57 research outputs found
Interview mit David M. Freidenreich about his new book
No full textThe New Books Network features an interview with David M. Freidenreich about his book Jewish Muslims. How Christians Imagined Islam as the Enemy (University of California Press 2023). Listen to i
Freidenreich, David M., Foreigners and Their Food: Constructing Otherness in Jewish, Christian and Islamic Law, Oxford, Oxbow, 2015, 352p.
No full textForeigners and Their Food explores how Jews, Christians, and Muslims conceptualize us" and them" through rules about the preparation of food by adherents of other religions and the act of eating with such outsiders. David M. Freidenreich analyzes the significance of food to religious formation, elucidating the ways ancient and medieval scholars use food restrictions to think about the other." Freidenreich illuminates the subtly different ways Jews, Christians, and Muslims perceive themselves,..
Talberth, Ethel T. Goldman, and Sue Talberth Sherman, interviewed by David Freidenreich on December 21, 2010: Transcript
No full textFreidenreich David, Foreigners and Their Food: Constructing Otherness in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Law, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011, 352 p.
No full textInternational audienceLe projet de ce livre est de mettre en évidence le lien entre identité et alimentation dans les trois religions abrahamiques. Les règles de prohibition des aliments étrangers s’y révèlent être de puissants facteurs de différenciation entre les trois religions. Freidenreich les étudient diachroniquement et synchroniquement, indépendamment puis en relation, dans leur triple fonction de marquage, de définition et de relativisation des identités
With a Little Help from My Friends: Jewish Mutual Assistance in Nineteenth-Century Maine
No full textJews in 19th-century Maine relied on familial, ethnic, and, to a lesser degree, institutional networks of mutual assistance to survive and thrive. These Jews, who commonly worked as merchants of clothing and other dry goods, counted on family members to get them through hard times and hired fellow Jews to peddle their wares in the countryside. Jewish peddlers and merchants regularly borrowed or loaned cash and goods on credit within a small, tightly knit community that extended across Maine and as far as Boston and New York. Commercial networks also reinforced familial ties as children and in-laws entered the family business, often marrying their father’s employees or business partners. In Bangor and Portland, Jews formed associations—the Ahawas Achim synagogue in 1849 and a chapter of the B’nai B’rith fraternal organization in 1874, respectively—designed to care for ill, deceased, and widowed community members as well as to attend to religious and cultural needs. Although both of these early institutions dissolved within seven to eight years of their founding, and many of their members migrated out of the state, the Jews who settled in Maine before 1880 laid the foundations for communities and organizations that remain vibrant to this day. The present study draws on the records of these institutions and credit reports of approximately 150 individual Jewish businessmen from towns throughout the state, along with census records and local or family histories. David M. Freidenreich is the Pulver Family Associate Professor of Jewish Studies at Colby College, where he serves as director of the Jewish studies program and associate director of the Center for Small Town Jewish Life. He is also the founder of Colby’s Maine Jewish History Project (web.colby.edu/jewsinmaine/),which fosters research on Jewish life in Maine by student and community historians. As a member of the religious studies department, he teaches a wide range of courses on Judaism, Jewish history, and comparative religion. After receiving a B.A. from Brandeis University, he earned his Ph.D. at Columbia University and rabbinic ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary. Most of his scholarship explores attitudes toward adherents of foreign religions within premodern Christian, Jewish, and Islamic sources. Kristin Esdale graduated from Colby College in2016 with a major in chemistry and a minor in Jewish studies. She currently teaches high school science at an international boarding school in Germany
Making it in Maine: Stories of Jewish Life in Small-Town America
No full textA fundamental part of the experience of immigrants to the United States has been the tension between incorporating into a new country while maintaining one’s cultural roots. In this article, the author describes the experience of Jewish Americans in Maine, where climate, culture, and remoteness from larger Jewish populations contributed to a unique process of Americanization compared with Jewish populations in more urban areas of the country. After successfully “making it” over the course of two centuries, Jewish Mainers face a new set of challenges and opportunities. The author is the director of the Jewish studies program at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. He is member of the religious studies department, where he teaches a wide range of courses on Judaism, Jewish history, and comparative religion
Against the Grain and Over the Line: Reflections on Comparative Methodology
No full textThis article distills theoretical arguments that I advance in Foreigners and Their Food, arguments relevant to a wide range of religious studies scholars. In addition, it makes the case for comparison as a method that sheds light not only on specific comparands and the class of data to which they belong but also on the very boundaries which the comparison transgresses. Through a comparison of Latin Christian and Shiʿi Islamic discourse about the impurity of religious foreigners, I illustrate methods by which religious authorities develop and transmit conceptions of foreigners. I then analyze this case study using Oliver Freiberger’s “Elements of a Comparative Methodology” while assessing the strengths and limitations of Freiberger’s methodical framework. I offer personal reflections on the process of conducting comparative scholarship, advice for those embarking on this demanding yet rewarding approach to the study of religion, and desiderata for further reflection on comparative methodology
The Implications of Unbelief: Tracing the Emergence of Distinctively Shi˛i Notions Regarding the Food and Impurity of Non-Muslims
No full textAbstractThe distinctively Shi˛i conception of non-Muslims as bearers of a contagious form of impurity emerges gradually, reaching its classical form only in the 5th/11th century. Contrary to common scholarly presumptions, Q. 9.28 does not constitute the point of origin for this conception but rather serves as retroactive justification for its validity. This essay utilizes Hadīth collections and works of law from the 2nd/8th through 5th/11th centuries to trace the emergence of Shi˛i notions regarding the impurity of non-Muslims and the parallel emergence of distinctively Shi˛i norms regarding the meat of animals slaughtered by non-Muslims. It concludes by suggesting that the differences between Sunni and Shi˛i notions regarding the food and impurity of nonMuslims reflect the different ways in which Sunnis and Shi˛i conceive of the Islamic community itself.
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