Mapping Jewish Education: The National Picture

Based on interviews as well as a database of Jewish educational organizations, foundations, and programs, examines their accomplishments, challenges, future directions, and links within a Jewish educational system. Highlights the role of foundations

The spontaneous speaking vocabulary of children in nursery-kindergarten, grades one, two and three.

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston Universit

Pimecrolimus in dermatology: atopic dermatitis and beyond

Pimecrolimus is a calcineurin inhibitor developed for the topical therapy of inflammatory skin diseases, particularly atopic dermatitis (AD). Pimecrolimus selectively targets T cells and mast cells. Pimecrolimus inhibits T-cell proliferation, as well as production and release of interleukin-2 (IL-2), IL-4, interferon-γ and tumour necrosis factor-α. Moreover, pimecrolimus inhibits mast cell degranulation. In contrast to tacrolimus, pimecrolimus has no effects on the differentiation, maturation and functions of dendritic cells. In contrast to corticosteroids, pimecrolimus does not affect endothelial cells and fibroblasts and does not induce skin atrophy. Given the low capacity of pimecrolimus to permeate through the skin, it has a very low risk of systemic exposure and subsequent systemic side-effects. In different randomised controlled trials, topical pimecrolimus as cream 1% (Elidel ® ) has been shown to be effective, well tolerated and safe in both adults and children with mild to moderate AD. In addition, pimecrolimus has been successfully used in inflammatory skin diseases other than AD, including seborrheic dermatitis, intertriginous psoriasis, lichen planus and cutaneous lupus erythematosus.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/73190/1/j.1368-5031.2005.00587.x.pd

Off-Label Biologic Regimens in Psoriasis: A Systematic Review of Efficacy and Safety of Dose Escalation, Reduction, and Interrupted Biologic Therapy

Objectives: While off-label dosing of biologic treatments may be necessary in selected psoriasis patients, no systematic review exists to date that synthesizes the efficacy and safety of these off-label dosing regimens. The aim of this systematic review is to evaluate efficacy and safety of off-label dosing regimens (dose escalation, dose reduction, and interrupted treatment) with etanercept, adalimumab, infliximab, ustekinumab, and alefacept for psoriasis treatment

The Question of Palestine before the International Community, 1924: A Methodological Inquiry into the Charge of ““Bias””

This article offers a study of the Permanent Mandates Commission's first discussion of Palestine——at its fifth session in 1924. The PMC was charged by the League of Nations with the task of monitoring the progress of the post-war mandates. The article argues that, in contrast to the way in which these meetings have been portrayed in previous scholarship (namely, as either virulently anti-Zionist or staunchly anti-Arab), the members of the commission generally engaged in a reasoned discussion of the challenges of enforcing the multiple and competing terms of the Palestine Mandate, mindful of the defined limits of the commission's mission. The article pays close attention to the social and dialogical dynamics of the discussions and contends that sensitivity to these dynamics allows for a more compelling, nuanced understanding of the debate. It further suggests the need for careful consideration of the meaning of the charge of ““bias”” as an explanatory tool in historical analysis

Strange bedfellows: mutʿat al-nisāʾ and mutʿat al-ḥajj : a study based on Sunnī and Shīʿī sources of tafsīr, ḥadīth and fiqh

Zugl.: Jerusalem, Hebrew Univ., Diss.Arthur GribetzOriginally presented as the author's thesis (doctoral)--Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 199

Emotions in the Margins: Reading Toledot Yeshu after the Affective Turn

In 826 C.E., Agobard, bishop of Lyon, published a treatise entitled De Judaicis superstitionibus, detailing and ridiculing the ‘superstitions’ of the Jews. The details Agobard recounts make clear that the bishop is referring to a medieval Jewish parody of the story of Jesus’ life, known as Toledot Yeshu (Life of Jesus), composed in Aramaic sometime before the second half of the eighth century and later translated into Hebrew. Toledot Yeshu tells the story of Jesus’ life in a biting, vulgar tone. It was a text composed and used by Jews as an anti-Christian polemic, and as an internal document to bolster the faith of fellow Jews, oftentimes those who found themselves drawn in some way to Christianity and who needed encouragement not to stray from Judaism. There is no single uniform text; each manuscript tells a different version of the story – some with slight variations, others with drastic differences in tone, style, and plot. Included here is a very preliminary transcription and translation of the opening passages of a Judaeo-Arabic manuscript of Toledot Yeshu currently owned by Princeton University Library [Princeton Hebrew MS. 18, fol. 1r-9v / C0932]. The selected passage recounts the story of Yeshu’s conception and birth as well as the discovery of his father’s identity by the sages. The manuscript is written in eastern script that dates to the 16th century. It belongs to the Group II manuscripts according to the Schäfer/Meerson manuscript groupings

Conceptions of Time and Rhythms of Daily Life in Rabbinic Literature, 200-600 C.E.

This dissertation centers on the ways in which rabbinic texts from the first five centuries C.E. constructed daily and monthly rhythms of time and examines the intersections of those times at the outer boundaries of the rabbinic community as well as among those inhabiting various roles within the community. Part I explores the synchronization and differentiation of rabbinic and Roman time, and focuses in particular on the incorporation of the Roman calendar into rabbinic texts and on the integration of the Jewish seven-day week into the Roman calendar. Ironically, by trying so deliberately to separate from observing the Roman calendar and formulating laws intended to limit interactions between Romans and Jews on certain calendar days, the rabbis effectively integrated the rhythms of the Roman calendar into their own daily lives. Rabbinic sources, however, also present the origin and history of these Roman festivals as Jewish or biblical at their core, thus filling the Roman calendar with days that had Jewish stories - and indeed a long Jewish past - attached to them. Romans, too, adopted aspects of the Jewish calendar, especially the seven-day week and a day of rest, despite Roman arguments that resting every seventh day epitomized idleness and was an ill use of one's time. Part II confronts the question of gender in rabbinic time and the emergence of a gendered temporality in rabbinic law through the development of distinct rituals for men and women. In a shift from the way in which commandments had previously been conceptualized, rabbinic texts construct the category of "positive time-bound commandments," from which rabbinic law excludes women. There is, however, an entire set of time-related laws - the cycles of purity and impurity related to menstruation - that applied only to women and structured their time around different rituals. Women's bodies were also invoked rhetorically to articulate ideas about time through the use of metaphors of pregnancy, labor, birth and menstruation. Even as the rabbis--all men--define women out of what they consider to be time-boundedness, through both rituals and rhetoric women are effectively no less, though surely differently, time-bound than their male counterparts