Studies in the field of popular religion have for some time been among the most innovative in social and cultural history, but until now there have been few publications providing any adequate overview for Germany and the Holy Roman Empire. This volume presents the results of recent research by younger scholars working on major aspects of this subject. The nine essays range over nearly four centuries of German history, encompassing late-medieval female piety, propaganda for radical Hussite dissent, attitudes towards the Jews, legitimation for the witchcraze on the eve of the Reformation, attempts to implement Protestant reform in German villages, Reformation attacks on popular magic and female culture, problems of defining the Reformation in small German towns, Protestant popular prophecy and formation of confessional identity, and the missionising strategies of the Counter-Reformation.
Superbly illustrated views from antiquity to modern times accompany concise profiles of synagogues across the continent, including Cracow's Old Synagogue, the Great Synagogue of Vilnius, and Vienna's Tempelgasse. 253 illustrations.
Monumental carved wooden Torah arks were an outstanding feature of east European synagogues between the seventeenth and the nineteenth centuries, yet virtually none survived the Second World War. Bracha Yaniv therefore breathes a new life into a lost genre with this extensively researched, meticulously documented, and richly illustrated book. She is the first to paint a vivid portrait of their history and to offer a detailed explanation of the motifs that adorned them.
The second half of the 19th century was a time of extensive political upheaval in central east Europe that saw the negotiation of conflicting territorial claims in the region by the Russian, Austrian and Prussian empires. The post-WW1 settlement gave rise to the formation of the independent nation states of Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, Latvia and Belarus. Less well know is that this same period was also an era of keen photographic activity. During this time of empire-, state- and nation-building, cultural heritage was a potent vehicle and a provider of collective memory and identity.This innovative account analyses the relationship between politics, history, cultural heritage and photography in central east Europe between 1859 and 1945. To understand the work photographs ‘do’ in the construction of cultural heritage, the author analyses a wide range of little-known photographic archives created by contemporary professional and amateur photographers. Their work was extensively exploited in contemporary debates, appearing in albums, books, journals, exhibitions, museum exhibits, postcards and newspapers aimed at both scientific and popular and national and international publics. An extensive analysis of how photographic practices and outcomes were applied, borrowed, copied, appropriated and transmitted shows how photography was used to exert or subvert power, on the one hand, and as a tool in constructing and negotiating group identities on the other. By weaving photography and its patterns of making, dissemination and archival survival through major historical narratives, this volume reveals the centrality of photography and visual discourse at pivotal moments of modern history.
How did Jewish women in sixteenth-century Poland learn all the rules, rituals, and customs pertaining to the sexual life of couples within the context of marriage? As in other areas of ritual life that concerned the household, it would seem that the primary source for the education of Jewish women was other women. But rabbinic law dictates that Jewish women who experience uterine bleeding are prohibited from having physical contact of any kind with their husbands, and the intricate laws of niddah (enforced separation) spell out exactly when and under what circumstances physical marital relations, even simple touching, can be resumed. Particularly difficult issues could be addressed only by rabbis or other learned men, since women rarely, if ever, attained the level of rabbinic scholarship necessary to pare the details of these complicated laws. To educate both men and women, but particularly women, in a more systematic and impersonal manner, the young rabbi Benjamin Slonik (ca. 1550-after 1620), who later became one of the leading rabbinic authorities in eastern Europe, harnessed the relatively new technology of printing and published a how-to book for women in the Yiddish vernacular. Seder mitzvot hanashim (The Order of Women's Commandments) illuminates the history of Yiddish printing and public education. But it is also a rare remnant of a direct interface between a member of the rabbinic elite and the laity, especially women. Slonik's text also sheds light on the history of Jewish law, particularly the reception of the Shulhan Arukh, an important legal code that had just been published. This volume makes available the 1585 edition of the Seder mitzvot hanashim in Yiddish and English. Fram sets Slonik's work in its bibliographical and historical contexts, demonstrating its relationship with the Shulhan Arukh, exploring how rabbis opposed formal education for women, considering how upheavals accompanying geographic shifts in the Ashkenazic community help explain how the women's commandments texts came to be used in Poland, and offering a treasure trove of information on the place and roles of women in Polish-Jewish society. Fram thus creates a composite picture of how Slonik, along with other men of his time, perceived the main audience for his work and sought to connect it to contemporary texts.
"Across the landscape that until 1939 housed most of the world's Jewish population, the closing decade of the 20th century witnessed dramatic upheavals: the overturning of the East European communist governments and the fall of the USSR, accompanied by a major Jewish emigration movement. The legacy of the Jewish presence in those countries, as viewed from today's vantage point, and the ways in which it became enmeshed in the quest by people of the region-Jews and non-Jews alike-to secure their prospects for the future, highlighted fundamental issues about the nature and quality of the politics of memory, national identity, and the continuity and relative stability of regimes in the region. If those questions were important even before the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, understanding their implications now seems even more crucial. In a field fraught with conflicting narratives, the challenges of social and political reconstruction are primary concerns for peoples and governments. The experts contributing to this volume apply interdisciplinary approaches to analyze and interpret a multiplicity of post-communist social realities and aid our understanding of recent events"--
These elaborate CAD-reconstructions, developed by Darmstadt Technical University, provide a representative survey of the architecture of synagogues in Germany before their destruction. What is more, they convey visual impressions of the diversity, the splendour and the significance of the synagogue in the history of German urban architecture from the early nineteenth century until 1938. In doing so, they also demonstrate the potential of such media to contribute to a new culture of remembrance. Reactions to the first exhibition in 2000 in Bonn, Germany, were resounding, with international praise for the quality of the simulations and their value as an instrument in the service of historical truth. This publication presents the results for the first time in print, to coincide with the launching of an exhibition in Tel Aviv which will travel to New York, Los Angeles and further international venues.
