RCAAP Repository

Lili Jaffe, Noemi Jaffe and Leda Cartum. Survivor of the Shoah, her daughter and granddaughter. The publication, in 2012, of O que os cegos estão sonhando? (What are the blind ones dreaming of?) rummages in the delicate territory of the trauma resulting from the tragedy and its repercussions on the descendants of the victims; here, second and third generations, somehow doomed to live under the burden of trauma, the traumatized family. The memory of the victim, recorded in the form of a diary - but, in disagreement with the usual, with what the reader expects, a diary recorded after the facts -, recalls the question of trustworthiness, the reliability of memory, the relation between the facts “as they ocurred”, and the reworking of memories, desires, reports of other survivors. In addition to Lili Jaffe’s diary, the book contains reflections of her daughter Noemi Jaffe and also a chapter written by her granddaughter, Leda Cartum. The purpose of this article is to reflect on the developments of the so-called “Literature of testimony”, seventy years after Nazi barbarism, as well on its re-signification by descendants who have not lived the facts but are in some way affected by the sheer presence, effective or symbolic, of the victim. It is also proposed the adoption of the concept of “generations of writings”, for the appreciation of works of “Literature of testimony”, according to their temporal distance from the facts

In order to contribute to discussions about the image of Adolf Eichmann illustrated in the record made by Hannah Arendt in his trial, we present, in contrast, testimonies of Jewish survivors who, during World War II, witnessed Eichmann's actions that prove that he knew the fate of millions of Jews deported to concentration and extermination camps - contrary to what he reported in his trial. From this illustrative outline, the historiographical characteristics of Arendt's records are analyzed, notably in their theoretical aspect, which deviate from data and facts of concrete reality, as experienced by those involved, thus constituting a review of some contributions of the renowned philosopher, which reveal gaps that distance the reality from its respective analyzes.

This article focuses on the analysis of the Jewish question in Pernambuco during the Estado Novo, considering that the dictatorship, with its exacerbated nationalism, provided a propitious ground for the strengthening of discursive constructions and political actions that reinforced stereotypes already existing in the country, like anti-Semitism. In the period analyzed, the Pernambuco interventionist fell to Agamenon Magalhães, which established as its main mission to disseminate the state ideas of the state, defending even the existing anti-Semitism at the federal level. But from official documentation, archival records, and interviews with Jews, we found that, despite the anti-Semitism present in government hosts, the speeches of intellectuals, and the media, there was considerable room for Jews to established in the state and constituted an active community. The period in which Brazil declares war on the Axis and the changes that were generated in Pernambuco related to the Jews are also objects of this study.

Although body odor is a completely natural feature, smells emanating from the human body or clothes have been perceived throughout history as a manifestation of one's spiritual world and moral identity. The current study discusses the encounter of Rabbi Jacob Saphir (1822-1886), a famous Jewish traveler, with honorable Muslim. During the event the followers of the holy man do not touch him but smell the special scent of his clothes. The unusual event illustrating the social significance of the odor emitted by distinguished figure's body or clothes among Muslims. It also demonstrates a new insight of Saphir concerning the meaning of body odors in Jewish scriptures.

The aim of this paper is to prove that a considerable amount of the Arabic terminology that appears in spoken Hebrew comes, almost in its entirety, from Arabic spoken by Jews in North Africa. Additionally, I will endeavor to explain why these linguistic structures are considered below standard and almost all of them are perceived as having negative connotation, relating this reality to the socio-cultural position of Jews speaking Jewish Arabic, that is, a position marginalized within Israeli society ever since the massive arrival of immigrants from the Arab countries. By analyzing the linguistic penetration of these terms as well as their negative connotation, we may infer that this phenomenon is directly linked to a form of socio-cultural discrimination against such speakers.

The biblical man's life span is ideally a set of three complete cycles of forty years each, totaling one hundred and twenty years. The one hundred and twenty is an ideal paradigmatic number, mathematically versatile and with a great symbolic content – conventionally perfect. Thus the transitory life fixed upon the one hundred and twentyyear expectation of the carnal and mortal man finds its meaning through the promise of long and productive life, which fulfills its divinely determined purpose and has as its summit satiety.

In addition to proposing to account for a life story or part of it, the formative novel needs to accommodate to a series of other classifications that are sometimes coupled to one or more particular categories. Such is the novel Mentch, a arte de criar um homem (Mentch, the art of creating a man), by Paulo Blank, which proposes to include in little Paulo’s formation all the virtues of being a Jewish boy in Rio de Janeiro in last century’s 50s, as well as the typical experiences of the city at that time. The book can be approached under other categories, as a novel of maturity dressed in Bildungroman clothing or as a typical work of Jewish culture. The appreciation of the novel lends itself to unraveling aspects of the instigating Jewish universe of Rio de Janeiro at that time.

This article deals with the various methods of teaching the Babylonian Talmud, utilized at the central schools of Jewish learning in Eastern Europe and Germany about one hundred and fifty years ago. We shall present the various methods of teaching characteristic of these schools of learning and ways of teaching Talmud, features of the methods, from that period to the modern method in the first academic institutions in Berlin. The modern teaching method took the innovative form of academic research, which was taking its initial steps but in practice laid the foundations for academic research conducted to this day.

A arca de Noé

Segundo dia

Desjejum

Olga

A marcha do mal (ou a pequenina)

Resenha a: LEVI, Primo. Mil sóis, poemas escolhidos. Trad. Maurício Santana Dias. São Paulo: Todavia, 2019.

Resenha: AMICHAI, Yehuda. Terra e paz: antologia poética. Organização e tradução: Moacir Amâncio. Rio de Janeiro: Bazar do Tempo, 2018. 183p.

In his 2017 documentary The Impure Daniel Najenson straddles the notions of past and present to denounce the horrors and the injustice of sex trafficking in Argentina. Following a family tale of a great-aunt who migrated from Eastern Europe to South America at the beginning of the twentieth century, he digs deep into Israeli and Argentine archives to tell the story of the Zwi Migdal and the way Jewish women were forced into prostitution. To give voice to these women, he brings in Sonia Sánchez, originally from northern Argentina, and forced into prostitution in Buenos Aires when she was seventeen years old. Sánchez tells her own story, but also reads letters from the now deceased victims of sex trade a century ago. This self-professed feminist and activist is also shown in demonstrations and interviews fueling the NiUnaMenos movement in Argentina, while the #MeToo and TimesUp movements explode in the U.S.

In 1937, American documentary filmmaker Julien Bryan obtained a surprising permission from the German authorities to record the day-to-day life of Hitler's Germany. After filming Nazi stops and the well-nourished population between flags with swastikas, passing through Poland witnessed and filmed the invasion of the country by the Nazis. His records Inside Nazi Germany (1938) and Siege (1940) witnessed unprecedented historical events, from explicit antisemitism on the streets of Berlin to the invasion of Poland by German troops who started World War II.

This study discusses two stories in Jerusalem Talmud on R. Pinḥhas ben Yair who controls mice and forces them to gather in one place and to do his wishes. The two stories have in common their demonstration of the learned sage’s power to utilize miracles to deal with a harmful animal, thereby saving the people. The "decree" issued by R. Pinḥas ben Yair is permissible kind of ḥover ḥaver as it operates within the framework of Jewish rules and does not contain forbidden supernatural elements customary in the pagan world.

We will reflect upon the Israeli director Nadav Lapid’s movie Synonymes (2019), winner of the 69th Berlin International Film Festival’s Golden Bear, relating it to the thematic: production of transversal identities indicated by bodies without organs (CsO) (Deleuze and Guattari); Israeli’s political and subjective contemporary diaspora (Hall); symbolic capital’s critic transformation (Bourdieu); as well as the transcultural heterogeneous mobilities that conform the current Israeli society (Augé).

Four Jewish poems