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Lived Forgiveness in a Finland-Swedish Laestadian Community
Get PDFThe aim of this article is to investigate how a member of a Laestadian community related his experience of guilt, shame, and forgiveness in his interview with me. Was it possible for a believer within an authoritarian revivalist movement to take a subjective viewpoint? Did he find a way out of a situation where forgiveness was very hard to produce and how did he do it
Judiska inslag i det kristna Etiopien
No full textEthiopian Christianity has often been regarded by European travelers and missionaries as impure, because of the presence in it of what were believed to be Jewish customs and ideas. The Ethiopians regard themselves as “The Children of Israel”. This tradition seems to be based on legend contained in the national epos “The Glory of the Kings” (14th cent.), according to which the founder of the Ethiopian imperial dynasty, of which Haile Sellassie was the last scion, was Menilek, the son of the King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. The Ethiopian customs for which Jewish origins can be presumed include circumcision, the prohibition of eating meat from pigs and some other animals, in accordance with Leviticus 11. Moreover, until recently there were living in Ethiopia (but are now in Israel) Falashas, who profess an unusual form of Judaism. They do not know the Talmud whereas most of their religious literature, written in Ge’ez, is borrowed from their Christian neighbours. The usual architectural plan of Ethiopian church buildings follows that of the Temple in Jerusalem and the Tabernacle. Three theories have been propounded so far to explain the origin of the Jewish elements in Ethiopian Christianity, and also the origin of the Falashas
Mystical Midrash
No full textThis article conceives of mystical midrash as the act of interpreting the details of a Torah verse with the purpose of entering a meditative or ecstatic state of union with God, in which the mystic by drawing down God’s insights can explain how the Torah verse mediates the micro-macrocosmic relation between God’s will and the course of history. However, since mystical midrash is such a rare phenomenon in Judaism, I have chosen to highlight the various approaches to the Torah in Jewish mysticism as a background for understanding why only one of these approaches qualifies for the epithet ‘mystical midrash’
Drottning Kristina, Abraham Teixeira, Daniel Prado och greve Bernardino de Rebolledo
No full textThe history of the Marranos of Northern Europe in general is well known through the work of Cecil Roth and other scholars, and Hugo Valentin has studied their relations with Scandinavia. The lives and activities of those Marranos and their descendants were so colorful that there still remain a few details and nuances to be added. One such rather amusing instance is offered in this paper. It comments on some lines of a poem which gives evidence of the relations prevailing between the persons mentioned in the title of this paper. Queen Christina, the remarkable daughter of Gustavus Adolphus, abdicated in 1654, abandoned her father’s Lutheran faith, and assumed Catholicism. Abraham de Teixeira and Daniel de Prado were Marranos, living in Hamburg. The former, a banker, was financial adviser to the Queen whereas the latter, a physician, possibly served her in his professional capacity. Count Berbardino de Rebolledo, finally, the author of the poem analyzed in this paper, represented from 1647 to 1659 the King of Spain at the Danish court in Copenhagen. He was the author of a book of miscellaneous poetry, Ocios, printed at Antwerp in 1660. In his poem, a so called romance, de Rebolledo offers us a typical product of his malicious and often comical vein. He pokes fun at a visit by the Queen to Teixeira’s house, describing in a manner worthy of a Juan Ruiz the indignation that certain forbidden victuals were to experience on being told of the imminent visit of a female awaited by Teixeira as if she were the Messiah
Trender i modernt franskt-judiskt tänkande
No full textThe Jewish community in today’s France is the biggest in Europe and the third biggest in the world (next to the USA and Israel) with more than 600 000 members. The French Jews were the first in Europe to be emancipated and they showed strong assimilationistic tendencies, but during the second half of the 20th century, they developed a strong and proud Jewish identity. The Jewish community is, however, deeply divided: mainly into secular Jews and into religious Jews who are moving in the direction of a stricter Orthodoxy. The towering figure in modern French-Jewish thinking is Emmanuel Lévinas, the well-known Lithuanian-born philosopher. Among his disciples one can find such secular Jews as Alain Finkielkraut and such Ultra-Orthodox ones as the former Maoist Benny Lévy. The most important thinker within the centrist modern Orthodox position is Shmuel Trigano, a prolific Sephardic Jew born in Algeria. The Holocaust and the creation of the state of Israel have raised the question of the French tradition of reducing religion into a private thing. Many defend the French republican model with a secular state granting freedom of religion to individuals, while other look for a more communitarian and collective way of expressing Jewishness in France. This debate between “republicans” and “contrarevolutionairies” was particularly heated on the occasion of the bicentennary of the French revolution in 1989
Dragning till hednisk kult bland judar under hellenistisk tid och tidig kejsartid
No full textIn a way similar to earlier biblical times Jews in the time after Alexander the Great were confronted with non-Jewish religious practices. The prohibition of the Torah to participate in heathen cultic activities was of course valid to the Jews also in the Hellenistic and the Imperial world. Notwithstanding, there is certain evidence that some Jews did participate in pagan cult during the time of the Greek and the Roman hegemonies in the eastern Mediterranean area. In the first place the religious situation in the Jewish homeland leading to the Maccabean revolt is discussed. The Books of the Maccabees make it clear that there existed groups among the Jews who were willing to compromise with the strict prohibitions concerning paganism in Deuteronomy. We also find indications that Jews could be forced to participate in pagan rites both in and outside their homeland
Emigration of Polish Jews to South Africa during the second Polish republic (1919–1939)
No full textThe term “the wandering Jew” could be properly referred to the situation of Polish Jews during the Second Polish Republic. Polish Jews constituted the largest separate ethnic group within overseas emigration from Poland during the years 1918–1939. They left Poland mainly for economic, and later for political reasons. The settlement schemes were supported and sponsored by Polish governmental agencies and Jewish societies in Poland and abroad. During the years 1918–1939 about several thousand Polish Jews emigrated to South Africa. A new immigration law implemented after 1930 had seriously reduced the influx of Polish Jews. That emigration had a very permanent character and included mainly members of the lower middle class. From the great variety of social, cultural, religious and professional activity of Polish Jews who settled in South Africa a pro-Polish attitude and activity was only evident in a tiny proportion of immigrants. The pro-Polish activity of Polish Jews was focused in Johannesburg (e.g. The Polish-Hebrew Benevolent Association) and in Cape Town (e.g. The Federation of Polish Jews in the Cape). An integrating role in that activity was played by Polish consular posts
Jøder og andre danskere. Den nyere antisemitismeforskning og dens implikationer for dansk historieskrivning: en forskningsoversigt
No full textDue to the national narrative of successful integration of Danish Jews and their heroic rescue from Nazi persecution, a critical investigation of the relationship between Jews and Non-Jews in 19th and 20th century Danish society has been neglected until recently. The article discusses recent developments in the field of antisemitism as well as a new appreciation of the cultural dimension of anti-Jewish stereotyping have been instrumental in a new understanding of anti-semitism. Together with a growing awareness of the interrelationship between the construction of the nation and the politics of exclusion, these trends have created new grounds for historical research. It is argued that this new generation of research also calls for a rewriting of Danish history “from the margins”: The liberal democratic political culture that informed the formation of the Danish nation state did not do without exclusionist practices; on the contrary, it implied a rejection of cultural or ethnic heterogeneity. Instead of exonerating Danish antisemitism by self-serving comparisons, a fresh view on Danish-Jewish relations in modern times promises new insights into the development of Danish national identity, oscillating between inclusion and exclusion
J. O. Wallins psalm om Jerusalems förstöring
No full textSince the late 17th century, when the story of the destruction of Jerusalem was added to the Swedish Prayer Book, it was read aloud or mentioned on the 10th Sunday after Trinity, the latest examples dating from the early 20th century. In Bengt Lider’s oratorio on the subject (1787), the motive was dramatized in the style of the Sturm-und-Drang-period. Different versions of The Wandering Jew was spread in the early 19th century. In the 17th and early 18th centuries, when Jewish faith still was not allowed in Sweden, explicit anti-Jewish themes had been rare in Swedish theology and church life. When Johan Olof Wallin in 1816 published his hymn on the destruction of Jerusalem, he officially accepted presence of Jews in Sweden formed a new context to church hymns as well. Wallin’s rearrangement of C.C. Sturm’s “Jerusalem, voll frecher Wuth” was included in the Hymn Book of 1819. The rearrangement was made in a dramatizing way, inspired probably both from Lidner and The Wandering Jew. In his first verse, Wallin mixed different Bible quotations with non-biblical arguments and what may be understood as a curse on the Jewish people. The treatment of the destruction of Jerusalem in a hymn on the passion of Christ was new to Swedish hymnal tradition, it weakened the passion theme, and gave a new context to the destruction. The old Lutheran theology had emphasized the religious continuity with the pre-Christian Israel, even regarding the patriarchs as Christians. Wallin instead applied a historical view of development and contrast. While the old Lutheran theology had been a theology of continuity and identity, the new one was a theology of evolution and replacement
Gottlieb Klein – rabbin och religionshistoriker
No full textGottlieb Klein arrived in Sweden in 1883, and started working as a rabbi in the Jewish congregation in Stockholm where he later was known as a well-read Jewish theologian. He was engaged in Jewish-Christian dialogue with among others Nathan Söderblom. His warn interest in Christianity was encountered with mistrust from the Zionists. Klein was active within academia and as a teacher in the study of religion