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Anthropology
Anthropology-the comparative study of human societies and cultures and their development.
Ethnography is part of anthropology, the study of people.
Ethnography tries to describe and understand cultures and social phenomena from the perspective of a participant in it -
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Jewish Studies Class
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Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible starts with Genesis and ends with 2 Chronicles.
The Christian bible is written originally in Greek. -
Rabbis
a group of Jewish scholars in Roman Palestine from 1-4th centuries CE. They, like the first-century Jewish group the Pharisees, believed both in the Hebrew Bible and the five books of Moses as a source of Divine law, as well as an "oral law" oral traditions that were passed from earlier generations that included laws and interpretations of the Bible. -
Rosh Hashana
Rosh Hashana is the Jewish New Year.
Yom Kippur, ten days later, is called the Day of Atonement. The ten days between these holidays all together are the "ten days of repentance" where the theme for Jews is extra focus on good behavior, and repenting -
Migration
- Very hard to give certain origin of each Jewish population in a given area.
- Jewish settlement often interrupted by persecutions and expulsions (Europe, Asia and Africa)
- Directions of migrations reversed over time.
- No Jewish community is homogenous
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Sukkot
Sukkot is an 8 day festival, with holy days in the beginning and end, and middle days where some observances are practiced (such as lving in the Sukkah), but there is no prohibition on work observed by traditional Jews.
The other main practice of Sukkot is shaking the "four species" during prayers, again, based on verses in the Pentateuch. Gathering together these plants was seen as a way of celebrating the harvest holiday. -
Shabbath
It is the day of rest. It is celebrated on Saturday. Jewish days start the evening before, so it is celebrated from Friday night through Saturday night. The notion of a seventh day of rest, and in fact, of a seven-day week, is from the book of Genesis. -
Talmud
There are two Talmuds (one from Palestine and one from Babylonia). Babylonian Talmud is made up of many kinds of texts: rules, stories, biblical interpretation, legal debate and more. Both talmuds are commentaries on earlier rabbinic laws (specifically the Mishna), but not word by word. Rather, the Mishna is a starting point. Still used today by Jews. -
Judaism under Islam
Some things in common are: the general Sunni muslim approaches to Jews often protected them in ways that Jews in Christian lands were not. Jewis in Christian lands were, by and large the only "other" living among Christians, while Jews were one of a few non-Muslim groups. -
Juadism and Christianity
“Nevertheless, God holds the Jews most dear for the sake of the Fathers; His gift and call are irrevocable.”• “Although the Jewish authorities and those who followed their lead pressed for the death of Christ, nevertheless what happened to Christ in His Passion cannot be attributed to all Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor to the Jews of today.” -
American Judaism
For the American Judaism, we did not talk about this in class, but Janet Yellen the Federal Reserve Chairman is Jewish. This just goes to show anyone can rise to power in the United States of America. -
Zionism
Population of Israel is 8 million
There is a Temple in Jerusalem -
Enlightenment
Part of enlightenment, and Haskalah is critical thinking about jewish texts and traditions.
while orthodoxy has both very conservative elements, as well as some pulled towards to modernity, whether in technology, education, increased role for women, accommodating gay congregants -
Jewish Religous Respone to Enlightenment
Today, Orthodox Judaism has more and less progressive groups.
Some Orthodox Jewish communities try to maintain traditional religious practices while embracing social changes, eg greater participation of women in synagogues.
Other Orthodox Jews emphasize close-knit communities and a rejection of social changes and religious reforms
(Chareidi, Hassidic) -
God and Prayer
Conceptions of God changed in Jewish history, and even at particular times and places, Jews had differing ideas about God, including about how god acted in the world, whether God had a body, and what was God’s essence. -
Jewish Tenets of Faith
The Messianic time will be a universal experience.
Nothing will change in the nature of the world.
He interprets Biblical verses about wolf and lamb lying down together as metaphors for Israel and its enemies having peace.
The Messiah is a Jewish man, of the line of David, who will be a king but does not do miracles.
Time of peace when people can have the time and ability to live a contemplative life and Jews will not be oppressed -
Jewish lifecycle
The brit milah (Hebrew: בְּרִית מִילָה, pronounced [bʁit miˈla]; Ashkenazi pronunciation: [bʁis ˈmilə], "covenant of circumcision"; Yiddish pronunciation: bris [bʀɪs]) is a Jewish religious male circumcision ceremony performed by a mohel on the eighth day of a male infant's life. -
Jewish Food
Jewish Foods are foods that are used by jews for particular religious or cultural moments, or which have been modified to comply with Jewish foods restrictions and traditions from jewish law about the Sabbath. Kashrut is the term for "Jewish dietary laws." -
Passover
The traditional rabbinic haggadah doesn’t have a linear, simple telling of the exodus. Rather, it has midrashim questions and answers, expressing the rabbis priorities on engagement and creativity and interpretation, and not just reading the Pentatuech alone.
The Haggadah is important artifact for Jewish home practice. It was a prayerbook copied for home use. It got embellishments, and other loving touches in the middle ages, and has attracted Jewish artistic imagination ever since. Expresses Je -
Holocaust
The Holocaust was a traumatic event in recent Jewish history, especially for Ashkenazi Jews, but also for Italian and Sephardic Jews from Greece and Salonika and even remembered among Jews of Morocco. About 6 million Jews died, wiping out a flowering of Jewish cultures and ending many families.
