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 draw on the resources of more than one collection. Full fellowships carry a stipend of up to $12,500 for a period of one academic year. It is expected that applicants will have completed all requirements for the doctoral degree save the dissertation (a.b.d.). It is required that each fellow chosen for the award: • Conduct research (or cultivate curatorial skills for curatorial fellows only) for the duration of the award at a minimum of 2 days/week in the Lillian Goldman Reading Room using the archival and library resources. Please note that the Center reserves the right to withhold stipends from fellows who do not fulfill the attendance commitment. • Participate in a Center for Jewish History Seminar and deliver a minimum of one lecture (during or beyond the grant period) based on research at the Center and the collections used; or participate in exhibition planning (for curatorial fellows only). For eligibility and application requirements see www.cjh.org/collections/fellowships.php
4 that are not usually associated with While views may differ on what Jewish studies have come to see the constitutes the center of civilization FROM work of AJS as increasingly relevant (both place and newspaper), it is to their own endeavors, with our clear that today, while there are THE annual conference as one important several significant centers of Jewish set of exchanges in which they studies, there is no one center, no PRESIDENT participate. single locale where our conference must weigh anchor. Dear Colleagues, Ever since our conference ventured out of its ur-home at the Copley And so, in 2007, our organization order crossing, eh? Plaza Hotel in Boston, abandoning takes the significant step of its cozy elegance to meet the need convening outside the 50 states. In B for larger accommodations, the anticipation, it seems appropriate space of the conference has both for me to write a few words about When our annual conference reflected and defined the shape of what is now my hometown, and the convenes later this year in Toronto, the organization. During the first country in which it sits. Toronto, the Association for Jewish Studies several decades of our organization, the largest city and the largest will meet for the first time outside the cluster of important Jewish Jewish community in Canada, rated the boundaries of the United States. studies programs in the greater this year by Economist magazine as Given the international reach of our Boston area and in the Northeast the fifth most livable city in the organization, it is fitting that we more broadly made that city and world, is home to the largest should do so. We represent a region appear to be the epicenter of concentration of academic Jewish membership that is international in Jewish scholarship. But the studies in Canada. scope, and our organization proliferation of Jewish studies in supports the development of many other locales has meant the Canadian multiculturalism and research and teaching in Jewish development of other serious diversity foster the perpetuation of studies globally. centers and consortia elsewhere. ethnic neighborhoods, and Jewish When the conference convened in neighborhoods are part of the more Headquartered in New York, our Chicago in December 1999—the general clustered landscape of a organization actively extends itself first time meeting outside of mosaic society. The Greater beyond North America to Boston—the organization gave up Toronto Area, a large urban colleagues on other continents. AJS its geographic mooring. Like expanse that extends beyond the has always had a solid base among comparable learned societies, we municipality of Toronto into Israeli scholars, and a growing convene in different locales, densely populated suburbs, is home membership in western European bringing the conference closer to to over 180,000 Jews, roughly half countries. In recent years, under the the places where our members live of Canada’s Jewish inhabitants. Per aegis of our International and work. capita, the Jewish population of Cooperation Committee, led by Canada is fourth largest in the Berel Lang, we have reached out to When I was finishing my graduate world—and, as a percentage of the colleagues in Eastern Europe, studies and contemplating places total population, Canada’s Jewish through travel awards and other where an academic position might population comes in third. means. Similar international bring me, my doctoral advisor, who initiatives are under consideration. was then approaching retirement, From the perspective of the reminisced about his first neighbor to the south, Canada In addition, the border crossing of appointment—in southern seems much like the United States, our conference this year reflects the California. It was, he recollected, only perhaps quieter, more polite, border crossing inherent to the during an era when “west of the more left-leaning and climatically meeting and mixing of the different Rockies” not only meant more challenged (much in sympathy with areas, fields, and disciplines that expensive delivery fees but Voltaire’s dismissive, if short- comprise Jewish studies. More connoted living beyond the pale. As sighted, description, “quelques scholars are finding a natural home he recalled it, the litmus of arpents de neige”). Yet differences at AJS for their academic work, civilization then, was how many abide. Canadians, of course, make bringing new perspectives and days past Sunday would one receive much of not being the USA, subjects to our organization, and one’s copy of the Sunday New York something emphasized palpably at enriching their own work through Times. In those days in southern past AJS conferences, as Canadian that encounter. Scholars in fields California, it was Tuesday. participants must pick up badges 5 and programs on site, rather than for the vast majority of American Much as the loosening of the AJS receiving them in the mail like their students—the first move from home annual conference from its Boston U.S. counterparts. and into the quasi-independence of moorings was both a symbol and an dorm life or off-campus housing. agent of the development of the In addition to remembering that Canadian students, in large organization, this first crossing of Canadians say “washroom” and numbers, continue to live at home an international boundary bodes a “zed,” and use “eh” the way the and commute to university classes— future evolution, one that we all French use “n’est-ce pas,” although with each year, that trend have a hand in shaping. conference participants may be is shifting, as students elect to interested in other Canadiana, in attend out-of-town universities. See you in Toronto, eh? preparation for crossing the border. Canadian universities are public, As some of you may know, for chartered, and supported by the Sara R. Horowitz Canadian university students, provinces through tax dollars. York University postsecondary education is not the Ontario tuition is approximately geographic rite of passage that it is $5,000 per year.
THE AJSThe IS PLEASEDAssociation TO ANNOUNCE for Jewish THE RECIPIENTSStudies is OFpleased THE 2007 to CannounceAHNMAN G RANTS: the recipients of the first
CAHNMAN PUBLICATION SUBVENTION GRANTS
in support of first books
Serguei B. Dolgopolskii (University of Kansas) What is Talmud? The Art of Disagreement To be published by Fordham University Press
Adam Shear (University of Pittsburgh) The Book of the Kuzari and the Shaping of Jewish Identity, 1167-1900 To be published by Cambridge University Press
Karen B. Stern (University of Southern California) Inscribing Devotion and Death: Deciphering Jewish Culture of Roman North Africa (2nd-6th centuries, C.E.) To be published by Brill
Support for these grants has been provided by The Cahnman Foundation of New York.
6 Any book published in English outstanding proposals submitted to within four years of the deadline the conference, AJS for the first FROM will be eligible for consideration, time has added additional session and any AJS member will be slots after lunch on Tuesday, THE qualified to submit their book for December 18. We encourage consideration or be nominated for members to stay until 4:00 pm that EXECUTIVE consideration by a third party day to participate in the afternoon’s (publisher, etc.). Scholars at all excellent panels. Also a first will be DIRECTOR stages of their careers will be the participation of Jewish eligible to apply; in this way, the educators from the Toronto Dear Colleagues, Jordan Schnitzer Book Awards will community who, thanks to a both honor academics who have generous grant from the Centre for JS is pleased to announce the not yet secured a widespread Enhancement of Jewish Education Jordan Schnitzer Book reputation, as well as pay tribute to of the Jewish Federation of Awards, the first annual more senior scholars who have Toronto, will receive professional A made major contributions to the development credit for attending book award program to be offered by the Association for Jewish field. Judging will take place by a the meeting. We look forward to Studies, made possible by generous committee of scholars who their involvement, as well as to funding from the Jordan Schnitzer represent excellence in the year’s welcoming many new Canadian Family Foundation of Portland, designated fields. members to AJS. Oregon. These awards will recognize and promote outstanding Recipients of the Jordan Schnitzer On a final note, AJS said good-bye scholarship in the fields of Jewish Book Awards will be recognized at this spring to Karin Kugel in her studies and will honor scholars a reception held each year in their role as administrative assistant, a whose work embodies the best in honor at the AJS conference; the position she began in 2003 with the award will also be announced in organization’s move to New York. the field: innovative research, AJS publications and other Karin’s contributions in this excellent writing, and sophisticated professional and national media. position were many, especially her methodology. The awards are AJS plans to accept nominations behind-the-scenes programming structured to recognize all areas of and application materials from work on our new website, her Jewish studies research, paying February through May of 2008, oversight of Perspectives production, tribute to both the breadth and with the first recipients to be and her redesign of the conference depth of AJS members’ scholarship. announced at the AJS’s 40th program book. Although now Beginning in 2008, AJS will award Annual Conference, December based in Massachusetts, Karin two $5,000 Jordan Schnitzer Book 21–23, 2008 at the Washington continues as the managing editor of Awards on an annual basis. The Grand Hyatt in Washington, D.C. Perspectives, webmaster of AJS’s prizes will be given in a total of Further details regarding application website, and as a consultant on eight subject years—two per year— materials and deadlines will be several other projects. We are with subjects rotating over a four- announced at the AJS conference in delighted for Karin’s continued year period. The preliminary list of Toronto this December; please also involvement and wish her much subjects includes: check the AJS website in early 2008 luck in her other new ventures. We for more information. also welcome Kristen Loveland to • Philosophy and Jewish thought the New York office as AJS’s new • Biblical studies, Rabbinics, and AJS’s upcoming 39th Annual administrative assistant. archaeology Conference at the Sheraton Centre • Jewish literature Toronto, December 16–18, 2007, Rona Sheramy • Pre-modern Jewish history promises to be a groundbreaking Association for Jewish Studies (antiquity through medieval era) event. The first meeting to be held • Early modern and modern Jewish outside of the United States, it has history already set several records, including • Social science, anthropology, the greatest number of paper and linguistics, and folklore session submissions and the highest • Jews and the arts (visual, number of conference sessions performance, music) (more than 150) in AJS history. To • Gender studies accommodate the numerous
7 The Jewish RACE?
retained its vitality through the centuries, and its religion, conserved FRENCH-JEWISH through endogamous practices, offers moral lessons particularly RACIAL IDENTITY AND THE relevant for the nineteenth century. Somewhat in tension with their emphasis on Jewish distinctiveness RIGHT TO BE DIFFERENT was their claim that the message of Lisa Moses Leff identify exactly when French Jews Judaism was universal, since it was began to refer to themselves as a the parent of Christianity and Islam, iven our current repugnance race for the first time, such language and its mission still today was to for calling Jews a “race,” it had clearly arrived by mid-century. bring, as Hess put it, “humanitarian Gmay be surprising to learn To get a sense of how this religion” back to the whole world. that Jews themselves, in France at terminology was used at the time, least, adopted this terminology to one need but look at some key These works were reviewed, define themselves in the mid- works focusing on Jewish history celebrated and summarized in the nineteenth century. When they did, marketed to the educated French- French-Jewish press, where they weren’t merely borrowing Jewish reading public in the 1860s journalists were already describing terms from their enemies, as by Gustave d’Eichthal, Hippolyte Jews as a biologically defined people scholars once believed. On the Rodrigues, Joseph Salvador, and whose religion was essentially a set contrary, a generation of lessons relevant for the before anti-Semites contemporary world. began to use racial And in the spirit of these language to define Jews . . . THE PARIS-BASED ALLIANCE ISRAELITE works, the Paris-based as unwelcome strangers Alliance Israelite in the nation, prominent UNIVERSELLE AWARDED A PRIZE IN 1862 TO Universelle awarded a French-Jewish writers prize in 1862 to Alfred had already begun to use ALFRED LEGOYT FOR HIS STATISTICAL STUDY Legoyt for his statistical this terminology to quite study demonstrating the different ends. As we DEMONSTRATING THE “VITALITY” OF THE “JEWISH “vitality” of the “Jewish shall see, exploring the RACE IN UROPE race” in Europe, a work circumstances under ” E . . . that again emphasized which they first adopted both Jewish this new language to distinctiveness in express their sense of self provides a Maurice (Moses) Hess, who, physiological terms and the particularly good vantage point though German, made his home in universalism of the teachings of from which to understand key issues Paris and regularly contributed to Judaism. These are but a few in both Jewish and French history. French-Jewish periodicals. The examples of a widespread books put forth similar arguments: phenomenon: in the mid-nineteenth Although it is somewhat difficult to the Jews are an ancient race that has 8 century, race discourse was generally of thinking would certainly have which the fulfillment of nationalist used by assimilated Jews in France appealed to the assimilating elite of dreams would lead to world who were seeking to articulate both nineteenth-century French Jews, redemption. These influential their indelible uniqueness and their who themselves nourished the writers saw races as poised at a new essential connectedness to all utopian hope that the Revolution moment in history—a final moment humanity simultaneously. (once fully completed, of course) of racial fusion, a final end to the would bring about an era of Jewish cycle of conquest and submission. Where did this language come political, social, economic, and even They saw the nationalist movements from, and why were these Jews, all spiritual well-being by allowing emerging across Europe as racial educated in secular institutions, Jews to reconnect to the world yearnings finally taking political embracing it at this particular around them. form. For Michelet, the French moment? As it was used by other Revolution was a model for what French writers at the time, race-talk But by the time the mainstream was to come on a global scale: provided a useful model of national Jewish press adopted it in the democratic institutions would form integration in which various groups middle of the century, race-thinking to mediate between the world’s could come together without was about more than just the right races. Similarly, Quinet argued that abandoning their particular beliefs. of distinctive groups like themselves like the Catholic Church before it, The origins of this conceptual to exist in peace within a nation. In contemporary France’s mission in framework lay among the world was to make “an French historians in the alliance between the human 1820s. First theorized by races,” by spreading its the brothers Augustin morality and its science. and Amadée Thierry and By the time Jewish adapted by François writers adapted it in the Guizot, “race” was seen early 1860s, race theory as the analytic key to in mainstream public history. Change in discourse was thus human societies, the embraced by thinkers Thierrys had argued, committed to democratic took place because of movements on a global conflicts between scale. migrating and warring racial groups, each of Following these romantic whom brought with nationalists, French- them distinct forms of Jewish writers used racial culture and politics. For language to situate their Amadée Thierry, for identities in a context example, much of beyond the purely French history was a national. As conceived by history of conflict these assimilated writers, between the Franks and the special mission of the the Gauls, two races Jews in the nineteenth- distinct from one century world was most another in temperament, certainly internationalist. Portrait of Ernest Renan. Reprinted from William Francis Barry, appearance, and morality. Ernest Renan (New York: Scribner, 1905), frontispiece. The most striking While this theory could be examples of this come used to justify racial violence, most the 1830s and 1840s, this discourse from the writings of Jews involved nineteenth-century French was reshaped by the utopian in the Saint-Simonian movement of historians saw their own era as one socialist Saint-Simonians who were the 1820s and 1830s, which would of racial harmony. As Guizot as interested in the international as so shape racial thinking in France. asserted, the Revolution in France the national arena. As the left-wing Léon Halévy, for example, argued in had finally brought an end to the historians Jules Michelet and Edgar 1828 that through their inherited long-standing struggle between the Quinet used it, racial discourse knowledge of international banking nation’s races by establishing a legal became the backbone of what Jacob and commerce, Jews would know and institutional framework that Talmon described as “the romantic how to bring peace and prosperity mediated between them. This way phase” of political messianism in to the whole world. Similarly, in a
9 series of unpublished works from April 1862 article, Cahen attacked 1880s and 1890s, it appears that it the 1830s, Gustave d’Eichthal the work’s most basic theoretical was not race-language itself, but its argued that since the Jewish racial foundation in race theory: exclusionary use that Jewish leaders nature combined Eastern and found so objectionable. Even as Western elements, then Judaism, as We protest Mr. Renan’s they came to use it, then, the the law of that universal people, assertion that the French articulated a critique of could serve as a model for the advancement of human racial discourse. In seeing its dual administration of justice in a society is tied to its rupture nature even as they came to modern international order. from the Jewish idea . . . embrace it, Jewish writers were Versions of such claims became [W]e don’t like these perhaps more aware than others in commonplace in the mid- absolute formulas, that their world that race-language could nineteenth-century Jewish press as claim that one religion or be used to wildly divergent ends. well. Jews’ uniqueness and their another has the monopoly particular utility in the nineteenth on one idea or another, Thank you to the editors and century were centered on the fact of excluding one religion from publisher of Jewish History for the unity Jews displayed in their the benefits of the other; allowing Perspectives to publish this dispersion. we regret this doctrine of article based on Lisa Leff’s previously races, that instead of basing published work, “Self-Definition and Yet in spite of this apparent human society on an Self-Defense: Jewish Racial Identity enthusiasm for racial terminology, exchange of services and in Nineteenth-Century France.” French-Jewish writers also seemed merits, is always paving the Jewish History 19:1 (January somewhat nervous about its way for proscriptions. 2005): 7–28. potential uses, even before the rise of racial anti-Semitism. Such worry While most Jewish writers— Lisa Moses Leff is Associate Professor is clearly present in Archives including Cahen himself—would of History at Southwestern Israélites editor Isidore Cahen’s continue to use the language of race University. She is the author of ambivalent response to Ernest to describe the Jewish people, such Sacred Bonds of Solidarity: The Renan’s scholarly work on ancient early protests can help us to achieve Rise of Jewish Internationalism in Israel and the historical Jesus in a more refined understanding of Nineteenth-Century France 1862. Although Cahen clearly liked how and why they were adopting (Stanford University Press, 2006). the fact that Renan had the language. When such characterized Jesus as embodying terminology was useful for asserting the characteristics and teachings of minority rights, including the right the Jewish race, he voiced real to cultural or religious difference, concern over the underlying anti- race-language was used because of Jewish tone of the scholar’s work, its powerful democratic message. and especially, his explicit insistence But where such language became a that the Jewish people’s vitality was warrant for exclusion, Jewish writers a thing of the past. Confronting would vehemently reject it. Indeed, Renan’s idea that history should be looking closely at how Jewish seen as a progressive rejection of leaders responded to racial anti- Judaism by the Aryan race in an Semitism when it emerged in the AJS 39th Annual Conference December 16-18, 2007 • Sheraton Centre • Toronto, Ontario See the AJS website (www.ajsnet.org) for the latest information on conference sessions, special evening events, musical performances and films, and visiting Toronto. (see page 59 for further details)
10 New from Stanford University Press
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11 to a large degree on its to corroborate the idea of a separate positive racial Jewish nation, nationalist thinkers ZIONISM, RACE, characteristics. sought to validate the notion of a modern and secular Jewish national AND THE This capacity could be identity untethered from traditional actualized through religious conceptions of Jewishness. Zionism and then, Race could be employed GREAT ZIONIST according to purposefully in this context. At the Birnbaum, utilized in same time, acceptance of the racial RACIALIST NOVEL order to transmit argument helped to reinforce the Mark Gelber European civilization case against Jewish assimilation and to Asia and Africa. In theory, the integration into “foreign” racial- he Zionist movement arose Jewish nation reconstituted in its national groups. As it turned out, at a time when racial science homeland would function as a this argument also appealed to non- Tand racialist discourses were cultural force mediating between Jewish observers who were becoming more and more securely Eastern and Western racial groups sympathetic to Zionism and its established in the Western world. for the benefit of humanity. It is various cultural expressions precisely While this naturally set the stage for important to emphasize that the because they made a strong case for the enlistment of racial science in rhetoric of race here as elsewhere Jewish national difference that the Zionist cause, within the Zionist movement was indicated the necessity of there seems to have concomitant political been a widespread COMPLEMENTING THE POLEMICAL LITERATURE, and social exclusionary reluctance among measures. political Zionists to RACIAL ELEMENTS AND RACIAL PERSPECTIVES exploit the rhetoric of The issue of racial race or to adopt it NATURALLY MADE THEIR WAY INTO CULTURAL purity turned out to be unreservedly. Despite neutral in this regard, the fact that there ZIONIST LITERATURE AND ART, PROVIDING since there were those were some strongly cultural Zionists, like committed racialist IMPORTANT CATEGORIES FOR THE CRITICAL ANALYSIS Birnbaum, who viewed thinkers and activists the Jewish people as a such as Arthur OF JEWISH AESTHETIC PRODUCTION WITHIN THE product of racial admixture, and others, Ruppin, who held REALM OF CULTURAL IONISM influential positions in Z . like Heinrich Loewe of the World Zionist Berlin, who believed in Organization, Zionism as a for the most part racialist in nature fundamental Jewish racial purity. In movement neither formulated a and not racist, if I may be permitted fact, they represented different racial political philosophy nor to make this distinction. In other streams within cultural Zionism, instituted racial policy. words, the lively discussion about which was able to accommodate race in cultural Zionist polemical both as part of a larger discussion. Nevertheless, it is fair to say that a literature normally presented a view Contemporary scientific (sic) racialist orientation was fundamental of racial difference and uniqueness literature on the Jewish race was to Central European cultural within the overall framework of the similarly full of disagreements about Zionism. Ahad Ha’am by and large equality of races and the shared the issue of purity, as it was with avoided the rhetoric of race and capacity of all humans to develop regard to other contentious topics only rarely incorporated racialist their own potentialities within racial related to race. perspectives or rhetoric into his groupings. Racialist formulations Hebraic cultural or spiritual Zionist which tended toward racism and Complementing the polemical polemics. However, Nathan claims of the racial superiority of literature, racial elements and racial Birnbaum, a pre-Herzlian Jewish one race over others were generally perspectives naturally made their nationalist from Vienna who absent. way into cultural Zionist literature propounded his own distinctive and art, providing important version of cultural Zionism, saw The notion of a distinct Jewish categories for the critical analysis of things differently. Birnbaum argued racial identity served to reinforce Jewish aesthetic production within in favor of the potent cultural the idea of a unique Jewish national the realm of cultural Zionism. capacity of the Jewish nation, based identity. In order to construct and Poetry which celebrated the “Jewish 12 blood” and its potentialities became paradigmatic, highlights the The development of Jewish racial a focal point of interest in Zionist transformation of an alienated, consciousness and the actualization circles. For example, Richard Beer- decadent, disinterested, of Zionist ideology are combined Hofmann’s poem “Schlaflied für disillusioned, acculturated Jewish polemically in the great Zionist Mirjam” (1897, Lullaby for male intellectual into a self- racialist novel, René Richter, Die Miriam) stimulated great interest in conscious member of the Jewish Entwicklung eines modernen Juden this regard, especially its arresting nation, perhaps as a sign of a (1906, René Richter, The lines: “. . . and blood in us deep/ burgeoning commitment both to Development of a Modern Jew). Flows from those past to those yet life and to the future of the nation. The work was written by Lothar to be, Blood of our Fathers, restless In the Zionist racial novel, an Brieger, an interesting if forgotten and proud.” Furthermore, Zionist additional factor comes into play. participant in the early cultural art criticism attempted to discern Within the development of the plot, Zionist scene in Berlin, and it the particularist Jewish racial this same protagonist-type eventually deserves to be read as the seminal characteristics of artwork created by comes to realize Jewish racial fictional text of racialist Zionism Jewish artists. In the case of a belonging and a new responsibility despite its numerous aesthetic flaws, Jewish-nationally conscious artist like E. M. Lilien, who identified with Zionism and chose Biblical and other Jewish-related topics for his artwork, the recourse to the rhetoric of race in the critical commentary appears to be appropriate, uncomplicated, and even natural. This same critical tendency, however, is characteristic of the cultural Zionist appreciation of artwork unrelated to Jewish themes or created by artists who failed to evidence Jewish- nationalist leanings or Passah [Passover] by Ephraim Moses Lilien. Reprinted from Börries Freiherr von Münchausen and E.M. Lilien, consciousness, despite their Juda (Berlin: E. Fleischel, 1900). indisputable Jewish racial connection. One thinks of Max to race is expressed, based on the improbabilities, and fundamental Liebermann or Camille Pissarro in blood relationship to one’s lack of verisimilitude. In the novel, this context; both were appropriated ancestors. For example, in a novel by the racial aspect acquires primacy by cultural Zionism in this sense, Beer-Hofmann, Der Tod Georgs because the narrative perspective even if this appropriation process (1900, The Death of George), the and narrative voice are essentially appears in retrospect to have been protagonist overcomes his decadent racialist. Also, before the problematical, strained, or clumsy. passivity by unexpectedly affirming protagonist comes to identify with life and his Jewish heritage. Arriving Jewish nationalism, he becomes It is in this light that we must at an awareness of the proud and convinced of the primacy of his consider the emergence of the great ancient blood flowing in his veins, Jewish racial identity. Thus, the Zionist racialist novel. As a genre, he realizes a new sense of self, based novel justifies Jewish nationalism the Zionist novel manifests several on the perception of the deepest and Zionism by the pragmatic role general tendencies. Herzl’s layers of his soul and their historical they can play in terms of Jewish Altneuland (1902, Old-New Land), roots in the Jewish racial experience. racial preservation and which can be regarded as development.
13 The Zionist novel tends to circles and he subsequently to the racial dilemma at the heart of differentiate between diverse Jewish embraces the cause enthusiastically. the Jewish question in Europe. The types, usually in order to facilitate This sequence is complemented by last scene of the novel depicts the the identification of the Jewish the depiction of a new and healthy young couple on board an ocean enemy “within,” who can be just as love relationship and marriage steamer, having dissolved their pernicious an enemy of the people, between him and a childhood Berlin household and having said as the despicable anti-Semite sweetheart, who had patiently their last good-byes to Europe, “without.” In Brieger’s work, the remained true to him through the confident in happy anticipation of inner Jewish differentiation is years. This relationship is based the future of the regeneration of the predicated on racial purity. Thus, partially on the racial compatibility Jewish race and the Jewish the novel posits the existence of a of the pair, since she can also trace renaissance in Zion. Jewish aristocracy—a “Jewry within her lineage to fine Jewish stock. On Jewry”—based on inbreeding and one occasion he explains his love for Judging from its unenthusiastic an ideal of tradition. In a totally her as follows: “I love her because reception and commercial failure, fantastic sequence, René Richter the blood of the same race flows in Brieger’s great Zionist racialist novel traces his genealogy back several our veins, because our ideals are does not appear to have resonated centuries and discovers that he is a namely these [racial].” Zionism, in well with early twentieth-century descendant of the Biblical tribe of the novel, is depicted as a Zionist and non-Zionist, or Jewish Benjamin, which produced the first movement which aims to reorganize and non-Jewish, readers. Perhaps the Jewish king. According to the the Jewish race, to detach it from an unhappy fate of the novel can be fiction, this aristocratic tribe enervating struggle with the Aryans traced to its aesthetic demerits rather instinctively safeguarded its racial in Europe, and to reunify the than to its specific ideological purity throughout the ages. Some dispersed Jewish racial strains in the position, since other evidence shows common ground with racial anti- ancestral homeland. Its ultimate that the racial Zionist position Semitism is established, or at least goal is to rejuvenate the race and continued to be popular up to the some of the anti-Semitic build a new Jewish empire based on end of World War I. Nevertheless, argumentation leads the protagonist the principle of race, in harmony racialism decidedly lost its appeal to affirm his Jewish racial self and with the ancestral land and in within Zionism sometime in the eventually to become proud of his beneficial proximity to other Semitic 1920s; only a few, isolated figures and racial lineage. The enemy tribes. By dedicating their lives to publications continued to trumpet envisioned in the novel, of the the ideal of race in the land of Israel this ideology in subsequent years. Aryan race as well as the Jewish (and while working the land), René Consequently, this entire literature, race, is racial admixture itself. Thus, Richter and his wife serve a higher including its poetry and the great René Richter learns that his blond goal to the benefit of humanity. Zionist racial novel, disappeared from hair, tinged with red, is a sign of the They accept the duty and privilege Jewish consciousness, even before racial elite; supposedly, the elite of laying the groundwork for the racial ideologies were totally caste of every race, including the eventual arrival of the Jewish discredited following the tragic Jewish race, is blond-haired. In masses, who will come sooner or experience of Europe and Jewry Brieger’s novel, the Jewish aristocrat later, as the host countries inevitably during the Nazi era. appears to share more in terms of expel their Jewish residents. racial characteristics with the Mark Gelber is Associate Professor of Prussian aristocracy than with other Whereas anti-Semitism in eastern Comparative Literature and Jewish types, which are inferior and Europe served to preserve the racial German-Jewish Studies at Ben-Gurion tend towards assimilation and racial purity of much of its Jewry, it University, Beer Sheva. He is the attenuation and disappearance. simultaneously threatened the author of Melancholy Pride: Nation, continued existence of the nation. Race, and Gender in the German Late in Brieger’s novel, the The novel suggests that only the Literature of Cultural Zionism protagonist gravitates to Zionist Zionist idea can provide a solution (Tübingen: M. Niemeyer, 2000).
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14 15 racial thinking explain the tensions and without reducing it compulsions of the present, and (in SIGMUND FREUD’S to racism. These days turn) to see these narratives as Sigmund Freud’s indisputable history and palpable RACIAL THEORY work is more often facts “on the ground.” This fever is read in the context felt in and on the body, even as it is of philosophy and invisible, undefinable and ultimately OF JEWISHNESS literary theory than indecipherable. Sometimes it seems Eliza Slavet alongside the scientific authors with to take the form of a sickness, at whom he was deeply engaged. other times it is a fervor, an intense ince the Holocaust it has been While I focus on the latter context, craving, or a zealous enthusiasm. difficult to employ a “racial” my own work was initially inspired Now and then, it seems to lie Sdefinition of Jewishness by Jacques Derrida’s book, Archive dormant, biding its time. without sounding perverse or even Fever: A Freudian Impression anti-Semitic. And yet, within Jewish (1996), in which he explores the The idea of racial fever emerges communities and families—both “compulsive, repetitive, and directly out of psychoanalysis. observant and secular, both Throughout his life, Freud conservative and liberal— explored the ways in which there is often an almost individuals’ lives seem obsessive desire to know ruled by their pasts, whether a person is Jewish. tracing patients’ physical The definition of symptoms to psychical “Jewishness” in these cases traumas and identifying is almost always purely their compulsions to “genealogical” in that the repeat as the result of question is not whether a memories of a distant person feels, thinks, acts, or past. In his earliest work, looks Jewish, but whether Freud rejected his such suggestive signs are teachers’ overemphasis on evidence of the “real heredity by proposing thing”—the fact that the that his patients suffered person has a Jewish parent not from familial (or even a grandparent), degeneracy but from the fact that the person “reminiscences.” He really is Jewish. Indeed, it is initially resisted the idea not uncommon to hear that an individual’s (Jewish and non-Jewish) memories reached farther people say that someone is back than childhood. “half-Jewish” or a “quarter Along the way, however, Jewish” or even a “mixed he realized that there breed,” even as they are were certain conflicts and fully aware of the racial patterns which were (and possibly racist) logic of inexorable; individuals such descriptions. For seemed to be burdened better and often for worse, Sigmund Freud, 1856-1939. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. with memories not only the concept of race is a of their earliest lives, but historical reality whose nostalgic desire for the archive,” the of the effects “produced on the influence reaches far beyond the “irrepressible desire to return to the endlessly long chain of our color line. origin.” Archive fever is often ancestors.” Yet it was not until his accompanied by what I am calling final book that Freud specified what My current manuscript, “racial fever”: the irrepressible he meant by “our” ancestors and provisionally entitled Racial Fever: desire of individuals and explicitly explored the Jewish Psychoanalysis and the Jewish communities to define themselves question. Question, is an attempt to explore and others through genealogy, to race as a concept beyond the realm discover (and sometimes invent) Written during the last five years of of physical variation and to consider ancestral memories that seem to his life, Freud’s Moses and
16 Monotheism (1939) has long been proposal that Moses was not an was not misguided or outdated regarded as an autobiographical Israelite but rather an Egyptian was Lamarckism, but rather a reasoned curiosity which, while shedding the most shocking, for (as Freud and creative response to the political light on his feelings about his own acknowledges) it seemed to and scientific debates of his day. Jewishness, potentially compromises “deprive a people of the man whom some of the more convincing they take pride in as the greatest of What is perhaps most radical about aspects of psychoanalysis. In their sons.” Yet contrary to what Freud’s theory of Jewishness is not addition to being a bizarre most readers have assumed, by its racialism, but the humanism reworking of the biblical story of insisting on the Egyptianness of inherent in his peculiar Moses, this book draws upon Moses, Freud did not disavow his reconstruction of the historical dubious and origins of the seemingly THOUGH FREUD USES TEXTS, TRADITIONS, AND RITUALS AS Jewish people. To outmoded make a long and theories of race THE BASIS OF HIS RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ORIGINS OF complicated story and heredity. short, according to However, Moses THE JEWISH PEOPLE, HE ULTIMATELY CONCLUDES THAT Freud, Moses was and Monotheism is an Egyptian man a serious work in SUCH FORMS OF “DIRECT COMMUNICATION” ARE NOT who chose a which Freud “rowdy band of proposes a theory ENOUGH TO EXPLAIN THE DEEP POWER AND PERSISTENCE Semites” as his of Jewishness— people upon whom what it is, how it OF THE MOSAIC TRADITION. he imposed an is transmitted, abstract and how it continues to survive. own Jewishness or the Jewishness of monotheism based on an Egyptian Rather than an aberration, Freud’s his “institution” (that is, sun-god cult. Finding the Mosaic last book is the culmination of a psychoanalysis). Instead, he subtly tradition too difficult, the Semites lifetime spent investigating the questioned the self-evident character killed this Moses and apparently relationships between memory and of such definitions. Even in the forgot all about the episode. While its rivals: heredity, history, and biblical narrative, Moses was an Moses’ tradition remained “half- fiction. By proposing that certain Israelite only by virtue of his extinguished” for many centuries, it events in the distant past were so genealogy; after he was weaned he eventually “triumphed” (and traumatic that their memories were was brought back to Pharoah’s survived by being biologically inherited by successive generations, daughter and “he became her son” transmitted from one generation to Freud eventually integrated the two (Exodus 2:10). Thus, while he the next). By making the “choice” realms—the biological, permanent, might be genealogically Jewish, he of the Semites a human rather than and racial on the one hand, and the was “culturally” Egyptian. divine matter, Freud seems to psychic, experiential, and cultural on suggest that humans may also be the other. In Moses and Monotheism Though Freud uses texts, traditions, able to overcome those differences he theorized that Jewishness is and rituals as the basis of his which seem to set peoples apart. constituted by the inheritance of a reconstruction of the origins of the specific archaic memory which Jewish people, he ultimately Yet this hopeful humanism is Jewish people are inexorably concludes that such forms of “direct tempered by his recognition of compelled to transmit to future communication” are not enough to man’s limitations. According to generations, whether consciously or explain the deep power and Freud, what made the Jews Jewish unconsciously. It is for this reason persistence of the Mosaic tradition. was not only Moses’ choice or his that I consider Freud’s theory of Instead, he proposes that the tradition, but rather the Semites’ Jewishness to be a racial theory of memory-traces of Moses—and the violent murder of him. In proposing memory. Mosaic tradition itself—have been that the memory-traces of these biologically transmitted from one events were biologically inherited, Freud was well aware that his generation to the next. Like a Freud illuminates the ways in which reconstruction of the origins of the number of other Jewish scientists of history is often experienced as a Jewish people was bound to the early twentieth century, Freud matter beyond human intervention; offend—not only scholars of ancient draws from various contemporary the Jews remained Jewish not history, religion, and biology, but theories of evolution and heredity because of history, but because of laypeople (whether Jewish or non- and insists that acquired the naturalization and Jewish). For many readers, Freud’s characteristics are heritable. This internalization of history in the
17 body. Where Freud’s Moses has been seen as an attempt to cure the FREUD’S SKEPTICISM IS NOT ENTIRELY PESSIMISTIC. Jewish people (if not also Western Civilization) of their collective THROUGHOUT HIS LIFE, HE ARGUED THAT THE RETURN OF neurosis, it is far more representative of his skepticism THE REPRESSED IS INEVITABLE, AND IN HIS FINAL BOOK, HE about the potential for such change. EXTENDED THIS IDEA TO SUGGEST THAT DESPITE ALL Freud’s skepticism is not entirely pessimistic. Throughout his life, he REFORMS, REPUDIATIONS, AND REPRESSIONS, JEWISH argued that the return of the PEOPLE WILL REMAIN EWISH AND UDAISM WILL SURVIVE repressed is inevitable, and in his J J . final book, he extended this idea to Jewish history (according to Freud) human actions to anticipate and suggest that despite all reforms, was the Semites’ murder of Moses, work through these returns and to repudiations, and repressions, the inheritance of these memory- sustain the more “noble and Jewish people will remain Jewish traces persistently compels precious” elements in the future. and Judaism will survive. As individuals to try to make sense of shocking as this may sound, this history. The discomfort—and Eliza Slavet is Lecturer and Visiting however, such a guarantee of the strength—of Freud’s theory of Scholar in the Literature Department future is not necessarily hopeful, for Jewishness is the notion that when at the University of California, San it also suggests that the “fixity of the repressed returns, we cannot Diego, and Lecturer at the Gallatin identity”—racial fever and the predetermine whether the return School of Individualized Study, New violence which is so often will be for better or for worse. We York University. legitimated by it—is inescapable. can, however, take historical and While the most decisive event in
18 19 topics, have environment. Ruppin’s work was been all but originally published in German in MAURICE FISHBERG forgotten. In 1904, then revised and republished 1909, the in 1911; an English translation AND THE Austrian Jewish appeared in 1913. Ruppin, arguably physician and the most important Jewish social social scientist scientist of his day in Europe, had a AMBIGUITIES Ignaz Zollschan greater impact on people’s thinking published a long about Jews and race, and on Jewish OF JEWISH IDENTITY monograph on social science more generally, than Jews and the did Fishberg. Yet his seminal work Mitchell Hart question of race; the work was has not been reissued (though this aurice Fishberg’s magnum republished numerous times over is certainly a desideratum). opus, The Jews: A Study of the next few decades. True, it is in MRace and Environment German and would thus have to be Why Fishberg? I would argue that, (London: Walter Scott Publishing), translated. But Arthur Ruppin’s at minimum, the answer lies in the first appeared in 1911. It has just work, The Jews of Today, could very title of the book itself, in the been republished by ambuiguity and complexity Kessinger Publishing. suggested by the phrase Kessinger advertises itself “race and as a company that environment.” republishes extremely rare and hard-to-find The fundamental issue books, and then keeps Fishberg implicitly them in print indefinitely. raised in the title of his A wonderful service. But work remains an open it is difficult to question for Jews and understand their choice others. What are the of Fishberg’s work. The Jews? Are they a race? Jews: A Study of Race What is the relationship and Environment was between biology and reprinted in 1975 by culture, nature and Arno Press (New York), nurture, in their then again in 2006 by constitution? The Transactions Publishers, immediate attraction of with an introductory Fishberg’s book, then, essay by William lies first in the Helmreich. The book conjunction “and” in remains in print, hardly the title: race and difficult to obtain. environment; “and” rather than “or.” What might account for Fishberg certainly could the repeated have come down more republication of decisively on one side Fishberg’s work? or the other, as so many Assuming, of course, that others did at the time. the publishers believed But he did not. there was some profit to be made, that an appetite The question of Jewish and market exists for © (2006) by Transaction Publishers. identity, with regard to such a book, we then might Reprinted by permission of the publisher. race and culture, query the belief in such a biology and market. Why the continued interest, certainly lay claim to being just as environment, was never really or even assumption of interest? important as Fishberg’s for the “solved” by science; it was “solved” After all, other works from the same history and development of Jewish by politics, at least for half a century period, treating the same or similar thinking about Jews, race and or so. It was the Holocaust, and the 20 fundamental role racial thinking popular writers about race long a racialized or biosocial being, played in Nazi ideology and policy, before the Nazis, during that amenable to scientific analysis. that decided the issue of the Jews century or so when racial thinking and race, that placed the very asking was normative, at the center rather Unlike Fishberg and others at the the question “Are the Jews a race?” than at the margins of legitimate time, we do not assume or take for beyond the bounds of scientific and science and public thought. granted this ontological status of social respectability. Nazism and the the Jews. We are as interested in, or Holocaust made all but invisible a Fishberg’s work is instructive, and even more interested in, the complicated intellectual and cultural also perhaps so intellectually discourse—the narrative that is past in which the Jews were not exciting, because it also allows us to constructed about the Jews as a race solely the objects and the ultimate see the ambiguities or or Volk or nation. But, in the end, victims of a racial scientific discourse contradictions within the discourse perhaps we are still uncertain about but also participated in and about Jews and race at work. We the status of the Jews. “Was sind die contributed to this developing can see the degree to which Juden?” as one German discourse. Fishberg’s work is Fishberg, like other anthropologists, anthropologist wrote at the end of significant, and in all likelihood physicians, statisticians and other the nineteenth century. “What are fascinating, because it also reminds scholars at the time, granted the the Jews?” Not “Who is a Jew,” us of this complicated past. It takes ontological status of the Jews as a either according to Jewish law or us back to a time before the 1930s “thing” to be investigated, popular culture, but “What are the and 1940s when thinking and dissected, categorized, akin to other Jews” anthropologically. This was, writing about in the end, the the Jews in intellectual impulse racialized HOW RACIAL IS FISHBERG’S NARRATIVE? HIS OVERARCHING to Fishberg’s language was POINT IS THAT THE EWS ARE NOT A PURE RACE AND THAT research (the thoroughly J , political or respectable, even WHATEVER PARTICULAR OR PECULIAR PHYSICAL AND ideological mandatory for impulse, on the scientists or INTELLECTUAL TRAITS SCIENTISTS CAN IDENTIFY AS “JEWISH” other hand, was public assimilationism, the intellectuals who OWE FAR MORE TO HISTORY, ENVIRONMENT, AND CULTURE desire to wished to demonstrate participate in the THAN TO HEREDITY. scientifically that most urgent the Jews could and contemporary debates. groups, but also akin to plants and would integrate into European and animals. Again, like so many others, American societies, and the As so many, including Fishberg, Fishberg participated in the concomitant desire to refute the wrote at the time, the Jews were naturalization or materialization of Zionist claims that such a goal was especially interesting and important the Jews; their past, their bodies impossible). to the ongoing debate over race and and minds, their present-day environment because with them, or conditions were to be understood as How racial is Fishberg’s narrative? through them, one could investigate the product of natural forces—the His overarching point is that the almost all of the crucial issues raised natural selection process set forth by Jews are not a pure race, and that by science: collective identity and Darwin, the sociological and whatever particular or peculiar survival; racial purity; the mixing of economic conditions analyzed by physical and intellectual traits the races and the import of social scientists, and/or the bioracial scientists can identify as “Jewish” endogamy and exogamy; the mechanisms of heredity delineated owe far more to history, connection between geography, by racial scientists. Thus, when we environment, and culture than to environment, and physical and read Fishberg we can see, in one of heredity. But can Fishberg really be intellectual characteristics; race and its fullest forms, the variety of called an anti- or nonracialist? Not poverty; race and crime; race and approaches taken by science to really, at least not in this work (in hygiene. What is normal, what grasp the Jew as a natural being. the 1930s he would join with his pathological? How do we account Fishberg’s book offers us a friend Franz Boas to spearhead an for types, for groups traits, for wonderful example of the anti-racist campaign aimed at the statistical patterns? The Jews were a construction of the racial discourse idea of Aryan supremacy). But in favorite subject among non-Jewish about the Jews, the way in which 1911 Fishberg is still asking and Jewish social scientists and science works to make the Jew into questions that preoccupy 21 anthropologists, demographers, prosper in tropical as well as in cold explanation or another. And neither physicians, and others who take race climates, it is probably more due to can we, at least not without the very seriously as a key to the racial elements which they have help of ideology or the history of understanding groups, including the acquired in the countries of their the Holocaust. Thus, politics might Jews. Thus, Fishberg insists in the present sojourn than to the dictate the answer “Jews are not a preface to the book that there is no ‘Semitic’ blood which is alleged to race,” because to assert the opposite need for him to defend bringing flow in their veins.” is to invite another catastrophe in out such a book, given that “the the name of social, racial, or eugenic whole world is interested in the Are most Jews any more certain purity. Science, though, has still not subject of the Jews as a race, and these days about the nature of finished working out the the getting into closer touch with Jewish identity, about the relationship between biology, the ethnic relations of the Jews.” relationship between genetics and history, and culture. Thus, for many culture—even if most would not Jews, and probably even more non- In his narrative he is often more employ the term “race”? There is Jews, the answer to the question ambiguous and ambivalent about enough uncertainty about the “What are the Jews?” is not at all race. One example: In his first answer to this question, given the obvious and certainly not simple. chapter on demography, Fishberg ongoing research into DNA That, perhaps, is what makes discusses the widespread theory that profiling, genomes, genetic diseases, Fishberg’s work still important, the Jews enjoy a heightened ability markers of genetic identity, that we fascinating, and even relevant to acclimate to dramatically might comfortably assume that a almost a century after its initial different climates, and that this majority of Jews (not to mention publication. ability is in fact a racial trait, a result non-Jews) remain unclear (and of “Semitic blood.” Fishberg rejects confused) about where biology ends Mitchell Hart is Associate Professor the notion of Semitic blood; but he and culture begins when it comes to of History at the University of does not reject the argument that Jewish identity. Race and Florida. He is the author of The the Jews enjoy this ability to environment, not race or Healthy Jew (Cambridge University acclimate, nor does he fully reject environment. Fishberg, in the end, Press, 2007). the idea that race helps us went back and forth, unable to understand this. If the Jews “do decide incontrovertibly on one
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.95 0RESS 270=>56A40C8340BB8=24 ( % 25 organ, Heeb instilling Jewish pride in its youth.” magazine. Since The music industry, as suggested FASHIONING its debut in above, has become perhaps the 2002, Heeb has most active arena in which young JEWISHNESS IN A often linked Jews Jews link themselves with black with blacks as culture. The most famous example part of its overall is Matisyahu (né Matthew Paul BLACK AND WHITE campaign to Miller), the Chabad/Lubavitch demonstrate that devotee who was named top reggae WORLD Jewishness can artist of 2006 by Billboard be “cool,” a magazine. Eric Goldstein point often made with Heeb’s ewish web surfers looking for a special brand of over-the-top What can we make of these band for a wedding or bar comedy. The magazine’s very first examples of a contemporary Jewish Jmitzvah may be surprised (and cover, for example, featured black culture that draws heavily on black possibly delighted) to find “Hip hands placing a round piece of influences? In all of these cases, it is Hop and Rap” and “Reggae and shmurah matzoh on a turntable, a apparent that the use of black World Beat” listed among the major theme echoed in a long-running images and style allow young Jews varieties of Jewish music on the satirical advertisement in which an to link themselves to what they website of the perceive as the Jewish Arts Regional assertiveness and Touring Service (J- THOSE FAMILIAR WITH AMERICAN JEWISH HISTORY WILL independence of ARTS), a booking African Americans. agency for Jewish NOT BE TOTALLY SURPRISED AT THE WAY IN WHICH Despite music groups. contemporary Clicking on these YOUNG JEWS TODAY ARE BORROWING FROM AFRICAN society’s claim to be a “multicultural” categories reveals a MERICANS SINCE EWS HAVE HAD A LONG AND wide array of A , J one, the black-white divide is still a performers INTIMATE RELATIONSHIP WITH BLACK CULTURE specializing in these . powerful enough genres, acts that construct to make range from the Israeli-born hip-hop African American man proclaims a African Americans the most artist Yoni Ben-Yehuda (known as piece of Streit’s matzoh to be “a big powerful symbol of difference in “Sneakas”) to Rabbi Mikael Zerbib, ass cracker!” Another Heeb feature American society. As a result, they whose album Mussareggae blends was the “Nell Carter Memorial are an attractive touchstone for Jews the Jamaican music style with Page,” honoring the Presbyterian- who have become frustrated with Jewish ethics. Similar offerings born diva who converted to the constraints placed on them by include the Original Jewish Judaism. The writeup on Carter their membership in the white Gangstas, who use “Pro-Tools, expressed glee that Jews have mainstream. condensor mics, pre-amplifiers, and “lucked out in getting some of the their own lyrical creativity to best black celebrities as converts.” Those familiar with American combine the wisdom of Judaism Jewish history will not be totally with the bump of hip-hop.” The trend so apparent in Heeb soon surprised at the way in which young appeared in other quarters as well. Jews today are borrowing from The acts on J-ARTS provide a small In 2003, writer-director Jonathan African Americans, since Jews have taste of how many young Jews in Kesselman presented the first had a long and intimate relationship the United States today are creating “Jewxploitation film,” the Hebrew with black culture. In the 1920s a Jewish culture that draws heavily Hammer, which used similar comic and 1930s, Al Jolson, Sophie on African American and, in the hyperbole to explicitly link Jews and Tucker and other Jewish performers case of reggae, Afro-Caribbean African Americans. Drawing on the were well known for their blackface styles of expression. Although this popular blaxploitation genre of the routines, which lampooned blacks trend is being pursued by many 1970s, the film followed the but also contained elements of types of Jews, it owes much of its adventures of a tough Jewish action tribute and identification. Irving current vogue to the lively hero who speaks with “a mix of Berlin drew on black culture in subculture known as the “Jewish Black Panther argot and Yiddish” composing songs like “Alexander’s hipster” movement and its unofficial and “struts through the ‘chood’ Rag Time Band,” as did George 26 Gershwin in writing his opera, fever pitch in the interwar years, the on blackface, providing a mask that Porgy and Bess. As memoirs of the climate placed significant pressure obscured his difference to the white interwar years record, Jewish youth on Jews to downplay characteristics world, which saw him simply as a frequently listened to “race records” that could be interpreted as “racial” white man lampooning blacks. and invited black musicians to and to conform to the behaviors Berlin’s early music seems to have perform at their dances. Some made and mores of white society. expressed a cultural connection to excursions to Harlem and other African Americans, even as he black neighborhoods in the urban In this context, Jews who bristled obscured his debt to black culture north to seek out nightclubs and under the pressures of acculturation in his public statements, dance halls and sometimes romantic often found black culture to be a underscoring that he and other liaisons. welcome escape valve. It could Jewish popular songwriters were “of provide a surrogate for feelings of pure white blood.” Jewish youth What, then, “slumming” in separates the Harlem or on contemporary Chicago’s south Jewish side similarly appropriation of found that they black culture could from these earlier temporarily examples? First transgress the and foremost, mores of white prewar Jews who society and then experimented safely return to with black culture its confines. In did so under a short, while very different set Jews of this of social period may have circumstances. privately looked Not yet fully upon blacks as vested as a part of figures of the white longing, their mainstream, Jews excursions into before 1945 were black culture often described, were intended and described only as themselves, as temporary and members of a guarded distinct “race.” diversions from Although this did their ongoing not necessarily pursuit of mean that they acceptance in were seen as non- white society. white, it did mean that they The Jews today occupied an who are uncertain place in incorporating America’s racial Cover of Heeb 1:1 (Winter 2002). Photo credit: Seth Kushner. African constellation. Their American ability to move in sectors of white difference that they were not culture into their own cultural society while remaining distinct in comfortable expressing publicly, one repertoires are motivated by a much many ways unnerved the white, that they could access in ways that different set of circumstances, which non-Jewish public, who derived a did not threaten—and often even have also led to some important sense of stability and security from enhanced—their status as white. In substantive differences in the seeing their society as neatly divided The Jazz Singer, Jolson’s character, results. After World War II, into black and white. As their Jack Robin, was able to get in touch questions about Jewish racial status puzzlement about Jews reached a with his Jewish heritage by putting finally receded and Jews experienced 27 new opportunities for integration for the Soviet Jewry movement seeking to fit in. Instead, they try to into the white mainstream. often imported slogans from the use the cultural cache enjoyed by Although Jews continued in many civil rights movement and some blackness to argue that Jewishness is ways to think of themselves in racial young Jews donned “Jewfros” in similarly “cool” and different. terms, they rarely voiced these imitation of their black feeling publicly as they took counterparts. The fact that Jewish The one thing that does unite the advantage of new opportunities for integration has continued to reach young Jews of today and those of inclusion. After 1965, however, two unprecedented levels in recent years the prewar period is the way in major shifts began to occur in helps explain the intensifying appeal which they have to navigate the American Jewish identity. First, a of African American culture, which power of America’s black-white growing acceptance of difference in gives contemporary Jews a powerful divide, a system into which they do American culture lessened the tool for asserting their difference. not neatly fit. In the 1920s and pressure on Jews to downplay their Unlike the flirtations of Jews with 1930s, Jews who had to downplay distinctiveness. Second, the black culture in the 1920s and their Jewishness in order to be emergence of Black Power 1930s, today’s Jewish interest in accepted as “white” found black movements and civil rights hip-hop, reggae, African American- culture to be one of the few outlets legislation that identified minority Jewish celebrities and black cultural that could relieve—if only status with peoples of color made style is part of a broader assertion of temporarily—the pressures of many Jews uneasy with how they Jewish particularity. Heeb’s acculturation. Today, Jews who were now defined as part of the borrowings from black culture desperately want to be recognized white power structure, a designation appear alongside articles outing and legitimized as different find that cut against their own television’s “crypto-Jews” and they also have to turn to black “outsider” consciousness. Ironically, celebrating the “crazy curls, shapely culture in order to invest Jewishness having begun to achieve the schnozzes, and hefty hips” of “the with the heft needed to be taken privileged status they had long Jewess.” Jewish hipsters may listen seriously in a “multicultural” world. sought, they now felt troubled by to Hasidic reggae, but they also the threatened loss of their group wear the “Yo Semite” t-shirts Eric Goldstein is Associate Professor distinctiveness. manufactured by the San Francisco- of History and Jewish Studies at based Jewish Fashion Conspiracy. In Emory University. He is the author Not surprisingly, the 1970s saw other words, young Jews today who of The Price of Whiteness some early traces of the Jewish are appropriating black culture do (Princeton University Press, 2006). cultural borrowing from African not use it as a cover for their own Americans evident today. Activists distinctiveness while publicly Contribute to the New Syllabi Directory on the AJS Website The Resources section of the AJS website now includes a directory of Syllabi in all fields of Jewish studies. The site already has more than fifty syllabi on Jewish history, literature and culture, philosophy, and more. Members are invited to contribute to the directory by emailing syllabi in MS-Word or pdf format to the AJS office at [email protected]. 28 5HTXLUHG5HDGLQJLQ-HZLVK6WXGLHV -2851$/6 6KRIDU $Q,QWHUGLVFLSOLQDU\-RXUQDO 7KH-HZLVK5ROHRI $PHULFDQ/LIH RI -HZLVK6WXGLHV $Q$QQXDO5HYLHZ ,661 6HHZZZWKHSUHVVSXUGXHIRUSULFLQJ ,6%1 6KRIDUQRZLQLWVWK\HDURI SXEOLFDWLRQLVDTXDUWHUO\ 7KHUHODWLRQVKLSEHWZHHQ-HZVDQGWKH8QLWHG6WDWHVLV VFKRODUO\SXEOLFDWLRQHGLWHGDQGSURGXFHGE\WKH3XUGXH QHFHVVDULO\FRPSOH[ -HZVKDYHEHHQLQVWUXPHQWDOLQVKDS -HZLVK6WXGLHV3URJUDPDQGSXEOLVKHGE\WKH3XUGXH LQJ$PHULFDQFXOWXUHDQGRI FRXUVH-HZLVKFXOWXUHDQG 8QLYHUVLW\3UHVV,WLVWKHRIÀFLDOMRXUQDORI WKH0LGZHVW UHOLJLRQKDYHOLNHZLVHEHHQSURIRXQGO\UHFDVWLQWKH8QLWHG DQG:HVWHUQ-HZLVK6WXGLHV$VVRFLDWLRQV 6WDWHVHVSHFLDOO\LQWKHSHULRGIROORZLQJ:RUOG:DU,, %22.6 0HO*LEVRQ·V3DVVLRQ 7KH)LOPWKH&RQWURYHUV\DQG,WV,PSOLFDWLRQV E\=HY*DUEHU,6%1 7KHUHLVQRTXHVWLRQWKDW*LEVRQ·V3DVVLRQLVWKHPRVWFRQWURYHUVLDO-HVXV³LIQRWUHOLJLRXV³PRYLHHYHUPDGH0HO *LEVRQ·V3DVVLRQ 7KH)LOPWKH&RQWURYHUV\DQG,WV,PSOLFDWLRQVH[SRVHVWKHÁDZVRI *LEVRQ·VFLQHPDWLF&KULVWDQGOD\VRXW DVVHUWLYHO\DQGSHUVXDVLYHO\WKHUDWLRQDOHRI -HZVDQG&KULVWLDQVLQKRZWRJUDVSDQGFRPSUHKHQGWKHSDVVLRQDQG H[HFXWLRQRI WKH&KULVWLDQ6DYLRUNQRZQVFULSWXUDOO\DVWKH´.LQJRIWKH-HZVµ 'HDWKRI D´-HZLVK6FLHQFHµ 3V\FKRDQDO\VLVLQWKH7KLUG5HLFK E\-DPHV%*RJJLQDQG(LOHHQ%*RJJLQ,6%1 -DPHVDQG(LOHHQ*RJJLQGHVFULEHWKHLQWHUDFWLRQEHWZHHQ-HZLVKDQG*HQWLOHDQDO\VWVEHIRUHDQGDIWHUWKH7KLUG5HLFK GHPRQVWUDWLQJKRZPRVWRI WKH*HQWLOHDQDO\VWVTXLFNO\DGDSWHGWRWKHQHZUHJLPHQVGHPDQGVZKLOHWKH-HZVZHUH IRUFHGWRHPLJUDWH 7KH-HZLVK$PHULFDQ1RYHO HGLWHGE\3KLOLSSH&RGGH,6%1 ,QKLVERRN&RGGHWUDFHVIRUWKHÀUVWWLPHWKLVLQWULJXLQJWKHPDWLFPL[WXUHLQWKHZRUNVRI VRPHZHOONQRZQDQG VRPHIRUJRWWHQEXWIDVFLQDWLQJ-HZLVK$PHULFDQQRYHOLVWV 6DXO%HOORZ%HUQDUG0DODPXG(GZDUG/HZLV:DOODQW,VDDF 5RVHQIHOG'DQLHO6WHUQ-RQDWKDQ%DXPEDFKDQG1RUPD5RVHQ,QLWVGLVSODFHPHQWRIFDQRQLFDOEDUULHUVDQGLWV LQFOXVLYHWKHPDWLFPRYHPHQWWKHERRNDGGUHVVHVDQGUHVROYHVDGRXEOHODFXQDLQ86$PHULFDQOLWHUDU\KLVWRULRJUDSK\ 83*5$'(<2853(5621$//,%5$5< &KRRVHDQ\¿YHRIRXUWLWOHVDQGZH¶OOEXUQDFXVWRPL]HG&'DQGVHQGLWWR\RXIRURQO\,I\RXZDQWDIHZ PRUHFKRRVHWHQWLWOHVIRURQO\ $OO¿OHVDUHLQ3')IRUPDW ,QWHUHVWHG"(PDLOXVDWSXSUHVV#SXUGXHHGXZLWKDOLVWRIWLWOHVRUIRUIXUWKHULQIRUPDWLRQ 'XHWRULJKWVUHVWULFWLRQVVRPHWLWOHVDUHQRWDYDLODEOHIRUWKLVSURJUDP 3XUGXH8QLYHUVLW\3UHVV )RU0RUH,QIRUPDWLRQRUWR2UGHU % ZZZWKHSUHVVSXUGXHHGX 29 inalienable nature of their Jewishnesss. If it is surprising BIOLOGICAL DISCOURSE AND that unaffiliated Jews emphasize biological AMERICAN JEWISH IDENTITY essentialism as the basis of their Jewish identities; it is Lynn Davidman and Shelly Tenenbaum even more surprising that adult or a century preceding World magazine had two articles on the children of intermarried parents War II, the dominant growing numbers of infertile Jewish would view their Jewishness as an Fworldview in Europe and the couples who are seeking Jewish ascribed identity. The availability of United States divided people into women’s eggs for in vitro options is clearly central in families racial groups, each with defined fertilization not for religious reasons where more than one religion is physical and mental traits that were but to maximize the chances that present; nevertheless the majority viewed as biologically determined. their children would resemble them. used some form of biological Scientists argued that individuals’ Similarly, language to discuss their skin color or facial structure in her Jewish identities. Our disclosed their internal interviewees often characteristics employed the rhetoric of such as genetics to describe intelligence how being Jewish and even is an internal and social essential part values. Since of their the defeat of identities. Nazi Germany, In fact, the however, the idea of genetic a Jewish race has been largely essentialism discredited among scientists, social of their theorists and producers and Jewish consumers of popular culture. identities led Hitler’s reliance on racial notions of some, Jewishness to justify his including adult Jews, race, and genes in the headlines. children of extermination policy made any Courtesy of The Forward application of the term “race” in and Michael Lerner. intermarriage, to reference to Jews appear sinister and question whether anti-Semitic. After World War II, survey of contemporary texts or not a person racial distinctions referred to color such as encyclopedias and the could convert and become only while “ethnicity,” a new term “Jewhoo” website, historian Susan “really” Jewish. The biologically that highlighted cultural differences, Glenn argues that editors of innate nature of Judaism was defined Jews and other white encyclopedias and biographical reinforced by our respondents’ European groups. reference books employ “blood claim that Jewishness is revealed logic” in their selection of subjects. through distinctive identity markers Even though the idea of Jewish For example, the editors of an such as intellectual attributes or racial identity has been encyclopedia on American Jewish typical Jewish physical features. delegitimated, contemporary women included as Jews people Comments about innate Jewish American Jews persist in relying on whose parents were both Jewish intelligence as well as about hair, biological discourse to understand even if they had rejected Jewish eyes, and noses surfaced often in the their Jewishness. In The Jew Within: identity or converted to another interviews. Self, Family, and Community in religion. America (2000), sociologist Steven As sociologists, we are interested in M. Cohen and religious studies In our recent study of adult Jews hereditary traits not because they scholar Arnold Eisen argue that who had never affiliated with a are intrinsically significant but moderately affiliated Jews manifest a synagogue and of adult children of because in their narratives the high degree of tribalism, a sense intermarriage, we repeatedly heard unaffiliated Jews and children of that Judaism is in their blood. from our respondents a strong intermarriage repeatedly used Within the last few years, Lilith emphasis on the inherent, biological terminology. In reality, 30 Jews are heterogeneous in regards Jewish than those who intermarry, hereditary inborn traits, our to type of hair, eye color, and nose and Jewish activists are not more interviewees interpreted Jewish shape. In a 2002 interview with The Jewish than are Jews who do not genetics as providing them Forward, Sander Gilman, author of affiliate with any ethnic with a large The Jews’ Body, rejected all endowment stereotypes about of the Jewish nose except one: possibilities. “In They transformed 35 or religious institutions. A biological constraint into a social years belief, then, in biological agent that gives them the freedom of uniqueness offers an ethnic anchor to choose to be Jewish even if they working on this topic, I have never when boundaries between Jews and do not believe in the religion or seen a Jew without a nose.” There non-Jews blur. As American Jews observe traditional rituals. Over and is no such thing as a Jewish gene increasingly live in communities over again, they weaved together and since Judaism is a religion that where intermarriage is contradictory beliefs about accepts converts, Jewishness is not a commonplace, and ritual observance biological determinism and biological construct. Yet, despite and institutional affiliation are individual autonomy to create a new discourse of “genetic freedom.” IF JEWISHNESS IS A MATTER OF GENES, THEN ORTHODOX American Jews are not the only JEWS ARE NOT MORE JEWISH THAN SECULAR JEWS, ones to employ this discourse of genetic freedom. The shifting ENDOGAMOUS JEWS ARE NOT MORE JEWISH THAN THOSE terminology from “sexual preference” to “sexual orientation” WHO INTERMARRY, AND JEWISH ACTIVISTS ARE NOT MORE suggests that homosexuality is not a choice but an immutable part of JEWISH THAN ARE JEWS WHO DO NOT AFFILIATE WITH one’s being. Within the gay community, genetic determinism ANY ETHNIC OR RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS. frees people from social expectations and offers a these realities, essentialist declining, genetic essentialism compelling understandings of Jewishness are offers a powerful way of argument for alive and well and remain socially claiming a link with liberation. Of significant. Why has Jewish tradition and peoplehood. Americans who biological discourse persisted into While biological discourse believe that the twenty-first century? provides Jews with sexual preference meaning and can be altered, Genetics may be viewed as a community, essentialist less than 20 concrete, certain, logical, and understandings of percent support gay comforting answer for Jews seeking Jewishness do not marriage, whereas a to understand what it means to be disrupt everyday life. majority of those who Jewish. It also allows Jews to claim think that sexual a Jewish identity without having to Some observers orientation is inborn participate in any religious rituals or may view our support gay marriage. It practice. Furthermore, the belief respondents’ is ironic that genetic that Jewish identity is inalienable emphasis on wiring has become associated reassures Jews that their Jewishness biology as evidence with freedom, autonomy and is absolute and cannot be increased for a kind of “genetic social liberation. or lessened by any level of practice fatalism” that has become a or belief. If Jewishness is a matter of convenient and powerful way to Although previous generations of genes, then Orthodox Jews are not remove responsibility for human Jews struggled to become “white more Jewish than secular Jews, behavior. But far from claiming to folks” indistinguishable from the endogamous Jews are not more be helpless in the face of their dominant majority group, 31 contemporary American Jews are the gene has become a “cultural and whether or not to engage with claiming difference, including icon,” viewed as the primary any religious traditions. The existence genetic difference, to separate determinant of human traits, both of four branches of American themselves from white Christians. physical and behavioral. Judaism—Reform, Conservative, Having no other option but to Reconstructionist, and Orthodox—as check off the “white” box on Three weeks after the New York well as Hanukkah bushes and Jewish various forms has become Times article on the possible link Buddhists testify to the salience of emblematic of how Jews are between risk-taking behavior and choice in American Jewish life. We assumed to be white. Not being genes, the newspaper published an argue, however, that for able to distinguish themselves from article exploring how race may be contemporary American Jews, being white Christians leaves Jews few implicated in genetic differences Jewish is not only about choice, a options to assert their Jewish that affect people’s health. Both the sacred American ideal, but is also identities proudly. The scientific general and Jewish presses report on perceived as an ascribed identity that language of heredity has become a “Jewish diseases” including Tay- is a matter of biology and genes. The convenient and powerful strategy Sachs, breast and colon cancer, as emphasis on choice may be less true that legitimates notions of well as schizophrenia and bipolar for groups for whom religious and exceptionalism and allows Jews to disorder. Although researchers are ethnic identities are intertwined, such be special and not just “vanilla.” If careful to point out that the data on as Jews. How to be Jewish is a matter Jews are genetically distinct in terms illnesses demonstrate correlations of choice. Whether or not to be of looks and intelligence, then they rather than causal factors, and to Jewish, however, is often perceived as are ipso facto not white. assert that there is no such thing as a given and hence as a biological a “Jewish gene,” many American imperative. American Jews, who are Just as race science had once Jews nevertheless believe in the both an ethnic and religious group, validated the concept of a Jewish genetic basis of their Jewishness. face the challenge of balancing their race, modern science gives credence fundamental American belief that they to the idea that there is a biological Although race science lost its are free to pick and choose among a basis to Jewishness. We are living in validity and “race” disappeared as a variety of identities and practices with an age of genetics where we term for self-definition among their conviction that an essential regularly read about discoveries American Jews, the idea that Jewish Jewishness is part of their very nature. related to the power of genes. identity is primordial persists in According to scientific reports, contemporary America. Jews Thank you to the editors and there are genes that predispose continue to believe that their publisher of Sociological Quarterly people toward certain diseases, Jewishness is both hereditary and for allowing Perspectives to publish weight gain, alcoholism, and permanently fixed. Whether Jews this piece based on the previously cigarette addiction, and there are employ the rhetoric of genetics—as published article by Shelly genes that influence whether an they do in contemporary America— Tenenbaum and Lynn Davidman, individual has artistic abilities or will or rely on terms such as blood and “IT’S IN MY GENES: Biological be homosexual. A recent finding race—as they did during the late Discourse and Essentialist Views of reported in the June 15, 2006 nineteenth and early twentieth Identity among Contemporary edition of the New York Times centuries—their understandings of American Jews.” Sociological under the title “That Wild Streak? Jewish identity rely on biological Quarterly 48:3 (2007): 435–450. Maybe It Runs in the Family” even discourse. By substituting new links risk-taking behavior to a gene. terminology but maintaining a Shelly Tenenbaum is Professor of biological emphasis, race, albeit an Sociology at Clark University. She is Concomitant with the burgeoning illegitimate basis for making a the author of A Credit to Their expansion of the field of genetics, Jewish identity claim, has become Community: Jewish Loan Societies this microscopic unit has become relegitimated. in the United States, 1880-1945 idealized and mythologized in (Detroit, 1993). American pop culture, books, films, We do not reduce Jewish identity to soap operas, cartoons, magazines biological factors. Choice, of course, Lynn Davidman is Professor of and everyday conversations. “It’s in is central to any discussion of Judaic Studies, American my genes,” people shrug in American ethnicity and religion. Civilization, and Gender Studies explaining why they are afraid of America offers a supermarket of at Brown University. She is the roller coasters or why their houses religious alternatives in which a author of Tradition in a Rootless are cluttered. For sociologists person can switch denominations, World: Women Turn to Orthodox Dorothy Nelkin and Susan Lindee, freely choose which rituals to practice Judaism (Berkeley, 1991). 32 33 34 35 Socialism. The establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, however, ON THE POLITICS OF was a late (or belated?) fruit of the European national movement of GENETIC RESEARCH Blut und Erde. To a large extent this is also its predicament: Instead of gradually adapting to the context PERTAINING TO THE JEWS of a Western open national society, Raphael Falk In the nineteenth century, the Israel in its struggle for its very concept of race obtained a more existence fostered an ethnocentric cientists have always been very “scientific” socio-political as well as policy entrenched in claims of racial sensitive to assertions that they biological foundation. Thinkers like blood connections. How else could Ssmuggle politics into their Herder and Hegel conceived of the one understand a Knesset member ostensibly objective research. Those Volk as an entity bound up with wondering at a ceremony in 2004, of us who study the genetic Blut und Erde (blood and soil), thus “What is wrong with the relationships between Jews and conferring primary biological Palestinians? Is theirs a cultural non-Jews are no exception to this significance on the politics of deprivation or a genetic defect?” rule. When I first submitted my nationality. Herbert Spencer’s manuscript on Matings among “Zionism and the human beings are Biology of the Jews” DESPITE THE ONGOING DISPUTE OVER THE NATURE OF not randomly to a university press distributed. Physical in Israel, my human JEWISH IDENTITY, IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN ASSUMED THAT (geographical and genetics colleagues THERE EXISTS A COMMON BIOLOGICAL DENOMINATOR topographical) as sharply criticized me well as cultural, for suggesting that TO EWISHNESS HOWEVER IT MIGHT BE DEFINED social, and ethnic one of the motives J , factors circumscribe underlying their SOCIOLOGICALLY, CULTURALLY, OR RELIGIOUSLY. more or less closed scholarship in the breeding 1960s had been the populations, i.e., desire to participate in the collective interpretation of Darwin’s theory of communities in which matings are effort to turn Israel into a “melting evolution as a “struggle for preferentially within the community pot.” existence” that also embraces social rather than with members of other relations further strengthened groups. Such communities Despite the ongoing dispute over claims for the inherent biological consequently acquire specific the nature of Jewish identity, it has basis of socio-political entities. distinct gene frequencies. Jewish always been assumed that there Toward the end of the nineteenth communities that were segregated exists a common biological century, Jew-hatred increasingly had for ages by sociocultural denominator to Jewishness, recourse to biological arguments, circumstances in Europe, in the however it might be defined propounding “anti-Semitic,” i.e., East, and elsewhere, comprise semi- sociologically, culturally, or bioracial rationales for traditional isolated breeding populations. In religiously. The Jews are supposed social and cultural allegations. the past, anthropologists as well as to be the linear progeny of the Zionism, as a contemporary political geneticists actually used differences Israelite tribes—named after the movement, explicitly accepted the between Jewish and adjacent non- sons of the biblical patriarchs claims that Jews were a distinct Jewish communities to establish the Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—which race-nation, or Volk, and based its hereditary nature of characteristics, solidified three thousand years ago demands for a national homeland often ignoring the significant level into a nation that adhered to a precisely on the Jews’ blood ties. of intermarriage between the unique cultural inheritance and was neighboring communities and the augmented by a constant influx of Even as the “blood and soil” patent differences in living “non-Jews” through assimilation conception led to the establishment conditions of the populations. and conversion. Formally, a Jew is of independent states throughout the offspring of a Jewish mother, or Europe, it certainly did not embrace It was only after the experience of someone who has been (properly) out-of-Europe colonialism, and National Socialism’s ravaging racism converted to Judaism. soon it collapsed in Europe as well that the scientific community with the catastrophe of National concluded and the UN ruled that 36 human races were not biological unequivocally distinct from their genetics at the level of DNA. On entities. Yet an interest in genetic Middle East neighbors. The the other hand, new methods to composition of human communities physician Chaim Sheba went so far follow detailed sequences of the has not disappeared. Quite to the as to establish a new research DNA molecules did uncover great contrary, the more sophisticated discipline, which he called hereditary variability at the most scientific methods for genetic “anthropological medicine,” using basic level of DNA sequences, characterizations become, and the the distribution of genetic disease in which allowed unprecedented more the achievements of genetic various communities to trace genotypic characterization of research become known to the historical relationships between breeding populations. Since much general public, the more interest in Jewish communities and establish of the variability in the DNA was this subject increases. Biological the characteristics of what he called due to rare mutation events, the racism has not disappeared but has the biblical Homo israelensis. He presence of the same mutant-variant merely assumed a different guise. not only dated the origin of Jewish in different populations provided strong indication of blood relationships between them. Sophisticated computer programs were designed to construct phylogenies for these populations, on the assumption that they comprise branches of a tree that diverged from a common root. The frequencies of the shared mutants further allowed estimated dating of successive branching events. These Reprinted from The Forward, August 24, 2007, B1. Kurt Hoffman/The Forward. programs, Israel as a country of migrant and communities in Iran, Libya, Yemen, however, primarily designed for isolate populations was recognized and France but also claimed to have constructing vertical phylogenies of already in the 1960s, primarily discovered undercover Jewish different (non-interbreeding) through the work of Elisabeth communities, like the people of species, ignored possibilities of Goldschmidt, as a center for Sardinia, who carried a hereditary secondary genetic relatedness, such research into the dynamics of blood disease, thalassemia, common as those based on horizontal population genetics. Concurrently, in Eastern Jewish (and non-Jewish) sociocultural relations. there have been unceasing efforts to communities. establish common origins for all Advances in the characterization of Jewish communities, including Modern molecular research has various diseases, like thalessemia, geographically and culturally remote shown that such “superficial” cystic fibrosis, Gaucher’s and Tay- ones, and to trace their roots to the similarities of diseases, or even of Sachs’s diseases, familiar Mediterranean basin, while the presence of specific proteins, do Mediterranean fever, and BRCA, at identifying Jews as a group not necessarily imply identical the molecular DNA level have 37 indeed indicated that many Jewish phylogenies, confined to primary roots of Oriental, Sephardi, and communities could be characterized common roots. The relationships Ashkenazi Jews in the biblical Middle East, Palestinians emphasize the differences, NO DOUBT JEWISH POPULATIONS HAVE BEEN MOST CONDUCIVE TO suggesting that Oriental Jews and Palestinians share GENETIC RESEARCH OF THE DYNAMICS OF HUMAN POPULATIONS. common ancestors, while deeming the Ashkenazim to BUT THE SCIENTISTS INVOLVED APPEAR NOT TO HAVE BEEN ALERT be related to the Turks and ENOUGH TO THE SOCIOPOLITICAL IMPLICATIONS OF THEIR WORK Slavic people, i.e., to be of . Khazar origins. by specific genetic variants that are between Jewish communities are no No doubt Jewish populations have conspicuously more or less frequent exception. been most conducive to genetic among them than in the relevant research of the dynamics of human non-Jewish populations. This, by The discovery of the relative populations. But the scientists the way, has substantially increased conservation of long sequences of involved appear not to have been the efficiency of genetic counseling DNA (haplotypes) of the human Y- alert enough to the sociopolitical in persons of Jewish descent since it chromosome, a chromosome strictly implications of their work. Ignoring narrowed the number of variants transmitted from father to sons, was the dependence of their hypotheses that should be checked when quite sensational. A lineal paternal on context, and not examining testing individuals as carrier of relationship of Kohanim of both alternative hypotheses, scientists hereditary “Jewish” diseases. Ashkenazi and Sephardi origins was have in the past provided weapons Significantly, findings of the same indicated. Further intensive research to politicians who made unfortunate “specific Jewish variant” in distant allowed the graphic presentations of use of them. It is not difficult to Jewish communities, such as those “Multidimensional scaling plots” imagine this happening again. of Iraq and Poland, indicated blood that placed different Jewish relatedness between them. Such communities in a compact cluster Raphael Falk is Professor Emeritus in shared genetic variants provided the that largely overlapped with a the Department of Genetics and basis for the construction of cluster of the non-Jewish Program for the History and phylogenies of branches from a Mediterranean populations. These Philosophy of Science at the Hebrew common root, including the date of clusters were conspicuously distinct University of Jerusalem. He is the the communities’ last common from the clusters of Europeans, author of Tzionut veha-biologia shel ancestor. Researchers declared, for North Africans, or Sub-Saharans. ha-yehudim (Tel Aviv, 2006). example, that they could date Instead of helping to defuse common ancestors of Ashkenazi and political and ideological Iraqi Jewish communities 2,500 controversies, however, the years ago, thus refuting allegations popularization of these and similar of Khazar origins of Ashkenazi findings of the integrated genetic Jews. They never considered the panorama only further encouraged alternative of genetic relatedness simplistic and antagonistic political being secondary to cultural interpretations. relations. Whereas the Jewish communities Once I raised this possibility, my are conceived by the Israelis as students immediately provided me ancient isolates that maintained with evidence of scholars and other their identity for thousands of years, persons who emigrated from their the purported commons roots with communities and settled in distant the other peoples of the Middle foreign Jewish communities. One East are pushed back to biblical pre- can hardly ignore the fact that nation epochs. Yet, the people of genetics of human populations Yemen consider the same kind of comprise trellis-like patterns of evidence to be proof that the Jews relatedness due to secondary of Yemen are integral participants in sociocultural interplays, rather than the Yemeni nation. Whereas Israeli straight forward branching tree-like researchers identify the common 38 39 PERSPECTIVES ON TECHNOLOGY creation of adjunct websites that can be accessed from the main COJS WEB-BASED LEARNING website and many of the digitized images are freely available for viewing AND TEACHING RESOURCES by the public. The site brings together a wide range of heterogeneous primary and FOR JEWISH STUDIES secondary sources in multiple formats Heidi Lerner innovative uses of technology to that include text, sound, image, and make educational materials on Jewish Introduction video. It includes video and audio history, culture, religion, and Web-based tools and content are lectures by scholars. literature available to people of all everywhere making their way into the ages and levels of education. The classroom. Scholars are also looking COJS is structured hierarchically. The COJS team now includes scholars, at the role that they can play in homepage provides a brief overview promoting digital technologies. Not only are they using the [COJS] FOCUSES ON INTER-INSTITUTIONAL COLLABORATION AND Internet but they are also beginning to contribute to the INNOVATIVE USES OF TECHNOLOGY TO MAKE EDUCATIONAL development and creation of web- MATERIALS ON EWISH HISTORY CULTURE RELIGION AND based pedagogical resources. J , , , Although many universities and LITERATURE AVAILABLE TO PEOPLE OF ALL AGES AND LEVELS OF institutions have created digital archives and websites to make EDUCATION…THE PROJECT AIMS TO DEMONSTRATE HOW collections and content more accessible, most have not explored COLLABORATION AMONG SCHOLARS, LIBRARIANS AND these sites’ teaching potential. This article looks at three current ARCHIVISTS, AND THE BUSINESS COMMUNITY CAN RESULT IN THE websites related to teaching Jewish studies. They are available for CREATION AND DISSEMINATION OF QUALITY EDUCATIONAL AND noncommercial purposes, are free of charge, and are affiliated INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS IN JEWISH STUDIES. academically. Technologies that students and educators from enable the collaborative development of the site and links to the four major institutions located around the world. and the sharing of educational modules of the site. The project aims to demonstrate how content among Jewish studies collaboration among scholars, teaching and student communities “Exploring Treasures of the Jewish librarians and archivists, and the support these sites. Past” provides links to the business community can result in the digitization efforts of COJS and its creation and dissemination of quality 1. Center for Online Jewish Studies partners. Users of the site can educational and instructional The Center for Online Jewish Studies currently view the entire Great Isaiah materials in Jewish studies. (COJS) was created to bring together Scroll and the Aleppo Codex online scholars, historians, educators, and housed at the Israeli Museum. COJS COJS is an evolving digital library technologists and mount quality digitally photographed selections and collaborative project consisting of curricular materials on the Internet from the manuscript collection of the scholarly essays, documents, and (www.cojs.org). The center’s founder, Jewish Theological Seminary of artifices that focuses on Jewish George S. Blumenthal, originally America (JTSA). Viewers can see history, culture, and civilization. The came up with the concept in 2002. entire versions of an illuminated staff initially worked with partners In 2004, he organized the meeting Haggadah from Spain and a 1290 from over thirty-five institutions to with a group of Jewish studies mahzor from Germany, as well as digitize more than one hundred scholars and technologists from fragments from the Cairo Genizah. thousand objects related to Jewish which the blueprint for COJS Other COJS digital projects include history located in their collections. emerged. The initiative focuses on manuscripts from the Julliard School These joint projects have led to the inter-institutional collaboration and and collections from the Central 40 historical documents, artifacts, and resources relating to Jewish studies. But these materials will be difficult to access if the site does not have any search mechanisms. These are lacking in COJS’ current stage of development. Users can only move through the site by clicking on navigation tabs. Most quality websites offer full indexing of their sites that allow at least basic searching for author, title, subject or discipline, and type of materials by keyword and Boolean search terms. The resources at the COJS website are also “hidden” from major search engines. One hopes that the developers of the site will add searching capabilities in the future or, at the very least, a sitemap. 2. Using the Internet in College- Level Hebrew Language Courses— Hebrew@Stanford The Internet offers many opportunities for technology-based learning and teaching in college-level language courses. Recent advances in technology have provided valuable new resources for foreign language From "The Aleppo Codex Online" on the COJS website, www.cojs.org. teachers and learners. These include Courtesy of the Center for Online Judaic Studies and the Yad Yitzhak Ben Zvi Institute. web-based text, streaming audio and Zionist Archives, American Jewish Passover, and the Spielberg Jewish video, satellite radio and television, Committee, the Jewish Museum, and Film Archive. COJS funded a few of and DVD. Interactive resources Yeshiva University. theses sites; others are sites that the include wikis, instant messaging, and organization finds useful and video conferencing. New resources “Understanding Jewish History” educational. are also available for exercises and links to nine “mini-websites” assessment. New online materials for developed by professors associated “Network for the Teaching of Jewish learning Hebrew are supplementing with COJS. The sites cover Jewish History” is intended to be a resource classroom activity and also provide an history from antiquity to the early for instructors who are teaching areas opportunity for long-distance modern period. The first site to go of Jewish history with which they learning. A very interesting collection live addresses the Dead Sea Scrolls. may not be familiar. The site will of multimedia and interactive The site presents an overview of the provide links to interactive language activities is importance and role in history of the educational modules and an Hebrew@Stanford Multimedia scrolls, and collates primary and educators’ blog to help teachers created by Dr. Vered Shemtov of secondary materials, many of which communicate and share their Stanford University are linked to the full-text version, experiences. (www.stanford.edu/class/hebrew/ videos, images, and other websites. hsa/index.html). Making quality information available “Engaging Jewish Culture and requires much more than just putting Hebrew@Stanford Multimedia is a Civilization” links to theme-based it “up on the web” in an attractive web-based learning resource site for websites that provide educational way. The material needs to be Hebrew language instruction. The resources on different aspects of searchable, browsable, and site contains streaming audio and Jewish life and culture, including maintainable. A goal of COJS is to be video, interactive exercises and a Jewish women, Jewish history, a central repository of online collection of resources that expose 41 students to the Hebrew cultural The website features many video and There has been a lot of discussion in heritage, literary and intellectual audio clips by native speakers that the academic and information materials, and daily life. Most of the provide students with models of technology communities about the materials available on the site are authentic speech. The speakers use of open source software and freely available to the public. A few elaborate on a wide variety of topics academic community collaborations. are restricted to Stanford University about their culture, family, daily life, A major advantage of open source students because of copyright issues. and more. Dr. Shemtov worked with software, which is usually free, is Hebrew@Stanford was not designed Stanford’s Digital Media Services that it allows developers to to support—or exist—as a single department to provide maximal customize and modify the software. online course but to supplement a functionality for the The Modiya Project website is built variety of curricula and learning Hebrew@Stanford website. The site on an open source software package programs. The goal is to share with makes use of Virage Videologger called DSpace (www.dspace.org). Hebrew language teachers and software, which makes video content DSpace is software for setting up students web-based content searchable and interactive digital library collections on the developed at Stanford and at other (www.virage.com/content/products). Web. The software enables the institutions that can enhance and Users can search for a specific clip, a creation, indexing, and searching of expand awareness of Hebrew key frame, a word, or phrase in associated metadata so that the language and culture outside the closed caption text or even a spoken items are easily retrievable. Different classroom. The Hebrew@Stanford word within video files. Search scholarly communities within and website includes links to two other options include: keywords, file format beyond a single institution can institutional sites: The Hebrew (all clips, image files, or text files), adapt and customize the DSpace program at the University of Texas level of proficiency (from Novice system to meet their individual has developed a set of web-based Low to Advanced), verb tense, and needs and manage the data learning tools for the study of item type (interview, scene, submission process. Modern Hebrew literature and translation, grammar note. . . [et al.]). language (www.laits.utexas.edu/ This program allows control over hebrew). The Center for Advanced 3. MODIYA Project: contributions and access to a website. Research and Language Acquisition Jews/Media/Religion Scholars who wish to contribute to (CARLA) at the University of MODIYA Project: Jews/Media/ the Modiya site must first register. Minnesota provides a set of online Religion is a fully searchable, open- Each item that is submitted is then materials for the teaching and study access repository for scholars, described using a format that was of Hebrew (www.carla.umn.edu/lctl/ teachers, and students of multiformat developed by the project team. This materials/language/hebrew.html). materials relating to the interrelation allows materials to be searchable and among Jews, media, and religion accessible on a public interface. Hebrew@Stanford also includes (modiya.nyu.edu). The project is a material from the multimedia collaboration between New York Conclusion Hebrew language series Hevenu University’s (NYU) ITS Faculty The use of technology in higher Shalom Alekhem. The program was Technology Center, ITS Academic education has grown quickly over the developed by the Pedagogic Center Computing Center, NYU Digital past two decades, both in teaching of the Jewish Agency for Israel and Library Team and the NYU Center and research. COJS, Hebrew@ adapted to the web by the Hebrew for Religion and Media. This group Stanford, and Modiya Project illustrate Language team at Stanford first met during the 2003–2004 the tremendous potential of the University. The series is made up of academic year. The resultant website Internet as a medium for education twenty Hebrew language lessons, is extensive and provides access to a and instruction. These three websites each consisting of a dialogue and variety of courseware and content would not be possible without the scene depicting the everyday life of related to the material culture and generous support and collaborative new immigrants to Israel along with history of Judaism. On its homepage, efforts of Jewish Studies faculty and new vocabulary and grammatical a sidebar lists a series of units. Each of scholars, academic information patterns. The vocabulary appears after these units includes an introductory technology departments, and business each part of the dialogue. Exercises essay and links to subtopics and partners who choose to share their for learning new language patterns related resources. There are also research, pedagogy, knowledge and appear at the end of the segment. media resources, including digital and resources to benefit others. Each video clip is in RealAudio music resources and a link to the format as an MP3 audio file that can Steven Spielberg Jewish Film Heidi Lerner is the Hebraica/Judaica be downloaded onto a student’s Archives, as well as syllabi. cataloguer at Stanford University computer or iPod. Libraries. 42 43 different have already passed proficiency worlds. exams in Bible before attending a STUDYING THE BIBLE Although my university. This obviates the need perspective is for the exercise customary in many IN JERUSALEM necessarily western institutions of reading the subjective, I biblical text, translating, and parsing feel it might most verbal forms. At The Hebrew AND NEW HAVEN be helpful to University, degree candidates must Robb Young share my also attain competency in English insights, comparing and contrasting and German, and they are strongly ascinated during my teenage the different programs and encouraged to learn French. Yale, years by software engineering approaches in the two countries in on the other hand, mandates Fand programming languages, which I have studied. reading fluency in German and I pursued a BS in electrical French, with no particular emphasis engineering from the University of First of all, one should not overlook on Modern Hebrew. A student who Oklahoma, which I received in the fact that the academic calendars has passed through both learning 1991. During my professional of both The Hebrew University and environments, therefore, is in a career over the next decade, Yale revolve around the position to avail himself or herself of however, I began to religious holidays of biblical scholarship written in no question whether I their countries’ less than four modern languages. could find long-term respective cultures. fulfillment in jobs Regardless of The Hebrew Bible program at Yale, that were essentially one of ten fields of aimed at ensuring specialization my financial available at the stability. My interest graduate level in the in the Bible and Department of related cultures Religious Studies, inspired me to has four full-time consider a faculty members. postgraduate education This number is in biblical studies and a deceptive, however, career in that field. In due to the program’s 2001, I therefore applied to the one’s faith strong Rothberg International School at background, it is interdisciplinary The Hebrew University in somewhat approach. Students Jerusalem, and was accepted into disconcerting to are encouraged to the MA program for the Bible and be asked to take courses in other the Ancient Near East. attend class on what one personally relevant subject areas such as Jewish regards as a holy day. At both studies or Near Eastern languages I received my degree in two years, universities, students whose faith is and civilizations. In Jerusalem, there but remained in Israel two not reflected in the prevailing is a separate department of Hebrew additional years conducting academic calendar may feel Bible with twenty active faculty predoctoral studies. Advised by my somewhat aggrieved, but neither members and approximately thirty colleagues that it would be wise to institution can be faulted, in my courses offered in a given year. The obtain my PhD through a degree- opinion, for failing to eliminate diversity of instruction enables granting institution situated in the school days in order to facilitate students to obtain exposure to a country where I eventually planned sacred observances “across the broad variety of methodological to teach, I applied and was accepted board.” approaches and points of view. into the PhD program in Hebrew Bible at Yale University, nestled in The culture also determines the Graduate courses at The Hebrew the seaside community of New language of instruction. In Israel, University typically consist of Haven, Connecticut. Now in my Hebrew is of course the lectures conducted by the third year as a PhD candidate, I feel predominant language and is instructor, with select topics that I have already had the utilized in the classroom. Students occasionally highlighted via short opportunity to savor the best of two are fluent in Modern Hebrew and student-led presentations. At Yale, it 44 is not unusual for entire courses to inquiries. While a Yale instructor single, specific question, such as “Is be structured around the input of might introduce a lecture on a the wilderness Tabernacle student participants, with each class biblical passage by asking “When historical?” These papers are session organized by one or two of was this text written?” the subjected to page limits by the them. In this setting, the instructors philological approach demands that instructor, and tend to have very facilitate classroom discussion and this determination be made at the localized conclusions. also contribute pertinent ideas or end of class, only after the text itself comments. This method of has been thoroughly examined. Academic study of the Tanakh takes instruction is consonant with Yale’s pride of place in the Hebrew Bible goal of preparing its scholars to There is a significant distinction department in Jerusalem, and the teach in an academic environment, between looking at the meaning of approach taken is for the most part something that PhD candidates a text as it stands today and conservative. Explication of the begin to do in the third year of the endeavoring to understand how it biblical text begins with rabbinic program. One of the advantages of was interpreted by its intended literature or the medieval this approach is commentators, and that it permits progresses from there. each student to THERE IS A SIGNIFICANT DISTINCTION BETWEEN LOOKING Yale adopts a broader draw upon purview, amenable to personal research AT THE MEANING OF A TEXT AS IT STANDS TODAY AND more postmodern while ENDEAVORING TO UNDERSTAND HOW IT WAS ideas, including concentrating on a feminist and gender particular area of INTERPRETED BY ITS INTENDED AUDIENCE IN ANTIQUITY. studies. It also interest or exhibits a greater specialization. interest in the history audience in antiquity. The issue of of Israelite religion; that is, the The faculty in New Haven will, on whether or not Daniel should be reconstruction of the society’s occasion, pose perplexing questions designated as a prophet is such an actual religious practices lying to the class, such as “Who example: while modern researchers behind what is presented in composed the book of generally agree that Daniel was not Scripture. Deuteronomy?” These stimulating a prophet, ancient texts affirm that zingers are designed to provoke far- he was indeed viewed as such. In While my reflections have reaching classroom discussions, Jerusalem, the focus is on the necessarily revolved around the which need not settle the issue or meaning of the biblical text as different approaches that enter into even reach a consensus opinion. In intended by the author, with play in two different universities, Jerusalem, the faculty tend to raise modern religious significance both institutions nevertheless have a questions that are necessarily thorny intentionally set aside. While this great deal in common and exemplify but may nevertheless be resolved by goal is shared by Yale’s biblical the best of American and Israeli painstaking examination of the studies program, its Divinity School academic instruction. The two biblical text, such as “Does the permits a fusion of both academic schools admirably reflect their Molech offering refer to child study and personal application, religious heritage and embrace their sacrifice?” In this situation, the training seminary students in the respective cultures, and share the queries are less open-ended, and use of the Hebrew Bible in deep belief in the continuing impact serve to guide the student’s Christian faith and practice. of the Hebrew Bible in the world understanding toward a resolution today. Both programs have their of the problem. The writing of papers is everywhere merits, and exposure to both part and parcel of a graduate systems of learning is highly A corollary to this teaching method student’s life, and philosophical advantageous to the serious student at The Hebrew University is that differences are no less evident here. of Scripture. I feel very fortunate to philology is central to the academic Papers at Yale tend to explore a have had the opportunity to study approach to Scripture; after all, how topic, such as the history of the at both of these time-honored can one study a text before one interpretation of a particular biblical institutions. comprehends its constituent words? passage. Such compositions vary Professors raise questions that stem greatly in length and may or may Robb Young is a PhD candidate at directly from the text itself, which is not yield broad results. At The Yale University. at the same time the first recourse Hebrew University, papers are for students in resolving these very typically intended to answer a 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 SUPPORT THE ASSOCIATION FOR AJS JEWISH STUDIES Please help AJS fulfill its mission of promoting, facilitating, and improving teaching and research in Jewish studies at colleges, universities, and other institutions of higher learning. Your contribution will ensure that AJS can continue to provide its singular services to graduate students, college and university faculty, and independent scholars. I pledge: ___ $1000 ___ $500 ___ $100 ___ $72 ___ $36 ____ Other: $_____ to the Association for Jewish Studies. I want my gift to go towards: ____Eastern European Scholar Travel Grants ____Publications (AJS Review/Perspectives) ____General Support ____Website Development ____Gala Banquet Fund You may make your contribution online at www.ajsnet.org/opportunities.htm or by mailing this form, with check made payable to the Association for Jewish Studies, to: AJS, 15 W. 16th Street, New York, NY 10011 Thank you for your support. If your institution is interested in becoming an Institutional Member of the AJS, please contact AJS Executive Director Rona Sheramy at [email protected] or 917.606.8249. 57 The Association for Jewish Studies is pleased to announce the NEW JORDAN SCHNITZER BOOK AWARD PROGRAM Two awards of $5000 each will be given annually in different subject areas of Jewish studies. These awards will recognize excellence in Jewish studies research and scholarship. This new program has been generously funded by the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation of Portland, Oregon. Information and application procedures will be available on the AJS website (www.ajsnet.org) in February of 2008. 39TH ANNUAL Conference of the Association for Jewish Studies ADVERTISERS EXHIBITORS American Academy for Jewish Research The 92nd Street Y American Jewish Archives American Jewish Archives Baltimore Hebrew University Association Book Exhibit Bar-Ilan University Press Brill Academic Publishers Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Goldstein-Goren International Cambridge University Press Center for Jewish Thought The Center for Cultural Judaism Brown University, Program in Judaic Studies Center for Jewish History Cambridge University Press Continuum The Center for Cultural Judaism The Edwin Mellen Press Center for Jewish History Encyclopedia of American-Jewish History CET Academic Programs Eric Chaim Kline, Bookseller The Edwin Mellen Press Hadassah-Brandeis Institute Emory University, Institute for Jewish Studies Henry Hollander, Bookseller Foundation for Jewish Culture Holmes & Meier Publishers, Inc. Hebrew Union College Press Index to Jewish Periodicals Indiana University Press Indiana University Press Jerusalem Books Ltd. Israeli University Consortium Jewish Publication Society Jerusalem Books Ltd. Knopf Academic The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization Leo Baeck Institute MASA Israel Journey The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization Middlebury College Language Schools Michigan State University, Jewish Studies Program Mohr Siebeck Mohr Siebeck New York University Press National Yiddish Book Center Rowman & Littlefield Publishers New York University Press Rutgers University Press Ohio State University, Melton Center for Jewish Studies Schoen Books Oxford University Press Scholarly Book Services Inc. Purdue University Press The Scholar's Choice Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Stanford University Press Rutgers University Press Syracuse University Press Society of Biblical Literature University of California Press Stanford University Press University of Pennsylvania Press Syracuse University Press University of Wisconsin Press Taylor and Francis University Press of America United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Center for Advanced University Press of New England Holocaust Studies Walter de Gruyter, Inc. University of California Press Wayne State University Press University of Connecticut, Judaic Studies Program Wilfrid Laurier University Press/University of Toronto Press University of Michigan, Frankel Center for Judaic Studies Yale University Press University of Pennsylvania Press YIVO Institute for Jewish Research University of Pennsylvania Press Journals Division University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Department of Philosophy and Religion University of Virginia, Jewish Studies Program The University of Wisconsin Press Coffee Breaks in the Book Exhibit Hall sponsored by University Press of New England the Center for Jewish History will take place Vallentine Mitchell Publishers Monday, December 17th, 10:30-11:15am and 4:00-4:30pm. Wilfrid Laurier University Press/University of Toronto Press Yale University Press Yale University, Judaic Studies Program For book exhibit hours and information on exhibiting/advertising at YIVO Institute for Jewish Research the AJS Conference, go to: www.ajsnet.org 58 December 16-18, 2007 39th Annual Conference Sheraton Centre, Toronto, Ontario of the Association for Jewish Studies Program online at www.ajsnet.org Join the AJS for more than 150 sessions devoted to the latest research in all fields of Jewish studies. Special conference events include: • Plenary lecture by Professor Irwin Cotler, P.C., O.C., M.P., Sunday, December 16 at 8:00 p.m. Professor Cotler is the Former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, Professor of Law (on leave) from McGill University, and an international human rights lawyer. Professor Cotler will present a talk entitled, “2008: Is It 1938 All Over Again?” • Book Exhibit featuring leading publishers of Judaica and related scholarship. • Sephardic music performance, “Songs of the Sephardim and Their Diasporas,” by Judith Cohen and Tamar Cohen Adams, Sunday, December 16, 2007, 9:15 p.m. • Information about cultural events, receptions, special gatherings updated weekly on the AJS website. • Special reduced prices for the AJS Annual Gala Banquet, Sunday, December 16, 2007 at 6:45 p.m. ($25 for regular and associate members and their guests; $15 for student members). For further information about sessions, meals, hotel reservations, visiting Toronto, and special conference events, please refer to the AJS website at www.ajsnet.org or contact the AJS office at [email protected] or 917.606.8249. Please join us Sunday, December 16 for the... GGaallaa BBananququeett at the 39th Annual Conference of the Association for Jewish Studies 6:15 – 6:45 p.m. Reception • 6:45 – 8:00 p.m. Banquet • 8:00 – 9:00 p.m. Plenary Lecture AJS GALA BANQUET SPONSORS The AJS wishes to thank the following Jewish Studies Programs, Departments, and Institutions for sponsoring the Gala Banquet: Association for Canadian Jewish Studies Department of Religion, Concordia University The Graduate School of JTS Department of Jewish Studies, McGill University Department of Religious Studies, McMaster University The Posen Foundation Jewish Studies Program, Queen’s University UJA Federation of Greater Toronto Department of Classical, Near Eastern and Religious Studies, University of British Columbia Department of Religious Studies, University of Calgary Faculty of Arts and Sciences and Jewish Studies Program, University of Toronto Centre for Jewish Studies, York University 59 Courtesy of Sarah Lefton, Jewish Fashion Conspiracy. (Cover Image) Jews, race, and genes in the headlines. Courtesy of The Forward and Michael Lerner. Association for Jewish Studies Center for Jewish History 15 West 16th Street New York, NY 10011