Mitzvah Girls is the first book about bringing up Hasidic Jewish girls in North America; providing an in-depth look into a closed community. Ayala Fader examines language; gender; and the body from infancy to adulthood; showing how Hasidic girls in Brooklyn become women responsible for rearing the next generation of nonliberal Jewish believers. To uncover how girls learn the practices of Hasidic Judaism; Fader looks beyond the synagogue to everyday talk in the context of homes; classrooms; and city streets. Hasidic women complicate stereotypes of nonliberal religious women by collapsing distinctions between the religious and the secular. In this innovative book; Fader demonstrates that contemporary Hasidic femininity requires women and girls to engage with the secular world around them; protecting Hasidic men and boys who study the Torah. Even as Hasidic religious observance has become more stringent; Hasidic girls have unexpectedly become more fluent in secular modernity. They are fluent Yiddish speakers but switch to English as they grow older; they are increasingly modest but also fashionable; they read fiction and play games like those of mainstream American children but theirs have Orthodox Jewish messages; and they attend private Hasidic schools that freely adapt from North American public and parochial models. Investigating how Hasidic women and girls conceptualize the religious; the secular; and the modern; Mitzvah Girls offers exciting new insights into cultural production and change in nonliberal religious communities.
#1172144 in Books David M Goldenberg 2005-08-07 2005-08-07Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.00 x 1.06 x 6.00l; 1.44 #File Name: 0691123705472 pagesThe Curse of Ham Race and Slavery in Early Judaism Christianity and Islam
Review
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Four StarsBy Gary H.It was information I had be looking for.8 of 9 people found the following review helpful. Good to have the truth out there!By Anthony B. BradleyThe Curse of Ham has such historic significance to the history of oppression of Africans and African Americans for so many centuries that it's helpful to have a book that sets the record straight on the origins. It's a scholarly text so the multiple cited sources is important! This needs to be read!25 of 43 people found the following review helpful. Race Bible and slaveryBy Seth J. FrantzmanWas Ham African? This book tries to divinate the truth and the origin of the 'curse of Ham' since over the generations many have perverted the bible to show that the descendants of Ham were African and were also meant to be slaves. The truth is a little different. Just as Atalantic slavers used the exuse that africans were not human to enslave them thus Muslims likewise used the excuse that africans could be enslaved as pagans. But the Bible was simply used as an easy way to not feel guilty about slavery. The reality was that slavery was practiced not just against Africans and that the race of Africans had little to do with slavery. Rather the slave trade seems to have been so long and prosperous in Africa due to the Africans being active participants; the lack of a unified empire in Africa to oppose slavery and the lack of other sources of humans to serve as slaves. After all we know that Rome enslaved the Gauls and other europeans. But when Europe developed a strong state the only europeans open to being enslaved where those colonized by the Ottomans. Likewise the depopulation that followed the Islamic conquest of the middle east meant that slaves could not come from thos eregions. Slaves certainyl couldnt be transported out of China. Thus Africa became the meat market for human cruelty; the sickness of slavery that eventually consumed and destroyed african soceity. But among the warrior tribes such as the Zulu we do not see enslavement; why? Because they dared to raise the sword against the Perverts who came to buy their daughters into slavery. The 'curse of Ham' had little to do with Africa rather it had more to do with Humans and the weakness of the state.Seth J. Frantzman
