 Subjects -> SOCIOLOGY (Total: 553 journals)
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- Introduction
Abstract: Scholars increasingly recognize the construction of gender in the biblical world, not as a biological given, but as a complex of contextualized social and personal practices which individuals enact within particular social settings. In contrast to biological sex, gender is a social construct referring to masculinity and femininity as roles which an individual can perform.1 Throughout the Hebrew Bible, there is a strong concern for the maintenance of gender boundaries, as demonstrated by the prohibition against cross-dressing in Deut 22:5. An anxiety around the transgression of performed gender roles may also have informed the prohibition against male homosexual sex in Lev 18:22, which is constructed as a ... Read More
PubDate: 2023-05-27T00:00:00-05:00
- Giving Gold, Spices and Stones: A Closer Look at the Queen of Sheba's Gift
to Solomon in 1 Kings 10
Abstract: The Queen of Sheba is a significant but understudied character in the Hebrew Bible. Her story is nestled among accounts of King Solomon's international ventures in 1 Kings 10:1–10, 13 (cf. 2 Chr 9:1–9, 12). The Queen is unnamed, and her identity has long been debated among scholarship.1 Yet there appears to be a consensus that she is royal and foreign to Israel. In 1 Kings 10, the Queen of Sheba () hears about the fame of King Solomon, travels to question him, and observes his wisdom. As such, a foreign queen gives an Israelite king a gift. Verse 10 records that the Queen of Sheba gave King Solomon "one hundred and twenty talents of gold, and an exceeding amount of spices and precious stones" ()2. The text ... Read More
PubDate: 2023-05-27T00:00:00-05:00
- Gender Performance and the Queen of Sheba
Abstract: The Queen of Sheba is an iconic figure: discussed in both Chronicles and Kings, mentioned briefly in two New Testament gospels, and the subject of an extended narrative in the Qur'an, she is a rare non-Israelite woman who appears in the scriptures of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.1 Modern sources interpret the Queen of Sheba in a variety of ways: she is considered by many to be the ancestor of the Solomonic royal house of Ethiopia, which ruled the independent country until 1974; she is portrayed as a hypersexualized goddess in Neil Gaiman's American Gods; and she is a model of Black womanhood in certain strands of Black feminist thought.2 The most important book-length study of the reception history of the Queen ... Read More
PubDate: 2023-05-27T00:00:00-05:00
- 'Your Hair is the Hair of Men': Gender Discord and Depilatories in the
Reception History of the Queen of Sheba
Abstract: There is an encouraging move towards the destabilisation of binary and oppositional models of gender and a recognition that there are many masculinities and femininities.1 These insights have been fruitfully applied to the field of Biblical Studies.2 In particular, there is a growing body of work on the masculinity of queens which demonstrates the tension which exists between the gendered expectations of rulership and the performance of female gender.3 These queens are individuals who are born female but through their physical appearance and behavior adopt attributes which are culturally associated with masculinity. As such, their gender performance might be described as female masculinity.4These inroads into the ... Read More
PubDate: 2023-05-27T00:00:00-05:00
- The Masculinities of the Neo-Assyrian "Queens of the Arabs"
Abstract: The "Queens of the Arabs" were a group of eight female rulers from the north-western Arabian Peninsula who appear in the textual evidence of the Neo-Assyrian period (c. 934 to 612 BCE).1There are no other rulers in the Neo-Assyrian evidence who were women who ruled in their own right, and this is cause enough to thoroughly examine their gender. I will demonstrate that the "Queens of the Arabs" deviated from the expected roles of royal women in Assyrian society, and conformed to the roles of foreign male rulers. The manner in which foreign male rulers were depicted formed the template Assyrian scribes and artists used to depict the "Queens of the Arabs". The "Queens of the Arabs" were therefore performing ... Read More
PubDate: 2023-05-27T00:00:00-05:00
- Esther, Drag, and Agency: Gender, Ethnicity, Power, and Queer Time in the
Book of Esther and its Jewish Interpretations
Abstract: Esther is sometimes read as a secondary figure in her own book for her supposed passivity and her virtual disappearance at the end of the narrative. In this article, I argue that reading Esther alongside queer-theoretical concepts of drag and passing allows us to fully appreciate her power and agency. Far from being passive, Esther acts again and again to survive her bleak situation and rescue her people. I do not contest the general feminist scholarly opinion that Esther ultimately fulfills nationalist patriarchal goals. However, within the patriarchal framework of the text, the character may be counter-read as a figure with significant agency.I begin with a brief discussion of the queer-theoretical underpinnings ... Read More
PubDate: 2023-05-27T00:00:00-05:00
- The Disidentification of Mordecai: A Drag Interpretation of Esther 8:15
Abstract: In Esther 8 we are offered a curious presentation of MordecaiThen Mordecai went out from the presence of the king, wearing royal robes of blue and white, with a great golden crown and a mantle of fine linen and purple, while the city of Susa [Shushan] shouted and rejoiced (Esth 8:15).1For a character who has emphatically rejected both the Persian empire and its clothing previously, Mordecai's emergence wearing the full regalia warrants a closer look.2 In order to understand this seemingly odd description of Mordecai's emergence from the king's palace, we put forward a drag interpretation of this verse and of Mordecai. When seen through a drag lens, Mordecai's actions are not necessarily so incongruous with his ... Read More
PubDate: 2023-05-27T00:00:00-05:00
- On the Character of the Rabbinic Hebrew Verbal System
Abstract: Disagreements abound among scholars working on the classical Hebrew verbal system as attested primarily in the Bible. There is no consensus on the best way to describe the main verb forms. Do they most prominently indicate aspect, tense, modality, or something else – and which forms are to be considered the main verb forms in the first place' However, most modern scholars seem to agree that the picture was much clearer in the earliest phase of grammatical work on the biblical verbs. The standard view in treatments of the early history of research on the verbal system is that everyone prior to Heinrich Ewald and his 'aspectual' turn in 1831–1835 thought that Biblical Hebrew should be described as a system of ... Read More
PubDate: 2023-05-27T00:00:00-05:00
- Heber the Kenite Deceives a Poor Yokel: A Literary Reading of the
Twenty-First Gate in Yehuda Al-Ḥarizi's Sefer Taḥkemoni (Compared to
its Arabic Source, Al-Hamadhāni's Al-Maqama Al-Baghdādiyya)
Abstract: In his paper on the sources of Sefer Taḥkemoni,2 J. Schirmann noted that this work was an adaptation of Al-Hamadhāni's twelfth maqama (Al-Baghdādiyya).3 Schirmann also translated its first part into Hebrew.4 J. Dishon produced a translation of the entire maqama into Hebrew, accompanied by a comparison of Al-Hamadhāni's original Arabic story with Al-Ḥarizi's Hebrew adaptation.5 The Arabic maqama begins with a declaration concerning the story about to be told by the narrator, ʿĪsā b. Hishām, who is immediately introduced also as the hero of the story. The Hebrew maqama also begins with the standard opening formula that presents the narrator, Heman the Ezrahite (""). However, this narrator tells of his love of travel ... Read More
PubDate: 2023-05-27T00:00:00-05:00
- Dealing with a Literary Estate: Methodological Issues Encountered in
Organizing Josef Mundi's Estate as a Case Study
Abstract: "The book was thick and black and covered with dust. Its boards were bowed and creaking; it had been maltreated in its own time. Its spine was missing, or rather protruded from amongst the leaves like a bulky marker. It was bandaged about and about with dirty white tape, tied in a neat bow. The librarian handed it to Roland Michell, who was sitting waiting for it in the Reading Room of the London Library.Possession by A.S. ByattAll scholars deal with questions of methodology when preparing the material for their research. In the humanities literature, however, little attention is paid to these issues. This paper seeks to help fill that gap by presenting a case study: the problems that arose when working on the ... Read More
PubDate: 2023-05-27T00:00:00-05:00
- "Forget-Me-Not": Flowers as Collective Memory Shapers in School
Anthologies
Abstract: At the heart of the present research study are three fundamental assumptions, all of which are founded on the connection between language and society. According to the first assumption, the manner in which a language divides its semantic domains reflects the character of both the society in which that language is spoken and that society's values. A linguistic analysis employing the technique of semantic domains leads from concepts and from the relationships of meaning between those concepts to the manner in which a conceptual system is organized and to the infrastructures of awareness that are based on sensory experiences.1 The study of semantic domains reflects both the social outlooks of communities of speakers ... Read More
PubDate: 2023-05-27T00:00:00-05:00
- Hebrew Studies amongst Palestinians in East Jerusalem: Not 'Language of
Success' but 'Language of Access'
Abstract: Consistent with the linguistic turn, language studies and language education, along with other fields of study, have become increasingly sensitive to the ways in which language reflects larger social trends. Indeed, language ideology, language policy and language studies have a tremendous influence on and are influenced by ideology and power relations, as well as political and discursive developments within any given society (Severo & Görski, 2017). Fishman's 1972 study exemplifies this. In his view, language should not be viewed as:a carrier of content, whether latent or manifest, but as the content itself…a referent for loyalties and animosities, an indicator of social statuses and personal relationships, a ... Read More
PubDate: 2023-05-27T00:00:00-05:00
- A Return to Biblical Poetry Through a Reexamination of the Mashal
Abstract: Jacqueline Vayntrub begins her monograph discussing some fundamental questions to biblical poetry and orality to challenge the status quo. She identifies the "Great Divide" (in which the literary texts that were originally oral, poetic, and emotional are seen to have evolved into textualized, prosaic, and logical) as critical for understanding theories for the evolution of poetry and orality. She notes the nebulous character of what most biblical scholars conceptualize as a text's "oral character" – an earlier stage, before textualization. She points specifically to the hazy nature of the conclusions for these diachronic endeavors, which often have nothing or little to show in terms of evidence. These uncertainties ... Read More
PubDate: 2023-05-27T00:00:00-05:00
- Tragedies of Jewish Liberation: Mapping Hebrew Literature Between the
Occupied Territories and Global Capital
Abstract: On the surface, Oded Nir's Signatures of Struggle: The Figuration of Collectivity in Israeli Fiction and Adia Mendelson-Maoz's Borders, Territories, and Ethics: Hebrew Literature in the Shadow of the Intifada may seem to have little in common. Nir's monograph is a comprehensive and exceedingly bold re-conceptualization of Hebrew literary history from the "totalizing" vantage point of the historical materialism of Fredric Jameson, and the World-systems theory of Immanuel Wallerstein, Robert Brenner, and the Warwick Research Collective. Mendelson-Maoz's, on the other hand, is an artfully crafted, theoretically eclectic, spatio-ethical reading of select Hebrew texts published primarily between 1987–2007 that thematize ... Read More
PubDate: 2023-05-27T00:00:00-05:00
- Challenging Stereotypes of Scholarship: Intention in the Talmud Between
America and Israel
Abstract: In 2018, I participated in a roundtable at the Annual Conference of the Association for Jewish Studies titled "Different Approaches to Rabbinics Research: Between America and Israel." The participants were junior and senior scholars in academic positions in the United States and Israel, all reflecting on the complicated relationships between scholarship in these two regions. My own presentation was meant to represent the perspective of American early-career scholars. Being early career myself at the time and recognizing that people without tenure have distinct risks in offering critiques, I surveyed a number of junior scholars and shared their aggregated views without attaching names to the quotes.In talking to my ... Read More
PubDate: 2023-05-27T00:00:00-05:00
- Deprovincializing European Jewish Literature
Abstract: Samuel Spinner's lucidly written new book, Jewish Primitivism, is an exciting new addition to a growing body of scholarship that has aimed to deprovincialize Eastern European Jewish literature through the lens of European literary modernism. These works include, but are certainly not limited to, Chana Kronfeld's ground breaking book, On the Margins of Modernism (UC Press, 1996); Shachar Pinsker's Literary Passports: The Making of Modernist Hebrew Fiction in Europe (Stanford UP, 2010); Allison Schachter's Diasporic Modernisms: Hebrew and Yiddish Literatures in the Twentieth Century (Oxford UP, 2013); Jordan Finkin's An Inch or Two of Time: Time and Space in Jewish Modernisms (Penn State UP, 2015); and Rachel ... Read More
PubDate: 2023-05-27T00:00:00-05:00
- "They Regard it [Grammar] as Nearly Heretical" Hebrew Grammar and
Philology in the Beit Hamidrash, Beit Haseifer, and Beit Hak'neset
Abstract: The Talmud remarks:Judeans, who were strict about their language, upheld the Torah. Galileans, who were not strict about their language, were unable to uphold the Torah. Is the matter dependent on strictness' Rather, Judeans, who used language precisely and made themselves signs, upheld the Torah, while Galileans, who did not use language precisely and made no signs, were unable to uphold the Torah.In much of elementary and secondary Jewish day school education, and even in some academic Judaic studies, Hebrew grammar and syntax are either blithely overlooked or relegated to medievalists. Questions of phonology and morphology are greeted with blissful unawareness or outright disdain, and the function of biblical ... Read More
PubDate: 2023-05-27T00:00:00-05:00
- Sexual Violence Within the Socio-Political Order
Abstract: The release of Ilana Szobel's book comes at an awkward time. Even though there are troubling signs of new threats to women's health and their right to freedom, other aspects of public life show a growing recognition of these concerns: not only to the very fact of the existence of sexual violence in society, but also the scope of its devastating effects on the experiences of countless individuals and the way it jeopardizes the social fabric, the gender-relations, and the wellbeing of entire segments of the population. It is particularly important at times like these to reexamine the beliefs, conceptions, and norms associated with gender-based violence and to delineate the current state of affairs as it is expressed ... Read More
PubDate: 2023-05-27T00:00:00-05:00
- Periodicals
Abstract: ASSOCIATION FOR JEWISH STUDIES REVIEW, 45.2 (November 2021)Aaron Ahrend, "On the Yehi Raẓon Formula in the Blessing for the New Month in the Ashkenazic Rite," 229; Edward Breuer, "Community and Controversy: Jews, Anglicans, and Biblical Criticism in Mid-Victorian England," 252; Rachel Gordan, "The Sin of American Jewish Exceptionalism," 282: Verena Kasper-Marienberg, Debra Kaplan, "Nourishing a Community: Food, Hospitality, and Jewish Communal Spaces in Early Modern Frankfurt," 302: Assaf Malach, "The Conclusion of the Guide of the Perplexed in View of the Conclusion of The Nicomachean Ethics," 334; Eli Rubin, "Rabbi Shmuel Schneersohn of Lubavitch ("Maharash," 1834–1882) and the False Twilight of Chabad Hasidism," ... Read More
PubDate: 2023-05-27T00:00:00-05:00
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