Prof. Michal Bar-Asher Siegal is a faculty member of the Department of Jewish Thought at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and a steering committee member of CSoC. The grant was awarded to her, together with Prof. Yossi Yovel, a biologist from Tel Aviv University and Prof. Beena Kalisky, a physicist from Bar-Ilan University, for promoting interdisciplinary and groundbreaking research in Israel as part of the "Pumby: A new horizon for interdisciplinary research in Israel" project. The initiative's goal is to create a platform for connecting leading researchers from different fields of knowledge, from the Humanities and exact sciences, in order to encourage innovative synergistic research; research that could not have taken place in each of the fields of knowledge separately.
A connection between distant fields could be realized, according to Prof. Bar-Asher Siegal and her research partners, when looking for connections between distant fields such as physics and music, the study of acoustics and the history of antiquity; Exploring the world of birds and linguistics, or when connecting the study of the Talmud and network analysis; and many more unexpected scholarly connections still waiting to be discovered. The particularly generous research grant will fund conferences of outstanding researchers from all universities, from the humanities and exact sciences, and will later support the selected projects that these conferences will yield.
Dr. Fogel will continue to pursue his research on the ethnography of Jewish Yemeni occult knowledge next year as an Ephraim Urbach Post-Doctoral Fellow
Congratulations to CSoC's newest recruit. Dr. Uri Z. Shachar will be joining our board.
Shachar is a medieval historian whose work focuses on encounters between Jews, Christians, and Muslims in the eastern Mediterranean. He was a CSoC member between 2014-2019, in which he deployed a project on the dialogical aspect of polemical literature in the Near East. His book about interreligious dialogue on the concept of Holy War during the period of the Crusades will be published in September. A second book on multilingualism in the Mediterranean is starting to take shape.
Congratulations to incoming director of CSoC for the 2020-2021 academic year on receiving the ISF grant.
Prof. Daniella Talmon-Heller hopes to explore the performative and iconic dimensions of the Qur'an, and its construction as a sacred object in the Medieval Middle East. She will also posit the Qur'an and Torah in a comparative perspective, and examine the functions of the two material books and their roles in the lives of Jewish and Muslim practitioners.
Gender, Place & Culture Reform
Judaism is one of the dominant religious movements in the contemporary Jewish world and is known primarily for its liberal
approach, such as advocating for gender equality in Jewish religious practices. In Israel, however, the Reform community has
been excluded by the hegemonic Jewish Orthodox community and is seen as an outsider that threatens the very continuation of
the Jewish people. This article examines Reform rituals that are conducted in the urban space of the Tel Aviv-Jaffa area and
posits that the execution of the rituals outside the congregation’s permanent houses of prayer manifests gender-religious resistance
against the Jewish Orthodox hegemony, as well as against patriarchal traditions and heterosexual constructions. It is further
claimed that the Reform community has positioned itself as an alternative, more egalitarian religious agent in the Israeli
public space, which positively impacts the goal of the feminist and the LGBTQ+ movements to gain gender recognition.
The Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion This
netnographic study examines Reform Jewish rituals transmitted by virtual platforms, Facebook and Zoom, during the COVID-19
pandemic. Reform Judaism, which supports modern liberal theology, has adopted the usage of technology for Shabbat services.
The transition from the physical space to the virtual one challenges the performance of the ritual: Rabbis change the ritual's
structure, and during online services, the congregants have different feelings toward the congregation and their own spiritual
worship, made manifest in changes in their usual religious gestures. A positive result of the move to the virtual space is
that though the Reform Jewish congregations, as non-Orthodox communities, have been excluded by the state, virtual prayers
further expose Reform services to Israeli society. However, this might hinder societal support if it is shown that the community
can conduct its services without an actual formal space. This study illuminates the intersection of virtual space, religious
praxis, and political conflicts.
Studia Rosenthaliana (the world's only scholarly journal on the history, culture and heritage of the Jews in the Netherlands, its colonies and diasporas), 46, 1-2 (2020), pp. 211-228
בתוך: כתב העת "בפרט ובכלל" (גיליון 6) בהוצאת המכון הישראלי לדמוקרטיה
המאמר, העוסק בניתוח אתנוגרפי של הקפות שמחת תורה בקהילות רפורמיות ישראליות, ידגים כיצד מבט מגדרי על הביצוע חושף גנאלוגיה של אי־נגישות לאובייקט הקדוש ומצביע על האפליה המובחנת בין גברים לנשים בהיסטוריה היהודית. בכוחו של הריקוד עם התורה לחבר בין רמת המקרו של המבנה החברתי לבין רמת המיקרו של ייצוג זהויות מגדריות שהוקעו מהשתתפות במנהג המסורתי. ההקפות השוויוניות בקהילות הרפורמיות חושפות את מקומה של המסורת כשותפה במימוש המשימה הפוליטית — שוויון מגדרי — ומציעות את הקהילה הרפורמית כחלופה דתית ליברלית לאורתודוקסיה המשוקעת בחברה הישראלית. נוסף על הממד המגדרי, קיום הקפות במרחב העירוני הפתוח מצביע גם על מערכות היחסים בין הקהילה הרפורמית המקומית לבין קהילות אתנו־לאומיות נוספות, כמו יהדות התפוצות או האוכלוסייה הערבית. כך, בכוחו של הביצוע הטמפורלי לסמן תהליכים פוליטיים עכשוויים המתרחשים גם אחרי שספרי התורה הוכנסו לארון והחג יצא. פענוח הנעשה בקהילות הרפורמיות הנאבקות להכרה שווה בחברה הישראלית יצביע על מגמות עכשוויות בשדה הדתי בפרט ובחברה הישראלית בכלל.
הנצרות היתה כוח חשוב בתקופת ימי הביניים באירופה, והקדושים היו כוח חשוב בנצרות עצמה. ד"ר תמר רוטמן מאוניברסיטת בן-גוריון בנגב דיברה בהסכת "הסטוריה גדולה בקטנה" על אוספים הגיוגריפים, הממלכה המרובינגית, ההתמודדות עם השינויים שנוצרו בעקבות דעיכתה של האימפריה הרומית ועוד.הקשיבו לזהכאן!
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