Download or read book Esther in Early Modern Iberia and the Sephardic Diaspora written by Emily Colbert Cairns and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-07-13 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores Queen Esther as an idealized woman in Iberia, as well as a Jewish heroine for conversos in the Sephardic Diaspora in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The biblical Esther --the Jewish woman who marries the King of Persia and saves her people -- was contested in the cultures of early modern Europe, authored as a symbol of conformity as well as resistance. At once a queen and minority figure under threat, for a changing Iberian and broader European landscape, Esther was compelling and relatable precisely because of her hybridity. She was an early modern globetrotter and border transgressor. Emily Colbert Cairns analyzes the many retellings of the biblical heroine that were composed in a turbulent early modern Europe. These narratives reveal national undercurrents where religious identity was transitional and fluid, thus problematizing the fixed notion of national identity within a particular geographic location. This volume instead proposes a model of a Sephardic nationality that existed beyond geographical borders.

Download or read book Health and Healing in the Early Modern Iberian World written by Sarah E. Owens and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2021-04-07 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recognizing the variety of health experiences across geographical borders, Health and Healing in the Early Modern Iberian World interrogates the concepts of "health" and "healing" between 1500 and 1800. Through an interdisciplinary approach to medical history, gender history, and the literature and culture of the early modern Atlantic World, this collection of essays points to the ways in which the practice of medicine, the delivery of healthcare, and the experiences of disease and health are gendered. The contributors explore how the medical profession sought to exert its power over patients, determining standards that impacted conceptions of self and body, and at the same time, how this influence was mediated. Using a range of sources, the essays reveal the multiple and sometimes contradictory ways that early modern health discourse intersected with gender and sexuality, as well as its ties to interconnected ethical, racial, and class-driven concerns. Health and Healing in the Early Modern Iberian World breaks new ground through its systematic focus on gender and sexuality as they relate to the delivery of healthcare, the practice of medicine, and the experiences of health and healing across early modern Spain and colonial Latin America.

Download or read book Sephardi Jewry written by Esther Benbassa and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2000-04-13 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Modified and updated version of a book that first appeared in Paris in 1993 under the title Juifs des Balkans ... (Editions La Decouverte)"--Acknowledgments, p. [xi].

Download or read book Jewish Autonomy in a Slave Society written by Aviva Ben-Ur and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2020-06-05 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating portrait of Jewish life in Suriname from the 17th to 19th centuries Jewish Autonomy in a Slave Society explores the political and social history of the Jews of Suriname, a Dutch colony on the South American mainland just north of Brazil. Suriname was home to the most privileged Jewish community in the Americas where Jews, most of Iberian origin, enjoyed religious liberty, were judged by their own tribunal, could enter any trade, owned plantations and slaves, and even had a say in colonial governance. Aviva Ben-Ur sets the story of Suriname's Jews in the larger context of Atlantic slavery and colonialism and argues that, like other frontier settlements, they achieved and maintained their autonomy through continual negotiation with the colonial government. Drawing on sources in Dutch, English, French, Hebrew, Portuguese, and Spanish, Ben-Ur shows how, from their first permanent settlement in the 1660s to the abolition of their communal autonomy in 1825, Suriname Jews enjoyed virtually the same standing as the ruling white Protestants, with whom they interacted regularly. She also examines the nature of Jewish interactions with enslaved and free people of African descent in the colony. Jews admitted both groups into their community, and Ben-Ur illuminates the ways in which these converts and their descendants experienced Jewishness and autonomy. Lastly, she compares the Jewish settlement with other frontier communities in Suriname, most notably those of Indians and Maroons, to measure the success of their negotiations with the government for communal autonomy. The Jewish experience in Suriname was marked by unparalleled autonomy that nevertheless developed in one of the largest slave colonies in the New World.

Download or read book The Cambridge History of Judaism Volume 2 The Hellenistic Age written by William David Davies and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1984 with total page 766 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Vol. 4 covers the late Roman period to the rise of Islam. Focuses especially on the growth and development of rabbinic Judaism and of the major classical rabbinic sources such as the Mishnah, Jerusalem Talmud, Babylonian Talmud and various Midrashic collections.

Download or read book The Other Sephardic Diaspora written by Emily Sarah Colbert and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: I explore, in both fictional and historical works the complex construction and representation of the "Jew" as both Spanish and colonial other in the Iberian Diaspora. Following different converso female figures my dissertation travels between England, Spain, Italy, and ends across the Atlantic in New Spain. By moving converso Jews from the margin to the center and analyzing this subgroup through the narrower lens of female identity and practice, my dissertation demonstrates the need to re-think the boundaries of Iberia in the Early Modern world as well as female contribution to the preservation of Jewish rituals. I examine how a series of texts engage with the issues of religious and gender identity. Male authors use female protagonists to explore their relationships to a changing society and burgening modern world. They use the female body as a blank space to project and inscribe social ideals. At the same time, these women use their bodies and bodily practices to speak back and create identity. I explore in detail the material practices surrounding the body including clothing, food, and language. These practices reveal the center of female power and the importance of the home in the continuity of tradition and maintenance of Jewish ritual and converso identity. I show in Chapter 1 how Isabel from La Espanola Inglesa is a projection of feminine ideals, how in Chapter 2 La Celestina and La Lozana Andaluza in Chapter 3 use their body to speak back against ideals of female subservience, and Isabel de Carvajal in Chapter 4 uses her body to observe crypto-Jewish religious practices. As these figures all struggle with boundaries and liminal spaces, I show crypto-Jewish practice to be a hybrid combination of Jewish and Catholic traditions. As I analyze the female protagonists from La Espanola Inglesa, La Celestina, La Lozana Andaluza, and the Inquisition manuscripts of Isabel de Carvajal, an alternative discourse is created which challenges patriarchal and hegemonic centers of power. Located on different corners of the Sephardic Diaspora in the Early Modern period, these figures reveal different ways of belonging and aspects of identity that normally go unnoticed.

Download or read book Esther in Diaspora written by Tsaurayi Kudakwashe Mapfeka and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2019-06-17 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Esther in Diaspora, Tsaurayi Kudakwashe Mapfeka utilises a theory-nuanced concept of diaspora to offer a new way of reading Esther, in the process, critiquing the traditional view that has relied on its close association with Purim.

Download or read book Jewish Women written by Katharina Galor and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-12-15 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jewish Women: Between Conformity and Agency examines the concepts of gender and sexuality through the primary lens of visual and material culture from antiquity through to the present day. The backbone of this transhistorical and transcontextual study is the question of Jewish women’s agency in four different geographical, chronological, and methodological contexts, beginning with women’s dress codes in Roman-Byzantine Syro-Palestine, continuing with rituals of purity in medieval Ashkenaz, worship in papal Avignon and the Comtat Venaissin, and ending with marriage and divorce in Israeli film. Each of these explorations is interested in creating a dialogue between the patriarchal legacy of the traditional texts and the chronologically corresponding visual and material culture. The author challenges traditional approaches to the study of Jewish culture by employing tools from art history, archaeology, and film and media studies. In each of these different contexts, there is ample evidence that women—despite persistent overall structural discrimination—have found ways to challenge male constructs of gender norms. Ultimately, these examples from past and present times highlight women’s eminence in shaping Jewish history and culture. Bringing a new interdisciplinary lens to the study of the history of gender and sexuality, the book will be of interest to students and researchers of Jewish history and culture, art history, archaeology, and film studies.

Download or read book A Drizzle of Honey written by David M. Gitlitz and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2000-09-25 with total page 570 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Iberian Jews were converted to Catholicism under duress during the Inquisition, many struggled to retain their Jewish identity in private while projecting Christian conformity in the public sphere. To root out these heretics, the courts of the Inquisition published checklists of koshering practices and "grilled" the servants, neighbors, and even the children of those suspected of practicing their religion at home. From these testimonies and other primary sources, Gitlitz & Davidson have drawn a fascinating, award-winning picture of this precarious sense of Jewish identity and have re-created these recipes, which combine Christian & Islamic traditions in cooking lamb, beef, fish, eggplant, chickpeas, and greens and use seasonings such as saffron, mace, ginger, and cinnamon. The recipes, and the accompanying stories of the people who created them, promise to delight the adventurous palate and give insights into the foundations of modern Sephardic cuisine.

Download or read book Early Modern Maternities in the Iberian Atlantic written by Emily Colbert Cairns and published by . This book was released on 2024-08-20 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Early Modern Maternities in the Iberian Atlantic is the first volume to emphasize women's personal experiences and their life trajectories as mothers within the Peninsula and across the Atlantic. Although an official discourse that defined the conditions of motherhood emerged in the eighteenth century, before this period there were many different articulations of motherhood through which women negotiated hierarchical relationships, power struggles and alliances. While the individual experiences were unique and depended upon the positionality of race and class, the complexities of being a mother were universal. The wide variety of written and visual documents included in this volume highlight women's voices in the first person along with more subtle references to motherhood as well as silences. This collection broadens our understanding of the complexities of motherhood, addressing the pressures of becoming a mother, miscarriage, the acts of giving birth and lactation and the ordeals of raising children.

Download or read book Why Old Places Matter written by Thompson M. Mayes and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-09-01 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why Old Places Matter is the only book that explores the reasons that old places matter to people. Although people often feel very deeply about the old places of their lives, they don’t have the words to express why. This book brings these ideas together in evocative language and with illustrative images for a broad audience. The book reveals the fundamentally important yet under-recognized role old places play in our lives. While many people feel a deep-seated connection to old places -- from those who love old houses, to the millions of tourists who are drawn to historic cities, to the pilgrims who flock to ancient sites throughout the world -- few can articulate why. The book explores these deep attachments people have with old places –the feelings of belonging, continuity, stability, identity and memory, as well as the more traditional reasons that old places have been deemed by society to be important, such as history, national identity, and architecture. This book will be appealing to anyone who has ever loved an old place. But more importantly, it will be an useful resource to articulate why old places are meaningful to people and their communities. This book will help people understand that the feeling many have for old places is supported by a wide variety of fields, and that the continued existence of these old places is good. It will give people the words and phrases to understand and express why old places matter.

Download or read book Double Diaspora in Sephardic Literature written by David A. Wacks and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2015-05-11 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The year 1492 has long divided the study of Sephardic culture into two distinct periods, before and after the expulsion of Jews from Spain. David A. Wacks examines the works of Sephardic writers from the 13th to the 16th centuries and shows that this literature was shaped by two interwoven experiences of diaspora: first from the Biblical homeland Zion and later from the ancestral hostland, Sefarad. Jewish in Spain and Spanish abroad, these writers negotiated Jewish, Spanish, and diasporic idioms to produce a uniquely Sephardic perspective. Wacks brings Diaspora Studies into dialogue with medieval and early modern Sephardic literature for the first time.

Download or read book The Book of Esther in Modern Research written by Leonard Jay Greenspoon and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2003-01-01 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The proceedings of a symposium entitled Esther 2000 held in Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska in April 2000, the book contains a collection of essays that engages all aspects of the biblical book of Esther. From questions of textual criticism to the history of rabbinic interpretation to speculation on the modern form of commentary, this collection is sure to contain something for everyone interested in the book of Esther. Contributors include such well-known Esther scholars as Michael Fox, David Clines, and Carey Moore.

Download or read book Like Another Esther written by and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation explores the significance of Queen Esther in early modern England by examining her literary representations in light of historical, religious, political, and social contexts. Although she is often linked to Deborah and Judith, Esther's multifaceted character allows for greater flexibility in representation than is the case with other biblical heroines. The differing aspects of her character, obedient orphan, beautiful virgin, clever and courageous queen, savior of Diaspora Jews, inspire multiple, at times even contradictory, depictions of Esther in early modern literature. Whether Protestant or Catholic, male or female, Queen or commoner, sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English writers appropriate Esther in ways that paradoxically challenge and support women's traditional roles in society. Chapter One introduces the Esther narrative as presented in the Old Testament and Apocrypha. Chapter Two examines Esther in relation to female authority, focusing specifically on references to Queen Elizabeth as an Esther figure. Chapter Three studies the dramatic interlude Godly Queen Hester, while Chapter Four analyzes works of prose featuring Esther as an exemplum for virtuous and heroic women. Chapter Five studies poetic depictions of Esther, and Chapter Six concludes the study by noting briefly how women authors engaged in the querelle des femmes enlist Esther to refute their opponents.

Download or read book Jews Christians and Muslims in Medieval and Early Modern Times written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2014-03-27 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings together articles on the cultural, religious, social and commercial interactions among Jews, Christians and Muslims in the medieval and early modern periods. Written by leading scholars in Jewish studies, Islamic studies, medieval history and social and economic history, the contributions to this volume reflect the profound influence on these fields of the volume’s honoree, Professor Mark R. Cohen.

Download or read book Jewish Salonica written by Devin Naar and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2016-09-07 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Touted as the "Jerusalem of the Balkans," the Mediterranean port city of Salonica (Thessaloniki) was once home to the largest Sephardic Jewish community in the world. The collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the city's incorporation into Greece in 1912 provoked a major upheaval that compelled Salonica's Jews to reimagine their community and status as citizens of a nation-state. Jewish Salonica is the first book to tell the story of this tumultuous transition through the voices and perspectives of Salonican Jews as they forged a new place for themselves in Greek society. Devin E. Naar traveled the globe, from New York to Salonica, Jerusalem, and Moscow, to excavate archives once confiscated by the Nazis. Written in Ladino, Greek, French, and Hebrew, these archives, combined with local newspapers, reveal how Salonica's Jews fashioned a new hybrid identity as Hellenic Jews during a period marked by rising nationalism and economic crisis as well as unprecedented Jewish cultural and political vibrancy. Salonica's Jews—Zionists, assimilationists, and socialists—reinvigorated their connection to the city and claimed it as their own until the Holocaust. Through the case of Salonica's Jews, Naar recovers the diverse experiences of a lost religious, linguistic, and national minority at the crossroads of Europe and the Middle East.

Download or read book The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon written by Richard Zimler and published by Abrams. This book was released on 2000-03-15 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: International Bestseller: “A moody, tightly constructed historical thriller . . . a good mystery story and an effective evocation of a faraway time and place.” —The New York Times After Jews living in sixteenth-century Portugal are dragged to the baptismal font and forced to convert to Christianity, many of these New Christians persevere in their Jewish prayers and rituals in secret and at great risk; the hidden, arcane practices of the kabbalists, a mystical sect of Jews, continue as well. One such secret Jew is Berekiah Zarco, an intelligent young manuscript illuminator. Inflamed by love and revenge, he searches, in the crucible of the raging pogrom, for the killer of his beloved uncle Abraham, a renowned kabbalist, discovered murdered in a hidden synagogue along with a young girl in dishabille. Risking his life in streets seething with mayhem, Berekiah tracks down answers among Christians, New Christians, Jews, and the fellow kabbalists of his uncle, whose secret language and codes by turns light and obscure the way to the truth he seeks. A marvelous story, a challenging mystery, and a telling tale of the evils of intolerance, The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon both compels and entertains. “The story moves quickly . . . a literary and historical treat.” —Library Journal ''Remarkable . . . The fever pitch of intensity Zimler maintains is at times overwhelming but never less than appropriate to the Hieronymous Bosch-like landscape he describes. Simultaneously, though, he is able to capture, within the bedlam, quiet moments of tenderness and love.” —Booklist (starred review)