement with and impact on artistic, intellectual, and cultural life in Europe and North Africa, e.g., through the visual or performing arts, literature, film, architecture, , science, or politics, will be eligible for consideration. Applicants must be AJS members, have completed their Ph.D. degrees within six years of the deadline, and have a commitment for publication in English from an academic or university press. Submission deadline: June 18, 2008.

Please visit the AJS website at www.ajsnet.org/cahnman.htm for application requirements and cover sheet.

6 Responsive to these changes, AJS dissemination of scholarship has ventured in new directions— through participation in electronic FROM moving its conference across North book programs (e.g., the ACLS America to reflect the geographical Humanities E-Book Project); and THE diversity of Jewish studies scholars experimenting with new formats at and programs; transforming AJS the AJS conference to further EXECUTIVE Perspectives into a magazine that promote discussion, collaboration, addresses critical, of-the-moment and the opportunity for exchanges DIRECTOR debates in Jewish studies pedagogy that cannot happen by email. and methodology; hosting twenty Dear Colleagues, subject areas and multiple formats Thus, AJS will turn again to its at its conference, indicative of the members in the coming months to n the coming months, the AJS growth and methodological variety solicit their opinion and expertise. Board of Directors and a of the field; and moving much of its Using the recent survey as a I designated committee will be operations online to take advantage baseline for discussion, we will more involved in a strategic plan to of the speed and accessibility of specifically explore possible areas of consider AJS’s goals and plans for Web-based services (e.g. online expansion and programming, asking the next several years. This effort submission, evaluation, and for more detailed feedback about comes at a very positive time in AJS scheduling). More recently, AJS has the programs you would like to see history: as the organization increased its grants and awards AJS launch, the projects you would approaches its fortieth annual program in order to recognize the like to make sure AJS maintains, conference, AJS’s membership is excellence of new scholarship and the innovations you would like growing at a healthy annual rate coming out of the field, as well as to see it take on. We will ask you to (more than 1,700 individual and to support members who must draw from your involvement in forty institutional members strong); contend with an increasingly other learned societies to share ideas its annual meeting continues to competitive and economically tight that you think useful for Jewish flourish, each year bringing even academic publishing market. studies; we will also be targeting more outstanding applicants and subgroups among AJS members— presentations than the year before But, as the recent survey of AJS graduate students, tenure-track (more than 150 sessions at the members clearly indicates (thanks to faculty, recently tenured faculty, full Toronto meeting); its finances and a survey response rate of greater professors, adjunct faculty, operations are stable; and its list of than 30 percent), scholars would independent scholars—to programs, awards, and initiatives like to see AJS continue to expand understand how the organization continues to expand. Such a time of its services, particularly in the areas can better support scholars at stability—and of reflection, given of fellowships, grants, and particular stages of their academic the forty years of the organization’s publication subventions; more careers. In the meanwhile, I existence—presents an ideal online resources for program encourage members to write to AJS opportunity for AJS to evaluate its development, expansion, and at [email protected] to submit current programs and consider how evaluation; and more support for feedback and ideas. the organization should go forward. international scholars. Other possible areas of development Rona Sheramy The academic landscape is obviously include expanding the AJS website Association for Jewish Studies very different from that of ten years to facilitate communication among ago, let alone of the late 1960s, scholars (e.g., through discussion when the organization was founded. forums); supporting the electronic AJS 40th Annual Conference December 21–23, 2008 • Grand Hyatt Washington • Washington, DC Deadline for meal reservations, pre-conference reduced registration fee, and hotel reservations: November 14, 2008. See page 11 for further details. 7 German-root equivalent, rechtgläubig (true or correct belief), BECOMING ORTHODOX: was used by German Protestants to refer to those who held to the THE STORY OF A canonical works and doctrines. Those who departed from conformity with the teachings of the DENOMINATIONAL LABEL church were called heterodox, whose Jeffrey C. Blutinger As with most of the rhetoric used German-root equivalent was by German Jews, the term orthodox “irrgläubig” (erroneous belief or n the middle of the nineteenth originated with German Christians. heresy). By the seventeenth century, century, a strange debate broke The word entered German from the the label “Lutheran orthodoxy” had Iout over who was to blame for Greek; its come to mean a dogmatic biblicism. the use of the label orthodox to describe the traditionalist opponents In the eighteenth century, however, of Reform. Liberal Jewish writers these terms underwent a shift in would generally qualify the term meaning. Enlightenment thinkers, with words such as “die with their new ideas and new sogenannte,” or “die heisige writings, were quickly labeled Orthodoxen”—i.e. the “so- heterodox, while those opposed called orthodox”—as a to them remained orthodox. condescending way of calling Although Enlightenment into question the idea that thinkers accepted these labels, their opponents were actually they shifted the valence of the “right-believing.” At the words: heterodox took on a same time, leading positive connotation, while opponents of the reformers, orthodox took on a negative such as S. R. Hirsch, noted one. It was in this new sense that the traditionalists that these words entered into resented the use of the term the vocabulary of Jewish orthodox, and rightly so. So enlightenment figures in . how did this come to pass? How did a term that refers to proper The first to use the term belief come to be applied as a label orthodox was Mendelssohn. for a denomination distinguished by In 1755, he wrote a letter to the practice? How did a concept German Enlightenment writer, developed by German Protestants Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, asking if come to be used as a way of Portrait of Samson Raphael Hirsch. Reprinted a Dr. Baumgarten—who was “a differentiating German Jews? from S. A. Hirsch, A Book of Essays (London: Macmillan & Co., Limited, 1905). strong metaphysicist” yet had

8 “greatly praised” Lessing—“was opposed Enlightenment thought, In both these cases, the word really orthodox, or does he just not a separate denomination. orthodox is only used in a German pretend so.” Baumgarten’s context. The only orthodox Jews enthusiasm for Lessing, and One of the most striking uses of this that Maimon describes are in therefore by implication for the meaning of the word orthodox is in Germany, and in each case, what Enlightenment, was difficult to Maimon’s autobiography. makes them orthodox is their square with his apparent orthodoxy. Published in 1792, it describes the opposition to Enlightenment thought. That When Mendelssohn AS THE NATURE OF JEWISH DEBATE CHANGED IN THE Maimon did not published Jerusalem view orthodoxy as a in 1783, he told NINETEENTH CENTURY, THE MEANING OF THE TERMS denominational Herz Homberg that label can be seen the book’s SIMILARLY BEGAN TO SHIFT. . . . ITISATTHIS POINT from the striking “character is of such fact that Maimon a sort which neither THAT ORTHODOX BEGAN TO LOSE ITS PRIMARY MEANING only uses the term orthodox nor in a German heterodox people of OF ONE OPPOSED TO THE IDEAS OF THE context, never a either nation NLIGHTENMENT AND TAKE ON ITS MODERN MEANING Polish one. This expect.” Thus, what E eighteenth-century he was saying was OF ONE OPPOSED TO CHANGE IN RELIGIOUS PRACTICE. German-Jewish use that Jews and non- of orthodoxy Jews, both those opposed to the ignorance of Polish Jews, yet it is paralleled the contemporaneous Enlightenment and those who only in his account of his life in usage of “mitnagdim” in Poland. supported it, would be surprised by Germany that Maimon used the Both terms derived their meaning his book. The following year, term orthodox. The word appears from their opposition to another Mendelssohn expanded on this in two separate incidents. The first group, whether to the theme when he wrote that his was when Maimon, attempting to Enlightenment in Germany or to “ideas of Judaism cannot, in enter Berlin, was stopped at the the Hasidic movement in eastern actuality, satisfy either the orthodox gate. He spoke of his intention to Europe. As there was no Hasidic or the heterodox.” Again, the key study medicine, and during the movement in Germany, there were element here is that the terms conversation showed the Jewish no mitnagdim there to oppose it; in orthodoxy and heterodoxy refer to representative his copy of the same way, since there was no one’s intellectual world, not the Maimonides’s Guide for the Enlightenment in Poland (in world of practice. Perplexed. The representative, Maimon’s opinion), there were no whom Maimon described as “a and could be no orthodox Jews there Jewish opponents of Mendelssohn zealot in his orthodoxy,” rushed to to oppose it. Only in Germany, the and the Enlightenment were inform the town elders of Maimon’s center of the Enlightenment, could referred to by both Jewish and non- “heretical mode of thinking.” These there be found orthodox Jewish Jewish Enlightenment thinkers as leaders suspected that Maimon opponents. orthodox. In 1784, for example, intended to devote himself “to the Karl Gotthelf Lessing wrote to sciences in general” and that “the As the nature of Jewish debate Mendelssohn concerning orthodox Jews looked upon [this] changed in the nineteenth century, community opposition to Jerusalem, as something dangerous to religion the meaning of the terms similarly which he described as consisting of and good morals,” and so he was began to shift. In the early 1800s, “a few orthodox Jewish elders” who turned away. The second incident some Jewish Enlightenment figures were “pushing the matter.” occurred when Maimon’s wife, began to advocate changes in Following Mendelssohn’s death, along with her son, arrived in religious practices. The term there were frequent references to Germany seeking a divorce. “heterodox” was expanded at this “orthodox Jews” in his obituaries, Maimon took the opportunity to time to cover these developments, including a description of try to enlighten his son, but while its opposite, “orthodox,” was Mendelssohn’s opponents as Maimon’s wife went to “consult similarly modified to emphasize the “orthodox Talmudists,” and a note some orthodox Jews,” who advised opposition to these changes. It is at that his translation of the her to proceed with her divorce and this point that orthodox began to “found no reception among the to shield her son from Maimon’s lose its primary meaning of one orthodox.” In each case, the term influence. opposed to the ideas of the was used to refer to Jews who Enlightenment and take on its

9 modern meaning of one opposed to the way it contains both the older change in religious practice. meanings of the terms heterodox and orthodox, as well as the A remarkable document published a emerging new ones. So on the one few years ago by Michael Meyer hand, the author continued the nicely captures this moment of dichotomy between enlightenment terminological transformation. and orthodoxy, yet on the other This previously unpublished hand, orthodox Jews are manuscript was written in the characterized not so much by 1810s and was sent to the their opposition to Prussian minister of religion, enlightenment thought but by apparently as part of an their traditional forms of effort to influence the religious practice. So, too, what government’s Jewish policy. is distinctive about heterodox The author divided the Jews is not so much their German-Jewish community enlightenment, but their lax into four groups—two religious practice. Finally, the orthodox and two heterodox: category of uneducated, (1) the educated orthodox; (2) enlightened heterodox was only the uneducated orthodox; (3) the rendered possible by expanding the educated, enlightened heterodox; meaning of the word heterodox to and (4) the uneducated, include those who did not engage enlightened heterodox. Both the in traditional religious practices. author’s distinctions between orthodox and heterodox, as well as By the 1830s, the older meanings of Portrait of . the differences among them, point © Beth Hatefutsoth Photo Archive. heterodox and orthodox had all but to significant shifts in the terms’ disappeared; heterodox now meanings. four groups and were those who, referred to those who advocated through the study of good writings religious reform, while orthodox The first term, educated orthodox, and real contemplation, had become referred to those who opposed it. would have been oxymoronic a truly enlightened. Here again, the Leopold Zunz, for example, in his generation earlier, while the second term would not have been 1832 survey of the history of the term, uneducated orthodox, would intelligible to an eighteenth-century synagogue service, only used the have been seen term orthodox as redundant. HERE, THE TERM ORTHODOX HAS ENTIRELY LOST ITS ORIGINAL after describing Here, however, the the author MEANING OF OPPOSITION TO THE ENLIGHTENMENT, AND ONLY establishment of treated the the Seesen, former (by DENOTED OPPOSITION TO CHANGES IN RELIGIOUS PRACTICE. AS Berlin, and whom he Hamburg meant A RESULT, THERE WAS NOW A CLEAR DISCONNECT BETWEEN THE Temples. specialists) “These early rather MEANING OF THE TERM, “RIGHT BELIEF,” AND THE GROUP TO reform sympathetically, WHICH IT WAS APPLIED DISTINGUISHED BY A CLAIM OF RIGHT temples,” Zunz reserving his , wrote, “were scorn for the PRACTICE, WHICH IS WHY IT WAS POSSIBLE FOR ZUNZ TO CALL opposed by the latter, who had so-called “marred the THEM “SO-CALLED ORTHODOX.” orthodox religion with portion of the an unfounded outward devoutness reader. These are people, he wrote, community.” Here, the term and pseudo-piety.” who tried to imitate the truly orthodox has entirely lost its enlightened, but only read modern original meaning of opposition to In contrast to these two groups of works in order to lead themselves to the Enlightenment, and only orthodox Jews were the heterodox impiety. denoted opposition to changes in Jews. The educated, enlightened religious practice. As a result, there heterodox were the smallest of these What is striking about this text is was now a clear disconnect between

10 the meaning of the term, “right used the term on occasion. reformers and the orthodox were belief,” and the group to which it aware that the word referred to was applied, distinguished by a In this way, a term first used by proper belief, but they had become claim of right practice, which is why German Lutherans to refer to those trapped by nearly a century of prior it was possible for Zunz to call them who held firm to church dogmas use and were unable to break free. “so-called orthodox.” came to be used by German Jews as a label for those who opposed Thank you to the editors and By the 1840s, this terminology had changes to traditional Jewish publisher of Modern Judaism for acquired its current connotations. practice. When Jewish allowing Perspectives to publish this Jewish reformers attacked Enlightenment thinkers first piece based on the previously traditionalists for ascribing to adopted the term from the German published article by Jeffrey C. themselves the claim of “right Enlightenment, they had no Blutinger, “So-Called Orthodoxy: The believing,” while traditionalists problem applying it to Jews who History of an Unwanted Label.” rebutted the aspersions. In fact, opposed Enlightenment thought. Modern Judaism 27:3 (October however, traditionalists also adopted But as the nature of the debate 2007), 310–328. this label for themselves so that the among German Jews changed from newspaper Der Treu Zions-Wächter one about new ideas to one about Jeffrey C. Blutinger is assistant described itself as “the organ for the new practices, the word continued professor of history at California of the interests of orthodox to be used, even though neither State University, Long Beach. Jewry,” and even Hirsch himself side felt comfortable with it. Both Association for Jewish Studies 40th Annual Conference December 21–23, 2008 • Grand Hyatt Washington • Washington, DC

Conference Information Now Online at www.ajsnet.org. Join the AJS for more than 150 sessions devoted to the latest research in all fields of Jewish studies.

• Major exhibit of leading publishers of Jewish studies scholarship • Film screenings and performances free and open to the public • AJS Gala Banquet, Sunday, December 21, 2008 (stay-tuned for information on subsidized banquet tickets) • Evening receptions sponsored by Jewish studies programs and research institutions • Gourmet kosher meals catered by the Hyatt hotel

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11 an attenuation of characteristic of Orthodoxy was the Jewish loyalties as well application of political HISTORICIZING as significant shifts in considerations in the realm of consciousness across halakic decision making. Beginning ORTHODOXY the spectrum of belief in the second decade of the and practice. Like nineteenth century, opponents of Jay Berkovitz proponents of religious reform developed religious reform, traditionalists have strategies that aggressively rejected ver the past two centuries struggled with the stark challenges relatively modest synagogue reforms Orthodox Judaism has of modernity, and although the two of the sort that might have been Oemerged as the self-avowed movements disagreed fundamentally overlooked several decades earlier. standard-bearer of the Jewish on how these issues ought to be Moshe Samet argued in an religious heritage. It alone, its approached, they have both been influential 1988 Modern Judaism leaders have claimed, has remained confronted by similar hurdles: article that, in the face of these new faithful to the religious values and rampant assimilation, religious challenges, Orthodoxy assumed a doctrines of the Jewish tradition, apathy, a sharp decline in ritual combative posture, which differed and for this reason, they assert, observance, and the erosion of sharply from that of traditional Orthodox institutions exclusively rabbinic authority. Judaism in several respects: possess religious legitimacy. In the Orthodoxy represented a departure eyes of contemporary scholars, For scholars today, the question of from the principle of a unified however, the relationship between the degree to which Orthodoxy Jewish community; it exhibited tradition and Orthodoxy is embodied tradition or innovation mistrust toward modern culture; considerably more complicated than has broad implications that rise and it adopted an ultrastrict most Orthodox Jews believe it to above narrow disciplinary concerns standard of ritual observance and be. Following in interpretation of the footsteps of LIKE PROPONENTS OF RELIGIOUS REFORM, TRADITIONALISTS halakah. In this Jacob Katz, reading, pre- scholars have HAVE STRUGGLED WITH THE STARK CHALLENGES OF emancipation ceased to depict traditionalism was Orthodoxy as the MODERNITY, AND ALTHOUGH THE TWO MOVEMENTS less militant and unaltered heir of certainly less traditional Judaism DISAGREED FUNDAMENTALLY ON HOW THESE ISSUES OUGHT political than and has treated it nineteenth- as a product of the TO BE APPROACHED, THEY HAVE BOTH BEEN CONFRONTED century severe crisis that Orthodoxy. enveloped modern BY SIMILAR HURDLES: RAMPANT ASSIMILATION, RELIGIOUS Jewry in the APATHY A SHARP DECLINE IN RITUAL OBSERVANCE Ezekiel emancipation era. , , Landau Moreover, AND THE EROSION OF RABBINIC AUTHORITY. (1713–1793) is Orthodoxy’s claim one figure who to be the defender and denominational interests. How may be taken to epitomize the old- of historical Judaism is regarded by one assesses the distinctiveness of style traditionalist. He permitted many people today as purely Orthodoxy and Reform as well as himself to read Talmudic and subjective, even fictitious. the historical role of Orthodoxy halakic sources without concern for relates to larger issues concerning the sectarian politics that would Although the conflict between continuity and change, religious and become paramount in the responsa conservative and liberal interpreters halakic diversity, rabbinic authority, of later Orthodox . For of the Jewish tradition in recent and the thorny question of example, in a responsum on the centuries has often been quite essentialism as it applies to the of sterlet, one of the smaller fierce, it is now generally agreed Jewish tradition. I trust that the species of sturgeon, Landau that the common ground they have following remarks, which are distinguished sharply between the shared is far more extensive than is historical in nature, will have some basic requirements set forth in the normally assumed. The social, bearing on the broader questions Talmud, on the one hand, and cultural, and philosophical forces of raised here. stringencies added during the modernity have affected all sectors Middle Ages, on the other. The of the Jewish community, leading to Perhaps the most significant latter, he insisted, do not carry the

12 same authority as the former, and suggests that a number of the he therefore felt free to rule the conceptual issues raised by early sterlet kosher. Ascribing little reformers in Germany were not importance to hilkheta ke-batrai entirely dissimilar to concerns (the is like the later authorities), that had been voiced in a principle that had guided the rabbinic circles in the two development of halakah in Ashkenaz previous centuries. In throughout much of the medieval the area of ritual, as we period, Landau ruled leniently in have seen, Ezekiel this particular case and with regard Landau and the Gaon to other maters by privileging the of Vilna, as well as earlier Talmudic sources, much as others, vigorously Rabbi Elijah b. Solomon Zalman disapproved of the (1720–1797), the Gaon of Vilna, multiple layers of did in his own halakic writings. halakic accretion that had gained acceptance The transition to a more rigid, in standard practice politicized Orthodoxy in the over the centuries. As nineteenth century was embodied in communal leaders, the persona of Hungarian rabbi rabbinic authorities prior Moses Sofer (1762–1839). In 1810, to the nineteenth century for example, Sofer rejected the faced frequent challenges to decision of the rabbinical council of community cohesion and were the Westphalian Consistory to regularly involved in struggles to abrogate the custom prohibiting avert social and religious Portrait of the Gaon of Vilna. (legumes) on . The fragmentation. Furthermore, © Beth Hatefutsoth Photo Archive. leniency rested on the claim that the debates concerning the religious years of war constituted a she’at ha- implications of scientific discoveries, Ya’ir Hayyim Bacharach dehak (a time of crisis) that made it gender, and the status of philosophy (1638–1702) and Landau illustrates difficult for Jewish soldiers to find and were not unusual the sort of dynamic that was in kosher food for the holiday. among halakists in the early modern place well before the Orthodox- Although this argument had been period. These ideological disputes Reform controversies that surfaced adduced periodically in the halakic anticipated the better-known in the nineteenth century. Similarly, literature, as in a responsum of controversies of the nineteenth the longstanding debate concerning Rabbi (1697–1776), century. the relative authority of mimetic Sofer firmly opposed it on the versus text-centered traditions, also grounds that it was expressly It is certainly true that many among with roots well into the Middle forbidden to uproot customs that the nineteenth-century halakic Ages, suggests as well that the had been accepted by earlier authorities viewed modernity with Orthodox-Reform discourse was generations. This and numerous great suspicion, denied it a positive less exceptional than has been other rulings of similar ilk value, and erected rigorous halakic assumed. exemplified the growing tendency safeguards to protect their flocks. to defend the walls of tradition But the fact that these efforts were Orthodoxy, in short, has by no against breaches of any sort. more pronounced and better means been as monochromatic as organized than any that preceded the Katz-inspired model might seem Without intending to jettison the the nineteenth century should not to suggest. Nowhere is this clearer argument that Orthodoxy is a imply that the latter were than in the recently published, product of modernity, I would unprecedented. The privileging of monumental collection, Orthodox nonetheless propose that the claim over halakah was Judaism: New Perspectives, edited by concerning the exceptionality of the emblematic of medieval Judaism, as Y. Salmon, A. Ravitzky, and A. social and religious crisis in the early in the case of the dietary and Ferziger [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: nineteenth century and of the denying menstruant Magnes Press, 2006). This volume innovative character of the women authorization to attend provides us with a more variegated Orthodox response has been synagogue. On the latter issue, the portrayal of Orthodoxy than any overstated. A close reading of the strident criticism that this previously published work. The pre-emancipation halakic literature encountered in the works of Rabbi wide array of historical contexts

13 included reveals an impressive the idea of separation was entirely idealism—for pluralism over schism. spectrum of practices and foreign to the social and political ideologies, as well as greater reality in which most Jews lived. In The pioneering scholarship of Jacob complexity in the relationship response to the challenges of Katz and the many whose work he between Orthodox and Reform, religious indifference that influenced has left a lasting imprint ranging far beyond what we know threatened to weaken Jewish on our understanding of the from the German model alone. identity and affiliation in urban foundations of Orthodox Judaism Germany Orthodoxy, we can see, areas, Rabbi Salomon Ulmann and its history during the past two was but one expression of resistance (1806–1865) of the Central centuries. Greater awareness of the to the challenges of heterodoxy. Consistory extended the boundary varieties of Orthodoxy will at once Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch of Orthodox practice considerably enhance and challenge that (1808–1888), insisted that by initiating a program of modest understanding. And further complete separation from Liberal liturgical and synagogue reforms attention to the nexus between Judaism was essential for the that included an halakic argument tradition and innovation in the early preservation of traditional beliefs, justifying the use of the organ on modern era will doubtless reveal and it was this view that induced the Sabbath. The structural more of continuity the Orthodox secession from the relationship between the Jews and between Orthodoxy and its dynamic general Jewish community in the state, the authority vested in prehistory. Germany in 1876. However, the central institutions, and the abiding scope of the separatist doctrine was fear of replicating the profound Jay Berkovitz is professor of Judaic not a matter of consensus among divisions within German Jewry far and Near Eastern studies at the German Orthodox rabbis, outweighed the deep differences University of Massachusetts Amherst. particularly with respect to the between the progressive and His most recent book is Tradition and question of whether there were any traditionalist Orthodox camps in Revolution: Jewish Culture in Early areas where Orthodox Jews could France. The case of France Modern France [Hebrew] (Mercaz engage in joint endeavors with the exemplified a model of Orthodoxy Zalman Shazar, 2007). non-Orthodox. in a non-German setting that was distinguished by a preference— In neighboring France, for instance, driven both by pragmatism and

The AJS is pleased to announce the 2007 Dorot Travel Grant Recipients Julia Watts Belser Richard Hidary University of California, Berkeley New York University Bergstein Ethan Katz Yale University University of Wisconsin Daniella Doron Oren Segal New York University University of Michigan Flatto Brigitte Sion Harvard University New York University Elizabeth Goldstein Ilana Szobel University of California, San Diego New York University/ Shiri Goren Ester-Basya Vaisman New York University/Yale University Harvard University Dorot Travel Grants were made possible by funding from the Dorot Foundation of Providence, Rhode Island.

14 The AJS is pleased to announce the recipients of the JorJordandan2008 DorotSchnitzerSchnitzer Grants: BookBook AAwarwardsds

The AJS is pleased to announce the Jordan Schnitzer Book Awards, the first annual book award program to be offered by the Association for Jewish Studies, made possible by funding from the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation of Portland, Oregon. These awards will recognize and promote outstanding scholarship in the field of Jewish studies and will honor scholars whose work embodies the best in the field: rigorous research, theoretical sophistication, innovative methodology, and excellent writing.

Beginning in 2008, the AJS will award two $5,000 Jordan Schnitzer Book Awards on an annual basis. The two submission categories for 2008 are: Philosophy and Gender Studies

Only AJS members in good standing may submit their books for consideration or be nominated for consideration by a third party (publisher, etc.). Any book published in English within four years of the deadline is eligible for consideration. A book may be submitted up to two times within a four-year cycle. Scholars at all stages of their careers are eligible to apply.

Recipients of the Jordan Schnitzer Book Awards will be recognized at a reception held each year in their honor at the AJS conference; the award will also be announced in AJS publications and other professional and national media. Recipients of the 2008 awards will be honored at the 40th Annual Conference, December 21–23, 2008 at the Grand Hyatt Washington in Washington, DC.

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15 live in “plural life-worlds” but THOUGHTS ON THE STUDY to live in life- worlds that OF THE ORTHODOX COMMUNITY: might be rivalrous and competing, AFTER THIRTY-FIVE YEARS contrapuntal. I Samuel Heilman wrote for Modern Judaism in which also argued that in their efforts to I tried to analyze and characterize deal with plural life-worlds and their or the last thirty-five years I what I called “The Many Faces of contrapuntal demands, today’s have been researching and Orthodoxy.” I did so by means of a modern Orthodox Jews often Fwriting about Orthodox Jews. consideration of rabbis (most of discover that existing syntheses, I began by looking at what was then them from nineteenth-century often created in ad hoc ways, are called “modern Orthodoxy,” and in Europe) who served for me as highly complex, not always fully particular its synagogue life, which I iconic representations of these consistent, and perhaps not even found reflective of what I then various perspectives. In the article, I synthetic. Since the rabbis whom called “shifting involvements.” I made reference to the desires of they might once have seen as role suggested that the various levels of some of them to “bring the present models or from whom they might interaction that I found in the and past together in a dynamic have sought guidance about how to synagogue were symbolic of these synthesis.” These people were, I live contrapuntally have largely Jews’ multiple concerns, their argued, in some sense the models turned away from dynamic engagement in synthesis, those what Peter who want to Berger has live in plural called “plural life-worlds life-worlds.” find These were themselves Jews not unlike compelled to those I had make grown up autonomous among during choices about the 1950s and how to do 1960s. But that. when I published a The book on this contemporary subject, in the Orthodox mid-1970s, I rabbinate has did not realize been that what I had increasingly observed was inclined to the beginning curb, control, of the decline of and deny the this style of Oil painting © Max Ferguson. legitimacy of Orthodoxy. Indeed, change that the very synagogue for what would come to be called embraces the complex realities of on which my study was based, “modern Orthodoxy.” (Marc contemporary culture. I have traced lacking a pulpit rabbi and torn by Shapiro’s subsequent study of Rabbi this tendency to the yeshiva conflict over who and what was Jehiel Jacob Weinberg accomplished training, both in Israel and the properly Orthodox, represented in this far more fluently.) Diaspora, which strives to deny the some ways a microcosm of what was significance or value of change and happening to Orthodoxy in general. Two years ago, in my book Sliding chooses to see Judaism as to the Right, I suggested that the something carved in stone and Twenty-five years ago I dealt with modern Orthodox dynamic difficult or impossible to still these broader trends in a piece I represented an ability not only to reinterpret in light of changing

16 conditions. In the Orthodox They celebrate their literacy and proudly parochial in their interests. rabbinate that has emerged over the expertise in internal Jewish texts; I found the makeshift language of last two decades, the assumption their ability to navigate even the “Yinglish” overtaking the more appears to be that all the legitimate most recondite Talmudic, rabbinic, cosmopolitan university English and interpretations have already been and similarly parochial literature is all that it symbolized. Finally, I formulated by the immortals of the the source of their prestige. Almost found myself drawn to the Haredi past, and there is nothing vanished is the rabbi/doctor who world, which had awakened from its significantly new under the sun that wore his secular learning as badge post-Holocaust catatonic survivor requires new answers. Anyone who of pride and a source of his rabbinic guilt and rebuilt itself in the new wants to countermand or challenge authority, who leavened his worlds of America and Israel with a these interpretations of what Jewish with the insights that came from vigor rivaling anything it had ever law and tradition demand does so, what many rabbis today would displayed in the past. they imply, at his or her spiritual dismiss as chochmat hagoyim. Lay and religious peril. Those who try Jews who choose to remain in As a university-trained social to create new syntheses and touch with contemporary culture anthropologist, I had access into embrace change, particularly when thus find themselves stymied or that world of Jews who saw it includes a valuation of the culture outside the boundaries of UNLIKE THOSE WHO TRIED TO FIT PLURAL LIFE-WORLDS the Jewish enclave, are accused of doing so out of ignorance of TOGETHER, MANY OF TODAY’S ORTHODOX RABBIS CELEBRATE halakah. THEIR PAROCHIALISM AND ABILITY TO REMAIN WITHIN JEWISH The model of the rabbi who also has advanced university degrees has ENCLAVES WHERE THE TRADITION IS NARROWLY DEFINED AND been in decline. It is perhaps for this reason that the late Rabbi THE HALAKAH IS STRICTLY INTERPRETED. Joseph B. Soloveitchik continues to be treated as a living model in forced to improvise, basing themselves as “defenders of the the community of the themselves on their own abilities to faith,” despite many of its contrapuntalists seeking dynamic interpret halakah and to apply it to inhabitants’ explicit or implicit synthesis. His works and ideas are the needs of their plural life-worlds. denial of the legitimacy of my plumbed for ongoing guidance profession. This access was in part almost as much as the writings of Today, when I reread my early facilitated by this world’s the late Menachem Mendel work, I see that the efforts of those inhabitants’ and leaders’ growing Schneerson are consulted by his who were trying in the 1970s conviction that they represented the followers, who also feel a need for a dialectically to merge the modern future of Judaism and that I could ’s guidance in the complex and the orthodox were already be used to document their success present and lack a living rabbinic marked by signs of desperation. As and contributions. Behind every bit authority with sufficient stature to Orthodoxy became more self- of information provided to me by guide them through their plural life- assured in America (and in Israel), what was now being called “Haredi worlds. and as modern western society went Jewry” was the assumption that I through its antinomian stage of the myself, as a modern Orthodox Jew, Unlike those who tried to fit plural 1960s and 1970s, the sociological was learning how much better and life-worlds together, many of center of gravity was shifting. The culturally richer this variant of today’s Orthodox rabbis celebrate Orthodox elements in the dynamic Orthodoxy was than my own, or their parochialism and ability to synthesis were increasingly any other version of the religion. remain within Jewish enclaves where overshadowing the elements and the tradition is narrowly defined attractions of modernity. Not I was, I must admit, fascinated by and the halakah is strictly surprisingly, my continuing research the vitality, the commitment, and in interpreted. They are proud that into Orthodoxy therefore took me many cases the attractiveness of this they are able to turn away increasingly into the inner enclaves world, especially in the eyes of the voluntarily from what are perceived of Orthodoxy and away from the young Orthodox, who were more as the unhealthy seductions of margins where I had found the and more convinced that the contemporary society and therefore modernists. I looked at the intensely previous generation’s effort to live need not reinterpret tradition and closed enclave of Talmud study in plural life-worlds was based on halakah to meet its requirements. groups—most of which were ignorance, duplicity, and

17 convenience. The commitments here were powerful, deeply felt, and IN THE YEARS AHEAD, PERHAPS, THESE SORTS OF ANALYSES enthusiastic. The inspiring rabbis were Haredi ones. Except for those AND ETHNOGRAPHIES MAY SHOW US WHETHER caught up in Israeli religious Zionist settlement politics, everyone else ORTHODOXY WILL SUSTAIN ITS DYNAMIC SYNTHESIS OR was looking toward rabbis who made Eastern Europe and yesterday WHETHER IT WILL CONTINUE ITS SLIDE TOWARD THE more appealing than modern civilization and today. As a social PAROCHIAL CONFINES OF ITS HEAVILY TRADITIONALIST anthropologist and student of ENCLAVES WHERE CHANGE IS KEPT AT BAY Orthodoxy, I could not help but be . drawn to documenting their efforts in its Center for the Jewish Future toward the parochial confines of its to recreate the past. and its rabbinic enrichment heavily traditionalist enclaves where initiative, there are efforts to change is kept at bay. I was not alone. William Helmreich resurrect the Torah and Maddah described the world of the (science) ideal whose combination Samuel Heilman is the Harold contemporary yeshiva. Solomon was once the university’s symbolic Proshansky Chair in Jewish Studies Poll, Jerome Mintz, and others goal. The many initiatives of the at the Graduate Center and is produced studies of the Hasidim, Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance Distinguished Professor of and of course Menachem Friedman to embrace a dynamic synthesis that at Queens College of the City analyzed Haredi life in Israel. These recognizes the growing role of University of New York, and author writers have been followed by an also suggest that of Sliding to the Right: The Contest array of younger scholars, like there may be action in the non- for the Future of American Jewish Tamar El-Or, Kimmy Caplan, Maya Haredi world that will draw scholars Orthodoxy (University of Katz, and others too numerous to once again to study it. You Are California Press, 2006). mention, whose work on these Hereby Renewed Unto Me: Orthodox Orthodox Jews has been remarkable Women Challenge the Wedding both in its intelligence and detail. Ritual, a forthcoming book by Irit While all these scholars’ aims were Koren that ethnographic, analytic, and explores the documentary, an unintended efforts of young consequence, perhaps, of their Orthodox women approach was to enhance the sense who want to “One of the most that these Jews increasingly defined reinterpret Jewish interesting, lively contemporary Orthodoxy. The marriage law in and informative modern Orthodox were simply no light of changing books that I have longer where the action was. gender roles and ever had the marital behavior, pleasure to read on To be sure, there has of late been a indicates that subjects of Jewish- new flurry of activity among the there is a renewed American culture latter. Worthy of note is the interest in the and its connections emergence of Yeshivat Chovevei contrapuntalist with American Torah in New York, a new elements of popular culture.” rabbinical school seeking to produce Orthodoxy. In the — Paul Buhle, a new kind of rabbi who does years ahead, represent the model of one who perhaps, these “A stylish, wry, embraces the idea of dynamic sorts of analyses and in-depth study synthesis and plural life-worlds. A and ethnographies of its subject.” number of these rabbis have again may show us $39.95 illustrated — Lawrence Bush, embraced the idea of obtaining whether Editor, Jewish Currents doctorates in addition to their Orthodoxy will rabbinical ordination. At Yeshiva sustain its University, through the work of its dynamic synthesis new president (the first non-rabbi Available at bookstores or whether it will www.temple.edu/tempress to head the institution), and rabbis continue its slide 18 "O&TTFOUJBM"OUIPMPHZGPSUIF4UVEZPG*TSBFM ğīĨĦěīĚħĝĞĢĬĮħĢįĞīĬĢĭIJĩīĞĬĬ

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19 enter. Although the roots of this RELIGIOUS FEMINISM IN ISRAEL: phenomenon can be traced to the beginning A REVOLUTION IN PROCESS of the twentieth century in Krakow Irit Koren ritual as one dimension of a larger when Sara Shneirer opened the Bais trend that I would designate as the Yacov school for girls, it has acquired or the last few years my “Jewish feminist ritual revolution.” social power and influence mainly in research has focused on the This revolution is itself part of a the last three decades, both in the ways in which a small, yet F more far-reaching transformation United Stated and in Israel. growing, number of modern that has been underway in the Orthodox women living primarily in modern Orthodox world in Israel for In Israel things began, in my Israel have endeavored to challenge, the last three decades, with parallels opinion, with the establishment by resist, or adapt the Orthodox in modern Orthodox communities in Professor in 1975 of wedding ritual and, in so doing, the United States. In Israel, in Pelech’s high school for religious transform it so that it would serve as particular, there are four main areas girls, the first school in Israel in an expression of their own identity, in which the feminist ritual which girls were taught Talmud as values, and ideals. The women revolution has had a significant boys are. Many of the leading figures whom I interviewed identified impact: increased Jewish literacy for of the Orthodox feminist movement themselves not only as Orthodox but women, ritual, the female body and in Israel today are graduates of this also as feminists, or at least as having sexuality, and religious leadership. I institution. Tamar El-Or, on the feminist consciousness and will discuss each knowledge. Some of these women of these arenas, found themselves confronted with a focusing mostly tension between these two aspects of on their identities, as the values developments in embraced by feminism and Israel. I will Orthodoxy are often at odds. begin with the Among other things, feminism arena in which stands for equality between the there has been genders, while promoting the the most freedom of spiritual and sexual change and expression and autonomous self- proceed to definition. Orthodoxy, generally others in which speaking, distinguishes between the the process is two genders, viewing them as two less advanced essentially different entities with and still different statuses and degrees of regarded with freedom, and, ultimately, bestowing considerable more power and control upon men. suspicion. Only some of the women I interviewed, however, experienced Increased this tension; others, who espoused Jewish Literacy both feminism and Orthodoxy, for Women found these two outlooks more The religious easily compatible, since they viewed literacy locus of these two aspects of their identity as power was the mutually enriching. Regardless of the first realm into existence or degree of tension, all of which Jewish the Orthodox feminists in my study feminists in devoted conscious thought and general and effort to reconciling their Orthodoxy Orthodox with their feminism. feminists in particular I view this phenomenon of religious managed to women grappling with wedding Photo courtesy of Irit Koren. 20 other hand, in her book about this are now inserting female experiences, women have been voicing questions phenomenon, Next Year I Will performances, and voices into these and criticism in different forums Know More, identifies its beginnings traditional rituals. For example, they regarding the laws of female in Israel with the opening of the transfer practices normally associated modesty, which require them to women’s seminary Michlelet Bruria with males to women participating in cover much of their bodies in public, in Jerusalem in 1977. This trend the wedding ritual, such as having a and the act of ritual bathing in continued with the establishment of woman read the , or having connection with menstruation. Many many other batei (houses of both the bride and the groom circle religious scholars and activists, study) for writing from a women such as: HE FIRST ZONE IN WHICH RTHODOX WOMEN SOUGHT critical feminist Kibbutz Ein T O point of view, have Hanatziv, Matan, TO ASSERT THEMSELVES, THE REALM OF EDUCATION, IS THE published books , Pardes and articles and many more. CORE FROM WHICH OTHER SOCIAL CHANGES HAVE describing these In these batei traditional attitudes midrash women EMANATED. KNOWLEDGE WAS EXPECTED TO BRING SOCIAL as expressions of a were allowed to hegemonic and enter a world POWER AND INDEED HAS DONE SO. ONLY NOW CAN THESE dominant, that until not too traditional male long ago was WOMEN MOVE ON TO TAKE CONTROL OF NEW PRACTICES discourse. These forbidden to alternative them and to AND RELIGIOUS DOMAINS. discourses are not participate in it in always textual; the a way that bridged the gap between each other under the huppah, instead movie titled Tehorah (Pure), which the modern and the religious worlds of having only the bride circle the led to much debate in different in which they live. groom. forums, tells the story of three Orthodox women who engage in the Orthodox feminism thus started with Finally, we find that in the act of ritual bathing but do not the sense of triumph felt by those synagogue, women have taken on refrain from expressing their who had the same religious Jewish more roles that have hitherto been criticisms of it. literacy and skills as men, a feeling the exclusive domain of men. that gave rise to a social revolution. Examples are found in congregations Another matter of concern to The first zone in which Orthodox like Shira Chadasha in Jerusalem, feminists is the code of silence women sought to assert themselves, Darchey in New York City regarding violence and sexual the realm of education, is the core and similar groups elsewhere. These harassment within religious from which other social changes have congregations identify themselves as institutions and families. In the past emanated. Knowledge was expected both halakic and egalitarian. Women few years there have been several to bring social power and indeed has are allowed and encouraged to lead high profile scandals involving done so. Only now can these women certain parts of the service, chant the prominent Orthodox rabbis and move on to take control of new Torah, and participate in other roles sexual harassment. Extensive practices and religious domains. which were traditionally given to coverage of one of these scandals in men only, such as being the gabbai Ma’ariv and Ha’aretz led a group of The Ritual Domain (manager of synagogue affairs) of the important rabbis to denounce the Transforming the ritual domain is congregation and giving a dvar torah women who had filed the perhaps at the heart of the feminist (teaching a Jewish text) at the end of accusations. Under the leadership of Orthodox revolution today. One the service. Chana Kehat, the religious feminist tendency is the creation of rituals forum “Kolech” rose to the defense aimed at mirroring traditional male Female Body and Sexuality of these women and voiced its rituals, such as the creation of The third arena in which changes are disappointment with the public’s celebrations for baby girls known as emerging has to do with sexuality reaction to what had happened. simchat bat rituals as a parallel to the and the female body. Dealing with celebration for the baby male’s brit these issues is a radical step in In recent years the Internet has milah. Another innovation is the modern Orthodox society since it emerged as a site for people to ask creation of different variations on undermines the foundations of rabbis questions concerning sexual those traditional rituals that mainly gender relations and separation in interaction between single men and focus on male experiences. Women Jewish tradition. Nevertheless, women, including the question of 21 whether women engaged in such religious (toanot rabaniyot) support the acquisition of more activity should participate in ritual in the religious ; in the late power and freedom by women. More bathing even though they are 1990s, a program opened in and more women feel now that they unmarried. In view of the traditional Nishmat’s beit midrash to train “own” the texts and thus deserve to assumption that only married women women to become halakic advisors play a greater part in the ongoing have sexual interactions and that the for women who have questions and process of shaping Jewish tradition. act of ritual bathing after concerns about the laws of Perhaps it is this feeling of ownership menstruation is a matter of concern menstruation. I believe that the next that enables and encourages them to to married women only, it is not front is inevitably going to be the persist in their efforts to take control surprising that such issues were rabbinic ordination of Orthodox of new domains. initially channeled into the women. While one Orthodox anonymous setting provided by the woman has already been ordained by Will these accomplishments Internet. What might perhaps be an Orthodox rabbi in Jerusalem, the strengthen or weaken modern more surprising is that matters did path to full recognition is still strewn Orthodoxy in the long run? Some not stop there. These issues were with obstacles. will regard them as proof of the publicly thrashed out at a large wisdom of those who always resisted gathering organized by Neemanei All of these developments have teaching women Torah out of fear Torah Veavodah in the Ohel Nehama combined to create a sense that that it would lead to the slippery synagogue in Jerusalem in 2005 and Orthodox women are not satisfied slope of revolutionary change. presided over by three rabbis. with the . The realization Others will believe, as I have learned that religious knowledge is the to, that enabling the hitherto silent Public Leadership primary locus of power in an half of the Orthodox community to The fourth realm, in which Orthodox community has propelled voice its creativity, its intelligence, its Orthodox feminism is just beginning women to seek it, and the possession engagement, its , its values, to make an appearance, is that of of such knowledge has inspired them and its unique understanding of religious leadership. A few recent to make other changes. Once women Jewish texts can only enrich and developments may prove to have set mastered religious texts, the religious strengthen the Jewish world and the stage for the rabbinical authorities functioning in the modern religion. ordination of women. One of the Orthodox world could not continue breakthroughs was the legal ruling of to exclude them from power. Making Irit Koren is a post-doctoral fellow at 1988 that enabled Shakdiel, a use of their ability to approach the the Institute for Israel and Jewish well-known Orthodox feminist canonical sacred texts, analyze them, Studies at Columbia University, and activist, to become a member of the and criticize the tacit assumptions of author of You Are Hereby Renewed religious council of her home town the tradition and hoary custom, Unto Me: Orthodox Women of Yerucham; in 1990 women women identified in the sources a Challenge the Wedding Ritual received permission to function as variety of voices, some of which (forthcoming, 2008).

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22 A Feminist Commentary on the Babylonian Talmud

The aim of a feminist commentary of the Babylonian Talmud, and of the , of which the former is a commentary, is to identify women-and-gender relevant passages in these texts and explain and scrutinize them using feminism as a category of analysis. This project is an international endeavour. The Babylonian Talmud is an enormous composition, consisting of over 40 tractates, some of them several hundred pages long. Individual tractates will be commented upon by distinguished scholars, coming from different countries and institutions. Each will be published in a separate volume.

A Feminist Commentary on the Babylonian Tal Ilan Talmud: Masekhet Ta’anit Introduction and Studies Edited by Tal Ilan, Tamara Or, Dorothea M. Salzer, This is the first volume to be published in the Christiane Steuer and Irina Wandrey series dedicated to a feminist commentary on the Mishnah and the Babylonian Talmud. Within 2007. X, 324 pages. The Order of Moed in the Mishnah and feminist scholarship, a thorough investigation of ISBN 978-3-16- Babylonian Talmud outlines the way Jews celebrate the second Jewish canon is a longstanding deside- 149522-9 cloth their festivals. It is well known among feminists ratum. Tal Ilan discusses tractate (Masekhet) $114.00 that Jewish life is not the same for men and Ta’anit, which deals with ritual fasting, usually in women. The purpose of this feminist commentary the case of rain failure. In this commentary, she on Seder Moed is to outline gender differences as presents and discusses texts from the tractate they are reflected in the mishnaic and talmudic which are relevant to women and gender. These texts. In this introductory volume womens include legal proclamations on the participation of participation in Jewish festivals is handled on a women in public fasts, stories on pious men, general and theoretic level. Various world-renown whose proper conduct toward women, and pious scholars discuss the role of women in the tractates women whose conduct in general make them ideal of Seder Moed. intermediaries for bringing rain, midrashim on biblical texts mentioning biblical women or gender Survey of Contents: aspects, and discussions of gendered rabbinic Shaye J. D. Cohen: Are Women in the Covenant? – terms such as Bat Qol, usually translated as Charlotte E. Fonrobert: Gender Politics in the heavenly voice but which literally translated means Rabbinic Neighborhood. Tractate Eruvin – a daughters voice. The overall impression of this Elizabeth S. Alexander: How Became a tractate is that it emphasizes the way the relation- Non-Timebound, Positive Commandment. The ship between rainfall and the dry ground was Yerushalmi and Bavli on mEruvin 10:1 – Catherine imagined by the rabbis in a gendered metaphor of Hezser: Passover and Social Equality. Women, sexual relations in which rain is male and the land Slaves and Minors in Bavli Pesahim – Judtih is female. This theme repeats itself in the tractate Hauptman: From the Kitchen to the Dining- throughout. Room. Women and Ritual Activities in Tractate 2008. X, 324 pages Pesahim – Tirzah Meacham (leBeit Yoreh): (A Feminist Commentary Misconstrued Mitsvot. The Case of the Menstruant on the Babylonian Levirate Wife – Shulamit Valler: Women and Prices vary according to exchange rates. Talmud II/9). Dwelling in the in the Bavli – Cynthia M. ISBN 978-3-16-149524-3 Baker: The Queen, the Apostate, and the Women cloth $114.00 Between. (Dis)Placement of Women in Sukkah – Tamara Or: »Why dont We Say Anything to Them?« (bBes 30a) Women in Massekhet Betsah – Dorothea M. Salzer: Womens World in Massekhet Rosh ha-Shana.Women and Creation in bRosh ha-Shana 10b–11b – Tal Ilan: Dance and Gender in Massekhet Ta’anit – Judith R. Baskin: Erotic Subversion. Undermining Female Agency in Mohr Siebeck bMegillah 10b–17a – Klaus Herrmann: Massekhet Tübingen Hagigah and – Irina Wandrey: [email protected] Custom-made information: Mourning Rituals for Women and for Men – Adiel www.mohr.de www.mohr.de/form/ Schremer: For Whom is Marriage a Happiness? eKurier_e.htm mMo’ed Qatan 1:7 and a Roman Parallel

23 NYU PRESS | Outstanding Scholarship

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24 THE : ORDINARY PEOPLE IN AN EXTRAORDINARY LAND

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25 writers towards the Gaon and his role in the struggle of the HAREDI COUNTER HISTORY: mitnagdim against Hasidism. Ada Rapoport-Albert studied SOME THEORETICAL AND the historically oriented writings of the leader R. Joseph Schneerson (1880–1950), METHODOLOGICAL ASPECTS and concluded that they were Nahum Karlinsky scholar and Haredi leader, R. Isaac “hagiography with footnotes.” Elhanan of Kovno, published Zeev Gries maintains that for aredi (so-called ultra- posthumously in 1923–1930, Bartal Chabad, historical writing has been Orthodox Jewish) society defined this work as “Orthodox a recurring phenomenon of this and culture, despite the H historiography.” Bartal’s main thesis movement’s literary output. David wealth of important scholarly works is that in their efforts to stanch the Assaf showed that other Hasidic devoted to it, still poses a infiltration of modernity in dynasties were engaged in historical conundrum for many. An important Orthodox society, Haredi historians writing as well. Assaf listed various component of Haredi culture and adopted modern methods of literary strategies that were society that contributes to this historical writing in the hope that employed by the wide range of society’s enigmatic nature is its by so doing they could beat writers who retold the stories of the dynamic transformative character, famous nineteenth- comprised of a century Hasidic unique blend of LABELING THESE MAINLY HAGIOGRAPHICAL WORKS AS rebbe, R. Israel of strictly traditional . Labeling tenets on the one ORTHODOX HISTORIOGRAPHY, ASSAF DEFINED THE these mainly hand and manifestly hagiographical modern elements on GENRE OF THESE WRITERS AS A “RECRUITED LITERATURE,” works as Orthodox the other. historiography, Assaf I.E., A “LITERATURE THAT IS DELIBERATELY COMMITTED defined the genre of Haredi these writers as a historiography—a TO SERVE CERTAIN INTERESTS, OVERT OR COVERT.” “recruited distinct literary literature,” i.e., a genre that sets out to record the modernity on its own turf. Bartal “literature that is deliberately history of this society—may serve as also showed that Lipschitz’s strategy committed to serve certain interests, a fascinating and useful analytical was not an isolated case and that overt or covert.” Recently, Haim tool for a better understanding of Haredi society employs the same Gertner has suggested that under the Haredi phenomenon. approach in regard to other cultural the rubric of Orthodox Furthermore, by examining the spheres as well. At the same time, a historiography, traditionalist origins of Haredi historiography, we common assumption is that this has researchers, who in the course of may be able to identify some basic been a split-level adoption, in which mid-nineteenth-century Europe components of this unique only the “shell”—the were engaged in the writings of the manifestation of Haredi life and, “instrumental” or “value-free” traditional historical genre of consequently, isolate essential aspects of these institutions and chronography, should also be elements of the Haredi enigma. concepts—was embraced. The included. content, i.e., the ideological or The State of Research philosophical underpinnings of the Thus, it is clear from the above The term Orthodox historiography adopted customs, it is claimed, have short appraisal that the study of (read: Haredi historiography) was been discarded. Haredi historiography is still young; first coined by more we still lack a comprehensive survey than twenty years ago. Reviewing Subsequent to Bartal’s study of the and analysis of this phenomenon. In the three-volume memoir and Lipschitz memoir, other scholars addition, and this would be the history of nineteenth-century non- devoted important studies to focus of this article, it is apparent Hasidic Haredi society, Zikhron Orthodox historiography. Immanuel that a fuller understanding of the Ya’akov, written by the Haredi Etkes described and analyzed the phenomenon of Haredi activist and journalist Jacob Ha-Levi beginnings of historical writings in historiography requires a clearer Lipschitz, a disciple and personal the Vilna Gaon’s circles and later on definition of the terms employed in secretary to the eminent rabbinical dealt with the attitude of Haredi this discussion, especially Haredi, 26 Orthodox, and historiography, in authoritative and up-to-date Notwithstanding these elements, addition to some clarification of the biography of the Schneerson family Beit Rabbi is not a history book in relations among them. Thus, I from the time of its founder R. the modern, secular sense of the maintain that in discussing Haredi Shneur Zalman of onward. term. What distinguishes it from historiography, in contrast to The author’s effort to make Beit modern historiography, and gives it discussing the variegated ways Rabbi look like a modern, its Haredi flavor, is the inclusion of Haredi society narrates its past, the contemporary history is evident hagiographical tales of zaddikim as term historiography should be both in content and form. Beit an integral part of the book’s limited to its accepted use in any Rabbi, like a modern, secular “historical” narrative. How can one other historical field, namely to the history book, attempts to present explain this inclusion? I suggest that notion of modern, secularist- facts and dates accurately, to provide the hagiography in Beit Rabbi oriented form of telling the story of reliable—and, preferably, new— serves as a fundamentalist barrier the past. Following to against modernity. some extent Samuel Heilman’s and Menachem The Belief in the Zaddik as Friedman’s Fundamentalist Tenet in characterization of Hasidism Orthodoxy as a contra- Contrary to many other acculturation movement, researchers, I find the we may characterize comparison of the Haredi Orthodoxy as a modern phenomenon with religious Jewish movement that has fundamentalism very fruitful. struggled, in the face of Three aspects of the the secularist threat of the typological similarity between modern world, to sustain Haredism and religious Judaism in its traditional fundamentalism should be form. Haredi society will emphasized here. First, the be defined here as the consciousness of danger most conservative branch emanating from the modern of Orthodox Judaism, one world and its values provides that refuses to consciously both Haredi society and adopt any form, and religious fundamentalism especially any value, from with a major stimulus in the the modern world. crystallization of their institutional array and values. What will follow would be Second, both phenomena, a brief discussion and the Haredi and the characterization of one fundamentalist, have adopted example of Haredi the typical form of counter- historiography—the first societies vis-à-vis modern Haredi-Hasidic history society. Third, both book, Beit Rabbi. In light phenomena have installed a of this discussion I hope new value system that, while to be able to add another drawing on and perpetuating ingredient to the above Title page of Hayim Heilman, Sefer Bet Rabi (Berditshov: Ba-defus shel the world of tradition, has definition of the Haredi H.Y. Sheftil, 1902). revised the prior scale of phenomenon, one that values and social order, would address this society’s sources, and to anchor the historical establishing in their stead a new dynamic—and hence most reconstruction in the familiar soil of order that entails the construction enigmatic—character. the “corporeal” world. The author’s of a barrier against the penetration extensive use of footnotes and his of modernity into tradition. In Beit Rabbi critical survey of the Wissenschaft des nineteenth-century east European Published in Berdichev in 1902, this Judenthums and Jewish national Hasidic society, it seems to me, one book, written by a Chabad Hasid historical literature are other clear may identify a process in which named Hayyim Meir Heilman, indications of his adoption of some belief in the zaddik became a intended to present an official, forms of modern historiography. fundamentalist value. Regarding the 27 non-Hasidic sector of the Haredi historical writings to the present their dress codes, yeshiva studies, society, it seems that the study of day. Neither in Beit Rabbi nor in independent educational and the halakah, the renascent world of the Hasidic historiography that judicial systems, etc. One must the yeshivot, and the emergence of follows it does this posture create a conclude that the partial adoption the Gadol as the epitome of this harmonic synthesis of scholarly of modernity served, and continues world, served as a similar buffer research and faith. On the contrary: to function, as a Trojan Horse against the values of modernity. it dichotomizes the two worldviews inside the citadel of Haredi society. and renders them mutually I believe that in many respects this The Hagiography in Beit Rabbi estranged. It is this very dialectic “forked path” toward modernity— Hence, Heilman’s book contains and dichotomous tension that, I conscious rejection of modern not only many “historical” believe, lend Beit Rabbi and the values and “instrumental” adoption documents but also rich layers of historiography that follows it their of modernity’s modus operandi— hagiographical tales. The praises in special Haredi-fundamentalist can explain much of the constant Heilman’s book were placed there complexion. change within, and the enigmatic neither by coincidence nor to character of, Haredi society. embellish the dry historical account However, the conscious rejection of with colorful folk illustrations. The the secularist value system could not Nahum Karlinsky is senior lecturer intent in all the hagiographical prevent the Haredi historians, once at the Ben Gurion Research Institute, stories in Heilman’s book is the they decided to adopt some devices Ben Gurion University of the Negev, same: to present, alongside a of modern historiography, from and author of Counter History: the formally and methodically corporeal judging the past from the Hasidic Epistles from Eretz-Israel— account, the history of the founders perspective of a more Text and Context (Jerusalem: Yad and dynasty of Chabad as a sacred anthropocentric Weltanschauung. Izhak Ben-Zvi, 1998). history. In other words, the main Thus, human reasoning and significance of Heilman’s explanation took hold in areas hagiographic account is its posture where a theocentric as the true explanation of history. I Weltanschauung once reigned. This argue that the hagiographical tendency is not confined to the field dimension of Beit Rabbi is an of writing inseparable part of Heilman’s history alone. A religious mindset and serves as an mere glance at and Grits obstacle to historical and rational today’s Haredi A Jew on the Bayou criticism of Hasidism and its society reveals Jennifer Anne Moses worldview, that is, as a its adoption of “One of the most moving spiritual memoirs I’ve ever read.” —James Wilcox, Louisiana State University fundamentalist tenet. a rich variety of Cloth $26.95 value-free or Carl Schmitt and the Jews A Trojan Horse instrumental The “Jewish Question,” the Holocaust, Heilman’s solution has been to components of and German Legal Theory make a conscious effort to adopt the modern and Raphael Gross Translated by Joel Golb some of the modus operandi of postmodern A conclusive reexamination of in the life and modernity in the service of interests worlds—such as work of a controversial German legal and political theorist. and goals of tradition, while satellite The Mosse Series Cloth $45.00 rejecting the value system that broadcasting, Cataclysms informed it. This adoption creates juvenile A History of the Twentieth Century constant tension in Beit Rabbi since literature, use from Europe’s Edge Heilman has to cope at all times of the Internet, Dan Diner “An original and intellectually challenging interpretation.” with the risks of rational historical and much —Fritz Stern, author of Five Germanys I Have Known argumentation that uses “human” more. This has The Mosse Series Cloth $35.00 explanation and reasoning to occurred even Between Resistance and Martyrdom a sacred realm. as the leaders Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Third Reich and followers of Detlef Garbe Translated by Dagmar G. Grimm Furthermore, I do not think it far the Haredi way “A compelling and deeply important, understudied story.” off the mark to state that in Beit continue to —Michael Berenbaum, author of A Promise to Remember Cloth $95.00 Paper $39.95 Rabbi Heilman established a cling to the At booksellers or visit our Web site historiographic model that has left golden days of The University of Wisconsin Press visible traces in Haredi and Hasidic the past—in www.wisc.edu/wisconsinpress

28 Mitchell Vallentine publishers

ORT, THE SECOND WORLD NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD CECILIA RAZOVSKY AND THE WAR AND THE WINNER 2007 AMERICAN JEWISH WOMEN’S REHABILITATION OF ANTISEMITISM RESCUE OPERATIONS IN THE HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS The Generic Hatred SECOND WORLD WAR Essays in Memory of KAVANAUGH BAT-AMI ZUCKER Simon Wiesenthal 200 pages 2008 176 pages 2x8 page plate section 2008 MICHAEL FINEBERG, 978 0 85303 806 1 cloth $49.95 978 0 85303 764 4 cloth $79.95 SHIMON SAMUELS, 978 0 85303 765 1 paper $32.95 FILM AND THE SHOAH and MARK WEITZMAN (Eds) 400 pages 2007 CARTOONS AND EXTREMISM IN FRANCE AND ITALY 978 0 85303 745 3 cloth $75.00 Israel and the Jews in Arab and Western Media GIACOMO LICHTNER 978 0 85303 746 0 paper $35.00 JOEL KOTEK 256 pages 2008 MEMORY OF THE Forewords by Alan Dershowitz,, 978 0 85303 786 6 cloth $74.95 Anthony Julius HOLOCAUST IN AUSTRALIA and Introduction by H. Foxman GENOCIDE, THE WORLD TOM LAWSON 224 pages 259 colour/178 b&w illus 2008 WARS AND THE UNWEAVING and JAMES JORDAN (Eds) 978 0 85303 752 1 paper $26.95 OF EUROPE 256 pages 2008 DONALD BLOXHAM 978 0 85303 794 1 cloth $74.95 OPERATION MESSIAH 978 0 85303 795 8 paper $29.95 272 pages 2008 St Paul, Roman Intelligence 978 0 85303 720 0 cloth $79.95 and the Birth of 978 0 85303 721 7 paper $32.95 NEW AGE JUDAISM THIJS VOSKUILEN CELIA ROTHENBERG and ROSE MARY SHELDON ISRAELI SOCIETY, and ANNE VALLELY (Eds) 288 pages June 2008 THE HOLOCAUST 176 pages 2008 978 0 85303 701 9 cloth $79.95 AND ITS SURVIVORS 978 0 85303 cloth $64.95 978 0 85303 702 6 paper $32.95 978 0 85303 paper $27.95 DINA PORAT THE HOLOCAUST 460 pages 2007 JEWISH CULTURE IN ISRAELI PUBLIC DEBATE 978 0 85303 741 5 cloth $75.00 AND HISTORY IN THE 1950S 978 0 85303 742 2 paper $35.00 Editor: NADIA VALMAN Tony Kushner Memory and Ideology TORAH FOR TEENS Deputy Editor: RONI STAUBER ISSN 1462-169X Volume 10 2008 256 pages 2007 Growing up Spiritually with the Weekly Sidrah Three issues per year: Summer, Autumn, Winter 978 0 85303 722 4 cloth $75.00 JEFFREY M COHEN Individuals $75.00 978 0 85303 723 1 paper $29.50 Foreword by the , Institutions $260.00 Sir Jonathan Sacks CONTEMPORARY ISRAELI 264 pages 2007 WOMEN’S WRITING A Journal of Culture and History 978 0 85303 802 3 cloth $44.95 RISA DOMB 978 0 85303 803 0 paper $26.95 (Formerly The Journal of Holocaust Education) Editors: TOM LAWSON 288 pages 2007 JEWS AND EUROPE IN THE JAMES JORDAN 978 0 85303 758 3 cloth $75.00 and 978 0 85303 759 0 paper $30.00 TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY Consultant Editors: David Cesarani, Tony Kushner and Mark Roseman Thinking Jewish Submissions in the fields of Jewish ISSN 1359-1371 Volume 14 2008 NICK LAMBERT Three issues per year: Summer, Autumn, Winter history, culture, heritage and thought are 256 pages 2007 Individuals $75.00 always welcome. Please contact 978 0 85303 760 6 cloth $75.00 Institutions $245.00 [email protected] for further details. 978 0 85303 761 3 paper $35.00 VALLENTINE MITCHELL PUBLISHERS 920 NE 58TH AVENUE, SUITE 300, PORTLAND, OR 97213-3786 TELEPHONE: 800-944-6190 FAX: 503-280-8832 EMAIL [email protected] EDITORIAL: [email protected] WEBSITE: www.vmbooks.com

29 Israelis to the sudden recognition that Haredi society had not HAREDIM AND THE STUDY disappeared after all and had in fact re-established itself in Israel. The OF HAREDIM IN ISRAEL: revitalization of this society was evident in the growth and expansion of its educational and communal REFLECTIONS ON A institutions, and primarily in its self- RECENT CONFERENCE confidence. The strength of Haredi society as Kimmy Caplan and Nurit Stadler toward the end of 1977, it was clear well as the appearance of additional he scholarly study of that it would have a strong impact Haredi political parties ( in Orthodoxy by Israeli on the existing scholarship on the 1982, representing Sephardi Tacademics began in the Yishuv in general during the period Haredim, and Degel Hatorah in the 1960s with a few students of Jacob of the British Mandate. To be sure, mid-1980s) gradually drew the Katz, among whom Moshe Samet Friedman was by no means the first attention of students in the fields of deserves pride of place. In 1967 scholar to address the history of the anthropology, Jewish thought, Samet completed his PhD thesis, “Old Yishuv” in . More , and sociology. devoted primarily to the halakic than his colleagues, however, he Thus, for example, following Shas’s responsa of Rabbi Moses Sofer placed and categorized the “Old rise, political scientists and political (1762–1839). Shortly afterwards he Yishuv” within a scholarly context of sociologists analyzed this party’s published a few articles that outlined Haredi society and Haredism. performance since 1984, and tried the historical context within which, time and again to explain its he argued, Orthodoxy ought to be Friedman’s book appeared only a unprecedented and ongoing success. situated as a modern phenomenon. few months after the occurrence of a This conclusion stands in sharp momentous development on the This mounting scholarly interest did contrast to the common perception political plane: Following the victory not remain limited to the of many Orthodox believers that of the party in the elections in aforementioned fields but soon Orthodoxy is the only authentic and May 1977, Menahem Begin formed spread to other disciplines, including direct continuation of traditional a coalition that brought the Haredi communications studies, geography, Judaism. Samet went on to indicate party, Agudat Israel, into the medicine, psychiatry, and the main trends within Orthodoxy, government for the first time in psychology. A recent, partial elucidating the differences between twenty-five years. This led many bibliographical essay on the study of them. Samet’s overall conclusions have generated a great deal of scholarly discussion among students of Orthodoxy in both Israel and other countries.

A few years later, another student of Katz, Menahem Friedman, embarked upon a pathbreaking study of the Haredi (ultra- Orthodox) community in Mandate Palestine. As Friedman himself has observed on more than one occasion, several leading scholars of Jewish history looked askance at his choice of topics, wondering why he would devote so much attention to a marginal and in all likelihood doomed community. But when Friedman’s book, entitled Society and Panel at Van Leer Jerusalem Institute’s conference on Israeli Haredi society, November 2007. Religion (Hevrah Vedat), appeared Reprinted with permission of the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute. 30 Israeli Haredim since 1970 lists WHAT WAS PARTICULARLY STRIKING WAS THAT SO MANY nearly six hundred scholarly theses and publications. Unfortunately, SCHOLARS SUCCEEDED IN GATHERING INTERNAL however, there is very limited cross- disciplinary discourse among INFORMATION AND DATA FROM HAREDI SOCIETY AND scholars studying Haredi society. Most of them are largely unaware of DEVELOPING TIES WITH SPECIFIC GROUPS. THIS EXPERIENCE the wide range of studies of Haredim in disciplines other than CONTRASTED SHARPLY WITH POPULAR IMAGES OF THE their own. HAREDI “ENCLAVE CULTURE” AS BEING VIRTUALLY Remedying this situation has been one of the main goals of a working UNAPPROACHABLE BY ACADEMIC OBSERVERS AND CAST group on Haredi society that has been active now for approximately DOUBT ON CERTAIN SCHOLARLY REFLECTIONS ABOUT THE seven years at The Van Leer DIFFICULTIES OF STUDYING THIS SOCIETY Jerusalem Institute. The group’s . most recent step in this direction 1,400 entries were recorded during participant observation, in-depth consisted of a two-day scholarly the two days. The average observing interviews, and textual analysis—be conference devoted to Israeli Haredi time was more than one hour it movies, halakic responsa, or society that took place at the (although this figure is somewhat popular theology. What was institute in November 2007. Among misleading, since there were very particularly striking was that so the topics addressed during this short entries of a few minutes many scholars succeeded in conference were recent trends in the alongside others that were several gathering internal information and occupational arena and Haredim in hours in length). Even though the data from Haredi society and the workforce, identity, and identity of Internet observers developing ties with specific groups. citizenship—discourse and reality, remains unknown, it is clear that This experience contrasted sharply linguistic changes and developments, some of them were Haredim, as we with popular images of the Haredi ethnicity and Israelization, learn from Haredi Internet sites, “enclave culture” as being virtually geographical developments and such as “In Haredi Rooms” unapproachable by academic patterns of consumption, voluntary (Behadrei Haredim), in which observers and cast doubt on certain action and medical care, observers commented even as the scholarly reflections about the communication and education, lectures were in progress. difficulties of studying this society. halakah and theology. Rather than entering into specifics, Unlike the work of earlier scholars, The conference was well attended. we would like to reflect on the such as Friedman, Samet, Yosef In almost all of the sessions there conference and its contribution to Salmon, and others, who related to were between one hundred and one contemporary scholarship on Israeli the “Old Yishuv” Haredim and their hundred and fifty men and women Haredi society. Close to half of the society in historical terms and based in the audience, including students, presentations were based upon their studies primarily upon archives scholars, senior citizens, religious quantitative data, such as national and other documents, contemporary Jews representing different camps, statistics, or data that was processed research on Haredim is characterized secular Israelis, and government into quantitative terms, such as by a wide variety of methodological employees. In each and every session interviews and questionnaires. tools and concepts. This has shed at least a few and sometimes as Certain speakers tended toward much new light upon various aspects many ten to fifteen Haredi men descriptive presentations, focusing of Haredi religiosity, norms, and and/or women were present in the on data relating to such matters as values. Consequently, several new audience. Judging by their garb, the changing attitudes toward themes in the study of Haredi these Haredim represented almost and shifting patterns of society emerged throughout the every Haredi subgroup. In certain using this language in various Israeli conference, of which we will sessions Haredi listeners did not Haredi groups, as well as recent mention three: hesitate to take part in the trends surrounding Haredi (1) The centrality of gender and the discussions following the lectures. participation in the workforce and role of women as agents of change attitudes toward secular studies. and transformation within almost all The conference was broadcast live Other presentations were based the subgroups of this society. through the Internet, and close to upon qualitative approaches, such as (2) The importance of newly 31 affiliated and “converted” groups and scholarly trends that have developed students and scholars of Israeli their fusion into Haredi society, such since the 1970s as well as a number Haredi society, we see growing as newly religious or national- of gaps that need to be filled. For evidence of a new cross-disciplinary religious Haredim ("im— example, there was a noticeable dialogue that will enable all of the Haredim leumi’im). shortage (although not an absence) scholars involved in it to gain a better (3) Changing approaches toward the of younger participants carrying on understanding of the multiple, inter- state, citizenship, and , the older tradition of historical or related dimensions of their studies especially evident through voluntary historically oriented study of Haredi and the extent to which they work, various new institutions, social society. As a result, a host of historical complement and/or contrast with aid, and education. aspects of the subject remain one another. In this sense, our It should be noted, too, that all of unexamined. For example, we still November 2007 conference offers the speakers emphasized the fact that await a critical history of any Hasidic additional proof of the advantages of Haredi society is composed of in Israel or of a significant multidisciplinary scholarly discourse numerous groups and subgroups, Haredi educational institution, or a with regard to contemporary and therefore cannot be treated as an full-scale critical biography of a religious societies and movements. undivided whole. Most presentations Haredi leader (though one should were devoted to specific case studies not leave unmentioned the recent, Kimmy Caplan is senior lecturer in and dimensions of Haredi life, and valuable analyses of the writings of the Department of Jewish History at consequently included important such figures as Avraham Y. Karelitz, -Ilan University. Nurit Stadler is observations and conclusions Yoel Teitelbaum, and ). assistant professor in the Department regarding distinctions between of Sociology and Anthropology at various groups as well as within them. Since the late 1960s, American and Hebrew University of Jerusalem. They Canadian sociologists and are co-editors of Leadership and With very few exceptions, all speakers anthropologists, including George Authority in Israeli Haredi Society: were either junior scholars or (Gershon) Kranzler, Israel Rubin, and New Perspectives (Tel-Aviv: graduate students. Approximately half William Shaffir, have studied specific Hakibbutz Hameuchad and the Van of them were male and half female Haredi communities, primarily Leer Jerusalem Institute [forthcoming, (but not as the result of any Hasidic ones. Some of them returned 2008, in Hebrew]). intentional pursuit of gender parity to the communities they studied on the part of the conference’s twenty or thirty years later in order to academic committee). The criteria for re-examine their participation were strictly scholarly, earlier findings. Winner of the 2006 and the conference was open to This type of work Theodore Saloutos Prize, studies from all disciplines. is similar in general Immigration and Ethnic Nevertheless, and notwithstanding to several History Society the fact that two or three lecturers communal studies Co-winner of the 2005–2006 Saul Viener identified themselves after the of various Book Prize, American Jewish selection of their papers as Haredim, Christian Historical Society several Haredi individuals protested fundamentalist and the fact that a conference on other religious The Price of Haredim did not include Haredim as communities Whiteness speakers—that is, as exemplars of during the same Jews, Race, and Haredi life and not as Haredim who period. American Identity happen to study Haredi society from Unfortunately, to Eric L. Goldstein a scholarly point of view. Such a the best of our complaint is highly interesting, both knowledge, there because it coincides with other recent exists no such developments within mainstream study of any similar Israeli Haredi society and because it Haredi group in “Goldstein’s presentation of a century and a half of Jewish ‘negotiation’ of whiteness is fascinating chapter by chapter, exposes a lack of basic understanding Israel. and deft in communicating the bewildering diversity and of the nature of an academic reactivity of Jewish relationships to the black community.” conference and academic scholarship. Notwithstanding —Elisa New, The New Republic these omissions, New in Paper $19.95 978-0-691-13631-8 The fact that our conference was the overall made up primarily of junior scholars situation is quite has enabled us to identify certain promising. Among

32 CONTINUUM PRESENTS The Robert and Arlene Kogod Library of Judaic Studies

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Offering an interdisciplinary approach to the University and other institutions in Israel. study of the history, religion, social experience The Samuel Rosenthal Center was estab- and culture of the Jewish people, the Program lished at Case in 1996 to broaden the scope of in Judaic Studies at Case exposes students the University’s Jewish Studies curriculum and to the complex interaction of forces that create to strengthen interest in Judaic Studies on Jewish ethnic identity. campus and throughout the local, national, Case’s powerful learning environment has and international communities. been further enhanced by the many world- Students completing the program receive a class scholars in Judaic Studies that have Minor in Judaic Studies and have a broad taught in residence at the University, including knowledge of the field, along with the tools Yom Tov Assis, Isaac Kalimi, Zev Garber, and necessary for continued study of Jewish civili- Gideon Shimoni. In addition, students have zations in all of its manifestations. the opportunity to study abroad at The Hebrew

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About Case Western Reserve University

Case is among the nation’s leading research institutions. Founded in 1826 and shaped by the unique merger of Case Institute of Technology and Western Reserve University, Case is distinguished by its strengths in education, research, service, and experimental learning. Located in Cleveland, Ohio, CWRU offers nationally recognized programs in the Arts and Sciences, Dental Medicine, Engineering, Law, Management, Medicine, Nursing, and Social Work..

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35 PERSPECTIVES ON TECHNOLOGY of raw material in these journals.

RESEARCHING ORTHODOX Also within Israel, the organization Ne’emanei Torah vaAvodah aims to JUDAISM ONLINE preserve “the original values of Heidi Lerner traditional ” and offers provides free, full-text access to these current and back issues of its or people interested in and other German Jewish periodicals influential journal Deot online researching the many strains (www.compactmemory.de). (www.toravoda.org.il/deot.html). Fof Orthodox Judaism in all The Israel National their diversity, there is a variety of HebrewBooks.org, a nonprofit News site (www.israelnational primary and secondary sources to organization founded “to news.com) emanates from the consult online. Books and journals preserve old American Hebrew religious Zionist community and are available digitally. Websites books that are out of print offers news and analysis in several emanating from institutions, and/or circulation,” has mounted formats (text, visual, and audio) and organizations, and individuals on the Web approximately one also shiurim from leading rabbis in document highly distinctive hundred American Orthodox English and Hebrew. ideological and political Jewish periodicals online that are perspectives. There is increasing use out of print or circulation There are a number of radio of the Internet by Orthodox and (www.hebrewbooks.org). Reflecting stations broadcasting on the Haredi Jews for multiple religious, communal, personal, and THERE IS INCREASING USE OF THE INTERNET BY ORTHODOX educational purposes, despite some well-publicized opposition among AND HAREDI JEWS FOR MULTIPLE RELIGIOUS, COMMUNAL, the Haredim. Religious Jewish residents of the maintain PERSONAL, AND EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES, DESPITE SOME websites that provide historical, theological, and institutional WELL-PUBLICIZED OPPOSITION AMONG THE HAREDIM. information. The following and by no means exhaustive list includes a recent trend in modern American Internet that are directed to some of the Web-based resources Orthodox thought, Yeshivat Orthodox audiences. Kol Hai is a and tools that reflect the wide range Chovevei Torah issues Meorot: A licensed Haredi radio station in of Orthodox thought, activity, and Forum of Modern Orthodox Israel (www.93fm.co.il). Other practices. Discourse online (www.yctorah.org/ programs on the Internet aimed at content/view/331/78). the Orthodox communities are Kol Orthodox Judaism and the Media ha-Neshama, Kol ha-Emet, and For approximately two hundred Among the electronically available Radio Breslev. years a wide range of journals newspapers and journals that serve devoted to Talmudic commentary, the Orthodox and Haredi Organizational Websites Jewish law, homiletics, and biblical communities in Israel, the daily ha- The Union of Orthodox Jewish exegesis have been published in Tsofeh (www.hazofe.co.il) is Congregations of America Europe, the Americas, and Israel. affiliated with the National (www.ou.org), often known as the By the middle of the nineteenth Religious Party. The weeklies OU, is one of the largest Jewish century, an Orthodox press Mispacha (www..com) organizations in the United States. emerged in Germany and continued and Ba-Kehilah (www.bakehila.com) Its website provides links on up until the 1930s. It included such pride themselves on being community services, events, family titles as Der treue Zionswächter, unaffiliated with any of the life, holidays, a job board, and Jeschurun, Jüdische Korrespondenz, authorities within the Haredi much more. The Rabbinical Jüdische Presse, Der Morgen, establishment. Scholars interested in Council of America is closely Nachalath Zwei and Der Israelit. the changing demographics of aligned with many mainstream The Compact Memory project, Orthodox and Haredi society and Orthodox institutions. Its website based at universities in Aachen, its increasing involvement with the (www.rabbis.org) includes a link to Frankfurt, and Cologne, Germany, outside world will find a good deal the online version of Tradition: A

36 Journal of Orthodox Jewish Thought, Amnon Yitzchak. At the Keren and a host of other resources. Daat Yishai website, Rav Mordechai (www.daat.ac.il) is a site devoted to Elon delivers a weekly on medical ethics and halakah. Its site parashat hashavua that is contains a number of position broadcast on the radio papers and also articles from the (http:// elon.org). journal Assia. Yeshiva University has created YU Torah Online The Machon (www.yutorah.org), which provides Meir Institute online access to a wide range of of Jewish internal textual, video, and audio Studies, publications. affiliated with the Several organizations founded by teachings of and directed toward Orthodox Rav Kook, Jewish women have websites, maintains a including Kolech—Religious website Women’s Forum (www.kolech.org) and the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance (JOFA) (www.jofa.org). (www.machonmeir.net) that offers a digital A number of organizations reach version of the weekly out to affiliated and unaffiliated Torah commentary Image reproduced with permission of Jews in the hopes that they will presented in its www.CartoonStock.com. become more observant. Tzohar is synagogue along community produces Kol tsofayikh, an organization of Religious Zionist with a trove of which contains the teachings of Israeli rabbis who aim to connect audio and digital files. Yeshivat Har Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu with secular Israelis and strengthen Etzion, a yeshiva, offers the (www.harav.org). The Iyun their religious life. Its website Virtual Beit Midrash, which Hadaf offers online free resources (www.tzohar.org.il) provides presents Web-based, yeshiva-style for learners around the information on the organization’s teaching on Torah and Judaism world (www.dafyomi.co.il). activities and includes articles from (www.vbm-torah.org). Tsohar, a journal that provides a As Dr. Kimmy Caplan of Bar-Ilan forum for discussion for the Communication within Orthodox University has observed, an explosion religious Zionist community in and Haredi Communities of circulating audio-based and video- Israel. One of the site’s innovations The internal official and unofficial based sermons has taken place in is a system which allows people to communications of different groups Haredi society during the past twenty ask Tsohar’s rabbis questions on any present a vivid picture of the inner years. These are mostly issued on halakic subject, and to receive a dynamics of the various segments cassettes and CDs. Inevitably, despite thorough and clear reply by email. and streams within Orthodox rabbinic injunctions against the use of The website of Aish ha-. Issues of Shabat be-shabato the Internet, the mode of (www.aish.com), affiliated with the from 1999 to present are available dissemination of these materials has Lithuanian Haredi tradition, online at the Moreshet website been almost entirely Web-based. Even includes texts and audio files on a (http://moreshet.co.il). From now there are websites that have wide range of relevant topics, and Chabad, a weekly publication downloadable sermons. The words of an “Ask the Rabbi” function. entitled Sikhat ha-shavu‘a can be Rabbi Shalom Arush, spiritual leader Chabad.org, the main website found at the Tseire Chabad website of the Sephardic followers of Bratslav (www.chabad.org) for Chabad- (www.chabad.org.il/Magazines/Art Hasidism can be found on the Web Lubavitch, contains more than icles.asp?CategoryID=30). Also (http://behappy.web-site.co.il). 100,000 articles, ranging from from Chabad and available online is Another site that offers audio and history to science to basic Judaism Sikhat ha-ge’ulah (www.hageula.com/ downloadable sermons belongs to R. to Hasidut. It also allows users to ?CTopic=1). issues Daniel Zer (http://rabenu.co.il). The “Ask the Rabbi.” Also directed Be-ahavah u’be- at its Maran website (http:// maran1.com) toward secular Jewish audiences is website (www.machonmeir.org.il/ includes video and audio sermons the website (www.shofar.net) hebrew/main.asp?cat_id=11). The from Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. under the leadership of Rabbi nationalist religious Sephardi 37 If critically used, the Internet can have been many third-party intervention in determining their serve as a kind of barometer of attempts to organize them on sustainability and their research popular sentiment. Tamar Rotem portals, individuals’ collections of value is obvious. A coordinated described in Haaretz (December links, scholars’ Web pages, etc. effort to preserve, catalogue, and 25, 2002) how Haredi users However, these do not provide index these materials is urgently communicate with each other on systematic indexing or archiving, or needed. B’Hadrei Haredim, a popular forum any guarantee of longevity. on the Hyde Park website. The Heidi Lerner is the Hebraica/ Modiya website includes links to The research value of these Judaica cataloguer at Stanford several directories of Haredi forums materials to the study of Orthodox University Libraries. (http://modiya.nyu.edu/handle/ Judaism is quite considerable. 1964/1003). The JOFA site has a Scholars have acknowledged the list of blogs that are relevant to importance of institutional Orthodox Jewish feminists collections of physical ephemera, (www.jofa.org/about.php/ notably the National Library of NEW resources/blogs). Israel (the new official name of the Jewish National and University Much research has been done on Library in Jerusalem); the Library MEMBER the movement, but of the Jewish Theological as Avishai Margalit has pointed out Seminary’s broadside, poster, and in the New York Review of Books, “pashkevilim” (public wall posters BENEFIT: “Most of what is written on the used for communication in Haredi ideologically motivated settlers deals society) collections; and Harvard Reduced subscription with the founding generation.” College Library Judaica Division’s rates to leading Jewish Hagit Ofran of Peace Now says that collection of audio and videotaped a look at the use of the Internet by sermons. The increasing studies journals. See page the second generation of West Bank concentration of such materials on 51 for more information. settlers could be the “basis for a the Web will necessitate new efforts whole research [project] . . . since at preservation. there is a lot of use of the Internet Unfortunately, to by those groups.” Sites such as the the best of my ones from Yeshiva knowledge, up (www.yeshiva.org.il), the Birkat until now no Yosef Hesder Yeshiva at Elon institution has Moreh (www.yeshivat-elon- taken up the task moreh.com), and the Jewish of systematically community (www.hebron.co.il) collecting these contain a range of shiurim and “born digital” articles, and community materials. The information. Sharei Schechem National Library of (http://shechem.org/neindex.html) Israel has the functions as an introduction to the mandate to settlements that are being erected in preserve Israeli the Shomron. The Rabbinical websites. Services Council (Va’ad Rabane Yesha, such as the www.rabbaneiyesha.com), headed Internet Archive’s by Rabbis and Elyakim Archive-It Levanon, maintain a small website (www.archive- as well. it.org) exist to help organizations find Conclusion a way to archive The transient nature of these online valuable Web sources and the difficulties in content. The finding them are ongoing areas of importance of concern that researchers and curatorial and scholars need to address. There scholarly

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39 40 41 Some credited their teachers for having guided them, such as ETHNOGRAPHIC SKETCHES participant Rachel Havrelock, whose encounter with Yehuda Amichai led FROM THE FUTURE her to realize that her future would be in Bible studies and not, as she expected, poetry. Participants noted OF JEWISH STUDIES the critical role of modeling and Marcy Brink-Danan mentoring in Jewish studies; Dash Over the course of the workshop, Moore reminded us that our cohort ourteen untenured Jewish we managed to address three benefited from previous generations studies scholars from questions pertinent to all scholars in that struggled to establish Jewish Finstitutions across the country Judaic studies: How did we studies as a legitimate academic sat together in high-end office here? What do we have in common? field. chairs in the glassy conference And, where are we going? These room. Everything was new: the questions must not have come as a What Do We Share? ultramodern space, the participants’ surprise to participant Shaul Kelner, Immediately before joining the acquisition of their academic who researches the sociology of workshop, I served on a committee positions, and, of course, the American Jewish communal in Brown’s Judaic studies program concept of bringing us together at organizations. Nonetheless, when for selecting the best student essay, the Frankel Institute for Advanced asking them with respect to an judging submissions from history, Judaic Studies at the University of academic field, interesting patterns literature, and rabbinics. I was Michigan for the first American form. forced to read with interdisciplinary Academy for Jewish Research eyes, a technique honed in Ann (AAJR) Workshop for Early Career How Did We Get Here? Arbor. A central feature of the Faculty in Jewish Studies. Each participant was allotted fifteen meeting included the scholarly minutes to share his or her presentation and discussion of a With one hundred exams still intellectual genealogy. Many sample of each participant’s work. ungraded, I Workshop joined the organizers workshop on paired the tail of my presenters with first year in a discussants tenure-track from obviously position in disparate Judaic studies disciplinary and backgrounds: anthropology philosophers at Brown critiqued University. I anthropologists, soon realized sociologists that grading challenged would have to historians, and wait; Deborah linguists Dash Moore provoked AAJR Workshop for Early Career Faculty in Jewish Studies, May 2007. Photo courtesy of Matt Weingarten. (University of literary critics. Michigan) and narratives centered on a formative Discussants David Stern (University of Israel experience. For some, uniformly opened their remarks Pennsylvania) guided and mentored learning Hebrew (and, sometimes, with a sheepish disclaimer: “This the participants over the four-day other ) opened isn’t my field; please accept my workshop (May 13–16, 2007), doors to formerly forbidding texts humble attempts to think like you.” whose intensive schedule included and cultures. Multilingual If I work on contemporary Turkish the sharing of intellectual competency is a prerequisite for Jewry, how thoughtfully should I be biographies, presentation of much of the work we do in Jewish able to discuss the landscape of academic papers, and brainstorming studies. Yiddish modernism, Maimonides’ about pedagogy. response to Saadiah, or

42 Rosenzweig’s Star of Redemption? Are boundaries what constitute colleagues envious of money poured In a profession where we are judged Jewish thought, culture, and into Jewish studies departments on our ability to become experts, practice? Are boundaries what (including Israel studies programs) anxiety about not knowing enough preoccupy us as scholars? when so many other ethnic studies is especially acute in an programs go underfunded. interdisciplinary field like Jewish If every meeting of scholars has a studies, as Arnold Eisen has noted. stated goal, what participants Ongoing Professionalization of discuss outside of the official forum Jewish Studies: Where Are We I responded to Indiana University also reflects their mutual concerns. Going? professor Chaya Halberstam’s Over drinks at a local bar, lovers of A number of workshop participants apparently brilliant paper about Zion and supporters of Palestinian questioned whether or not they rabbinic law. I say were Jewish studies “apparently” because, by scholars, preferring to engaging with the essay, I ASACOLLECTIVE, WE AGREED THAT, DESPITE identify with the discipline swam into unchartered THE COMMONALITY OF SOMETHING EWISH in which they trained. waters. Luckily, “J ” This rejection of Halberstam’s use of ABOUT ALL OUR SUBJECTS OF RESEARCH, THE affiliation raises a critical theory, a sort of troubling question: Who, intellectual Esperanto, CHALLENGE OF TALKING ACROSS DISCIPLINES among today’s Jewish offered me a lifesaver. studies scholars, is When workshop WAS DAUNTING BUT ALSO REFRESHING. comfortable with the title participants brought itself (and why)? different methods and sources to statehood (and, of course, those the table, critical theory offered us a who are both) expressed concern Despite these doubts, most common tongue. about how to discuss Israel in the workshop participants had an academy. When we brought this official Jewish studies position or As a collective, we agreed that, issue back to the conference room, taught at an institution dedicated to despite the commonality of participants bemoaned the fact that Jewish learning, testifying to the something “Jewish” about all our sensitivity about the “Israel relationship between institutional subjects of research, the challenge problem” led to mutual silences on support, research produced, and of talking across disciplines was the campus. At a time when the positions created. This support daunting but also refreshing. Not campus might be a place for people remains important as a number of only do we use different methods to with differing views to discuss Israel participants recalled their initial job order our kaleidoscope of possible productively, fear of negative searches as frustrating attempts to primary source material judgments on the part of senior prove to their home discipline that (ethnographic data, survey statistics, colleagues or bad teaching reviews Jews are, in anthropologist Levi- fiction, archival documents, classical as a result of our political support of Strauss’s terms, “good to think and philosophical texts), we also or opposition to Israel kept many with.” Some mentioned the de- come to our subjects with varying participants from taking a public Judaification of curriculum vitae, opinions about what is Jewish about stance. This concern seemed syllabi, or affiliations in order to them. What counts as a source-text particularly acute because of our make themselves competitive on the (or, perhaps, source material) in delicate status as untenured faculty. non-Jewish studies academic job Jewish studies? market. An arranged meeting between Every good workshop produces a workshop participants and a major Recognizing that our disciplinary term that, at sessions’ close, donor to Jewish studies opened our training influences not only our participants promise never again to early career eyes to the process of scholarly research but also our utter. For our group, this term was funding university research, teaching methods, the last part of the boundaries. As we attempted to department chairs, and individual workshop involved group discussion rethink the boundaries of the field, research. Although we tend to of pedagogy in which we reworked the issue of boundaries concurrently imagine our relationship to funders syllabi with participants in similar emerged in our respective research as innocent, donors’ charitable goals fields. This session enabled us to projects. Legal, rabbinic, spatial, do not always neatly map onto share knowledge about what worked literary, social, and linguistic researchers’ intellectual goals. in the classroom and specifically “boundary work” characterize many Participants discussed their focused on how we teach Judaism to participants’ intellectual concerns. sometimes uneasy relationship with diverse student populations. 43 The group size allowed for intimacy scholarship from the past you can Our workshop’s final academic and frank conversation about the see the sociology of the scholarship. presentation, given by Oren goals, challenges, and visions for But I think interdisciplinary settings Kosansky, focused on the role of Judaic studies. Our time in are helpful in that they make it mahia, a beverage consumed in Michigan created a camaraderie easier to see our work with this kind , as a link between Jewish with colleagues who, by virtue of of perspective.” and Berber identities. This talk the workshop, became future allies. exemplified core concerns of the While many of us balked at the The workshop provided a space in workshop: the question of packed schedule, this intensity which untenured Jewish studies boundaries, methods, and, of created an atmosphere of scholars could strategize about the course, what is “Jewish.” Following “communitas” in which ideas years ahead. Since the workshop Joshua Shanes’ historical review of flowed freely and social barriers ended, organizers have created a early Ukrainian-Jewish came down. As participant Beth listserv enabling participants to rapprochement, Kosansky’s Berkowitz (Talmud and Rabbinics, communicate about conferences, presentation highlighted the Jewish Theological Seminary) put publishing, and pedagogy. methodological breadth that Jewish it, “Sometimes it seems to me that Informally, contacts made during studies scholars bring to the table my scholarship represents my own the workshop have led to peer by serving the beverage to idiosyncratic brand of concerns, but editing of works-in-progress and participants, who enjoyed a taste of interdisciplinary workshops make it commissioned articles. This model ethnographic fieldwork and toasted clear that there’s actually something could be adopted and extended to “l’chaim” to long careers. bigger going on . . . a zeitgeist that offer more early career scholars in I am unconsciously participating in. Jewish studies the institutional and Marcy Brink-Danan is Dorot I imagine when future scholars look social support needed to propel the Assistant Professor of Judaic Studies at what we write it will be clear as field in creative directions. and assistant professor of day, in the way that when you read anthropology at Brown University.

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45 courses for Jews and Muslims with one of two colleagues, Muhammed REFLECTIONS ON Abu Samra from Jerusalem and Muhammad Hussein from JEWISH STUDIES, . Muhammed Abu Samra and I also TWENTY YEARS LATER taught together in the U.S. as Howard Tzvi Adelman into the classroom is the academic visiting Israeli scholars at Knox process, which is based on rigorous College in Illinois, conducting n 1988, as a newly minted PhD, questioning of all disciplinary and classes with Jews, Christians, and tenure-track assistant professor, methodological assumptions and Muslims, many of whom came from Iand first director of the Jewish conclusions. If such tests are not Middle Eastern countries. studies program at Smith College, I applied to new fields—and, even Discussion, based on radically received an invitation to submit an before the development of ethnic different positions, was intense, opinion piece about the history and studies, they have not always been— productive, and not confined to the nature of Jewish studies to the the fault lies not with a particular classroom. On one occasion, for Chronicle of Higher Education. In field but with the academic process instance, we spoke at a my brief essay, I took note of two itself.” joint meeting of the competing theories about the origin campus Jewish and of the field, one tracing its roots Muslim students groups. through the centuries- long history of But things did not Hebraic and always go smoothly Judaic studies in when we traveled and universities and lectured together. In seminaries and my public the other focusing presentations I spoke on more freely and openly of immediate stimuli, my experiences as a such as heightened new Israeli citizen awareness of over a period of five ethnicity in years, basing myself post–1960s America on my daily life, and Israel’s victory in what I read in the the Six Day War. I papers, heard on also reflected on the the radio, saw tension between our , August 3, 1988. on television, colleagues’ goals of studied in achieving acceptance The Chronicle of CourtesyHigher Education of Howard Tzvi Adelman.books, and garnered within the academy and Reprinted from from friends, students, and aiding Jewish continuity. colleagues of all persuasions. To my A decade after writing these dismay, what I said often elicited “Jewish-studies scholars,” I wrote, words, and after having received hostility and stony silence, all from “often try to distance themselves tenure at Smith, I spent a sabbatical —my people. I from the label ‘ethnic,’ while at the in Israel, where my family and I thought that I had made a great same time listing all the benefits the decided to settle. In the course of leap and given up a good position Jewish community derives from the my work at one of Israel’s new and a comfortable career in order to academic study of Judaism. They regional colleges, I became involved serve Israel, that I was using my argue that Jewish studies should not in the implementation of the academic skills to help build a be a partisan enterprise, but they Shenhar Report, which urged the country and bridge its internal gaps, overlook the fact that, like other strengthening of core curriculum in and had valuable insight to share. fields, it has always been committed Jewish studies in Israeli schools. But there was a disconnect that I to fostering particular values.” I Since the program also stimulated struggled to fathom. went on to say that the “ultimate similar courses in Islamic culture, I defense against ideological forays found myself co-teaching dialogue I began to see that at our talks, not 46 only did people from the Jewish community arrive with very strong WHAT I DID NOT UNDERSTAND, THE HEAD OF A MAJOR preconceived notions, but they brought specific, often written, JEWISH ORGANIZATION IN ONE TOWN INFORMED ME, WAS talking points. At the end of one talk, for instance, a man stood up THAT ISRAEL IS IN A POSITION OF EXISTENTIAL DANGER and said: “I am sorry that I missed your talk, but there were a few FROM HER ENEMIES. THIS, I MUST SAY, WAS NEWS TO ME, points in it with which I want to disagree strongly.” AFTER HAVING LIVED THERE FOR ALMOST A DECADE. I TRIED TO EXPLAIN THAT DID NOT PERCEIVE SUCH A DANGER BUT Three years later, when the Shenhar I , program was discontinued, I was no EXPERIENCED INSTEAD AN EXCITEMENT, AT TIMES longer able to make ends meet in Israel and soon found myself once FRUSTRATING AND OVERWHELMING, THAT I WANTED TO again on the North American job market. Here, I had a number of CONVEY TO MY STUDENTS IN ALL ITS COMPLEXITY. experiences that were reminiscent of what I had experienced on my Throwing caution to the winds, I Jews, was not willing to accept the earlier tours. To my surprise, on my suggested that here as in all other premise that Zionism involves a visits to several college campuses, I academic discourse, nuance is critique both of Jewish life in the saw that both donors and members necessary, especially for a director of Diaspora and of developments in of the local Jewish community Jewish studies, who must above all Israel. participated actively in the search maintain academic integrity. I now process. In addition to giving an understood that on our lecture Nuances of this kind do seem to be academic “job talk,” I had to make tour, my attempt to offer nuance, what interest my academic presentations before panels from the critical in an analytical sense, had colleagues in other departments Jewish community and submit to been perceived as hostile and who are struggling to understand interviews by them. These destructive. Israel in a global or even a personal community interviews revolved context. Pro-Israel advocacy, mostly around questions pertaining I realized that I was out of sync especially on campus, isolates many to fundraising and political litmus with American Jewry not only people from the intellectual test questions about my views on because of my academic inclinations complexities of Zionism and the real Israel. but precisely because I was Israeli. struggles of Israel, most of which There is now a “pro-Israel” have little to do with campus What I did not understand, the advocacy position that is not rooted discussions that are often subsumed head of a major Jewish organization in Zionism or in the reality of Israeli under the rubric of “anti-Israel.” in one town informed me, was that life. Indeed, the nuances of Zionism Israel is in a position of existential and Israeli history and life What I experienced in Israel and danger from her enemies. This, I consistently put me at a distinct what I would like to bring to must say, was news to me, after disadvantage when talking about academic life now that I am having lived there for almost a Israel with American Jews. For working outside of Israel is some of decade. I tried to explain that I did example, in a course I taught for a the excitement of Zionist thought not perceive such a danger, but local Jewish college program, one and Israeli history and life. In experienced instead an excitement, student expressed her distaste for particular, I would like to try to at times frustrating and Ahad Ha’am, one of the seminal reproduce the teaching I did with overwhelming, that I wanted to figures in early Zionist history. She my colleagues and students in Israel convey to my students in all its wanted to know why we had to and the U.S. That is, I would like complexity. The head of the search read him. He was so negative, she to create a safe space in the committee then responded by complained, and surely not classroom to explore each other’s arguing that as a Jewish professor I representative of the Zionist narrative. In Israel, the Ministry of had to be a completely uncritical movement and those who lived in Education, certainly not without vocal advocate for Israel in my Palestine in his day. He was really resistance on both sides, is classes. Nuance is fine among anti-Israel and my assigning him developing a curriculum in which ourselves, he seemed to be saying, reflected my anti-Israel tendencies. Jews and , living in both but certainly not in front of them. This student, like so many Diaspora Israel and under the Palestinian 47 Authority, explore their dual that involves critical questioning. concerns to find interdisciplinary narratives together. I see here the Now, however, many people regard expression. Jewish and ethnic potential for Jewish studies as an such questioning directed at Israel studies provide a unique way to academic field to build bridges as seditious and destructive. In turn, invigorate cultural creativity and to between Jews and Muslims, as it has the involvement of pro-Israel stimulate critical thinking in their between Jews and Christians. At advocacy in the activities of Jewish communities. However, they will Queen’s University—where the studies programs jeopardizes both succeed not because they serve the local Jewish community cooperates our positions as serious scholars and needs of a particular constituency extensively with the Jewish studies the academic legitimacy of Jewish but because they contribute to the program but plays no part in the studies. advancement of larger disciplines, selection of its faculty—I hope to offer a methodologically sound work closely with the new program I would like to conclude by perspective, and aid the intellectual in Islamic studies and to implement reiterating, especially on the basis of development of all students. co-taught dialogue courses. my recent experience, something that I wrote twenty years ago: Howard Tzvi Adelman is director of In my 1988 essay I observed that The task before Jewish and ethnic the Jewish Studies Program at Jews supported Jewish studies in studies scholars, therefore, is not to Queen’s University at Kingston, part because they wanted it repress their own social and Ontario and is finishing a book on recognized and legitimized as a vital individual concerns but to create a the history of Jewish women in Italy. part of the academy, an enterprise methodology that will enable those SUPPORT THE ASSOCIATION FOR AJS JEWISH STUDIES

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