Konner, Unsettled: An Anthropology of the Jews
Table of Contents
1. Genesis: How the Jews were born in Israel
2. Kingdom come: How the Israelites became a nation
3. Babylon: How the kingdom fell and the culture changed
4. Roman ruin: How the Jews lost their land
5. Diaspora: How the Jews dispersed among their enemies
6. Crossed swords: How Christian power vanquished the Jews
7. Under the minaret: How Islam (partly) tolerated the Jews
8.
Spain and beyond: How the Sephardic Jews found Romance
9. Brightness: How Jewish genius changed and grew
10. Ends of the earth: How Jews thrived in exotic places
11. Yidn: How the Jews helped create modern Europe
12. Mameh-Loshn: How the Ashkenazic Jews spoke and thought
13. Smoke: How the Germans gave the Jews graves in the air
14. Fire: How the Jews fought back
15. The golden land: How the Jews helped make America
16. Haáretz: How the Jews came home
17. Women of valor: How Jewish women broke the patriarchal bonds
18. Conclusion: A drop of red wine: How the Jews will face the future
1. Genesis: How the Jews were born in Israel
Be able to identify the following individuals
Mernetaph
Be able to identify the following spirits?
El
Asherah
Baal Astarte
Reshep
Be able to identify the following terms.
apiru Hittites
Phoenicians Philistines
Horon
Shamash
Tanakh
Be able to answer the following questions
According to the author, the Jews originated as __________. The texts of Genesis and
Exodus contain two separate literary streams. The most visible difference between them
is _________. The three patriarchs are listed on p. 3. They are ________. What proofs
outside of the Bible indicate that these individuals really existed?
What are the earliest non-Biblical references to a people that may be “Hebrews”? What
is the earliest non-Biblical reference to “Israel”? What does the reference say about
Israel?
There is no evidence, outside the Bible, that the Israelites were ever slaves in Egypt.
However, what two processes may have made outsiders become slaves in Egypt?
The Pharaoh Thutmose conquered Megiddo in northern Israel in 1468. What were the
two main settlement patterns at the time?
There is one major anthropological transformation that happened independently in China,
Egypt, India, and Mexico and that had major impacts on human social life. Which
transformation? What are the two institutions that “civilizations” use to control the rural
population? What are the two principal uses for which “civilizations” used conquered
peoples?
The main danger to Egyptian rule in Palestine were the Hittites invading from the north.
During this period, what was “Israel”? What other two European groups came and
inserted themselves in Palestine between the Egyptians and the Hittites? What biblical
texts probably correspond to the period when Israel was battling against these Europeans?
The text accepts the view that Israel never really invaded and conquered the Holy Land
from the outside, What internal processes were happening inside the region among
Israelites that may have given rise to accounts of the “conquest” of the land by the
Israelites?
The text describes what may have been the farming system of the Israelites in the hills.
What were the two major grains, and where was each planted.? What may have been the
source of most protein? What were the principal animals raised, and what was their
principal utility?
Today’s Jewish ritual calendar commemorating sacred events in the history of Israel may
have originally been a series of agro-pastoral rituals used in Canaanite hills, only later
transformed into commemorations of sacred historical watersheds. To understand these
one has to know what the agricultural cycle was. What was harvested in the late summer
and early Fall? What Jewish festival corresponds to that harvest? When did the rains
begin? What grain was harvested in March? What grain was harvested in May? What
portion of the field did the harvesters have to skip by and not touch? Why? What was
harvested in the summer?
Archeology reveals much about the physical context of life in hillside villages of the prekingdom period. If you were a villager at the time, what material would you have used
to build your house? How many rooms would your house have? What animals would
you raise, and where would you keep them at night? What five types of pottery would
you have in the house? Your house would also have a large pit. What was its function?
Before the later arrival of offically enforced monotheism, a variety of gods were
worshipped in Canaan. Be sure to know the names of the major gods and their attributes.
In addition to these publicly worshipped gods, households may have venerated their own
local, lesser spirits. What are some of the generic names given to them?
The text briefly recounts Biblical accounts of Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, David,
Solomon. Be sure to know the role of each. What is the basic difference between the
“archeological” model of Israel’s origins and the biblical model? If the archeological
model is correct, what may have been the origin of stories of slavery in Egypt and
conquest by invading pastoralists?
From what time period do we have the first non-Biblical reference to a king of Israel?
What is the reference? What king is mentioned? What city did he make his capital?
Why may he have chosen this site as his capital? What does archeology say about the
biblical accounts of an invasion, destruction, and abrupt replacement of Canaanite culture
with that of Israel?
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Kingdom come: How the Israelites became a nation
Be able to identify the following terms
J, E, P, and D
Be able to identify the following individuals
Samuel
King Saul
Ahab and Jezebel
Be able to identify the following spirits
El
Anat
Asherah
Mot
Baal
Yam
Elijah and Elishah
Josiah
Aton
Akhenaton
Ahura Masda
Be able to answer the following questions
What was the major technological revolution that occurred about the year 1000 that had a
major impact on human life in the region. The biblical account of the anointing of King
Saul by the priest Samuel represents a widespread anthropological pattern in the
evolution of human society. What is the process?
At the time of the ascent of David, the Israelites were divided into two major territorial
regions. What were their names and where was each located. Why did David never have
to contend with the Egyptians? Political power in the region rested on the same four
pillars that have been found elsewhere in the rule. What are the four pillars?
What language replaced Hebrew as the spoken language in the region? About when did
this occur?
The Bible, focused on Jerusalem in the southern hills and the Davidic kingdom of Judah,
treats the northern kingdom of Israel as a secondary actor. In actuality Israel was larger
and more prosperous than Judah. Which king of Israel in the North probably had a
greater kingdom than either David or Solomon in Jerusalem? Why has his name come
down in history so negatively? How did the population and economy of Israel compare
with that of Judah. Which Empire was the major adversary of Israel in the North. When
the prophets criticized the kings of Israel, they criticized them not only for worshiping
other gods but also for ________.
In what year was Israel destroyed? By whom? What happened to its population? What
does the archeological record tell us about the impacts that refugees from Israel have on
Judah?
In what year was Judah destroyed? By whom? What happened to its population?
What 3 writing systems are mentioned in the text? Which came first? Were they related
to each other? What is the difference between pictographs and alphabet. From whom
did the Israelites probably get their alphabet?
To what four sources do biblical scholars attribute the authorship of the Torah? Why
were different accounts eventually “melded” into the one document we have today?
When did the melding probably take place?
A lost “scroll” was found in the Temple which caused King Josiah to institute a religious
reform. Scholars believe that that scroll was ________.
Where did Moses’die? Where is his grave located?
Women play a special role in the J account. Familiarize yourself with the unconventional
and aggresive deeds of Eve, Rebecca, Yocheved, Miriam, Deborah, Judith.
Some say that the prohibition against idols derives from pastoralism. Why? Five major
figures in Hebrew history were pastoralists or shepherds. Which ones?
Some have argued that monotheism – the worship of one all powerful God – is a result of
centralized State organization. How do Rome, Greece, Egypt, Babylon, and India
contradict this?
There were female deities in ancient religions. What aspect of their position reflected
social life at the time? What happened to female deities under Hebrew monotheism?
Be able to identify the following: The supreme God of Canaan. His wife, the fertility
goddess. The weather god. The wife / sister of the weather god. The sea god. The god
of death.
In which two ancient societies was monotheism tried besides Israel? What happened to it
in each?
There is scriptural evidence that many Israelites continued to be polytheists. Give
examples from the life of Moses, Elijah, and Josiah. How do the words of Psalm 82 give
evidence of remnant polytheism in Hebrew culture.
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Babylon: How the kingdom fell and the culture changed
Be able to identify the following terms
rabbi brit
tikkun olam
Be able to identify the following places
Migdol
Elephantine
Be able to identify the following individuals
Nebuchadnezzar
Daniel
Ezra Nehemiah
Antiochus IV
Josephus
Be able to answer the following questions
The Bible talks of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586. What
archeological support is there for this account? What might have been the origin of the
Jewish community in the Egyptian city of Alexandria?
What was the major theological impact of the destruction of Jerusalem and the
Babylonian exile? What had paved the way for this transition? What was the “second
center of religious gravity” that already competed with the Temple. In Deuteronomy
Moses’ strongest commands to the Israelites are not to sacrifice in the Temple, but rather
to ______________.
Both Psalm 137 and Jeremiah write about the Babylonian exile. They differ radically in
their sentiments. How?
Did Babylonias permit the Jews in exile to practice their religion? With which Jewish
prophet is the phrase “handwriting on the wall” associated?
Which ruler conquered Babylon.? In what year? What special policy did he institute with
the Jews in exile? Which biblical book recounts this? In what year was the Temple
rebuilt? Many Jews stayed in Babylon. What book tells of religious persecution of
those that remained?
Ezra the Scribe became the religious leader and religious reformer in the restored
Jerusalem. In what year did he return to Jerusalem from Babylon? What civil leader
rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem? Ezra read a “book” of the law of Moses to the people.
Which book was it? On what day of the year was it read? No mention, surprisingly, is
made of the animal sacrifices made on that day. What does that indicate?
The text gives several explanations of animal sacrifice. One explanation links it to
establishing clear cognitive boundaries between different categories. A second
explanation says that the function of animal sacrifice in the Temple was to substitute for
human sacrifice. What biblical passage seems to refer to that directly? The text also
claims a third function: channeling aggressive impulses toward animals rather than
toward other human beings.
In what year did Alexander the Great conquer Israel? By then Judaism entailed a
mixture of animal sacrifice and Torah study. Earlier conquerors were viewed as
intellectually inferior, but Greek science and knowledge surpassed that of the Jews.
What impact did this have on Jews? What was the linguistic reaction of Jews to Greek
conquest? What is the Sanhedrin, and where did the word come from? Give examples
of how material culture adapted to the Greeks.
What does “rabbi” mean?
During the period of Hellenist rule there was tension in Israel between rulers and armies
from two different nations of the Hellenist world. Which two nations?
_______, who was King of ______, invaded the Temple in the second centure BCE.
Hannah’s seven sons were executed because they ____________.
The book presents as fact a rather gratuitous hypothesis that the God of Israel “was
descended from __________”. It is a common scholarly assertion with which you
should be familiar but should take with a grain of salt.
How specifically was the Temple desecrated under the Hellenist king?
There were four major Jewish cultural / religious practices that the Greeks wanted to
change and that religious Jews insisted on observing as symbols of their loyalty to
Judaism and resistance to foreign intervention. What are the four practices?
What is the biblical basis of the command to circumsize Jewish males? Rabbinic
commentary records God as making a threat if the Israelites refused to circumsize
themselves. What threat?
Anthropological examples are given from Australia, Africa, and Madagascar to show that
________ is practiced in other cultures besides that of the Jews.
Two possible symbolic meanings are given to circumcision. Which?
Know the characters and events involved in the Chanukah story. (p. 57) What miracle is
remembered and celebrated on Chanukah?
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Roman ruin: How the Jews lost their land
Be able to identify the following terms
Sadducees
procurator
Pharisees
Samaritans
Zealots
pidyon haben
Essenes
hassid
Be able to identify the following places.
Nazareth
Capernaum
Mount Gerizim
Yavneh
Sepphoris
Burnt House
maggid
Song of Songs
Haggadah
Qumran
Masada
Arch of Titus.
Be able to identify the following individuals
Jannaeus
Hillel
Herod
Shammai
Pontius Pilate
Akiva
Judas the Galileean
Bar Kokhba
Hadrian
Vespasian
Titus
Be able to answer the following questions
How did the Sadducees and Pharisees differ with respect to the Torah and beliefs in life
after death?
It is often said that Jews never force others to convert to Judaism. This is not quite true.
Give an example of forced conversions that happened in the final century before the
Common Era.
Whereas Palestinians kill other Palestinians today, as is true of Sunni and Shiite Muslims
in Iraq, Jews are not killing each other in Israel, despite deep divisions (and despite an
occasional assassination). This religious prohibition against internecine killing was not
always observed. Give an example of a Jewish ruler durng pre-Roman times who did
execute fellow Jews. How did he execute them?
Error in the text: “Julius Caesar became emperor…” p. 59. There was no emperor in
Rome until Augustus, Caesar’s successor. The wording is incorrect.
Who is King Herod? Was he Jewish? What was his attitude toward Rome? Toward the
Jerusalem Temple and its priests?
Under the rule of Roman procurators, the seat of government switched from _____ to
_____. What was the major factor which prevented Roman rulers from carrying to an
extreme their abuses against the local Jewish population?
What is a revitalization movement, and what form did they take in Israel of this time?
Note in the reading the political and religious unrest that was occurring in the region
during the period preceding the birth of Christianity.
What was the most common cause of death in crucifixion? How long did it usually take
a crucified person to die?
The English name Jesus is a translation of the common Jewish name of ______.
The northern third of Roman ruled Palestine was a region known (even to this day) as
Galilee. Many of the towns were non-Jewish – the region was often called Galil
hagoyim, Galilee of the Gentiles. Jesus, The founding figure of Christianity grew up in
Nazareth. The English name Jesus is a translation of the common Jewish name of
______. What archeological evidence is there that Nazareth was a Jewish rather than a
Gentile town. What was the economic base of Nazareth? What were the three major
crops and the two major livestock.
The book discusses the origin of Jesus of Nazareth. The English name Jesus is a
translation of the common Jewish name of ______. One of the Gospels records a
incident in which the boy Jesus impressed the Temple scholars with his knowledge.
Some suggest this could have been his “Bar Mitzvah” ceremony. What makes that
unlikely? (Hint: do young men have Bar Mitzvah’s behind their parents’ back?)
The text points out that Jesus did not fit any of the current movements in Judaism. What
were the four major movements and how did he differ from each? Jesus had a sense that
some people were the “salt of the earth” and “light of the world”. Which people?
What was Jesus’ attitude toward Jewish religious law? How did he tell people to react to
the scribes and Pharisees who spoke in the name of Moses? Read the passage on “mint,
dill, and cummin” (p. 67). What virtues, in the vision of Jesus, are more important than
religious tithing of these three spices? Jesus, as quoted in the New Testament, compares
the Pharisees to a certain type of animal. Which one?
The text makes the correct point that when Jesus criticized the substitution of religious
moral substance with external Jewish religious forms, he was following antecedents in
past Jewish writings. What Hebrew prophet is cited who also criticized the substion of
religious form for inner religious substance? What religious ritual did this earlier prophet
describe as useless if not done in the context of concern for the poor and oppressed?
The text argues that Jesus’ was a failure in one sense, but the greatest success story in
human history in another. Explain. The text further argues that, despite what the Jewish
world considers to be his “heresies”, Jesus remained a Jew till his death. Why?
On page 69 there is a problematic passage which speaks about “the elite, who preferred
the priesthood…(and) the fanatics who joined the Essenes or took up arms with the
Zealots.” People did not adopt the Jewish priesthood because they preferred it. They
were born priests whether they wanted it or not. And labelling the Essenes or Zealots as
“fanatics” betrays a modern secular bias that views any strong religious commitment as
aberrant.
Who were Hillel and Shammai, and how did they differ? Read the paragraphs on Rabbi
Akiva. Who was his wife and how did she help him find his meaning in life? (She
constitutes in a sense the a prototype of the ideal Jewish woman in Orthodox circles.)
The Temple was destroyed in the year 70 by the Romans. But there were prophetic
expectations that it would be rebuilt in the year ____. A Roman emperor even gave
permission to rebuild it, but the project never materialized. Why? The Jews were in
great danger and persecuted by the Romans. Akiva ruled that Jews could break religious
law to save their lives – with three exceptions. What were the exceptions which could
not be violated?
The Roman emperor _______ visited destroyed Jerusalem and ordered the rebuilding of
the Jerusalem Temple about the year 130, but with a statue of ______ inside. Rabbi
______ pleaded with the emperor to desist, but he refused. A revolt began led by
___________ who was popularly declared to be the Messiah. Why was Rabbi Akiva
finally executed?
A separatist, quasi-monastic Jewish movement was based at ________ near the Dead
Sea.
Error in the text: p. 69, “The High Priests, or Kohanim….” kohen is the generic name
for all priests. The High Priest is referred to as Kohen Gadol, the “big priest”.
The father / son Roman emperor team that destroyed Jerusalem in the year 70 was _____
and _____.
It was a rule of ancient warfare to spare _______. This was not followed in the
destruction of Jerusalem. Why not? Three years after destroying Jerusalem, the Romans
finally destroyed the mountain fortress of _______.
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Diaspora: How the Jews dispersed among their enemies
Be able to identify the following terms
menorah
Mishnah
hazan
tannaim
shofar
Great Sanhedrin
drash
nasi
Be able to identify the following individuals
Philo Apion Yochanan ben Zakkai
Beruryah
Judah the Prince
amoraim
exilarch
Rashi
Be able to identify the following places
Dura
Sura and Pumbedita
Be able to identify the following spirits.
Orpheus
Helios
Be able to answer the following questions
For the Romans, the image that most strongly symbolized the Jewish people was
________.
The ancient menorah has seven spouts. Various legends talk about the significance of the
number seven in the menorah. The seven spouts may symbolize the seven ______, or the
seven ______, or the seven _______.
The ancient synagogue in _____ was unusual because it had anthropomorphic art. The
picture of a harpist could either be the Greek figure _______ or the Jewish figure ______.
The one Greek deity that appears in the art of several ancient synagogues is _________.
Jews in the diaspora read the Bible in ______. What is special about the aaron qodesh
(arks, cabinets or shrines) in which the Torah scroll is kept in synagogues outside of
Israel? The synagogues in or near the city of Rome were likely to be named after _____.
The first Roman emperor was Augustus. What was his policy toward Jews? What kind
of names would Jewish children be given in the Diaspora? What was the dominant
language of the Jews living in Rome? Though Jewish law permitted polygamy, why
were Jews in Rome all monogamous?
The text cites Latin authors Cicero, Horace, Livy, Seneca, Quintilian, Apion, Damocritus,
Martial, Plutarch, Tacitus, and Juvenal who write about Jews in the Roman Empire.
Which author accuses Jews of ritual murder and cannibalism?. Which two writers
mention Moses? Which two writers mention the Jewish Sabbath. Are the citations
generally positive, neutral, or negative about the Jews? What is different about later
Christian writings?
Jews generally lived at peace in the Roman world, and even enjoyed special
governmentally mandated privileges which engendered resentment. In the year
____Jews revolted against the emperor _____. The country where Jews were most
seriously exterminated was _____. Many Jews lived in Babylonia, today’s Iraq. What
was the extent of Roman influence on their lives there?
The Jews were expelled several times from Rome. The Emperor Tiberius and the senate
expelled them because _______. Who else was expelled from Rome the same year?
Why were they banished under Claudius? What was strange about the third persecution,
under Domitian?
After the first Roman destruction of Jerusalem, the center of Judaism shifted to a famous
academy in ________ associated with a pacifist Rabbi _________. They avoided
involvement in the second Jewish revolt, but had to relocate their Torah academy to
________. Why was pacifism so fervently embraced by the Rabbis?
What was the major activity that went on in the Academies? How were rabbinic
decisions given enhanced authority? What is the Mishnah, who created it, and when?
The Mishnah has _____ books, also called ______. These books have a total of ____
chapters, also called _____.
The Mishnah was compiled by Rabbis. How did access to the rabbinate differ from
access to the priesthood?
Note: the Mishnah dealt heavily with practical matters, such as property disputes. This
indicates that religious authorities decided secular matters and court cases. Describe the
structure of authority. What is the difference between criminal cases and torts.
What linguistic tension existed in the time of the compilation of the Mishnah? Who was
the last of the tannaim, the one who completed the Mishnah. The rabbis of the Mishnah
argued about _________; the rabbis of the Gemarah argued about _______. The
combination of the Mishnah and Gemara is ______.
Read (pp. 95-97) about the shift of Jewish religious authority from Israel to Babylon.
What was it about Babylon that encouraged the emergence of commerce among Jews?
Know the names of the two major Torah academies that arose in Babylon.
Which were the two Talmuds produced in the cenuries after completion of the Mishnah?
How do the differ in length? How do they differ linguistically? How do they differ in
prestige and authority. Note on p. 98 how the compilers of the Talmud are endowed by
later generations with divine inspiration, referred to as _______
Note the legendary dialogue between Rabbi Nathan and Elijah the prophet, about God’s
reaction to those who argue and disagree with him. Is it wrong to argue with God? Note
the text on p. 100. In terms of the Talmudic ideal, a person should lessen _______ in
order to increase _______. Note also frequent mentions of God’s Presence. The
Hebrew term is shekhinah. What is said repeatedly of the Shekhinah? How does this fit
in with the earlier Biblical notion of a God housed in Jerusalem?
There is one tractate of the Mishnah that is a compilation of sayings by ten generations of
Rabbis. What is it called?
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Crossed swords: How Christian power vanquished the Jews
Be able to identify the following terms
supersession
Tu beShvat
Council of Nicea
seder
Ashkenaz
Purim
piyyutim
Shavuot
acrostics
Tisha b’Av
Be able to identify the following individuals
Constantine John Chrysostom
Rashi
Shabbat
Havdalah
midrash
Be able to identify the following places
Kazrin and Korazim
Himyar
Be able to answer the following questions
During the period of early Roman imperial rule, what was the attitude of Judaism and
Christianity toward proselytization? What was the prevailing attitude of the New
Testament toward Jews? What was the prevailing attitude of the Mishna toward
Christians? What was the prevailing attitude of the Talmud toward Christians?
The text mentions four groups in the Greco-Roman world to whom Christianity would
appeal. Who are they, and why were they drawn to Christianity?
What reason does the text give for Judaism’s lower success in attracting converts.
By the year 200 what percentage of people in the Roman empire may have been
Christian?
Error in the text, p. 107. Constantine did NOT convert to Christianity after seeing the
cross in the sky that led to victory. He began supporting the Church but was probably
not baptized until his death bed.
What two measures did Constantine introduce into army procedures as a result of his
respect for Christianity?
Which famous Christian preacher accused the Jews of killing their children and
sacrificing them to the devil, and called the synagogue the home of the devil, and
Judaism a disease. Jerome translated the Bible from Hebrew and Greek to Latin. What
did he accuse the Jews of?
The text discusses the Jewish diasporas in different parts of the world. Where were the
densest and most prosperous congregations of Jews in the diaspora? To whom did the
Jews in the diaspora turn for religious guidance?
When the power of Rome shifted to Constantinople (Byzantium), where was the cultural
and religious center of Judaism within Israel? Outside of Israel?
What two Yeshivas in Babylon served as the “Vatican” of Judaism, the source of
religious authority?
Examine the interventions of Pope Gregory concerning the Jews in Spain in the 1590’s.
What was general papal policy?
The Jews of Northern France and Germany came to be called ________. How did they
differ culturally and religiously from the Jews of the Mediterranean.
Whereas the Jews of _____ and _____ continued to practice polygamy, the Jews of
_______ practiced monogamy.
P. 114 discusses the origin of Judeo-German. What was the occupation of the Jews who
spoke this?
In Rabbinic interpretation, Rosh Hashanah is a celebration and commemoration of
______________. Chanukah is also known as ___________. The lighting of candles at
Chanukah parallels what happens in other religions and cultures as this dark time of the
year.
At what phase of the moon do most agricultural festivals occur? On what festival are
Jews supposed to plant trees in Israel?
The Jewish calendar is a lunar calendar; i.e. every month begins with a new moon. How
many days are there in twelve lunar months? Jews and Muslims both use a lunar
calendar? How do they differ in that regard? How do Jews compensate for leap year?
What is the Purim story? At what part of the year does it occur? What are the customs
with respect to alcohol consumption.
What is matza? When is it eaten? What is the explanation for eating matzah on
Passover? What is the major difference between Passover in Israel and in the diaspora?
Agriculturally, the Feast of Weeks (Shavuot) is associated with the ________ harvest.
But in terms of Jewish history it is a commemoration of the _______.
The Sabbath is a commemoration of __________________.
The starting point for the Jewish calendar is the year in which ______. At the beginning
of the Common Era, the world was _______ years old, according to the Jewish calendar.
Who was and is the most famous commentator of the Torah and the Talmud? Where
was he born? What miracles were associated with his birth? Rashi’s work caused the
intellectual center of European Judaism to switch from one country to another, from
_____ to _____.
Jews were largely at peace during the period before the Crusades. There were two types
of local authorities that protected them, _______ and ______. Why were Jews
segregated into ghettos? Did they object to the ghettos?
The First Crusade was convoked by Pope ______ in the year _______ against _____.
The first attack against European Jews by the Crusaders occurred in _____. The worst
slaughters occurred in the valley of the ________ River. The towns mentioned are
Mainz, Wurzburg, Worms, Nurenberg, Regensburg, Cologne. There was one town in
the area ________where Jews were spared because of the protection of ______.
Rashi, in France, was stunned by the slaughter. He composed a strange prayer. What
was strange about it?
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Under the minaret: How Islam (partly) tolerated the Jews
Be able to identify the following terms
Banu Qurayza
Mishneh Torah
Almohads
Rabbanites and Karaites
Caliph
Head of the Captivity
hakham and nagid
chupah
ketuba
dhimmi
jihad
Zionists
Be able to identify the following individuals
Muhammad Rambam
Benjamin of Tudela
Be able to identify the following places.
Khaybar
Medina
Teima
Be able to answer the following questions
The chapter begins with a description of Jews living among Muslims in Djerba, Tunisia.
They are almost undistinguishable in terms of physical appearance and dress. Jewish
men do have a distinguishing dress mark. Which? What language do the Jews speak
there among themselves? One synagogue custom is mentioned which is not done either
in America or Israel. Which? (You’ll have to guess) Where does the custom probably
come from? How is the arrival of Sabbath signaled?
Were there Jews in Arabia before Islam? What type of Arabic did they speak? In what
two ways was their social organization similar to that of the Arabs? In what country did
the Jews succeed in establishing a quasi-Jewish kingdom? Who destroyed it and when?
Approximately what year was Muhammad born? How long had Jews lived in Arab lands
before the birth of Muhammad. What impact did Muhammad’s inclusive and egalitarian
approach to religion exercise on the speed of Islam’s spread? Muhammad treated the
Jews of Khaybar differently from those of Medina. What were the differences, and
which approach became the standard Islamic approach to Jews. In which text are Jews
and Christians referred to as “apes and pigs”? If non-believers paid taxes, they could
continue practicing their religion. Were they treated with respect?
The text states that Jews were treated better under Islam than under Christianity,and that
this difference derived from two differences between Muhammad and Jesus. Which
differences?
Maimonedes was a great rabbi and philosopher born in Spain but living in Egypt. What
secular profession did he exercise?
Read Maimonedes 13 principles of Faith. What do principles 2,3, 5, 7. and 9 seem to be
alluding to and criticizing? In what language was this creed written? What was the name
given to God.
Warning: Serious error in the text, p. 131. The author says that belief in the 13
principles of Maimonedes “ ….make a Jew a Jew.” A Jew is a Jew whether or not he or
she believes; it is a matter of descent from a Jewish woman. The text uses terribly sloppy
wording on this issue.
From whom did Maimonedes derive his knowledge of medicine, science, and
philosophy?
Where was Maimonedes born? In what year? Why did he leave there? What was his
earliest profession? What profession did he finally adopt and why? Where did he live at
the height of his career? He was threatened with execution at one point. Why?
Where was the center of Islamic rule? What was the title of the high ruler of all
Muslims? What was the social and economic condition of the Jews in this central city of
Islam?
In the 1100’s, some 500 years after the birth of Islam, how many Jews were on the
Arabian peninsula, the center of Islam, who had not converted to Islam? Most lived
under Muslim rule. But some were in fortified Jewish cities where they were not under
Muslim rule. Teima was one such community. How did the people of Teima make a
living? How did they get along with Arabs in neighboring fortified Arab cities? What
religious use did Jews make of the income received? In what other Muslim region
outside of Arabia were there similar Jewish fortresses with a similar occupation?
There appeared to be a group of Jewish “recluses” living in Jerusalem in the 1100s under
Muslim rule.. In what kind of dwellings did the “recluses” live? What special clothing
did they wear? What special food restrictions did they observe, beyond ordinary
kashrut? What was their daily activity?
Two different customs had arisen in the 1100’s with respect to Torah reading: an Israel
custom and a Babylon custom. (The Conservative synagogue in Gainesville today
follows the medieval Israel custom.) What was the difference between these two Torah
reading customs?
In the late 1940’s and early 1950’s there was a sudden mass exodus of Jews from Arab
lands. How many Jews were in Arab lands before the exodus? How many remain today?
What triggered the exodus? Was it voluntary?
There is a description of Jewish life in medieval Morocco (pp. 136 ff.). Were Jews
subjected to Islamic authority and courts in their daily lives? What was the major control
exercised by Islamic authorities over the Jews? In this partriarchal society, Jewish
women were vulnerable to abuse as were Muslim women. How did families protect their
married daughters? Women had one religious vehicle for exercising power over their
husbands. What was it?
Jews in Muslim lands practiced polygamy. What percentage of men had more than one
wife? Polygamy could actually enhance, rather than reduce, the power of women. How?
Read about Jews in Yemen and Libya. Jews imitated Muslim wedding practices in
terms of transference of wealth at marriage. What transfer took place? An important
difference remained, however, between Muslims and Jews in this practice. Which? Jews
continue to have a marriage contract between husband and wife. What is it called? What
does it regulate? Where does the practice of this marriage contract derive? Is there a
parallel practice in Islamic law? In a woman’s first marriage, she is supposed to be a
virgin. What wedding practice symbolizes her virginity? Jewish tradition has weddings
taking place under a canopy. What substitute is often used in Arab lands? During
wedding ceremonies Jewish women engage in a linguistic practice that is usually
associated with Muslim practice. Which? In Ashkenazic settings the groom breaks a
glass with his foot. What is the equivalent Jewish practice in Arab lands? What was the
original meaning of this Judeo-Arab custom? How is the practice now usually
explained?
Quite apart from territorial issues, why was the establishment of the State of Israel by
Jews particularly offensive to Muslims, more than (for example) if a Japanese or Korean
state had been established in part of Palestine? Apart from territorial issues, the Catholic
Crusades were also particularly offensive to Muslims. Why?
When Muslims conquered a land, Jews and Christians were treated different from
practitioners of local polytheistic religions. Why and how?
Zionism and the foundation of Israel was not a threat to Islam; but it was a(n) _______.
In earlier times Jews were instrumental in bringing Islamic learning and scholarship to
the Christian world. What reverse trend occurred in the 20th century that was offensive
to Muslims? Jews are often accused of being more loyal to Jews worldwide than to the
nation in which they live. What historical factor is invoked by the text to explain the
phenomenon of Jewish loyalties?
There is a recent brand of Muslim hostility toward Jews that incorporates an element
from the Christian world that had not been part of traditional Islamic anti-Jewish
sentiment. What is the new element?
In what decade can we place the beginning of active Zionism? How did Jews acquire
land in Palestine? What was the attitude toward settlements on Arab lands?
Though the founding of Israel exacerbated anti-Jewish sentiment in the Muslim world,
riots occurred as early as 1945. In which city and country were the riots most lethal for
Jews? Who were the European occupying powers, and what did they do to stop the riots?
What was the plan of the newly founded U.N. for a Jewish homeland? How many Arab
countries sent their armies to resist the U.N. plan?
The defeat of Arab armies in Israel made life untenable for Jews in Arab countries. What
three countries did most Jews flee to?
What compensation was given to the millions of Jewish refugees for the homes and
property which they lost in Arab lands? Did the disappearance of local Jewish
populations soften anti-Jewish hatred in the Muslim countries of North Africa?
Return to the Table of Contents
Spain and beyond: How the Sephardic Jews found Romance
Be able to identify the following terms
Visigoths
conversos
Khazars
Berbers
Disputation of Barcelona
marranos
Ladino
New Christians
anusim
mezuzza
blood purity laws
Chuetas
kahal
beit din
Be able to identify the following individuals
Shmuel Hanagid
Ramban
Joseph Caro
Be able to identify the following places
Sepharad
Alandalus
Cordoba
Baruch Spinoza
Safed New Amsterdam
Be able to answer the following questions
Before the Muslims conquered Spain, who were the rulers? Were there Jews under these
rulers? In what year was the Muslim conquest of Spain? What was the condition of the
Jews in Spain before Muslim arrival? What was the reaction of Jews to the Muslim
conquest.
How did the Jewish leaders in Spain (e.g. Maimonedes) differ from Jewish leaders in
Northern Europe (e.g. Rashi) in terms of their involvement with the surrounding culture.
Mediterranean Jews are called Sephardim. Where does the name come from? In the
Middle Ages which religion achieved the highest level of secular culture: Islam or
Christianity? What was the attitude of Sephardic Jews toward their Ashkenaz
correligionists in Northern Europe?
Were all the Jews of Europe unarmed?
Who were Shmuel Hanagid, Moses ibn Ezra, and Judah Halevy?
During the 8th and 9th century the center of Islamic power, learning, culture, and religion
was in _____. What writings did Muslims translate and preserve? What role did Jews
play in these translations?
What forces led to the decline of secular Islamic culture in Spain? What brought many
Spanish Jews to migrate northward toward Ashkenaz Jewry?
Caution. There is a contradiction in the text. The author is committed to an antiChristian model in which Muslims were civilized patrons of arts and science and friends
of Jews, whereas Christians in Europe were uncivilized anti-Semitic boors. Yet the text
itself points out that many Spanish Jews had to flee into Christian Europe to escape
persecution by Muslim fundamentalists – hard to mesh with the Wise-and-Good-Muslin /
Stupid-and-Evil-Christian anthem that the author seems to enjoy chanting.
What role did Jews play in transmitting ancient Greek knowledge into Christian Europe?
Arabs preserved it, but were enemies of Christians. The Jews took the learning
from the Arabs and transmitted it to the Christian world.
Read about the Jewish leaders in Gerona in northern Spain. What Easter custom was
introduced by priests in Gerona? Who tried to stop it?
Throwing rocks from the cathedral tower to the Jewish quarter. The king of
Navarre.
Describe the suicide of many Jews in England? To where did survivors flee?
The text describes a series of persecutions of Jews in France. In what city had Rashi
lived, and what anti-Jewish activity took place there in the 1280’s? What anti-Jewish
accusation was levelled in Paris in 1290. What happened to French Jews in 1306?
What happened to Jews in Germany in 1298. In the first two decades of the 1300’s
Europe was racked first by the Great Famine, then by the Black Death plague. What
accusations were levelled against Jews. What was the Pope’s argument?
In Spain the kings were often the friends of Jews. Who were their enemies? To what
level did the annual number of Jews killed rise?
Church leaders often staged public debates between Jews and Christians. Who were
often chosen to argue against the Jews? Many Jews converted to Christianity – the
conversos – to escape persecution. What happened in Toledo and Cordoba that
frustrated this plan?
Error in the text, p. 154. Ferdinand and Isabella did NOT establish the Inquisition in
1480 to attack Jews. It had been established in Rome and southern France in the early
1200s to go after Christian heretics. In 1478 Ferdinand and Isabella reactivated the
Inquisition in the form of the special Spanish Inquisition. It was against Catholics
(including Jewish converts) who practiced other religions in secret. It did NOT target
Jews who had never renounced Judaism or pretended to be Catholic.
March 31, 1492, is a major watershed in the history of the Jewish people. What
happened?
Examine the discussion of Judeo-Spanish.
Even before the expulsion in 1492, many Jews in Christian parts of Spain had converted
to Christianity. What percentage of Jews converted, acc. to the book?
Which subclass of Jews was burned at the stake by the Inquisition?
How did France differ from Spain in the treatment of crypto-Jewish Catholics?
The Islamic world in the 1490’s was ruled from Constantinople by the Ottoman Empire,
which extended through Palestine to North Africa as well. Would Jewish refugees from
the Spanish expulsion be persecuted by the Ottoman sultan? Within Palestine, Spanish
Jews settled in _____ and _____.
What city and country in Northern Europe was the most welcoming toward Jews?
How did crypto-Jews use the Madonna’s foot?
List some of the professions at which European Jews became successful. What two
factors led to their focusing on these areas?
There are still crypto-Jews, “Secret Jews”, descendants of conversos. Read about the
ones in Mallorca, Brasil, and the S.W. of the U.S. What is blocking the Brazilian
conversos from returning to Judaism? What do the conversos of the American
Southwest call themselves? How do the Jewish and Catholic communities react to them?
Before the expulsion in 1492, what percentage of European Jews were in Spain and
Portugal?
Both Maimonedes and Joseph Caro wrote definitive compilations of Jewish law
organized by topic. Know the names of each. Which has become the definitive
authoritative source used by most Jews?
Muslims conquered Constantinople in 1453 and made it the center of a revitalized
Turkish Ottoman Empire that would last four centuries. About 40 years later the Jews
were expelled from Spain (1492). Why did the Ottoman Sultan welcome and protect
them? Why was there little local mistreatment of Jews in the Ottoman empire, as had
occurred in Christian Europe despite royal and papal protection? The Jews of the
Ottoman empire assimilated to Turkish lifestyles. But they retained, not only their
religion, but also _______.
The center of Sephardic Jews in Northern Europe was the city of _______. The Jews
there used two languages. Their spoken language was ______ and their higher-prestige
literary language was ________.
The commercial strategy of Amsterdam Sephardic Jewish merchants was to establish
trading links with Jews who had settled in distant parts of the world. List the regions
mentioned on p. 109. What was the language spoken among the Amsterdam-based
Sephardic Jews? Most were amusim. What does that mean?
Is there any indication from the text that there were Jewish slaveowners in the New
World? What was the trajectory of Sephardic Jewish settlement in the New World? To
which city in the U.S. did the first Sephardic Jews come? How were they received?
After the expulsion from Spain, and despite the importance of Amsterdam for the
refugees, the center of Sephardic culture switched to Constantinople and the Ottoman
Empire. Examine the Jewish occupational statistics for that city (p. 170). Was
commerce an important activity? In order of imporance list the five most important
occupations of Jews. What was the language of the Ottoman Jews?
At the period of the expulsion, Palestine was under Ottoman control. The most important
center of Jewish Torah and mysticism at this time was the city of Safed, in northern
Israel, more important in Jewish religious history of the period than Jerusalem.
Islamic law technically forbade the construction of new churches and synagogues. How
did the Jews manage to build beautiful synagogues in the Ottoman empire?
The Jewish synagogues and congregations in the Ottoman Empire differed in culture and
customs from each other. The characterics of each congregation were principally
determined by and identified with ______________. To what authorities did Jews have
recourse when they had disputes with each other? In what area of life did the Jews most
radically assimilate to Muslim customs? What was the typical head covering of the
Jewish male in the Ottoman empire? Though there were many Muslim cultural elements
in Jewish weddings, there were three special customs, mentioned in the text, that
distinguished the Jewish wedding from the Muslim wedding. What are they?
Who was Lilith? When was she most active? What protections were taken against her?
All newborn boys are circumcised ______ days after birth. In addition a boy will have
to be “redeemed” (purchased back) ______ days after birth if he is _________.
In Rhodes there was a special blood-related Sephardic custom on the day before Yom
Kippur. Describe it. (It is still practiced in some quarters of the Ashkenazic world).
Several forces contributed to the assimilation of the Ottoman Sephardim to Western
ways. What was the impact of World War I? (Note: the British conquered and
destroyed the Ottoman Empire in WWI.) Though Nazi genocide affected principally
Ashkenazic Jews of Europe, the Ottoman Sephardic Jews were also affected. The Jews
of Turkey itself were not killed by Nazis. But the Sephardic Jews of ____ and the _____
were transported to death camps. The one Balkan country where most Sephardic Jews
were saved was ______. They were saved because ________.
Return to the Table of Contents
Brightness: How Jewish Genius Changed and Grew
Be able to identify the following terms
L’cha Dodi
Bahir
Zohar
sefirot
kabbala
tsimtsum
Be able to identify the following individuals
Joseph Caro
Isaac Luria
Moses Cordovero
Baruch Spinoza
tikkun olam
ayn hara
Haskala
Moses Mendelssohn
Be able to identify the following places
Safed Gerona
Be able to identify the following spirits.
Lilith
Asmodeus
dybbuk
Lekish
Shibbeta
Taibele’s demon
golem
Be able to answer the following questions
The chapter begins with a discussion of a famous Sage, Joseph Caro, who was born in
_____ and migrated to the holy city of ________ located in ________. This migration
happened in the _________ century. When expelled from Spain in 1492, as is true of
many Jews, he first fled to ________, and from there fled to _________ before finally
coming to the holy city.
In the town of Safed in the early 1500s, the population had grown from a small number of
people to tens of thousands, mostly because of the refugees from Spain. The town had
become a center of Torah studies, peppered with a special longing for __________. In
order to achieve their spiritual goals, the mystics of Safed utilized two religious practices
with special intensity: _________ and ________.
Perhaps the most famous of the 16th century mystics of Safed was Isaac Luria. He was
born in ________ and migrated to ________. When feeling the call to mysticism, he
spent seven years in solitude and discipline on ________, where his principal reading
material was the Zohar, Book of Splendor. The Zohar is attributed by tradition to a
second-century rabbi named _________ who wrote it while hiding in a cave from
_______. His food and drink was ____________He was given special revelations in the
cave by _______. Secular scolarship considers this account folklore and says that the
Zohar, written in Aramaic, was actually authored by __________ in Spain in the year
1291.
Unusual mystical visions of strange creatures are found in Tanakh, in books by the
Prophets ______ and ______. But with the onset of ________mystical visions were
discouraged in Judaism. However, even now, one of the prophets in the Tanakh, the
Prophet ______, is believed to be still alive and to visit Jews at different points in their
lives.
Mysticism in Biblical times took the form of direct visions of angelic creatures or of God
himself in the case of Moses. But in rabbinic Judaism mystical experiences usually come
from knowledge of secrets hidden in __________.
Whereas polytheism posits separate deities, Kabbalistic Judaism says that God has
separate emanations, known as _______. The document in which these distinct divine
emanations are first discussed is an anonymous book called ________ which was
probably written in (where?) ________ in the _______ century.
Error in the text, p. 177. The town of Gerona, important in the development of
Kabbalah, is not in southern Spain but in northeastern Spain near the border with France.
Another mistake on the same page: the “Ain Sof” (the Infinite) is not the first sefirah. It
is the source of the sefirot.
Error on p. 178. The synagogue hymn with the carrying of the Torah comes from
Tanakh, not from the sefirot. The words in the hymn were the basis from which the
sefirot were later named in Kabbalistic Judaism. The author says “few who sing it know
that they are extolling the sefirot”. Actually the author himself appears unaware that the
text of the song is biblical, not kabbalistic.
Many modern commentators, including the author, appear to feel compelled to find a
feminine aspect to the patriarchal Hebrew God. The concept most frequently identified
as God’s feminine aspect is shekhinah. Take it with a grain of salt. The word is found in
the Torah, and happens to be grammatically feminine, as is the word Torah itself. The
shekhinah of the Torah, however, refers to a special brightness that surrounded the Ark
of the Covenant when God was present. But the term is in no way linked by the Torah
with a female deity or a female aspect of God. This is a modern analytic fad perhaps
engendered and nourished by discomfort with the patriarchal theology of the Torah.
The ten emanations (sefirot) of the kabbalah have been patriarchally anthropomorphized.
They are often visually organized as parts of a male body (including male genitals).
Other representations place the masculine elements on the _____ side of the body and the
feminine elements on the ____ side. Which human gender is associated with love and
with severe judgment respectively?
In kabbalistic theory, something went wrong at the creation of the world. What? What is
the role of humans with respect to this catastrophe?
According to Simenon bar Yochai, the reputed author of the Zohar, what were the angels
doing when God was giving the Torah to Moses? The Zohar and the kabbalah is viewed,
not as a new Torah, but as a revelation of the secrets that had been hidden in the Torah.
What metaphor is used (p. 180) to describe the relationship between a scholar and the
Torah? In rabbinic Judaism what prerequisites are set before you can study Kabbalah.
Neonatal death was a common phenomenon. How does the kabbalah explain such
deaths?
In classic rabbinic Judaism what brings stability to an individual life that has to be lived
in a world in turmoil?
Error: p. 182. the author calls simple Jews pintele yid. This is incorrect. The phrase
refers, not to a type of Jew, but to the divine essence, the “little point” of light, that is
believed to be at the center of the soul of every Jew. Error 2: Another silly error on the
same page: “Eve talked with a snake about an apple.” There is no apple in Genesis: it is
the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Error 3: same page. Adam was angry
with his first wife because she wanted “ ….to be on top in bed” instead of using the manon-top missionary position. Where does Genesis say that Adam and Eve had a bed?
With a box-spring mattress or a fouton?
In popular medieval Judaism: if you can’t find your key, what may the explanation be.
In the first two chapters of Genesis, the creation of a human female is mentioned twice.
Common interpretation is that they are both the same woman, Eve. In kabbalistic lore,
however, they are two different women. Adam had two wives. Who was the first one?
What color was her skin and her hair? Adam was so dissatisfied with her that God
subsequently created Eve. Why was he dissatisfied? What did she begin doing after
Adam substitued her with Eve? What type of children did she have? Did she have few
or many such children? What was the source of the seed for conceiving the children? At
one point she suddenly turns into a destructive male warrior. When? Where does she
throw the men she kills?
Besides Lilith and her offspring, talmudic and kabbalistic lore has three other sources for
the creation of demons. What are they? You don’t want demons trapped with you in
your house; what should you do? There’s one place that demons are especially prone to
inhabit. Which? What should you do to protect yourself while sitting there? What kind
of special shadows do they like to inhabit?
What is a golem? Who can bring it to life? What animal do you need to magically make
someone fall in love with you? Another love remedy involves sticking a new needle into
an effigy of the woman you want to love you. What material do you use to make the
image? You pray over it and bury it. After you dig it up again, what do you do before
sticking the needle into the heart?
Which two numbers bring good fortune in Jewish lore?
Not only the Jews, but other migrant minorities, have excelled in business. Give
examples from the text. Why was it predictable that Jews would engage in international
trade? Jews were often protected by the nobility but hated by the common people. Why?
Karl Marx was the descendant of rabbis. What did he say about Jews? What was Mark
Twain’s main point about the Jews? The book suggests a process of “cultural selection”
that brought the most intelligent Jews into positions of power. It beings in the religious
school, the yeshiva. Explain.
There was a Church law that was instrumental in veering Jews toward a major Jewish
profession. Which?
What was the Talmud’s reaction to Greek philosophy? What did Maimonedes attempt to
do philosphically? As many Jews had done before, Spinoza left Judaism. In what way
did he differ from his predecessors in this regard? The Jewish Enlightenment was secular
and anti-religious. In what country did it flourish most strongly?
Moses Mendelssohn translated the Hebrew bible into ______ using ________. Why did
he not translate it into Yiddish?
The book discusses three Jewish intellectuals who changed the modern world. Who?
Earlier discussions focused on why Jews went into commerce. Why did they incline
toward intellectual pursuits? Yet there was a paradoxical embarrassment with religious
Jews. Why?
The chapter ends with a song of praise for Jewish intellectual achievements, and a
standard inventory of Jewish Nobel Prize winners, saying that it would be “chilling to
contemplate” the intellectual state of the world if there had been no Jews. Is this
empirical fact or an ethnocentric anthem? (That question will not be on a multiple-choice
exam!)
Return to the Table of Contents
Ends of the earth: How Jews thrived in exotic places
Be able to identify the following terms
Ge’ez
Falasha
Beta Israel
segd
Operation Moses
Bene Israel
White Jews and Black Jews
Tao
Operation Magic Carpet
1. Ethiopian Jews
At what three points in Jewish history do folkloric legends trace the Jews of Ethiopia?
After centuries of persecution, the Falasha still maintained their identity as Jews. Why
were they accepted by Christian rulers? How did they differ militarily from Jews in
Europe and the Muslim Middle East? To what two occupations were men and women
eventually restricted? What other popular beliefs existed about them. What was their
strictest observance for which they were noted? There was only one Jewish festival that
was absent in the Beta Israel calendar. Which? A Purim custom present elsewhere was
absent from them. Which?
What Muslim prayer custom was adopted by the Falasha, alien to the rest of the Jewish
world? Did they have a wedding canopy, like Jews elsewhere? There are traditionally
seven days of special events after a wedding in the Jewish world. What did the bride and
groom do in the Falasha world? In the post-wedding prayer to the Patriarchs, the Falasha
begin long before Abraham. Who do they list as the first Patriarch?
Did the Rabbis in Israel recognize the Falasha as Jews? The relocation of the Falasha to
from Sudan to Israel began in the 1980’s. (They were in refugee camps in Sudan).
Sudan initially agreed but cracked down. Why?
They had four special problems that other immigrant groups to Israel did not have.
Which? What indignity did Israeli rabbis force them to undergo? They were also
offended by a blood-donor issue. Which? What Israeli institution is the major “levelling”
institution leading to assimilation of immigrants to Israel?
2. Indian Jews
The earliest Jews in India settled in Southwest India on cities located in the Indian Ocean.
The earliest were the Jews in Cochin, in the far southwest. Above them on the coast
were the Bene Israel. The latest arrival were Baghdad Jews who came as traders to
Mumbai (Bombay) on the West Central coast and in Kolkata (Calcutta) on the northeast
coast of India near Bangladesh.
When do the Cochin Jews say that they came to India? The first record of their coming is
associated with copper plates from the year 1000. What do the plates say? How did the
Jews fit into the Hindu caste system. Among the high caste privileges they enjoyed was
a certain type of shoe and a certain mode of transportation. Which? Why did the caste
system make Jewish integration easier? Unlike the Jews of Europe, the Jews of Cochin
had a right to _________.
What is the major, most elegant festival of the Cochin Jews? How did it reinforce their
public image as high caste? At meals men would sing in one language and women in
another. Which?
How did the Bene Israel, farther to the north, differ in religious practice and social status
from the Cochin Jews?
Despite the good treatment Jews received in India, most emigrated to Israel. Why? How
have they managed to avoid total absorption into Israeli culture and loss of their ethnic
identity?
3. Chinese Jews.
In the tenth century there was a _____ crisis in China which led to the need for imported
______ from the west. This increased travel from the West. 1000 Jews were given
permission, during the silk crisis, to settle in Kaifeng, in east central China halfway
between Beijing and Shanghai. The synagogue which they built in 1100’s followed
_________ architectural style. There is one Jewish marriage practice which was
considered an abomination by the Chinese and forbidden. Which? How did the Jews
prove to their neighbors that they were really good Confucians?
The Jews eventually looked like Chinese. To distinguish themselves as Jews, they wore
__________. In their synagogue they engaged in certain practices that would be
considered idolatry in the Jewish West. Which? Which way did they face when
praying? What was the rule about shoes during prayer?
The last Rabbi in Kaifeng died in ca. ______. Were any Jews left in Kaifeng by the end
of the 20th century?
The Jews of Afghanistan came as early as the fifth century. They have assimilated in
many ways to Muslim culture. The woman wore________, like Afghan women,
distinguished by the color _____. Afghan Jewish men distinguished themselves from
Muslims by wearing ___________. Something was done in Afghan synagogues that is
done in the Islamic world but that would NEVER be done in synagogues elsewhere.
What? How did they imitate the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca? There is now only one
Jew left in Afghanistan.
Return to the Table of Contents
Yidn: How the Jews helped create modern Europe
Be able to identify the following terms
Enlightenment
shammes
Pale of
kiddush
Settlement
shul
Erev Shabbat
tallis
challah
eyruv (eruv)
shtetl
bima
Be able to identify the following individuals.
Napoleon
Count Molé Simon Dubnow
cholent
havdalah
Zionist
Agudat Israel
the Bund
shtibl
tashlich
the Forward
ILGWU
Theodor Herzl
Be able to answer the following questions
The stereotype is that Jews in Europe tended to be traders and moneylenders. Examine
the 18th century statistics for Frankfurt, Germany, and Vilna, Lithuania. Is this true?
Which subgroup of Jews was more active in international, rather than local, trade? Why
were the Jews resented in Poland?
What was the “peasant patois” that East European Jews looked down upon. What
languages were viewed as superior?
What arrangements did East European governments make for ruling Jews?
What arguments among Jews did the Enlightenment spur? To what did a rabbi (cited in
the text) compare Enlightenment Jews?
What happened in 1791 that changed the status of Jews in Europe? What symbolically
important act took place in 1797. Under Napoleon Jews were offerred full citizenship on
the condition that they give assurance as to their membership in the French nation. What
historical precedent did they use to show that Jews were loyal to the nation that receives
them? What assurances did they give regarding marriage customs? What Jewish
institution did Napoleon reinstitute, and why? Which was the second country to grant
emancipation to Jews?
In which country did Jews devise Reform Judaism as a positive gesture to Emancipation?
What did early Refom Jews say about the thrice-daily prayer for a return of Jews to the
Holy Land? What was the attitude of Reform to Hebrew? To Saturday services?
_________arose as a compromise between Orthodoxy and Reform? What was the
attitude of German Jews to their life in Germany in the early 20th century?
_______caused them to change their mind.
A description is given of life in European Jewish shtetls in the early 20th century. (The
following is in the “ethnographic present”; much, but not all, of it still applies.) The
special bread made for Shabbes is called _______; it differs from ordinary bread in that
the dough is ______ and it is all glazed with ______. During the week a married woman
covers her head in public with a_____; on shabbes she covers her head with a _____.
On Friday evening woman stays at home to prepare the meal and perform an important
woman’s ritual, namely, ____________. The men and boys go to synagogue; the ideal is
that they should come back from synagogue with _____. Men have two head coverings;
in public they wear a _________; at home they wear a ________. The male head of the
house makes ______ over wine. Before eating bread everybody performs the ritual of
_________. For the Friday evening meal, two different sources of protein are the shtetl
norm, namely ______ and _______.
On shabbat it is forbidden to carry anything in the public domain (e.g. on the street). In
the shtetl it is permitted because of the _____. In the synagogue, generally called _____,
everybody faces_____. Women sit _______ the men. In order to intensify their
concentration during prayer, people sometimes _________.
During the havdalah prayer, on Saturday evening after sunset, God is thanked for
_______.
The major venue of interaction between Jews in the shtetl and non-Jews was ________.
Read on p. 252 the special measures taken to make young boys love studying the Torah.
Three rewards are mentioned, namely: _____, _____, and _____.
Even before moving to Palestine, Zionists in 19th century Poland departed from local
Jewish life both linguistically and ocupationally. How? What two occupational groups
were most hostile to the Zionist dream of relocation to Palestine? If an Orthodox group
adapts to modern life by insisting on schools for girls, it is referred to as ________.
Even Jews who foresaw dangers in the 1920s were no longer able to emigrate either to
America or to Palestine. Why? Which was the “greatest Jewish community in world
history”. How many Jews lived there. How many of them were killed in the Holocaust.
What were the three major waves of Jews to the U.S.? How did each wave treat the next
wave. The center of Jewish culture in America was in _______. The dominant language
of Jews there was _______.
What event happened in 1881 that triggered a wave of anti-Semitism in east Europe?
Where did almost everybody aspire to flee to? Why did some Orthodox not want to see a
massive emigration? Jews who showed up at Ellis Island had two organizations waiting
to help them, namely: _____ and ______.
Even Jewish immigrants who ceased observing went to shul once a year. When? How
did synagogues make money then? What was the political orientation of most secular
Jewish immigrants?
Return to the Table of Contents
Mameh-Loshn: How the Ashkenazic Jews spoke and thought
Be able to identify the following terms
pilpul
mitnagdim
Hassidism
Belz
Be able to identify the following individuals
Bogdan Chmielnicky
Baal Shem Tov
Shabbatai Zvi
Vilna Gaon
Jacob Frank
tsaddik
ba’al tshuva
rebbe
Be able to answer the following questions
Both modern German and Yiddish are descendants of a language known as ________.
Yiddish and German diverged from each other about ______ years ago. The condition of
European Jews was most favorable in the ________ Empire. But that empire was
oppressive, and the country of ________ revolted. During the revolt Jews were targeted
and killed..
There were several “false Messiahs” who arose in the Jewish world. _________ was a
Jewish messianic figure who ended up converting to Islam. Another messiah, ________,
converted to Christianity. The false messianic movements led to the emergence of a
spiritual, mystic movement still present in Judaism, namely: ____________.
The Baal Shem Tov was the founder of a movement known as _________. One of his
central teachings was that God despises _________ and wants Jews to ________. He
makes a fundamental distinction between Jews and non-Jews. He said that the angels
bow down in homage whenever a Jew _________. Unlike traditional Judaism,
Hasidism recognized the existence of living saints, referred to as _______, and gave
them great reverence and obedience.
The Orthodox rabbis resisted this movement; the center of resistance was in the city of
______ in the country of _______. A major leader of the anti-Hassidic resistance was
____________. He ordered the ______ the books of the Hassidim? (Note from Prof.
Murray: The Orthodox animosity to Hassidism was every bit as strong and vehement as
the rabbinic resistance to Christianity in the formative Christian period. Can you give a
simple anthropological explanation -- not based on theological beliefs -- of why
Christianity became a separate religion, but Hassidism did not?)
The spiritual leader of a hassidic group is called a ______. The Hassidic groups are
usually named after the ________. One Hassidic group, the ________, believe that their
recently deceased Rebbe may rise from the dead and return as Moshiach (Messiah). The
two cities in which conflicts between Hassidim and their opponents are currently most
violent are _____ and _____. The most prominent conflict between Hassidic groups is
the one between the _______ and the _______.
The ________________centuries were a golden age for ________ Jews. But hardship
came in the _________ century because of ________. Many Jews left rural shtetla and
moved to cities. What happened to the religion of the urban Jews in Poland?
Return to the Table of Contents
Smoke: How the Germans gave the Jews graves in the air
Be able to identify the following terms
Nuremberg Laws
Kristallnacht
mischling
The St. Louis
Munich Pact
Wannsee conference
Shoah
Be able to identify the following individuals
Elie Wiesel
Simon Wiesenthal
Victor Frankel
Be able to answer the following questions
Know the basic titles and roles of these infamous Nazis: Adolf Eichmann, Heinrich
Himmler, Hermann Goering, Dr Mengele.
Millions of Jews were killed by Nazis with bullets in mass shootings; others were killed
in gas chambers. Approximately how many millions died with each of the methods.
How did the discourse of Nazi anti-semitism differ from that of Spanish anti-semitism
surrounding the expulsion of 1492.
Caution: on p. 269 Konner repeats the canard that Nazi anti-Semitism is somehow
causally related to earlier Christian persecutions of Jews. “It is not for nothing that the
Swastika is a kind of twisted cross.” He thus outrageously and inaccurately associates
the gas chambers with the central symbol of Christianity. This ideologically driven
finger-pointing distortion of history that has become a commonplace accusation. Of the
60 million violent deaths before, during, and after WWII, more Christians were killed
for being Christians (principally by Stalin, but also by Hitler in the case of activist
Christians) than Jews for being Jews – not surprisingly, given relative demography. No
service is being done to the memory of the slaughtered Jews by comparing the Christian
cross to the swastika. Konner’s chapter on Nazism and the Holocaust remains useful as
a summary of key names, places, and dates. Certain aspects of the chapter’s implicit
causal analysis – blaming Christianity -- are ideologically suspect and analytically
flawed.
Nazis defined the “Jewish problem” not as a religious problem but as a ____ _____
problem. Which group of German professionals were the earliest strong supporters of
Hitler?
When was Austria annexed? When did World War II start, and what started it? When
did Germany occupy France and Belgium? What measures were being then
contemplated by the Nazis to solve the Jewish problem. What decision made by Hitler
was the beginning of the end for him?
In what year was the concept of expulsion of the Jews replaced by the concept of the
Endloesung, the “Final Solution” entailing physical elimination of Jews? What
prohibition was enacted in that year? Who enacted it? How many gas chambers were
erected? In what country? How did Theresianstadt differ from the death camps?
The text discusses the halachic decisions of Rabbi Oshry of Lithuania to deal with special
legal dilemmas created by the Holocaust. According to R. Oshry: Could Jewish ghetto
leaders participate in the selection of Jews to be sent to death? Could a Jew acquire a
baptismal certificate to save his life? Could a Jew turn a Jewish child over to Christians
to save him? What did he rule about the tatoo placed on the arm of a Jewish woman
forced into prostitution?
Some rabbis claimed that the Holocaust was part of a divine plan to punish Jews for
certain transgressions. What were the transgressions?
Return to the Table of Contents
Fire: How the Jews fought back
Be able to identify the following terms
Judenrat
Hagana
Sonderkommandos
Jewish Brigade
aliyah
Be able to answer the following questions
Why did some of the earlier founders of Israel deny that European Jews had physically
resisted the Holocaust.? Who are the “Old Prisoners” among the Jews and how did they
respond to the Nazis.
Where was the greatest uprising made by Jews against the Nazis? In what year?
What were the two largest extermination camps? Most Jewish resistance was in ghettos.
But there was a revolt in one of the death camps. Which?
The British eventually established a unit of Jewish soldiers in its army. What was it
called? Where did most of the recruits come from?
After the war, what was the initial position of the Allied high command with respect to
Jewish refugees? Even after the war there were actions taken against Jews. Which
country killed the largest number of Jews after the war? Eventually the authorities
recognized that the Jews could not be repatriated. Where were they temporarily placed?
Which Jewish organization was most active in organizing clandestine resistance to the
British closure of Palestine to Jews? It was this organization which was to evolve into
the current Israeli military, the IDF (Israeli Defence Forces).
Return to the Table of Contents
The golden land: How the Jews helped make America
Be able to identify the following terms
traif
Bintel Brief
The Forward
landsmanshaft
The Jewish 400
Tin Pan Alley
Be able to identify the following individuals
Peter Stuyvesant
Emma Lazarus
Isaac Meyer Wise
Solomon Schechter
Be able to answer the following questions
Which American colony became the first major recipient of a Jewish migration? How
did this colony differ from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, of Pilgrim fame? Who was
the governor, and what was his response to the Jewish desire to immigrate. In the Jewish
counterargument, what two countries, and which two territories, were used as examples
of places that admitted Jews? Jews were finally admitted. Under which condition?
What was the major internal tension in the early Jewish American synagogues? Which
group was dominant?
The colony of Savannah, Georgia was another place that admitted Jews despite initial
resistance. What caused them to change their mind and invite Jews to disembark from
their ship? What involvement did Jews eventually have with slaves in the Georgia
colony? What was the attitude of Jews toward the American Revolution? Washington
told the Jews in effect that their presence would not be “tolerated”, because _______. In
1800 there were more Jews in __________ than in any other state. What is the major
threat to the survival of Jewish identity in the U.S.? On which side did Jews fight in the
Civil War?
Study the history of Jewish immigration to the U.S. (p 330. ff.). In 1815 there were
______ Jews in the U.S., most of them ______. This changed in 1820 with a massive
influx of Jews from _______ and _______. The newcomers were mostly ________ in
their religious practice and shocked that their predecessors _________. But after the civil
war there was a major shift away from ______ to _____.
Be aware of seven changes that the Reform movement in the U.S. introduced into Jewish
prayer services. What was the name of the Reform seminary to train rabbis, where was it
located, and what controversy erupted at the first graduation?
By 1920 a new Jewish immigration had replaced the earlier. In that year there were
_______ Jews in the U.S. Five out of six of them were from _______. Where did most
of the new arrivals at first live? Most of them worked a ______ hour work week. Their
dominant language was ______.
What happened in 1924 to stop the stream of Jewish immigration to the U.S.? What was
the dominant response of American Jews to Hitler’s persecution of European Jews?
Statistics are given concerning prostitution by immigrant women in New York in 1909.
How did Jewish women compare with Irish and Italian women in terms of that trade? A
special synagogue existed in Constantinople founded and run by __________.
Though popular culture focuses on the Italian Mafia, Jewish gangs and criminals
outnumbered the Italians in New York at the turn of the 20th century. The book
contends that these Jewish criminal activities contributed to the death of millions of Jews
in Europe. How? Know the names of the two famous Jewish gangsters one of whom
dominated Hollywood, the other Miami.
There is no sphere of American life to which Jews have contributed more than to
entertainment. In the movie industry, Jews usually played the roles of _____ and _____.
They were rarely _____ or ____. Jewish script writers generally focused on _____
themes. They generally avoided ______ themes. In 1960 the film _______ opened the
way for more Jewish themes. What was the response of Jewish movie moguls to the
McCarthy era in which actors were accused of Communism? The text accuses one
famous Jewish movie director and actor of tending toward anti-Semitism. Who?
Which American President supported the creation of the State of Israel. Why? American
Jews in the early 1900s were on the whole opposed to Zionist messages for a Jewish
state. Why? By the 1950’s American Jews were fully behind the State of Israel? Why
the change? Which of Israel’s wars excited the most pride among American Jews.
Nonetheless the book points out that Israeli’s tend to look down on American Jews.
Why?
What was the impact of 9/11 on anti-semitic tendencies in the U.S.?
Return to the Table of Contents
Haáretz: How the Jews came home
Note from Prof. Murray. The very title of the chapter indicates the author’s pre-existing
conviction that the Jews had a right to establish the State of Israel. Read carefully his
justification. It goes without saying that the Muslim world in general, and the Arab
world in particular, did not and do not share that assumption. The Western world shared
the assumption of Israel’s right to exist until recently. Now there are non-Muslim voices
in Europe that are questioning whether the founding of Israel was ever justified. As a
general comment, I should point out that in the final chapters of the book the author is
writing not as a detached anthropologist but as an emotionally committed partisan of the
Jewish cause. The facts he reports about Israel, its founding, its wars, are highly
accurate. They are marshalled into a pro-Israel argument.
Be able to identify the following terms
intifada
Kishniev
shochet
Second Aliyah
yishuv
kibbutz
First Aliyah
Balfour Declaration
Der Judenstaat
Sabra
First Zionist Congress
White Paper
Be able to identify the following individuals
Doña Gracia
Alfred Dreyfus
Baron de Rotschild
Arthur James Balfour
Sir Moses Montefiore
David Ben Gurion
Theodore Herzl
Zev Jabotinsky
The Irgun
Altalena
DP camps
ulpan
Deir Yassan
haredim
Eliezer ben Yehudah
Yitzhak Rabin
Be able to answer the following questions
Whereas the anti-Semitism of pre-Nazi Europe was based on _______ and _____, Nazi
antisemitism was based on ______ and _____. World War I transferred the Arab world
from ____ to _____ control. The U.N. declared that British Palestine would be divided
into a Jewish and an Arab state. The Arabs refused. When the British left, six Arab
nations attacked the Jews. Which? Many Palestinians fled their homes. What two
reasons are given for their flight? After the fighting ceased, most Arabs who fled wanted
to return to their homes in what was now Israel. What was the response of the Israeli
government? Jews had to flee from Arab lands at this same time. What was the
difference between Arab treatment of Palestinian refugees from Israel and Israel’s
treatment of Jewish refugees from Arab countries?
After the departure of the British, the Gaza Strip came under the control of ______ and
the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) came under the control of ______.
Billions of dollars in international aid have been given to Palestinians over the past
decades. What percentage has come from oil-rich Arab nations?
After the war of Independence, the next major war fought by Israel was the Six-Day War
in ______. What nations had allied against Israel? What was the stated goal of the
Arab operation against Israel. What four Arab territories came under Israeli control as a
result of the war?
The Yom Kippur War occurred in ______. Israel was attacked by ______ and ______.
Israel won this war. But how was the victory different from the Six Day War? In the
year ______ the first peace treaty was established between Israel and an Arab nation,
Egypt. What territorial concession did Israel make? (Note: the peace treaty was
brokered by President Carter at the first Camp David meeting.)
The first antiwar movement within Israel was provoked by Israel’s invasion of
____________ which occurred in the year ________. Why did Israel invade? What
effect did protests in Israel have?
When did the first intifada begin?
(Mention is made of the Oslo Accords. Please note the following information not given in
the book. The Accords were reached in Oslo, Norway in August of 1993, as a result of
the first intifada. They were officially signed the following month in Washington D.C.
Mahmoud Abbas, the current Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority, signed for the
Palestine Liberation Organization and Shimon Peres signed for the State of Israel. It was
signed in the presence of US President Bill Clinton and Israel's Prime Minister Yitzhak
Rabin with the PLO's Chairman Yasser Arafat. It was the first agreement between Israel
and the Palestinians. It was the first time that Palestinian authorities officially recognized
Israel's right to exist. The Palestinian reaction to the Oslo agreements was largely
negative. The Fatah – a secular movement associated with the PA -- accepted the Oslo
accords. But Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation
of Palestine, rejected the accords. They refused and continue to refuse to recognize
Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state. The accords envisioned the formation of a State of
Palestine. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) became the Palestinian
Authority (PA). Israel withdrew from most of Gaza and the West Bank, leaving it under
the authority of the PA. Israeli presence continued in the part of Gaza known as Gush
Katif, where there were Jewish farming settlements, and in settlements in the West Bank.
But more than 90% of the West Bank and Gaza were turned over to the Palestinian
Authority. Billions of dollars in U.N. and European aid were channeled to the PA during
the following ten years, more foreign aid per capita than any other period in human
history. Nobody quite knows where the money went to, but it did not reach the ordinary
Palestinians. Yasser Arafat’s widow is now a multimillionaire living in Paris.
Subsequently, in the year 2000, a second Camp David meeting was held in the U.S. under
President Clinton. What did Israel offer? What was Arafat’s response? (It was
following this that Ariel Sharon visited the Temple Mount to show Israel’s right to visit
the Mount. The second intifada broke out, much more violent than the first. It entailed,
for the first time, suicide bombings by Palestinians. The second intifada is still in
progress.) What new tactic was adopted by Palestinians in the second intifada that was
not used in the first? What was the fate of the Oslo Accords?
P. 355 documents a continuous presence of Jewish residents in Israel. In which two
towns did most Jews in Israel live after the Roman destruction of the Temple? What
triggered off massive Jewish immigration to Palestine in 1881? By the end of the 1880’s
how many Jews were in Palestine and how many Arabs? How did the Jewish farmers in
Palestine acquire land? Read the letter cited on p. 359. Did the Jewish settler minority
envision a future as a minority in an Arab land?
Why was the concept of founding a Jewish State in Israel at first opposed by many
Orthodox Jews? By Reform Jews? By secular Jews? Jews around the world would have
voted down the idea of a Jewish state at one point in time. What caused them to change
their mind?
Much of the world, including Britain, was shocked by the Kishniev pogrom. What did
the British offer the Jews? Did the idea please any important Jews? What did the
majority of Jews feel about the British offer?
A place in Uganda. Herzl accepted it. Rejected it.
Describe the central elements of the kibbutz With which immigration did the kibbutz
movement become strong in Israel? What was the dominant sentiment of kibbutz
residents to fellow Jews in the diaspora.
The British expelled the Turks from Jerusalem in WWI. Who helped them? A Jewish
chemist won the gratitude of the British and convinced them to allocate a homeland in
Palestine to the Jews. Who was the Jewish chemist, and who was the British official
whom he influenced? Read carefully the wording of the declaration (p. 363,4). It
specifically proposes the establishment of a Jewish “___ ____”.
The year _______ marked the onset of serious Arab attacks on Jews in Palestine. The
first major attack occurd in the town of _____, the site of Abraham and Sara’s tomb.
The British were also attacked. It prompted the British White Paper which declared that
__________.
At one point there were two Jewish military units fighting each other. What were their
names? What was the difference in their orientation?
Hebrew had died out, in the sense that it was no longer the “mother tongue” of any
monolingual group. How did it survive through the ages? The secular “Jewish
Enlightenment” of the 1700’s is called _________. Its protagonists were hostile to the
_________ language. What language did they promote? Why? There were two groups
in the 1800s who were opposed to the use of Hebrew as a spoken language. Who? The
British, when they controlled Palestine, recognized English and Arabic as official
languages. Did they ever officialize Hebrew? In which types of Jewish communities
was Hebrew militantly promoted as the spoken language.
The chapter describes anthropological studies of three kibbutzim. What were the
antecedents of the kibbutz movement? What was the activity of greatest ideological value
to the kibbutz ethos? Did the earliest kibbutzim prefer to hire Arab or Jewish wage
laborers? How were children raised? Why did the kibbutz play such an important role in
the military evolution of Israeli society? What social transformations occur when the
kibbutz switches from agriculture to industry?
Compare the early kibbutz to later kibbutz with respect to women’s clothing and
weddings. How did many kibbutz women feel about collective child rearing
arrangements.
In the Jerusalem of 1896, there were about 45,000 people. 60% of them were _____,
20% were _______, and 20% were ______. Throughout the rest of Palestine the
majority of the population was __________.
Until the year _______ there was no forcible transfer of land from Arab to Jew. Jews
acquired land through ______.
When and how did the countries of Egypt, Jordan, and Iraq come into existence as
independent nation states? What two nearby countries were once under the control of
the French? When did they become independent?
Between 1920 and 1947 there was not only Jewish immigration to Palestine. There was
also Arab immigration from four countries: ________. They came to find employment
in Jewish settlments, particularly in two economic sectors. Which?
The Jews in Palestine were not sympathetic to Arab rights or Arab claims. According to
the text: why?
The book makes a bold generalization that is,unfortunately, probably accurate. “The
great majority of Israelis _______. (But) the great majority of Palestinians_____”
There are 1.5 million Arab citizens of Israel. This sector is poorer than the Jewish sector
in Israel (more than 6 million) and most of them are sympathetic to the Arab / Palestinian
cause. How does the economic situation of the Israeli Arabs compare to that of Arabs in
other countries? According to the text, in which Arab countries would these Israeli
Arabs prefer to move, to live as citizens?
The book makes the claim that Israel would not have been founded without the
Holocaust. Why?
What is the major rift in Israel now among different groups of Jews.
The majority of Israelis in the beginning came either from Europe or from Arab lands.
Which group was more anti-Arab? Why?
Return to the Table of Contents
Women of valor: How Jewish women broke the patriarchal bonds
Caution from Prof. Murray. The chapter provides some fascinating information about
famous Jewish women through the ages. Unfortunately and unnecessarily, however, the
chapter is also unabashedly hostile to traditional Judaism with respect to gender roles and
advocates the gender role changes instituted by Conservative and Reform Judaism.
Orthodoxy is in effect portrayed as an oppressive archaic system from which women
were liberated by the light of the Conservative and Reform changes. The Orthodox
justifications for traditional gender roles are reported, but in a somewhat snide ridiculing
manner.
The chapter falls within the ethnocentric genre of “secular missionaries” – a religion is
acceptable if and only if it adheres to the cultural arrangements popular in secular
Western society. Religions and societies that do not tow this line, particularly with
respect to sexuality and gender norms, are dismissed as oppressive and obsolete. One
would hope that anthropology could rise above this. But it frequently does not, particular
with respect to gender and sexuality, where recently evolved secular Western norms
suddenly become defined as innate human “rights”. Be aware of the ideological bias of
the chapter.. There are several factual errors in the chapter as well, which will be pointed
out.
Be able to identify the following terms
mikveh
sit shiva
Central Conference of American Rabbis
Be able to identify the following individuals
Beruryah
Glueckel of Hameln
Doña Gracia
Emma Lazarus
Hannah Senesh
Be able to answer the following questions
Error on p. 385. “women are relegated to the back rows of Orthodox synagogues”. Not
true. Most modern American Orthodox synagogues separate men and women by a
barrier (mechitzah) which runs from front to back of the synagogue. The two student
Orthodox synagogues in Gainesville (Chabad and Hillel) follow this model. This was
also the arrangement which was present in the synagogue of the community which I
studied in the Gaza Strip. The author has apparently not crossed the thresholds of many
orthodox synagogues, including the one in Atlanta a few miles from the university where
he teaches, which also has a front-to-back division.
Snideness: on p. 385. he correctly points out that women do not have to follow all the
commandments because of their child raising duties. Then he says “(Women) must not be
distracted from this central task by the pesky commandments, study, and ritual
observances that men do to make themselves feel useful….” Sentences like that
constitute anthropology at its worst and damage the stature of an otherwise excellent
book.
How do women fare in the Talmud in terms of their scholarly potential? Who was the
one woman scholar mentioned in the Talmud. What does Rashi have to say about her?
Caution: pp. 387, 8. The text states that women were “specifically assigned” only three
commandments, which are then mentioned. Careful: In actual fact women must keep
ALL the commandments – e.g. Sabbath, dietary laws, fasting and hundreds of others –
that are not bound to a specific time of the day. And even the commandments listed as
women’s commandments, such as Sabbath candle lighting, can and must be done by men
in the absence of a woman. The wording of the text is potentially misleading.
It is stated that the first Zionist visionary was a Jewish woman. What was her name? In
which century did she live? What did she do in Tiberias? Which 18th century Jewish
woman wrote a book about Jewish life in Germany?
Where was the word “ghetto” first used.
Which major switch did the Jews of Charleston, South Carolina, make in the early
1800’s.? Why?
What was the major danger to the lives of Jewish settlers in Israel in the late 1800s and
early 1900s? On p. 400 a portrait is drawn of enthusiastic Jewish settlers from Europe
who had come to Palestine in the late 1800’s. 25 years later their situation had
deteriorated. Who was doing the labor on their lands? To which country did they want
to emigrate? How had their children taken to the life of agrarian settlers?
Please note: the word “shiksa” is used on p. 402,3. It is a commonly used Jewish
designation for any non-Jewish woman. The word comes from shekets in Hebrew,
which means “unclean animals” (i.e forbidden as food). Unlike the term “goy”, which
comes from a neutral Hebrew word meaning “nation” or “people”, in its origin shiksa is a
derogatory and insulting way to refer to women of the non-Jewish world as unclean
animals. Modern American Jews, largely ignorant of Hebrew, use the term
descriptively with no derogatory intent. But given its origins, the word should be banned
from polite company. It is not. I have heard it used by Hassidic rabbis fully aware of its
Hebrew origins. The author of the book uses it nonchalantly on p. 411, with no apparent
sense of its derogatory etymology.
Error on p. 403. “Eve’s sin was sexual.” That’s absolute nonsense. According to the
text of Genesis, Eve ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. There were
no other men around for her to commit adultery with (it’s unlikely she did it with the
talking snake). As the lengthy book winds to a close, the author’s scholarly caution
seems, perhaps out of weariness, to have gone up in smoke.
Another error on p. 404. “All humans are descended from Noah’s incestuous union with
his daughters.” This is incredible nonsense. The text of Genesis states that Noah had
three sons – Shem, Ham, and Japeth. The human race is, according both to the Torah and
rabbinic tradition, descended from these sons of Noah, not from incest between Noah
and his husbandless daughters. The author may have been reading some other sacred
scriptures. His information does not correspond to the Hebrew bible.
The Song of Songs is a prolonged saga of passionate love between a man and a woman.
How do the Rabbis interpret it.
There is one paragraph in which the author recognizes the positive function of what
appears to be a denigrating sexist custom: woman have to immerse in a mikveh (a pool
of running water) after menstruation has ceased to purify themselves. What is the
positive functions of separation during menstruation and immersion in a pool of water?
The Reform movement, in its German origins, first proclaimed equality of women in the
year _____. The first female rabbi was ordained in Germany in ______. The first
female rabbi was ordained in the U.S. by the Reform in _____. The first Conservative
female rabbi was ordained in ____.
What is the traditional practice in an Orthodox family if one of the children marries a
non-Jew? Traditionally a child of a mixed marriage is Jewish only if the mother is
Jewish. Who changed that, to define as Jewish the children of a Jewish man and a nonJewish woman? In what year?
Return to the Table of Contents
Conclusion: A drop of red wine: How the Jews will face the future
Be able to answer the following questions
Who was the first one to declare that he had wiped out the Jewish people? When? In the
Babylonian exile ______ replaced ________ as the symbol of God’s presence in Israel.
There was a reordering as well of the importance of two specialists: the ______ was more
important than the ______.
The author claims that the value placed on scholarship created a type of “cultural
selection” among Jews to bring excellence to the top, by mixing two types of success.
How did it presumably work?
Three reasons have been posited for a probably decline of Jews in America from about 5
million at the beginning of the 21st century to less than 2 million at the end of the century.
Which reasons? What percentage of Jews intermarried in the mid 20th century? And
now? 3%. 33%. What demographic factor makes Jewish / Christian intermarriage
more dangerous for Jewish survival than for Christian survival in America?
Update: p. 423 says that America has more Jews than Israel. That balance was reversed
in 2007.
Which non-American diaspora city has the most Jews?
In terms of no. of synagogues in America: what is the percentage ratio among Orthodox,
Conservative, and Reform? About how many Jews are there in U.S.A. and what
percentage of the population do they constitute? What is happening agewise to the
Jewish population in America?
In one reported suicide bombing of a Pizzeria in Jerusalem, 16 victims, including 6
children were killed. What was the response of Islamic Jihad to the death of the
children? What is the response of most Islamic clergy to the call to destroy Israel?
There are about 13 million Jews in the world. How many Muslims are there?
Read the passage on p. 430. Do Palestinians and Israelis have similar parallel goals with
respect to a settlement of the conflict?
Pope John Paul II did two unusual deeds with respect to the Jewish people that no Pope
before had done. What?
Which are the two European countries with the most Jews, and how many are in each?
How many Muslims are there for every Jew in France? Which two country in South
America have the most Jews? How many in each?
Distortion, p. 435. The text says “…the emergence of a (fundamentalist) radical right
youth movement bent on expanding West Bank settlements is an ominous trend.” Buhlow-knee. The bulk of expansion into the major West Bank Jewish communities (like
Maale Adumin and Har Homa) is driven principally the soaring price of real estate in
Jerusalem and environs. Paradoxically the real estate prices in Jerusalem have
skyrocketed because Jews from other countries, particularly the U.S. and France, buy
apartments so they can comfortably and conveniently declare their Jewish identity by
visiting Israel two or three weeks a year. The apartments remain largely empty.
So……most Jewish expansion into the West Bank is driven, not by religious
fundamentalists, but by rich foreign Jews who make it impossible for ordinary Israelis to
buy property in or near Jerusalem.
Secular Jewish culture is called Jewishness without Judaism. What does the text label
this as?
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