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This dissertation investigates enduring forms of Jewish “presence” in Tunisia, but a presence in the near-absence of Jewish communities. French colonialism, Zionism, and Arab nationalism led to the mid-twentieth century immigration of Tunisia's Jewish population to France and Israel-Palestine. Minor Differences examines the century-long de-nativization process by which the Jews of Tunisia went from being seen as Tunisian or Ottoman subjects, to a minority of “nonnative” outsiders. If the historical Jew indexes a past “Golden Age” in Tunisia, then the contemporary Jew is a subject of curiosity––and hostility through her association with the Israeli state. Through the prism of Jewish absence, I examine social relations among the few Jews who stayed in Tunisia, as well as between Jews and Muslims. I draw on a wide array of historical and literary sources as well as two years of fieldwork in a variety of sites, some intuitive and some unexpected: a boxing gym, a Hebrew class, a photography studio, a cemetery, and a synagogue; all of which inform my research, three of which I explicitly discuss in this dissertation. In these cultural sites, my research revealed a phenomenon I call “minor differences”: a paradigmatic instance of this anthropological pattern is the common distinction made between two nearly identical dishes, the “Muslim” madfouna and the “Jewish” bkaila. The “narcissism of minor differences” is a phrase used by Freud to describe an inclination toward aggression that facilitates cohesion between members of a family, or community. Provoked by Freud’s limited theorization of this peculiar form of narcissism, my research develops and applies it to understand the small ways people construct Otherness in everyday life—even, and perhaps especially, the Otherness of an absent cultural presence; and my fieldwork illustrates how it is through these “minor differences” that Jews and Muslims in Tunisia define themselves historically and contemporaneously. I show how minor differences are used to divide people and treated as proof of their essential cultural difference but also how these same “differences” can be used to foster connection, smooth out bumps in social relationships, and argue for broader solidarities. Ultimately, minor differences form the basis of major distinctions in inherited and ascribed forms of social belonging.

Race science is built on ideas of division and categorization. In the historian's quest to tell the story of race science, certain frameworks have been used that can greatly inhibit our understanding of this fraught topic. The impulse to study race science in the framework of the nation-state has led to certain misconceptions and lends itself to a historical narrative wherein racist concepts stop at artificially imposed borders. In addition, the national framework detracts from the individual's contributions and instead lumps these contributions together on the level of the nation-state, thus opening the door for judgments about whole nations being more or less responsible for race science. In this work, I explore contributions to race science pertaining to the "Jewish race" (which I have simplified to the phrase "Jewish race science") made by individual French writers and scholars. These contributions have been overlooked at times by historians who look to more notorious examples, such as those made by German race science theorists; in failing comprehensively to examine all significant contributions to race science, historians have often inhibited their own ability to understand Jewish race science fully. If such a historical field is to be understood, one must be aware of the full range of development of Jewish race science, both in terms of geographical scope and scholarly focus. By bringing attention to Jewish race science contributions made in nineteenth-century France, it is my intention to broaden the understanding of this field and to help bring about a new approach to the field that is less reliant on the nationalist framework in its evaluation of the nature and impact of race science.

Text in German / It is the aim of this study to present the problems concerning the conversion of Jews with communist background to Christianity. This way useful advice shall be won for the missionary work among Jews who came from the former Sowjetunion. At first the social, cultural, religious and political background of the Jews before the immigration into Zsar-Russia until their emigration from the former Sowjetunion are researched. Then, in order to research the processes of conversion, 18 former Sowjetunion Jews who live in Israel were given interview-questionaries to get an idea from personal experiences and knowledge. To get a more objective picture of the conversion subject, testimonies of messianic Jews, statements of pastors, information letters and messianic literature were also consulted. In the last part of this study the mission-theological conclusion of the conversion subject is given and reflected for the missionary work among Jews stemming from the former Sowjetunion. / Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology / M. Th. (Missiology)

Doctor of Philosophy / This regional study documents the life and the destruction of the Jewish community of Magdeburg, in the Prussian province of Saxony, between 1933 and 1945. As this is the first comprehensive and academic study of this community during the Nazi period, it has contributed to both the regional historiography of German Jewry and the historiography of the Shoah in Germany. In both respects it affords a further understanding of Jewish life in Nazi Germany. Commencing this study at the beginning of 1933 enables a comprehensive view to emerge of the community as it was on the eve of the Nazi assault. The study then analyses the spiralling events that led to its eventual destruction. The story of the Magdeburg Jewish community in both the public and private domains has been explored from the Nazi accession to power in 1933 up until April 1945, when only a handful of Jews in the city witnessed liberation. This study has combined both archival material and oral history to reconstruct the period. Secondary literature has largely been incorporated and used in a comparative sense and as reference material. This study has interpreted and viewed the period from an essentially Jewish perspective. That is to say, in documenting the experiences of the Jews of Magdeburg, this study has focused almost exclusively on how this population simultaneously lived and grappled with the deteriorating situation. Much attention has been placed on how it reacted and responded at key junctures in the processes of disenfranchisement, exclusion and finally destruction. This discussion also includes how and why Jews reached decisions to abandon their Heimat and what their experiences with departure were. In the final chapter of the community’s story, an exploration has been made of how the majority of those Jews who remained endured the final years of humiliation and stigmatisation. All but a few perished once the implementation of the ‘Final Solution’ reached Magdeburg in April 1942. The epilogue of this study charts the experiences of those who remained in the city, some of whom survived to tell their story.

By way of five microhistories focusing on the lives of Cecelia Davies Sylvester, Hannah Director, Leon Koerner, Harry Adaskin, and Nathan Nemetz, this study examines various modes of integration for Jews within particular periods of British Columbian (BC) history. Each microhistory explores the boundaries that were crossed and fostered by Jews whose careers and social contributions led them outside the confines of the established Jewish community. These Jews represent the vanguard of Jewish integration for each era to which they contributed.