Lubavitcher Women in America

Lubavitcher Women in America PDF Author: Bonnie J. Morris
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438413661
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
Lubavitcher Women in America offers a rare look at the world of Hasidic women activists since World War II. The revival of ultra-Orthodox Judaism in the second half of the twentieth century has baffled many assimilated American Jews, especially those Jewish feminists hostile to Orthodox interpretations of women's roles. This text gives voice to the lives of those Hasidic women who served the late Lubavitcher Rebbe as educators and outreach activists, and examines their often successful efforts to recruit other Jewish women to the Lubavitcher community in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Central to this book is how Lubavitcher women have "talked back" to American feminist thought. Arguing that American feminism cannot liberate Jewish women—that a specifically Jewish spirituality is more appropriate and fulfilling—Lubavitcher women have helped to swell the ranks of their Rebbe's followers by aggressively promoting the appeal of traditional, structured Jewish observance. The book thus offers a unique look at female anti-feminist religious rhetoric, articulately presented by Jewish "fundamentalists."

Lubavitcher Women in America

Lubavitcher Women in America PDF Author: Bonnie J. Morris
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438413661
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 200

Get Book Here

Book Description
Lubavitcher Women in America offers a rare look at the world of Hasidic women activists since World War II. The revival of ultra-Orthodox Judaism in the second half of the twentieth century has baffled many assimilated American Jews, especially those Jewish feminists hostile to Orthodox interpretations of women's roles. This text gives voice to the lives of those Hasidic women who served the late Lubavitcher Rebbe as educators and outreach activists, and examines their often successful efforts to recruit other Jewish women to the Lubavitcher community in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Central to this book is how Lubavitcher women have "talked back" to American feminist thought. Arguing that American feminism cannot liberate Jewish women—that a specifically Jewish spirituality is more appropriate and fulfilling—Lubavitcher women have helped to swell the ranks of their Rebbe's followers by aggressively promoting the appeal of traditional, structured Jewish observance. The book thus offers a unique look at female anti-feminist religious rhetoric, articulately presented by Jewish "fundamentalists."

Chabad-Lubavitch Women: A Bibliography

Chabad-Lubavitch Women: A Bibliography PDF Author: Dovi Seldowitz
Publisher: The Kabbalah Exhibition
ISBN:
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 26

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Book Description
This bibliography sets out a list of all academic studies of Chabad-Lubavich women. This list will assist future research efforts to study the women of this mystical movement.

Music in Lubavitcher Life

Music in Lubavitcher Life PDF Author: Ellen Koskoff
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 9780252093265
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Music in Lubavitcher Life illuminates the world of the Lubavitcher Hasidim, a community of ultra-orthodox Jews centered in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, New York. Drawing primarily on twenty years of close study of the Lubavitcher community, Ellen Koskoff combines lively anecdotes with historical background and musical analysis to reveal music making among the Lubavitchers as a gateway to their ideas about the nature of human spirituality, human social interaction, and God._x000B_Lubavitcher music centers on the nigunim, a body of paraliturgical, folk, and popular melodies that Lubavitchers regard as a primary form of spiritual communication with the divine. For a song to be included in the repertory of nigunim, it must conform to Hasidic religious and aesthetic principles. If brought in from the outside, it must be purified: stripped of its coarse outer shell (usually the text) and recomposed in accordance with coded musical structures (including certain melody types, ornamentation, and formal organization). Performance of nigunim adheres, among other things, to a process associated with the spirituality of the great Hasidic leaders of the past._x000B_Along with vivid descriptions of musical performance in religious contexts and private gatherings, Koskoff details the musical sounds and structures that symbolize Lubavitcher social relations. In particular, she examines the differences between Lubavitcher women's and men's music making and the underlying beliefs and assumptions that give rise to gendered musical behaviors, such as the dictum that prohibits men from hearing a woman sing._x000B_An insightful portrait of a distinctive community's musical and religious life, Music in Lubavitcher Life is also a candid view of ethnographic research and of fieldwork's illusory objectivity._x000B__x000B_

Seeing Israeli and Jewish Dance

Seeing Israeli and Jewish Dance PDF Author: Judith Brin Ingber
Publisher: Wayne State University Press
ISBN: 0814333303
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 474

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Book Description
A comprehensive survey of historical and contemporary Jewish dance. In Seeing Israeli and Jewish Dance, choreographer, dancer, and dance scholar Judith Brin Ingber collects wide-ranging essays and many remarkable photographs to explore the evolution of Jewish dance through two thousand years of Diaspora, in communities of amazing variety and amid changing traditions. Ingber and other eminent scholars consider dancers individually and in community, defining Jewish dance broadly to encompass religious ritual, community folk dance, and choreographed performance. Taken together, this wide range of expression illustrates the vitality, necessity, and continuity of dance in Judaism. This volume combines dancers' own views of their art with scholarly examinations of Jewish dance conducted in Europe, Israel, other Middle East areas, Africa, and the Americas. In seven parts, Seeing Israeli and Jewish Dance considers Jewish dance artists of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries; the dance of different Jewish communities, including Hasidic, Yemenite, Kurdish, Ethiopian, and European Jews in many epochs; historical and current Israeli folk dance; and the contrast between Israeli and American modern and post-modern theater dance. Along the way, contributors see dance in ancient texts like the Song of Songs, the Talmud, and Renaissance-era illuminated manuscripts, and plumb oral histories, Holocaust sources, and their own unique views of the subject. A selection of 182 illustrations, including photos, paintings, and film stills, round out this lively volume. Many of the illustrations come from private collections and have never before been published, and they represent such varied sources as a program booklet from the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and archival photos from the Israel Government Press Office. Seeing Israeli and Jewish Dance threads together unique source material and scholarly examinations by authors from Europe, Israel, and America trained in sociology, anthropology, history, cultural studies, Jewish studies, dance studies, as well as art, theater, and dance criticism. Enthusiasts of dance and performance art and a wide range of university students will enjoy this significant volume.

For Women and Girls Only

For Women and Girls Only PDF Author: Jessica Roda
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1479809829
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
A compelling look at the lives of ultra-Orthodox and formerly ultra-Orthodox Jewish women and their use of media technologies to create a new market for music and film Mainstream portrayals of ultra-Orthodox religious women often frame their faith as oppressive: they are empowered only when they leave their community. This book flips this notion on its head. Drawing on six years of fieldwork between New York and Montreal, Jessica Roda examines modern performances on the stage and screen directed by and for ultra-Orthodox women. Their incredibly vibrant Jewish artistic scenes defy stereotypes that paint these women as repressed, reclusive to their shtetl (village), and devoid of creativity and agency. For Women and Girls Only argues that access to technology has completely transformed how ultra-Orthodox women express their way of being religious and that the digital era has enabled them to create an alternative entertainment market outside of the public, male-dominated one. Because expectations surrounding modesty, ultra-Orthodox women do not sing, dance, or act in front of men and the public. Yet, in a revolutionary move, they are creating “women and girls only” spaces onsite and online, putting the onus on men to shield themselves from the content. They develop modest public spaces on the Internet, about which male religious leaders are often unaware. The book also explores the entanglement between these observant female artists and those who left religion and became public performers. The author shows that the arts expressed by all these women offer a means of not only social but also economic empowerment in their respective worlds. For Women and Girls Only is a groundbreaking reversal of mainstream portrayals of ultra-Orthodox religious women, and of those who have left the community yet maintain ties to it. It is the first work to focus on the ultra-Orthodox female art scene in music, film, and dance across North America and on social media.

Beyond Sectarianism

Beyond Sectarianism PDF Author: Adam S. Ferziger
Publisher: Wayne State University Press
ISBN: 0814339549
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
In 1965 social scientist Charles S. Liebman published a study that boldly declared the vitality of American Jewish Orthodoxy and went on to guide scholarly investigations of the group for the next four decades. As American Orthodoxy continues to grow in geographical, institutional, and political strength, author Adam S. Ferziger argues in Beyond Sectarianism: The Realignment of American Orthodox Judaism that one of Liebman’s principal definitions needs to be updated. While Liebman proposed that the “committed Orthodox” —observant rather than nominally affiliated—could be divided into two main streams: “church,” or Modern Orthodoxy, and “sectarian,” or Haredi Orthodoxy, Ferziger traces a narrowing of the gap between them and ultimately a realignment of American Orthodox Judaism. Ferziger shows that significant elements within Haredi Orthodoxy have abandoned certain strict and seemingly uncontested norms. He begins by offering fresh insight into the division between the American sectarian Orthodox and Modern Orthodox streams that developed in the early twentieth century and highlights New York’s Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun as a pioneering Modern Orthodox synagogue. Ferziger also considers the nuances of American Orthodoxy as reflected in Soviet Jewish activism during the 1960s and early 1970s and educational trips to Poland taken by American Orthodox young adults studying in Israel, and explores the responses of prominent rabbinical authorities to Orthodox feminism and its call for expanded public religious roles for women. Considerable discussion is dedicated to the emergence of outreach to nonobservant Jews as a central priority for Haredi Orthodoxy and how this focus outside its core population reflects fundamental changes. In this context, Ferziger presents evidence for the growing influence of Chabad Hasidism – what he terms the “Chabadization of American Orthodoxy.” Recent studies, including the 2013 Pew Survey of U.S. Jewry, demonstrate that an active and strongly connected American Orthodox Jewish population is poised to grow in the coming decades. Jewish studies scholars and readers interested in history, sociology, and religion will appreciate Ferziger’s reappraisal of this important group.

New World Hasidim

New World Hasidim PDF Author: Janet S. Belcove-Shalin
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791496201
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
Hasidim has long been the subject of historical, philosophical, and literary accounts, but it is only in recent years that it has begun to attract the close attention of social scientists. This book highlights contemporary ethnographic perspectives that convey the richness and complexity of Hasidic life. Political engagement, gender roles, ritual life, proselytizing activities, and community revitalization are just some of the topics covered in this study that casts light on one of the more enigmatic religious communities of contemporary America.

The Rebbe

The Rebbe PDF Author: Samuel Heilman
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691154422
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 381

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Book Description
A biography of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson that discusses his childhood in Russia, education in Germany and Paris, messianic conviction, religious leadership, legacy, and other related topics.

Challenge and Conformity

Challenge and Conformity PDF Author: Lindsey Taylor-Guthartz
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
ISBN: 1800858728
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
Orthodox Jewish women are increasingly seeking new ways to express themselves religiously, and important changes have occurred in consequence in their self-definition and the part they play in the religious life of their communities. Drawing on surveys and interviews across different Orthodox groups in London, as well as on the author’s own experience of active participation over many years, this is a thoroughly researched study that analyses its findings in the context of related developments in Israel and the USA. Sympathetic attention is given to women’s creativity and sophistication as they struggle to develop new modes of expression that will let their voices be heard; at the same time, the inevitable points of conflict with the male-dominated religious establishment are examined and explained. There is a focus, too, on the impact of innovations in ritual: these include not only the creation of women-only spaces and women’s participation in public practices traditionally reserved for men, but also new personal practices often acquired on study visits to Israel which are replacing traditions learned from family members. This is a much-needed study of how new norms of lived religion have emerged in London, influenced by both the rise of feminism and the backlash against it, and also by women’s new understanding of their religious roles.

Culture and Politics

Culture and Politics PDF Author: Rik Pinxten
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 9781571813343
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 158

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Book Description
With "race" being discredited as a rallying cry for populist movements because of the atrocities committed in its name during World War II, "culture" has been adopted by right-wing groups instead, but used in the same exclusionary manner as racism was. This volume examines the essentialism, which is implicit in racial theories and re-emerges in the ideological use of cultural identity in new rightist movements, and presents case studies from different parts of the world where researchers were confronted with racism and worked out ways of coping with it.