Buch, Englisch, 240 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 526 g
Buch, Englisch, 240 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 526 g
ISBN: 978-0-19-537329-5
Verlag: ACADEMIC
According to historical teaching, a Jewish man should give thanks each day for ''not having been made a gentile, a woman, nor a slave.'' Yoel Kahn's innovative study of a controversial Jewish liturgical passage traces the history of this prayer from its extra-Jewish origins across two thousand years of history, demonstrating how different generations and communities understood the significance of these words in light of their own circumstances. Marking the boundary between ''us'' and ''them,'' marginalized and persecuted groups affirmed their own identity and sense of purpose. After the medieval Church seized and burned books it considered offensive, new, coded formulations emerged as forms of spiritual resistance. Owners voluntarily carefully expurgated their books to save them from being destroyed, creating new language and meanings while seeking to preserve the structure and message of the received tradition. Renaissance Jewish women ignored rabbis' objections and assertively declared their gratitude at being ''made a woman and not a man.'' Illustrations from medieval and renaissance Hebrew manuscripts demonstrate creative literary responses to censorship and show that official texts and interpretations do not fully represent the historical record.
As Jewish emancipation began in the 19th century, modernizing Jews again had to balance fealty to historical practice with their own and others' understanding of their place in the world. Seeking to be recognized as modern and European, early modern Jews rewrote the liturgy to fit modern sensibilities and identified themselves with the Christian West against the historical pagan and the uncivilized infidel. In recent decades, a reassertion of ethnic and cultural identity has again raised questions of how the Jewish religious community should define itself.
Through the lens of a liturgical text in continuous use for over two thousand years, Kahn offers new insights into an evolving religious identity and recurring questions of how to honor both historical teaching and contemporary sensibility.
Autoren/Hrsg.
Fachgebiete
- Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Sonstige Religionen Sexualität & Gender in den Religionen
- Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Gruppen/Soziale Themen Gender Studies, Geschlechtersoziologie
- Geisteswissenschaften Jüdische Studien Jüdische Studien Heilige & Traditionstexte: Torah, Talmud, Mischna, Halacha
Weitere Infos & Material
- Introduction
- 1.: Defining Oneself Against the Other: Sources and Parallels in Late Antiquity
- 2.: Assimilation and Integration: The Classical Rabbinic Sources
- 3.: From Private Piety to Public Prayer: Reconciling Practice with Teaching
- 4.: Competitive Traditions: Early Palestinian Practice
- 5.: Censorship in Medieval and Renaissance Liturgy
- 6.: Women, Slaves, Boors and Beasts
- 7.: Material and Mystical World Views
- 8.: Recasting Boundaries and Identity in Nineteenth-Century European Prayer Books
- Chapter Nine: Identity and the Creation of Community in Modern American Liturgy
- Conclusion
- Appendix
- Bibliography
