Search Results (254)

This article analyzes the work of Fr. Elias Friedman, whose legacy of theological work on Jewish identity and Jewish conversion to Catholicism serves as the foundation of the Association of Hebrew Catholics, of which he is the founder. Friedman frames his work as a sensitive approach to Jewish identity and Catholic faith, but as this paper demonstrates, his work reveals a reiteration of some of the most entrenched and historically devastating tropes of Christian anti-Judaism, as well as racial antisemitism. This article presents three main arguments. First, it demonstrates that Friedman’s work evidences a theological anti-Judaism characteristic of Catholicism prior to the Second Vatican Council, which he maintained firmly even after the theological revision of Vatican II rejected such views; and furthermore, that his work also expresses an antisemitism that reflects the modern racial antisemitism adopted by the Nazi regime. Second, this article examines the positive reception of Friedman’s work, as evidenced not only in the revered position he holds within the Association for Hebrew Catholics, but also by the nihil obstat and imprimatur on both of Friedman’s monographs, that is, the official stamp of ecclesiastical approval within the Catholic Church, which declares that the work is “free of doctrinal and moral error.” It proposes that these factors evidence the uncritical reception of his work not only within the Association of Hebrew Catholics, but also on behalf of the institutional Catholic Church. Third, it raises the question of the extent to which Friedman’s identity as a Jewish convert to Catholicism is relevant in the analysis and reception of his work. It argues that his Jewish identity makes his concoction of religious anti-Judaism and racial antisemitism particularly potent, rendering anodyne even the most virulently antisemitic of his statements. Full article

The capture of Jerusalem during the First Crusade, the extirpation of various heresies in the twelfth and thirteen centuries, the gradual expansion of Christian rule in the Iberian peninsula, and the mass conversion of Jews to Christianity there during the fourteenth century, all seemed to support a Christian triumphalism that imagined that as the End Time approached, Jews and other infidels would inevitably be absorbed into the Church. Nonetheless, an expanding medieval awareness of the many ‘Others’ beyond Christendom contributed to Christian anxieties that Jews (or Muslims) might expand their number through mass conversion, and not Christians. This paper will examine some sources of this anxiety. Full article

With good reason, Vatican II encourages the Eastern ecclesial realities to preserve and, if necessary, to rediscover their own traditions (also, even if not only, for ecumenical reasons). There are, however, certain aspects of the heritage of the Eastern Churches that require urgent revision in a spirit of consistency with the teachings of the Council. This is undoubtedly the case with regard to the anti-Jewish elements so specific to the entire Christian tradition (more or less generalised insults and judgments; substitutionary and appropriative perspectives; a purely instrumental use of the Jewish scriptures) and, in the absence of full reception of the Council, still reflected in the public prayers of the Romanian Greek-Catholic Church, to the detriment of that spirit of respect, fraternity, and dialogue theoretically embraced throughout the Catholic world today. In the light of Nostra aetate §4 and the subsequent developments that flowed from it, I shall try in this contribution to outline some possible criteria for reforming the offices of Holy Week, aiming to show that—at least in this particular case—it is not enough merely to refer to the OE, let alone to use it to justify a comfortable tendency towards inertia. Apart from the fact that it is this very Decree that speaks of a possible and necessary organic progress, we cannot ignore the more general spirit of renewal of the Council and its other documents (the NA, the SC, the DV, the GS). The challenge would be to engender a creative fidelity, which—while preserving the best of tradition—surpasses certain of its contingent elements. Full article

Some studies have pointed to the Jewish background of the prayer that, according to the gospels of Matthew and Luke, Jesus taught his disciples. However, the formulations of LP’s words do not necessarily presuppose the conclusion of the formation of Jewish prayers and do not necessarily presuppose a unidirectional influence of Jewish prayers on the formation of LP. This prayer and its “midrash” in John 17 may have influenced the formulation and final formation of some Jewish prayers. The differences between these prayers may indicate the mutual influence that, in some cases, took place throughout the history of their formation. This reciprocity may be due to the intention to establish and define the differences between the religious groups of Judaic origin that inherited these prayers and between the communities that recited them. The crystallization of biblical themes in these prayers highlights the common heritage of these groups and a different understanding of the fulfilment of God’s word in relation to the coming of his kingdom. While this process, characterized by a conflict of interpretations, took place “within Judaism,” it also led to the parting of the ways of Judeo-Christians from the Synagogue. Full article

The article provides an analysis of the geographic origins of Karaites in four areas where Karaite congregations were commonly found after the Middle Ages, namely, Arabic Middle East (territories of modern Iraq, Syria, Israel, and Egypt), Constantinople/Istanbul and its area, the Crimean Peninsula, and Eastern European territories belonging today to Lithuania and Ukraine. It combines available historical, onomastic, and linguistic data revealing the migrations of Karaites to and inside these regions. For the first two regions, no ambiguity exists about the roots of local Karaites. Their ancestors were Jews who adopted the Karaite version of Judaism. For the Crimean communities, various factors favor the hypothesis about the territories of the Byzantine Empire (which later became Ottoman), and more specifically, Constantinople and its area are the only major source for their development. The Karaite communities in such historical Eastern European provinces as Lithuania (properly speaking), Volhynia, and Red Ruthenia were created after migrations from Crimea to these territories. The article also discusses medieval, cultural, and potentially genetic links between Karaites and Rabbanite Jews in the areas in question. It also addresses one phonological feature, the sibilant confusion, shared by the Galician–Volhynian dialect of the Karaim language and the Lithuanian dialect of Yiddish. Full article

Many contemporaries considered the crusader conquest of Jerusalem in 1099 as a significant moment in Salvation History. This article investigates how the reception of the Roman conquest of the city (70 CE) contributed to such an understanding. The important Benedictine exegete Rupert of Deutz (c. 1070–1129) refers to the Roman conquest in 79 passages within his opus, notably in his various biblical commentaries. This case study shows how the past event provided a rationale, exegetical and providential in nature, to understand three dimensions: (a) the role of the Jews, especially that it had been necessary to deprive them of the Holy Land; (b) the current situation of and purpose of Christians in the Holy Land; and (c) the End of Time, which was expected in Jerusalem, and which Rupert anchored already significantly in his own present. His commentary on John’s Revelation even asserted that the Roman conquest had opened the sixth of seven seals (Rev. 6:12). Therefore, the Apocalypse had been ongoing since 70 CE—but only in the Holy Land, a fact that made it necessary for Christians to travel there. The article thus demonstrates that biblical commentaries are potent sources for both crusade studies and historical research in general. Full article

Interpretation of the New Testament (NT) in general and the Pauline corpus in particular still appears to be at a crossroads. Scholars continue to publish articles and monographs in binary opposition to one another. The terminology used to designate the overarching perspectives of these binary publications sharply contrasts a “traditional” perspective (Protestant in general, and Lutheran in particular) with a variously named “new” or “radical new” perspective. Most recently, beyond the imprecise “new” terminology, the non-traditional perspective is being referred to as the “post-supersessionist”, “nonsupersessionist”, or “within Judaism” perspective and is still strongly being contested. Historically speaking, these antithetical perspectives cannot both be completely correct. Arguably, then, the time has come to explore what the study of Kuhnian paradigms might reveal about this state of affairs in NT scholarship. Most important, in proffering a twofold hermeneutical way forward that is focused on better understanding the emic perspective of the texts that we interpret—to the extent humanly possible—it is hoped that we might become more keenly aware of the ethical implications of our paradigms, terminology, and exegesis for those who rely on our work for their understanding and appropriation of the Scriptures in their everyday living. Full article

For the past three decades, Black Jews in France have made their presence manifest. These believers identify as African, West Indian, or biracial, and are either converts or native Jews. They may either assert their faith from within the institutions of French Jewry, or claim their Jewishness without practicing Judaism. They have widely different backgrounds, but share a common need for identity reconstruction. This paper aims to discuss this Africana minority within the broader French Jewish community, taking into account its relation to the majority. What is the positioning of Black Jews as French citizens or residents? How do they perceive themselves when reading the Torah and through the gaze of their fellow White Jews? What is their place within the global Jewish world? Such are the questions this paper will try to address, building on fifteen years of fieldwork in France and assessing their involvement in French Jewry and its impact with regard to participation, integration, legitimacy, and conflicts. Full article

This article investigates how the Jewish leadership in early medieval Palestine employed religious elements to consolidate its power among Jewish communities across the Muslim world. It suggests that the Palestinian Academy in Jerusalem leveraged its location to enhance its authority. The first section analyzes the 921/922 calendar dispute between the Palestinian and Babylonian Jewish centers. I argue that this ostensibly religious conflict was fundamentally a political struggle for leadership, demonstrating how religious authority was utilized for political gain. The second section examines the Hoshana Rabbah ceremony on the Mount of Olives, a key event presided over by the Palestinian Academy and its head, the Gaon. Taking place on the final day of Sukkot, this ceremony attracted Jewish pilgrims from across the Muslim world to Jerusalem. This part analyzes how the Palestinian Academy strategically employed this significant religious gathering—acknowledged even by rival Jewish centers—as a political demonstration to assert its leadership over the Jewish world. Furthermore, the analysis delves into the ceremony’s historical origins, the motivations behind its establishment, and its deep connection to Jerusalem. Full article

In recent decades, various communities and organizations have been working to promote LGBTQ+ inclusion and justify their equal rights. This task becomes more complex within religious communities that are based on traditional values that reject homosexuality. This historical-anthropological study presents “K’Afikim BaNegev”—a special manual that includes more than 347 pages and incorporates 73 diverse sources distributed in early 1994 in American Conservative Jewish congregations aimed at combating homophobia. I clarify how the documents reveal progressive qualitative methodologies for identifying and understanding barriers and mechanisms of community change. Textual analysis of personal letters, educational programs, workshops, and rabbinical sermons revealed two methods for creating this egalitarian change and constructing the Jewish community as a safe space for gay men and lesbian women and their family members: (1) using and promoting personal narrative (storytelling) as a channel to voice LGBTQ+ people’s stories and (2) adapting a text-centered approach that considers biblical sources as authoritative in recognizing LGBTQ+ identity. Thus, the acceptance of homosexuality was not conceptualized in terms of liberal human rights rhetoric but rather as a religious commandment. Thus, I define this novel initiative as an act of ‘queer Jewish activism,’ offering a new typology for community development and practice that advocates for LGBTQ+ individuals within contemporary religious communities. Full article

This article examines the emotional and intellectual dimensions of Torah study in contemporary Lithuanian Haredi Judaism in Israel by analyzing the cultural construction of ahavat ha-Torah (love of Torah). While scholarly discussions of religious love have traditionally focused on interpersonal love or love of God, this study highlights a unique form of love directed toward a textual object—the Torah. Drawing on discourse-analytic approaches and engaging both high and popular cultural sources within the Lithuanian Haredi world, the article explores how the ethos of this tradition constructs the Torah as an object of emotional attachment. To understand the nature of this distinctive form of love, the article develops three interrelated conceptual lenses: (1) love of Torah as love of wisdom, (2) the perception of Torah as an entity capable of emotional relationship, and (3) the ethos of toil (amal ha-Torah) as a practice of devotional attachment. These categories serve to unpack how Lithuanian Haredi discourse constructs a model of love that fuses intellectual rigor with emotional intensity. The article concludes by suggesting that within Lithuanian Haredi Judaism, while God is often depicted as transcendent and distant, the Torah takes on an emotionally immanent role—serving as a locus of sacred attachment, identity, and even revelation. Full article

The very latest scholarship on the Swiss Reformation has urged us to resituate the conceptual origins and first articulations of a Reformed Covenant theology in the Zurich of Zwingli, Jud, Pellikan, and Bullinger, rather than in the Geneva of Calvin and Beza. Using insights from the recent literature of early modern memory, book history, and art history, this article provides a critical new reading of the preface, text, and paratext of the 1531 folio edition of the Zurich Bible. In doing so, it elucidates how, working with a humanist conception of historical memory, an early Reformed Covenant theology was articulated through its rhetorical juxtaposition of an imagined Israel and Rabbinic Judaism. In line with recent work on the role of historical models in early Reformed Bible culture, I contend that the language of historical memory holds the key to understanding this Reformed rearticulation of Covenant theology and its intended effect on readers of the Zurich Bible. Insights from this reading shed light on the Zurich origins of Reformed Christianity’s ambivalent history of defining itself vis-a-vis an imagined Israel and Rabbinic Judaism, with implications for understanding Protestant discourses on Israel, Judaism, idolatry, antijudaism, and antisemitism. Full article

Thomas de Cantilupe (d. 1282) is one of the last medieval English Catholics to have been canonized as a saint, following a remarkable career in which he twice served as the Chancellor of the University of Oxford, as the Chancellor of England, and as Bishop of Hereford. This paper examines reports of his anti-Judaism and its potential influence in England in the period before the English crown expelled the entire Jewish community in 1290. Full article

The Bīsotūn inscription of Darius I (DB) is a masterpiece of ancient literature containing descriptions of historical events, imperial propaganda, cultic statements, ethical instructions, wisdom insights, blessings and curses, and engagements with posterity. It was disseminated far and wide within the empire and left a lasting impression on the cultures with which it came into contact. However, a specific section of this royal inscription (DB 4:36–92), carefully crafted to address future audiences in the second person, stands out sharply from the rest of the text. This passage has made a striking, profound, and durable impression on future generations—which extended over the longue durée in both time and space. This article focuses on the decisive cultic theme undergirding DB in general and its fourth column in particular namely, the king’s profound sense of imitatio dei in the cosmic battle against “the Lie,” complemented by his appeal to an imitatio Darii by all future audiences of his words. The impact of this call can be traced in later literature: in a DB variant found at Elephantine and, most notably, a hitherto unknown exegetical legend found in Qumran, which seeks to explain this portion of DB through an Achaemenid court tale. Full article

Studies on the presence of the Old Testament (OT) in the New Testament (NT) have evolved significantly over time. Scholars have moved from a focus on identifying the textual version employed by the evangelists to attempts to systematize the various levels of the OT’s presence, classifying them as quotations, allusions, or echoes. In reality, biblical references permeate the NT, often going unnoticed. Unveiling them and, above all, approaching them through the interpretative logic characteristic of Judaism at the turn of the era imparts a surplus of meaning to the NT text. This is what this article demonstrates through an example from the Gospel according to Mark. There is no doubt about the strong biblical resonances in the passage describing Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem (Mk 11:1-11). In addition to a quotation from Psalm 118 (Mk 11:9-10), scholars recognize an allusion to Genesis and multiple references to texts from the book of Zechariah. This article will illustrate how drawing upon Jewish exegetical tradition from the turn of the era sheds light both on the way these OT references are interpreted and on how the various biblical references interconnect, enriching and expanding the meaning of the Gospel passage. Full article