Suchergebnisse

In this article we intend undertake a reading of ancient judaism, or veterotestamentary, in some of its main aspects, in contrast to the Machiavellian view of the role of religion in the organization and expansion of the State. The first step of this enterprise will be given by exposing the founding and delineanting features of the ancient Jewish tradition, especially in the books that make up the so-called Old Testament, demonstranting the using of religion in the ordination and expansion of the State, as well as in the formation of the individual. In a second moment we will demonstrate how to create a new Jewish tradition, influenced and influential on the ancient Greek world, early in the Christian era which will be assimilated and explored in its mystical bias in Renaissance humanism. This Hellenistic Judaism tradition will be best known and assimilated in the European erudite circles of the Renaissance. Finally, we will try to demonstrate how the constitutive features of ancient Judaism, to the detriment of Hellenistic Judaism, can be read in the light of Machiavellian description of the role of religion in the organization and expansion of the State and the formation of the individual.

The distinction between Judaism & Jewishness in the former USSR is examined. In the USSR, the official Jewish identity is ethnic & not related to religious practice or affiliation. This distinction has allowed the survival of Jewishness despite the near destruction of the Judaic religion. Jewish life now faces the challenge of emigration that will appeal disportionately to the religious community & will likely leave the Jewish population increasingly less religious. Allowed self-determination, Soviet Jewry will likely create new expressions of Judaism & Jewishness & the lines between religion & ethnicity will become blurred, though will still remain much more distinct than in the West. 10 References. D. Generoli

Abstract: The question of the relationship between Jews and Judaism, on the one hand, and democracy on the other, is of extraordinary complexity. It requires examining both the Jewish religion, and above all its holy book, the Hebrew Bible, plus three thousand years of Jewish historical and political experience. Today, Jews everywhere are among democracy's strongest supporters and the Jewish state, modern Israel, is the only securely democratic regime in the entire Middle East. The Bible cannot exactly be called a handbook of modern political democracy, but it does often recommend an ethical approach of working toward the good or righteous with and through flawed human persons and institutions, and approach that has a certain affinity with modern democracy's need for sobriety, moderation, and prudence.

American Jews often treat their religion and ethnicity as coterminous. In the Soviet Union religion and ethnicity are formally more distinct, through in most people's minds the two are closely related. American society generally considers Jews both an ethnic and religious group. There is a strong correlation between religion and ethnicity among other groups—for example between Irish and Polish ethnicity, on the one hand, and Catholicism, on the other. But since Catholicism is a universal religion—to say "Irish" or "Polish" is usually is to say "Catholic"—the converse is not true, since to say "Catholic" may also imply French, Spanish, Italian, Brazilian or many other ethnicities.

This article provides an analysis of Occupy Judaism, an explicitly religious expression of Jewish protest, which occurred simultaneously with Occupy Wall Street, the direct-democracy movement of 2011. Occupy Judaism, like Occupy Wall Street, took place both in physical spaces of protest in New York City and digitally, through mobilizing and circulating debate. The article focuses on the words and actions of Daniel Sieradski, the public face and one of the key founders of Occupy Judaism, supplemented by the experiences of others in Occupy Judaism, Occupy Wall Street, and Occupy Faith (a Protestant clergy-led initiative). We investigate what qualified as religion in the public sphere of Occupy Wall Street, the implications of activities that blurred the lines between religious and secular in the context of public protest, and the relationship of these place-based activities to digital practice. The article emphasizes the importance of ethnographically investigating both physical protest and digital debate, which in this case created the potential for Jewish leftist religion to occupy a new space in the public sphere for a short time in 2011. Attention to the mediation of religion in the public sphere has implications for rethinking what constitutes the political, the religious, and the secular, as well as how digital practices may be implicated in debates over these terms.

Tyler reviews The Destructive Power of Religion: Violence in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam edited by J. Harold Ellens.