Archaeological methods can contribute to the understanding of current human issues, including the use and abuse of alcohol in American society. Popular stereotypes concerning drinking have influenced scholarly descriptions and interpretations. There is, for instance, widespread and questionable acceptance by researchers that ethnic identification often correlates strongly with rates of alcohol consumption. Through refuse analysis, this study suggests that no such correlation exists, at least as far as household alcohol use is concerned. Instead, it is found that the degree of social heterogeneity within households, causing stress among individuals, is positively associated with consumption rates. Ethnicity might be related more closely to expressed attitudes about drinking, though results are inconclusive. The archaeological investigation of late 19th century drinking habits is possible, and might contribute to historical studies in a way similar to how this study contributes to sociological and psychological approaches.

This study explores the Jewish experience within the American military. Information sources include a review of literature, interviews with nineteen Jewish service members, and data files of officers and enlisted personnel who were on active duty as of October 2005. Data files were provided by the Defense Manpower Data Center in Monterey, California. The history of military service by persons of the Jewish faith corresponds roughly to that of persons from many other ethnic or religious groups: military service has been a patriotic calling, especially in periods of war, as well as a path during earlier times toward full assimilation into American society. This study concludes that Jewish military personnel, overall, have consistently performed well in service, given current measures of success; and, this trend is likely to continue. Further research should seek to examine additional measures of success in the military for Jewish personnel. More generally, research should examine the possible relationship between military performance and a person's religious faith, since religion is such an important part of individual identity. This information would add to existing knowledge of the various background and demographic factors of military members that help to shape a diverse and highly effective force.

To describe a unified Jewish identity in the Mediterranean in the period between 200 BCE and 200 CE is incorrect, since each Jewish community approached its identity in unique ways. These varied on the basis of time, place, and how the non-Jewish population reacted to the Jews and interpreted Judaism. This thesis examines the three major centres of Jewish life in the ancient world - Rome, Alexandria in Egypt, and Judaea - demonstrate that Jewish identity was remarkably and surprisingly fluid. By examining the available Jewish, Roman, and Greek literary and archaeological sources, one can learn how Jewish identity evolved in the Greco-Roman world. The Jews interacted with non-Jews daily, and adapted their neighbours’ practices while retaining what they considered a distinctive Jewish identity. / October 2016

Israel Zangwill, novelist, playwright, poet, and essayist, can be understood and appreciated best as an apologist whose chosen mission was to introduce the Jew to the English-speaking reader, a reader who had often see the word Jew on the pages of his literature but seldom had been able to meed an authentic specimen of the group in--or out--of print. This thesis will describe the works of Zangwill from an apologetic standpoint.

The purpose of this study was to compare self-concepts of Negroes and Jews. The historical background conditions influencing the development of the Jews and Negroes are beyond the scope of this work and are therefore mentioned only incidentally. Two aspects of these two groups are under consideration: (1) How well or poorly do Jews and Negroes function in contemporary American society? (2) What sort of family life is characteristic of Jews and Negroes? These two aspects are considered important in connection with self-concepts, for the first is at least in part a manifestation of the self-concept, and family life is considered important as the major factor in the development of the self-concept. The self-concept and its development are treated more fully in a later part of this paper.

This thesis deals with the transformation of the Jewish settlement in the Jindřichův Hradec region, which occurred due to the release of restriction laws in 1848. On the example of the Jewish communities in Jindřichův Hradec, Kardašova Řečice, Staré Město pod Landštejnem and Nová Bystřice is sketched the development in which the Jewish society in the region was proceeding. For each community are described oldest references of Jewish settlement, characteristic settlement in the 18th and 19 century based on the analysis of registers of Jews and eventually development of the community after 1848. The final chapter examines the process and the degree of assimilation of each community to the Czech nation.

No description available.

A Inquisição Moderna foi uma instituição criada pelos Estados Ibéricos e apoiada pela Igreja Católica no século XVI para investigar e punir indivíduos que não estivessem agindo de acordo com a moral religiosa. Agindo através de denúncias e segredos, o julgamento inquisitorial forjou heresias, apontando como principal inimigo o cristão-novo. Ao analisarmos o funcionamento do Tribunal do Santo Ofício, através de documentos inquisitoriais e trabalhos diversos publicados sobre o tema, percebemos o caráter indispensável que a instituição teve no sentido de restringir as liberdades individuais, em prol de uma ideia de uniformidade baseada numa verdade absoluta a fé católica. Em um período de tantas transformações como foi o da modernidade, a Inquisição se tornou uma das principais instituições de manutenção do Antigo Regime, assegurando o poder nas mãos do clero e da nobreza. / The Modern Inquisition was an institution created by the Iberian States and supported for Catholic Church in the XVI century to investigate and to punish individuals that were not acting in accordance with the moral religion. Acting through denunciations and secrets, the inquisitional judgment forged heresies, pointing the new-Christian as main enemy. When analyzing the functioning of the Court of the Holy Office, through inquisitional documents and several published works on the subject, we notice the indispensable character that the institution had in the direction to restrict the individual freedom in favor of an idea of uniformity based on an absolute truth the catholic faith. That one period of so many transformations, as it was the modern period, the Inquisition became one of the main institutions of maintenance of the Antique Regimen, assuring the power to the hands of the clergy and the nobility.

This dissertation is a study of initiatives to recover the Jewish past and of the emergence of Sephardic Studies in Spain from 1845 to 1935. It explores the ways the Jewish past became central to efforts to construct and claim a Spanish patria, through its appropriation and integration into the nation's official national historical narrative, or historia patria. The construction of this history was highly contentious, as historians and politicians brought Spain's Jewish past to bear in debates over political reform, in discussions of religious and national identity, and in elaborating diverse political and cultural movements. Moreover, it demonstrates how the recovery of the Jewish past connected--via a Spanish variant of the so-called "Jewish question"--to nationalist political and cultural movements such as Neo-Catholicism, Orientalism, Regenerationism, Hispanism, and Fascism. In all of these contexts, attempts to reclaim Spain's Jewish past--however impassioned, and however committed--remained fractured and ambivalent, making such efforts to "recover" Spain's Jews as partial as they were compromised.

This dissertation is dedicated to a detailed analysis and comparison of the theories on the process of the formation of the Babylonian Talmud by Yitzhak Isaac Halevy and David Weiss Halivni. These two scholars exhibited a similar mastery of the talmudic corpus and were able to combine the roles of historian and literary critic to provide a full construct of the formation of the Bavli with supporting internal evidence to support their claims. However, their historical construct and findings are diametrically opposed. Yitzhak Isaac Halevy presented a comprehensive theory of the process of the formation of the Talmud in his magnum opus Dorot Harishonim. The scope of his work was unprecedented and his construct on the formation of the Talmud encompassed the entire process of the formation of the Bavli, from the Amoraim in the 4th century to the end of the saboraic era (which he argued closed in the end of the 6th century). Halevy was the ultimate guardian of tradition and argued that the process of the formation of the Bavli took place entirely within the amoraic academy by a highly structured and coordinated process and was sealed by an international rabbinical assembly. While Halevy was primarily a historian, David Weiss Halivni is primarily a talmudist and commentator on the Talmud itself. Halivni offers his bold construct of the history of the formation of the Bavli in the context of his commentary Meqorot Umesorot, which spans almost the entire Babylonian Talmud. Halivni explains the process of the formation of the Bavli as taking place well after amoraic times in a massive unstructured process of reconstruction. This dissertation will demonstrate that both of the theories of Halevy and Halivni are in need of careful analysis and revision. Halevy's construct despite providing valuable scholarly insights is tainted by a strong ideological agenda. On the other hand, Halivni, as a literary critic, provides insightful literary analysis and his conclusions on the uniqueness of the stam have been firmly established in contemporary scholarship. However, when analyzing Halivni's theory one must distinguish between his literary conclusions and his historical construct. The later is a constantly evolving theory, and it has presented numerous problems as it has developed over time, mainly in the introductions to Meqorot Umesorot. The body of this dissertation consists of three chapters, each focusing on a different model for the formation of the Bavli. Chapter One focuses on Halevy, beginning with his biography and continuing with an in-depth analysis of the scope and purpose of his Dorot Harishonim and the ideological import of his research. The second chapter addresses the theory of Halivni on the formation of the Bavli. After a biographical sketch of Halivni's life, I review the scope and purpose of Meqorot Umesorot with a special emphasis on his scholarship ki'peshuto, followed by a detailed analysis of his model and the evidence he offers in support of it. The third chapter proposes an alternative model for the formation of the Talmud which combines aspects of Halevy's and Halivni's theories. I propose a model that includes a fixed oral text, accompanied by an oral fluid commentary. This dual form of transmission accounts for the diverse structure and style of the apodictic material and the dialectical interpretative argumentation of the stam. The fixed apodictic text, the proto-Talmud follows the basic contour of Halevy's model, while the understanding of the stam follows many aspects of Halivni's description of the reconstruction of the dialectical argumentation by the Stammaim. By applying form criticism to determine the Sitz im Leben of talmudic transmission and teaching, combined with recent scholarship on the various forms of oral transmission, I propose a framework which allows for a developmental model which integrates the perceptive historical insights of Halevy with Halivni's literary findings.