The Questionnaire What development in Jewish studies over the last twenty years has most excited you? 55 AJS Perspectives: The Magazine of the President Please direct correspondence to: Association for Jewish Studies Marsha Rozenblit Association for Jewish Studies University of Maryland Center for Jewish History Editors 15 West 16th Street Matti Bunzl Vice President/Publications New York, NY 10011 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Jeffrey Shandler Rachel Havrelock Rutgers University Voice: (917) 606-8249 University of Illinois at Chicago Fax: (917) 606-8222 Vice President/Program E-Mail: [email protected] Derek Penslar Web Site: www.ajsnet.org Editorial Board Allan Arkush University of Toronto Binghamton University AJS Perspectives is published bi-annually Vice President/Membership by the Association for Jewish Studies. Carol Bakhos and Outreach University of California, Los Angeles Anita Norich The Association for Jewish Studies is an Orit Bashkin University of Michigan affiliate of the Center for Jewish History. University of Chicago Sarah Benor Secretary/Treasurer © Copyright 2010 Association for HUC-JIR, Los Angeles Jonathan Sarna Jewish Studies ISSN 1529-6423 Brandeis University Michael Brenner University of Munich AJS Staff Nathaniel Deutsch Rona Sheramy AJS Perspectives encourages submis- University of California, Santa Cruz Executive Director sions of articles, announcements, Todd Hasak-Lowy Karen Terry and brief letters to the editor related University of Florida Program and Membership to the interests of our members. Coordinator Materials submitted will be Ari Kelman published at the discretion of the University of California, Davis Natasha Perlis editors. AJS Perspectives reserves the Heidi Lerner Project Manager right to reject articles, announce- Stanford University Emma Barker ments, letters, advertisements, and Laura Levitt Conference and Program Associate other items not consonant with the Temple University goals and purposes of the organization. Copy may be condensed or Diana Lipton rejected because of length or style. King’s College London AJS Perspectives disclaims respon- Meira Polliack sibility for statements made by Tel Aviv University contributors or advertisers. Riv-Ellen Prell University of Minnesota Jonathan Schorsch Columbia University David Shneer University of Colorado Dina Stein University of Haifa Nadia Valman Queen Mary University of London Yael Zerubavel Rutgers University

Managing Editor Karin Kugel

Graphic Designer Ellen Nygaard

Front Cover: © Shelley Gazin/2010. All Rights Reserved. Excerpt from Becoming Persian: Photographs & Text Threads Illuminating the Iranian- Jewish Community; California Council for the Humanities Documentary Project. [Iranian-American demonstrators at Iranian election/political protest, Federal Building, Westwood, 2009.] Back Cover: © Shelley Gazin/2010. All Rights Reserved. Excerpt from Becoming Persian: Photographs & Text Threads Illuminating the Iranian- Jewish Community; California Council for the Humanities Documentary Project. [Dariush Fakheri, president/founder of the International Judea Foundation a.k.a. Siamak Organization, and Roya Fakheri, educator and artist, attend political rally, Federal Building, Westwood, 2009.]

2 AJS Perspectives From the Editors

In this issue, we pair two places with long and important Jewish In the modern period, Orit Bashkin analyzes the position of the histories. The pairing seems almost natural—Iraq and Iran share Iraqi-Arab-Jew caught between the acts of remembering and forgetting. a long border and a contentious relationship, and both places once On the one hand, many people in Israel maintain a connection to their served as centers of Jewish cultural and intellectual life. The fact that Arab pasts; on the other, the immigration necessitated a certain dis- they no longer function as such raises the issue of memory and its tance from Arab intellectual and political life. Aware of this very ten- companion, forgetting. sion, Lital Levy presents the Iraqi-Jewish memoir as a vehicle of return The themes of memory and forgetting are prominent throughout to a Baghdad of the past. She goes on to ask to whom this past might be this issue. At the same time, the essays carry a political charge, particu- useful. Jenny Gheith tells of the unforeseeable obstacles encountered larly for Jewish Americans, so attuned to Iran’s nuclear capacity and its by the artist Michael Rakowitz as he attempted, in a complex work of denunciation of the Jewish state along with, although to a lesser extent, art, to import Iraqi dates—a staple of culinary memories—to Brooklyn. the exigencies of Iraq in what is promised to be the final year of the Ameri- Even as the first shipment of dates spoiled during detention in Jordan can occupation. Perhaps we even reproduce the political field by includ- and Syria, a community grew up around the project. ing an essay about Israeli policy positions on Iran by Brandon Friedman. Shelley Gazin’s photographs and essays by Nasrin Rahimieh and Ultimately, however, issues Jewish rather than political stand at Saba Tova Soomekh provide glimpses into the Iranian-Jewish com- the forefront of this edition. Sergio DellaPergola compares Iranian- munity of Los Angeles. Gazin’s photographs cause Rahimieh to recall and Iraqi-Jewish communities from a demographic perspective, and her Armenian-Iranian school in prerevolutionary Iran and to realize Richard Kalmin writes of how his research on the Persian influence how little she knew about her Jewish-Iranian classmates’ community. on rabbinic culture led to book awards from AJS as well as the Iranian Saba Tova Soomekh’s ethnographic study of Iranian-Jewish women Ministry of Culture. We met Richard Kalmin at the Jordan Schnitzer highlights the processes of remembering and forgetting implicit in the book award ceremony in New York this summer, but it seems that his balance of an American-Jewish-Iranian identity. invitation to the Iranian awards ceremony—over which President As the range of articles shows, with Iraq & Iran we have found Ahmadinejad presides—has been delayed. a topic of relevance to several historical periods and methodologies With incredible precision, the essays of Marina Rustow and Daniel within Jewish studies. We hope that you enjoy it. Tsadik reframe discussions about the formation and dissemination of rabbinic writings. Rustow, for example, shows how Jewish migrations Matti Bunzl University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign from Sura and Pumbedita to Baghdad and then from Baghdad westward entailed the forgetting of rural traditions as well as the continua- Rachel Havrelock tion of Babylonian practices. University of Illinois Chicago

From the President

Over the past few months, The Chronicle of Higher Education has pub- erosion of tenure places academic freedom at great risk—and academic lished several articles about the erosion of tenure in American insti- freedom is crucial for the modern university. Non-tenured faculty tutions of higher education, developments that have scared many might be excellent teachers, but higher education without tenure members of the academic community. According to these articles, an means exploitation, lack of academic coherence, and the possibility ever-growing percentage of positions at colleges and universities are of pressure to teach subjects in a way that abandons critical analysis. now held by adjunct faculty—men and women hired to teach one or Why am I so convinced that tenure is necessary for academic two courses, usually at extraordinarily low pay, and who are not on freedom? After all, even tenured faculty have to deal with political the tenure track at all. Indeed, if present trends continue, the major- pressures, and many succumb to intellectual pressure to engage in ity of academic positions will be held by adjuncts rather than tenured interpretations that are trendy at a given moment. Some people who or tenure-track faculty in the not-too-distant future. Such a scenario follow more traditional forms of scholarship feel that it is hard to get a is frightening indeed. It is frightening for students, because most of job or get promoted unless one is engaged in what is currently “all the their teachers will likely have little if any loyalty to the institutions rage.” Informal pressure to conform, however, is not the same thing at which they teach, and they will understandably be exhausted from as a real breach of academic freedom. Tenure protects faculty from running from school to school trying to cobble together a living, per- pressure to indoctrinate our students in a particular world view, and it haps not even aware of where they are on a given day. They will have protects academics from pressure to avoid research that might offend little incentive to take the time to get to know students, mentor them, the political establishment or the donors to the university. It also and write letters of recommendation on their behalf. The scenario is allows people to pursue the kind of research that they love and teach also frightening to the adjunct faculty themselves, who, while receiv- the kind of courses they think worthy. Such freedom is not possible for ing exploitative wages must wonder how they can possibly make a exploited and exhausted adjunct professors, but it is absolutely neces- living after spending so much time getting a PhD. Moreover, if they sary for the health of scholarship and the American university itself. teach several courses at multiple universities, they certainly have no I realize that the tenure situation is not as bleak as the prophets of time to devote to the scholarship that is the essence of the academic doom would have us believe. As a person with some knowledge of sta- enterprise and which might help them procure a tenure-track job. The tistics, I know that the gross statistics of the Chronicle articles are mis- scenario is also frightening to those of us who have tenure because the leading because they lump together universities and colleges along

FALL 2010 3 with community colleges and the growing number of for-profit and scenario in which a donor, unhappy with the critical scholarly views or online universities, both of which rely almost totally on adjunct fac- the political positions of a professor whose salary is paid by the gift of ulty. A study of four-year colleges and universities alone would prob- that donor, might demand that the professor be fired. Most donors ably reveal that the percentage of tenured and tenure-track faculty is would probably never make such demands, but even the possibility of reasonably high, and that the current economic downturn means less such interference in the academic world makes me shudder. Tenure money for those institutions to hire adjuncts. In any case, these institu- protects us from even the possibility of such interference. Tenure, after tions still give tenure, and the criteria for tenure remain excellent all, is administered by the faculty, who, almost always, base their deci- scholarship, teaching, and service, so the tenure system remains intact sions on the quality of the scholarship, teaching, and service, and not and healthy. on political or other inappropriate considerations. If tenure were to What impact does the current fear about the erosion of tenure disintegrate at four-year colleges and universities, however, Jewish have on Jewish studies? At the moment, I suspect it has had very little studies might suffer disproportionately. impact. After all, Jewish studies courses are rarely taught at the institu- I am an optimist, and so I think that tenure will not disappear. It tions that rely heavily on adjuncts, such as community colleges, which will remain strong at colleges and universities, although probably not teach mostly basic introductory courses in the standard fields, or for- at the community colleges and the for-profit schools. The academic profit and online universities, which, according to their ads, focus community should think of ways to protect faculty at those institu- largely on business management and computer technology. Jewish tions from exploitation. We also need to convince the non-academic studies has found a home at elite colleges and universities and at major world, including state legislators, that the university is not a business, state universities, in short, at places that still rely on the tenure system. and the life of the mind does indeed need some protection. That protec- I am glad that such is the case. After all, the growth of Jewish studies in tion is tenure. the American academy has been driven by donors, by Jewish philanthropists who have given generously to universities to fund Jewish Marsha Rozenblit studies programs. In the absence of tenure, one could imagine a University of Maryland

From the Executive Director

After a period of seven years, AJS is returning to Boston for its within the range of rejection rates of other learned societies, several of forty-second annual conference. Longtime members often speak which approach 50 and 60 percent for especially popular locations. wistfully of AJS’s early meetings at the Copley Plaza, just across Still, the greater number of rejection letters going out this year caused the street from where this year’s meeting will be held. In 1996, some consternation among scholars who have presented at the confer- when the AJS conference last convened at the Plaza, the conference ence for years, as well as among those applying—and being rejected— had seventy-eight sessions; this year, the number has more than for the first time. doubled, a reflection of the expansion of the field, the growth of the The evaluation criteria for proposals include originality of society, and the popularity of Boston as a venue. (More than one- research, methodology, contribution to the field, and clarity of argu- third of AJS members are from the Northeast.) Indeed, this year AJS ment. The twenty division chairs score abstracts according to these received the highest number of submissions in its history: 157 ses- criteria, rank created and pre-formed sessions, and pass their accep- sion submissions and 288 individual paper submissions, compared tance/rejection recommendations on to the program committee. It is to 117 and 272 submissions, respectively, in 2009. then the program committee’s task to review all of the division chairs’ While this growth is certainly good news—especially in an recommendations and create a high-level and diverse conference pro- economic climate where all we seem to hear about is contraction—it gram that will appeal to the wide-ranging interests of AJS members. is not without its challenges. To significantly increase the number This is not to say that all very strong proposals make it into the final of papers accepted would transform the conference’s culture, a cul- schedule—some individual proposals regarded highly by both division ture that distinguishes the AJS meeting from the larger, disciplinary chairs and the program committee are rejected simply because there is gatherings. “Record submissions” represent the vitality of the field, no appropriate place for them in a session. The rejection rate of indi- the health of the organization, and the value of the conference, but vidual proposals is in fact a good deal higher than that of pre-formed they also produce a good deal of hand-wringing among the AJS board sessions. We recognize that some scholars are new to the field or not and conference program committee, which have to balance two, tapped into a network to build a panel. In these cases, we suggest these somewhat contradictory goals: one, to offer a wide platform for new scholars submit a proposal according to one of the division chair’s sug- research and give members ample opportunity to share their scholar- gested themes, or else use the Sessions Seeking Participants page on the ship, get feedback, and secure travel funding (often contingent on AJS website. presenting a paper); and, two, to organize a conference that retains a We’ve added several other new features to this year’s meeting, certain intimacy, does not dilute audiences by too many simultane- including a Monday afternoon time slot for more informal, profession- ous sessions, and only accepts the most outstanding proposals. ally oriented discussions and times to meet with the AJS division chairs AJS sought a middle path in response to the unprecedented and publication editors to discuss the state of the field and suggestions number of submissions this year: we added a new time slot (Tuesday, for the organization. As always, please feel free to e-mail your thoughts 3:45–5:45 pm) which will accommodate several additional sessions. We and comments any time of the year to the AJS office at [email protected]. also expanded the poster session to include digital media presenta- I look forward to seeing you in December. tions, as well as created a new, fifteenth-session time slot for digital and media-oriented panels. But AJS also increased the overall rejection rate Rona Sheramy from approximately 20 percent in 2009 to 30 percent. This is well Association for Jewish Studies

4 AJS Perspectives AJS Institutional Members 2010–2011

The Association for Jewish Studies is pleased to recognize the following Institutional Members:

American University, Center for Israel Studies & Jewish Studies Program Center for Cultural Judaism Columbia University, Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies Cornell University, Program in Jewish Studies Foundation for Jewish Culture Harvard University, Center for Jewish Studies Hebrew College Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion Indiana University, Robert A. and Sandra S. Borns Jewish Studies Program The Graduate School of the Jewish Theological Seminary Johns Hopkins University, Leonard and Helen R. Stulman Jewish Studies Program McGill University, Department of Jewish Studies Monash University, Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation New York University, Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies Northwestern University, The Crown Family Center for Jewish Studies Ohio State University, Melton Center for Jewish Studies Old Dominion University, Institute for Jewish Studies and Interfaith Understanding Pennsylvania State University, Jewish Studies Program Purdue University, Jewish Studies Program Queens College, CUNY, Center for Jewish Studies Reconstructionist Rabbinical College Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies Stanford University, Taube Center for Jewish Studies The Tikvah Fund University of Arizona, Arizona Center for Judaic Studies University of California, Los Angeles, Center for Jewish Studies University of Connecticut, Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life University of Denver, Center for Judaic Studies University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Program in Jewish Culture and Society University of Maryland, Meyerhoff Center for Jewish Studies University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Judaic and Near Eastern Studies Department University of Michigan, The Frankel Center for Judaic Studies University of Minnesota, Center for Jewish Studies University of North Carolina at Asheville, Carolina Center for Jewish Studies University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Center for Jewish Studies University of Oregon, Harold Schnitzer Family Program in Judaic Studies University of Pittsburgh, Jewish Studies Program University of Tennessee - Knoxville, The Fern and Manfred Steinfeld Program in Judaic Studies University of Texas at Austin, Schusterman Center for Jewish Studies University of Virginia, Jewish Studies Program University of Washington, Samuel and Althea Stroum Jewish Studies Program, Jackson School of International Studies University of Wisconsin – Madison, Mosse/Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee, Sam and Helen Stahl Center for Jewish Studies Vanderbilt University, Program in Jewish Studies Washington University in St. Louis, Program in Jewish, Islamic, and Near Eastern Studies Yeshiva University, Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies York University, Israel and Golda Koschitzky Centre for Jewish Studies

If your program, department, foundation, or institution is interested in becoming an AJS Institutional Member, please contact Rona Sheramy, AJS Executive Director, at [email protected] or 917.606.8249.

FALL 2010 5

The Iraq & Iran Issue

Iran and Iraq: Demography beyond the Jewish Past Sergio DellaPergola

least on secondhand sources available to our oth Iraq and Iran hosted ancient and likely interspersed with significant declines traveler. And it is worth recalling that Benja- large Jewish populations. The large in the ability or willingness to maintain a min’s accounts tend to be reliable when cross- communities in the broad area encom- cultural and religious identity separate from B checked with solid, modern historiography. passing both countries offered paramount that of the Muslim majority. It can be esti- contributions to the development of global mated that the number of Jews for the whole JEWISH POPULATION IN ASIA Jewish civilization in various and different of Asia shrank from about one million to less BASED ON BENJAMIN OF TUDELA’S ways and for a while served as the Jewish than a quarter of a million at the beginning ITINERARY, C. 1170 spiritual and cultural capital center. Some of the eighteenth century. Modest recover- of these influences spanning more than Region Number* ies during the following two hundred years 2,500 years still remain among the pillars Asia, total 950,491 would put the overall continental estimate of contemporary Jewish religious, social, Iran 193,500 at 300,000 Jews in 1800 and 535,000 in 1900 and historical identity. To some extent, the Iraq 121,500 (of which 50,000 would have been in Pales- Jewish presence long preceded the definitive Turkey (incl. European part) 4,250 tine and 100,000 in the Central Asian areas cultural consolidation of the host societies. Syria, Lebanon, Palestine 22,241 of the former Soviet Union). It is only in the Starting from the end of the first mil- Arabian Peninsula 455,000 twentieth century that the Jewish population lennium of the Christian era, however, the India 101,000 would start to grow more rapidly, although regional cultural hegemony within world Central Asia 50,000 somewhat impaired by incipient emigration. Jewry was shifting westward. It shifted repeat- East Asia 3,000 In 1947/48, at the time of Israel’s inde-

edly again during the second millennium, *The list includes only those countries for which pendence, reasonable Jewish population leaving Iran and Iraq—together with many precise numbers are given. estimates would be 135,000 for Iraq and other communities—in a semiperipheral 90,000 for Iran. Subsequent years would position vis-à-vis the new emerging centers witness rapid emigration, though at a very Whatever the intrinsic value of these of global Jewish peoplehood. The long tale different pace for the two Jewish communi- early statistical estimates, the important of Jews in Iraq and Iran reached a stage of ties and consequently with different effects notion is that both Iran and Iraq were per- sudden decline during the second half of on the continuation of Jewish life in the two ceived to be among the most important and the twentieth century. Harsh societal cir- countries. The model for Iraq was the nearly influential regional concentrations of Jews cumstances, large-scale acceptance of the total transfer to Israel within a short span of at that time, other than the much higher Zionist project and migration to Israel, and time—mainly through “Operation Flying numbers—more or less credible—provided other opportunities offered elsewhere by Carpet.” Between 1948 and 1953, 125,000 Iraqi for the Arabian Peninsula. The latter would the global political and economic system Jews migrated to Israel, and forty-seven years be, in Benjamin’s account, the largest single virtually ended a great civilizational cycle. later, by 2010, total migration had augmented regional concentration of Jews then exist- The more ancient presence of Jews in by only a few thousand to 129,000. In the case ing in the world. Jews in Iran and in Iraq Iraq and Iran lies beyond the scope of this of Iran, migration was much more gradual and were spread both across several major and a review, which focuses instead on the con- also less exclusively focused on Israel in the large number of minor local communities. temporary period. In general, information longer term. Out of a grand total of more than The area that can be roughly identified as on population characteristics and trends is 82,000 Jews who left Iran for Israel between contemporary Iran had a significantly larger more easily available for Iraq than for Iran, 1948 and 2010, 27,000 moved in 1948–53, fol- Jewish population than that of Iraq. How- and in several ways the former has often been lowed by successive waves peaking at 12,000 ever, by the middle of the twentieth century, considered the more culturally accomplished during the early 1960s, over 9,000 during although the number of Jews in Iraq would be and influential. However, it is interesting the years of the Khomeini Islamic revolu- extremely close to Benjamin’s estimates for to go back to Benjamin of Tudela’s itinerary tion, and over 5,000 during the late 1980s. the end of the twelfth, the numbers in Iran and memorial toward the end of the twelfth In 2008 there were 64,100 Jews born in would be significantly lower—hinting per- century to find that his estimates indicate a Iraq and 47,100 born in Iran living in Israel; haps at harsher circumstances for local Jews. much larger Jewish population in Iran than plus, respectively, 169,400 and 87,600 born During the period between the Middle in Iraq. Taking at face value his quite detailed in Israel whose father was born in one of Ages and the nineteenth century, the popula- reporting—which of course would require the same countries. The overall estimates of tion of most areas in the Middle East did not more critical analysis than allowed here— 233,500 Iraqis and 134,700 Iranians ignore the grow much because of the generally poor Iran then hosted 193,500 Jews, compared third and further generations of the descen- economic, social, and health conditions. to 121,500 in Iraq. The latter number seems dents of these immigrants, as well as those Among Jews, slow population growth was more grounded on direct observation or at born in Israel, whose mother but not whose

6 AJS Perspectives father was born in the given country. The that Jews from Asia and Africa paid a heavier and clerical professions, 30 percent in trade actual sizes of the respective enlarged com- price in this process than Jews from Europe and sales, 3 percent in agriculture, and 45 per- munities are therefore significantly larger. and America. Different origin groups also did cent in other blue-collar occupations. Among In the United States, according to the not bring the same initial characteristics and immigrants from Iran, 8 percent were in man- 2000–01 National Jewish Population Survey tools, and their subsequent mobility processes agerial and clerical professions, 31 percent in (NJPS), about 5,000 Jewish adults were born in also reflected these initial differentials among trade and sales, 13 percent in agriculture, and Iraq and about 20,000 were born in Iran. Here, immigrants along with the opportunities 53 percent in other blue-collar occupations. too, these figures omit second- and third-gener- that were being created in the new society. These differentials help explain the more rapid ation descendents. Following these extensive From this angle, at their arrival in Israel, Jews and visible entrance of Iraqis (as compared to migrations and the resettlement of emigrants from Iraq were in many respects significantly the Iranians) into Israel’s system of economic, in Canada, Western European countries, and more modernized than Jews from Iran. Life professional, military, and political elites. elsewhere, few Jews remained in either Iraq expectancy before migration to Israel was An analysis of the 1995 Israeli census or Iran. Regarding Iraq, with the departure retrospectively estimated at 50–54 years in indicated some degree of regional proximity of the last few Jews following the American Iraq and 46–51 in Iran. Among those who in the geographic spread of Jews from Iraq and campaign there, virtually nobody was left in married before 1960, age at marriage was one Iran, reflecting the prevalent role of immigra- the community. In Iran the slower pace of emi- to two years older among brides and three to tion during the first decade of Israeli statehood gration, in spite of highly visible anti-Jewish four years older among grooms in Iraq. Among versus other much more veteran or much and anti-Israeli rhetoric and periodical politi- women married abroad and surveyed in Israeli newer immigrant groups. However, the typo- cal harassment, reflected partly the inherent censuses, completed family size (at age 45–49) logical location of Iraqis was quite contiguous logistical difficulties, partly the persistence was 6.3 children for the Iraqis versus 7.3 for the with Jews from Poland and Germany, their of a moderately affluent middle class among Iranians in 1961; 5.5 versus 6.2, respectively, three denser locations being Ramat-Gan, the the Jewish community. The Jewish population in 1972; and 5.1 children for both in 1983. Kinneret natural region, and Petach Tikva, was realistically estimated at 10,000–12,000 Similar patterns emerge from a compari- while Iranians were closer to Jews from in 2010, although significantly higher esti- son of socioeconomic characteristics of the Turkey, Greece, and Bulgaria, their three mates also circulated in an attempt to trans- immigrants a few years after they had settled denser locations being Holon, Jerusalem, and mit a positive image of “business as usual.” in Israel. In 1961, 28 percent of men and 65 Petach Tikva. Indeed by 1995, after many years The integration of Iraqi and Iranian Jews percent of women above 30 years of age born of hardship, Iraqi and Iranian Jews had finally in Israel, where most of both original Jewish in Iraq had not attained any schooling, versus joined the mainstream of Israeli society. populations eventually landed, followed the 34 percent of men and 73 percent of women patterns and predicaments of mass aliyah. born in Iran. At the opposite end of the educa- Sergio DellaPergola is the Shlomo Argov Professor During the first years after arrival, the Israeli tional ladder, 8 percent of men and 1 percent of Israel-Diaspora Relations at the Avraham melting pot (or, perhaps more appropri- of women over 30 born in Iraq had thirteen or Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry of the ately, salad bowl) developed through rapid more years of education, versus of 2 percent Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is the author demographic adaptation and convergence men and 0.1 percent of women born in Iran. of Jewish Population Policies: Demographic but also through significant sacrifices in Regarding the occupational structure abroad, Trends and Options in Israel and in the socioeconomic status among all participants immigrants who arrived in Israel from Iraq in Diaspora (Jerusalem, 2010). in mass immigration. It is well documented 1948–53 included 22 percent in managerial

IMMIGRATION TO ISRAEL FROM IRAQ AND IRAN, 1948–2010*

Iraq Iran

100000 25000

90000

80000 20000

70000

60000 15000

50000

40000 10000

30000

20000 5000

10000

0 0 1948-50 1951-55 1956-60 1961-65 1966-70 1971-75 1976-80 1981-85 1986-90 1991-95 1996-00 2001-05 2006-10 1948-50 1951-55 1956-60 1961-65 1966-70 1971-75 1976-80 1981-85 1986-90 1991-95 1996-00 2001-05 2006-10

* The two diagrams are on different scales. Source: Israel, Central Bureau of Statistics.

FALL 2010 7 AJS, Ahmadinejad, and Me Richard Kalmin

he main aim of my book, Jewish Babylonia between Persia and Roman TPalestine, is to understand the diverse cultural forces impinging on the rabbis who produced the Talmud Yerushalmi and Bavli. In order to do this, I read the Yerushalmi on the background of Roman culture and the Bavli on that of Persia. For example, I argue that Palestinian rabbis were more integrated into Jewish society than were Babylonian rabbis, who tended to set themselves apart from other Jews. Babylonian rabbis rarely interacted with non-rabbis in informal settings: as guests for dinner at the non-rabbi’s house, via casual contact in the streets and marketplaces, as invited guests at the same party and the like. In this respect, Jewish society in Babylonia had more in common with Persian than with Roman models, since Persian society discouraged movement and interaction between classes, in contrast to Rome, where upward (and downward) movement from one class to another was a relatively common phenomenon. Sasanian hammered and engraved silver plate depicting a king and Babylonian rabbinic obsession with queen seated on a throne, possibly at a wedding. Plate by Anonymous genealogy was a crucially important factor (Iranian), sixth–seventh century CE. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. motivating the rabbis’ detachment from other Jews, and characterizes them as typically Persian given the rigid hierarchical divi- sions between classes in Iranian society. The Achaemenid Persian orthodoxy. This issue is of contact with idols in a public religious setting. Babylonian rabbinic movement itself was crucial importance in modern Iranian scholar- My book also analyzes the critical impor- rigidly hierarchical, with distinctions drawn ship, and upsetting the traditional scholarly tance of eastern provincial Roman culture on not only between students and teachers but paradigm has roughly the same impact as the rabbis of Babylonia, but the Persian con- also between one teacher and another. There demonstrating that the transition from Brit- text explains why the editors of AJS Perspectives was no such thing as a collegial relation- ish to American rule in 1776 was of trivial asked me to contribute this essay. The Oxford ship between teachers of equal status, but importance to those who lived through it. University Press website (tinyurl.com/cd5x63) rather between superior and subordinate I also argue that Persian attitudes and boldly proclaims that my book was named teachers. Hierarchical relationships between practices with regard to idols and idol worship a Notable Selection by the Association for rabbis in Babylonia tended to be static, so had a significant impact on Babylonian Jews, Jewish Studies Jordan Schnitzer Book Awards that once one’s status vis-à-vis other rabbis constituting another respect in which Jewish and “Best Book of the Year on Ancient Iran” by had been determined, little could be done to Babylonia was more Persian than Roman. To the Iranian Ministry of Culture. It is not often change it. Relationships between Palestin- be specific, the Bavli attests to a distinction that Jews and Iranians agree on something ian rabbis were significantly more flexible. between Parthian and Sasanian Babylonia these days, so perhaps this peculiar accord In addition, my book challenges the tradi- that confirms scholarly claims regarding the is a small sign that world peace is possible. tional scholarly view that the transition from different policies of the Parthian and Sasanian When Oxford informed me of the Iranian Parthian to Sasanian Persian rule in the early dynasties with respect to idols. In contrast award, I was, to put it mildly, curious about third century CE was a watershed in Iranian to the Parthians, who routinely worshipped what the Iranians found appealing about my history, arguing that the Jews, and perhaps idols, the Sasanians proscribed statues and book. We westerners have what is probably a even the ruling Iranians, did not consider this raised reliefs used in cultic ceremonies. This skewed understanding of contemporary Iran, transition to be significant. Scholars often distinction between the two dynasties corre- but we generally don’t attribute to Iranian portray the Parthians as Hellenized inter- sponds to the picture supplied by the Babylo- governmental institutions an interest in the lopers and not really Persians, according to nian Talmud, according to which only rabbis Jewish experience even when it sheds light on which the Sasanians represented a return to who lived during the Parthian period came in significant aspects of Iranian history. I can’t

8 AJS Perspectives claim to have completely solved the mystery, actually knew Iran firsthand, however, tended so often portrayed in Western media. Many since several people who might have been to be less perplexed. According to some, the Iranian scholars now acknowledge Jewish able to pursue the story to its source inside Ministry is interested in dispassionate scholar- history as part of mainstream Iranian cul- Iran spoke of their fear of possible reprisals ship in addition to politics. According to this ture, and it is therefore not as shocking as against their Iranian friends. My informants view, several members of the Ministry do not one might think that they esteemed a book graciously gave me permission to quote their belong to the ruling regime, and obviously the about Jews in ancient Iran. In fact, a book words, but asked me not to use their names. independent-minded members were behind by my informant was once nominated for What about my book appealed to the the selection of my book. Others contended the award, although he didn’t win, probably Iranians? One possibility is the case I made that the Ministry wishes to convey the impres- because at the time he was an Israeli citizen. for the applicability of the Iranian cultural sion that they are interested in dispassionate President Ahmadinejad attends the cer- context for understanding the Babylonian scholarship and not just politics, but nothing emony and personally hands out the award, Talmud. Iranian scholars have been known in Iran happens without a political reason. which leads some to view its acceptance as to like Indo-European linguists who empha- The Iranologist who nominated my book for tantamount to recognition of the legitimacy size the importance of Old Persian, which the award noted that it won the prize before of an ugly regime in exchange for honor is often neglected in favor of Sanskrit and the unrest following the contested elections and a substantial financial benefit. Oxford Hittite. In addition, the Ministry of Culture of 2009, which caused a dramatic reduc- informed me of the award over a year ago, may have approved of my conclusion that tion in the already severely circumscribed however, and I have yet to receive my letter the Sasanians did not persecute the Jews area of freedom of expression within Iran. of invitation to Iran. We can hope that the when they took over from the Parthians in The person whose judgment on the political situation in Iran will dramatically the early third century. Perhaps the Min- matter I most trust said that the Ministry improve in the future, but it is with more istry of Culture approved of my portrayal is interested in promoting international than a touch of regret that I acknowledge of the “authentic” Iranians as enlightened scholarship on Iranian antiquity, encourag- that as time passes, it becomes increas- leaders who refrained from mistreating ing international collaboration with Iranian ingly unlikely that I will ever have to con- minorities in their empire. Perhaps they were scholars, and improving the Iranian image front this difficult ethical predicament. impressed by the revolutionary discovery in the world. Most Iranians are not support- that the rabbis viewed the transition from ers of the present government, he observed, Richard Kalmin is the Theodore R. Racoosin Parthian to Sasanian rule with equanimity. and they should not be made responsible for Chair of Rabbinic Literature at The Jewish But these explanations presuppose that the madness of their leaders. Iran is confus- Theological Seminary. His most recent book is the Iranians actually read my book, a possi- ing and chaotic, and is not at all the tightly Jewish Babylonia between Persia and Roman bility I found difficult to believe. Those who controlled centralized totalitarian regime Palestine (Oxford University Press, 2006).

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FALL 2010 9

Berman Foundation The Association for Jewish Studies is pleased to announce the Berman Foundation Dissertation Dissertation Fellowships Fellowships in Support of Research in the Social in Support of Scientific Study of the Contemporary American Jewish Community. The Berman Fellowships— Research in the two awards of $16,000 each—will support Social Scientific Study doctoral work in the social scientific study of the North American Jewish community during of the Contemporary the 2011-2012 academic year. American Jewish Applicants must be Ph.D. candidates Community at accredited higher educational institutions who have completed their comprehensive exams and received approval for their dissertation proposals (ABD).

Application Deadline: April 7, 2011

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10 AJS Perspectives Baghdad in the West: Migration and the Making of Medieval Jewish Traditions Marina Rustow

n apocryphal piece of academic lore Iraq, it was modeled on Sasanian precedents— changing Jews’ economic prospects. Talmudic recounts the story of a graduate peasants did not merely render the old tax to precedent had required debts on the estates Aseminar at Columbia in which the late new masters. The early Islamic state increased of the deceased to be collected only from real Yosef Yerushalmi asked his students to name the rural tax burden, extended it over new estate, but declining land ownership among the single most important event in Jewish kinds of produce, and devised more efficient Jews had rendered the old ruling unworkable. history. “The destruction of the second ways of collecting it. Since villages had to pay In 786–87, the gaon of Sura and the exilarch Temple?” one hazards. “No!” Yerushalmi the khara-j collectively, when people left for ruled that those debts could now be collected thunders; “you’re thinking like yeshiva the city, they increased the liability of those on movable property instead. This momen- buchers.” “The founding of tous change in Jewish the state of Israel?” “No!” law is corroborated by a he bellows; “you’re broader pattern in rab- thinking like Zionists. binic literature: though Think like historians!” The some gaonic responsa still answer he seeks: the impo- addressed queries from sition of the land tax after peasants, the vast majority the Islamic conquests. An now dealt with questions answer more pedestrian, from urban settings. even boring, his students But for more than a think, cannot be imagined; century after Baghdad’s they are perplexed, but no founding, the Babylonian one dares object. He yeshivot resisted the move explains: the land tax to the capital on the Tigris, brought Jews to cities, - - remaining at Sura and Silver medallion struck in Baghdad by the ‘Abbasid caliph al-Radi. in 937 CE, probably to com- changing Jewish history memorate the restoration of order following factional warfare; part of the inscription reads, Pumbedita on the Euphra- forever. “Praise be to God, who has removed sorrow from us” (Qur’a-n 35:34). In the late ninth and tes. This may have been How did what we tenth centuries, chaos in Baghdad and mass migration from Iraq brought Babylonian-Jewish because paying court was traditions westward. British Museum, CM 1881-6-2-1. © Trustees of the British Museum. now call the Babylo- perceived as the exilarch’s nian Talmud, a collec- task. Or perhaps turmoil in tion of scholastic texts studied in small they left behind and, in turn, increased pres- the capital kept the geonim from committing disciple circles in tiny farming towns on sure for those remaining in villages to leave, their fortunes to Baghdad: in 836, locked in the Euphrates, become the canonical text too. The ‘Abbasids (750–1258) mitigated the conflict with his Turkish army regiment, the central to Jewish law from Jerusalem to situation somewhat by introducing payment caliph al-Mu‘tas.im moved his court 125 kilo- Paris, Copenhagen to San‘a, Brooklyn to Los in kind (rather than cash) to the district sur- meters north to Sa-marra-’, where it stayed until Angeles? To the extent that the answer lies rounding Baghdad in order to provision the 892. The yeshivot stayed put, at least for the in the medieval period (and not in movable growing city; peasants could then avoid bor- moment, and the population of Sura and its type, offset printing, mass literacy, or Dial- rowing money at ruinous rates of interest to surroundings remained primarily Jewish, at a-Daf), it has everything to do with migra- pay the state. But the burden of subsistence least according to the Muslim theologian Ibn tion from the Iraqi countryside—and, a bit farming still spurred ever greater numbers Qut.ayba (828–89). Even those who had later, with mass migration from Iraq itself. of people to abandon agriculture for cities. remained in the countryside were now better Few would argue with the idea that After 762, the main target of migration connected than ever with the center: Arab urbanization during the early Islamic was the newly founded ‘Abbasid capital at geographers report a regular mail route period permanently altered the trajectory Baghdad, which brought the center of the between Pumbedita and Baghdad, a distance of of Jewish history. True, the Babylonian civilized world close to some of the world’s about 62 kilometers. Talmud contains more rulings on crafts, major Jewish settlements. The exilarch’s seat Pumbedita was the first to move to trade, and town life than its entirely rural had been the Sasanid winter capital Mah.oza the capital. A responsum reports the date as Palestinian counterpart. But the Islamic (or Medinata; in Arabic, al-Mada-’in), a group 889–90, though it is easier to imagine the conquests turned the occasional abandon- of cities connected by pontoon bridges over move having taken place after the ‘Abbasid ment of farming into a veritable collective the Tigris; for better access to the ‘Abbasid court returned to Baghdad. Sura arrived in the flight to the city—and not just for Jews. court, he now moved 32 kilometers north capital a bit later, likely in the early tenth cen- While the fledgling Islamic government’s to Baghdad. A generation later, the rabbinic tury. The last report of Sura as a Jewish city land tax (khara-j) was not entirely new—in elite already understood that rural flight was comes from a biographical account of Ibn

FALL 2010 11 - al-Qift.i (1172–1248) in which a court physi- until late eighteenth-century London. Eye- take for granted that people of eastern origin cian named Sina-n ibn Tha-bit sought permis- witnesses boasted of the huge number of would offer fealty to Baghdad. Most cities sion from the caliph al-Muqtadir (908–32) to markets. Booksellers (who both sold and hosted three Jewish communities—Iraqi treat those suffering from plague in Sura, “and copied books) numbered as many as one Rabbanite, Syro-Palestinian Rabbanite, and they are Jews.” hundred, a ratio of outlets for fine literature Qaraite—and Jews offered and withdrew The move to Baghdad changed the geonim per capita that rivals that of Seattle, cur- their loyalties at will. In one memorable and their work. Over the tenth century, the rently America’s best-read city. In retrospect case c. 1030, a number of Palestinian Rab- yeshivot metamorphosed into cosmopolitan it is hard to explain how all those mouths banites threatened to defect to the Iraqi and and outward-looking institutions headed by could be fed and watered. And indeed, the Qaraite congregations merely because they polymath geonim educated outside their con- city’s prosperity would not last long. disliked their rabbi’s high-handed attitude. fines, such as Se‘adya ben Yosef al-Fayyu- mi- (d. No sooner had the population and wealth Gaonic letters also attest to the inher- 942), Shemu’el ben H.ofni (d. 1013), and Hayya of Baghdad peaked than political chaos and ently political nature of the job. The pres- bar Sherira (d. 1038). The difference, one might economic decline stunted its ascendancy. ence in Mediterranean cities of long-distance say, was comparable to that between maintain- Large slabs of the ‘Abbasid realm fell away, traders with ties to Baghdad, including ing a seminary in Breslau (or today’s Cincin- most significantly, Ifriqiya- (central North some of the great Iraqi and Iranian mer- nati?) and one in New York or Los Angeles. Africa, centered on Qayrawa-n) in 909, and chant houses, made it easier for the geonim As the Iraqi population urbanized and the wealthy province of Egypt in 969, both to demand and receive donations and for the ‘Abbasids came to rule one of the largest conquered by the upstart Shi‘i- Fatimid caliphs, their responsa to arrive in far-off places. empires in history, Baghdad grew into the who then pressed eastward and took Palestine The geonim took note. Luminaries such as most important city in the Near East. With and Syria as well. Baghdad itself was in peril. Shemu’el ben H.ofni and Hayya bar Sherira urban growth came vastly expanded geo- With the ascent of the Fatimids, the civilized maintained lifelong alliances with traders graphic mobility. In the latter half of the ninth world shifted westward toward the hubs of who helped them raise funds in Egypt and century, Baghdadi-Jewish traders speaking a the Indian Ocean and Mediterranean trades: Ifriqiya- (among them two Qaraite families). staggering number of languages (Arabic, Per- Fustat and the Fatimid capital just north of it, But westward migration also resulted sian, Greek, and various Slavic and romance Cairo. The geographer al-Maqdisi- (d. c. 990) in significant ruptures within Iraq and pro- dialects) reached western and eastern Europe, assessed the situation this way: “[Egypt’s] tracted conflict with the Palestinian-rite Constantinople, the Caspian Sea, India, and metropole has now become the greatest glory congregations, sometimes on their own turf. China. The routes they followed were standard of the Muslims; Baghdad has been superseded Sura was forced to close its doors for four for their time, with the notable exception of until Judgment Day.” Anyone with a skill to decades (943–87), as Iraqi immigrants estab- the overland route to China via the Khazar ply—merchants, government bureaucrats, lished their own congregations in parts of kingdom, which seems to have been their religious leaders; in short, anyone literate— Palestine where Jews had always followed own invention. Gaonic responsa corroborate read the writing on the wall and left the ‘Abba- the Palestinian rite, including Banyas and Jewish traffic in slaves, textiles, and spices. sid heartland for the Fatimid Mediterranean. possibly even Tiberias, the very seat of the The result of growing international Flight from Iraq had a marked effect on Palestinian yeshiva until c. 960. In the early commerce was wealth at home. Some trad- the world of the yeshivot. Even that arch- 1030s, an Iraqi faction attempted to establish ers amassed the capital to sell luxury goods propagandist on behalf of the continuity of formal jurisdiction over Iraqi-rite followers to rulers and then served the court in other rabbinic Judaism, Avraham ibn Da-wu-d of in Palestine—until then, the province of the capacities or moved into banking. Several Toledo (d. 1180), admitted that the period gaon of Jerusalem—by petitioning the Fatimid Jewish mercantile dynasties became ‘Abbasid between 960 and 990 found the Babylonian caliph for recognition of their leader. The courtiers and administrators while playing geonim in deep crisis: “the income of the Jerusalem gaon Shelomo ben Yehudah al-Fa-sian ever greater role in communal politics yeshivot,” he wrote, “which had come from (d. 1051), a brilliant politician who outma- and lending their support to rival factions Iberia, the Maghrib, Ifriqiya,- Egypt, and neuvered a succession of rivals during his of yeshivah leaders. The ‘Abbasid court even the land of Israel, was discontinued.” The quarter-century in office, blocked the attempt became enmeshed in Jewish factional war- admission is significant given his otherwise with a counter-petition to the Fatimid caliph, fare, as when a court banker (jahbadh) named outrageous claims on behalf of the supe- but he could not fight demography: his suc- Yosef b. Pinh.as (d. c. 920) backed a gaon of riority of Babylonian rabbinic tradition. cessor in the gaonate of Jerusalem, Dani’el Pumbedita, Kohen S.edeq (926–35), against an Grim though things looked for the acad- ben ‘Azarya (d. 1062), was an Iraqi of exilar- exilarch named ‘Uqba, who had attempted emies’ income, westward migration actually chal descent. Around 1040, both Babylonian to take over his rashut (right to collect taxes) helped the cause of gaonic continuity by yeshivot had closed down and would not in Khurasa-n. Together with his son-in-law spreading eastern Jews and their loyalty to the reopen until the second half of the twelfth Ne.tira (d. 916), himself the descendant of an Babylonian center well beyond the confines century; members of exilarchal families and ‘Abbasid jahbadh, Yosef b. Pinh.as convinced of Iraq. The Jewish communities in Fustat, gaonic contenders sought and found their the court in Baghdad to take his side, forc- Qayrawa-n, Palermo, and numerous towns in fortunes elsewhere. Crisis in the east pro- ing ‘Uqba into exile in distant Kirma-nsha-h. Syria-Palestine were by now teeming with duced a burgeoning political life in the west. The population of Baghdad is likely Iraqis, and their arrival made it easier for the Accounting for Babylonian rabbinic to have exceeded one million by the tenth Babylonian geonim to win supporters abroad. hegemony is then more complex than simply century, numbers the world hadn’t seen Not that the geonim amassed and retained tracking the reception and transmission of since ancient Rome and would not see again supporters without a struggle. No one could the Babylonian Talmud and gaonic responsa.

12 AJS Perspectives I began to fathom the complexity of the prob- from Iraq: even the very people fighting the Jewish law nor the authority of the Babylo- lem during a conversation I had on a curbside Iraqis on behalf of Palestinian independence nian geonim alone that led to the pervasive (if in Paris with Judith Olszowy-Schlanger as we and hegemony—Qaraites included—had varied) influence of Iraqi traditions on Juda- waited to pick up her children from school. themselves already been shaped by the vari- ism, but a host of factors that also reshaped The physical features of masoretic manu- ous Babylonian constructions of Judaism. the wider Middle East and Mediterranean. script fragments, she said, could confirm that Polemicists such as Ibn Da-wu-d and the earliest Tiberian masoretic texts from Pirqoy ben Baboy would have us believe that Marina Rustow is the Charlotte Bloomberg Asso- the late ninth and tenth centuries already the Babylonian tradition conquered the west ciate Professor in the Humanities in the Depart- show traces of Babylonian influence; she and because it was inherently superior to the ment of History at the Johns Hopkins University. others have found the same to be true of the others. But to believe them is to judge his- She is the author of Heresy and the Politics earliest Qaraite works. Those findings under- tory by its outcome. The demographic factor of Community: The Jews of the Fatimid score the significance of westward migration suggests that it was neither the strength of Caliphate (Cornell University Press, 2008).

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FALL 2010 13 Jews of Iran and Rabbinical Literature: Preliminary Notes Daniel Tsadik

stimates of the number of Jews in Iran, some previously untapped evidence attests to one of the oldest Jewish diasporas and the Jews’ knowledge of and commitment to Etoday’s largest Jewish community rabbinical Judaism. In this essay, I will dem- under Islam, range from 17,000 to 30,000 onstrate this knowledge based on some data souls. This community usually does not from the sixteenth century onward. Certain receive much scholarly attention. To be sure, Iranian cities were centers of Torah and learn- compared to some other Jewish diasporas in ing. Kashan was a major center for religious the Middle East, there is not much data on and intellectual activity in the seventeenth the Jews of Iran from past centuries, making century, as is evident from the fact that sev- it difficult to depict certain aspects of their eral Jewish thinkers and writers hailed from life. Further, Iran seems to be perceived as Kashan: the poet Sa‘id Sarmad, who converted anomalous with Persian, not Arabic, as its to Islam, Babai b. Lutf, author of the historical major language and Shi‘ite, not “mainstream” text Kitabi-i Anusi (Book of a Forced Convert), or “Orthodox” Sunni Islam, as its majority and probably Rabbi Yehudah b. El‘azar, author religion from the sixteenth century onward. of Hovot Yehudah (Duties of Judah), a book of These facts, consequently, may have caused Jewish thought. Isfahan was another nucleus scholars to regard the Jews of Iran as too of Jewish life, as can be seen from the Arme- remote, isolated, and difficult to decipher. nian author, Khwajah Safar, who noted in 1643 Be this as it may, one may contend that that the Jews of Isfahan are “very studious in the so-called remoteness of Iran’s Jewry learning, philosophers . . . perfect in the seven poses questions, some of which have broader wisdoms. . . . they all—men, women, boys, and significance. For instance, if it was indeed girls—know the entire Bible by heart. They segregated, how did such a Jewish community are very learned with a proclivity to research. persevere and preserve its Jewish identity? . . .Their craft is reading and learning.” Were Iran’s Jews indeed so distant and isola- Hakham Hayim Moreh of Tehran, on the front Overall, there were members of the ted? Were there relations between Iranian page of his Yedey Eliyahu (Tehran: Nehuray, Jewish elite who knew Jewish subjects, such TaRPaZ/1927). Jewry and other major centers of Jewish life? as the Hebrew Bible and its commentaries, In other words, the Jewish community in Talmud, halakhah, thought, and mysticism. Iran may serve as an important case study They were engaged with different genres—as of the survival of Jewish life ostensibly al-Maghribi, a famous twelfth-century Jewish the relatively vast number of Judeo-Persian distant from centers of Jewish wisdom. convert to Islam, argued in his anti-Jewish manuscripts testifies—including tafsirs (trans- There are various references to Iranian polemics that the Iranian Jews were the “most lations/commentaries) on the Hebrew Bible, Jewry’s low level of knowledge of mainstream ignorant of all Jews.” One should keep in mind didactic literature, history, and thought. The rabbinical Judaism as well as the general sci- that, after all, some of the leading figures of the most significant Jewish composition of Safa- ences. In modern times, Rabbi ‘Ovadiyah Yosef early Qaraite movement, which challenged vid times was Hovot Yehudah (Duties of Judah) (b. 1920) has asserted that not all the religious rabbinical and Talmudic authority, were from by Rabbi Yehudah b. El‘azar. The book was judges of Iran are experts. The late professor Iran: Benjamin al-Nihvandi (ninth century), written in 1686 in Judeo-Persian and addresses Ezra Zion Melamed (d. 1994), of Iranian- Daniel al-Qumisi (ninth–tenth centuries) and various issues (ma‘sheh bereshit and ma‘sheh Shirazi origins, stated that in Iran, Jews did the important Qaraite Tustari family (eleventh merkavah, the Torah, punishment and reward, not learn the Talmud, nor did they possess century) of merchants and politicians. Even messianic days, and resurrection), while copies of it. The renowned rabbi Hayim Yosef before them, movements that challenged rab- espousing a rationalist line. He also writes David Azulay (HID”A) (d. 1806) maintained binical authority were apparently connected about mathematics, astronomy, cosmology, that in Iran there were several generations of to Iranian Jews, such as those that centered medicine, music, logic, and rhetoric, among Talmudic sages, amoraim, as well as sevoraim around Abu ‘Isa al-Isfahani and his disciple, other issues. Rabbi Yehudah b. El‘azar is also and geonim. Yet he added, based on truthful Yudghan (seventh or eighth century). comfortable with non-Jewish sources, such as sources (magidey emet), that the Jews of Iran Additionally, rabbis of international the New Testament, Qur’an, and the writings in his day did not even know prayer. Some renown are not known to have existed in of Aristotle, Plato, Ibn Sina (Avecinna), al- non-Jewish European observers in Safavid Iran Iran, and religious compositions of Iranian Shahristani, Ibn Rushd (Averroes), al-Ghazali, (1501–1722/36) viewed the Jews of Iran as the Jews were not studied or quoted outside the Nasir al-Din Tusi, and others. Rabbi Yehudah most ignorant of all Jews; one of them reports Persian world. This may indeed allow for Ira- b. El‘azar had no qualms disputing some that the Jews of Hurmuz in southern Iran had nian Jewry’s portrayal as detached from the of his predecessors, including some of the no knowledge of Judaism. Earlier, Samual perceived mainstream Jewish world. However, greatest Jewish thinkers. Thus, for instance,

14 AJS Perspectives in opposition to Maimonides who proposed knowledge or lack of knowledge in certain ha-Yeled, medieval Jewish dictionary (Sefer thirteen principles of Jewish faith, and in Jewish fields (as illustrated by the questions ha-Shorashim), Talmud Bavli, and other texts. contrast to other thinkers who suggested to the emissary Rabbi Yehudah b. ‘Amram At times, some of the books referred to in other numbers, Rabbi Yehudah b. El‘azar Diwan in the early eighteenth century), but these Shi‘ite texts are known to have existed enumerates four principles of Jewish belief. they always mirror the Jews’ adhesion to the among the Jews of Iran only through this Iranian Jewry’s knowledge is also pronouncements of these foreign emissary Shi‘ite anti-Jewish usage of them. Even if com- reflected in incidental letters. A note by David Jews. At times, these emissaries preached to pared to some other Jewries under Islam, not b. Binyamin ha-Cohen of Khunsar in the year their host communities. Based on the content much of rabbinical/Talmudic literature has TaSaH (c. 1708) testifies to his mastery of dif- of the emissaries’ sermons, it seems that their survived from Iran, this fact in itself does not ferent layers of the Hebrew language and its Iranian-Jewish audiences were highly knowl- necessarily mean that such literature never literature. He quotes or paraphrases from the edgeable and sophisticated in Jewish matters. existed. An illustration of the knowledge of a Hebrew Bible, the Babylonian and Jerusalem Furthermore, Shi‘ite texts that attack rabbi in Iran in the late nineteenth and early Talmuds, and the Book of Zohar. Legal ques- Jews or Judaism frequently quote from Jewish twentieth century is Hakham Hayim Moreh tions sent from Iran to highly acclaimed texts, attempting to demonstrate their fal- (d. 1942) of Tehran. Although rather simple rabbinical authorities abroad—mostly to lacy. Some of the major Shi‘ite polemicists in content and style, the works of Hakham Baghdad or Jerusalem—testify to the Iranian had Jewish origins, such as Hajj Baba Qazvini Moreh nonetheless exemplify his breadth of Jews’ familiarity with rabbinical Judaism in Yazdi of the late eighteenth century in Yazd, knowledge of diverse fields of Jewish wisdom. the eighteenth to the early twentieth centu- or the former Jew Muhammad Ridai Jadid The sources of Jewish knowledge in Iran ries. During the eighteenth century, inquiries al-Islam of early nineteenth-century Tehran. were diverse, and they included local tradi- were sent from Iran to Rabbi Sedaqah Husin Their anti-Jewish polemics reflect knowledge tions of learning; foreign SHaDaRI”M and of Baghdad, and in the nineteenth century of Judaism. Retrieving the various sources itinerant rabbis; Iranian Jews’ pilgrimages there are some yet-untapped Iranian ques- utilized by these authors furnishes the fol- to Palestine; correspondence with rabbis in tions addressing rabbis in Ottoman Palestine, lowing tentative list of sources to which they, Palestine and Iraq; and ordination of rabbis in such as Rabbi Hayim David Hazan (d. 1869), or and by extension their surrounding Jews, Iraq. These sources illustrate the Iranian Jews’ Rabbi Ya‘aqov Shaul Elyashar (d. 1906), as well had access: the Hebrew Bible, its medieval connection to world Jewry. Still, it is unlikely as Hakham Yosef Hayim (d. 1909) in Baghdad. commentaries, book of Josephun, Nevuat that the entire community was as well-versed These questions may indicate their Iranian senders’ lack of knowledge and the fact that educated rabbis did not exist in Iran. Neverthe- less, the very resort to foreign rabbis indicates that the Jews of Iran valued this type of knowledge; it reflects their desire to follow halakhah as understood outside Iran. Additionally, letters were written by Iranian Jews—indeed a narrow elite of scholars—and dispatched to their foreign coreligionists on various socioeconomic, political, educational, and personal matters. Parts of these letters consist of a very high, multilayered, and sophisticated Hebrew style. Their Hebrew is exceptionally rich, with sentences and expressions drawing on various Jewish traditional sources, such as Hebrew Bible, Talmud, and the mystical literature. At least some Iranian Jews were exposed to outside Jewish and non-Jewish wisdom. The religious divide between Shi‘i Iran and its Sunni adjacent countries did not completely segregate the Jews of Iran, as illustrated by the fact that certain Jewish texts that were published in the Ottoman Empire arrived in Iran. In fact, not only did Jewish books arrive in Iran; but people did as well. Emissaries (SHaDaRI”M) of Jewish-Palestinian communities frequented Iran, seeking pecuniary support. Among other things, these emissaries would advise the indigenous com- Manqul al-Ridai [The Sayings Transmitted by Ridai], or Iqamat munities on various matters as well as offer al-Shuhud fi Radd al-Yahud [Erecting the Evidence in Refuting the Jews] (n.p, 1292/1875–76), an early nineteenth-century Shi‘ite legal verdicts. The questions submitted to polemic against Judaism, composed by a former Jew, Muhammad the foreign emissaries reflect Iranian Jews’ Ridai Jadid al-Islam.

FALL 2010 15 in the above fields as the religious elite, the learning in some Iranian locales, by the leadership, and to a limited extent, their mullahs/hakhamim/rabbis. Furthermore, it early twentieth century, the general level of living in Shi‘ite Iran politically detached from would be difficult to speak of a certain level of knowledge seemed to have already declined. adjacent Sunni countries with their centers knowledge of all of the Jews of Iran as a whole, In the seventeenth century, Rabbi Yehudah b. of Jewish learning. Nevertheless, even as late as there were differences within cities, towns, Ela‘zar’s impressive Hovot Yehudah addressed as the 1920s, Iran’s Jewry cannot be viewed and villages, as well as from one city to the the principles of Jewish faith in an innovative as completely detached from rabbinical and next. Kashan and Isfahan of the seventeenth and highly sophisticated manner, whereas Talmudic writings and world. Indeed, their century and Yazd of the nineteenth century the early twentieth-century Hakham Moreh’s contact with this world has helped them were centers of Jewish knowledge, whereas Derekh Hayim addressed the same topic in a preserve their Jewish identity in the face of in the nineteenth century, Shiraz Jews—as popular, easy-to-comprehend, and anything- challenges and changing circumstances. testified by professor E. Z. Melamed—were but-innovative manner, which reflects the not truly familiar with the Talmud. In small different communities and readers in the Daniel Tsadik is assistant professor of Sephardic communities, such as towns and villages, the seventeenth century and the early twentieth and Iranian studies at the Bernard Revel School Jews probably did not know much beyond the century. From a climax of learning and knowl- of Graduate Studies, Yeshiva University and bare basics of the Jewish religion. edge in the seventeenth century, Iran’s Jews visiting assistant professor at the Yale Initiative Finally, the long time span from the six- gradually underwent a decline due to various for the Interdisciplinary Study of Antisemitism. teenth to the early twentieth century cannot causes: times of heavy persecution and forced He is the author of Between Foreigners and be seen as a bloc. Whereas in the seventeenth conversions, governmental disposal of their Shi‘is: Nineteenth-Century Iran and Its Jewish century one may speak of highly sophisticated writings, poverty, lack of organized communal Minority (Stanford University Press, 2007).

THE ASSOCIATION FOR JEWISH STUDIES IS PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE THAT IT AWARDED MORE THAN 50 TRAVEL GRANTS TO SUPPORT SCHOLARS PRESENTING RESEARCH AT T H E AJS 42ND ANNUAL CONFERENCE.

The AJS thanks its members and the following foundations, organizations, and institutions for supporting the AJS travel

AJS Women’s Caucus Center for Jewish History Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation Hadassah-Brandeis Institute Lucius N. Littauer Foundation Maurice Amado Foundation Posen Foundation Tikvah Fund

16 AJS Perspectives Research Opportunities at the Center center for jewish history fellowship programs Since 2002, the Center has proudly sponsored our Graduate Research Fellowship Program. To date one of the most successful ongoing programs of the Center, it fosters research opportunities for promising graduate students while bringing the collections housed at the Center to life. Beginning in the 2010-11 academic year, we are pleased to announce five additional research fellowship opportunities at the Center. In addition to graduate students, fellowships are now available for scholars at every level from undergraduate to post-doctoral. neh fellowship for senior scholars graduate research fellowship CJH offers fellowships to senior scholars through a grant from CJH offers fellowships to PhD candidates supporting original the National Endowment for the Humanities. The awards sup- research using the collections at the Center. Preference is given to port original research at CJH in the humanities. Applications those candidates who draw on the library and archival resources are welcome from college and university faculty in any field who of more than one partner. Full fellowships carry a stipend of up have completed a PhD more than six years prior to the start of the to $14,000 for a period of one academic year. It is expected that fellowship and whose research will benefit considerably from applicants will have completed all requirements for the doctoral consultation with materials housed at CJH. Fellowships carry a degree except for the dissertation. stipend of up to $50,400 for a period of one academic year. undergraduate research fellowship prins foundation post-doctoral Advanced undergraduate students at North American univer- fellowship for emigrating scholars sities are invited to apply to carry out research in the archives We invite foreign scholars who seek permanent teaching and and libraries of CJH’s partner institutions. This fellowship is research positions in North America to apply for this award, designed for third and fourth year undergraduates preparing which will support 12-month fellowships for scholars who are theses or other major projects in Jewish history and related fields. at the beginning of their careers. Fellows will be provided with Projects require substantive use of archival and printed sources an annual stipend of $35,000 to conduct original research at the (e.g., newspapers, collections of sermons, memoirs, institu- Center’s Lillian Goldman Reading Room and utilize the vast col- tional reports) housed at CJH and not available at the student’s lections of our partners. This award allows the Center to serve as home institution. The amount of the fellowship is up to $1,000 the gateway for the best and brightest emerging scholars seeking and students are encouraged to seek matching funding from their to begin a new academic life in the U.S. home institutions. The award may be used for travel purposes and lodging while at CJH. visiting scholars program We invite scholars working in the field of Jewish Studies who have joseph s. steinberg emerging jewish completed their doctorate or its equivalent to apply for an affili- filmmaker fellowship ation with CJH to work in the collections of one or more of its Undergraduate and graduate emerging filmmakers working on partner institutions. Scholars are generally expected to commit to topics related to modern Jewish history are encouraged to apply a regular presence at CJH for at least three months. Scholars may for this fellowship, which supports research in the archives apply for a full academic year, the fall or spring semester, or for housed at CJH. The award is designed to help further exist- the summer. Visiting scholars will be provided with work space, ing projects, or to start new projects, whose subject matter is in a CJH e-mail account and access to CJH resources. This program line with the collections housed at CJH. Recipients are eligible does not provide a stipend or financial support. for awards of up to $5,000 and are provided with access to the resources at CJH. For detailed information and application procedures for the above opportunities, please visit www.research.cjh.org. academic Elisheva Carlebach, Chair Jeffrey S. Gurock Samuel D. Kassow Derek Penslar Mark Slobin advisory council Columbia University Yeshiva University Trinity College University of Toronto Wesleyan University Jeffrey Shandler, Co-Chair Debra Kaplan Arthur Kiron Riv-Ellen Prell Sarah A. Stein Rutgers University Yeshiva University University of Pennsylvania University of Minnesota University of California, Los Angeles Jane S. Gerber Marion A. Kaplan Paul North Paul A. Shapiro Graduate Center, CUNY New York University Yale University United States Holocaust Steven J. Zipperstein Memorial Museum Stanford University

center for jewish history | www.cjh.org | 15 west 16th street, new york, ny 10011

FALL 2010 17 Iraqi Arab-Jewish Identities: First Body Singular Orit Bashkin

n the years 1921–51, the Iraqi-Jewish literature they read, and the social circles in party’s critique of Pan-Arabism), and cast their community thrived. This religious which they moved were increasingly Iraqi and communism as a choice of Iraqi patriotism. Igroup, numbering around 120,000 and Arab. Other Jews, especially the lower-middle Furthermore, in such circles the evocation residing in urban centers for the most part, classes and the urban poor, were less exposed of religious difference was considered an figured prominently in Iraq’s culture and to Western education, and remained more act of sectarianism, to which secular Iraqi economy. Desiring to cement their status as religious. How, then, are we to conceptual- intellectuals (nationalists and communists full-fledged Iraqi citizens, the community’s ize their Jewish-Arab identity in a way that alike) were vehemently opposed. However, leading thinkers evoked the concept of “the takes into account the various meanings of the persecution of Jews within Iraq, and espe- Arab-Jew” in various locations and contexts. being both Jewish and Arab? Moreover, how cially the support for Nazi Germany voiced Whether by the communists of the League for are we to determine when one begins to be, by certain Pan-Arab nationalists, pushed Combating Zionism or the Jewish nationalists or becomes, an Arab-Jew in Iraq: Does it begin Iraqi Jews towards communism. Often, join- claiming to identify with their Palestinian (as when one is born? When one begins schooling the ICP marked an Iraqi, as opposed to opposed to their Jewish) brethren, the term ing? When one begins writing in Arabic? an Arab, choice. Being an Iraqi communist was frequently used to negotiate the meanings Should we talk of a process of Arabization? meant seeing the Kurds and the Turkmans, of Jewish national identity in Iraq. The Iraqi For Ballas, being an Arab Jew was an expe- the Shi‘is, the Sunnis, and the Christians as educational system, which expanded tremen- rience that was mediated first and foremost comrades in a shared struggle. Thus, although dously during this period and emphasized by Iraq’s Arabic print culture. His reading of historians speak of Arab-Jewish identity, Arab culture and Arab history as part of its the works of Egyptian intellectuals, especially at times people who do not identify them- curriculum, had fostered the notion that Iraqi Taha Husayn and Samala Musa, the hours selves today as Arab-Jews were very much Jews were part of an Arab-Iraqi nation. In this he spent reading various Arabic novels and a part of Arab culture, while Iraqi-Jewish short essay, I raise a few questions relating cultural magazines, and his writing of articles communists, although loyal to the party’s to the different significations of the concept for an Egyptian newspaper all helped shape internationalist, antireligious ideals, joined “the Arab-Jew” in Iraq. To do so, I quote briefly Ballas’s worldview as an Arab intellectual. At its ranks because of their Jewish identity. from Shimon Ballas’s fascinating autobi- the same time, this Arab and Iraqi identity was Ballas’s joining of the ICP was motivated ography Be-Guf Rishon [First Body Singular] also framed in a Western context: in addition by the ICP’s nonsectarian vision. He recalls (Tel Aviv, 2009). Ballas (b. 1930) joined the to his French education (as a bilingual product how his bourgeois family objected to his Iraqi Communist Party (ICP) at the age of of the Alliance school), many of the writers becoming a member of the party of “these 16. In 1951, with the growing persecution whom Ballas favored belonged to an Arab elite barefooted people,” and how he himself came of both communists and Jews in Iraq, Ballas that firmly believed in the power of science, to feel solidarity with, and value the opinions immigrated to Israel, where he has explored reason, and critical inquiry. This Arab cultural of, Iraqis of various classes through his party the Arab-Jewish experience in both Iraq and imprint, moreover, remained with Ballas activities. Ballas describes his participation Israel in works of fiction and nonfiction. even after he no longer resided in Baghdad. in a wave of urban riots in Baghdad in 1948: To unpack the problematics of Arab- After having lived in Israel for some time and Jewish identity in Iraq, we need to turn to the having not read or written in Arabic for almost These were the days . . . when I marched terms “Arab” and “Jew.” The Arabic language two years, Ballas happened to look at a book arm in arm with demonstrators whom is typified by dyglosia, namely, by a separation by Taha Husayn just before falling asleep: I have not known before, and when I between a classical written language on the loudly called to topple the government one hand, and a variety of colloquial dialects After I turned off the light, I was flooded of national betrayal, to release political (Iraqi, Egyptian, Algerian, and so on) on the by a wave of Arabic words, phrases, and prisoners, and to have free elections…. other. In Iraq, a number of Arabic dialects were poetic verses, like a sudden break of a dam, They [the communists] courageously spoken, including a Baghdadi-Jewish one. which kept sleep away from me until the fought publications that incited against the Given these linguistic realities, an Arab-Jew light of morning. It was Arabic’s revenge Jews in the rightwing press. . . . In demonstra- could signify a Jew who was able to read and on me, I used to tell myself, a punishment tions along al-Rashid Street the demonstrators write in Arabic; an educated Jew who was able I rightly deserved for turning my back on called: “We are the brothers of the Jews; we to understand the Qur’an and appreciate clas- the affectionate, beloved mother tongue. are the enemies of imperialism and Zion- sical and modern Arabic literature and con- ism!” I remember this rare sight, how as the tribute to Iraqi letters; or an illiterate Jew who The tensions between the different compo- demonstration approached the commercial only spoke a local Jewish-Arabic dialect. Being nents of Arab-Jewish identity do not end at and banking area, and, as this slogan was Jewish also meant various things to different this point. Zionist Iraqis expressed in their chanted by the demonstrators, merchants and people, as many Jews at the time became secu- Hebrew autobiographies their love of Arab bankers, all Jews, came out to the balconies larized. As they joined the ranks of the middle music, cinema, drama, and literature. For and clapped their hands enthusiastically. and upper classes, they continued to celebrate their part, Iraqi-Jewish intellectuals who Jewish holidays and visit synagogues on the joined the ICP felt that they were part of an Arab-Iraqi-Jewish identity thus grew out of high holidays—yet their leisure practices, the Iraqi nation and its Arab culture (despite the both national Iraqi and Jewish concerns. On

18 AJS Perspectives the one hand, Ballas critiqued what most in new editions thanks to the efforts of Iraqi by contemporary Arabs, but presently have young Iraqi radicals criticized at the time: Jews, the newspapers and journals in which only a Hebrew-speaking audience (or Eng- the state’s comprador, pro-British elite, and these works first appeared and in which they lish readers of the works in translation). its antidemocratic nature, typified by its were reviewed and critiqued were based out- The reconstruction of the Baghdadi, Arab, violations of human and welfare rights. His side of Israel, mostly in Iraq. This created the Iraqi, and Jewish experience, which informed marching in the anonymous crowd facili- paradoxical situation in which Iraqi works Arab-Jewish identities, can therefore be only tated the feeling that his concerns were also written by Jews were often inaccessible to partial. It can be, and is, carried out by histo- the concerns of the nation. On the other Iraqi and Arab researchers, while the ways rians, sociologists, and literary scholars who hand, the communist, pro-Jewish position in which these works were received and con- consider the connections between texts, their made him proud of his political affiliations, sumed could only be reconstructed by Iraqis meanings, and the conditions of their produc- and, moreover, elicited the enthusiastic and other Arab scholars. Tragically, with the tion. It is also carried out by second-generation responses to the ICP on the part of Jewish ongoing destruction of the Iraqi archives Mizrahi Jews, and other Israelis sympathetic merchants and bankers, who would not and national libraries since 2004, many of to the Arab-Jewish agenda. Most importantly, normally support a communist agenda. these collections have been lost. Another Ballas reminds us that within Israel, people Another question related to Arab-Jewish outcome is that very sympathetic depictions still carry the memories of their Arab pasts. identity is: When does one cease to be an of Arab-Jewish life, expressed in the works Arab-Iraqi Jew? Some Jewish-Iraqi intellectuals of Iraqi Jews such as Ballas, are unavailable Orit Bashkin is assistant professor of modern argue that the 1941 anti-Jewish riots, known to Arab audiences. Many of Ballas’s texts, Middle Eastern history at the University as the Farhud—in which nearly two hundred especially his historical novels about Arab- of Chicago. She is the author of The Other Jews were killed in the aftermath of a pro- Jewish intellectuals and activists and his Iraq: Pluralism and Culture in Hashemite German coup—changed their national visions evocation of Arabic literary texts within his Iraq (Stanford University Press, 2009). and caused them to turn their backs on their Hebrew novels would be much appreciated Arab-Iraqi identity. Others argue that when they immigrated to Israel, they ceased to be Arab-Jews. In the years 1948–67, the realities of the Arab-Israeli conflict rendered Jewish-Arab identity an oxymoron, and hence many Iraqi Jews adopted a Hebrew culture after discard- ing their Arab cultural heritage. Nonetheless, not all intellectuals went this route: Iraqi- Jewish communists, who joined the Israeli Communist Party, labored to maintain their

Arab-Jewish identity. They formed cultural Committed to an interdisciplinary, comparative, bonds with Palestinian writers, published in Arabic, and organized a literary club dedicated and theoretical approach to Jewish Studies to Arab-Jewish coexistence. In their novels and • 35 Faculty Members • short stories, they commemorated Arab-Jew- ish identity in both Iraq and Israel. The works • Over 60 Courses • of Shimon Ballas, and his activities within the • Ph.D. Certificates in Jewish Culture and Society & Holocaust, party, are prime examples of the continuation Genocide, and Memory Studies • of the Arab-Jewish project. Writing about his time in the Israeli Communist Party, Ballas, • Jewish Studies Major through Department of Religion • although highly critical of the party’s leadership, recalls fondly his first encounter with the • Jewish Studies Minor •

Palestinian novelist Emile Habibi; his contri- • Visiting Israeli Writers Program • butions to the party’s literary journal, al-Jadid; his meetings with Iraqi-Jewish communists • Initiative in Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies • whom he had not known in Iraq; and cultural • Jewish Studies Workshop • activities in Arabic organized by Iraqi Jews in Israel in collaboration with other Palestinians. Jewish intellectuals in Iraq produced a number of literary works in Arabic, and Ba‘thi historiography has acknowledged the seminal www.jewishculture.illinois.edu role played by Jews in the formation of Iraqi literature and culture. While many of the texts by Iraqi Jews owe their survival to Israeli archives (most notably the archive in the Museum for the History of Babylonian Jewry in Or-Yehuda) and have been anthologized

FALL 2010 19 New from Princeton

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20 AJS Perspectives Yiddish.Books.7.5x10.bw_Yiddish.Books.7.5x10.bw 2/22/10 6:49 PM Page 1

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* This project is subsidized by a generous grant from the Rohr family of Miami.

FALL 2010 21

Yale University Program in Judaic Studies Jacob and Hilda Blaustein Postdoctoral Fellow 2011-2013

The Program in Judaic Studies at Yale University is offering a two-year Jacob & Hilda Blaustein postdoctoral fellowship that will begin on July 1, 2011. Candidates for the fellowship must have a Ph.D. in hand by July 1, 2011 and must have received the degree no earlier than 2008. The Program seeks a specialist in Modern Jewish History/Judaism who will work closely with appropriate members of Yale’s faculty.

The Judaic Studies Blaustein Fellow will be expected to be in residence, to conduct research in Yale’s library and archival collections, to participate actively in the intellectual life of the university, and to teach three semester courses over two years. The annual stipend will be $52,000 plus health benefits. Candidates should send a cover letter, CV, project proposal, three letters of recommendation, and a list of proposed courses to:

JACOB AND HILDA BLAUSTEIN POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWSHIP JUDAIC STUDIES P.O. BOX 208282 NEW HAVEN, CT 06520-8282 EMAIL: [email protected]

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Yale University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer

22 AJS Perspectives Advancing Knowledge of Modern Israel

Schusterman Center for Israel Studies at Brandeis University Summer Institute for Israel Studies 2011 At Brandeis: June 21 - July 4, 2011 • In Israel: July 6 - July 14, 2011 Interested in designing a new course in Israel Studies? Want to include a segment on Israel in an existing course? If you are a faculty member in the humanities or social sciences, we invite you to apply to the Summer Institute for Israel Studies. Fellowships include: • seminars taught by world-class faculty from Israel and the United States • membership in a vibrant academic community of more than 140 past Summer Institute Fellows • travel, meals and accommodations at Brandeis and in Israel • $2500 stipend for full course; $1500 for Brandeis seminar only • access to vast Israel Studies online resource center and Brandeis University’s online library resources. Applications due January 21, 2011. Notifications by mid-March 2011.

Schusterman Graduate Fellowships

Do your undergraduates want to pursue a PhD in Israel Studies? Schusterman Center for Israel Studies sponsors full and partial fellowships for doctoral candidates focusing on Israel Studies. Awarded on a competitive basis to candidates in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Brandeis University.

Schusterman Center For details on the Summer Institute and graduate fellowships, for Israel Studies visit www.brandeis.edu/israelcenter, email [email protected], Brandeis Universty or call 781-736-2166.

FALL 2010 23 A Republic of Letters without a Republic? Lital Levy

Rashid Street, Baghdad, Iraq,1932. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-DIG-matpc-13252.

he Jewish connection to Baghdad is of Iraqi citizenship required for exit). Iraq’s synagogue where, as their ancestors did remarkable in its duration and inten- few thousand remaining Jews would gradually from time immemorial, they keep pray- Tsity. Ever since the city’s founding follow, most fleeing the country after the ing for “the welfare of the city,” as Jews in in the eighth century, Jews have resided in Ba‘th-sponsored repression of 1969–71, leaving the Babylonian diaspora were bidden to Baghdad continually. At certain points in the only some twenty or thirty Jews in the capital do by the Prophet Jeremiah some three early- to mid-twentieth century, Jews formed to witness the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime millennia ago. For those who, like myself, the largest single ethnic sector within the in 2003. Whereas in 1950 there were some were born, grew up, and lived in Baghdad city’s multiethnic population. As the major sixty synagogues in the city, by 1960 that in the years preceding the mass exodus of center of Middle Eastern Jewish cultural number had been reduced to seven; the last Jews from Iraq in 1950–1951, this state of modernity in the twentieth century, Baghdad functioning synagogue, in Betawwiyin (once a affairs is extremely hard to imagine. enjoyed a wealth of Jewish schools, clubs, largely Jewish neighborhood), has been closed cultural institutions, and a local Jewish press. since the 2003 war due to security The last two decades, however, have seen an This rich history came to an abrupt end in considerations. unprecedented “return” of Jews to Baghdad in the years immediately following 1948, when Nissim Rejwan begins his memoir the form of novels, poems, documentary films, the Arab defeat and loss of Palestine led to The Last Jews in Baghdad (2004) with the fol- and memoirs. For these voyages of memory, an anti-Jewish backlash, orchestrated in part lowing lines: Baghdadi-Jewish authors have utilized Arabic, through the government and media. Hebrew, French, and English, often reflecting From 1950–1951, some 120,000 Jews— It has often been said that New York is the French and English influences many of the approximately 90 percent of the total Iraqi- a Jewish city. I think one can safely say writers imbibed as students in Baghdad’s elite Jewish community (of whom the majority the same about Baghdad of the first half Jewish schools. were Baghdadis) —left for Israel and the West of the twentieth century. At the time The memoir has proved an especially in what Israel called Operation Ezra and Nehe- of writing, barely twenty Jews, most of popular route of return. Memoirs of life in miah and what the emigrants called the tasqit them elderly, live in my hometown. The Baghdad have been written by Naim Kattan (shorthand for tasqit al-jinsiyya, the forfeiture one monument these Jews have left is a (French, 1975; English, 1980; reprinted 2005);

24 AJS Perspectives Anwar Shaul (Arabic, 1980); Yizhak Bar Moshe defined the life of the city. Yet a subterranean which was out of print for decades and then (Arabic, 1988); Esther Mercado (English, 1994; current also runs through these Baghdadi-Jew- reissued in 2005 with a new introduction. The Hebrew, 1995); David ‘Ivri (Hebrew, 2002); ish writings: that of an intense ambivalence publication of memoirs can also be attributed Sabiha Abdavid (English, 2003); Salim Fattal on the part of the narrators (of memoirs and in part to the current high demand for this (Hebrew, 2003); Nissim Rejwan (English, novels alike) toward the home from which genre. As for the books published in Israel, 2004), Sasson Somekh (Hebrew, 2004; English, they were essentially exiled. Jewish writings the post-1993 sociocultural shifts in Israel cre- 2007); Badri Fattal (Hebrew, 2005); Esperance on Baghdad express a profound sense of identi- ated space for a new kind of discourse on the Cohen (Hebrew, 2008); Violette Shamash (Eng- fication interlaced with alienation—a kind of Arab-Jewish past, one markedly less indebted lish, 2008); and most recently, Shimon Ballas psychic split that culminates in the experience to the Zionist metanarrative and more open (Hebrew, 2009). It is striking that this list of of witnessing the disintegration of Jewish life to other histories and forms of affiliation. memoirs (which is not exhaustive) contains in the city in 1950–51 as the Jewish commu- The two Gulf Wars marked turning a relatively high proportion of writings by nity departed en masse for Israel and the West. points in Iraq’s history, and the latter defini- women. Aside from the memoirs, related In the aftermath of the 2003 war and tively marked the “end of an era.” The 2003 books in English include a 2009 collection of intense sectarian violence of 2006–07, and U.S. invasion also seems to have catalyzed interviews with Iraqi Jews, edited by Morad, continuing through the contested 2010 elec- the Jewish textual “return” to the Iraq of Shasha, and Shasha; Ariel Sabar’s 2008 award- tions, Iraqi society appears to be disintegrat- yore, for several reasons. The overthrow of winning memoir of his father’s life in Kurdish ing, breaking up into homogenous sectarian Saddam Hussein and the Ba‘th party inspired Iraq; a 2006 cross-genre fiction and memoir by enclaves. In retrospect, the departure of the short-lived but fervent hopes of return visits Marina Benjamin; and a 2000 autobiographi- Jews from Iraq seems eerily prescient of the by Iraqi Jews after a half century of exile— cal novel by Mona Yahya, an Anglophone end of a multiethnic, cosmopolitan Iraq. hopes that were quickly dashed by the rise Iraqi-Jewish writer in Germany (also the only All the while, Jewish writings on pre-1950s of the insurgency. For Iraqi Jews, the war’s work focusing on Jewish life in Baghdad in the Baghdad continue to appear. Few of them bloody aftermath marked the final impos- post-tasqit period). These books are comple- mention present-day Iraq. But whether or not sibility of return. The remaining Jews who mented by documentary films on the Iraqi- they acknowledge it, these works are intrinsi- came of age in Baghdad and remember it Jewish past, the best known of which, Forget cally connected to present-day Iraq. To begin, in detail will most likely pass away before Baghdad (2002), was directed not by an Iraqi their publication was facilitated largely by it is possible for Israelis (or safe for other Jew, but by an Iraqi-born Swiss director of Shi‘i the post-1991 (and especially post-2003) surge Jews) to visit Iraq. This realization imparts a ancestry. Documentary films on the Iraqi- of interest in Iraqi history and society, which sense of double urgency to the act of memoir Jewish experience have been made also by the created a writer’s market, especially for history writing: first, because it is only in texts that Israel-born director Duki Dror and the Iraqi- and memoir. One telling illustration is the they can “return” and second, because this born Canadian director Joe Balass, both of reprinting of Naim Qattan’s Farewell, Babylon, return must take place before it is too late. Rashid Street, Baghdad, Iraq,1932. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-DIG-matpc-13252. Baghdadi-Jewish background. Given that the authors of the memoirs all left Baghdad as adolescents or young adults, their experience of the city is directly tied to their coming of age. Collectively, these narratives of childhood and adolescence create a lingua franca of shared experiences and places: sleeping on the roof on hot summer nights (Sami Mikhael dubs Baghdad “the city of roof- tops”); Suq el-Hannuni, the noisy and bustling Jewish market; Rashid Street (then elegant, now decrepit), with its sidewalk colonnade of white columns; Egyptian musicals playing to adoring crowds in new cinemas; swimming in the Tigris (several male writers mention swimming from shore to shore as a Baghdadi rite of passage); picnics enjoyed on the river islands that emerged in the hot summer months. For budding writers such as Somekh, Rejwan, and Ballas, the experience of the city is also a discovery of its intellectual life, and so the excitement of the Baghdadi literary arena of the 1930s and 1940s colors their narratives. Above all, these works depict both the life cycle and the human subordination to nature epitomized by the then-mighty Tigris, whose central presence and whose seasonal rhythms Rashid Street, Baghdad, Iraq, 2008. Photo by Wikimedia Commons user Zzztriple2000.

FALL 2010 25 It should be noted that the view of Iraq’s Hebrew-language writer, drew extensively were transported to a Texas facility for freez- past celebrated in these memoirs happens to upon the pre-1950 Iraqi-Jewish past in his ing. From there, they were shipped to the dovetail with the neoliberal vision for Iraq’s earlier novels; but his 2008 novel Aida, set in National Archives and Records Administra- future advocated by the architects of the 2003 Ba‘athist Iraq, focuses on a Jewish television tion in College Park, Maryland, where they war. Regardless of one’s position on the war writer in 1990s Baghdad. As Sasson Somekh were photographed and lightly cleaned. and its aftermath, however, the fact of the notes, both Bader’s and Michael’s characters The archive was supposed to be returned matter is that in the halcyon days of Jewish are historical impossibilities. Yet the autho- to Iraq within a few years. However, exten- life in Baghdad, the city was a thoroughly rial creation of fictional Jews living in con- sive preservation work is still required, the multiethnic and pluralistic space, and that it temporary Iraq indicates a desire to envision archive has not been digitized, and the nec- is becoming increasingly less so. The mem- Jews as part of the Iraqi present and future. essary funds are lacking. In the meantime, oirs’ obvious nostalgia for a cosmopolitan, As for memoirs, they are written as records of the heads of the Babylonian Jewry Heritage multiethnic Baghdad is perhaps implicitly, if the past intended for future generations. To Center in Israel have claimed the archive not explicitly, contrasted by a recognition of be sure, the Iraqi-Jewish memoirs, rich and for their museum, arguing that its contents Iraq’s current harsh and tragic realities. Yet the nuanced as they are, offer a valuable refuta- were stolen from the Jewish community, authors seem to see their experiences as rel- tion of dominant narratives and simplistic whose members and descendants are now evant only to Iraq-of-the-past, without consid- claims concerning Jewish life in Arab coun- mostly in Israel, and who would be denied eration of what their memories might imply, if tries. But in twenty years, to whom will the access to the archive were it returned to Iraq. anything, for the country’s present and future. experiences of Iraqi Jews, bound up as they However, the documents were removed from The very condition of these texts’ enuncia- are with that more cosmopolitan period of Iraq under an agreement that stipulated their tion—that is, the surge in popular interest Iraqi history, be most relevant? I wager that future repatriation, and Iraqi officials have in Iraq, its history, and society—is also the the answer may not be the descendants of the made clear that they view the archive as an context with which they neglect to engage. In Iraqi-Jewish émigrés themselves, but rather a important part of Iraq’s cultural patrimony. this way, the Iraqi-Jewish experience becomes generation of Iraqis that, emerging from the In January 2010, Saad Eskander, the director curiously self-contained, as though it is the rubble of totalitarianism, dictatorship, war, of the Iraq National Library and Archives, cultural patrimony of the Iraqi-Jewish dias- and occupation, must take stock of and make told the Associated Press that the archives are pora, to the exclusion of other Iraqi peoples. sense of the history of modern Iraq and all needed to “show it to our people that Baghdad One might understandably protest: But is the communities who have been part of it. was always multiethnic,” and to help them it relevant? If most Iraqi Jews parted ways with The ambiguous relationship of the come to grips with their complex history. their homeland about sixty years ago, why Iraqi-Jewish past to the Iraqi national future Both the archive’s convoluted path from should one expect them to maintain any sort is best illustrated by the bizarre story of the Baghdad to Texas to Washington D.C. and of connection with a nation that has been hur- Iraqi Jewish Archive, which has received con- its contested final destination raise ques- tling along a vastly different cultural and polit- siderable publicity. In May 2003, U.S. troops tions of a political nature. First, why was ical trajectory, one that seems to be divorced seeking weapons of mass destruction waded such special attention given to these Jewish from the Jewish past? There might also be into the basement of the former secret police materials while important documents and the temptation to contrast this situation with (Mukhabarat) headquarters, which was flooded books belonging to the Iraq National Library other historic contexts marked by rupture; to with sewage water. They found not weapons, and Archives, which sustained catastrophic ask, for instance, what memoiristic writings of but a cache of books, photographs, and docu- and irreparable damage, were neglected? And German Jews about Weimar Berlin might have ments—many of them printed in Hebrew. second, to whom do these documents now to do with contemporary Germany. And fur- These included, inter alia, a 1568 prayer book, belong—if not legally, then morally? Beyond thermore, what about the flip side of this equa- a damaged Torah scroll, nineteenth- and early their most immediate political relevance, tion: Who in Iraq today remembers the Jews twentieth-century books on Jewish law and though, both questions also touch upon the and their presence in Baghdad? What kind of commentaries, and fifty copies of a Hebrew- relationship of the Iraqi-Jewish past to the interest do non–Jewish-Iraqi writers hold in Arabic children’s primer. The soldiers imme- Iraqi national present: a question that, to my the lost Iraqi-Jewish past? How, if at all, have diately realized they had stumbled across a knowledge, has not been addressed in a public Iraqis (both Jewish and non-Jewish) imagined treasure whose survival now hung in a very forum, but which deserves consideration and Jews in the Iraqi present or recent past? soggy balance. Inquiries revealed that these debate. If and when Iraq achieves security, ‘Ali Bader, a young Iraqi writer (of Shi‘i were private materials pilfered over many political stability, and genuine independence background) now living in exile in Brussels, years from the Jewish community. from the U.S., questions of the past—and the has employed Jewish characters or made use None other than Ahmad Chalabi, along need to reckon with a new national narra- of the Iraqi-Jewish past in at least two of his with his friend Harold Krueger, a Jewish- tive—will undoubtedly occupy a prominent novels, Papa Sartre (Arabic, 2001; English American businessman, provided funds to place in its civil society, and Baghdad’s Jewish trans., 2009), a satire on Iraqi philosophers drain the basement. The materials were dried legacy will inevitably play a role therein. in the 1950s and 1960s, and Haris al-Tibgh in the sun, leading to mold, a preservationist’s (The Tobacco Keeper, 2008) which narrates nightmare. They were subsequently packed Lital Levy is assistant professor of comparative the life of a Jewish musician who was killed into twenty-seven trunks, then loaded into a literature at Princeton University. She is currently under mysterious circumstances in 2006. freezer truck to prevent further damage. Con- working on a book on the cultural politics of Another Iraqi expatriate, Khalid Kishtainy, servationists determined that the materials Hebrew and Arabic within contemporary litera- has also frequently invoked the Iraqi-Jewish needed to be freeze-dried prior to restoration; ture from Israel/Palestine. past. Sami Michael, the leading Iraqi-born, with the agreement of the Iraqis, the trunks

26 AJS Perspectives The Association for Jewish Studies is pleased to announce the RECIPIENTS OF THE 2010 JORDAN SCHNITZER BOOK AWARDS

In the Category of Early Modern and Modern Jewish History: MOSHE ROSMAN, Bar-Ilan University How Jewish Is Jewish History (The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization) & FRANCESCA TRIVELLATO, Yale University The Familiarity of Strangers: The Sephardic Diaspora, Livorno, and Cross-Cultural Trade in the Early Modern Period (Yale University Press)

In the Category of Social Science, Anthropology, and Folklore: SHAUL KELNER, Vanderbilt University Tours that Bind: Diaspora, Pilgrimage, and Israeli Birthright Tourism (NYU Press)

* * * Honorable mentions in Social Science Anthropology and Folklore: HARRIET HARTMAN, Rowan University, and MOSHE HARTMAN, Ben Gurion University of the Negev Gender and American Jews: Patterns in Work, Education & Family in Contemporary Life (Brandeis University Press)

AMY HOROWITZ, Ohio State University Mediterranean Israeli Music and the Politics of the Aesthetic (Wayne State University Press)

Information and application procedures for the 2011 competition will be available on the AJS website (www.ajsnet.org) in February of 2011.

Support for this program has been generously provided by the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation of Portland, Oregon.

FALL 2010 27 A Fruit That Asks Questions: Michael Rakowitz’s Shipment of Iraqi Dates Jenny Gheith

Khestawi dates from the Iraqi city of Al Hilla, formerly Babel, and sell them at a storefront on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, the heart of New York’s Arab community. Continuing a project that he initiated in 2004 entitled Return, Rakowitz reinstated Davisons & Co., his Iraqi-Jewish grandfather’s import-export business that existed first in Baghdad and later in New York City when his family fled Iraq in 1946. With funding from Creative Time, a nonprofit organization that commissions and produces public art projects, Return was sched- uled to open on October 1, 2006 and close two months later. Perfectly timed with the harvest that would begin at the end of September, Rakowitz submitted the official order on Sep- tember 7th through Sahadi’s Specialty and Fine Foods and the Baghdad-based Al Farez Co. Before the store opened, Rakowitz received his first order from a man in Detroit who read his advertisement in an Arab-American newspaper in Dearborn, Michigan—the home of the largest Iraqi population in the U.S. As a way of Michael Rakowitz, Return (Brooklyn), October–December, 2006. Davisons & Co. import/export company, keeping his customers and the general public 529 Atlantic Avenue Brooklyn, NY. Courtesy of the artist and Lombard-Freid Projects. updated, Rakowitz wrote a daily blog on his website and signed people up for a listserv. ichael Rakowitz (American, b. 1973) onto Lebanon where it is exported. This con- Knowing that the shipment would produce is an artist of Iraqi-Jewish descent voluted system surprised Rakowitz, because charges beyond the initial price, Rakowitz Mwhose work questions social and sanctions that were put in place in 1990 were would sell the dates at a cost that would reflect political systems through projects that have lifted in May of 2003; however, imports into the fees incurred through the process. included inflatable homeless shelters crafted the United States from Iraq are subjected to Dates were the centerpiece of Return and out of plastic bags and research into the ties “intensive search” and examined by the United were visible throughout the store—as Califor- between fictional fantasy and modern warfare, States Department of Agriculture and the Food nia varietals that originated in Iraqi seeds, for example Saddam Hussein’s regime and Star and Drug Administration prior to release. items on the shelves such as ma’amoul cook- Wars. While shopping at Sahadi’s, a Middle A longtime symbol of good things to ies, and in their own historical timeline Eastern grocery store in Brooklyn, Rakowitz come in the Muslim and Jewish faiths, dates researched by Rakowitz. But it was Iraqi dates purchased a can of date syrup, a product that have an extensive social and economic history that were at issue, a fact that was prominently would lead to a cultural artwork with global in Iraq. Besides being an important cultural announced by a sign in the window: “We Sell implications. In the artwork, this staple of signifier, in the 1970s dates were Iraq’s largest Iraqi Dates.” Hoping to create a space for Iraqi-Jewish traditions would elucidate Amer- export after oil. They are also tied directly to people to engage with larger issues that sur- ican and Iraqi trade restrictions, the current the fruit’s production in the United States: rounded his proposal, the artist explained, “if plight of Iraqis and U.S. soldiers abroad, and when the California industry began in the the dates were available and were relatively unite strangers behind a shipment of fruit. early 1900s, Iraqi seeds were planted. In Iraq, easy to import, there would be no reason to When the owner of the store Charlie however, dates have been a casualty of recent build a project around their purchase. Ulti- Sahadi, a friend of Rakowitz’s, mentioned, conflicts. Orchards were dramatically affected mately, the cultural invisibility in the U.S. of “Your mother’s going to love this. It’s from in the 1980s by the Iran-Iraq War, and in all things Iraqi outside the context of war Baghdad,” a piece of this previously unknown recent years the trees have suffered from a (i.e., there are no Iraqi restaurants in New trade network unfolded. Sahadi explained that fungus caused by depleted uranium from York City) served as a point of departure for while the label on the container read: “Product bombshells. this work.” of Lebanon,” the syrup is actually pressed in In order to explore this issue further, Soon after the store “opened for business,” Iraq, sent to Syria for packaging, and finally Rakowitz decided to import one ton of a small community formed in anticipation of

28 AJS Perspectives by a wide range of customers with varying motivations: among them was a Muslim attending Ramadan prayers at a local mosque, an American who wanted to send the dates to a friend stationed in Baghdad who had never eaten Iraqi food, a woman who was interested in importing honey from Kurdistan, and an Iraqi exile who had not eaten a date from his homeland in forty-six years. In the eleven weeks that Davisons & Co. was open in Brook- lyn there were many changes in Iraq: Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death, and Donald Rumsfield resigned as Secretary of Defense. The project had impacted Americans and Iraqis on both sides, providing a new understanding of cultural trade and relations. After the project commenced Rakowitz reflected, “Getting these Iraqi dates was so much about Michael Rakowitz, Return (Brooklyn), October–December, 2006. Davisons & Co. import/export company, authenticity. Creating a suture, or prosthetic, 529 Atlantic Avenue Brooklyn, NY. Courtesy of the artist and Lombard-Freid Projects. that could be created for those who can never go back, or for those who will never go but the first shipment of Iraqi dates. It was sched- through images that included the lion of Baby- have this irrevocable relationship to Iraq uled to arrive in mid-October, but it never lon and the Ishtar gate. To the best of Rakow- now, just as Americans.” Return proved that did. The dates were denied passage at the Jor- itz’s knowledge, these were the first Iraqi international communities can form and danian border after sitting for days alongside products clearly labeled as such that had been unite over something as seemingly small as a Iraqis fleeing the intensifying situation. The legally imported into the United States in piece of fruit. shipment was then driven to Syria and finally almost thirty years. spoiled after additional delays at the Damas- In the end Rakowitz received ten boxes of Jenny Gheith is curatorial assistant in the Depart- cus airport. A few weeks earlier, Rakowitz’s dates including four varietals: Azraq, Ashrase, ment of Contemporary Art and program director contact at Al Farez in Baghdad had himself fled Ibraheme, and Kheyara. The final cost to his for the Society for Contemporary Art at The Art to Amman, Jordan with his family. This was customers was $8 a quarter pound. Reporters Institute of Chicago. She has published essays on an important realization for the artist as his from The New York Times, CBS, and NPR’s artists Ellsworth Kelly, William Kentridge, and contact was now an exile trying to transport Weekend America covered Return; CBS Evening Fischli & Weiss in Museum Studies and film dates overseas to other members of the Iraqi News and Comedy Central’s Colbert Report reviews for Electronicintifada.net. diaspora. Rakowitz explained, “The dates sud- expressed interest. The dates were purchased denly became a surrogate, traveling the same path as Iraqi refugees. . . . So, suddenly, a business that was meant to illuminate something very specific on the U.S. side of the transaction was illustrating a story that most people in the States were not hearing, and the store became a place where that crisis and its affiliated narrative were being disseminated—hardly the exchange a customer would expect.” A second plan for a shipment of dates finally was successful. It involved the airlift of a handful of boxes out of Baghdad and their shipment via DHL first to an airport in Egypt and then on to New York. This time, the dates remained unscathed; but the route was once again circuitous, including a delay of twenty- one days due to U.S. Customs, Homeland Secu- rity, USFDA, and USDA. Quarantined and designated for intensive search, the shipment was picked up by Rakowitz on December 5. With reporters waiting, Rakowitz brought the dates to his store in boxes designed by Al Farez Michael Rakowitz, Return (Brooklyn), October–December, 2006. Davisons & Co. import/export company, Co. that declared their identity and history 529 Atlantic Avenue Brooklyn, NY. Courtesy of the artist and Lombard-Freid Projects.

FALL 2010 29 JAPS: Jewish American Persian Women and Their Hybrid Identity in America Saba Tova Soomekh

large house in Beverly Hills has turned assimilation is inevitable and cultures will Iranian-Jewish women who are raised by into a nightclub, celebrating a gradu- eventually be absorbed into mainstream white immigrant parents and a community that Aation, an anniversary, a birthday, or society, with ethnic identities eventually does not encourage social independence no specific event at all. There is a large bar fading into a “twilight of ethnicity.” The other and sexual experimentation. Iranian-Jewish serving alcoholic drinks. There is a sushi chef mode believes that regardless of the level of women are raised to be najeeb. The Persian at one corner making all the popular rolls acculturation or socioeconomic attainment, word najeeb is translated as pure, sweet, and sashimi while on the other side beef and ethnic groups will resist blending into the and virginal. This word is used specifically chicken kabobs are being grilled and served majority and instead experience persistently for women when discussing virginity, or with numerous rice dishes. The DJ is spinning high social distances in intergroup relations lack of sexual experience. A woman in the hip-hop and Persian, Arabic, and Latin music, and discrimination. Young Iranian-Jewish Iranian-Jewish community is supposed to be while young Iranians are dancing and flirting women have not completely assimilated into a virgin when she gets married. In addition, on the dance floor. The majority of guests in American society nor have they socially dis- she is not supposed to have boyfriends and attendance are Iranian Jews, with a couple tanced themselves from it; instead, they have is only allowed to date with the intent of of token “white” people. All the guests have formed a hybrid identity that has allowed marriage. This word also connotes virginal grown up with each other in the same com- them to pick and choose aspects of American qualities—those of a woman who is docile, munity, and if they have not, then they know society while still maintaining their Iranian- domestic, sweet, and unknowing of the each other from the numerous parties similar Jewish identity. In many instances, they have world. The young women I interviewed all to this. The girls are all dressed in the latest reclaimed Iranian-Jewish cultural beliefs and said their parents raised them to be najeeb. fashions. They size each other up; they are added their own Western interpretations. Many of the young women said sexual- looking at each other’s clothes and accessories In this article, I will look at how Ameri- ity was never discussed in their homes, it and watching who is dancing seductively, can culture shapes young Iranian-Jewish was simply assumed that Iranian-Jewish who is drunk, and who is secretly dating. women as they negotiate their identity and girls must be najeeb. While many of my Married women come to these parties with construct their own cultural world. From interviewees’ mothers never openly dis- their husbands in order to dress up, have 2004 to 2006 I interviewed forty Iranian- cussed the values and beliefs about sexuality fun, and get away from the kids. For single Jewish women between the ages of 18 and with their daughters, all the young women women this is the place to flirt, dance, and 35. These women were born in either Iran or knew what was considered proper behavior socialize in hopes of finding a husband. America and were raised and currently live through comments their mothers had made. in Los Angeles. As a member of the Iranian- Most of my interviewees are not virgins, A large community of Iranian Jews has Jewish community in Los Angeles, I asked even the ones whose mothers specifically been living in Los Angeles for more than women I knew from the community and also discussed sexual matters with them. Many of twenty-five years and while the community depended on other women to introduce me my interviewees felt that maintaining their has maintained its insularity, the children to my interviewees. I would meet these ladies virginity was an outdated belief and, because of Iranian-Jewish immigrants were born or either in my home, their home, or at coffee many young women are getting married at have grown up in Los Angeles. Thus, unlike shops and cafés. The interviews would last a later age, that remaining a virgin was not their parents, a majority of the children only anywhere from one to two hours, in which only unnecessary but nearly impossible. know life in America. Most only know Iran time I would casually ask them a series of The main reason why mothers told through the romanticized stories of their questions. These women are in the process their daughters they must be najeeb is fear of parents and elder family members. They of a cultural syncretism and mixing that pro- their daughters getting a bad reputation in do not live in the same physical space or duces a hybrid identity which allows them the Iranian-Jewish community. Rebecca, a the same sociocultural landscape of their to live in plural worlds revolving around 19-year-old student, said that her mother dis- parents’ youth, and few of them are able to their Iranian-Jewish culture, their American cussed the proper way for her to act. “She told read and write Persian. Yet, Iranian-Jewish landscape, and their gender. Whether or not me that I have to be modest because people culture is a major aspect of their lives. Given they realize it, they are appropriating a more are watching you in the Persian community these sometimes competing cultural forces, egalitarian lifestyle while still respecting and and other people’s opinions matter a lot. It first-generation Iranian Jews have learned paying homage to their parents and culture. matters what they think; you are always in the how to balance multiple identities—those public eye.” In an insular community where of an American, a Jew, and an Iranian. Najeeb everyone knows the details of one another’s The common academic perception of female business and personal lives, it becomes impor- Ethnic Incorporation sexuality in America seems to emphasize tant for parents to make sure their daughters Ethnic incorporation into American social personal and social independence, sexual act appropriately and follow the rules and life has been historically defined by two experimentation, and sexual maturity. How- standards of the community. Parents want to modes of thinking. One mode believes that ever, this is not the case for first-generation ensure that their daughters do not get a bad

34 AJS Perspectives reputation, because it can ruin their chances Generational Conflicts family, like most Middle Eastern families, of marriage and tarnish the family name. There is a clear disagreement between the is extremely tight knit and parents have two generations about the significance of the ultimate control over the lives of their chil- Iranian-Jewish Values community, one’s reputation, and the influ- dren, especially their daughters. This is a The concept of an unmarried woman being ence of parents. Iranian-Jewish mothers were community where one does not move out of najeeb is so important for Iranian Jews that heavily dependent on their reputation and their parents’ home until married and whom traits that are valued in American culture family name in order to marry a husband a woman marries is heavily dependent on such as independence are seen as a threat to from a reputable family. Their parents had her parents’ approval. However, these par- her najeebness. Typically, American parents more of a say in their children’s lives than the ents are raising their children in America, a teach their children to be self-reliant, and the younger generation. Thus, if a man’s mother country that encourages independence. This children grow up and move out, establish- did not approve of a potential wife, he most has caused strife within the family unit. ing households of their own. In contrast, the likely did not marry her. Many first-generation Many first-generation women challenge traditional Iranian-Jewish family is charac- girls refused to allow others to dictate their the amount of influence their parents have terized by role prescriptions, family obliga- lives; they believed that if a man is so heav- on their lives. As one of my interviewees, tions, hierarchal relations, intense emotional ily influenced by his mother and “does not a 22-year-old college student, explained: “I expressiveness, and collectivist values. These have a mind of his own or a backbone to fight just want to tell my mother to butt out of my values contrast sharply with the emphasis on back,” then he is not worth being with. life and to live her own life and not fixate on individualism, self-sufficiency, egalitarian- The larger issue is how much influ- mine so much.” Within the Iranian culture ism, and self-development in mainstream ence first-generation Iranian-Jewish women it is strictly taboo and considered extremely American culture. Immigrant children tend want their parents, specifically their moth- disrespectful for children to tell parents to to quickly adopt American values and stan- ers, to have in their lives. This is one of the mind their own business and to not inter- dards, which can create great schisms and most difficult and sensitive issues within the fere in their lives. In an insular community challenges to parental control and authority. community. The traditional Iranian-Jewish where everyone’s life is everyone’s business, One trait many of the interviewees appropriated from American culture is the desire for more independence. However, the prevailing belief in the Iranian-Jewish community holds that if a woman shows any sign DEPARTMENT OF HEBREW of independence from her family, such as wanting to move away to college or live on & SEMITIC STUDIES her own before marriage, it is assumed that she is not najeeb, and she is immediately stigmatized. . Undergraduate and graduate programs in Hebrew language While the idea of a young woman living and literature on her own is new for many immigrant . Ancient, biblical, rabbinic, medieval, and modern periods communities, in America after World War II, it become increasingly common for . Advanced Modern Hebrew literature classes taught in Hebrew adult children to move out of their parents’ home before marriage. The trend contin- . M.A. in Hebrew Literature covering all periods of Hebrew ued throughout the 1960s and 1970s. By . M.A. and Ph.D. in Hebrew Bible the 1980s, this new life course pattern had become normative for young adults. This . Opportunities for study abroad at The Hebrew University new pattern changed the relationships and The University of Haifa between parents and children, since pre- marital residential independence reduces . Affiliated with the Mosse-Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies parental influence over the daily lives of their children. Whether it is the fear of waning influence on their daughter’s life, 1346 Van Hise Hall, 1220 Linden Drive, Madison, Wisconsin 53706-1558 Phone: (608) 262-3204 • Fax: (608) 262-9417 a fear of community gossip about their Email: [email protected] • Web Site: hebrew.wisc.edu daughter’s najeebness, or a fear that the community will assume there is something wrong with the family that has caused their daughter to move away from them, parents do not encourage or allow their daughters to live on their own before marriage. This has made many of my interviewees feel that the rules placed on them are too con- fining, only further fueling their desire to move away and live on their own.

FALL 2010 35 it is assumed that the opinion, rules, and it. Neda, a 34-year-old realtor, explained what should also describe a man’s character. One regulations of one’s parents should not only it means to be najeeb. She believes this word interviewee said that “both men and women be appropriated, but also appreciated. “does not have to connote a woman who is a should be humble and respectful to them- The mothers of these young women told virgin and timid, but instead, a woman who selves, their bodies, and to each other. It me that one of the hardest aspects of raising is najeeb has self-respect. It doesn’t necessarily shouldn’t just be the woman who is humble, children in America is the lack of respect and mean that she denies herself life experiences selfless, and respectful of her body, but he reverence for parents; they fear their children and doesn’t date or have intimate relation- should be too. I think there should be more have been influenced by that mentality. Their ships with men, but instead, it means that equality between men and women in our own parents had complete control over their she respects herself as a woman; she knows community and a guy should be najeeb along lives, and they never disrespected, refuted, or where to draw the line and how to demand with his wife.” There is no Persian transla- questioned any of their rules and opinions. As that men respect her. In our mothers’ generation for the word feminist, but what these parents themselves, they now feel they have tion, an unmarried woman was either najeeb young women are doing is reinterpreting the less control and influence over their own chil- or a slut. They didn’t understand that you concept of najeeb in order to fit into a more dren, who have been influenced by American could be intimate with someone and still modern and American concept of woman- culture, and they find this new relationship maintain your self-respect. That is what a hood, while maintaining the Iranian-Jewish to be not only threatening but also sad. najeeb woman is to me. It is a new definition standard of self-respect and moral integrity. that fits into the culture that we are living Reclaiming the Meaning in. I want to take all the negative associa- Saba Tova Soomekh is visiting professor in the of Najeeb tion out of this word and use it to empower department of theological studies at Loyola Mary- While most of my interviewees have an issue women as opposed to demoting them.” mount University. She is the author of Between with the traditional meaning of behind the Some of the more religiously observant Religion and Culture: Three Generations word najeeb, there is a group of women who interviewees define najeeb within a religious of Iranian Jewish Women from the Shahs has reclaimed this word and assigned a new context and believe it should not only be to Los Angeles (SUNY Press, forthcoming). and more culturally appropriate meaning to used for women, but the new definition

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36 AJS Perspectives AJS 42nd Annual Conference December 19-21 • Westin Copley Place • Boston, MA

Academic Studies Press 92nd Street Y Accordance Bible Academic Studies Press Adam Matthew Digital Adam Matthew Digital Association Book Exhibit American Academy for Jewish Research Brandeis University Press/University Press of American Jewish Historical Society New England Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Goldstein- Brill Goren Library of Jewish Thought EXHIBITORS

Cambridge University Press ADVERTISERS Berghahn Books The Center for Cultural Judaism Brandeis University Press/University Press of Center for Jewish History New England The David Brown Book Company Brown University Program in Judaic Studies De Gruyter Cambridge University Press The Edwin Mellen Press The Center for Cultural Judaism Eric Chaim Kline, Bookseller Center for Jewish History Foundation for Jewish Culture Hadassah-Brandeis Institute Hadassah-Brandeis Institute Indiana University Press Holmes & Meier Publishers Inc Indiana University Press Journals Ideal Book Store Israel University Consortium Indiana University Press Jerusalem Books Ltd Jerusalem Books Ltd Jewish Book Council Jewish Ideas Daily Jewish Review of Books Jewish Lights Publishing Knopf Doubleday The Jewish Publication Society Leo Baeck Institute Jewish Review of Books The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization Jewish Theological Seminary Mohr Siebeck KTAV Publishing NYU Press The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization The Ohio State University, Melton Center for Merkos Publications Jewish Studies Middlebury College Language Schools Otzar Hahochma and Schools Abroad Oxford University Press Mohr Siebeck Sh’ma: A Journal of Jewish Responsibility National Yiddish Book Center Stanford University Press NYU Press Temple University, Myer and Rosaline Feinstein Purdue University Press Center for American Jewish History Schoen Books United States Holocaust Memorial Museum The Scholar‘s Choice The University of Chicago, The Chicago Center for Shoah Foundation Institute Jewish Studies Syracuse University Press University of Connecticut, Center for Judaic Studies Tablet Magazine/Nextbook Press and Contemporary Jewish Life University of Pennsylvania Press University of Maryland, Meyerhoff Program & Wayne State University Press Center for Jewish Studies Yale University Press The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Carolina Center for Jewish Studies University of Pennsylvania Press University of Pennsylvania Press, Journals Division Vanderbilt University Program in Jewish Studies Wayne State University Press Yale University Press The Zalman Shazar Center

FALL 2010 37 Vallentine Mitchell Publishers

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38 AJS Perspectives

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The Leo Baeck Institute is offering a Career Development Award as a personal grant to a scholar or professional in an early career stage, e.g. before gaining tenure in an academic institution or its equivalent, whose proposed work would deal with topics within the Leo Baeck Institute’s mission, namely historical or cultural issues of the Jewish experience in German-speaking lands.

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The grant is intended to provide for the cost of obtaining scholarly material (e.g. publications), temporary help in research and production needs, membership in scholarly organizations, travel, computer, copying and communication charges and summer stipend for non-tenured academics.

Applications outlining the nature and scope of the proposed project including a budget should be submitted, in no more than two pages, by March 1, 2011 to Dr. Frank Mecklenburg, Leo Baeck Institute, 15 E. 16th St. New York 10011, NY. A curriculum vitae, names of three references, and supporting material (outline of proposed work, draft of chapters, previous publications) should be appended. e-mail submission to [email protected] is encouraged.

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FALL 2010 39

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40 AJS Perspectives FALL 2010 41 Engagement, Diplomacy, and Iran’s Nuclear Program Brandon Friedman

ran’s nuclear program is a grave advisor to the Supreme Leader, stated, “The Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons argued concern to Israel, but also to the Arab honorable President has said nothing new that a “confrontation versus cooperation” IMiddle East and the international com- about Israel that would justify all this politi- dichotomy mischaracterizes the nuclear pro- munity, including the United States, the cal commotion . . . We declare explicitly that liferation challenge as adversarial, when, “in European Union, Russia, and China. we will not be satisfied with anything less fact, nonproliferation policy is much more Iran’s Arab neighbors are concerned that than the complete obliteration of the Zionist like a large construction project than an a nuclear Iran will use its status as a nuclear regime from the political map of the world.” adversary contest.” He went on to claim that power to establish regional hegemony and It is argued that Ahmadinejad uses such it may “never follow the precise blueprints of continue to interfere in their domestic poli- foreign policy bombast instrumentally to (1) its architects, which will always need a degree tics. The international community fears that solidify domestic political support from his of improvisation and adjustment. But it is to a nuclear Iran would prompt a regional arms base of hard-line religious figures; (2) outma- be judged by whether it is in fact advancing race and lead to nuclear proliferation through- neuver domestic political opponents by pub- toward the kind of result laid out as its long- out the Gulf region. Even China, which has licly dictating the tone and direction of Iran’s term goal.” There has been little progress since pursued a more moderate line with respect foreign policy; (3) create a leadership role for March 2009 despite the international com- to Iran’s nuclear program, has acknowl- Iran in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, which munity’s repeated attempts to engage Iran and edged that nuclear proliferation in the Gulf provides Iran with regional prestige and geo- find a compromise to the diplomatic impasse. region poses a threat to its energy security. political leverage vis-à-vis negotiations with The most serious glimmer of prog- Israel’s security concerns regarding a the West; and (4) generate popularity for the ress emerged during talks that took place potential nuclear Iran are more immediate Islamic Republic among the populations of in Geneva and Vienna in October 2009. It and nuanced than is often articulated in the the Arab states whose leaders are supported by appeared that Iran had accepted a deal out- popular media. Iran currently provides cash, the West, therefore creating domestic pressure lined during meetings with representatives arms, military training, and other forms of on Arab leaders to act more aggressively on of the IAEA and the P5+1 (the five permanent critical support to Hezbollah in southern the Palestinian-Israeli issue. These arguments, members of the U.N. Security Council: U.S., Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, whom Israel despite their pragmatic rationale, fuel Israeli France, Great Britain, Russia, and China— has fought in serious military engagements concerns that Iran would use its nuclear lever- plus Germany) to ship most (approximately in 2006 (Lebanon) and late 2008 (Gaza). The age to further undermine Israeli security in 80 percent) or 2,600 pounds of its 3.5 percent threat of Iran transferring nuclear materi- pursuit of its own regional gains. low-enriched uranium to Russia, where it als or technology to Hezbollah, Hamas, or Perhaps the most apocalyptic scenario for would be enriched to approximately 20 per- other militant groups on Israel’s borders Israel was articulated in December 2001, when cent and shipped back to Iran in the form of is a serious security concern for Israel. former Iranian president Rafsanjani, while metal rods to be used to manufacture medi- Further, since 2005, Iran’s current leading a Friday prayer service in Tehran, cal isotopes. This process of enriching Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has used threatened Israel with nuclear destruction low-enriched uranium in Russia was to take inflammatory political rhetoric to repeatedly and said “if one day, the Islamic world is approximately one year during which the delegitimize and threaten Israel’s existence. also equipped with weapons like those that international community would have the It would seem that President Ahmadinejad Israel possesses now, then the imperialists’ time to work with Iran to craft a more perma- and the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, in strategy will reach a standstill because the nent arrangement to safeguard and monitor the spirit of Ayatollah Khomeini’s ideology, use of even one nuclear bomb inside Israel Iran’s nuclear fuel. It would also provide the believe that a just solution for the Palestin- will destroy everything. However, it will only international community with the peace ians is the elimination of the Jewish State of harm the Islamic world. It is not irrational to of mind that in the interim, Iran would not Israel. This is the view of many officials in contemplate such an eventuality.” Rafsanjani’s be secretly enriching its uranium for other the Islamic Republic who believe that Zion- ambiguous remarks alluded to the regime’s purposes. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin ism is part of Western imperialist designs perception that Israel is the West’s imperial Netanyahu was also reported to have backed against Islam, which are supported by an bridgehead in the region, which could be this deal, despite Israel’s opposition, in prin- unjust, American-led international system. eliminated by using a nuclear weapon against ciple, to Iran’s domestic uranium enrichment On October 26, 2005, in Tehran, Ahma- it. Iran’s undisclosed uranium enrichment activities. Iranian president Ahmadinejad also dinejad gave a speech at a student conference facility at Natanz was exposed in 2002, and indicated his support for this deal during a late in which he called for the elimination of since then, Iran’s steady march toward nuclear October speech he delivered in Mashad. He Israel for the first time (literally: “this Jerusa- capability has been thoroughly documented said, “We welcome exchange of fuel, technical lem occupying regime must vanish from the but not deterred by the United Nations cooperation and construction of power plants pages of time”). This language was not new (U.N.) and the International Atomic Energy and reactors. We are ready for cooperation.” in the history of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Agency’s (IAEA) diplomatic initiatives. However, in the two months following the Indeed, Hossein Shariatmadari, the editor In 1978, Joseph Nye who chaired the preliminary agreements outlined in Geneva of the Iranian daily newspaper Kayhan and U.S. National Security Council Group on and Vienna in October 2009, Iran reneged

42 AJS Perspectives on the deal and instead requested revised a strong attempt at engagement and induce- obtaining a nuclear capability. In Israel the and more explicitly favorable terms, calling ment, but since October 2009 and the collapse debate has typically been between sanctions into question its intentions and good faith. of the Vienna agreement it has shifted toward and a military operation. Most recently, there Diplomacy must achieve a result, or a program of narrowly targeted sanctions has been strong advocacy for harsh sanctions advance toward a clear, well-defined long-term directed at the regime and the Sepah-e Pas- that would cripple the Iranian economy. goal. If there is no time-delineated forward daran (Iran’s Revolutionary Guards), while Israel’s current preference for crippling progress then diplomacy is failing and this at the same time publicly declaring that it sanctions should be taken as a sign of Israeli too should not be ignored. Henry Kissinger, has not precluded a return to engagement. consensus that Iran’s nuclear program is an in his book A World Restored, described the In Israel, deterrence is considered a international challenge, and not Israel’s alone. circumstances that characterize a situation highly unattractive policy option. Israel In the academy, Israeli scholars have in which diplomacy may not be an effective believes that in addition to the uncertainty expressed a wide range of opinions on what to way to resolve a dispute: “In the absence of an regarding whether Iran can or can not be do about Iran and its nuclear program. In July agreement on what constitutes a reasonable deterred, is the equally troubling concern that 2008, Ben Gurion University’s Benny Morris, demand, diplomatic conferences are occupied Iran would transfer nuclear technology to writing in The New York Times declared that with sterile repetitions of basic positions radical groups on Israel’s borders that Israel “Israel will almost surely attack Iran’s nuclear and accusations of bad faith, or allegations of believes unequivocally cannot be deterred. sites in the next four to seven months,” and unreasonableness and subversion.” It may be Further, deterrence would not eliminate seemed to conclude that an Israeli military fair to say that the P5+1’s Geneva and Vienna legitimate concerns that Iran would use strike is inevitable and necessary. At the other negotiations with Iran in late 2009 fell apart its nuclear capability as a coercive weapon end of the spectrum, Hebrew University’s precisely due to the absence of an agreement against its regional neighbors, particularly Martin Van Creveld, writing in the The Forward on what constituted a reasonable demand. the moderate Arab states of the Persian Gulf. in September 2007, seemed to suggest that the Since the failed October 2009 deal, the In Israel, the public policy debate world can live with a nuclear Iran. The fact is international community has been unable to regarding Iran is somewhat narrower than that the majority of Israeli scholars fall some- engage or induce Iran in serious diplomacy in U.S. and Europe. The Netanyahu coalition where in between Morris and Van Creveld. and has instead focused on implementing has expressed its doubt that engagement Professor David Menashri, the direc- coercive measures such as sanctions to prod and inducement would prevent Iran from tor of the Center for Iranian Studies (CIS) at Iran into a compromise. Iran’s domestic political opposition, known as the Green Move- ment, has further complicated the West’s diplomatic calculus, generating a debate regarding the best way to sanction the Iranian regime without affecting the evolution of Iran’s domestic political opposition. Mean- while, there appear to be serious differences regarding the severity of sanctions Russia and China are prepared to go along with and the One of the largest and most diverse type of stiff financial and economic sanctions Jewish studies programs in the country that the U.S. and European Union believe are • necessary to change Iran’s behavior. Russia and 32 outstanding faculty members China appear skeptical that any level of sanc- • tions is likely to alter Iran’s nuclear progress. BA, MA, and PhD programs One of the virtues of the international community’s sustained attempt at engage- • ment and vigorous diplomacy during the Programs in history, philosophy, literature, past twelve months is that it seems to have Hebrew, Yiddish, and more debunked the idea that Iran is interested • in serious and sustained engagement with Over 100 courses offered the international community. In addition, • the failed attempts at engagement call into Two professors of Yiddish question whether diplomacy alone is the • most effective means for achieving a settle- Judaica library with more than 250,000 holdings ment with Iran on its nuclear program. The range of policy choices discussed meltoncenter.osu.edu by analysts and scholars regarding Iran’s nuclear program typically encompasses four primary options: (1) engagement; (2) sanctions; (3) deterrence; and (4) military strikes. University Growth The Obama administration began with Community

FALL 2010 43 Tel Aviv University, has consistently argued Maghen, a scholar of Iran at Bar-Ilan Uni- It remains to be seen how the current nuclear that Iran’s nuclear program is a global con- versity, debunked the common claim that impasse with Iran will be dealt with by the cern that requires an international—rather Iran’s leaders are influenced by apocalyptic international community, but it is perhaps than Israeli—resolution. Menashri initiated beliefs. In an article published Middle East something of an understatement to say that a public opinion survey in May 2009 that Journal in the Spring of 2008, Maghen noted: Israel views the issue as an urgent, time-sensi- indicated that Israelis across the political spec- tive strategic priority. As long as the interna- trum perceive a nuclear Iran as a threat and The fact that (as we have tried to show) tional community’s strategic goal remains to do not buy the argument that Iran is develop- genuine chiliastic messianism or mah- prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, ing its nuclear program strictly for civilian dism has never been a potent force within then any disharmony between Israel and the energy needs. Nevertheless, nearly half of the Shi‘ism, and therefore is not today, and international community will most likely Israelis surveyed (49 percent) indicated that will probably at no time in the future be, involve the timing and urgency of any future Israel should allow the U.S. a chance to find a a genuine factor in the foreign policy of tactical initiatives. In the meantime, while diplomatic solution to Iran’s nuclear program. the Islamic Republic, does not mean, in the international community appears to be Nuclear proliferation experts Ephraim the eyes of this author, that international bogged down by trying to find a diplomatic Asculai and Emily Landau of the Institute of pressure on Iran to halt its dangerous consensus on the right coercive strategy, National Security Studies (INSS) have been nuclear program should be ceased; it Iran’s nuclear enrichment efforts continue. critical of the Obama administration’s lack means that it should be increased. Were of a clear Iran policy, and have advocated the members of the Iranian leader- Brandon Friedman is research fellow at the for more forceful pressure through harsh ship truly convinced that the Eschaton Center for Iranian Studies, Tel Aviv Univer- sanctions as the best way to pressure Iran. was around the corner, no amount of sity. He is the co-author (with Dr. Uzi Rabi) In a May–June 2010 article published in the economic sanctions or even threats of “The Geopolitical Dimension of Sunni-Shi‘i Military Review, a journal of the U.S. Army, of military action would be effective. Sectarianism in the Middle East,” in Inter- American-based Israeli scholar Amitai Since, as we have argued, that leader- national Intervention in Local Conflicts: Etzioni proposed military strikes on Iran’s ship is not in the least bit convinced of Crisis Management and Conflict Resolu- non-nuclear military installations as a coer- this, such measures—if pursued with tion Since the Cold War, edited by Uzi cive method to limit collateral damage but resolution, wisdom, and consistency Rabi (I.B. Tauris, forthcoming in 2010). increase pressure on the regime in Iran to (unlike the current state of affairs)—are compromise on its nuclear program. Ze’ev likely to produce significant results.

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44 AJS Perspectives

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FALL 2010 45

PASKILL STAPLETON & LORD

Date: 8.21.08 Client: Jewish Theological Seminary Contact: Kristin Higgins Job # 2008345 Size: 7.5 x 10 Publication: AJS Perspectives Insertion Dates: Online Resources for Talmud Research, Study, and Teaching Heidi Lerner

Introduction Additional full-text resources freely Taylor-Schechter Research Unit of the Cam- Online resources for research, analysis, and available on the Web include: bridge University Library, which houses the teaching of the Talmud are well-represented • The Soncino Babylonian Talmud in largest single collection of Cairo Genizah frag- on the Web. Digital collections and data- English translation is available online in its ments, has recently received a grant to digi- banks of Talmudic texts and manuscripts are entirely as a PDF and about 63 percent in tize all their fragments (www.lib.cam.ac.uk/ becoming increasingly available. An array HTML format (www.halakhah.com). Taylor-Schechter/GOLD/). of websites and social networking applica- • The Primary Textual Witnesses to Tan- The Friedberg Genizah Project (www tions offer introductory material, insights, naitic Literature (www.biu.ac.il/JS/tannaim) .genizah.org) is spearheading an effort to and linguistic and educational tools to assist is part of a large Bar-Ilan project. The site create a single unified database of Genizah in the study of the Talmud at all levels. New includes full transcriptions of all extant manu- fragments which, while geographically computing tools such as optical character scripts of the Tosefta, Mekhilta, and work is dispersed, are becoming unified under one recognition, three-dimensional computer being done on the Sifra. virtual roof. It is now possible to compare graphics, text encoding, text and data mining, • Tosefta Online (www.toseftaonline.org/ online Talmudic fragments from the same and image recognition enable scholars to seforim.html) offers a host of online resources manuscript that were housed in two differ- look at the Talmud in interdisciplinary and about the Tosefta, including several manu- ent libraries and view them side by side on a innovative ways, individually and collab- scripts, the full text of the first printed edition, single screen. oratively. This article aims to guide scholars, an English translation of the text, and an inter- faculty, and students to some of the best esting blog. A similar site exists for the Talmud Websites and Tools sites currently available. Not all of these Yerushalmi (www.yerushalmionline.org). For novices, a good place to learn how a stan- sites are academic or critical in their concep- In 1991, Bar-Ilan University launched the dard printed Talmud page is constructed is the tion or sponsorship, but they can be useful Responsa Project in a CD format. In 2007 it was hypertext Page from the Babylonian Talmud for their content and interface, and readers uploaded to the Internet on a platform pro- (http://people.ucalgary.ca/~elsegal/Talmud should visit them for more information. vided by C.D.I. Systems (www.responsa.co.il/ Page.html). This site functions as a commen- home.en-US.aspx). Among its trove of rabbinic tary on the constituent parts that commonly Full Text texts are the Babylonian and the Jerusalem comprise a typical page. Linked to the page Full texts of the Tanakh, Mishnah, Tosefta, Talmuds with commentaries, Midrashim, the image are overviews of the Tosafot and other Babylonian Talmud, Talmud Yerushalmi, and Zohar, and a collection of more than eighty- commentaries, glosses, the Gemara, and Ner the Mishneh Torah of Rambam can be found thousand responsa. Access to the majority of Mitzvah. Princeton University Library has in text format at the Ma’agar Sifrut ha-K.odesh the materials at the site is via subscription. issued another basic resource: Chapters of the (http://kodesh.snunit.k12.il/) and Mechon Talmud (http://library.princeton.edu/depart Mamre (www.mechon-mamre.org/b/l/l0.htm). Manuscripts ments/tsd/katmandu/hebrew/peraktoc.html) The National Library of Israel (formerly The National Library of Israel’s Online Trea- is a site in Hebrew that helps users locate the JNUL) Digitized Book Repository contains sury of Talmudic Manuscripts (http://jnul.huji tractate of a particular chapter of the Talmud, scanned parts or complete editions of some .ac.il/dl/mss/index_eng.html) brings together if they only have the title. of the earliest editions of the Talmud (http:// Talmudic manuscripts held only by other Oral Roberts University has created The aleph500.huji.ac.il/nnl/dig/books_rab.html). institutions. The manuscripts are indexed by Babylonian Talmud Research Guide (www.oru While the above-noted sites offer the standard citation. .edu/university/library/guides/talmud.html full text of the Talmud as either JPEG graphics The first printed edition of the Yerush- #chart). This resource includes an abbrevia- or in text format, a complete Talmud Bavli almi was published by Daniel Bomberg in tions guide and instructions on how to locate that has been scanned and undergone optical Venice (1523–24). The only extant manuscript a topic in the Talmud. character recognition (OCR) has been moun- that was used by him for his edition is housed The Halacha Brura and Birur Halacha ted at the Hebrewbooks.org site with permis- at the University of Leiden and was recently Institute offer the Index to Commentaries on sion from Moznaim Publishing (http:// digitized in its entirety (https://disc.leidenuniv Aggadot of the Talmud (www.halachabrura hebrewbooks.org/shas). This online edition .nl/webclient/DeliveryManager?custom_att .org/a-index.htm). This site indexes the com- offers full-search capabilities, and it is also _2=simple_viewer&pid=1771217). mentaries of the aggadic material of the possible to copy and paste any part of a page The Cairo Genizah includes a large num- Talmud found in 130 books of the Rishonim into a Word document or other tool for educa- ber of Talmudic fragments. A noted charac- and Acharonim. Users can browse the site by tional and teaching purposes. In addition to teristic of the Cairo Genizah is that fragments Talmud tractate. the six orders of the Mishnah, the site also of the same work are very often scattered A Proposed Guide for Citing Rabbinic includes the full text of the Gemara, Rashi, geographically in different libraries and col- Texts has been mounted on the Web and Tosafot, a Daf Yomi calendar, and an index lections. A number of libraries are digitizing (www.etsjets.org/files/JETS-PDFs/24/24 of commentators. their collections of Genizah fragments. The -1/24-1-pp083-090_JETS.pdf).

46 AJS Perspectives The website Database of Midrashic Units many study aids are available for learners. analysis. This is a technology that enables in the Mishnah (http://mishnah.llc.manches Kollel Iyun Hadaf presents a number of free scholars to discover and analyze patterns ter.ac.uk/home.aspx) contains all the passages Hebrew and English resources on its website in the texts. Computer scientists at Bar-Ilan in the Mishnah that contain midrashic ele- Dafyomi Advancement Forum (www.dafyomi University have developed CHAT: a System ments (interpretations of scripture). Users can .co.il). E-Daf.com (www.e-daf.com) and for Stylistic Classification of Hebrew-Aramaic search by tractate, biblical reference, code, DafYomi.org (www.dafyomi.org) offer JPEG Texts to tackle a number of scholarly issues rabbi, and formal features. images of the Vilna Shas so that users can related to a corpus of Hebrew-Aramaic follow along as they listen to various shiurim. texts (http://u.cs.biu.ac.il/~akivan/papers/ Dictionaries Other daf yomi audio lessons can be found at otc-hebrew.pdf). Using this technology, the Marcus Jastrow’s A Dictionary of the Targu- MyShiur.net (www.myshiur.net). authors hope to be able to verify authorship mim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the of specific corpora, determine the chronology Midrashic Literature (London, 1903) is available New Directions of various documents, and determine from online in PDF at HebrewBooks.org (http:// In the past thirty years, the library community which different versions of the same text hebrewbooks.org/38236) and in a searchable and other providers of digital content have might a particular text fragment be taken. format at the Tyndale Archive of Biblical Stud- created a substantial repository of Talmudic There is increasing interest in the field of ies (www.tyndalearchive.com/tabs/jastrow/). and rabbinic texts. New technologies and face recognition in image and videos. Up until Hebrew Union College has mounted interdisciplinary collaborations are emerg- now, the methods for identifying and reunit- The Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon which ing, encouraging scholars to take advantage ing “matches” from within the Cairo Genizah allows the user to search the Lexicon in both of these resources to develop new methods of have been manual. “Matches” are leaves or Aramaic and English (http://cal1.cn.huc.edu/). scholarly research and teaching of the Talmud. fragments from a particular manuscript that An early prototype of an interactive have been identified as emanating from the Blogs book was produced by David Small at the MIT same codex or document and, in the case of Several blogs related to Talmudic issues Media lab in the first part of the new millen- the Cairo Genizah, have been dispersed among traverse the academic and public landscapes. nium. In the Talmud Project (www.david many different institutions and private collec- These can offer scholars the quickest and best small.com/portfolio/talmud-project/), the tions around the world. Utilizing face recogni- ways to keep up with the latest developments typographer created a program using three- tion technology, a team of computer scientists in Talmudic research. They bring together and dimensional, movable type to simultaneously at Tel Aviv University in partnership with staff mix, often in quirky ways, musings on schol- display the Talmud and related commentaries from the Friedberg Genizah Project have devel- arly dilemmas, reviews, research news, and on the same screen. Several dials allow the oped a computer-assisted method of automat- conference announcements and informal reader to trace ideas from one text to another, ing the system of locating matches from the reports. They include the Talmud Blog (http:// examine translations, and find text in the Cairo Genizah so that they can be properly academictalmud.blogspot.com/), Menachem larger context of the full corpus. described and documented (www.cs.tau .ac Mendel (http://menachemmendel.net/blog/), In the early part of this decade, a group .il/~nachumd/papers/ICCV.pdf). Hagahot (http://manuscriptboy.blogspot of Jewish studies faculty and computer sci- As we look to the future, traditional .com/), and On the Main Line (http://onthe entists at the Collaborative Research Centre methods of Talmud study will continue to be mainline.blogspot.com/). at the University of Cologne developed a enhanced and even challenged by the emerg- prototype of a technology-enhanced learning digital environment. Daf Yomi ing environment for a Talmudic tractate “Daf yomi” is the daily study of a passage of (http://dbis.rwth-aachen.de/i5new/staff/ Heidi Lerner is the Hebraica/Judaica cataloguer Talmud that can be completed in seven years. klamma/download/Hollender-Klamma.pdf). at Stanford University Libraries. See This project is well suited to the global elec- An exciting area for digital human- www.ajsnet.org for this article and others by Heidi tronic environment offered by the Web, and ists is computer-based text mining and text Lerner, with links to all resources discussed.

This seamstress from the Women of the Balcony Visitors series will be featured at welcome! SCHOEN the HUC Museum (NYC) 10 min. from the “A Stitch in Time” Yiddish Book Center. BOOKS Sept.7, 2010 - June 30, 2011 The book dealer issues catalogues. www.trigere.com The artist accepts www.schoenbooks.com [email protected] commissions. [email protected] (413) 665-0548 (413) 665-0066

FALL 2010 47 07/10-41_AJS-Perspectives_190,5x254.indd 19.07.10 11:03 Seite: 1 [Farbbalken für Forga28] CyanMagentaYellowBlacK

Texts and Studies ...... in Ancient Judaism ... in Medieval and

Shaye J.D. Cohen Albert I. Baumgarten Early Modern The Significance of Yavneh Elias Bickerman as a Historian and Other Essays in Jewish of the Jews Judaism Hellenism A Twentieth Century Tale 2010. 590 pages (est.) (TSAJ). 2010. X, 377 pages (TSAJ 131). Elke Morlok ISBN 978-3-16-150375-7 ISBN 978-3-16-150171-5 cloth $128.00 Rabbi Joseph Gikatilla’s cloth $195.00 (est.) (September) Hermeneutics Reinhard Pummer The Old Testament 2010. 350 pages (est.) (TSMJ). The Samaritans in Flavius ISBN 978-3-16-150203-3 Apocrypha in the Josephus cloth $130.00 (est.) (November) Slavonic Tradition 2009. XVIII, 356 pages (TSAJ 129). Continuity and Diversity ISBN 978-3-16-150106-7 cloth $140.00 Naoya Katsumata Ed. by Lorenzo DiTommaso and Seder Avodah for the Day Christfried Böttrich, with the Avi Avidov of Atonement by Shelomoh assist. of Marina Swoboda Not Reckoned among Nations Suleiman Al-Sinjari 2010. 500 pages (est.) (TSAJ). The Origins of the 2009. XI, 221 pages (TSMJ 24). ISBN 978-3-16-149516-8 So-Called »Jewish Question« ISBN 978-3-16-149732-2 cloth $114.00 cloth $115.00 (est.) (November) in Roman Antiquity 2009. XII, 226 pages (TSAJ 128). Jewish Reception of Bill Rebiger ISBN 978-3-16-150021-3 cloth $102.00 Greek Bible Versions Sefer Shimmush Tehillim – Studies in Their Use in Late Buch vom magischen Uzi Leibner Antiquity and the Middle Ages Gebrauch der Psalmen Settlement and History in Ed. by Nicholas de Lange, Julia G. Edition, Übersetzung und Hellenistic, Roman, and Krivoruchko and Cameron Boyd- Kommentar Byzantine Galilee Taylor 2010. 480 pages (est.) (TSAJ). An Archaeological Survey 2009. VIII, 338 pages (TSMJ 23). ISBN 978-3-16-149774-2 of the Eastern Galilee cloth $140.00 (est.) (October) ISBN 978-3-16-149779-7 cloth $128.00 2009. XII, 471 pages (TSAJ 127). The Talmud in Its Iranian ISBN 978-3-16-149871-8 cloth $153.00 Yaron Ben-Naeh Jews in the Realm of the Sultans Context Tal Ilan Ed. by Carol Bakhos and Rahim Ottoman Jewish Society in the Lexicon of Jewish Names in Seventeenth Century Shayegan Late Antiquity 2010. XVIII, 270 pages (TSAJ 135). Part III: The Western Diaspora, 330 2008. XIV, 503 pages (TSMJ 22). ISBN 978-3-16-150187-6 cloth $115.00 ISBN 978-3-16-149523-6 cloth $140.00 BCE – 650 CE in collaboration with Dorothea M. Salzer Thomas Ziem Reimund Leicht Die Magie der Anspielung 2008. XXVI, 770 pages (TSAJ 126). Astrologumena Judaica Form und Funktion der biblischen ISBN 978-3-16-149673-8 cloth $257.00 Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der

Anspielungen in den magischen astrologischen Literatur der Juden Sefer ha-Razim I und II – Texten der Kairoer Geniza Das Buch der Geheimnisse 2006. X, 413 pages (TSMJ 21). ISBN 978-3-16-148911-2 cloth $128.00 2010. XIII 527 pages (TSAJ 134). I und II ISBN 978-3-16-150046-6 cloth $166.00 Band 1: Edition. James T. Robinson Günter Stemberger Hrsg. v. Bill Rebiger u. Peter Schäfer, Samuel Ibn Tibbon’s Judaica Minora in Zus.-Arb. m. Evelyn Burkhardt, Commentary on Ecclesiastes Teil I: Biblische Traditionen im Gottfried Reeg u. Henrik Wels The Book of the Soul of Man 2009. XI, 261 pages (TSAJ 125). rabbinischen Judentum 2007. X, 660 pages (TSMJ 20). ISBN 978-3-16-149781-0 cloth $218.00 2010. VIII, 560 pages (TSAJ 133). ISBN 978-3-16-149067-5 cloth $192.00 ISBN 978-3-16-150403-7 cloth $198.00 Band 2: Einleitung, Übersetzung und Kommentar Prices vary according to Jewish Identities in Antiquity Hrsg. v. Bill Rebiger u. Peter Schäfer exchange rates. Studies in Memory of 2009. XII, 334 (TSAJ 132). Menahem Stern ISBN 978-3-16-149956-2 cloth $121.00 Ed. by Lee I. Levine and Daniel R. Schwartz Oliver Gußmann Mohr Siebeck 2009. XXV, 442 pages (TSAJ 130). Das Priesterverständnis des Tübingen ISBN 978-3-16-150030-5 cloth $153.00 [email protected] Maßgeschneiderte Flavius Josephus Informationen: 2008. XIV, 514 pages. + 2 Abb. (TSAJ 124). www.mohr.de www.mohr.de ISBN 978-3-16-149562-5 cloth $166.00

48 AJS Perspectives VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY PROGRAM IN JEWISH STUDIES

Faculty Focus: Jews and Muslims Founded in 1991, the Mosse/Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies at the UW- Madison brings together scholars, students, and community members to explore 3,500 years of the Jewish experience.

EDUCATION Drawing on the expertise of 30 affiliated faculty members in the arts, humanities, education, law, and social sciences, the Center offers: BA/BS in Jewish Studies and Jewish Studies: Education Track Undergraduate Certificate in Jewish Studies

SCHOLARSHIPS Through the generosity of our alumni and friends, the Center offers a Julia Phillips Cohen wide range of scholarships aid to undergraduate and graduate students Modern Sephardi History working in any areas of Jewish studies, including the Weinstein Distinguished Graduate Fellowship in Education and Jewish Studies.

OUTREACH In addition to academic excellence, the Center regularly hosts exciting programs open to the public: David Wasserstein Phillip Ackerman-Lieberman Jewish Heritage Lecture Series Jews in Muslim Lands Comparative Law in the Middle East Greenfield Summer Institute Conney Project in Judaism and the Arts Vanderbilt University * 140 Buttrick Hall * Nashville, TN 37240 Phone: 615-322-5029 * Fax: 615-343-0660 MAYRENT INSTITUTE FOR YIDDISH CULTURE Email: [email protected] In 2011, we will open the Mayrent Institute for Yiddish Culture with Henry www.vanderbilt.edu/jewishstudies Sapoznik as director and will launch the first Madison KlezKamp.

For more information, please visit: http://jewishstudies.wisc.edu

Table of Contents* Part One: History ▫ The History of Zionism - Moshe Maor ▫ The Yishuv: The Jewish Community in Mandatory Palestine - Aviva Halamish ▫ Israel and the Holocaust - Shlomo Aronson ▫ The Israeli-Arab War of 1948 - Yoav Gelber

Part Two: Society and Culture ▫ Women in Israel - Anat Maor ▫ Multicultural Realities - Guy Ben-Porat ▫ Israel and its Arab Minority - Yitzhak Reiter

Part Three: Israeli Democracy ▫ Israel’s Partial Constitution: The Basic Laws - Amnon Rubinstein ▫ The Values of the State of Israel as a Jewish and Democratic State - Aharon Barak - A comprehensive online anthology covering Israeli history, politics, ▫ Human Rights and the Supreme Court in Israel - Doron Shultziner economy and culture. ▫ National Government Institutions – David Nachmias

- Contributors include Israel Prize winners Amnon Rubinstein Part Four: Wars and the Peace Process ▫ The Sinai War and Suez Crisis 1956-7 – Motti Golani and Aharon Barak, in addition to other top Israeli scholars. ▫ The 1967 Six-Day War - David Tal

▫ The 1973 Yom Kippur War - Uri Bar-Joseph - Students and professors can download any or all chapters for ▫ Israel’s War on Terrorism - Arie Perliger classroom use at no charge. ▫ The Peace Process - Galia Golan

- Chapters will continue to be added and updated to Part Five: Policy Areas keep up with current thought and events. ▫ Israel’s Economy 1986-2008 - Rafi Melnick and Yosef Mealem ▫ Media in Israel - Michael Widlanski - To Access: ▫ The History of Hebrew Literature in Israel - Michal Ben-Horin www.JewishVirtualLibrary.com → Publications → Israel Studies: An Anthology Part Six: International Relations ▫ The United States and Israel: 1948-2008 – Avraham Ben-Zvi

▫ Israel and the Arab World – From Conflict to Coexistence – Alexander Bligh

*More Chapters will be added in the coming months

FALL 2010 49 SCHOCKEN

JEWISH ENCOUNTERS

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50 AJS Perspectives New from Stanford University Press

STANFORD STUDIES IN JEWISH HISTORY AND CULTURE

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FALL 2010 51

The Latest Limmud UK 2009 Caryn Aviv

uestion: Where in the world intellectual and social feast, and for this can you go, in one day, from a ethnographer of contemporary Jewish life, Qstanding room only session on pure heaven. If you read no further in this the Israeli Defense Force’s legal issues in article, here is the gist: I strongly encourage the West Bank, to a workshop on “Post- every AJS member to consider participating Spanish Expulsion Responsa as a Guide in Limmud as a fantastic opportunity for for Dealing with Eastern Europe Today,” both professional and personal growth. It to a lecture on “A Jewish Bestiary: Lichten- will challenge your notions of learning, prob- berg’s Physiognomy of the Judensau,” to an ably improve your teaching, and widen your evening performance entitled “Solomon: social/professional networks exponentially. King, Poet, & Lover, a One-Man Biblical For the uninitiated, Limmud began in Comedy”? (Hint: it’s not an AJS conference.) 1980 after a group of British-Jewish educators Photo by Mitchell Griver. Answer: A Limmud conference, attended a conference of the Coalition for the of course. Advancement of Jewish Education (CAJE), a who I later discovered is a leading historian of In December 2009, I had the privilege New York-based, nonprofit organization that medical ethics, particularly during the period to attend, along with approximately 2,499 closed its doors about two years ago during of National Socialism. Seated on my other side other people, the twenty-fifth anniversary the global financial collapse. After attend- was a feisty, Israeli-British, thirty-something of Limmud UK, a five-day residential event ing CAJE, the British participants decided to “professional Jew,” who identifies as “polymor- at the sprawling rural campus of the Univer- create a similar conference model, though phously post-denominational,” and moon- sity of Warwick. This Limmud, like others slightly tweaked. Limmud, from its incep- lights as a drag king in wickedly funny and around the world, was an overwhelming and tion, has always been volunteer-driven and subversive cabaret shows. Across the table: dizzying smorgasbord of classes, presenta- open to anyone interested in Jewish learning. the director of the Conservative Yeshiva in tions, workshops, polemical debates, Torah The first Limmud UK conference took place a Jerusalem. The four of us couldn’t stop talk- study, films, concerts, plays, art exhibitions, year later as a one-day conference with about ing and laughing, despite the range in our and some serious schmoozing over copious eighty-five participants. The conference was ages, identities, backgrounds, and practices. amounts of beer into the late hours of every such a success that it soon expanded, and The above anecdotes reveal a tiny glimpse evening. In short, it was an unparalleled over the years has grown into the flagship of how Limmud harnesses the power of both residential retreat, a summer festival that global and local networks of Jews and involves emphasizes learning and music, plus day-long the widespread circulation of Jewish people, regional Limmud programs over the course ideas, texts, histories, financial resources, of the year. This year’s Limmud UK offered and culture. To date, the Limmud model more than nine hundred sessions, and the has expanded to forty-four different cities 380-page program weighed over one pound. throughout the world, including South Africa, Although I had been to two Limmud Argentina, Israel, Sweden, Ukraine, and several Colorado conferences prior to Limmud UK, U.S. and Canadian cities (see www.limmudin I didn’t realize just how radical and excit- ternational.org for the complete listing). The ing it could be to attend a conference where typical roster of presenters reflects the volun- the diversity of Jews (politically, religiously, teer teams’ connections to the global Jewish culturally, demographically) is simply aston- community of educators, intellectuals, musi- ishing. Two cases in point: I first arrived at cians, activists, artists, and ordinary teachers/ midnight, bleary eyed after a long flight from learners in Jewish communities. In fact, many San Francisco and a two-and-a-half-hour bus people who fit into several of those categories ride. As I stumbled into the main building, I travel the “Limmud circuit” around the world. ran into an acquaintance who volunteers with One person I know has been to Limmud NY, Limmud LA. Two minutes later, I was greeted Colorado, UK, Sweden, and will soon attend by a long-lost friend from Chicago, who now Limmud South Africa. At the same time, lives in Scotland, and is a diehard volunteer for Limmud is always local, reflecting regional Limmud UK. Ten minutes later, in the loud, sensibilities and concerns. At this Limmud, packed, and buzzing bar upstairs, I saw no less for example, I noticed that there was an than three colleagues from Israel and several unusually large number of sessions devoted to friends from New York. At dinner the next widely diverse perspectives, ideas, and feelings Photo by Mitchell Griver. night, I sat next to a lovely older German man, about Zionism, Israel, and notions of Jewish

52 AJS Perspectives

peoplehood and identity, perhaps reflecting how to learn, with whom, when, and where. I the risqué, goofy, and creative. Presenters England’s closer proximity to Israel and the observed that hierarchy and formality regard- included renowned scholars, psychothera- anxieties of British Jews about anti-Semitism. ing teaching and learning were eschewed. The pists, lawyers, doctors, nonprofit profession- Limmud is a manifestation of the emerg- sessions I attended were marked by casual als, rabbis, poets, philanthropists, and more. ing “Jewish innovation ecosystem,” a post- informality, spirited debates, and discus- Some scholars might view this as threat- modern, decentralized, and democratic form sions, as well as a willingness to dive into ening the elite status of academic knowledge of Jewish identity, expression, and community complex and difficult texts. A democratic production and Jewish studies as an academic building championed by the organization philosophy of participation and engagement vocation. Personally, I found it thrilling. Jumpstart, “a thinkubator for sustainable infuses most Limmud publications, websites, Limmud is potentially liberating for academ- Jewish innovation.” Limmud could also be program booklets, and mission statements: ics who like to move through multiple social viewed as a Jewish test case for the repudiation and intellectual worlds. Limmud offers a won- of Robert Putnam’s thesis in Bowling Alone: The Limmud aims to enable each partici- derful venue for scholars who work as public Collapse and Revival of American Community pant to go one step further on their own intellectuals, who seek a platform for their (2001), in which he describes and analyzes the Jewish journey. Everyone is a student ideas in the wider world beyond academia, collective costs of decreased civic engagement, and everyone can be a teacher. Events and who want to influence a greater number the decline of social capital, and the shrinking feature all educational styles including of people beyond our small, scholarly com- of participation in the public sphere. Despite lectures, workshops, text-study sessions, munity. For example, I was able to present Jewish demographic surveys that fret about film, meditation, discussions, exhibits my scholarly work, participate in a book talk rates of intermarriage and the perception of a and performances to ensure that there about queer perspectives on the Torah, per- decline in engagement in Jewish communal is always “something for everyone.” form in a Jewish ritual theater piece, and sit on life, the success of Limmud and the thousands Indeed, the content of a typical Limmud a skillfully moderated panel about the place of people who participate globally each year event is as diverse as its participants. of Israel in international Jewish life. Where offer a qualitatively different lens to look at else can you do so many things in such a short questions of how people “do Jewish.” In fact, This philosophy of democratic and nonhier- span of time? Finally, Limmud is a great oppor- Limmud is a fascinating case study of how archical learning offers both an opportunity tunity to have substantive, thoughtful, and many Jews are building temporary, inten- and a challenge for Jewish studies academ- enriching conversations with people from all tional Jewish communities that rely largely ics. Indeed, one democratizing aspect of walks of life, who are hungry to learn and are on the enlistment, exchange, and accumula- a Limmud conference is the conspicuous open to different ideas. If I haven’t convinced tion of social capital, globally and locally. absence of titles, credentials, and academic you yet, let me be blunt: you should go. Limmud requires and involves face-to-face institutions on participant nametags, which interaction and is profoundly relationship- only identify the person and the city in Caryn Aviv is the Posen Senior Instructor in intensive and network-driven. Limmud which they reside. The fact that anyone can Secular Jewish Society and Civilization at the participants are also motivated by desire, present at Limmud profoundly democratizes University of Colorado at Boulder. She is co- rather than a sense of duty or obligation. the notion of who is allowed to teach and author of New Jews: The End of the Jewish The philosophy and ideology of Limmud learn. Anyone with an idea can propose a Diaspora (with David Shneer; New York revolves around notions of democracy, Jewish session, and indeed, the line-up ranged from University Press, 2005). pluralism, personal choice, and diversity of the scholarly, esoteric, and intellectually identity and expression: about what to learn, demanding to workshops that bordered on

A Serious Man Jason Kalman

spend a lot of time writing about Job. his couch (and gets into legal trouble), his bar good person, so why is Hashem causing him Actually, I spend a lot of time writing mitzvah–aged son smokes pot and steals mon- to suffer? Larry’s synagogue has three rabbis Iabout people who write about Job. A. ey from his older sister who has been stealing (apparently representing the primary Ameri- O. Scott’s New York Times review provided it from her father to pay for a nose job. Mean- can denominations). The junior member further encouragement to see Joel and Ethan while Larry is up for tenure. Everything looks of the clergy offers Larry platitudes about Coen’s cinematic version: “Did you hear the good except that a student is both trying to changing perspective. Dissatisfied, Larry one about the guy who lived in the land of Uz, bribe him to change a failing grade and threat- meets his regular rabbi who tells him a story who was perfect and upright and feared God? ening to sue him for accusing him of bribery, about another congregant who came to him His name was Job. In the new movie version, and the tenure committee has received anony- for counsel. He offers no good reason for tell- ‘A Serious Man,’ some details have been mous letters discouraging his promotion. For- ing the story and no explanation for Larry’s changed.” (October 2, 2009). Some details? tunately, as the doctor tells Larry when first we predicament. The third rabbi, played as an old The Coens’ modern Job, Larry Gopnik, is a meet him, he is in good health. sage, is too busy thinking to meet with Larry. midwestern physics professor who is informed Larry is befuddled by his situation and a Things begin to turn around when by his wife that she is leaving him for one of friend encourages him to see his rabbi. Com- Larry’s wife’s suitor dies in a car crash his friends. His unemployed brother lives on mitted to classical theodicy, he’s tried to be a (although Larry gets caught for the cost of

FALL 2010 53

capricious deity, or are simply the result of the unfolding universe, the only appropriate response is to “be good.” Larry got it wrong. As a result of the mounting misfortunes, Larry breaks when the bill from his brother’s attor- ney arrives. Whether the doctor’s subsequent call about his X-ray should be understood as a punishment for his choice is inconsequen- tial. Being a “good boy” is about doing what is right without concern for reward or punishment. Larry’s belief system may have become confused but he knew his choices concerning the bribe were wrong even before he made them. But the movie does not leave the viewer entirely hopeless. Danny, not Larry, received the rabbinic insight and has the rest of his life to become a good boy and a serious man. Film still from A Serious Man. Courtesy of Focus Features. Photo by Wilson Webb. The Coens are not the first to give Job comic turn. Woody Allen’s name has appeared in numerous reviews of A Serious Man for the funeral). His son, though stoned, suc- While meeting with Danny following his concern with theodicy and suffering. Job cessfully completes his bar mitzvah Torah his bar mitzvah ceremony the rabbi speaks takes center stage in his 1974 essay in The reading. At the ceremony Larry and his wife only a few words. Completely unexpectedly New Republic “The Scrolls” and references to begin to reconcile. Soon afterwards a senior he (mis)quotes Jefferson Airplane’s “Some- him slip into a number of Allen’s films. In colleague informs him that his tenure is body to Love”: “When the truth is found to contrast to the Coen brothers, Allen’s response near certain. And then, just as quickly, things be lies . . . And all the hope within you dies to suffering is closer to the Jefferson Airplane fall apart. Larry receives an expensive bill . . . ” He follows this with the big question: lyric. For Allen, finding someone to love is for legal fees accrued helping his brother. “Then what?” No answer is immediately the answer to the rabbi’s “Then what?” In the To pay the bill Larry changes the graduate forthcoming from either party. The rabbi movie Manhattan Allen and his (very) young student’s grade and keeps the bribe money. then returns the transistor radio confiscated lover played by Mariel Hemmingway are Almost immediately his doctor calls urging from Danny at Hebrew school and sends riding in a horse drawn carriage through Cen- him to come to the office. The X-rays taken at him on his way with “Be a good boy.” And tral Park. She says to him: “You know you’re his last appointment, when he was assured here we find the answer to the question. crazy about me.” He replies, “I am. You’re . . . of his good health, need to be discussed. Larry, like Job, believed in the tradi- You’re God’s answer to Job. You would have Both Larry and Job seek to understand tion that taught that the righteous would be ended all argument between them. He’d have why God apparently punishes them, but the rewarded and the wicked punished. Both dis- said ‘I do a lot of terrible things but I can also book’s readers and the movie’s audience do covered that this tradition, if not wrong, could make one of these.’ And Job would’ve said not ask the same questions. The reader knows not account for their respective circumstances. ‘OK, you win.’” Allen’s response to suffering why Job suffers. The prologue is explicit about Conservative rabbi and Biblicist Robert brings no moral imperative (and, at least God’s role and the reader must ask about His Gordis describes Job’s situation as follows: according to his character Boris in Love and unjust behavior, not Job’s merit. By contrast, Death, only leads to more suffering). As he if God is punishing Larry or even has a role to Job is aware of the contention that moral- noted concerning his affair with his partner’s play, the Coen brothers are not telling. They ity depends upon faith in divine justice. adopted daughter, “The heart wants what have created an ambiguous situation for the Denying the latter, how can he maintain it wants.” Amidst his suffering Larry tried audience to try to decipher. The audience does the former? Job is driven to a desperate to find “love” with his seductive, married not know precisely why Larry suffers and expedient, which is to prove one of the neighbor, but all it brought him were horrific neither does he. great liberating ideas of religion; he cuts nightmares. Despite his errors, he still wants For all the uncertainty in the film, the nexus between virtue and reward. to be good. The imperative still stands: “Be the Coens are certain about one thing: The Honest men will tremble at his unde- a good boy”; it’s all a serious man can do. reason the apparently righteous suffer served suffering, but will not on that cannot be definitively explained. Larry account be deterred from righteousness. Jason Kalman is assistant professor of classi- teaches his physics class “The Uncertainty cal Hebrew literature and interpretation at the Principle.” “It proves,” in Larry’s words, “we Jewish post-Holocaust interpreters of Job Cincinnati School of Hebrew Union College- can’t ever really know what’s going on.” across the denominations, including, among Jewish Institute of Religion and a research Despite this fact, though, our actions must others, Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Irving Green- fellow at the University of the Free State, South still be moral. The third rabbi may have berg, Solomon Freehof, and Elie Wiesel, Africa. He is co-author of Canada’s Big Bibli- refused to meet with Larry, but he offers offered a similar response for those who suffer cal Bargain: How McGill University Bought his son Danny an important insight which like Job. Whether the calamities are deserved the Dead Sea Scrolls (with Jaqueline S. Du may provide a key to explaining the film. as a divine punishment, are the acts of a Toit; McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2010).

54 AJS Perspectives

The Questionnaire What development in Jewish studies over the last twenty years has most excited you?

Responses When I entered graduate school in 1971, example, faded when Yosef Yerushalmi moved the field of Jewish studies was dominated by to Columbia in 1980 and Harvard failed to Daniel Boyarin a handful of institutions on the East Coast, in replace him with a historian with similar Hermann P. and Sophia Taubman Professor general, and in Boston and New York, in par- training and breadth. Intellectual preemi- of Talmudic Culture, University of California ticular. While Brandeis, Harvard, the Jewish nence and institutional influence are now at Berkeley Theological Seminary, and Columbia did not scattered and dispersed across North America, enjoy a literal monopoly, their clout was far- as is the authority to guide and shape the What’s Changed reaching. Few universities outside the Boston– field. Notions of what counts in Jewish studies For me the biggest change in Jewish studies New York axis had the same depth of teaching and what kinds of research merit attention (for which, read in this context, rabbinic stud- and research resources in Judaica (Berkeley and support compete in a market that is freer ies) in the last twenty years is the growing and UCLA on the West Coast were not in the and more lively than it was forty years ago. number of young scholars who have both full same league). Their PhD students, whose and deep knowledge of the classical rabbinic numbers were small, found teaching positions texts and a profoundly intellectual, compara- with relative ease, in part, it was believed, Peter Eli Gordon tive, methodological, and theoretical perspec- because of the pervasive influence of their Professor, Department of History, tive on their study and research. I hasten to advisors. The “old boy” system of hiring in the Harvard University say that I am not defining Jewish studies as academy as a whole was still alive, although Talmudic studies but only saying that for me weaker than it had been a decade before. The Transformation of Jewish Studies: this is where the prime excitement has been Emblematic of the East Coast orienta- Polemics and Prospects and continues to be. For many years after the tion of the field was the seemingly perma- Jewish studies has long stood in a some- trauma of the Nazi genocide, classical rabbinic nent hold that Boston enjoyed as the site of what troubled relation to other academic research turned inwards; many of us were very the annual meeting of the Association for disciplines. As an institutional formation, well trained and equipped with the tools of Jewish Studies. In its early years, AJS met it is organized around a topic rather than a Talmudic philology and a kind of scholarly in the Harvard Faculty Club in Cambridge. method. And, insofar as it designates a the- version of traditional Rabbinic scholarship The atmosphere was clubby, masculine, and matic domain (beliefs and literatures and (which I do not look down upon in any way), insular. Not much fresh air, either meta- histories that involve Jews or Judaism), it has but certain important gains of the Wissen- phorically or literally, circulated in the small tended to reinforce the notion that Jewish schaft des Judentums were lost with the loss of second-floor meeting rooms where sessions themes reveal some overlapping consensus or the institutional and cultural contexts within were held. My memory is that there was family resemblances, animating the thought which it had thrived. In recent years a trickle little in the area of modern Jewish history on that such themes belong to the very same reli- of rabbinic scholars sought to open their work the program, which was dominated by pre- gious, cultural, or historico-political phenom- up to larger cultural and scholarly contexts modern, classical Judaica. The annual meet- enon. At its best, this notion has furnished but we have always been playing a kind of ing soon outgrew the Harvard Faculty Club a serviceable framework for a thriving and catch-up. Now we are seeing graduate students but it remained at a hotel in Boston’s Back diverse field of scholarship, and it has played who are able to read the Maharam Schiff and Bay for many years to come. The decision to a considerable role in promoting creative Homi Bhabha (not to mention Greek and move its venue every year recognized—belat- thinking across the disciplines, breaking with Syriac, Latin and Pahlavi). This is, to me, a very edly—the changes that had occurred with the administrative dogma that the disciplines exciting development. Long live Wissenschaft! the growth and dispersion of the field. are the natural way to carve up human real- Today the unchallenged preeminence ity. But at times, the notion of belonging has of the Boston and New York institutions is also helped to reinforce the normative idea Todd M. Endelman a thing of the past. Centers of excellence that there exists something like a separate William Haber Professor of Modern Jewish have emerged on the West Coast and in the and self-identical canon of Jewish ideas or History, University of Michigan Midwest and South. Who could have imag- values, or a separate group whose history is ined forty years ago that Stanford University, best understood under the aegis of “continu- The chronologies we impose shape the his- whose reputation for hostility to Jews was ity.” This idea, I fear, is an ideology that passes tories we write. With this in mind, I want then legendary, would emerge as a dynamic for a description. To be sure, I am not the best to stretch the two decades I was asked to site for undergraduate and graduate teaching person to address current patterns in the field consider to four decades and to discuss in Jewish history, literature, and religion? At of Jewish studies since I have only observed a shift in the institutional framework of the same time, some institutions have lost them from the outside. But I would say that Jewish studies in the United States since the their clout in areas in which they once shone. one of the most helpful developments of the early 1970s—its geographical dispersion. Harvard’s preeminence in Jewish history, for past twenty years or so (though I’m unsure

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on the temporality of the development) is of reading. I see too little investment in philo- Susannah Heschel that the study of Jewish themes has embraced logical training. Second, demographic and Eli Black Professor of Jewish Studies, what one might call the constitutive paradox cultural changes, and even more the uncertain Dartmouth College of collective identity: While we recognize economy, have led to a severe decline in the that collective identification has an important number of academic positions available to The measure of the quality of an academic role to play in our understanding of who we well-trained candidates, especially in Israel. field is whether it raises interesting questions, are as human beings, many of us are increas- Extraordinary efforts are needed in order to but these days Jewish studies programs are ingly suspicious of claims to naturalize such preserve academic excellence in Jewish stud- more often measured by the size of our enroll- identifications or to assert that they enjoy ies by finding funding for excellent people. ments and the enthusiasm we generate among a transcendental prestige as marking out students and donors. Initially, Jewish studies essential and transhistorical characteristics emerged in Europe as a field with an intellec- of a given collective. To be sure, we may live Galit Hasan-Rokem tual agenda with overt political connotations. those identifications as if they were eternal. Max and Margarethe Grunwald Professor of Not only supporting Jewish emancipation and But it is the charge of the academic to regard Folklore, Hebrew University providing Jews a sense of identity through with suspicion many of the ideologies that the story of Jewish history, the Wissenschaft underwrite the way we live. All of us have In the last twenty years, Jewish studies has des Judentums also sought to reconfigure the colleagues who persist in writing works in a experienced if not a total “ethnographic nature and trajectory of Western history. Ever celebratory mode—extolling Jewish cultural turn,” then at least a serious leaning towards since, the study of Jews has not simply added accomplishments or political power, or a the ethnographic aspects of Jewish culture. information, but called established categories distinctive Jewish literary tradition, or a per- This includes both historical and contem- into question, making Jewish studies a chal- manent set of Jewish normative insights. But porary studies. Among the areas that have lenger of the established definitions of the it seems to me that intellectual integrity lies consequently come into focus are the home, Western canon. The polemical nature of coun- in questioning those appeals to collective affir- the family, and everyday life, in contrast to ter-history, “the distortion of the adversary’s mation. Insofar as Jewish studies now thrives the earlier emphasis on the public sphere, self-image, of his identity, through the decon- by embracing that mode of self-reflexive criti- institutional activities, and holidays. Femi- struction of his memory,” as Amos Funken- cism, this is indeed a promising development. nist theory and practice have significantly stein writes, has shifted in the past twenty illuminated the areas of women’s lives and years to an effort to articulate an affirmation subjective experience that had either been of Jewish identity. Often influenced by Eman- Ed Greenstein silenced or simply forgotten, and have—as uel Levinas, but also by a renewed interest in Gwendolyn and Joseph Straus Distinguished in the study of culture in general—enabled ethics and theology, our students are increas- Scholar, Bar-Ilan University and stimulated research into various forms ingly searching for Jewish ideas that transcend of “otherness.” As a consequence of the historical context and offer ideas and morals There Is What to Celebrate and What ethnographic as well as the feminist turns, that link Jews across the centuries. Political to Be Concerned About interest in materiality and the human and social context seem of lesser importance The poet of Job, as I understand him, revels body, including sexuality in its richness as the factors that shaped ideas than an effort in language that can mean one thing and its and variations, has gained momentum. to encounter (religious) texts without histori- opposite. The verb “excite” refers to arousal. Methodologically, these developments cist mediation, to allow the texts, as my stu- In most forms, it conveys a positive sense of have led to the application of research meth- dents say, “to speak their insights to us.” This enthusiasm and pleasure. In other forms, it ods developed in the study of contemporary points to a striking shift in the field of Jewish suggests agitation of a not necessarily posi- Jewish cultures to scholarship on Jewish studies: there is an individual and highly tive kind. I have been genuinely gratified to lives, cultures, and texts of the past. The subjective dimension to what our students witness the expansion of Jewish studies both weakening of apologetic tendencies has are seeking. Certainly, political issues and the numerically and qualitatively. Expertise has enabled deeper research into the coproduc- flourishing of the Jewish people as a whole, taken many forms, and I am glad that meth- tion of culture between ethnic entities rather particularly in relation to the State of Israel, odological sophistication and experimenta- than within them, thus producing important remain very important, but the historicist tion are high among them. The questions research about how Jewish culture enriched methods of the past and the sense of collective scholars pose have grown in complexity and other cultures, but also how much of Jewish historical identity that shape the topics of our diversity, and the answers have turned more culture is a result of dialogic relations field are not as compelling to the generation and more contingent, which is to my way with its concrete habitus or Lebenswelt. In of my students. Instead, it is the individual of thinking, more honest. More and more general the concept of “influence” (“Jewish and the cultivation of his or her personal and of us have become increasingly sensitive to influence on European culture,” “Muslim emotional commitments that light the spark issues of gender, racism, and classism. More influence on Jewish rituals,” etc.) has been of Jewish significance for them. Whether a and more of us have understood that only fruitfully reconceptualized as a variety of rabbinic text reflects Hellenistic influence or God can be said to take a neutral perspec- more refined cultural processes and mecha- demonstrates parallels with a Qur’anic text tive, and fewer and fewer of us presume to nisms. Most of all, this period has produced is of marginal interest to them. Philosophy, be God. Two things agitate me in a negative theories of Jewish culture that do not focus theology, ethics, and mining Jewish religious way. While nose-to-the-grindstone philology on Judaism as such but rather on the mul- texts for a transcendent meaning with inspi- should be a means and not an end in itself, it tiplicity and variation of Jewish cultures, ration for the present defines my students’ has always seemed to me to be a sine qua non creativities, suffering, learning, and lives. quest and has transformed my classroom.

56 AJS Perspectives

By contrast, my generation of Jewish Harriet Murav Riv-Ellen Prell studies scholars were animated in gradu- Professor, Departments of Comparative Professor, Department of American Studies, ate school by the possibility of introducing Literature and Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Minnesota new methods, and new kinds of questions University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to explore aspects of Jewish history and I have been riveted by the intellectual revo- literature. When I was still a graduate stu- The development in Jewish studies over the lution created by feminist scholarship in dent twenty years ago, I was thrilled by the last twenty years that has most excited me Jewish studies, a scholarship that has grown remarkable interest in Jewish studies among has been the formation of Russian Jewish and to include gender and sexuality over the past academics not trained in the field—eg., East European Jewish studies as a subdisci- two decades. As an anthropologist interested Sander Gilman, who became president of pline in its own right. This shift is evidenced in American-Jewish culture and modern the MLA, and Daniel Boyarin, who sparked in new scholarly publications, new book Jewish history this scholarship expanded and a great deal of attention among scholars of series, conferences, dissertations, and other reframed my understanding of what and who Christian origins and also in literary circles. academic work. The surge of interest in Jewish shaped practice and culture. I recall Marion At the time, I felt with pride that I was studies arose in tandem with political, social, Kaplan’s The Making of the Jewish Middle Class entering a field that was among the most economic, and cultural change in Russia and Paula Hyman’s Gender and Assimilation influential and prominent in contemporary and Eastern Europe. The era of perestroika in Modern Jewish History as key texts for me intellectual life. Yet much to my disappoint- and glasnost, the 1990s, and the subsequent because they raised far-reaching questions ment, that interest seems to be waning. There decade have seen the production in Russia about the ways in which modernity and accul- continue to be sessions on Jewish topics at and the former Soviet republics of new works turation were powerfully driven by women, the MLA, but there was also a session this of Jewish culture, new theatrical and musical family, and private life. As feminist historians past year on “Does the English Department events, as well as the emergence of new insti- were reframing social, economic, and political Have a Jewish Problem?” at which the con- tutions and new publications devoted to the life, cultural studies scholars reframed studies sensus seemed to be a resounding “yes.” At study of Jewish life and expression in many of Jewish texts by focusing on the body and other MLA sessions, papers on topics that forms. New Russian-Jewish journals, which sexuality. I look back to the foundational work would easily lend themselves to Jewish aim at comprehensive coverage of religion, of Rachel Adler, Howard Eilberg-Schwartz, and reference—eg., on George Eliot’s novel, history, politics, and the arts have appeared. Daniel Boyarin on the body in rabbinic texts, Daniel Deronda—did not mention Jews. Departments and institutes of Jewish stud- The next generation of thinkers included both I don’t think Jews have been eclipsed ies have been established in St. Petersburg, Miriam Peskowitz and Laura Levitt whose only by the multicultural agenda that has Moscow, Kiev, Minsk, and Kharkov. The Rus- work examined the ways that gender shaped long excluded us from its discussions, but sian State Humanities University (RGGU) texts, tradition, and the field of Jewish stud- by an increasing Christianization of the instituted a program for the study of East ies. The central questions of what it means academy. Where once trauma theory and European and Russian Judaica in 1991. In 2009 to be a Jew, where Jewish life is practiced, discussions of Holocaust memory were the Jewish Theological Seminary and RGGU how it is represented over time and space are central concerns in the humanities, today jointly published a bilingual Yiddish and Rus- most powerfully addressed through feminist we hear about forgiveness and reconcilia- sian volume of essays on Yiddish literature scholarship. The meeting place of historical tion, themes that are not only metonyms and culture in the Soviet Union. (Leonid and cultural studies for me is the conversa- for Christianity, but which include Jewish Katsis, M. Kaspina, and David Fishman, eds., tion created by feminist studies. Feminist views. The growing attention to the writ- Idish: Iazyk i kul’tura v sovetskom soiuze/Yidish: and Jewish studies scholarship have met in ings of Paul in the debates over universalism Shprakh un kultur in sovetn-farband (Moscow: productive ways in part because both fields versus particularism in the work of contem- Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi gumanitarnyi challenged conventional boundaries of knowl- porary theorists (Badiou, Agamben, Zizek, universitet, 2009)). The institute Petersburg edge by integrating the study of culture and Vattimo, among others) further enshrine an Judaica at the European University in St. history through the experience of outsiders (outdated) Christian theological perspective Petersburg, directed by Valerii Dymshits, con- who threatened accepted norms. By acknowl- in which Christianity is universal, Judaism ducts ethnographic research in the former Pale edging that reality is mediated by gender (and is particular—precisely the sort of problem of Settlement, and its publications, exhibits, in the past twenty years an ever-growing set that Mendelssohn addressed at the outset and webpages have shed much light on the of identities), I discovered a radically differ- of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. continuity of Jewish life in Russia in the Soviet ent understanding of Jewish experience. Have we arrived at an impasse? Per- period and beyond. Plans are underway for haps our students, animated by a desire to a museum of Russian-Jewish history. Jewish- swim in Jewish texts rather than analyze related sites in Russian on the Internet have Kenneth Reinhard them critically, are collaborating with proliferated, as well, with topics ranging from Professor, Departments of English and those among our academic colleagues who religious practice (toldot.ru), literary criticism, Comparative Literatures, UCLA have lost interest in what once seemed the author’s pages, online Jewish encyclopedias most exciting intellectual adventure of the in Russian, poetry, fiction, and polemical My involvement in the academic field of academy: Jewish studies. Hopefully, we can prose; in addition, most journals have a virtual Jewish studies only goes back ten or fifteen recover the rigor of critical thinking and existence. The websites originate in Russia, years, so I don’t have the historical perspec- demonstrate that the perspective gained Ukraine, Germany, Israel, and the U.S., but tive to really say if my experience is part of from Jewish studies is crucial and invigorat- their reach, of course, is global, contributing something truly new or something that may ing for our colleagues and students alike. to what Zvi Gitelman calls the “global shtetl.” have long been part of the field. But as a more

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or less “outsider” (my academic training is new “non-Jewish” topics, and sees itself as of “outside” and “inside.” Our scholarship in literature and my field of research is criti- contributing to a broad coalition of research has been enriched as we have begun to turn cal theory), stepping into the Directorship in the history of civilizations and ideas. And to sites, sources, languages, and realms of of the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies, I was increasingly, thinkers from other fields of inquiry once viewed as extra-canonical; to impressed by the welcome that I received cultural and religious history look to Jewish publish in journals and book series that reach from my new (and infinitely more learned) studies for the wealth of ideas and research well beyond the field; to alter (and resist) colleagues. Jewish studies seemed wonderfully it has to offer them, and the comparative his- assumptions about the personal, professional, open to the perspectives of people from other tories (of oppression, diaspora, and genocide, and political background of Jewish studies fields, and my interests in philosophy and psy- of course, but also of cultural preservation, professionals; to rethink the chronologies, choanalysis were welcomed, and my (probably adaptation, and innovation) that it affords. typologies, geographies, and watershed often naïve) ideas taken seriously. Moreover, I We might call this development the opening moments that once framed our classes; to was delighted to discover how much my new of “Comparative Jewish Studies,” if we under- train students as regional or disciplinary or friends and colleagues in Jewish studies had to stand “comparison” in the broad sense it has temporal generalists as well as specialists; teach me—not only about Jewish philosophy, in the field of Comparative Literature, which as, in short, we have begun to broaden our rabbinic interpretation, Biblical criticism, often involves neither “comparison” nor “lit- intellectual and institutional communi- and myriad other “Jewish” topics—but about erature” but more frequently an imperative ties. What is left, holding us together? Our ways of reading and modes of thinking that to the interdisciplinary and the multidiscur- shared determination to write about things had direct implications for my own work in sive. This is the mode of Jewish studies that Jewish; to wrestle with how this category “non-Jewish” European critical theory. Indeed, welcomes the stranger and the often messy (“Jewish”) matters, and when it reaches its it became obvious to me that the line between but sometimes transformative and always epistemological limits. Happily, we are left the Jewish and the non-Jewish worlds was unexpected encounter with the new that he building while simultaneously breaking out. not always so clear, and their continuities and or she brings to the table. And as important often parallel paths became increasingly evi- as the gifts that disciplinary strangers may dent and both conceptually and existentially offer Jewish studies are those that they may David M. Stern urgent. I became convinced that many of the in turn bring back with them to their home Ruth Meltzer Professor of Classical Hebrew, texts and ideas that were central to Jewish disciplines. Both of these openings—of Jewish University of Pennsylvania studies should be part of a much wider discus- studies to the world, and of the world to sion: rather than being another “area studies” Jewish studies—are among the most promis- Over the last twenty years, Jewish studies has or “minority studies” program, representing ing and provocative avenues of research today. undergone so complete a sea change in virtu- the history and culture of a small (albeit dis- ally all its fields that it’s hard for me to single proportionately influential and remarkably out a single development from so many. The diverse) ethnic group, Jewish studies needed Sarah Abrevaya Stein sea change itself has come from the final to be considered as a key part of world history, Maurice Amado Chair of Sephardic assimilation of Jewish studies within the hence of major importance to scholars (such Studies, UCLA American academy, the humanities in particu- as myself) whose primary work lies in other lar. Most of the changes Jewish studies has fields. During the four years of my tenure at Breaking Out undergone reflect those in the humanities at the Center for Jewish Studies, I was especially The dynamism of an academic field can be large—the breakdown of traditional disciplin- interested in luring my colleagues from other measured not by how strictly its boundaries ary walls, the imperializing spread of critical fields into participating in our events, and, in are defined or defended, but by the frequency theory, the growth of “identity studies” of a sense, generalizing Jewish studies, emphasiz- and ease with which they are trespassed. Over every stripe. There are negative and positive ing the universalism that was imminent in the last twenty years—a period in which sides to all these developments, though I think its particularism. And my sense is that this three scholarly generations have labored the overall balance has been extremely con- is a trend or development that goes beyond simultaneously, at times in synchronicity, at structive. In all these changes, rabbinics has, my own experience: more and more, it seems times in dynamic tension—Jewish studies somewhat ironically, played the role of the to me, Jewish studies has opened itself to has benefited magnificently from the blurring avant-garde, beginning with midrash. The

The Association for Jewish Studies wishes to thank the Center for Jewish History and its constituent organizations American Jewish Historical Society, American Sephardi Federation, Leo Baeck Institute, Yeshiva University Museum, and YIVO Institute for Jewish Research

for providing the AJS with office space at the Center for Jewish History.

58 AJS Perspectives

fifteen minutes of fame that midrash and its encounter with literary theory (and theorists) enjoyed some twenty years ago was certainly one of the more exciting developments in which I have personally participated. More recently, the development of a small group of AMERICAN ACADEMY FOR JEWISH Jewish studies scholars interested in the his- RESEARCH tory of the Jewish book as a material object—a new subfield that truly crosses disciplinary BARON BOOK PRIZE borders with intellectual credibility and integ- The American Academy for Jewish Research invites submissions rity—is what currently excites and engages for the Salo Wittmayer Baron Book Prize. The Baron Book Prize me most; it will be interesting to see where ($5,000) is awarded annually to the author of an outstanding first this field is and how it changes other fields in book in Jewish studies. Jewish studies twenty years from now. Eligibility: An academic book, in English, in any area of Jewish studies published in calendar year 2010. The work must be the author’s first book. The author must have received his or her Liliane Weissberg Ph.D. within the previous seven years. Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Deadline: Submissions must be received by January 31, 2011.The Professor in the School of Arts and Sciences, winner will be notified in late spring 2011. University of Pennsylvania When submitting a book for consideration, please have three copies sent, along with a statement of when and where the Would I have been asked this question twenty author received his or her Ph.D., to: years ago? Probably not. For one, I was not a member of any Jewish studies organization at Sheila Allen The American Academy for Jewish Research that time. Jewish studies seemed to me a field 420 Walnut Street largely populated by men who were focus- Philadelphia, PA 19106 ing on matters of religious studies, textual exegesis, Hebrew philology (and, to a lesser For further information, please contact Prof. Martha Himmelfarb, chair of the Baron Prize committee ([email protected]). degree, Yiddish language), historical questions predominantly focusing on ancient or early modern Jewry, and very rarely, modern-day Israel. As a woman whose scholarship was impressed by the study of philosophy, literature, critical theory, and gender, I was not SyRAcUSe UnIveRSIty PReSS sure whether my academic work or I would be able to find a place in such an organization or field, and whether even the subjects Judah L. Magnes of my research would be welcome. After all, An AmericAn Jewish nonconformist I study mostly acculturating German Jews from the Enlightenment period, or early Daniel P. Kotzin twentieth-century German philosophers Judah L. Magnes was an American who regarded themselves as “secular.” Reform rabbi, Jewish community In the past twenty years, the parameters leader, and active pacifist during World of Jewish studies have changed and expanded, War I. Kotzin tells the story of how however, incorporating approaches already Magnes, immersed in American tried in other fields, and thereby inventing Jewish life, Zionism, and Jewish life itself anew. Could one describe the work of in Mandatory Palestine, rebelled Walter Benjamin or Max Horkheimer as against the dominant strains of all Jewish philosophy? I have been asking this three. Magnes brought American ideals question in my own academic work, which tries to return Jewish culture and thought to to Palestine, and his unique conception German studies. Today, questions of this kind of Zionism shaped Jewish public life in have finally been made part of the field of Palestine, influencing both the devel- Jewish studies as well. opment of the Hebrew University and Zionist policy toward Arabs.

Have your own answer to this question? Email it Cloth $49.95s 978-0-8156-3216-0 to [email protected] with The Questionnaire in the subject line. The AJS will continue this discussion www.SyracuseUniversityPress.syr.edu on its website. to order, call 1-800-848-6224

FALL 2010 59 kotrin.indd 1 3/16/2010 1:36:23 PM