Zionism

When my parents informed me of a possible trip to Israel last spring, I brushed it off. There had been so many times that they had suggested trips that eventually fizzled out when we couldn’t get it together in time. This prospective trip to Israel was different, though: it would include my Dad’s parents, brother and niece and it would occur in tangential celebration of my brother’s thirteenth birthday. I say tangential because my family isn’t really Jewish and we certainly aren’t observant.…

With the rise of Christianity within the Roman Empire, Jews had to adapt their own cultures and beliefs to fit and endure the changing times. In Culture of the Jews: Mediterranean Origins Oded Irshai explores the changes that took place within Jewish culture and the factors that caused said changes in his article “Confronting a Christian Empire: Jewish Culture in the World of Byzantium.” In his article he looks at the increasingly Christian Roman Empire and its effect on Palestine while…

Throughout the Zionism movement there were many publications written, some written by men and some by women. Through the men’s publications one can see how they portray women during the movement as cold, tough and insensible. And looking at publications written by woman one can see a vast difference in the portrayal of women during the Zionism movement. The Two articles The calf written by Mordechai Ze’ev Feierberg and Burned out written by Mendele Mokher Sefarim were written through a males…

Anti-Semitism I knew when writing this series of essays, I was going to write about anti-semitism on film and TV. I figured it’d be the easiest essay by far to write. A quick Google search and I’d find dozens of different examples and BAM, essay completed. Wrong. I was so surprised. I had trouble finding examples of anti-semitism in film and TV. A joke here or there, and tons in Nazi propaganda films, but anti-semitism isn’t something that occurs in mainstream film and television. I was a…

The Protocols of Zion The Protocols of Zion is a document that is referred to by anti-Semitists who believe in the making of a Jewish plan to dominate worldwide. This is claimed to be the minutes gathered during the discussion by someone attending the secret meetings they would hold. It’s said that the meetings Jewish elders held were taken place at a cemetery in Prague, in this meeting they constructed a plan to obtain world domination. Jews were depicted as a stable race who mainly intended to…

Words serve a function. A structuralist would say that a word acts as a signifier and the definition that people associate with that word is the signified. A post-structuralist would argue that the words meaning depends on a person’s context and could change from moment to moment and person to person. The way we approach words lies somewhere in between. We all approach a word differently, but we seek to agree upon a definition to have a common understanding. Antisemitism is a great example of…

From the time we are little, we are told not to judge a book by its cover. But sometimes we do anyways. We miss out on the opportunity to read a great book, simply because we set it down after glancing at the cover. The cover contains one image but the book itself has thousands of words. Yet, we still fall under the trap of judging a book by the one photo on the cover and not the words that make up the book. Images are powerful in our society and can often take the place of words. Some of the…

The anti-Semitic attitudes of French leaders also influenced the passing of anti-Semitic legislation. According to Judt, anti-Semitism was fashionable in the 1930s and French leaders carried this attitude into the German occupation. The Jews placed their trust in individuals such as Danecker, Darlan, Vallet, Laval, and Petan yet all these men exhibited anti-Semitic views and used them as a moral justification to implement legislation against the Jews. Helene Berr writes about this betrayal when…

Anyone who has ever attended a history class of any kind has undoubtedly heard of Jonathan Edwards, and those that have heard of him are often taken aback by his forceful and fear inducing form of preaching. Many wonder why Edwards implemented such harsh tactics in order to preach the word of God, but what they don’t realize is that Edwards isn’t the only preacher to have applied such tactics. To this day there are preachers everywhere that use fear tactics and forceful remedies to spread the…

Due to the religious and historical context Eretz Israel has with the Jewish community, Zionism represents the efforts to return to their native land and live the free and joyful life promised by God through the covenant. As Jews live in exile they dedicate their lives in finding methods to gain redemption to become worthy of returning to the…