The Chassidic Chabad movement is one of Judaism’s most successful and influential groups interms of missionary presence around the world and distributed missionary material online.Chabad’s final Rebbe is still regarded by his followers to be the long-awaited final redeemerand Messiah, despite his clinical death in 1994. The aim of this study is to describe how theChabad-followers, through the movement’s publications, maintain the belief in the Rebbe asthe Jewish Messiah, and the theological interpretive tools utilized in order to ‘survive’ as aunited movement. The study indicates that Chabad is still a united and radical messianicmovement, wherein, internal theological mechanisms interpret the Rebbe as corporally alivebut concealed by illusion, and will soon be revealed or imminently resurrected to complete theredemption of the world. The study also discusses the movement’s extreme right-wingedpolitical stance in regards to the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict, the movement’s Holocausttheology as means to further understand how the group ‘survived’ the cognitive dissonance thedeath of the Rebbe created and the theological similarities between Chabad and earlyChristianity. / Den Chassidiska Chabadrörelsen är en av judendomens mest framgångsrika och inflytesrikanya religiösa rörelser när det gäller missionär närvaro runt om i världen och missionärt materialonline. Chabads sista Rebbe anses av hans anhängare att vara världens sista försonare ochMessias, trots hans uppenbara kliniska död år 1994. Denna studie beskriver hurChabadanhängare, genom rörelsens egna tryckta och online publikationer, upprätthåller tron påRebbe som den judiska messias och de teologiska tolkningsverktyg som rörelsen använder föratt ‘överleva’ som en enad grupp. Studien indikerar att Chabadrörelsen, ändå till våra dagar, ärenad och radikal-messianistisk där man genom interna teologiska mekanismer tolkar Rebbensom levande i materiell kropp, gömd genom illusion men snart uppenbarad eller snartåteruppväckt från de fysiskt döda och i båda fallen för att fullgöra världens försoning där Gudförsonar människan i den materiella världen. Studien diskuterar också rörelsens extremahögerpolitik, i synnerhet när det gäller Israel-Palestina konflikten och förintelseteologi som ettsätt att vidare förstå hur gruppen ‘överlevde’ den kognitiva dissonansen Rebbens död skapadei termer av misslyckad profetia och de teologiska likheterna mellan Chabadrörelsen och tidigkristendom.Nyckelord: NRR,

The thesis "Framing of the conflict in the Middle East in Czech Daily Newspapers" explores how Czech print media report on the conflict in the Middle East through the analysis of Mladá fronta Dnes and Právo news coverage of the Second Lebanon War (2006) and the Gaza war (2008- 2009). The theoretical part of the thesis deals with the role of the media in times of war and focuses mainly on the popular even though somewhat fragmented concept of media framing, which became the basis for the analysis of the above mentioned newspapers. The research draws on the extensive literature on media framing as well as foreign research on framing of the Arab- Israeli conflict, combining quantitative and qualitative analytical tools. The aim of the quantitative part of the analysis was to obtain hitherto missing data about the framing of the conflict in the Middle East by Czech media that could be compared to similar data that are already available for foreign media. Quantitative analysis also focused on news sources and topics used while referring about the Middle East conflict. The purpose of the qualitative analysis was to gain a deeper insight into the problem and generate a list of specific frames used to interpret the conflict in the Middle East by Czech print media.

I percorsi che hanno portato i cattolici a ripensare il proprio rapporto con gli ebrei sono molti e investono aspetti molteplici del problema. A questo tema, approdato infine al Concilio Vaticano II con la dichiarazione Nostra Aetate (1965), si è aggiunta la questione della posizione dei cristiani di fronte alla nascita dello Stato di Israele. Le riviste cattoliche italiane (di cui si sono qui prese in esame quelle d’opinione di diverso orientamento), luogo di discussione e di formazione di un’opinione pubblica consapevole, rispettarono tale pluralismo e, grazie all’impulso conciliare, affrontarono con crescente competenza la questione dei rapporti ebraico-cristiani, diventando fucina di un confronto fecondo con l’ebraismo. La vicenda dello Stato di Israele si è certamente intrecciata con il dialogo ebraico-cristiano, ma la maggior parte delle riviste cattoliche riuscì a non confondere i due piani e a compiere valutazioni distinte. La solida difesa del dialogo ebraico-cristiano si accompagnò nelle riviste della sinistra cattolica, soprattutto dopo il 1967, a una visione sempre più critica del ruolo che Israele stava svolgendo in Medio Oriente e a un avvicinamento alle posizioni palestinesi. Nella destra cattolica, in alcuni casi lontana dallo spirito conciliare sul tema dei rapporti tra le due fedi abramitiche, furono maggiori le voci in favore dello Stato di Israele, il cui ruolo era inserito nel quadro della guerra fredda. / Paths bringing Catholics to reconsider their relationship with the Jewish are various and touch manyfold aspects of the issue, which finally was brought up during the Second Vatican Council in the declaration Nostra Aetate (1965). Meanwhile Christians were further confronted by the foundation of Israel. Italian Catholic reviews, in the pluralism of the Council, faced with increased competence the issue of Christian-Jewish relationship and became the place for internal debates, opinion making, but also fruitful confrontation with Hebraism; those holding different views are specifically taken into account in this work. The course of Israel as state is certainly interwoven with the Christian-Jewish dialogue, but most Catholic reviews managed to keep the discussion and their evaluations on two different levels. The support of Christian-Jewish dialogue did not prevent left-wing Catholics from a critical vision of the role played by Israel in the Middle East, particularly in 1967, when positions came close to Palestinians. On the other hand within the Catholic right-wing, sometimes far from the spirit of the Council about the two religions with same roots, voices rose in favour of Israel and its role in the frame of the cold war.

This dissertation explores the value system held by the author of the Epistle of James. Most likely, this interesting Epistle of a former Galilean peasant is a collection of his sermons or discourses gathered and edited by one of his followers. The Epistle does not relate to any specific problems of concrete communities or persons and, therefore, it may be viewed as an encyclical letter. The author's main tone is: «you must act in this way and only this way». Therefore this document is a type of «halakhah», a literary form used by the sages of Israel before the Common Era. «Halakhah», as well as the Greek literary form paraenesis, does not imply any discussion of the material, but rather calls the readers to submission. The author of this «halakhic» encyclical shifts the attention of his readers from their realities to his idealistic world. He omits many aspects of Second-Temple-Period Jewish life, focusing his attention instead on the rules of spiritual life common for both Judeans and Christians. This focus explains why the Epistle has only two brief and indirect references to Jesus Christ, who as the hero surprisingly does not play a distinctive role. for several reasons the Messiah is replaced by famous characters from the Tanakh (i. e., Abraham, Rahab, Job, and Elijah) as being the best examples for...

This thesis is a study of four graphic novels that depicts the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Palestine (1993) by Joe Sacco, How to Get to Know Israel in 60 Days or Less (2011) by Sarah Glidden, Not the Israel My Parents Promised Me (2014) by Harvey Pekar and JT Waldman, and Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy City (2011) by Guy Delisle. By comparing the graphic novels, I study the differences and similarities in regard to postcolonial aspects by applying the theoretical framework of Edward Said concerning the “Other” and the Orient. I study the making of the “Other” in the graphic novels by analyzing the use of time in comics, as well as narratological aspects such as focalization. The making of the “Other” is complicated in graphic novels due to its complex use of time and narratology, where a multitude of perspectives and aspects of time can exist simultaneously. Moreover, the theme of the conflict and concept of the “Other” and is further complicated in the graphic novels’ since the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is an ongoing and complex conflict.  This thesis aims to deepen the understanding of how the “Other” is depicted in the material. It also has an ambition to expand the knowledge of the medium by analyzing comics in regard to stereotypes and simplification as well as the comic’s subversive strategies. Furthermore, I analyze the relationship between objectivity and subjectivity in the graphic novels which are often categorized as journalistic comics. In regards to the genre I discuss its relationship with traditional journalism and the school of “New Journalism”.

of Ph.D. thesis: Middle Eastern Conflict in the French Public Space (2000-2010) Václav Nekvapil, 2013 The main objective of the thesis is to analyse and typologise French social discourse on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on a reflection of certain opinions, interests, stances and values associated with today's Jewishness and Jewish diasporic identity. The research also contains an analysis of the official political-diplomatic discourse of both Presidents Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy. Based on the methodology of typologisation and critical discourse analysis, we distinguish three basic positions related to the debate on the abovementioned topics in the years 2000- 2010: republican, anti-imperialist and neoconservative. The thesis elaborates on attitudes of presidents of the French Fifth Republic towards Israel and how their policies have been perceived by the Jewish community. The community as such is also a matter of the research: its changing religiosity, demography, immigration of Nord African Jewry and the attitude towards Zionism and the State of Israel. The thesis follows four main thematic axes when analysing arguments of the most important speakers. First, when analysing the duty of memory (devoir de mémoire), the author carefully examines moral argumentation concerning the...

is study is composed of two units: manuscript of the author's publication Interpreting Ancient Egyptian Narratives: A Structural Analysis of the Tale of Two Brothers, the Anat Myth, the Osirian Cycle, and the Astarte Papyrus (Nouvelles études orientales, Bruxelles-Fernelmont: EME, 2014) and an additonal chapter entitled Accommodating Ambivalence: Case of the Doomed Prince and His Dog, which follows directly a er the Index of the first unit and which extends the applied methodology to yet another New Kingdom mythological narrative, the so-called Tale of the Doomed Prince. Methodologically, the author follows the neo-structuralist approach. Both studies explain the strong configurational character of ancient Egyptian (mythological) thought which has the ability to connect various ontological levels of human experience with the surrounding world into complex synchronic structures. ese symbolical systems are shown to be mediating between the various cultural paradoxes which were inherent to ancient Egyptian society. Axial role in this process is a ributed to the institution of positional kingship represented by the Pharaoh. Its transformative function is also put into relation to the special status of female characters who are shown to play the part of the "powerful powerless ones" further personifying...

This study investigates how Levantine Arabic-speaking immigrant parents´ language ideologies, i.e how they think and feel regarding heritage language maintenance, and language policies influence heritage language maintenance or loss for their children. This overarching topic is explored by examining the following questions; (1) What do parents think about maintenance of heritage language for their children? and which concerns do they have? (2)How do they talk about and describe their children´s readiness or resistance to learn/maintain their heritage language? (3) What do parents believe their role is in maintaining heritage language? (4) In which way, according to parents, does maintenance of heritage language influence children´s construction of identity and sense of belonging? In order to answer these questions, I conducted five semi-structured interviews with five Levantine Arabic-speaking immigrant parents, from Palestine and Syria, residing in Sweden and analysed recurring themes using Braun´s and Clarke´s (2006: 87- 93) thematic analysis method. The study findings show that parents attached great significance to preserving their children's heritage language due to its close relationship with their cultural, religious, ethnic, and social backgrounds as well as strengthening their success opportunities in future. Furthermore, parents stated that their children did not resist maintenance of heritage language. Instead, results show that children were actively involved in discussions about heritage language maintenance and language practices. Parents confirmed that Arabic language is their children's heritage language. In relation to influence of heritage language maintenance on constructing children´s identity and sense of belonging, parents´ views varied between emphasizing its role in strengthening children´s sense of belonging to their Arabic background, allowing them a flexible ability to belong to two different cultures or communities, and that maintenance of heritage language is not the major influencer on constructing children identity. Participants discussed the methods they use to enhance Arabic language among their children, challenges they encounter, and potential solutions.