Nordisk judaistik/Scandinavian Jewish Studies

Editorial

Ruth Illman — 2022-12-19

Editorial for the Volume 33, Issue 2

A note on rethinking Martin Buber’s ‘I consider a tree’

Richard Raskin — 2022-12-19

In the original English version of I and Thou (1937) and in a postscript to the second English edition (1958), Martin Buber assured his readers that an I–Thou relationship is possible between a person and a tree. Considering the importance of dialogue in that form of relationship, commentators have often looked for ways to bypass the tree’s inability to speak in reconceptualising the I–Thou relationship. This article looks instead at the importance of the person’s ability to hear what trees may be telling us as a way of understanding Buber’s point. A story found in Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning (1946) is used as an illustration.

The symbolic universe of the Temple

Johanna Bokedal — 2022-12-19

For Jews, the Jerusalem Temple is the historical focus of ritual practice and pilgrimage. After its destruction in 70 ce, synagogues gradually became important centres for community and ritual, yet the Temple remained a symbolic site of hope and longing in diasporic Judaism in manifold ways. By means of a case-study of a fifth-century synagogue in the town of Sepphoris, this article examines the synagogue and its mosaic floor to consider the hypothesis that the Jews that commissioned and used this synagogue had a self-categorised religious identity (cf. Turner et al. 1987) which referenced a symbolic universe of the Temple (cf. Berger and Luckmann 1966) and can be studied through visual, material and ritual symbols. It is further suggested that material and visual evidence must be seen in relation to the rituals performed in the synagogue, and the synagogue itself.

Finlandssvensk och judisk

Ruth Illman — 2022-12-19

Artikeln undersöker hur frågor om finlandssvenskhet och judiskhet kopplas samman, kontrasteras och diskuteras i intervjuer med personer som – på skiftande vis – identifierar sig med bägge identitetsmarkörer. Artikeln söker svara på frågan hur det svenska i Finland uppfattas av intervjupersonerna: rymmer detta också det judiska och känner de sig hemma i den föreställda finlandssvenskheten? Med vardagsreligiositet (vernacular religion) som analytisk ram söker artikeln belysa de svåra val som uppkommer i vardagen för personer som vill leva judiskt på svenska i Finland idag, samt lyfter fram hur finlandssvenska kulturtraditioner värnas och förs vidare i judisk tappning i dagens Finland.

Contemporary discourses on general definitions of antisemitism

Jonah Jehoshua Jürgen Bogle — 2022-12-19

This review article gives an overview of the two most influential definitions of antisemitism in Europe: the non-legally binding working definition by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) and the so-called Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism. Furthermore, the article explains where the definitions come from and summarises the current debates and discourses on how to define antisemitism in view of the history and politics of Europe. It also gives brief attention to the Nexus Document as a third influential definition, which plays a more important role in the United States. The article ends with a reflection on the definition offered by the historian Helen Fein, which is more action-based, and Amos Morris-Reich’s statement of the importance of reflecting on the role of language and the ability of language to create hate and to hurt.

Jødiske karakterer i dansk fortellende litteratur på 1800-tallet

Christhard Hoffmann — 2022-12-19

Bokanmeldelse av Katharina Bocks Philosemitische Schwärmereien. Jüdische Figuren in der dänischen Erzählliteratur des 19. Jahrhunderts (Tübingen: Narr Francke Attempto Verlag, 2021)

En svensk-jødisk historie

Vibeke Kieding Banik — 2022-12-19

Bokanmeldelse av Johan Schücks Herman Friedländer. En svensk judisk historia (Stockholm: Medströms bokförlag, 2021)

Handbok om svenska judars arkiv

Kenth Sjöblom — 2022-12-19

Bokrecension av Carl Henrik Carlssons Källor till judarnas historia i Sverige. Arkivguide (Stockholm: Riksarkivet, 2022)

Ett starkt bidrag till svensk-judisk historieskrivning

Daniel Leviathan — 2022-12-19

Bokrecension av Göran Rosenbergs Rabbi Marcus Ehrenpreis obesvarade kärlek (Stockholm: Albert Bonniers Förlag, 2021)