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"Food for Peace": The Vegan Religion of the Hebrews of Jerusalem

Author(s): Shelley Elkayam / Language(s): English Issue: XXVI/2014

A debate over the morality of Kosher slaughter [Shechita (Hebrew: שחיטה)] has raged in Poland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Denmark, where the Jewish ritual slaughter was outlawed. The more the debate goes on, the more awareness arises to Shechita as a basic Jewish religious practice. Yet veganism is a Hebrew religious operation too. This article discusses Hebrew vegan belief in terms meaningful to Jews, yet considering its utopian nature, in terms applicable to others as well. Both Shechita and veganism have universal Hebrew claims. Yet both claims are to be studied. Within this vast theme, I will analyze here veganism only, with respect to its utopian role and as a theological structure of one, yet global, community: the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem. They believe themselves to be the descendants of Judah, the fourth son of Jacob Israel. They are Jewish by their cultural nature: they observe Shabbat, Torah and a weekly fast. In 70 A.D. after the Romans destroyed the second temple they escaped and fled southward and westward to various nations in Africa two millennia ago where they were sold as slaves and were enslaved in America. They left America in 1967 led by their spiritual leader Ben Ammi, defined their departure as an exodus from America. Via Liberia – where they became vegans – they arrived in Israel in 1969, established an urban kibbutz, a collective communal living which is located in a desert region. Like most Jews, their diet has tremendous importance, but unlike most Jews they are vegan. The African Hebrews have very specific vegan dietary practices. Their tradition includes teaching and studying a special diet, which is vegetarian, organic and self-produced. They observe Shabbat strictly. On Shabbat, they fast and cleanse. This mirrors their spiritual outlook that eating is a hard labor of which they are obliged to rest from by the Ten Commandments. This article presents a breakthrough idea that fasting on Shabbat indeed reflects an ancient Israelite religious tradition. “Food for Peace” s a metaphor for the theology of the Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem unfolding their messianic utopia through which they believe people may achieve inner peace and even world peace, encompassing decades of powerful hopes, realities and nutritious lifestyle.

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Aramejskie przekłady Tory jako świadectwo interpretacji tekstu biblijnego w tradycji żydowskiej

Author(s): Anna Kuśmirek / Language(s): Polish Issue: 29/2014

The Targums are early Jewish translations of books of the Hebrew Bible into Aramaic. According to the definition, but also in practice, Aramaic translations operate at two levels: translation of the Hebrew text and its interpretation. The Pentateuch is at the centre of Jewish life, therefore more than one Aramaic versions of the Torah have been created: Targum Onqelos, Palestinian Targum (Targum Neofiti, fragments from Cairo Geniza, Fragment Targums, and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan). The character of these versions depends on the date, place and dialect of at the original targumic tradition. The targumists read the Torah as the Scripture transmitted to them and their contemporaries. Their reflection on the text led to the contribution of new elements to it. The material was added to the Aramaic translations of the biblical text not for linguistic reasons, but because of current theological exegesis, formed inside Jewish religious communities. The Aramaic translators used a variety of methods and techniques of translation. Significantly, they resorted to contemporarization of the Sacred texts, which occurred at three levels: historical, cultural, and religious. The targumists tried not only to convey the text of the Pentateuch, which included the law of Moses, but also to solve problems associated with the interpretation of the meaning of the Torah. Thus the Targums can be seen as an attempt to adapt the Scripture to the official Jewish law (halakah). With regard to the liturgical context, the Aramaic translations became midrashic and exgegetical commentaries. The targumists aimed at reconciling the ancient text books of the Hebrew Bible with its later theological vision. This phenomenon is defined as the targumization or ideologization of the Biblical Hebrew text. The aim of this article is to describe the characteristics of targumic literature and present selected examples of different Aramaic “actualizations” of the Torah.

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Upadli (czy) giganci? Kilka uwag o nefilim i gigantes w Biblii hebrajskiej i Septuagincie

Author(s): Wojciech Kosior / Language(s): Polish Issue: 29/2014

The larger the gap between languages, cultures and religions involved in the translation process, the more challenging it becomes, as was the case with the Septuagint [LXX] rendition of the Hebrew Bible [HB], which aimed at compromising Hellenistic and Semitic entourages. Valuable insight into the translator’s work is offered by an analysis of a particular word or phrase which undergoes a linguistic and cultural transmission. The word nephilim appears just three times in the Masoretic text of the HB: once in Genesis 6:4 and twice in Numbers 13:33. In the LXX both of these instances have been rendered by the Greek gigantes, which means that the translator identified the mysterious antediluvian figures as the primeval inhabitants of one of the Canaanite valleys and, at the same time, interpreted both of them as the Semitic equivalent of the Greek giants. Given the etymological and semantic differences between nephilim and gigantes, the question arises: why was this particular decision made? This study follows the hypothetical process of interpretation and translation by reconstructing the ancient Greek mythical complex of giants and by analyzing the biblical sources (Genesis 6:1–4; Numbers 13:28–33; Ezekiel 32:22–27) where the nephilim/nophelim appear. Moreover, this article outlines the factors that have influenced the translation. Finally, by scrutinizing the issue of the nefilim–gigantes this article describes the ancient biblical translator’s workshop on the particular example. Given the limitations of every translation, it is crucial to acknowledge the ambivalent nature of this process: undoubtedly, the translator strives to find the most appropriate term being the closest semantic equivalent of the word in question at the same time, however, the particular decision reducing the semantic uncertainty blurs other interpretative options. In other words, whatever had been the initial interpretation of the mysterious nephilim in these passages, it was in a way “overwritten” and thus substituted by the Greek gigantes.

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„W imię naglących potrzeb literatury narodowej”. Tłumaczenie i żydowski nacjonalizm kulturowy w Europie Wschodniej

Author(s): Kenneth Moss / Language(s): Polish Issue: 29/2014

This essay examines the rhetoric and practice of translation in the Russian Empire’s Hebrew and Yiddish cultural communities and focuses on the intriguing fact that by 1917, many of the writers, critics, intellectuals, and publishers committed to a Jewish nationalist vision of Hebrew or Yiddish cultural renaissance were convinced that a massive program of literary translation was their most essential task. The study reconstructs the guiding translation program of this divided intelligentsia, which posited a universal canon of European and even world literature that had to be incorporated whole into Hebrew and Yiddish literature systematically and rapidly, without any sort of Judaization or popularization, and with an emphasis on the expansion of the expressive capacities of the target language and its writers. The essay traces how this commitment was expressed and embodied in translation theory, practices of selection and publishing, and in several acts of translation themselves. It further demonstrates how this translation program and its practices were linked to a larger vision of programmatic ‘de-Judaization’ or ‘de-parochialization’ of Hebrew and Yiddish culture propounded by some of the most committed Hebraists and Yiddishists in Russia. Finally, it argues that this translation program expresses a more general and seemingly paradoxical variant of East European Jewish cultural nationalism which held that a modern Jewish national culture could only be truly worthwhile and compelling to modern creators and consumers if it was universal in its expressive potentials and demarcated from other national cultures by language rather than content.

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Manewry wokół “muru chińskiego”. Tłumaczenia z literatury jidysz na polski przed pierwszą wojną światową

Author(s): Natalia Krynicka / Language(s): Polish Issue: 29/2014

This article addresses the complex relationship of both Jews and non-Jews to Yiddish language and Jewish literature in Poland. It analyses the evolution of translators’ motivations and their approach to the original texts, as well as the reactions of readers of Jewish literature during three decades (1885–1914). The study opens with the first translations from Yiddish into Polish (and at the same time the first translations from Yiddish to foreign languages in general): Klemens Junosza-Szaniawski’s Donkiszot żydowski (The Jewish Don Quixote, 1885) and Szkapa (The Nag, 1886) by Mendele Moykher Sforim (Sholem-Yankev Abramovitsh). Their publication was a notable event in Warsaw’s intellectual circles and provoked lively polemics in the press. In his introduction, Junosza used the expression “the Great Wall of China” to define the barriers dividing the Jewish and Polish societies, which he hoped to overcome at least in part through his translations. The phrase was later adopted by critics and the following generation of translators, who regularly, albeit with different intentions, made references to the work of their predecessor. Apart from the translations of Mendele’s novels, the article also discusses the texts published by Yiddish-language writers in assimilatory periodicals in Congress Poland (Izraelita in Warsaw) and in Galicia (Ojczyzna in Lwów). They were programmatically hostile to the language of Ashkenazi Jews, but their relationship to Yiddish literature turns out to have been more complex and changing with time. The analysis also includes: the anthology Miliony! (Millions!, 1903) translated by Jerzy Ohr, a journalist close to the extreme right circles; Miasteczko (The Shtetl, 1910) by Sholem Ash, whose introduction reflected the radicalization of Polish-Jewish relations; and Safrus (1905), a collection of fiction and essays edited by Jan Kirszrot, who represented the Jewish nationalist milieu. These translations and their reception illustrate well the complex issues of identity, cultural belonging, assimilation, return to the roots, image of the Other, cultural stereotypes or fascination and rejection, characteristic of a multicultural and a multinational society.

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Polskie przekłady literatury pięknej z języków hebrajskiego i jidysz jako książki (1918-1939) – rekonesans badawczy

Author(s): Monika Jaremków / Language(s): Polish Issue: 29/2014

Existing studies on interwar Polish editions of translations of Hebrew and Yiddish literature have focused on various literary genres published in a book form (mostly prose but also poetry and drama). This article analyses Polish-Jewish cultural relations from the bibliological point of view, concentrating on the different book-forms in which translations from Jewish languages were published, such as almanacs, books for children, textbooks and series. The analysis of the editorial framework, designs, illustrations, information on covers, and book structure can not only provide insight into the editorial strategies of publishers but also give information on intended readers. Moreover, a comparison of pre-WWII and post-war editions sheds light on the changes in the reading public, its needs, expectations and knowledge about Jewish culture.

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Nieżydowskie języki magii żydowskiej. O swojskości, obcości i przekładzie

Author(s): Marek Tuszewicki / Language(s): Polish Issue: 29/2014

The article discusses foreign magical incantations within the healing practices of the East-European Jewry. Indicating the importance of the category of “strangeness”, it examines several magical texts, focusing on their adaptation and translation into Yiddish culture.

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„Da wär’s halt gut, wenn man Englisch könnt!“ Robert Gilbert, Hermann Leopoldi i rola języków między wygnaniem a powrotem

Author(s): Joachim Schlör / Language(s): Polish Issue: 29/2014

Robert Gilbert (b. Robert David Winterfeld, 1899–1978) was one of Germany’s most successful writers of popular songs, many of them made famous by operettas and movies in the late years of the Weimar Republic (Ein Freund, ein guter Freund; Liebling, mein Herz läßt Dich grüßen; Was kann der Sigismund dafür?). In 1933, Gilbert emigrated to Vienna and later moved on to Paris, 1938, and New York, 1939. After his return to Europe in 1951, Gilbert started a second, again very successful, career as translator of American Musical Comedies, from My Fair Lady (1951) via Oklahoma or Annie Get Your Gun to Cabaret (1970). During his years in New York, he had acquired the English language he needed for this new activity. Recently discovered documents – manuscripts donated to the Vienna City Library by the Leopoldi family – give an insight into the translatory workshop and into the conditions of exile: Gilbert, together with the piano artist Hermann Leopoldi (1888–1959), produced a large number of songs, many of which were written in a mixture of German and English, with language (problems) as their subject. This paper traces Gilbert’s life and work, his translations and his thoughts on translation. The discussion focuses on the role of returning exiles as mediating agents and cultural translators between American (popular) culture and post-War Germany and Austria.

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Przekład jako polityka. Biblioteczka niemiecka po hebrajsku

Author(s): Na’ama Sheffi / Language(s): Polish Issue: 29/2014

Przekład jako polityka. Biblioteczka niemiecka po hebrajsku

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Święty socjalistycznej Palestyny: Józef Chaim Brenner po polsku

Author(s): Agnieszka Podpora / Language(s): Polish Issue: 29/2014

This article analyses the Polish translation of Yosef Haim Brenner’s short story The Way Out, carried out by Polish Zionist Józef Szofman and published in 1925 in Warsaw. It discusses the story’s origin and its reception, especially its writer’s status and his work with the Zionist discourse and imagery. Referring to interwar Polish-Jewish press, the article points to Szofman’s role in creating a mythological narrative about Brenner in the local Jewish milieus. The analysis of Szofman’s translation strategies raises the question about the intentions of the translator and the premises of his work.

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Rozalia Saulsonowa – pomiędzy kulturą żydowską, niemiecką i polską

Author(s): Agata Rybińska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 01/2016

The aim of the article is to shed some light on the output of Rozalia Saulson, who lived in the 19th century. Her works should be seen in the broad context of Jewish, German and Polish culture and literature. She wrote in Polish, producing works in diverse forms and on diverse subjects: works of a religious, lay, didactic or patriotic nature, from a guide to the Sudetes to translations and original prayers as well as belles lettres. The potential audience could be both Christians and Jews (Poles professing the Mosaic faith), adults and children alike. It is worth emphasizing that the ideas of acculturation and progress, so characteristic of the latter half of the 19th century, remain valid to this day. It is also possible to identify the strong impression they made on Rozalia Saulson, who was associated with progressive Warsaw circles, on her views and works..

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FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS ON POSSIBLE ARAMAIC ETYMOLOGIES OF THE DESIGNATION OF THE JUDAEAN SECT OF ESSENES (Ἐσσαῖοι/Ἐσσηνοί) IN THE LIGHT OF THE ANCIENT AUTHORS’ ACCOUNTS OF THEM AND THE QUMRAN COMMUNITY’S WORLD-VIEW

Author(s): Igor Tantlevskij / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2016

The author considers three possible Aramaic etymologies of the designation Ἐσσαῖοι/Ἐσσηνοί: (1) Since, according to reiterated Josephus Flavius’ accounts and the Dead Sea scrolls’ evidences, the Essenes and the Qumranites, closely associated with them, believed in predestination and foretold the future, they could be called: those, who believe in predestination, sc. the “fatalists”, “determinists”; or: those, who predict fate, i.e. the “foretellers”. This hypothetical etymology is derived from the Aramaic word ḥaššayyā᾿ (m. pl. in st. det.; resp. ḥš(᾿)(y)yn in st. abs.) reconstructed by the author from the term ḥšy/ḥš᾿ (“what man has to suffer, predestination, fortune”) after the model: C1aC2C2aC3. (2) In the present author’s opinion, the Qumran community held itself allegorically to be the “root(s)” and “stock” of Jesse, giving life to the “holy" Davidic “Shoot” (see: Isa. 11:1); or, in other words, the Qumranites appear to have considered their Yaḥaḏ (lit. “Unity/Oneness”) the personification of a new Jesse, who would “beget” and “bring up” a new David. (Cf., e.g., 1QSa, II, 11–12: “When [God] begets (yôlîḏ) the Messiah with them (᾿ittām; i.e. the sectarians. — I. T.)...”.) Proceeding from this doctrine, one can assume the etymology of the designation Ἐσσαῖοι/Ἐσσηνοί from the Aramaic-Syriac spelling of King David father’s name Jesse — ᾿Îš(š)ay. (3) The Essenes’ and the Qumranites’ aloofness from this world and their striving for interrelations with the other world could be a reason, by which they came to be regarded as “liminal” personalities and nicknamed (probably, with a tinge of irony) after the name of “rephaites” (the original vocalization seems to have been: rōfĕ᾿îm, lit. “healers”, sc. “benefactors”) of former times, whom they really recalled in some key aspects of their outlook and religious practice. In this case, the designation θεραπευταί, “healers”, — applied in Jewish Hellenized circles, primarily, in Egypt, to the members of the (ex hypothesi) Essenean communities of mystic-“gnostic” trend — could be in fact a Greek translation of the Hebrew term rōfĕ᾿îm. It also seems natural to assume that this designation of the sectarians could be interpreted/translated by the uninitiated by the word ᾿āsayyā᾿/᾿āsên, meaning “healers”, “physicians”, in the Aramaic-speaking milieu of the region of Syria-Palestine.

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Bóstwo bezmocne i dusze błądzące. Boski paradygmat dybuka w rosyjskim oryginale Pomiędzy dwoma światami Szymona An-skiego

Author(s): Katarzyna Kornacka-Sareło / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2016

In this paper I demonstrate the concept of the Jewish godhead as presented in the drama Between Two Worlds: The Dybbuk by S. An-sky (Shloyme Zanvl Rappoport), and analyses the phenomenon of a dybbuk, which was very popular in the culture of Hasidim. It should be mentioned that the research subject became the Russian original of the text of An-sky’s drama. The text was found in St Petersburg in 2001. The original differs significantly from its Yiddish and Hebrew versions: the Russian version ofThe Dybbuk is preceded by a long “Prologue”, where the play’s author suggests its most important ideas to the viewers. Thus, the reinterpretation of An-sky’s drama, seen from a philosophical perspective, enables one to justify the thesis that the author was conscious of some incoherency intrinsically present in the realm of the religious beliefs of Hasidic communities, where both the God of Biblical and Talmudic narratives, and the impersonal godhead of Kabbalah were, simultaneously, worshiped. What is more: the author also focuses on the weakness of the godhead, as he or she has been deprived of his or her primordial, male-female, unity. At the same time, while analyzing An-sky’s text, I draw attention to the fact that in this play a dybbuk, an evil spirit existing in a living person’s body, is portrayed as a much better entity: An-sky’s dybbuk is a soul of a man who died prematurely, and who is wandering and missing his earthly lover, similarly to Shekhinah, who is missing her lover in heaven, and is wandering in exile, together with the Jewish nation.

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Yahudilikte Jus Ad Bellum ve Jus In Bello Normları ve İsrail'in Güvenlik Politikasına Dahil Olma Potansiyeli

Author(s): Zafer Balpinar / Language(s): Turkish Issue: 14/2016

This study aims at determining the projection of the norms of Jus ad Bellum and Jus in Bello, which cover principles of war in the context of international law, in the Old Testament. Thus, on the one hand, it is tried to specify the understanding regarding war in Judaism, and on the other hand, to foresee the applicability capacity and limits of this understanding in Israel’s security policy. Because the declaration of the State of Israel as Jewish state constructs a strong ground for politicians who want to convert the religious commandments into security policy and for public sectors who require security policies to be in line with these commandments, the infrastructure formed by the religious tenets for the legitimacy of war and the way of its execution comes into prominence. The goal of this study is not to explain Israeli security policy through this spiritual basis, but to constitute an analysis parameter that can be utilized along with other expositive parameters by drawing attention to the conceptual framework manifested by the Old Testament.

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Hermann Cohens Lehre in Russland: Besonderheiten der Rezeption

Author(s): Vladimir Belov / Language(s): German Issue: 35/2016

The paper discusses the perception of the philosophy of the founder of the Marburg School of Neo-Kantianism Hermann Cohen by representatives of various directions of Russian philosophy in the early 20th century. It shows the evaluation of Kant’s transcendental system by Russian philosophers. The author distinguishes three main approaches to the evaluation of Cohen’s philosophy. Representatives of Russian religious philosophy criticize mainly the ethical constructs of the Marburger Neo-Kantian. By contrast, Russian followers of Neo-Kantianism underline the importance of his efforts to provide a system of philosophy. Finally, representatives of the Russian-Jewish group focus on the philosophy of religion of the German thinker. However, the author observes that no complete and comprehensive analysis of Hermann Cohen’s system of critical idealism was undertaken in the Russian philosophy of the early 20th century.

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Jews working in agriculture in Poland in the first years after the Second World War

Author(s): Andrzej Rykała / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2016

The article presents the political and geographical considerations and the development of Jews in agriculture in Poland in the first years after the Second World War. The analysis was made in the context of the implementation of the policy so-called productivisation, which was based on increasing employment among the Jews (and other groups) in the industry, the cooperative sector and the rural economy. The areas of the largest concentration of Jewish farms were Lower Silesia and north-western Poland, especially two counties: Stargard and Choszczno. Despite the financial and material support (among others the Society for the Propagation of Professional Knowledge ORT), many farmers did not succeed at ensuring the profitability of their farms. However, the launch of farms quite quickly improved the dire material situation of Jews. The most resigned, fearful and hurt among them, who saw handing over their fate to appropriate institutions as their only chance for a change in living conditions, found employment in agriculture.

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Holocaust, Israeli Statehood and Jewish Identity: International Reception of the Eichmann Trial (1961-1962)

Author(s): Szymon Pietrzykowski / Language(s): English Issue: XIV/2016

The Jerusalem trial of Adolf Eichmann, former SS-Obersturmbannführer (lieutenant colonel), one of the initiators and executioners of the so-called “Final Solution of the Jewish Question” is rightfully listed among the most important events in Israel’s recent history and regarded as a foundational moment in the dissemination of Holocaust remembrance practices. Whilst its overall importance in enforcing/expanding the memory of wartime Jewish suffering is beyond any question, the trial itself and the specific interpretation of Holocaust it offered, was instrumentally used by incumbent Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion and Zionist Mapai Party as a political tool in order to strengthen the legitimacy of yet still maturing Israeli statehood and the country’s insufficient recognition within worldwide Jewish community. Analysis of how this trial was perceived (with particular emphasis put on American Diaspora and non-Jewish audience, aspecially the Catholic press) – the essential purpose of this paper – lead to the conclusion that such policy turned out to be rather ineffective at the very beginning but successful in the longer run. Asked whether Israel has the right to try Eichmann, most influential observers, both Jews and non-Jews (Nahum Goldmann, Martin Buber, Yosal Rogat; Karl Jaspers) responded negatively and opted for an international tribunal – however, Ben-Gurion managed to gain several allies, also among the Gentiles (Hugh Trevor-Roper). Simultaneously, in inevitable clash between two specifically understood Jewish identities – Zionist/Israeli and assimilationist/ American, the second one remained dominant. One of most characteristic representatives of the latter “self”, introduced more closely on the following pages, was Hannah Arendt, who skillfully combined its German/Jewish/American components and criticized the trial as American Jewess bound to German culture and language. Nevertheless, beginning with late 1960s and early 1970s, the memory of Holocaust, shaped in result of this trial, has quickly become a vital reference point for successive generation of Jews, in Israel and beyond.

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Żydowscy celnicy w Wielkim Księstwie Litewskim w XVII–XVIII wieku

Author(s): Maria Cieśla / Language(s): Polish Issue: 38/2016

The purpose of this article is to show the Jewish involvement in the toll collection in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The following aspects are explored: the legal position, the financial involvement and conditions of the everyday work of the Jewish toll collectors, as well as the conﬂicts connected with this profession. The author based her research upon mostly unknown primary sources, including Lithuanian treasury documents and different court acts. Upon examination of those sources it becomes clear that the Jews played a significant role in the tax collection in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in that period. What is more, not only members of the economic elite were involved in the cooperation with the state treasury.

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Kobiety w kulturze i religii społeczności żydowskiej w świetle Ksiąg Machabejskich

Author(s): Grzegorz Mariusz Baran / Language(s): Polish Issue: 3/2014

Analyzing the contents of the Books of the Maccabees (1-2 Macccanonical and 3-4 Macc apocryphal) it can be noted that their authors –on the canvas of the story associated with the revolt of the Maccabees and the persecution of the Jewish community – also touched upon issues of the presence and role of women in the religion and culture of ancient Israel in Hellenistic times. Although women mentioned by the authors women are anonymous, one can, however, learn a lot about their lives in this period. The authors in fact give different information about the women of different status: young girls, virgins/unmarried maidens,wives, mothers, widows, grandmothers as well as prostitutes. Of particular note are women who demonstrated heroism in defense of God’s Law.The mother of seven sons, presented in 2 Macc and 4 Macc, stands out in this respect as – for the fidelity to the Law – she suffered a martyr’s death, encouraging earlier her own sons to assume the same attitude. To sum up, one can conclude that women in the Jewish community of the time, which was clearly dominated by men, played important roles and in certain circumstances were able to do heroic deeds.

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Sukcesija u doba Novog zavjeta

Author(s): Perry Leon Stepp / Language(s): Croatian Issue: 2/2016

This article surveys the use of succession as a concept in Mediterranean literature from around the time of the New Testament. Ancient Mediterranean writers and readers understood succession with much more variation and depth than is found in modern ecclesiological writings, where “succession” virtually always refers to “apostolic succession” in hierarchical denominational structure. The author demonstrates that literature from the ancient Mediterranean uses succession for a variety of objects and with a variety of degrees of replacement. The article concludes with readings of several New Testament passages where the more flexible understanding of succession is important for understanding the text.

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