AJS Review

Abstract: This paper explores the arrival in Yemen of kabbalistic knowledge from Europe and Palestine at the beginning of the seventeenth century. My claim is that the question of the unique identity of the Jewish community of Yemen can be explored by examining the manner in which Yemenite kabbalists related to this specific knowledge, as opposed to the perception of global knowledge in the seventeenth century. I will present below three models of reception, via an examination of three works: Rekhev Elohim by R. Yiẓḥak Wanne, Segulat Yisraʾel by R. Israel b. Shlomo of Subayra, and Ḥavaẓelet ha-sharon by Yiḥye Bashiri.

Eliezer Baumgarten

AJS Review The Journal of the Association for Jewish Studies

The Globalization of Early Modern Kabbalah: Internal Traditions and External Knowledge in Seventeenth-Century Yemen

早期现代卡巴拉的全球化：十七世纪也门的内部传统与外部知识

Abstract: Focusing mostly on texts from Castile and the corpus of Abraham Abulafia, previous studies have explored how representations of Jesus, Mary, Rome, Christians, Christianity, and Christendom function in the esoteric symbolism of Kabbalah, its ontology of evil, and its eschatology. Some studies have touched on the subject of anti-Christian polemic in the earliest texts from Provence and Catalonia, but evidence adduced for these contexts has been too subtle to demonstrate historicity. The present study reaches into the reserves of censored knowledge to recover and contextualize the earliest unambiguous record of anti-Christian polemic in the history of Kabbalah—restoring early evidence from Catalonia, from the writings of Ezra of Gerona, and coordinating it with what is already known of attitudes toward Christianity in Castile. In so doing, the study examines the role of censorship in shaping the longitudinal transmission of kabbalistic approaches to Christianity from an earlier phase than heretofore established.

Jeremy Phillip Brown

On the Censorship of Anti-Christian Polemic in Early Kabbalah: In Memoriam: Gershon David Hundert (1946–2023)

早期卡巴拉中反基督教论战的审查：纪念格申·戴维·洪德特（1946-2023）

Abstract: This article investigates the writings of Jamaica's rabbi Abraham E. Dobrin amid heightened racial tensions following a devastating 1907 earthquake. It focuses on two specific incidents. First is Dobrin's reaction to a 1912 petition from a Black man to join Jamaica's Jewish community. Second is a 1914 public debate in which Dobrin radically advocated for a belief in Jewish racial homogeneity and superiority. Anchored to these two episodes, this article explores the larger contexts for both early twentieth-century Black Jewish identity and Jewish "race" theory. It argues that in the highly racialized climate of post-1907 Jamaica, the Jewish sense of racial singularity, even superiority, paralleled some of the emerging trends of Pan-Africanism in defiance of a liberal white minority as represented by Governor Sydney Olivier. This argument qualifies a widely held unidirectional model of Jewish assimilation in Jamaica to an elite white minority.

Stanley Mirvis

Disaster, Race, and Rabbinic Authority: An Alternative Path of Jewish Integration in Early Twentieth-Century Jamaica

灾难、种族与拉比权威：二十世纪初牙买加犹太人融合的另一条路径

Abstract: In this paper we analyze the social meanings associated with the new native vernacular (NNV) variety of Modern Hebrew as a complex positive stance, constructed via differentiation from its alternatives. NNV is reflexive, and it speaks for itself: for the authority of experience, as opposed to the traditional authority of the text. A speaker of NNV is necessarily an active agent in the propagation of the new collective and its values. We also explore the consolidation and dissemination of these values by cultural agents, focusing on a 1950s column by Dahn Ben Amotz, which presents snapshots of "everyday life" in multiple sites in Israel, as part of the modernist project of constructing a hegemonic folk identity. We show how variation in the use of spoken Hebrew, together with other tropes such as location and ethnic descent, are implicated in the construction of the new folk identity.

Abbreviation	AJS Rev.
Journal Impact	0.61

ISSN	0364-0094, 1475-4541
h-index	20

Publication Information	Publisher: Cambridge University Press，Publishing cycle: ，Journal Type: journal，Open Access Journals: No
Basic data	Year of publication: 2001，Proportion of original research papers: 100.00%，Self Citation Rate:0.00%， Gold OA Rate: 0.00%

AJS Review

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The Globalization of Early Modern Kabbalah: Internal Traditions and External Knowledge in Seventeenth-Century Yemen

On the Censorship of Anti-Christian Polemic in Early Kabbalah: In Memoriam: Gershon David Hundert (1946–2023)

Disaster, Race, and Rabbinic Authority: An Alternative Path of Jewish Integration in Early Twentieth-Century Jamaica

The Double Standard in Modern Hebrew

Message from the Incoming Editors

The Globalization of Early Modern Kabbalah: Internal Traditions and External Knowledge in Seventeenth-Century Yemen

On the Censorship of Anti-Christian Polemic in Early Kabbalah: In Memoriam: Gershon David Hundert (1946–2023)

Disaster, Race, and Rabbinic Authority: An Alternative Path of Jewish Integration in Early Twentieth-Century Jamaica

The Double Standard in Modern Hebrew

Message from the Incoming Editors