Eugene F. Sofer describes the Jewish community of Once as secular. This seemed accurate though recently many have noticed a shift among the Jewish community, leaning more toward Orthodox. Nevertheless, as a very commercial district within Buenos Aires, many of the stores remain open during Sabbath.  In fact, initially nothing in Once seemed distinctly Jewish. It was not until later in the afternoon that you saw orthodox men and women wearing kippas and long skirts walking through the streets. But there are synagogues and kosher restaurants throughout the area and of course, the AMIA building, one of the largest Jewish organizations in Argentina. We had the opportunity to interview the president of AMIA, as well as the secretary of El gran synagogue Paso. One of the interviews I found most interesting was that of Samuel aka Lito, the owner of a small shop in Once. His family emigrated from Poland and Lithuania, and came as colonist working in agriculture.

Lito grew up very secular, not having received any formal Jewish education since his home town no longer had a large Jewish community when he was growing up. Today, he continues to identify as secular, describing the rest of his family under similar terms. His three children have all received formal Jewish education, can speak Hebrew and are very involved in the Jewish community in Buenos Aires, belonging and attending many clubs and camps. For Lito, it is the conservation of Jewish tradition and practices that are important, not necessarily a connection to the religious. Though it was important for him to give a Jewish education to his children.

When questioned about anti-Semitism in Once, he stated that there is always anti Semitism. Though now he rarely experiences it and finds is less common. He commented that he has many friends of other religions and has not encountered any problems. The bombing of AMIA was a tragedy that touched him both spiritually and physically since he was able to feel it when it took place. He noted that the Jewish community has changed since that event. Other changes that he commented on include the shift toward Orthodoxy among the Jewish community in Once. The synagogue that he attends is getting a new rabbi and thus there will be many changes such as separate seating for men and women during services. This is an idea that Samuel was initially strongly against, describing the synagogue’s previous atmosphere as “light” though later he decides that it will not be much of a problem and that he will continue to attend. What Samuel is experiencing reflects very much what is happening in the community in Once. While for the colonist who first came to Argentina, it seemed like a place of freedom, those living today who have witnessed or felt the effects of tragedies like the bombing of AMIA see Argentina as very anti-Semitic. While second and third generations like Samuel generally considered themselves as secular, a stark contrast with the beliefs of the first Jewish colonists, the generation after them is returning to the religious. While Samuel’s own children are not an example of this, the change occurring within the synagogue he attends reflects this. While there is some resistance, Samuel seems content in continuing his own current Jewish lifestyle among the ever growing orthodox community.

I think many people would consider my friend an anti-Semitic but I would disagree. Our class seemed to share a few of his ideas though perhaps in a more sensitive and politically correct way. Nevertheless, pulling from the article we read today “Lest We Forget!” by Jonathan Webber, it would make sense that the US perception of the Holocaust is focused on Judaism. Webber writes that the Holocaust has become a way to identify oneself as Jewish within secular Judaism. This form of identification has not been so much associated with God or rabbinic forms of Judaism, thus resulting in conflicts between the Secular and Rabbinic Jewish community regarding their individual stance on this historical tragedy.  Organized and popular reform and secular Jewish communities mainly exist in the United States. Webber focuses his article on the subject of the Holocaust myth however, the idea outlined above already provides insight on why the Holocaust “belonged exclusively to Jewish history” in America (Webber 107).

Messianic Judaism is essentially another label that defines a Jew who religiously identifies as Christian. There exist many other Jews within the spectrum that do not necessarily share religious Jewish beliefs by identifying themselves according to another religion or even as completely secular. However the acceptance and attitude that Messianic Jews experience within the Jewish community is different to when pertaining to other Jews in the spectrum. In fact Messianic Judaism’s legitimacy was questioned by Israel and thus those using this label do not receive automatic citizenship. I believe that there are many underlying reasons of why Messianic Jews conflict so much with the Jewish community as a whole, one of which may be the turbulent historical relationship between Christianity and Judaism. However, conflict always arises when there is a search for legitimacy, a search for the ultimate truth. As impossible as it may seem, perhaps the eradication of these labels which over simplify Jewish identity within the Jewish community may soften the situation. Though, of course, differences and dichotomies within Judaism will not completely disappear along with those labels.

The character of Lilith is prevalent not only in Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, but in other religious societies as well, like for example, the ancient Egyptian culture. I think this partly has to do with the influence and maintenance of control over women by society and patriarchal structures. The archetype of the wild destructive woman who lives beyond social norms can be used to engender fear among women and discourage people to live outside of the norm. When researching about Lilith, I thought it was interesting that she is often personified as an owl but it was frustrating to me to find that in certain translations of the Bible her name actually shows up in the text and in others it refers to her as an owl. I guess in a naïve sort of way I thought the KJV Bible would be the most accurate so I was a little surprised when in the book of Isaiah it did not directly cite Lilith. This makes me wonder a lot about translations and how a translator decides to define certain words.

I was also able to learn more about Lilith through the course I took last semester called “Women, Gender, and Judaism.” I found that instead of being a character that is feared and detested by the female community, it has been adopted by the Jewish feminist community as a symbol of female resistance and empowerment. So going from a perceptive where women almost celebrate Lilith, it became particularly interesting to learn about how Lilith was incorporated into the amulets and other forms of protection for the use of women during childbirth. Another thing that I found interesting/amusing that is more related to the general theme of protection for a mother in labor than directly to Lilith, is when Sabar’s article discussed the tradition of having the Torah with a women in labor for protection. This custom led to some interesting conflicts and adaptations. Since women were considered “unclean” after giving birth than she might desecrate the Torah, so in some Jewish communities, in order to fix this problem they would tie a string to the Torah in the synagogue and the woman would hold on to the end of the string. A little off topic, but still quite interesting.

]]> http://blogs.dickinson.edu/ethnography-jewish-experience/2009/10/12/daniela-castejon-student-reflection-3/feed/ 0 http://blogs.dickinson.edu/ethnography-jewish-experience/2009/10/12/daniela-castejon-reflection-2/ http://blogs.dickinson.edu/ethnography-jewish-experience/2009/10/12/daniela-castejon-reflection-2/#comments Mon, 12 Oct 2009 05:49:10 +0000 castejod http://blogs.dickinson.edu/ethnography-jewish-experience/?p=56 I think most people can say that when they think of Jewish music, “Hava Nagila” immediately comes to mind, but Jewish music is obviously much more diverse than that. However, identifying Jewish music in the first place is complicated. Lowenstein asks “Is any music written by a Jew Jewish music? Is only synagogue music Jewish? What makes Jewish music distinctive?”  In class we established that it is nearly impossible to name any music universally Jewish since it contains influences from the period, region, culture, and aesthetic tastes of the time. Lowenstein points out that some scholars believe that there is a common root to all Jewish music but he himself seems very critical of this idea. Although he never directly answers the questions posed in the beginning of the chapter, he demonstrates that Jewish music has formed from both “borrowed” influences and original influences, that because there is such a huge range of Jewish music that consists of both religious uses and secular uses, written in Hebrew and Jewish dialects, there can be no distinctive or definitive characteristic of Jewish music but it instead depends on the individual and community perspective and how they choose to associate the music. I think that is another example of the great tradition versus the little tradition. That although Jewish music can share characteristics like theme, use, and language, it is generally greatly influenced by the folk culture surrounding it. I think studying any aspect of Judaism is this complicated because this transfusion of influences seems to always be the case.

            It was really great that in class we were able to hear specific examples of religious and secular Jewish music; it really helped to understand exactly how diverse Jewish music is. Listening to synagogue music that sounded very professional and operatic to watching a music video of a side locked kippa-wearing gangster rapper was extremely interesting. One thing I was especially intrigued about was cantillation. I actually have never heard of it before and I found it amazing that the motifs or tropes can encompass so many concepts. Lowenstein describes them as “motifs that have both grammatical and musical functions. Each motif contains a number of notes. In some ways, the cantillation signs act like the commas, colons, and periods of our writing system” (Lowenstein 179). While I still do not necessarily understand how they work because I am so used to the western style of documenting music, I find it to be one of the most interesting aspects of Jewish music.

Lowenstein’s distinction between the great tradition and the little tradition sheds much light on the idea of a possible united Jewish community. He says the great tradition was “written in books and enshrined in the laws of the Jewish religion, [and] was the uniting factor. The great tradition had an advantage that was particularly important for the Jews-it was portable” (Lowenstein 2). The little tradition is basically everything else and is obtained through culture and family, including things like, music, food, and language. This dichotomy between great tradition and little tradition did help to understand how the Jewish community can be united but there are still many complications in these distinctions. For example, Karaite Judaism cannot be fully included within the great tradition since it does not consider the Talmud or the Mishnah as binding or authoritative sources. This demonstrates that there are communities that are not defined by the standard of the great tradition but still consider themselves to be part of the Jewish community even though they main not be considered so among other Jewish societies. So then are they actually Jewish? Pseudo-Jewish? Or should they be categorized as a branch stemming away from the larger Jewish society? I don’t really know how to answer these questions or if answers even exist. I guess it would all come back to the fact that universals rarely exist in a world where people are moving from one place to another, adapting to their surroundings, borrowing and giving ideas to other communities. But since all religions, not only Judaism, change over time, how can one group really claim legitimacy over another?