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While sociological studies of 'Jewish identity' have proliferated over the last several decades, these works often ignore the internal diversity found within Jewish populations. Because of the particularities of the gay Jewish case, there is a need to devote more scholarly attention to the 'Jewish identities' of this subpopulation. This study contributes to this under-studied area. Using qualitative methods (in-depth interviews and participant observation), this study explores the processes of Jewish identity construction among gay Jewish men. Despite the fact that Jews have historically held more liberal attitudes on social issues than non-Jews, the study found that Jewish families and communities often demonstrate a resistance to homosexuality and Jewish same-sex relationships. While most North American Jews, whether heterosexual or gay, partake in some form of negotiation between their Jewish identity and the non-Jewish world around them, because of the perceived stigmatization felt by gay Jewish men within the Jewish community, this group has added obstacles to overcome in constructing a personally meaningful Jewish identity. Due to the emphasis on 'traditional' gender roles, the 'nuclear family,' procreation and conservative religious values, the gay Jewish experience bears many similarities to the experiences of gay men in Black, Latin American, Asian, Greek and Italian communities. There are some distinctive features to the Jewish case, however. These include a particular aversion to same-sex relations due to the Jewish preoccupation with ethnic survival and continuity, especially in light of the Holocaust, and increased difficulty for the gay Jewish man to maintain privacy about his sexual orientation due to high levels of friendship and social networks within the Jewish community. Building upon theoretical models that attempt to acknowledge the complexities of multiple layers of stigmatized identities, the study develops a more nuanced analytical framework in which to understand the various strategies ethnic minority gay men implement as a means of negotiating their ethnoreligious and gay identities. The study illustrates, for example, that the variable of 'level of religiosity' serves as a key factor in this process. The study concludes with reflections on the implications of the findings for Jewish communities and recommends similar studies of other ethno-religious communities.

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published_or_final_version / Humanities / Master / Master of Philosophy

This thesis is a cultural study of Jewishness in network sitcom television. Sources for the study included: historical film analysis, sociological studies on stereotyping and Jewish culture. The thesis studies how past forms of Jewishness impacted the current depictions of Jewishness on the television sitcom. After an introduction discussing Jewishness in general, the second chapter studies Jewishness in Vaudeville and early Hollywood film. The third chapter studies Jewishness in the first 40 years of network sitcom television. The fourth chapter studies Jewishness in the network sitcoms of the 1990s. The conclusions of the study focus on the state of Jewishness on network sitcom television at present, and ask what must be done within the industry to maintain a viable Jewish identity on network sitcom television in the future.

This dissertation explores the metaphor of dybbuk possession as a key to modern Jewish identity, focusing on the evolution of the dybbuk possession trope in twentieth- and twenty-first century Yiddish, English, Hebrew, and Polish language Jewish literature and culture. First described in the sixteenth century, dybbuk possession - a Jewish variant of spirit possession found in many cultures - grew out of the Jewish mystical tradition, especially the kabbalistic doctrine of transmigration of souls, according to which a soul of a deceased person took possession of a living human being. The trope of possession can be viewed as a mode of reflection on the modern Jewish experience, which shows how the past continuously possesses the present, and how this haunting attachment to the past becomes an essential component of Jewish identity. Highly interdisciplinary in character and transnational in scope, this project draws upon scholarship in gender, trauma, body, memory, and performance studies. An overview of cultural background of dybbuk possession (Chapter 1) is followed by an exploration of how the dybbuk possession trope is deployed metaphorically in Yiddish classics (Chapter 2), Holocaust narratives (Chapter 3), feminist fiction (Chapter 4), as well as in a selection of film and theater adaptations of S. An-sky's iconic drama, The Dybbuk, Or Between Two Worlds (1914) produced in Poland, Israel and the United States (Chapter 5). Finally, this dissertation features an unprecedented compilation of over seventy adaptations of An-sky's Dybbuk staged since the play's premiere in 1920 (Appendix).

Archaeological data have shown a notable decline of the population from the end of the monarchy to the time of E-N. And there is no evidence of many outsiders swarming into Judah. Therefore the returnees constitute only a minority in Persian Yehud. A study on biblical and other sources implies that the Persian regime shaped and formulated their policy on Yehud for the Empire's own interest. With the support of the central government, the Second Temple as well as its priests and Levites have been elevated, while the remainers are marginalized, discriminated against and accused by the returnees. / Both Jewish and Christian traditions as well as modern scholarship on the Hebrew Bible have shown great interest in the issue of identity with special focus on the situation of the Restoration period. However, many of the contributions tend to lay their emphasis on the negative side about how the marginalization takes place in the texts of Ezra-Nehemiah (E-N hereafter) and Chronicles, but there is little attention paid to comparing and measuring the complexities of both phenomenon: marginalizing and acceptance, and no previous study has yet dealt with the different groups in E-N and Chronicles so far. This study attempts to bring the focus on the different groups during that period. Based on the archaeological and extra-biblical data, which may help us to reconstruct the social fabric of Persian Yehud, it then zeros in to appreciate how the texts have portrayed different groups and analyzes how the biblical authors establish the identity and identification of selves and others. / Meanwhile, three groups emerge for the first time. The Nethinim, who have a foreign origin are considered Israelites and assigned the role of assistants to the priests and Levites to take part in the service of the Temple. Gatekeepers become a sub-military force in Yehud and are responsible for local administration and management of temple property. As for the singers, they substitute the pre-exilic prophets and became messengers bearing the ideology of the ruling class to the people. The latter two groups therefore earn high status and are portrayed by the Chronicler as descendants of the Levites despite their doubtful origin. This enables them to claim the identity of Israelites in the canon. / This study demonstrates that in the unique historical background of the Persian Period, the biblical authors of post-exilic historiography to a great extent determine the identity of "foreigners", "Israelites" and "Levites" according to the social reality of animosity between groups, rather than to the often assumed categories of ethnicity such as strict adherence to blood ties and faith. / This study is divided into two parts. Section I works on the historical background of the Persian Period, followed by Section II, which traces the marginalization of those who remained and the elevation of gatekeepers, singers, and the Nethinim. / 孟振華. / Adviser: Chi Chung Lee. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-08, Section: A, page: 3182. / Thesis (doctoral)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 138-148). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in Chinese and English. / School code: 1307. / Meng Zhenhua.

This thesis embraces a cross-disciplinary approach to the examination of Jewish body culture, and integrates aspects of Jewish studies with new theories of gender and visual culture, thus contributing specifically to the field of Jewish body culture in relation to the visual arts. It demonstrates that at the fin de si??cle the Zionist artist, Ephraim Moses Lilien, integrated Nordau's concept of 'Muscular Jewry' and Buber's notion of a 'Jewish Cultural Renaissance' in order to figure the 'New Jew'. It establishes that Lilien's figuring of 'Muscular Jewry' as a visibly athletic, explicitly heterosexual, male body, bearing Jewish distinction, was developed as a crucial strategy to overcoming the twin dilemmas of Jewish alterity: antisemitism and assimilation. By proving that Lilien's art serves as a crucial model for both regenerating the Jewish male body and resisting antisemitic projections of decadence and degeneracy, this thesis expands upon current scholarship. It applies Margaret Olin's theory of ' visual redemption' to Lilien's figuring of the 'New Jew' and Daniel Boyarin's articulation of Homi Bhaba's Post-Colonial theory of mimicry as imitation, inversion and resistance to determine how Lilien's images functioned as an art of resistance against the dominant Christian European culture. By demonstrating how Lilien drew upon the modern and rebellious Jugendstil to figure the 'New Jew' and produce a new, defiant and authentic Jewish visual culture, this thesis proves he transformed the image of the diaspora Jew into the New Hebrew or Israeli tsabar, forty years before it became part of Israeli identity. Nevertheless, this thesis also uncovers the double-binded predicament inherent to Lilien's quest; despite his attempt to use mimicry of the athleticised, hyper-masculine, genetically pure, normative body as a strategy to resist antisemitic rhetoric and invert its projection, the closest parallel to Lilien's figure of 'Muscular Jewry' remained this same image which became instrumental to eugenic campaigns across Europe, particularly in Nazi Germany. Ultimately what is exposed by this thesis is the illusion underpinning Lilien's figuring of the 'New Jew'; that the Christianised Eurocentric body culture, designed to eradicate decadence, degeneration and Semitism, could resolve the problematic struggle for a Jewish national identity.

This research was conducted to determine the extent to which Jewish adults perceive themselves ethnically and/or religiously Jewish and how a range of personal characteristics, attitudes and practices related to the importance of ethnic and religious identity. A random sample of 540 individuals was taken from the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver's mailing list comprised of Jewish individuals in the Lower Mainland that identify with the Jewish community This sample completed a survey on the importance of Jewish ethnic and religious identity. There were significantly more people who felt it was very important or somewhat important to be ethnically Jewish than felt it was very important or somewhat important to be religiously Jewish: 92.1% versus 59.8%. Three hypotheses were tested to examine the relationship between the importance of ethnic and religious identity (dependent variables) and the importance of ethnic and religious identity and certain personal characteristics, attitudes and practices. Cross-tabulations and analysis of variance were done to test these hypotheses. A fourth hypothesis was tested with logistic regression which was used to build a model to predict whether a subject would rate "ethnic" Jewishness as "very important" vs. "not very important" and "religious" Jewishness as "important" or "unimportant" based on a set of predictor variables. The findings indicate a significant relationship between the two dependent variables, very few personal characteristics were related to the dependent variables, and a significant relationship was found between all the attitudes and the majority of the practices and the two dependent variables. The most important predictor of whether a subject would rate "ethnic" Jewishness as "very important" or "not very important" was the global attitude score. The most important predictors of whether a subject would rate "religious" Jewishness as "important" or "unimportant" were global attitude and attitudes and practices reported as important because they are divinely ordained. When global attitudes were taken out of the logistic regression model due to their high degree of overlap with the global practices, the most important predictor of whether a subject would rate "ethnic" Jewishness as "very important" or "not very important" were the global practices, proportion of Jewish friends, and attitudes and practices reported as important because they provide a connection to the Jewish people. The most important predictors for whether a subject would rate" religious" Jewishness as "important" or "unimportant" were marital status, global practice, denominational affiliation and attitudes and practices reported as important because they are divinely ordained. The individual's sense of identity and the factors that contribute to that identity are important aspects in the psychological functioning of members of ethnic, racial and religious minority groups. The information gathered from this study aids those in the helping profession in understanding the important and unique role religion and ethnicity plays in individual lives as well as identifying ethnic and religious priorities for community services.

The trend towards assimilation which has characterised the Jewish People has highlighted the importance of Jewish education as one of the primary means of dealing with this process which foreshadows the disappearance of the Jewish People as a distinct national and religious entity. The overt purpose of the syllabus of the Jewish Day School movement in South Africa is to inculcate a Jewish identity based on a traditional religious orientation and Jewish national pride expressed by a commitment to the Jewish People and to the State of Israel. The purpose of this study was to examine the efficacy of the school in fulfilling these aims. A questionnaire study was conducted at the Jewish Day School in Durban, Carmel College in May 1990. Eight dimensions of Jewish Identity were defined and multiple regression analysis was used to test whether they were statistically associated with each other. Two additional tools were used: an open-ended question designed to elicit from whom the pupils demarcate themselves when they define themselves as Jews and a delineation of the attributes of a “good Jew”. In 1991 an additional questionnaire on the family background and its relation to the specifically Jewish dimensions was administered to a sample of Carmel pupils. The findings revealed that the pupils manifested a strong Jewish identity expressed in the importance they attributed to Mitzvot, and Jewish credo in the desire that their children be Jews, in the instinct to associate with other Jews. Moreover, the results suggest that their sense of commitment to the welfare of other Jews does not preclude a concern for non-Jewish society as well. The pupils stressed the importance of being proud to be Jewish and being knowledgeable about Judaism. These findings were true of all categories examined: gender, denomination, standard at school and years of study at Carmel College. The study indicated that Jewish education had a positive impact on identity, but the magnitude of the impact was mediated by family background. No marked differences were found in the intensity of Jewish identity between Caramel pupils and the Jewish pupils attending government schools, although the latter tended to manifest a lesser commitment to the Jewish People and the State of Israel. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, 1992.