In this extraordinary volume, Iris Parush opens up the hitherto unexamined world of literate Jewish women, their reading habits, and their role in the cultural modernization of Eastern European Jewish society in the nineteenth century. Parush makes a paradoxical claim: she argues that because Jewish women were marginalized and neglected by rabbinical authorities who regarded men as the bearers of religious learning, they were free to read secular literature in German, Yiddish, Polish, and Russian. As a result of their exposure to a wealth of literature, these reading women became significant conduits for Haskalah (Enlightenment) ideas and ideals within the Jewish community. This deceptively simple thesis dramatically challenges and revamps both scholarly and popular notions of Jewish life and learning in nineteenth-century Eastern Europe. While scholars of European women's history have been transforming and complicating ideas about the historical roles of middle-class women for some time, Parush is among the first scholars to work exclusively in Jewish territory. The book will be a very welcome introduction to many facets of modern Jewish cultural historyÑparticularly the role of womenÑwhich have too long been ignored.
The Sin of Writing and the Rise of Modern Hebrew Literature contends that the processes of enlightenment, modernization, and secularization in nineteenth-century Eastern European Jewish society were marked not by a reading revolution but rather by a writing revolution, that is, by a revolutionary change in this society's attitude toward writing. Combining socio-cultural history and literary studies and drawing on a large corpus of autobiographies, memoirs, and literary works of the period, the book sets out to explain the curious absence of writing skills and Hebrew grammar from the curriculum of the traditional Jewish education system in Eastern Europe. It shows that traditional Jewish society maintained a conspicuously oral literacy culture, colored by fears of writing and suspicions toward publication. It is against this background that the young yeshiva students undergoing enlightenment started to “sin by writing,” turning writing and publication in Hebrew into the cornerstone of their constitution as autonomous, enlightened, male Jewish subjects, and setting the foundations for the rise of modern Hebrew literature.
The Sin of Writing and the Rise of Modern Hebrew Literature contends that the processes of enlightenment, modernization, and secularization in nineteenth-century Eastern European Jewish society were marked not by a reading revolution but rather by a writing revolution, that is, by a revolutionary change in this society's attitude toward writing. Combining socio-cultural history and literary studies and drawing on a large corpus of autobiographies, memoirs, and literary works of the period, the book sets out to explain the curious absence of writing skills and Hebrew grammar from the curriculum of the traditional Jewish education system in Eastern Europe. It shows that traditional Jewish society maintained a conspicuously oral literacy culture, colored by fears of writing and suspicions toward publication. It is against this background that the young yeshiva students undergoing enlightenment started to “sin by writing,” turning writing and publication in Hebrew into the cornerstone of their constitution as autonomous, enlightened, male Jewish subjects, and setting the foundations for the rise of modern Hebrew literature.
In this extraordinary volume, Iris Parush opens up the hitherto unexamined world of literate Jewish women, their reading habits, and their role in the cultural modernization of Eastern European Jewish society in the nineteenth century. Parush makes a paradoxical claim: she argues that because Jewish women were marginalized and neglected by rabbinical authorities who regarded men as the bearers of religious learning, they were free to read secular literature in German, Yiddish, Polish, and Russian. As a result of their exposure to a wealth of literature, these reading women became significant conduits for Haskalah (Enlightenment) ideas and ideals within the Jewish community. This deceptively simple thesis dramatically challenges and revamps both scholarly and popular notions of Jewish life and learning in nineteenth-century Eastern Europe. While scholars of European women's history have been transforming and complicating ideas about the historical roles of middle-class women for some time, Parush is among the first scholars to work exclusively in Jewish territory. The book will be a very welcome introduction to many facets of modern Jewish cultural historyÑparticularly the role of womenÑwhich have too long been ignored.
A novel about the frightfulness and ruthlessness of being in love, from the author of the Booker Prize-winning novel The Sea, The Sea Martin Lynch-Gibson believes he can possess both a beautiful wife and a delightful lover. But when his wife, Antonia, suddenly leaves him for her psychoanalyst, Martin is plunged into an intensive emotional reeducation. He attempts to behave beautifully and sensibly. Then he meets a woman whose demonic splendor at first repels him and later arouses a consuming and monstrous passion. As his Medusa informs him, “this is nothing to do with happiness.” A Severed Head was adapted for a successful stage production in 1963 and was later made into a film starring Claire Bloom, Lee Remick, Richard Attenborough, and Ian Holm.
Nicholas Peverell is newly wed to his sweetheart Jane and enjoying married life with her at his manor house at Dean Peverell. One winter evening they invite the bishop of Marchester to dinner. The bishop used to be the prior of Dean Peverell but since King Henry's dissolution of the monastries he now rules the cathedral dignitaries. Next day, on a hunting party in the salt marshes near Pelham Maris, Nicholas meets the bishop again in very different circumstances. He comes across his murdered corpse lying in a pool of water. His heart has been cut out. Nicholas can't help but remember that their previous night's conversation had touched on witchcraft. Rumours abound of a local coven in the area. Has the Bishop fallen foul of it? Nicholas and Jane are determined to discover the truth...
Chapter 1 of the Elementary and Secondary Act of 1965 is the nation's $6.1 billion program for assisting "disadvantaged" students in primary and secondary schools. This study assesses the current Chapter 1 program and describes a strategy for reformulating the program to encourage fundamental improvements in the quality of education available to low-income students. It concludes that Chapter 1 does not lead to fundamental educational improvements in low-income communities. While the program currently benefits selected groups of children, particularly by providing remedial instruction, it has virtually no effect on overall school quality. This is because Chapter 1, as currently funded, has not kept pace with the needs in either poor inner city or poor rural schools, and because the funds are widely dispersed. The study recommends three basic changes in federal policy: (1) revise the Chapter 1 funds distribution pattern to provide substantially greater aid per low-income child in the districts and schools with the most severe poverty-related problems; (2) reformulate Chapter 1 to encourage comprehensive improvements in low-income schools; and (3) provide fiscal incentives that will encourage states to narrow the gap between the expenditure levels of rich and poor school districts.
Other than a few inquiries, the others didn't question what the women did on their long weekend... They had no way of knowing the basis for, or depth of, the deception the women were entangled in--but they were about to find out. The others, as their six wives collectively refer to them, are sent into near panic, desperately trying to find out what their wives are hiding from them. Instead of enjoying their much anticipated annual Labor Day weekend fishing trip, they find themselves stumbling from one discovery to another, fishing for answers on an unexpected adventure that takes them far from New Orleans. What starts out as a mild curiosity turns into a hilarious journey of minds and hearts, as relationships are tested and their world turned upside down.
The popular image of the family and the court of law in Muslim societies is one of traditional, unchanging social frameworks. Iris Agmon suggests an entirely different view, grounded in a detailed study of nineteenth-century Ottoman court records from the flourishing Palestinian port cities of Haifa and Jaffa. She depicts the shari'a Muslim court of law as a dynamic institution, capable of adapting to rapid and profound social changes indeed, of playing an active role in generating these changes. Court and family interact and transform themselves, each other, and the society of which they form part. Agmon's book is a significant contribution to scholarship on both family history and legal culture in the social history of the Middle East.
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