Harvey E. Goldberg

Ecologic and Demographic Aspects of Rural Tripolitanian Jewry: 1853-1949

As Libya is the smallest in population of the four Magẖreb countries, so Libyan Jewry was less numerous than those of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. Jewish settlement in rural Tripolitania is quite old. A tombstone reportedly found near Tajura dating from the tenth century (Cazes 1890; Slouschz 1927: 11–12) and El-Bekris eleventh century mention of the Jews of Jado in the Jebel Nefusa (El Bekri 1913: 25) are two of the earliest post-Islamic examples. The present discussion, however, focuses on the century before the mass migration of Tripolitanian Jewry to Israel, which began in 1949. At that time there were over 29,000 Jews living in Tripolitania (see Table 3), and somewhere between 4,000 and 6,000 living in Cyrenaica.

What goes around, comes around: rotating credit associations among Ethiopian women in Israel

This article looks at how working-class Ethiopian women, who have migrated to Israel, have sought empowerment and economic control through the establishment of rotating credit associations known as iqqub. In the changing world of Ethiopian Israeli women, iqqub associations and their specific cultural manifestations constitute a highly meaningful experience, whose building-blocks incorporate the financial, the social, the ritualistic, and the symbolic. It is a complex mechanism of tradition and renewal: its existence challenges paternalistic assumptions regarding the status of Ethiopian immigrants vis-à-vis the state and its institutions and the experience of Ethiopian Israeli women specifically. As we shall demonstrate, the iqqub serves as a generative focus for gender relations and the dramatic changes that have affected them. Ethnographic examination of the iqqub and its internal discourse expands our understanding of the dynamics of change among the groups cultural, gender, and power relations.

The Oriental and the Orientalist: The Meeting of Mordecai Ha-Cohen and Nahum Slouschz

There has been growing interest in orientalist constructions of Jewish groups. One claim is that orientalist scholars assume the right to speak for those they deem incapable of representing themselves. An opportunity to examine this claim appears in the work of Nahum Slouschz regarding Jews in Libya in the early twentieth century, as his travel in and research on the country were both enmeshed in the work of a local scholar, Mordecai Ha—Cohen, who wrote about his community. Their meeting and work enable an in-depth case study of Jewish orientalism that raises general questions concerning the notion.

Anthropology and Hebrew Bible Studies: Modes of Interchange and Interpretation

Interaction between anthropology and biblical scholarship began because of perceived similarities between “simpler” societies and the practices and ideas seen in the Bible. After some disengagement in the first half of the twentieth century, new cross-disciplinary possibilities were envisioned as the structuralist approach emerged in anthropology. Ritual and mythology were major topics that received attention and structuralist methods were partially adopted by some biblical scholars. Anthropological research itself extended to complex societies and also affected historical studies, yielding models of inquiry that engaged a range of disciplines. Among the issues explored in this essay are ritual and notions of purity in the Bible, and the place of literacy in Israelite society and culture. These discussions are followed by three examples of structuralist-inspired analysis that partially take into account historical and literacy-based facets of the Bible.

Guy Ben-Porat. Between State and Synagogue: The Secularization of Contemporary Israel . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. 280 pp.

Between State and Synagogue is a pathbreaking book that lays out central parameters of the development of secular life in today’s Israel. It is based on the growing recognition that secular life, as well as religious life, demands understanding and analysis. But rather than probing the conceptual and ideological dimensions and dilemmas of secularism, as has been done in recent studies vis-à-vis Islam (see Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 52, no. 3, 2010), Ben-Porat focuses on the processes of secularization, which he defines as a “decline in religious authority.” This decline has been a salient feature of Israeli life since the 1990s, even as it is “partial and non-linear” and multidimensional in its causes and expressions. Secularization stems from various social processes: economic, demographic, and—utilizing Ulrich Beck’s term—“subpolitical.” The latter adjective reflects countless individual decisions that are not aimed at turning Israel into a more secular society, but which cumulatively result in incremental institutional change in that direction. One critical background factor is the large-scale immigration from the former Soviet Union, which brought approximately one million newcomers after 1989. Another is the meshing of Israel’s economy with global trends, along with consumerism and cultural embourgoisement, processes evident from the late 1980s. Within the context of these developments, Ben-Porat documents the emergence of “secular entrepreneurs” who have identified and capitalized on new and expanding demands. These are as varied as representatives of the liberal religious movements (Conservative-Masorti and Reform-Yahadut Mitkademet), who enable couples to hold Jewish weddings in Israel in coordination with formal marriage abroad, and kibbutzim that set up cemeteries where funerals and burials can be conducted according to personal wishes, unencumbered by official rabbinic supervision. These entrepreneurs have responded to changing expectations within wide sectors of the society, even beyond the immigrants from the former Soviet Union, and the result has been a clear expansion of realms of behavior that have become disentangled from Orthodox religious rules. This has taken place even as there has been minimal change in the political and legal arrangements that have undergirded the influence of religion in previous decades, and Book Reviews

The triple loci of Jewish-Maghribi ethnicity: voluntary associations in Israel and in France

New lines of inquiry are presented concerning ongoing ties between Jews from the Maghrib, who now live in Israel and in France, and their natal lands. These are concretised in the activities of voluntary associations (French: amicales; Hebrew amutot) devoted to preserving the memories of, and in some cases connections to, their former communities. The growth of these associations since the 1950s is outlined, and an analysis of recent developments entails a three-sided transnational field that responds to international political shifts, internal processes within Israel and France, connections among these factors, and the mutual links of both of these to Maghrib countries. Understanding this field requires envisioning a malleable matrix of identities, and related activities, that appear to carry a watchword of commitment to Israel or/and France along with continued attachment to the Maghrib.

Rites of Passage: How Today's Jews Celebrate, Commemorate, and Commiserate (review)

Vol. 30, No. 2 ♦ 2012 financial resources he provided during the Revolution as well as whether he was ever reimbursed—make Salomon’s legend particularly malleable. Wenger relies heavily in this chapter, and throughout the book, on the idea of “myth” in crafting narratives about American Jewish history. Yet, she never clearly spells out how myth operates in the creation of American Jewish heritage. Wenger convincingly writes: “Separating fact from fiction in the legend is, in the final analysis, a less compelling project than recognizing the meaning of the myth itself as a crucial element with American Jewish heritage” (p. 209). The point would have been even more insightful had “myth” been clearly defined. Nonetheless, History Lessons is the most detailed recent monograph on a critically important trope in American Jewish history. As Wenger argues, the narratives that American Jews have crafted about the intersections of Judaism and democracy have “remained a remarkably durable component of American Jewish self-definition” (p. 222). Hopefully, her book will promote more rigorous thinking, in the classroom and outside of it, about the ways Jews have sought to integrate themselves into national narratives. Daniel Greene Newberry Library

COMMUNAL ORGANIZATION OF THE JEWS OF TRIPOLITANIA DURING THE LATE OTTOMAN PERIOD

The Jews of Tripoli trace the formation of their community in modern times to the sixteenth century. Systematic information on communal organization is available from the late eighteenth century onward. In this essay, Harvey Goldberg, Professor of Anthropology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, outlines the traditional communal structure, and analyzes changes within the community resulting from the Ottoman reforms over the course of the nineteenth century. Communal organization reflected local traditions as well as influences from Jerba to the west and Eretz Israel to the east. Within the framework of time-honored norms and external changes, individuals and groups sought to shape communal life in accordance with their interests.

Jews of the Latin American Republics.

In this substantially revised edition of her study on contemporary Latin American Jewry, Judith Laikin Elkin not only defines the Latin American diaspora as a distinct branch of world Jewry, but integrates them into the field of modern Jewish history.