Volume 2 (2013)

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Browsing Volume 2 (2013) by Subject "article"

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    Jewish National Communist Parties and the Comintern: A Non-Mutual Association
    (2013) Hirik, Serhiy
    In this paper, the author has attempted to trace the evolution of the politics of the Jewish national communist parties (the left wing of Bund / the Communist Bund, the Jewish Social-Democratic Workers Party (Poale Zion) and its successors: The Jewish Communist Party (Poale Zion) and the The Jewish Communist Workers Party (Poale Zion)) toward the Comintern. At the same time the author presents an analysis of changes in the politics of the Third International toward these parties. The dependence of the ultimate fate of all of these parties on their allegiance to their original program objectives is demonstrated. The author shows that the readiness of the organization to reject features of its ideology helped it to be absorbed by the ruling party of Bolsheviks. In contrast, the strict position on the base postulates provided to the entire isolation after which the enforced liquidation of such political organization was only a matter of time.
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    Moses, Author of Job: Defending the Biblical God in the Roman East
    (2013) Wogman, Michael
    Interpretation of Job was existentially important for Late Antique Judaism, faced with the problem of useless suffering on the one side, and with Gnostic challenges on the other. Although most amoraic reactions to it underscore Job’s fault and God’s justice, it seems to be more motivated by anti-Christian polemics, rather than fundamental answer to the questions posed by Job. Still, the association of the book with the authority of Moses implies some other answer to Job, which can be reconstructed from midrashic depictions of Moses and Hellenistic traditions of Job as the mystical seer. Analyzing Job’s influence on both pre-tannaitic apocalyptism and the Talmudic portrait of Moses, we are able to grasp a reading of Job as a theophanic story about an intimate meeting with the Godhead. The rabbis who attributed Job to Moses implied by this ascription a new vision of the world, within which no positive theodicy was possible; instead, a personal relation with capricious and powerful Creator was to be sought by means of Judaic practice.
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    Non-Self-Evident Memory: Post-Soviet Jewry and the Holocaust
    (2013) Epstein, Alek D.; Khanin, Vladimir (Ze’ev)
    Sociological surveys show that in the whole world, even on the American continent, so far away from places such as Babi Yar and Auschwitz, the memory of Holocaust plays a crucial role in the collective self-identity of the Jewish people, competing with the essential features of Judaism and solidarity with the State of Israel. Since the violation of the rights of a human being and indifference in the face of suffering jeopardize the very existence of human society, the Holocaust is the most extreme example of such violations, and the greatest moral failure mankind has ever experienced. Confronting the Holocaust, as well as genocide, may contribute to understanding the importance of humanistic and democratic values, and help construct tools for making moral judgments. That is why courses on the study of genocide and the Holocaust have become part of the curricula of educational institutions in the United States and elsewhere. The question as to how to educate the youth about the Holocaust - its historical context, and its reasons and consequences - concerns educators, researchers, and community workers from different and distinct countries.
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    The Pronunciation of the Sacred Tetragrammaton: an Overview of a Nomen Revelatus that Became a Nomen Absconditus
    (2013) Vasileiadis, Pavlos D.
    The Biblical name of God has a long history of use by the Israelites of Moses’ day that extends even back to the days of the patriarchs and, according to the biblical record, even to the early days of humanity. Although it was known by peoples in lands outside Israel - as in Egypt probably since the late 15th century BCE (list at the temple of Soleb at Nubia written during Amenhotep III) and the land of Moab since the 9th century BCE (Mesha Stele) - it seems that it became more widely known during the Hellenistic and Roman periods. Greek philosophical trends influenced decisively Jewish theology. The name of God was gradually silenced inside of Judaism. At the same time, the name proper was translated and diffused in new directions across Europe and America. Renaissance humanism and the development of Hebrew linguistics contributed to the use of the sacred name to an unprecented degree. Starting from the Second Temple period (200 BCE - 70 CE) down to the present time, this is an attempted overview of the thrilling story of the pronunciation of the Biblical name of the Supreme Being.
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    Rationalism in the Talmud: Taʻam and Middot
    (2013) Dymerets, Rostyslav
    This paper analyzes Talmudic rationalistic approaches (that include middot of R. Akiba and R. Ishmael) to interpretation of the meaning (ta‘am) of the Biblical text each of which actually presents a kind of application of the meaning of the text to different situations in reality. It is argued that these approaches are mutually complementary and designed for different kinds of situations, and that each has its limitations. However, each of them does present a system of interpretation based on concept of the existence of a connection between a pair of fundamental concepts which are those of inclusion - exclusion (in R. Akiba’s method) and more - less (in R. Ishmael’s method). Both these pairs of concepts are conceived as to direct the human mind to the state of full comprehension of the meaning of the Torah which must be expressed in its ability to derive laws for every possible situation on the basis of already existing laws obtained from God through His Revelation.