The Jewish Race?

ERSPECTIVESERSPECTIVES AJSPPThe Magazine of the Association for Jewish Studies The Jewish Race? FALL 2007 AJS Perspectives: The Magazine TABLE OF CONTENTS of the Association for Jewish Studies President From the Editor. 3 Sara R. Horowitz York University Editor From the President . 5 Allan Arkush Binghamton University From the Executive Director . 7 Editorial Board Howard Adelman The Jewish Race? Queen's University Alanna Cooper University of Massachusetts Amherst French-Jewish Racial Identity and the Right to Be Different Jonathan Karp Lisa Moses Leff. 8 Binghamton University Heidi Lerner Zionism, Race, and the Great Zionist Racialist Novel Stanford University Frances Malino Mark Gelber . 12 Wellesley College Vanessa Ochs Sigmund Freud’s Racial Theory of Jewishness University of Virginia Eliza Slavet . 16 Riv-Ellen Prell University of Minnesota Maurice Fishberg and the Ambiguities of Jewish Identity Shmuel Shepkaru University of Oklahoma Mitchell Hart . 20 Abe Socher Oberlin College Fashioning Jewishness in a Black and White World Shelly Tenenbaum Clark University Eric Goldstein . 26 Keith Weiser York University Biological Discourse and American Jewish Identity Steven Zipperstein Lynn Davidman and Shelly Tenenbaum . 30 Stanford University Managing Editor On the Politics of Genetic Research Pertaining to the Jews Karin Kugel Executive Director Raphael Falk . 36 Rona Sheramy Graphic Designer Perspectives on Technology: Matt Biscotti Wild 1 Graphics, Inc. Web-Based Learning and Teaching Resources for Jewish Studies Heidi Lerner . 40 Please direct correspondence to: Association for Jewish Studies Center for Jewish History Studying the Bible in Jerusalem and New Haven 15 West 16th Street Robb Young . 44 New York, NY 10011 Voice: (917) 606-8249 Fax: (917) 606-8222 AJS 39th Annual Conference Information. 58 E-Mail: [email protected] Web Site: www.ajsnet.org AJS Perspectives is published bi-annually by the Association for Jewish Studies. AJS Perspectives encourages submissions of articles, announcements, and brief letters to the editor related to the interests of our members. Materials submitted will be published at the The Association for Jewish Studies is an discretion of the editors. AJS Perspectives reserves the right to reject articles, affiliate of the Center for Jewish History. announcements, letters, advertisements, and other items not consonant with the goals and purposes of the organization. Copy may be condensed or rejected because of length or style. © Copyright 2007 Association for Jewish Studies AJS Perspectives disclaims responsibility for statements made by contributors or advertisers. ISSN 1529-6423 It is important to remember that what we could to call it to this was the case not only to obtain everyone’s attention, we decided to FROM a better grasp of the past but in highlight it in this issue. We have order to see more recent asked the authors of a few of the THE developments in a clearer most interesting recent books, perspective. For as Rosman points articles, and theses on the subject to EDITOR out (and several of our contributors recapitulate concisely some of the corroborate), some of our results of their research. We also Dear Colleagues, contemporaries, including some asked some of them to go a little Jews, “perplexed by the further and reflect on specific ny kind of identification of the phenomenon of Jewishness and its questions related to their prior Jews as a race now has a resistance to ready definition, still publications. When we put all of A suspicious ring to it. As sometimes take refuge in what, their contributions together, we Moshe Rosman observes in his new upon reflection, is a biological— found that we had collected a set of book, How Jewish is Jewish History? even racial—characterization.” essays that should be helpful both (Littman, 2007), “In the wake of to those who are unfamiliar with the terrible fate suffered by the Jews The effort to understand both the this general subject and those who in the twentieth century, partially as more systematic and substantive have previously been attentive only a consequence of racial theory, and Jewish race-thinking of the to one or another aspect of it. the general discrediting of such nineteenth and early twentieth theory since the Second World War, century and the more hesitant and Heidi Lerner’s technology column Jewish intellectuals today would not nebulous race-tinged ruminations of will not focus, this time, on the contemplate classifying the Jews as a some post-Holocaust Jews has issue’s principal theme but on a race, and would certainly not write yielded a great deal of solid number of web-based learning and their history as a racial one.” scholarship. Intellectual and social teaching resources for Jewish Indeed, it would be understandable historians, sociologists, and studies. Finally, Robb Young, a enough, after everything that has scientists have written extensively graduate student in biblical studies happened, if we all just breathed a about the various ways in which at Yale University, discusses some of collective sigh of relief at the European, American, and Israeli the differences between the way the disappearance of the idea of racial Jews of different eras have Bible is studied there and at the Jewishness and devoted our conceived of themselves in racial or institution he attended previously, attention to more pressing quasi-racial terms. This work is far The Hebrew University. Other questions. from obscure. But since it goes graduate students please take note: somewhat against the grain, it may We would very much like to hear But it would not be wise to do so. to some extent be hiding in plain from you and to publish what you For a long time and in many sight, invisible to those who are have to say. different ways the Jews were disinclined to see it. categorized as a race not only by Allan Arkush their most vicious enemies but by Convinced of the significance of the Binghamton University many of their own leading thinkers. research in this area and eager to do The Association for Jewish Studies wishes to thank the Center for Jewish History and its constituent organizations–the American Jewish Historical Society, the American Sephardi Federation, the Leo Baeck Institute, the Yeshiva University Museum, and the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research– for providing the AJS with office space at the Center for Jewish History. 3 AJS INSTITUTIONAL MEMBERS The Association for Jewish Studies is pleased to announce the following Institutional Members for the 2007-08 membership year: Case Western Reserve University, Samuel Rosenthal Center for University of Connecticut, Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Judaic Studies Jewish Life The Center for Cultural Judaism University of Denver, Center for Judaic Studies Cornell University, Jewish Studies Program University of Massachusetts - Amherst, Department of Judaic and Near DePauw University, Jewish Studies Program Eastern Studies Duke University, Department of Jewish Studies University of Michigan, The Frankel Center for Judaic Studies Foundation for Jewish Culture University of North Carolina Asheville, Center for Jewish Studies Georgetown University, Program for Jewish Civilization University of Oregon, Harold Schnitzer Family Program in Judaic Studies Hebrew College University of Pittsburgh, Jewish Studies Program Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion University of Tennessee, The Fern and Manfred Steinfeld Program in Indiana University, Robert A. and Sandra S. Borns Jewish Studies Program Judaic Studies The Jewish Theological Seminary, The Graduate School The University of Texas at Austin, Schusterman Center for Jewish Studies Louisiana State University, Jewish Studies Program University of Virginia, Jewish Studies Program Michigan State University, Jewish Studies Program University of Washington, Jewish Studies Program, Jackson School of New York University, Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies International Studies Northwestern University, The Crown Family Center for Jewish Studies United States Holocaust Memorial Museum The Ohio State University, Melton Center for Jewish Studies Vanderbilt University, Program in Jewish Studies Pennsylvania State University, Jewish Studies Program Washington University in St. Louis, Program in Jewish, Islamic, and Near Reconstructionist Rabbinical College Eastern Studies Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies Yeshiva University Stanford University, Taube Center for Jewish Studies Yeshiva University Museum UCLA Center for Jewish Studies YIVO Institute for Jewish Research The University of Arizona, Arizona Center for Judaic Studies York University, Centre for Jewish Studies If your program, department, or institution is interested in becoming an AJS institutional member, please contact Rona Sheramy, AJS Executive Director, at [email protected] or 917.606.8249. 2008 Center for Jewish History Fellowship Program The application deadline for the 2008 CJH Fellowship Program is February 1, 2008. The Center for Jewish History (CJH) fellowships, that represent each of the five constituents (American Jewish Historical Society, American Sephardi Federation, Leo Baeck Institute, Yeshiva University Museum, YIVO Institute for Jewish Research), are intended for academic candidates as well as museum, curatorial, and library science candidates. The awards support original research in the field of Jewish Studies, as it pertains to one or more of the constituent organizations' missions, in which preference may be given to those candidates who will

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