Abstract: Racism is a challenge to reason, especially scientific reason, since it is possible to demonstrate that human "races" do not exist for science, and that, for example, the genetic difference between two supposed "races" is no greater than that which can separate two individuals within the same "race". Racism is a denier of human rights. In short, whether it is a question of reason or of law, racism clashes head-on with universal values, and the anti-racist struggle should, in this perspective, only be backed by universalism.
Abstract: While some of the founders of American cultural anthropology and British social anthropology were part of the transregional Jewish and non-Jewish German speaking community, Jewish anthropology, and anthropology by or on Jews in German-speaking countries, was seriously impacted by the Shoah. Some sources in the area of historical anthropology engage with Jews, who were anthropologists, and who were murdered or who fled, others focus on the appropriation of Jewish cultural heritage and zoom in on discourses about Jews. Living Jews are oftentimes covered in dissertations, after which the nascent ethnologist/anthropologist vanishes from academia, or leaves the country: research on living Jews seems an unsustainable career move. This paper is a first attempt to sketch out the developments of Jewish anthropology – in the broadest sense – in Germany post-1945. It will pay due attention to structures, societal, social, and academic; the place of anthropology within these structures; and Jews, as an ethno-religious group being researched by anthropologists (and other ethnographers); and the anthropologists/ethnographers who research them. By paying close attention to the anthropologists and ethnographers themselves, it is possible to “map the margins” (Crenshaw 1991) of anthropological and ethnographic work in an emotionalized, ideologized, and politicized field, a field that is indicative of post-genocidal intergroup relations in situ.
Abstract: Linking our own research interest for the processes of public memory building and remembrance of difficult pasts through the lens of heritage-work, the aim of the current study is to address discourses on ‘the Holocaust issue’ and perceptions of Jews in Romania after more than two decades since the 1989 Revolution. Our focus is mainly on the perceptions of Jewish people from the city of Oradea, a territory where two thirds of about 27000 Jews were killed during WWII. By examining private initiatives of heritage-making carried out with the purpose of contributing to the preservation of the memory of those killed during WWII and comparing them with the official ones, we intend to disclose aspects of the ‘social distance’ and intercultural communication on this Romanian territory where Jews and Roma people were ghettoized, then sent directly to extermination camps (mainly to Auschwitz), where a genocide was carried out. The symbolic re-enactment of Jewish history in the public sphere through heritage-making helps remodel perceptions, attitudes, and behaviours in a multi-ethnic society by promoting moral values regarding other human beings such as tolerance and mutual respect. Therefore, our study inquires to what extent the public memory relating to the Holocaust contributed to shaping social relationships in a multi-cultural society. Our anthropological reflection on the (re-)enactment of the Jewish history during the Holocaust through heritage-making and its social appropriation offer insights into (1) discourses on the Holocaust in Romania and the way in which public memory operates, (2) perceptions of Jews among local people from Oradea and, (3) the building of identity narratives on the acknowledgment or denial of a dark side in our past.
Abstract: Настоящият сборник съдържа устни разкази на еврейските общности за самите тях и живота им в Русе, Шумен и Варна. Разказите са подредени в осем глави, които съответстват на различните антропологически категории и представят чуто или преживяно от първо лице. Хронологията в книгата е съобразена единствено с битието в житейските цикли и поради това във всяка отделна глава може да се проследи картината за свят на различните поколения хора.
Разказите са резултат от теренно проучване, проведено през пролетта на 2015 година. То отразява не само състоянието на градските общности на евреите в Русе, Шумен и Варна, но осветлява паметта за тях, описва хора и събития, отнасящи се и за онази част от българските евреи, които днес живеят в държавата Израел. Тридесет наши сънародници – 17 жени и 13 мъже, чрез своите разкази и спомени изграждат впечатляващ териториален обхват на проучването, който включва 27 български населени места и в действителност покрива картата на страната.
Topics: Antisemitism, Israel Criticism, Jewish Identity, Jewish Perceptions of Antisemitism, Anthropology, Employment, Ethnography, Work, Main Topic: Other, Religious Observance and Practice, Jewish Women
Abstract: This research introduces an anthropological perspective in the debate on religious identity and the workplace. In particular, it examines the relationship between Jewish identity and practices and the workplace in Belgium, with a focus on gender issues. Thanks to in-depth interviews with a number of Jewish women in Brussels about their daily experiences in the workplace and extensive field work in this community, valuable and generally difficult to access data regarding Jewish women’s workplace participation, perceptions, and experiences has been collected and analyzed. There is a complex relationship between Jewish identity, practices and the perception of the respondents as it relates to the workplace and their own position. Perceived hostility towards Israel and the Jewry is a recurrent issue amongst the respondents. As Judaism is often connected to the State of Israel and the current political climate, individual Jewish women are sometimes confronted with unpleasant or negative comments or experiences in the workplace. Besides forming a strong deterrent for many of the respondents to participate in the mainstream workforce, this puts a lot of pressure on those women working for non-Jewish organizations. To a certain extent, Jewish practices are adapted, modified and negotiated by the working Jewish women to meet the demands of dominant norms in the modern Belgian workplace. In addition, the ‘coping mechanisms’ that are applied by the respondents are frequently gender-specific and family-motivated.
Abstract: This article analyzes the attitudes of 25 refugees from Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq, now living in Germany, toward Jews, the Holocaust, Israel, and the Middle East conflict. It reveals both anti-Jewish and anti-Israel sentiments among many of the respondents, as well as a lack of knowledge about the Holocaust, and a wide range of attitudes between individual participants. Some of the factors influencing attitudes include everyday knowledge in the countries of origin, Arab nationalism, as well as specific religious and ethnic identities. The findings are discussed in relation to other recent studies, and against the backdrop of German media discourse, current debates about an “imported” antisemitism among refugees and migrants, and the relationship between experiences of racial discrimination and anti-Jewish attitudes.
Abstract: Очередной том фундаментальной серии «Народы и культуры» посвящен истории и культуре евреев на территории Российской империи, СССР и стран СНГ. В монографии рассматриваются общие вопросы происхождения и истории еврейского народа, особенности историкоантропологического облика и языков, а также проблемы изучения еврейского фольклора и этнографии. Основное внимание уделено этнополитической истории и своеобразию традиционной культуры российских евреев: их занятиям, костюму, обрядам жизненного цикла, религиозным праздникам, пище, народным знаниям, фольклору, декоративно-прикладному искусству, образованию. Специальные разделы освещают многообразные процессы, протекающие среди евреев в современном мире, взаимоотношения евреев с другими народами. В отдельных разделах даны историко-этнографические материалы по неашкеназским группам: грузинским и бухарским евреям и иудействующим. В создании тома приняли участие историки, филологи, этнографы, антропологи, социологи, фольклористы из России, Украины, Израиля и Франции.
Для историков, этнологов, культурологов, специалистов в разных областях иудаики, студентов профильных вузов и кафедр, широкого круга читателей
Abstract: This book focuses on two main areas – first, the response of British Lubavitchers to misfortune generally and sickness, in particular and the role of their religious leader the Rebbe in this process; and second, their response to the illness and ultimate death of the Rebbe. It addresses a number of issues in contemporary social and medical anthropology: the social construction of the body, the power of words in ritual, the relation between myth and praxis, religious texts as a charter for healing and the relation between the use of biomedicine and symbolic healing. This book will be of interest to students of social anthropology, medical anthropology, medical sociology, millennialism, religious studies and students of contemporary Judaism.
Abstract: This is the first study to explore the ways in which Jewish identities and identifications with Israel are fostered
in and articulated by forty British Jews participating in Taglit-Birthright, which is a free ten day tour of Israel.
Birthright is an institutionalised programme for young Jews from fifty-two countries around the world, which
proclaims the primordial link of the Jewish people and the land of Israel through two means; education and
experience. Birthright sits at the forefront of the current debate concerning British Jewry, and what it means
to be Jewish in the twenty-first century, as the programme admits an array of participants who fall beyond the
traditional ‘boundaries’ of Judaism in order to discover and create their own Jewish identities. This paper
serves as an interesting comparison to the American accounts that currently dominate the anthropological
discourse of Birthright, by contextualising the aspects of the tour which affected British participants most. It
will illustrate that the documents proving Jewish heritage, requested by Birthright organisers in the United
Kingdom but not in America, is indicative of the key difference between the two cohorts which harnesses
British participants from feeling Jewish. The work then focuses on the tochnit (‘schedule’), which enabled
participants to negotiate their Jewish identities by picking and choosing aspects of Judaism and Israel that
they could personally identify with. It then argues that Jewish rather than Israeli identifications were more
widely expressed amongst participants. Overall results demonstrate that ethnic Jewish identities, which
gravitate less around religiosity, became increasingly favourable amongst this sample of British Jewry. This
infers that Jewishness should be measured across a spectrum that encompasses the multifaceted nature of
Judaism in the twenty-first century.
Abstract: A rendszerváltás óta eltelt másfél évtizedben sokféleképpen tették fel és válaszolták meg ezt a kérdést. Papp Richárd kulturális antropológus a budapesti Bethlen téri zsinagóga közösségének bemutatásával igyekszik rávilágítani e kérdés összetettségére. A szerző a Bethlen téri zsinagóga életének megismerésével a magyarországi zsidó kultúra sajátos keresztmetszetét világítja meg. Ebben a közösségben a mai magyar zsidó társadalom szinte minden jellemző rétege, a legkülönfélébb identitású, a tradíciót másképp gondoló-követő tagja megtalálható. Ezt a közösséget vizsgálva a zsidó kultúra olyan egyedi olvasatait ismerhetjük meg, mint a vallási vezető szerepe a közösség életében, az egymásra következő nemzedékek eltérő világa. És a zsidóság látása, a hagyomány átadásának fokozatai és a nők rituális szerepköreinek változásai, valamint a zsidó idő- és térszerkezet struktúrái. Az etnikai konfliktusok, sztereotípiák, gyűlöletek (különösen itt Közép-Kelet-Európában) elsősorban abból fakadnak, hogy semmit sem tudunk a velünk együtt élőkről. Tudatlanságunkból fakadóan pedig nem rendelkezünk olyan szókészlettel, tudással, amely bármely szélsőséges politikai szélirány frázisait megcáfolhatná. A könyv feladata, hogy ebbe a sötétségbe fénysugarat bocsásson.
Abstract: Based on preliminary research, we ask what insights can be gleaned about Polish Holocaust memory and testimony by examining the prolific art made by Polish ‘folk’ artists, via a range of disciplinary approaches. What can art history, visual culture studies, oral history, anthropology, memory studies, and museum studies tell us about the motivations, functions, and ethical implications of such works? Can they be considered acts of witness? Broadly, our text considers the status of ‘art naïve’ in the contexts of Holocaust representation, ethnographic museology, and bystander testimony.
