Jewish Multiple Identity - Sephardim And Ashkenazim, Fundaments And Contingencies, Questions Of Gender, Modernity And Beyond, Bibliography
hand shared
As a collective that has lived and created its history for the most part not merely in diaspora but among a vast array of "host" peoples, Jewry across the generations has been powerfully marked by the need to negotiate, on the one hand, elements of identity understood to be shared with all Jews at all times and places and, on the other hand, cultural motifs and practices shared with their non-Jewish neighbors.
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The medieval Jewish view divided the world between Edom (Christendom) and Ishmael (the realm of Islam), and the Jewish world was likewise bifurcated (for example, by Maimonides) into Galut Edom (Jews under the cross) and Galut Ishmael (Jews under the crescent). More broadly, and continuing throughout roughly the second Christian millennium, most of the Jews of the world have generally been underst…
Understandably, what is emphasized in the religious liturgy, in traditional literature, and in contemporary collective memory are the supposedly "constant" marks of Jewish identity: study and adherence to the laws of the Bible and (especially) the Talmud and other rabbinic glosses and codices; observance of the weekly Sabbath and the festivals that mark the annual (lunar) calendar; s…
Under the pressures of modern secularizing and state-building tendencies, the unique mix of a sense of core unity and adaptive flexibility that sustained Jewish diasporic communities for millennia was massively weakened. Among both Jews and non-Jews, the collective identity of autonomous communities came to be seen as inimical to modernity. Debates raged for decades as to whether Jewish identity w…
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