Making it in Maine: Stories of Jewish Life in Small-Town America

A fundamental part of the experience of immigrants to the United States has been the tension between incorporating into a new country while maintaining one’s cultural roots. In this article, the author describes the experience of Jewish Americans in Maine, where climate, culture, and remoteness from larger Jewish populations contributed to a unique process of Americanization compared with Jewish populations in more urban areas of the country. After successfully “making it” over the course of two centuries, Jewish Mainers face a new set of challenges and opportunities. The author is the director of the Jewish studies program at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. He is member of the religious studies department, where he teaches a wide range of courses on Judaism, Jewish history, and comparative religion

With a Little Help from My Friends: Jewish Mutual Assistance in Nineteenth-Century Maine

Jews in 19th-century Maine relied on familial, ethnic, and, to a lesser degree, institutional networks of mutual assistance to survive and thrive. These Jews, who commonly worked as merchants of clothing and other dry goods, counted on family members to get them through hard times and hired fellow Jews to peddle their wares in the countryside. Jewish peddlers and merchants regularly borrowed or loaned cash and goods on credit within a small, tightly knit community that extended across Maine and as far as Boston and New York. Commercial networks also reinforced familial ties as children and in-laws entered the family business, often marrying their father’s employees or business partners. In Bangor and Portland, Jews formed associations—the Ahawas Achim synagogue in 1849 and a chapter of the B’nai B’rith fraternal organization in 1874, respectively—designed to care for ill, deceased, and widowed community members as well as to attend to religious and cultural needs. Although both of these early institutions dissolved within seven to eight years of their founding, and many of their members migrated out of the state, the Jews who settled in Maine before 1880 laid the foundations for communities and organizations that remain vibrant to this day. The present study draws on the records of these institutions and credit reports of approximately 150 individual Jewish businessmen from towns throughout the state, along with census records and local or family histories. David M. Freidenreich is the Pulver Family Associate Professor of Jewish Studies at Colby College, where he serves as director of the Jewish studies program and associate director of the Center for Small Town Jewish Life. He is also the founder of Colby’s Maine Jewish History Project (web.colby.edu/jewsinmaine/),which fosters research on Jewish life in Maine by student and community historians. As a member of the religious studies department, he teaches a wide range of courses on Judaism, Jewish history, and comparative religion. After receiving a B.A. from Brandeis University, he earned his Ph.D. at Columbia University and rabbinic ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary. Most of his scholarship explores attitudes toward adherents of foreign religions within premodern Christian, Jewish, and Islamic sources. Kristin Esdale graduated from Colby College in2016 with a major in chemistry and a minor in Jewish studies. She currently teaches high school science at an international boarding school in Germany

Against the Grain and Over the Line: Reflections on Comparative Methodology

This article distills theoretical arguments that I advance in Foreigners and Their Food, arguments relevant to a wide range of religious studies scholars. In addition, it makes the case for comparison as a method that sheds light not only on specific comparands and the class of data to which they belong but also on the very boundaries which the comparison transgresses. Through a comparison of Latin Christian and Shiʿi Islamic discourse about the impurity of religious foreigners, I illustrate methods by which religious authorities develop and transmit conceptions of foreigners. I then analyze this case study using Oliver Freiberger’s “Elements of a Comparative Methodology” while assessing the strengths and limitations of Freiberger’s methodical framework. I offer personal reflections on the process of conducting comparative scholarship, advice for those embarking on this demanding yet rewarding approach to the study of religion, and desiderata for further reflection on comparative methodology

Conceptions of Gentiles in Halakhic Literature from Christian Spain

International audienceResponsa and law codes by the thirteenth-century Catalonian rabbis Moshe ben Nahman (Nahmanides) and Shelomo Ibn Adret make frequent reference to gentiles but hardly ever address Christians or Muslims as such. This silence about Christianity and Islam stems neither from ignorance nor self-censorship but rather from the ways in which these and other medieval European rabbis conceptualized the distinction between Jews and non-Jews. By emphasizing observance of biblical law as the most important characteristic of Judaism, Ibn Adret and his colleagues render detailed information about non-Jewish religions legally irrelevant while also offering a powerful polemical defense against Christian missionary efforts. The pervasive influence of theological and polemical notions about non-Jews on medieval halakhic literature complicates efforts to derive social historical data from these sources

Against the Grain and Over the Line: Reflections on Comparative Methodology

This article distills theoretical arguments that I advance in Foreigners and Their Food, arguments relevant to a wide range of religious studies scholars. In addition, it makes the case for comparison as a method that sheds light not only on specific comparands and the class of data to which they belong but also on the very boundaries which the comparison transgresses. Through a comparison of Latin Christian and Shiʿi Islamic discourse about the impurity of religious foreigners, I illustrate methods by which religious authorities develop and transmit conceptions of foreigners. I then analyze this case study using Oliver Freiberger’s “Elements of a Comparative Methodology” while assessing the strengths and limitations of Freiberger’s methodical framework. I offer personal reflections on the process of conducting comparative scholarship, advice for those embarking on this demanding yet rewarding approach to the study of religion, and desiderata for further reflection on comparative methodology

“You Still Believe Like a Jew!”: Polemical Comparisons and Other Eastern Christian Rhetoric Associating Muslims with Jews from the Seventh to Ninth Centuries

Patriarch Timothy I and Theodore bar Koni, late eighth-century members of the Church of the East, brand Muslims as “new Jews,” in Timothy’s words, on account of their refusal to accept Christian doctrines about Christ. Like many other Eastern Christians, these authors employ the discourse of anti-Judaism against Muslim targets to reinforce the faith of their Christian audiences. Timothy and Theodore, however, are the only known authors of the initial Islamic centuries who employ the rhetorical device of polemical comparison when associating Muslims with Jews. Analysis of the elements with which Timothy and Theodore construct their comparisons reveals the goals that they hoped to achieve through their innovative use of traditional anti-Jewish discourse as well as the distinctive contributions of this rhetorical device to their arguments on behalf of Christian truth claims. This essay demonstrates a broadly applicable method for rhetorical analysis of polemical comparisons

Muḥammad, the Monk, and the Jews: Comparative Religion in Versions of the Baḥīrā Legend

 Early Muslims told a tale about Baḥīrā, a Christian monk who identified the young Muḥammad as the long-awaited prophet and warned the boy’s guardian to protect him from murderous Jews. This legend proved so popular that not only later Muslims but also Christians, Samaritans, and Jews themselves retold it in widely divergent ways. This study analyzes the foundational version of the Baḥīrā legend that appears in the Sīra of Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq (d. ca. 768 CE) alongside others whose genealogical relationship to it is demonstrable. Within these tales, comparison functions as a powerful rhetorical tool by means of which premodern authors denigrate their targets. Academic comparison of the Baḥīrā legend’s many versions, in contrast, reveals the distinctive ways in which premodern authors from different communities understood the similarities and differences not only between their own community and its rivals but also among those rivals. This article demonstrates the utility of Oliver Freiberger’s methodological framework for comparative religion and, more specifically, the analytical value of juxtaposing sources in order to generate insights that deepen understanding of each comparand in its own right