We kindly inform you that, as long as the subject affiliation of our 300.000+ articles is in progress, you might get unsufficient or no results on your third level or second level search. In this case, please broaden your search criteria.
Review of: BOGDAN PONIŻY - S. ELŻBIETA NATANAELA ZWIJACZ OSU, Obraz ludu Bożego według Księgi Liczb, Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Papieskiego Jana Pawła II w Krakowie, Kraków 2010, 417 s.
More...
In Judaism, the study is a religious duty, because the pious Jew's life is governed by the requirements of the Torah. Therefore, Judaism is a religion of the book, of the study of the Scriptures. This explains the organization of a Hebrew educational system at all levels, in all times and in all the places inhabited by Jews, as one of the major concerns of any community, illiteracy being almost unknown. The same happened in the Jewish community in Arad, one of the representative communities of Transylvania where, in time, there were various Jewish educational institutions, both religious and secular: elementary school, high school, Torah Talmud or yeshiva.
More...
A sermon attributed to Theodore Syncellus (Theodoros Synkellos) is considered as one of the basic sources for the study of the Avar siege of Constantinople in AD 626. Therefore, the most historians paid more attention to the analysis of its historical background than to its ideological content. From the ideological point of view, the document serves as an evidence that a fear for the future of the Empire and its capital Constantinople began to rise within emerging Byzantine society. The Avar siege served its author mainly as a model for developing his polemics with imaginary Jewish opponents and their religion. It deserves to be included in a long succession of similar polemical treatises, which have existed in Christianity from its earliest times.
More...
The predictions made by Kraków’s astrologers around the end of the 15th century constitute a treasure trove of information on daily life. One important topic raised in these unique prints were astrological forecasts addressed to various minorities, including Jews. Interestingly, a vast majority of these forecasts were not favourable to the followers of the Judaic faith, which must have been due to the air of ambivalence then pervading the Jews-Christians relations. Therefore the forecasts reflected the public mood then prevailing, the horoscopes produced on a mass scale becoming a weapon in this „propaganda warfare”.
More...
Mały Przegląd is a supplement to the Polish-language Jewish daily Nasz Przegląd. It is a specific settlement because it is made up of letters and texts by young readers and reporters. Many aspects of the pre-war daily life, the world in which the children lived, are presented here differently than in journals addressed to the grown-ups and in publications for children written by professional writers. Palestine, too, is different than the country one could read about in other Jewish periodicals: a country—one of many—that you go to, but often also return, where oranges indeed grow as promised but there is also unemployment, where the women go not so much to work in the pardes (orchards), but as cooks, or simply looking for a husband. Where young boys do not go to work in kibbutzim but to learn in a good secondary school in Tel Aviv. The Shomers do not always ride with a song upon their lips sing but often with a longing for the families left behin. In other words, realism prevails over idealism, helping the reader to learn about some aspects of emigration that have been little known so far.
More...
The author of the article embarks on an attempt at an aggregated review of scientific writings of the recent years connected with the history of the Łódź Ghetto. By presenting brief reviews of six publications, both monographs and source publications, he pinpoints not only the topics ignored by the researchers so far but first of all critically assesses the methods and methodology applied so far. The author looks at the consequences of the researchers’ approach and himself suggests taking a fresh look at the documentation left after the Łódź “closed-door district.” The key question he asks is about the right approach to the archives of the Jewish ghetto administration and the texts written by its employees. How can the credibility of these materials be evaluated? Were they subject to some form of censorship? What perspective to they offer? The article is not only a statement in the debate over the skills of the students of the Ghetto’s history but also the history of the Holocaust at large.
More...
The paper describes three Zionists who organized illegal emigration of Jewish population from Poland between 1944−1947. Two of them − Icchak Cukierman and Aba Kowner are well known as Ghetto Fighters from Warsaw and Vilna. Eliezer Lidowski was a Jewish partisan from Baranowicze. In 1944 they’ve started organizing illegal emigration to Palestine (the so-called Bricha). Kowner and Lidowski left Poland and formed special unit named “Nakam” − Revenge. “Nakam” was a group of assassins that targeted Nazi war criminals with the aim of avenging the Holocaust. On April 14 1946, “Nakam” painted with diluted arsenic some loaves of bread for the 12 000 German POWs from the Langwasser internment camp near Nuremberg (Stalag XIII). Before that, Kowner had been arrested by British Militia and spent some time in prisons in Cairo and Jerusalem. Till 1947 Lidowski has worked as Bricha member in Italy. After The Kielce’ Pogrom (4 of July 1946) Icchak Cukierman done an unofficial deal with communist authorities in Poland under which border crossings were opened secretly. With the silent consent of the authorities, the Bricha movement in Poland spread to a massive scale. By 1947, about 140 000 Jews left Poland illegally. In 1947 the borders were closed as the authorities feared the reaction of the British diplomacy. Cukierman, Lidowski and Kowner finally settled in Israel and lived in kibbutzim till their death.
More...
This article explores Josephus’s account of Seleucid history in Antiquities 13.365-371. In this passage, Josephus focuses on the Seleucid monarchs Seleucus VI, Demetrius III, and Antiochus X Eusebes and their fight for control of Syria. The difficulty in understanding this section is that it interrupts Josephus’s narrative of the reign of Alexander Jannaeus and does not fully explain events in Syria that led to the endless civil wars there. Through the use of historical and numismatic data unavailable to Josephus, this study examines the background of the Seleucid rulers to explain why their struggle was important for understanding Hasmonean history. Josephus begins this section on Seleucid history with Seleucus VI because his death created the political instability that led to a prolonged civil war between the remaining sons of Grypus (Antiochus XI Philadelphus, Philip I Epiphanes, Demetrius III, and Antiochus XII Dionysus) and the son of Antiochus IX Cyzicenus (Antiochus X Eusebes). For Josephus, this conflict was important since the fraternal civil war between these rulers led to the dissolution of the Seleucid Empire and its takeover by the Romans: a fate shared by the Hasmonean state. By placing this account of Seleucid history in his narrative of Jannaeus’s reign, Josephus uses events in Syria to foreshadow the fraternal strife in the Hasmonean state that likewise made it vulnerable to the Roman legions of Pompey.
More...
In this paper, I argue that the coins of the Jewish war of 66-70 C.E. demonstrate the theocratic conception of the Zealots and of the faction of Simon bar Giora. They are designed as responses to Roman issues and, therefore, are influenced by Roman currency. This minting is a powerful affirmation of independence for a so-called Jewish “State.” The divisions into several factions make it impossible to recognize a unanimous conception of what the political system among the Jews must have been. However, each coin seems to support the theocratic ideal, focalized either on the temple of Jerusalem or on the redemption of the people.
More...
There is no scholarly discussion on the impact of the Barbarian invasions on the Jewish communities of Roman Italy. Roman Italy fell victim to a series of invasions. First the invasion of Alaric’s Visigoths in 410 C.E., and then that of Genseric’s Vandals in 455 C.E., which culminated in the sack of Rome. These were followed by the establishment of the Roman-Barbaric Kingdom of the Ostrogoths, and the subsequent disastrous Gothic War (535-554 C.E.), which brought Italy back under Justinian’s rule. The Barbarian conquest of Italy ended with the Lombard invasion in the second half of the sixth century, around 568 C.E.The purpose of this article, therefore, is to demonstrate that the Barbarian invasions brought profound changes to the geographic distribution and the demographic development of the Jews living in Late Antique Italy. Thus, a close look at epigraphic data shows that the destruction that came in the wake of the Barbarian invasions probably resulted in the total destruction of the various Jewish communities established in northern Italy, and a substantial decrease, even decline in the Jewish population of Rome, sacked twice by the Barbarians during the fifth century, and much damaged by Justinian’s Gothic wars in the middle of the sixth century. On the other hand, it is possible to observe a slow demographic and geographic increase, albeit one that is difficult to measure, of the Jews living in southern Italy. This part of the peninsula suffered much less damage than the rest of the peninsula as a consequence of the Barbarian invasions, as attested in the epigraphic evidence from Venosa. Thus, by the end of the Barbarian invasions, the geographical distribution of the Jewish communities in southern Italy anticipated that of the early Middle Ages, attested in the eighth and ninth centuries C.E.The research leading to these results received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013) / ERC Grant Agreement no. 614 424. It was part of the ERC Judaism and Rome, and was realized within the framework of the CNRS and Aix-Marseille University, UMR 7297 TDMAM (Aix-en-Provence).
More...
This article contains a brief description of the Codex of Petrarch, which is located in the Czartoryski Library in Kraków. Preliminary analysis proves that the Codex comes from Italy or France. The Czartoryski family bought it in the nineteenth century. The Petrarch Codex contains two incomplete biblical books: Genesis 23:8 – Exodus 14:28, i.e. Hebrew text and Aramaic translation. The analysis is focused on three main aspects: historical, paleographical and linguistics. The detailed analysis proved that the Aramaic text was in some aspects very similar to Targum Onkelos, and in others it was very similar to Targum Pseudo-Jonathan. Most importantly, the text contains an unknown version of Targum Onkelos. Therefore the article also shows morphological and grammatical differences between the official edition of the Targum Onkelos and the text.
More...
The article presents the activities of a preacher and teacher Szymon Dankowicz (1834-1910). In the 1860s Dankowicz was active in progressive circles in Warsaw. He had bonds with several institutions such as the Warsaw Rabbinic Seminary, the Lomdei Torah association, and the salon of the young Jewish intelligentsia; he also published in two Polish-Jewish periodicals Jutrzenka and Izraelita. In 1865 he unsuccessfully applied for the preacher position in the Daniłowiczowska Street synagogue. After 1868 he served as a preacher in the Kraków progressive synagogue. There he delivered sermons in the Polish language and manifested his pro-Polish attitude. In this city he also developed extensive pedagogical and charitable work. In later years Dankowicz applied for a preacher position at the Tempel in Lviv (1890) and served for several years in the Tarnopol Tempel (1895-1898). His biography, especially when compared to the biographies of other preachers, is an important example of the activities of a progressive preacher in partitioned Polish lands.
More...
A translation of a Polemic essay by Cantor Pinchas Szerman, second cantor at the Great synagogue of Warsaw. The essay discusses the many difficulties experienced by cantors in his time, especially the ones who had not be educated. In Szerman’s opinion, the only way to ease the burden – especially the financial burden – was to create a class of educated and professional cantors. The many customs of Polish Jewry that are forgotten today have been annotated as well as basic biographical data on highly influential earlier cantorial masters
More...
The article is devoted to the phenomenon of radical assimilation in the late 19th century. The author focuses on the Markusfeld family, who had lived in Kraków since at least the mid-18th century. The study is an attempt to show the history of family against the background of the history of Galicia, in the second half of the 19th century, when the idea of integration was finally abandoned, and integration ceased to be seen as solution of “the Jewish question.” The paper is based on Bauman’s analysis of the general sociological mechanisms of modern assimilatory processes, and refers to the category of radical assimilation (T. Endelman). It seeks to answer the question of why most family members chose to convert at the end of the 19th century. The author shows that the choice of “default” religion, “universal” values, and “right” idiom was not tantamount to their affirmation – but it was a way to look for happiness and fulfillment, which was (unlike in France), according to some Jews not accessible while staying Jewish. Baptism was also a form of protection – the Second World War would prove it effective.
More...
In 1492, Sephardic population was expelled from Spain, which spurred a great migration and caused them to seek refuge in other countries. One of these places of refuge was the city of Niš. Having arrived in the city on the Nišava River, a new phase of life for Sephardim began in the 17th century. They slowly built their society, taking a good care of their culture, language, customs, traditions, religion, in a word, of their ethnic identity. In this regard, the objective of this paper is to point to the existence and importance of a small community of Sephardic Jews in the city of Niš and its vital existence from the Turkish time until the beginning of World War II. This community was very active in the city, and it spawned great merchants, bankers, craftsmen, and individuals who participated in wars and thus helped local Serbian population. This community also invested in education of the youth and the creation of Jewish societies, whose role was to provide assistance to all members of the community. The desire for survival and creation was unshakeable, but inhumane events in 1941, when a large number of Jews were killed, stopped the Sephardic community in its intents and dealt a severe blow to this nation.
More...
This article studies the development of Jewish youth organizations in interwar Yugoslavia. Youth organizations were established all over the country with a task to bring the spirit of modernity into the Jewish community and stimulate the development of a national idea. Jewish community was particularly engaged in the field of sports, culture and preparation of youth for departure to Palestine.
More...
Everyone who studies the New Testament Bible must take into account its Aramaic background that results from several factors:– the Aramaic language was very popular in Roman Palestine during the first century A.D.;– the Aramaic was Jesus’ mother tongue;– Jesus’ teaching was being recorded in Aramaic and then it circulated among the people;– the oldest Church consisted of Aramaic speaking communities.It is worth remembering that the New Testament authors, when working on the Greek Gospels, they were following their Aramaic language habits. The effects of them were aramaisms in the Greek texts, Aramaic sentence constructions and even Aramaic words rendered by Greek letters.The aim of this paper is to investigate Aramaic anthroponyms, i.e. personal proper names existing in the Greek text of the New Testament. Seven Aramaic personal names beginning with the syllable bar- („son of...”): Barabbas (Matt 27:16), Bariēsous (Acts 13:6), Barnabas (Acts 4:36), Barsabbas (Acts 1:23), Bartholomaios (Mk 3:18), Bartimaios (Mk 10:46) and Simōn Bariōna (Mt 16:17) were analysed; furthermore four Aramaic apostles’ nicknames: Kēphas (John 1:42), Boanērges (Mark 3:17), Thōmas (Mark 3:18) and Thaddaios (3:18), and at last one female name – Tabitha (Acts 9:36).Aramaic names and nicknames recorded in Greek script are one of clever devices that help to localize the text of the Gospel in the multilingual environment of Roman Palestine of the first century AD and thereby make it more reliable for a reader.Apart from Aramaic anthroponyms in the Gospels there are also many Aramaic toponyms (geographical proper names), common words and phrases. They will require futher research.
More...
In the paper, a Jewish perspective of the John’s story about healing the blind is presented. The range of Jewish documents and prayers connected with healing the blinds is discussed. The context of healing on Sabbath is provided, emphasizing that Jesus “had created” new eyes for the man born blind. The passages from Qumran and Talmud were analyzed to compare the forbidden activities with what Jesus had performed. In the final section, the context of exclusion of the healed blind man from synagogue is shown, too.
More...
In 1923, the Jewish population of the independent Republic of Lithuania constituted 153,700 persons, or approximately 7.6 percent of the whole population (Vilnius and Klaipëda areas are not included). All in all, minorities constituted 15.5 percent of the population. Although Jews had settled on the territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania already in the fourteenth century, they lived predominantly among Slavic peoples, and their contacts with ethnic Lithuanians and the Lithuanian language started several centuries later. There is little if any research on older language and cultural contacts between Jews and Lithuanians. It is reasonable to assume that at least some Jews had a working command of Lithuanian, while some Lithuanians that lived side by side with Jews and interacted with them on an everyday basis, had a certain proficiency in Yiddish. Although, on a larger scale, both peoples remained cultural strangers for each other, the picture started to change in the beginning of the twentieth century.
More...