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2000 Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies
Abstract: This article concerns the life and work of Jacob Teitel, a social activist and judge in the czarist Ministry of Justice. From his position in the government in provincial Russia, Teitel was able to aid Jews affected by legal restrictions by interceding with influential individuals. This portrait of Teitel offers a window to view the changes in Jewist life and reflects the complexities of the Jewish experience during the late czarist period.
2000 Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies
Abstract: Historically Poles have been unable to resist writing about Jews. "Judeophilic" writing in Polish literature was impressive—illustrative of the often affectionate attitude toward Jews. On the other hand, the writing was often remarkable for its palpable departure from real-life situations. From the years 1530-1990 a body of work was produced that was characterized by stereotypes, distortions, paternalism, and condescension toward Jews. In this essay several works from the nineteenth century are summarized as illustrating the efforts of Polish writers to bring the Jew into the mainstream of Polish life. The essay then turns to Borowski's This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen , which exemplifies the confrontation of one writer to the concentrationary experience, Andrzejewski's Holy Week , which concerns a failed attempt to save one Jewish woman during the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, and Milosz's poetry, which deals with the impact of history upon moral beings and the search for ways to survive spiritual ruin in today's world.
2000 Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies
Abstract: Critics have lauded Albert Cohen for his vehement affirmation of Jewish identity, in contrast to the reserve historically exercised by French Jewish intellectuals with respect to their own Jewishness. Cohen has been equally praised for the exaltation of femininity and maternal love in his writing. Despite Cohen's ostensibly philosemitic and pro-feminine stance, his works exhibit both antisemitic and misogynistic discourses inscribed with a positive authorial evaluation. This essay examines the psychological and cultural conflicts underlying the representation of Jewish and female subjects in Cohen's major novels and autobiographical texts. Situating his writing within the dual framework of Melanie Klein's theories of mourning and artistic reparation and Sander Gilman's theorization of Jewish self-hatred, I argue that Cohen's novels succumb to the destructive forces of the maternal/cultural schism, while his autobiographical texts transcend the writer's ambivalence towards women and Jewish identity through textual acts of reparation.
2000 Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies
Abstract: Only later in life have some women voiced their Holocaust experiences. One example is Ruth Klüger's acclaimed German autobiography, weiter leben-eine Jugend (1992). The Holocaust has also influenced female fiction writers. American-born Sherri Szeman wrote the Auschwitz novel The Kommandant's Mistress (1993). Both engaging texts consist of non-chronological memory fragments. Szeman's two narrators, a female Jewish concentration camp inmate and a Nazi camp commander, strive for hegemony as they reveal their common sexual encounters in the concentrationary world. For Szeman, the Holocaust, despite its magnitude and impersonality, provides a symbolic language and a framework in which to express individual victimization of women, and crucially, the possibility of survival. A juxtaposition of autobiographical and fictional memoirs reveals a contrasting depiction of remembered history, especially with regard to women. Good intentions and literary talent aside, the dilemma of fictional representation of the Holocaust arises, and questions of verisimilitude and author's responsibility demand response. Critics continue to grapple with these issues.
2000 Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies
Abstract: This article discusses central themes in the poetry of three Hebrew poets who are children of Holocaust survivors. Rivka Miriam, Oded Peled, and Tania Hadar are second-generation poets who have given a unique and articulate expression to their perceptions of the Holocaust as event and memory. The focus of the discussion is the ways in which the poets assess the political and moral meaning of the State of Israel as a result and aftermath of the Holocaust. Most intriguing, however, is the way in which these poets fuse personal and political visions, creating both "particularistic" and "universalistic" representations of the Holocaust as a historical event and an ongoing reality.
2000 Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies
Abstract: Throughout the Iberian world from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century an all-purpose scapegoat drawn from a few prosperous convert families was thrust by inquisitors into view during times of social stress. The tribunal's education in hatred required that ever-more-grandiose pageants be held in major cities. The issue raised by these Autos de Fe is how such a "pedagogy of fear" kept subjects of the Crown in line by evoking racial hostility with little more proof presented after secret trials than mere sentences. It was through costume, ceremony, and printed invective that defendants were men made over into society's definitive Other: the Secret-Jew.
2000 Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies
Abstract: The approach of the East German political elite to Zionism had its ideological background in the communist approach to the "Jewish question," antisemitism, and nationalism, while the most important criterion in shaping attitudes towards Israel was the incorporation of me GDR Middle East policy into the foreign policy of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. Like other communist parties, the ruling Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) characterized Zionism as bourgeois nationalism and chauvinism. In addition, the East German political elite followed its own political interests. It would be a simplification to identify anti-Zionism with antisemitism, but one cannot ignore that anti-Zionism promoted antisemitic stereotypes and prejudices and kept old antisemitic views alive; antisemites could veil their anti-Jewish attitudes behind an anti-Zionist cover. Some Jewish and non-Jewish communists, leaders of Jewish communities, and representatives of the churches did not accept the official propaganda and policy, but their voices were not heard in public.
2000 Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies
Abstract: The particular judgments of practical reason play crucial roles in Jewish ethics, in applying rules, balancing concerns, and specifying the realization of values. While acknowledging the elusive character of practical reason, the paper develops an account in which these judgments are not only acceptable stopgaps, but may offer valuable contributions. It builds on Aristotle's classical discussion of phronesis , intelligence or practical wisdom, and Richard Boyd's contemporary account of the role of trained judgments in both science and ethics. In the model presented, the particular judgments of practical reason reflect both specific situational circumstances and more general values and holistic concerns. Particular judgments both are shaped by Jewish values and norms, and present new input that enriches the system of Jewish ethics, leading to its refinement and growth.