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Wizerunek Boga jako budowniczego w narracji starotestamentalnej

Author(s): Andrzej J. Obidowicz / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2015

The literal meaning of many fragments of Hebrew Bible represents a function of God as the builder, expressed by active participle בנה bōne(h). The paper deals with God’s acting concerning the creation of the world as well as his direct and indirect activity as the investor, the designer and the builder of some buildings; mainly Jewish sanctuaries. That biblical representation of God’s acting is closely connected with cosmogony and theology of ancient Hebrews. The paper does not deal with the allegoric or symbolic meaning of the biblical fragments analyzing here. As the result of the analysis, there is draw out the conclusion that the function of God as a builder displays an important aspect of his biblical figure.

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Herzl’s Image and the Messianic Idea

Author(s): Artur Kamczycki / Language(s): English Issue: 36/2015

Theodor Herzl (1860–1904) is credited for laying foundations of the political Zionism the aim of which was to be recognizable on the literal as well as visual level. As a result of this postulate Zionism promoted itself by means of various visual arts and viewed them as an important Zionist medium. In this way, the image of Herzl became an incarnation of Zionism and an expression of its ideas. His figure was a multilayered carrier showing the ideology’s evolution and providing the point of departure for many motifs and iconographic themes employed by the movement. One of them is the so-called Messianic theme that can be derived from the Zionist projection of the leader’s image. Although Herzl is not directly portrayed as the Messiah, there are certain elements implied in his images that drove the development of his Messianic myth. Herzl’s image, personality, politics and his ability to wake up the Jewish masses from a “deep slumber” by bringing up their “hidden powers,” all evoked associations with the Messiah. Mythical and idealistic elements as well as emotions connected with this figure were mostly focused around the Messianic message.

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Syjonistyczny ruch kobiet w Europie na przełomie XIX i XX wieku

Author(s): Katarzyna Czerwonogóra / Language(s): Polish Issue: 36/2015

The article presents the process that led to the creation of the Women’s International Zionist Organization (WIZO) in 1920 in London. The main reason for creating a separate international women’s organization within the Zionist movement was the lack of support for women’s ideas in the male-dominated structures. The trigger for the establishment of a separate women’s group after World War I was a trip to Palestine by three middle-class British Jewish women, the wives of high-ranking clerks in the British Mandate for Palestine. However, the creation of WIZO at that particular time was an outcome of several political and cultural phenomena: the beginnings of emancipation of Jewish women in Eastern Europe during the Haskalah, processes of emancipation of Jews in Western Europe, the development of modern nationalisms and anti-Semitism, and the international recognition of the Zionist movement. These conditions led to the creation of Jewish women’s networks, which were the pre-existing condition for the creation of WIZO.

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Żydzi i Polacy na boiskach międzywojennego Krakowa, czyli co piłka nożna może powiedzieć o społeczeństwie

Author(s): Bogna Wilczyńska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 36/2015

The article is an attempt to analyze the phenomenon of Jewish football in interwar Kraków. On the basis of books on the topic, newspaper articles and recollections of witnesses, the author describes the significant role of the Jews in the development of football in Poland. The primary focus, however, is the importance of competitive sports for minority representatives, especially in the context of their relationship with the Catholic majority. The main objective of this paper is to present Polish-Jewish relations in interwar Kraków from the perspective of the four competing clubs: Jutrzenka, Maccabi, Wisła and Cracovia. The teams not only battled on the sports field but also represented the entire spectrum of ideological views and attitudes. Differences between the left-wing Jutrzenka, Zionist Maccabi, democratic Cracovia and nationally-oriented Wisła reflected important antagonisms between Poles and Jews, as well as divisions within ethnic groups.

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A New Hebrew Literary Diaspora? Israeli Literature Abroad

Author(s): Yaron Peleg / Language(s): English Issue: 36/2015

Although the modern stage in the development of Hebrew began in Europe about two hundred years ago, after 1948 the language and its literature became confined for the most part to the state of Israel. The tumultuous course of Jewish history in the past two centuries has by and large emptied the Jewish Diaspora of Hebrew. And yet in the past few decades we are witnessing a growing number of Hebrew writers who are no longer confined by geography. Although they still publish their works in Israel, they write them elsewhere, mainly in the United States and Europe. Increasingly, too, their works reflect their habitat as well as the peoples and cultures of their countries of residence. Are we witnessing the birth of what can perhaps be termed a “post-national Hebrew” era, an era in which Israel remains an inspiring cultural center, but no longer the only location for the creation of original works in Hebrew? This article looks at various Hebrew novels that were written outside of Israel in the last few decades and examines the contours of what may perhaps be a new chapter in the history of modern Hebrew.

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„Pogrom alfonsów” w Warszawie 1905 roku w świetle prasy żydowskiej

Author(s): Aleksandra Jakubczak / Language(s): Polish Issue: 36/2015

The article explores the events known as the “pimp pogrom,” which took place in Warsaw in May 1905, as presented by the Jewish press. The analysis of the sources has provided new insights into the events, which were very complex in their nature. For many years, the Jewish community of Warsaw struggled with a problem of prostitution and white slavery. The inaction of the Russian authorities and police as well as the ineffectiveness of abolitionist organizations provoked the feeling of hopelessness and evoked a rank-and-file initiative of the Jewish working class. The pre-revolutionary turmoil only accelerated the explosion of violence against the marginalized and suspicious elements of the society.

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Rola sefiry Bina w procesie powstawania i niszczenia światów według traktatu Sefer ha-temuna

Author(s): Dominika Górnicz / Language(s): Polish Issue: 36/2015

The kabbalistic doctrine of cosmic cycles (shemittot and yovel) or worlds periodically created and returning into the state of chaos has been fully developed in the treatise entitled Sefer ha-Temunah, composed by an anonymous author probably in the mid-fourteenth century within the areas of the Byzantine Empire. The allusive style of the text is balanced by its clear structure, which constitutes the framework for the doctrine of cosmic cycles. This paper investigates the cluster of motifs exposed in the introduction to Sefer ha-Temunah and further developed in the treatise: (a) sefirah Binah and its symbolism, (b) ascension of the vital soul (nefesh) to Binah as a place of its origin, and (c) the concept of primordial Torah (Torah elionah) as a tool by which Binah affects each of the following worlds. The article reveals the relation between these motifs as organized around the notion of sefirah Binah, which is the crucial concept in the process of creation and destruction of worlds presented by the anonymous author of Sefer ha-Temunah.

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Mordekhai David Brandstetter: A Maskil Beyond His Time

Author(s): Avner Holtzman / Language(s): English Issue: 35/2015

Mordekhai David Brandstetter (1844−1928) was one of the prominent creators of Hebrew Haskalah literature in its latest phase. His most celebrated contribution is connected with HaShahar, the leading periodical of late Haskalah literature, edited by Peretz Smolenskin between 1869−1884. Most of the readings of Brandstetter’s writings have focused so far on the dozen short stories and novellas he published in HaShahar. Much less attention has been devoted to the later stage of his literary work that outstretched far beyond that era. This study focuses on those late works, some twelve stories that were written after the publication of Brandstetter’s collected writings in 1891. These stories are still rooted in Galician Jewish life, but they reflect the ambition to adhere to new materials and poetics, following the radical changes in Hebrew literature from the 1880’s onward towards realism, modernism and Zionism.

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Narodowość, syjonizm i dyskurs teologiczny: Dawid Fryszman wobec Chaima Nachmana Bialika

Author(s): Iris Parush / Language(s): Polish Issue: 35/2015

The interface between politics and theology in the discourse of Zionism and Jewish nationalism has occupied writers, historians and literary critics since the end of the nineteenth century, and has received renewed attention recently. This paper analyzes David Frishman’s critique of Hayim Nahman Bialik’s literary work, highlighting Frishman’s anti-Zionist and anti-messianic stance. It then uses Frishman’s critique as a basis for critically examining the contemporary debate over the secularization of modern Hebrew literature.

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“We Call Him Mister (Pan) Editor”: Nahum Sokolow and Modern Hebrew Literature

Author(s): Ela Bauer / Language(s): English Issue: 35/2015

This paper presents the tasks and aims that Nahum Sokolow believed Hebrew literature should have in Jewish life and in the Jewish national movement. Before his official joining the Zionist movement, Sokolow believed that the contribution of Hebrew literature to the formation of Jewish nationalism was more significant than the return of the Jews to their historical territory. This position did not change significantly after his joining the Zionist movement in 1897. In addition the paper evaluates Sokolow’s significant input to the development of the Jewish literary center in Warsaw and a new Hebrew literary style.

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Building the Past: Historical Writing on the Jews of the Bohemian Crown Lands in the Early Modern Period

Author(s): Rachel L. Greenblatt / Language(s): English Issue: 37/2016

Scholarship on the history of Jews in the early modern period, especially European Jewry, has flourished in recent years, clearly demonstrating that the period from c.1500 to c.1750 should be seen as distinct from both medieval and modern Jewish history. Mobility of people and information, changing relationships among rabbinic leaders and communal organizations, and the evolving nature of Jewish identity are among the characteristics that have been noted as unique to this period. This article surveys how historical scholarship related to Bohemian Jewry fits in that context, and suggests directions for moving that scholarship forward. Today’s historiography has grown from foundations laid in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Wissenschaft des Judentums framework, by way of the establishment of the Jewish Museum in Prague and scholarly activities undertaken there, through the difficult years of World War II and Communist rule. Building on that tradition, the strengths of current historical writing on early modern Bohemian Jewry include material and print culture. Room remains for the development of broader, more synthetic analyses that link this regional history more closely with its central European and Jewish early modern surroundings. More research on specific areas such as Bohemian Jewish history through the lens of gender analysis, wide-ranging social history, and more, together with improved integration with broader historiographical trends, would both shed light on historical processes in the Bohemian Lands and improve understanding of early modern Jewish history as a whole.

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Modernity, Identity, and Beyond: Historiography on the Jews of the Bohemian Lands in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries

Author(s): Ines Koeltzsch / Language(s): English Issue: 37/2016

The author discusses the main developments in the historiography on the Jews of the Bohemian Lands in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, which has expanded considerably since the 1980s. The historiographical debates have been focused mainly on conceptions of modernization/modernity and identity/loyalty and are characterized by a desire to avoid linear and homogeneous ascriptions. Nevertheless, a number of gaps still exist in the research. So far, the Jewish history of the Bohemian Lands has been focused mainly on its center, Prague, and lacks distinct studies in comparative history, the history of cultural transfer and/or entangled history. These analytical restrictions need to be overcome in order to achieve a more succinct contextualization within modern European Jewish history.

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Modernity and Polish Jews: Recent Developments in Polish-Jewish Historiography

Author(s): Marcin Wodziński / Language(s): English Issue: 37/2016

The article investigates the differing meanings employed in the concept of modernity by historians of the Polish Jews of the nineteenth century and how it has evolved over the last thirty years. It traces two essential traditions of modernist discourse on the nineteenth-century Polish Jews as following either process-oriented or project-oriented approaches. It also asks whether modernization theory and the concept of modernity are helpful in understanding the nineteenth-century history of the Polish Jews and whether there is anything specific that, when applying these notions to Polish-Jewish history, distinguishes it from the modernity discourse on other European Jewries.

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“Outside the Natural Order”: Temerl, the Female Hasid

Author(s): Tsippi Kauffman / Language(s): English Issue: 37/2016

Women are far more present in Hasidic tales than they are in Hasidic teachings. Temerl Sonnenberg-Bergson, a famous wealthy patron of Poland’s tsadikim, is the heroine of a number of Hasidic tales. She is esteemed for her support of tsadikim, but is looked upon as a woman who deviates from the rigid social order of which she is a part, making her a threat to community norms. This article focuses on the literary figure of Temerl, who, within Hasidic discourse, comes to represent a kind of hermaphrodite: on the one hand, her wealth augments her material, feminine side and intensifies her sexual attraction; on the other, her power and influence construct her as masculine, casting the tsadik whom she supports in a feminine role which he must strive to overcome.

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Gender and Family in Jewish Historiography on the Bohemian Lands: A Critical Survey

Author(s): Martina Niedhammer / Language(s): English Issue: 37/2016

Dealing with questions of gender and family, this article presents a critical survey of recent historiography on Jews in the Bohemian Lands. It assumes that the historiographical problems discussed in this field can be divided into three thematic groups: time, (gender) roles, and space. While a lot of research has been done on questions of gender roles ranging from the leeway that female and male worlds offered in religious and secular surroundings to ways women and men interacted on a daily basis, aspects of time, and especially space, have been largely neglected. Among the specific problems of Jewish historiography on the Bohemian Lands are its nearly exclusive focus on the capital Prague, the limited time frame covering mostly the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the almost total lack of works dealing with men’s history.

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Beyond the Assimilationist Narrative: Historiography on the Jews of the Bohemian Lands and Poland after the Second World War

Author(s): Kateřina Čapková / Language(s): English Issue: 37/2016

By comparing the historiography on postwar Jewish history in the Bohemian Lands and Poland the article is an analysis of not only the differences but also, indeed especially, the similarities between the paradigms of interpretation used in interpreting the Jewish experience in the two regions. The author argues that whereas the concept of assimilation was widely criticized and rejected for the earlier periods of Jewish history, it still dominates the works on the period after the Second World War. Consequently, the existence and experience of religious Jews have either been neglected or marginalized, and the history of Jews—who are often seen as a rather monolithic group of people—is misleadingly told as a story of linear assimilation. The author suggests alternatives to those nationalist and often pro-socialist interpretations.

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Miejsce rabina w gminie żydowskiej w Królestwie Polskim w I połowie XIX wieku. Spór o Zachariasza Weingotta w Częstochowie

Author(s): Janusz Spyra / Language(s): Polish Issue: 37/2016

In the nineteenth century, Częstochowa was home to one of the largest Jewish communities in the Kingdom of Poland, but for most of this time it had no communal rabbi approved by both the community and the state authorities. The first such rabbi, Zachariasz (Yisakhar) Weingott, was elected in 1822, but a mere two years later he was forced to resign. The attempts to elect a new rabbi led to major social conflicts and continued to fail, while the rabbinical duties were executed by unofficial rabbis (Jakub Brass and Mojżesz Majzel). It was only in 1839 that Weingott was reelected to the post of the rabbi and held that position until his death in 1852. As it seems, the conflict was animated by a competition between adherents of modernization and the traditional segments of the Jewish community in Częstochowa, including the Hasidim. As such, it was an expression of a typical communal conflict that plagued east European Jewish communities of the nineteenth century. What seems of special interest, however, is that a detailed analysis of the Częstochowa case makes it possible to trace other—familial and business—connections, behind the well-known ideological divisions, quite often transcending traditional divisions into modernist and traditionalist camps.

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NEGATYWNOŚĆ JAKO SEFIRA SUROWEGO SĄDU MIESZCZAŃSTWA. FAUST I HIOB

Author(s): Przemysław Tacik / Language(s): Polish Issue: 23/2013

The paper, drawing upon Kabbalistic inspirations, aims at constructing a philosophical model of the bourgeoisie. Many a time motifs from Jewish tradition have been grafted onto contemporary philosophy in order to explicate the metaphysical situation of modernity. Following these intuitions, the article applies the idea of the fifth Sephirah, Gevurah, i.e. “restraint” — simultaneously doubling as Din, “judgment” — to analyse the structure of being in the ontology of modernity. The nature of the fifth Sephirah proves paradoxical: it represents the power of being, based on the inherent constraint separating a thing from exteriority — as well as the power of destruction, which unites the being with the rest of reality. Therefore, the Gevurah-Din concept allows of devising a being whose mere existence springs from a central void which provides its singularity and, simultaneously, linkage with reality. The paper presents the nature of the bourgeoisie as conditioned by negativity. The bourgeois are constantly tempted by its power, yet build their identity reactively, striving for artificial stability. The iconic bourgeois lifestyle of the ruthless merchant at work and disinterested culture consumer at home, embodies this dualism. The bourgeois culture is dead throughout, as it serves only to constrain the negativity. The bourgeoisie is, however, subjected to a constant risk of imbalance, “seduction” by its innermost dark side. This construction is equally responsible for the archetypal modern hero, Faust, who chases its central void by ruining the world around him. Finally, the article juxtaposes two characters: Faust and Job, in order to give a Jewish answer to modern misery. Both Faust and Job suffer from the power of judgement, yet Faust obtains a sentence that merely reveals its void which has always propelled him. The existence of Job, on the contrary, is not equal to void — Job survives as the just.

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Musica non grata? Motywy i obrazy muzyczne w Księdze Izajasza

Author(s): Grzegorz Kubies / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2014

In the article I interpret musical motifs and images in the Book of Isaiah. The main musicological part of the text precede comments on biblical prophecy, symbolic acts (among them acts connected with music) and Isaiah, the prophet living in the VIII century BC. The research material – eleven passages where musical instruments are mentioned (ḥālîl, šōpār, tōp, kinnôr, nēbel), has been divided into three groups. In the first one (2 passages) I discuss the topos of shofar as the signalling tool, in the second (6 passages) I undertake research into ancient music performance practice. In the last group I examine three passages where musical instruments form parts of the simile, a figure of speech. All musical motifs and images are presented in broad biblical, theological and cultural contexts. Although the music in the Book of Isaiah is linked with drunkenness (Isaiah 5, 12, 24, 10), prostitution (Isaiah 23, 16), associated with the hostile powers (Isaiah 14, 1, 30, 32), it „sounds” ad maiorem Dei gloriam (Isaiah 30, 29, 38, 20), it is not unwanted art (non grata). The negative image of the music can not be associated with the shofar (Isaiah 18: 3, 27, 13, 58, 1)

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Recenzja

Author(s): Mariusz Rosik / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2014

Review of: MARIUSZ ROSIK - Rajmund Pietkiewicz, W poszukiwaniu „szczyrego słowa Bożego”. Recepcja zachodnioeuropejskiej hebraistyki w studiach chrześcijańskich w Rzeczypospolitej doby renesansu, Wydawnictwo PWT, Wrocław 2011, 308 s. (Rozprawy Naukowe, 86)

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