Maria Diemling

The politics of food: kashrut, food choices and social justice (tikkun olam)

Engagement in social justice (tikkun olam) has in recent decades become an important focus across all major Jewish denominations. This article explores how notions of tikkun olam inform the food choices of an increasing number of contemporary Jews and how these can be understood as innovative forms of consumptive practices that shape Jewish identity beyond the traditional dietary laws (kashrut). Examining halakhic responses to animal cruelty in the production of meat, vegetarianism and new initiatives that promote certification for ‘ethical kashrut’, I argue that, despite internal criticism, these practices can give Jewish consumers responsibility for the ethical production of food but also some control in a highly industrialised process that has led to alienation between the production and consumption of food.

Arendt’s ‘Conscious Pariah’ and the Ambiguous Figure of the Subaltern

Hannah Arendt’s Jewish writings were central to her thinking about the human condition and engaged with the dialectics of modernity, universalism and identity. Her concept of the ‘conscious pariah’ attempted both to define a role for the public intellectual and understand the relationship between Jews and modernity. Controversially she accused Jewish victims of lack of resistance to the Nazis and argued that their victimization resulted from apolitical ‘worldlessness’. We argue that although Arendt’s analysis was original and challenging, her characterization of Jewish history as one of ‘powerlessness’ is exaggerated but, more importantly, her underdeveloped concept of ‘the social’ is insensitive to the complex modalities of resistance and consciousness among subaltern Jewish communities. Furthermore, her lack of interest in religious observance obscures the importance of Judaism as a resource for resistance. This is illustrated by the ‘hidden transcripts’ of Jewish resistance from the early modern period.

Where do you draw the line? Negotiating Kashrut and jewish identity in a small british reform community

Abstract This study explores the importance of food and the negotiation of kosher laws in the context of strategies to maintain an individual and collective Jewish identity among a British Reform Jewish community in a non-metropolitan area. Based on interviews with active members of the local synagogue, it explores the challenges to maintaining Jewish life in a small, disparate community remote from any major Jewish settlement. In the interview data, food emerges as a major point of reference for defining identity and for positioning members of the community in relation to religious traditions. Food observance further serves as a means of defining boundaries within as well as outside the community. This discussion raises several important issues: the place of religious observance in modern societies, the question of membership and boundaries of communities, the diversity of contemporary Jewish Reform observance and, finally, the specific role of food and foodways in negotiating these challenges.

Persecution, Polemic, and Dialogue: essays in Jewish-Christian relations

Over the years, David Berger has earned for himself the well-deserved reputation as being one of the most thoughtful and insightful students of the medieval Jewish-Christian encounter. His works include the seminal The Jewish-Christian Debate in the High Middle Ages (1979), which incorporates an edition and annotated translation of Nizzahon Yashan, one of the most significant, and acerbic, medieval Jewish anti-Christian polemics (the introduction to which is reproduced in this book). Yet Berger is not solely an uninvolved scholar, and he has taken an active role in contemporary discussions between Jews and Christians (as well as co-authoring a short polemical treatise against “Jewish Christianity”). In general, Berger advocates a relationship which is respectful but does not require a blurring of theological commitments or reciprocal doctrinal concessions. An important spokesman for American Centrist Orthodoxy, Berger is now the dean of the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies at Yeshiva University, after a long career at Brooklyn College. This collection of previously published essays, 22 in number and the product of 45 years of scholarship, advocacy, and introspection, examines numerous historical and current aspects of the Jewish-Christian encounter.

Navigating Christian space: Jews and Christian images in early modern German lands

This article explores some of the strategies used by late mediaeval and early modern Jews living in German lands to counter powerful and ubiquitous Christian images, symbols and holidays. Drawing on a variety of sources, including accounts written by converts from Judaism, Jewish attitudes to the cross, churches, church bells and Christmas are examined. While Jews were very much aware of the dangers of any open expression of their antagonism to Christendom, they developed a range of everyday acts of resistance, such as conscious avoidance of Christian places, linguistic strategies that included Hebrew puns on Christian terminology, and refraining from Torah study and instead reading ‘Toldot Yeshu’ on Christmas Eve.

The Ethnographer and the Jewish Body: Johann Jacob Schudt on the civilisation process of the Jews of Frankfurt

Johann Jacob Schudts ethnographic work Jüdische Merckwürdigkeiten has been described as a turning point in anti-Jewish polemical discourse because of its use of secular arguments. This article examines how Schudt writes about the body of Jews by focusing on notions of cleanliness and pollution. I argue that Schudt, struggling to reconcile his scholarly ambitions with his devout Lutheranism, rejects traditional polemical arguments about the Jewish body based on theological assumptions and judges the physical appearance according to social and cultural norms and expectations of early modern Protestant society. However, Schudt does remain committed to his religious convictions when he suggests that true civilisation can only be found in Christianity. In order to turn into proper members of society, Jews not only have to change their hygiene but also their religion.