This Master’s thesis explores Jewish masculinity and identity within early twentieth-century literature (1903-1925), using texts written by Jewish authors in late imperial Russia and the early Soviet Union. This was a period of change for Russia’s Jewish community, involving increased secularization and reform, massive pogroms such as in Kishinev in 1903, newfound leadership within the 1905 and 1917 Revolutions, and a rise in both Zionist and Revolutionary ideology. Subsequently, Jewish literary masculinity experienced a significant shift in characterization. Historically, a praised Jewish man had been portrayed as gentle, scholarly, and faithful, yet early twentieth century Jewish male literary figures were asked to be physically strong, hypermasculine, and secular. This thesis first uses H.N. Bialik’s “In the City of Slaughter” (1903) and Sholem Aleichem’s “Tevye Goes to Palestine” (1914) to introduce a concept of “Jewish shame,” or a sentiment that historical Jewish masculinity was insufficient for a contemporary Russian world. It then creates two models for these new men to follow. The Assimilatory Jew, seen in Isaac Babel’s Red Cavalry cycle (published throughout the 1920s), held that perpetual outsider Jewish men should imitate the behaviour of a secular whole in order to be accepted. The Jewish Superman is depicted in Vladimir Jabotinsky’s “In Memory of Herzl” (1904) and Ilya Selvinsky’s “Bar Kokhba” (1920), and argues that masculine glory is entirely compatible with a proud Jewish identity, without an external standard needed. Judith Butler’s theories on gender performativity are used to analyze these diverse works, published in Hebrew, Yiddish, and Russian by authors of varying political alignments, to establish commonalities among these literary canons and plot a new spectrum of desired identities for Jewish men. / Graduate / 2020-04-10

This thesis deals with gay identity politics and its relation to the Zionist ethos as it is portrayed in several Israeli films. It primarily analyzes two different points of view of two film directors whose homosexuality plays a central role in their cinematic work – Amos Gutman and Eytan Fox – and examines the way they perceive their gay lived experience. Analyzing Gutman’s Drifting (1983), Bar 51 (1985), and Himmo, King of Jerusalem (1987), I show how he encloses himself in his own queer universe and demands to be acknowledged as such, practicing his authenticity separately from the hegemonic discourse. On the other hand, the sexual politics in Fox’s Yossi & Jagger (2002) and Yossi (2012), suggests that homosexual men should join the national hegemonic space while ignoring their otherness. Since the films in question use the Zionist narrative and the national identity of their protagonists as points of reference, these two approaches are discussed in relation to the Zionist ethos. Several other films with similar points of reference are analyzed as well, including Fox’s Time Off (1990), Walk on Water (2004) and The Bubble (2006), Dan Wolman’s Hide & Seek (1979), Ayelet Menachemi’s Crows (1987), Nadav Gal’s A Different War (2003), Yair Hochner’s Good Boys (2005), and Mysh Rozanov’s Watch over Me (2010). Discussing the Zionist ethos, I emphasize Daniel Boyarin’s concept of the parallel between Jewishness, queerness, and abnormality. I show how the Zionist yearning for normalcy (the wish ‘to be like all nations’) and the identification of the homosexual as abnormal are embodied in the cinematic representations. The analysis in this thesis is mainly based on queer theory, as it strives to deconstruct and destabilize the traditional binaries of heterosexuality and show how the hegemonic discourse is based on those limited binaries. It challenges any political discourse that by naturalizing heterosexuality enforces heteronormative practices. By highlighting queer marginality in the cinematic text and linking it with elements of post-colonial theory and its analysis of the other, I show how gay identity politics discourse subverts or yields to the Zionist ethos. / text

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 thesis examines the ideological nexus of nationalism and heritage under the social conditions of neoliberalism. The investigation aims to demonstrate how neoliberal economics stimulate the irrationalism manifest in nationalist idealisation of the past. The institutionalisation of national heritage was originally a rational function of the modern state, symbolic of its political and cultural authority. With neoliberal erosion of the productive economy and public institutions, heritage and nostalgia proliferate today in all areas of social life. It is argued that this represents a social pathology linked to the neoliberal state's inability to construct a future-orientated national project. These conditions enhance the appeal of irrational nationalist and regionalist ideologies idealising the past as a source of cultural purity. Unable to achieve social cohesion, the neoliberal state promotes multiculturalism, encouraging minorities to embrace essentialist identity politics that parallel the nativism of right-wing nationalists and regionalists. This phenomenon is contextualised within the general crisis of progressive modernisation in Western societies that has accompanied neoliberalisation and globalisation. A new theory of activist heritage is advanced to describe autonomous, politicised heritage that appropriates forms and practices from the state heritage sector. Using this concept, the politics of irrational nationalism and regionalism are explored through fieldwork, including participant observation, interviews and photography. The interaction of state and activist heritage is considered at the Wewelsburg 1933-1945 Memorial Museum in Germany wherein neofascists have re-signified Nazi material culture, reactivating it within contemporary political narratives. The activist heritage of Israeli Zionism, Irish Republicanism and Ulster Loyalism is analysed through studies of museums, heritage centres, archaeological sites, exhibitions, monuments and historical re-enactments. These illustrate how activist heritage represents a political strategy within irrational ideologies that interpret the past as the ethical model for the future. This work contends that irrational nationalism fundamentally challenges the Enlightenment's assertion of reason over faith, and culture over nature, by superimposing pre-modern ideas upon the structure of modernity. An ideological product of the Enlightenment, the nation state remains the only political unit within which a rational command of time and space is possible, and thus the only viable basis for progressive modernity.

Jews were present in Pietersburg [Polokwane] from the time of its establishment in 1868. They came from Lithuania, England and Germany. They were attracted by the discovery of gold, land and work opportunities. The first Jewish cemetery was established on land granted by President Paul Kruger in 1895. The Zoutpansberg Hebrew Congregation, which included Pietersburg and Louis Trichardt was established around 1897. In 1912, Pietersburg founded its own congregation, the Pietersburg Hebrew Congregation. A Jewish burial society, a benevolent society and the Pietersburg-Zoutpansberg Zionist Society was formed. A communal hall was built in 1921 and a synagogue in 1953. Jews contributed to the development of Pietersburg and held high office. There was little anti-Semitism. From the 1960s, Jews began moving to the cities. The communal hall and minister's house were sold in 1994 and the synagogue in 2003. Only the Jewish cemetery remains in Pietersburg. / Religious Studies and Arabic / M.A. (Judaica)

The Apostolic Faith Mission (AFM) of South Africa was established in 1908 and is regarded as the source from which Zionist and Apostolic Churches sprang. A study of archival records and secondary sources leads to a conclusion that the black Section of the AFM was, for many decades since its inception, almost indistinguishable from these churches in their beliefs, practices and appearance. The processes to rid the AFM of Zionism, which began in 1929, and were intensified from the 1940s, led to black Pentecostalism shedding most of its Zionist-like beliefs and practices to become an evangelical Pentecostal movement oddly aligned to white interests and expectations. These changes took place at the expense of black agency which Zionist-like Pentecostalism represented and was a testimony thereof. Central to the idea of agency is possession of an interest or idea and power to pursue this interest or realise one's idea. The loss of agency by black Pentecostals is lamentable; this study calls for a reawakening that will mobilise among others, black Pentecostals' cultural resources in theologising and expressing the gospel mandate in a reawakening Africa. / Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology / M. Th. (Church History)

O objetivo desta tese é o estudo da vida dos judeus na Alemanha, a partir de msua saída do gueto ao final do século XVIII. Tive a preocupação em contextualizar a história do antijuda-ísmo, desde a chegada dos romanos na antiga Germânia no século II, ressaltando os momentos mais críticos, como a Primeira Cruzada em 1096 e o enforcamento do judeu Süß em 1738, por razões de animosidades políticas. O estudo rastreia o antissemitismo a partir dos acontecimen-tos da primeira metade do século XIX, permitindo compreender a eclosão dos horrores da Shoá, como o auge de um processo que se desenvolveu durante um longo período. Foram observadas tentativas de integração à sociedade alemã, envolvendo progressos curtos, entremeados por re-cuos, pontuados por movimentos dos próprios judeus, evidenciando o paradoxo entre a liber-dade adquirida pela saída do gueto, com a entrada na vida urbana, e os crescentes sentimentos antijudaicos, agora no seio da sociedade alemã, ocasionando o agravamento desses sentimentos, com os quais os judeus tiveram de conviver. O trabalho demonstra como essa integração se tornou estímulo para o recrudescimento de tendências antijudaicas latentes. O antissemitismo foi tomando, progressivamente, forma mais política e serviu de sustentação ao crescimento do na-cional-socialismo, que o tomou como bandeira, para dar sentido ao ódio gerado pelas tensões vigentes na nação germânica. A insatisfação decorrente da humilhação acarretada pela derrota da Primeira Guerra Mundial e pelo Tratado de Versalhes fez com que o movimento crescente em direção à Segunda Guerra Mundial ficasse aí determinado. A imagem dos judeus ficou as-sociada ao que passou a ser visto pelos setores reacionários e nacionalistas, como intimamente ligados à República de Weimar, levando os arianos a declarar guerra a tudo o que fosse oci-dental, judaico, liberal e iluminista. A maldição estava posta. Houve tentativas de reação judai-cas, objeto central deste estudo, a partir da fundação do Central Verein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens em 1893, que existiu até 1938, e é a reafirmação da identidade alemã dos judeus. A insistência dos judeus em constituir-se como parte integrante da sociedade alemã pôde ser verificada a posteriori. Foi uma tentativa derradeira, condenada ao fracasso, porém corajosa. A abertura dos arquivos de Moscou permitiu conhecer este processo e alimentou de informações preciosas o estudo aqui apresentado. / The purpose of this study was to investigate the life of the German Jews after leaving the ghetto at the end of the 18th Century. There was a concern to put the History of Anti-Judaism in con-text, ever since the Romans entered Ancient Germania, emphasizing critical moments such as the 1st Crusade and the hanging of the Jew Süss in 1738 because of political animosities. The study tracked Anti-Semitism from the events of the first half of the 19th century, allowing an understanding of the outburst of the horrors of the Holocaust as the peak of a long progressing process. Attempts of the Jews to become integrated in the German society were observed, with momentary progresses interspersed with retreats, punctuated by movements of the Jews them-selves in this integration process. There is a paradox between the freedom conquered by exiting the ghetto and entering the urban life and the growing anti-Jewish feelings within the German society with which they had to live. It is shown in this work how this integration became a stimulus for anti-Jewish revivals. Anti-Semitism became more and more political, supporting the growth of National Socialism that adopted it as a flag, in order to give a meaning to the hatred arising from the tensions present in the German population. Then the dissatisfaction re-sulting from the humiliation caused by the defeat in World War I and the Treaty of Versailles determined the increasing movement towards World War II. Reactionary and nationalist sectors associated the image of the Jews with the Weimar Republic and so the Arians declared war against everything considered Western, Jewish, liberal and enlightening. The curse was on. Jewish attempts to react, also featuring a confirmation of their German identity and their insist-ence in belonging to the German society, were the core of this study. In retrospect, the founda-tion of the CV can be considered a last and brave attempt, yet destined to fail. The opening of the Moscow archives allowed getting to know this process, providing valuable information for the present study.

The thesis outlined the history of the Jewish settlement of Hebron from Biblical times to the year 1929, which was the milestone in the history of the Jewish settlement of this city. The thesis describes the aftermath of the Six-Day War (in June 1967) and the atmosphere in the Jewish society, which played into the hands of the spiritual authorities of religious Zionism - e.g. Abraham Isaac Kook and his son Tzvi Yehuda Kook. Their messianic expectations and teachings, which made the settlement of the Land of Israel the top priority, led to the expansion of the settlement in the territory of biblical Judea and the Samaria Area. We watched the beginning of settlement activities that significantly affected politics. We provided examples that led to the "resettlement" of Hebron after 1979 when the women and children of the settlers from Kirjath Arba occupied the former Jewish hospital Hadassa, which meant the actual "resettlement" of Hebron because up until then, their settlements had been built only on the outskirts of the city. I also tried to describe the settlement differences and motivations between both Jewish communities before and after the Six-Day War.

This dissertation analyzes Jewish religious views of Buddhism in a broad historical perspective, from the end of 18th century down to the present. Through an analysis of Jewish religious texts, it shows the ways Buddhism has been contextualized and tries to uncover Buddhism's role in modern Judaism. From these texts Buddhism emerges as 1) a tool of polemics and self-definition, 2) a form of spirituality fully compatible with Judaism, and 3) a competitor of Judaism, endangering its social and ideological integrity. While Jewish religious views of Christianity and Islam have been dealt with extensively in the academic literature, the role of Buddhism in various forms of modern Judaism has been either completely overlooked or at best reduced to the JUBU phenomenon. This dissertation aims to help fill this gap.

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