27 research outputs found
Pan-Jewish Solidarity and the Jewish Significance of Modern Israel: The 1958 âWho Is a Jew?â Affair Revisited
Religious zionism and the state: Political accommodation and religious radicalism in Israel
The âsymbolic homelandâ in the Jewish Italian Diaspora: the celebration of civil religion in Italy
In this article, the attitudes of the Italian Jewish diaspora towards Israel, seen as a symbolic homeland, are analyzed. This analysis is based on the theoretical discourse on diaspora.
Attitudes are explored through the participation of Italian Jews in the celebration of Yom ha atzmaâut. Given the significance of Israelâs Independence Day in the sequence of the three-day civil religious commemoration in Israel â which constitutes a sort of national narrative â the entire sequence is also considered in the analysis of the Italian diaspor
An investigation of the unexpectedly high fertility of secular, native-born Jews in Israel
Hermeneutics of Modern Death: Science, Philosophy and the Brain Death Controversy in Orthodox Judaism
Brain death criteria is acknowledged by 80 countries worldwide as the death of a human being. Such acknowledgement has not gone without critical perspectives being voiced. Philosopher Hans Jonas (1903â1993), for example, who criticizes the brain death criteria as the modern version of the old mind-body dualism, names it todayâs brain-body dualism.
He argues in favor of a more holistic perspective on the human dying process, thus resembling in his opposition modern Jewish Ultra-Orthodoxâ strict reservations against brain death.
Contrary to the Western philosophic way of argumentation, Orthodox Jews and their religious authorities looked into the matter following other interests: In Orthodox Judaism, the question whether brain death is per definitionem halachic death (death according to religious law) created a controversy in its own right.
This article intends to discuss two main arguments: First, the Orthodox brain death controversy shows in a nutshell how production and governance of knowledge, secular (also medical) and religious knowledge alike, depends on processes of legitimization within a specific interpretive community. The issues of brain death and organ donation, generally rejected by the Ultra-Orthodox but accepted by their âmodernâ co-religionists, show that trust in the medical determination of death as well as trust in the uncertainty of the dying process are both legitimate options within the same religious normative framework. Thus, the acceptance or rejection of the brain death concept in different Jewish religious cultures may have (among other factors) to be considered together with the question of âknowledge sovereigntyâ when it comes to death and dying. Second, the question of which knowledge generating system should best be trusted is indirectly mirrored by Jonasâ idea of a new mind-body dualism that alludes to a general dichotomy between (medical) science and religion