Browsing by Subject "Jewish"
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Item Biblical references to musical instruments: a listing and implications(Texas Tech University, 1968-08) Starkes, Jerry RonaldNot availableItem Dimensions of Youth Identity Formation at a Reform Jewish Summer Camp in Central Texas(2014-04-17) Dangott, JessicaFor young Jews in North America, the discovery of Jewish identity?sometimes colloquially referred to as ?Jewishness??can often be confusing, exhausting, and even surprising. Many Jewish youth in America first become consciously aware of their Jewish identity formation in conjunction with the practice of their faith and with major Jewish life events (i.e., becoming a Bar or Bat Mitzvah, attending a Jewish day school or Jewish summer camp, or a trip to the State of Israel). This study focuses on URJ Greene Family Camp (GFC), a residential Jewish summer camp in central Texas, primarily investigating dimensions of Jewish youth identity formation through an interdisciplinary theoretical framework in anthropology, organizational communication, and recreation and heritage studies. The dataset consists of nine (9) semi-structured interviews with current 12^(th) graders who recently completed the counselor-in-training program in the 2013 summer season. These conversations reveal struggles with negotiating multiple identities as a result of summer experiences at GFC. In addition to analyzing common themes in the data, the researcher also leans on an atypical form of data analysis called poetic transcription to engage with the data creatively. Through auto-ethnography, this project allows the researcher to struggle with finding the balance between being an insider and an outsider in relation to Greene Family Camp and this thesis. This project revealed that each summer is a new phase of liminal experiences that contribute to campers? ever-changing identities explored at camp and those expressed elsewhere because of camp experiences.Item "Perl's of wisdom" : "Rabbi" Sam Perl, new models of acculturation, and the "in-between" Jew(2011-12) Schottenstein, Allison Elizabeth; Abzug, Robert H.; McKiernan-Gonzalez, John“‘Perl’s of Wisdom’: ‘Rabbi’ Sam Perl, New Models of Acculturation, and the ‘In-Between’ Jew” examines archival materials from the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The Brownsville Herald and El Heraldo de Brownsville to demonstrate how Sam Perl — an Eastern European Jewish immigrant who changed the face of Brownsville, Texas — redefines historical approaches to Jewish acculturation. In this bordertown, Perl not only revitalized the Jewish community when he became the temple’s lay-rabbi, but he also actively united Mexican and Anglo communities both in Brownsville and across the border in its sister city of Matamoros. In Perl’s efforts to simultaneously revitalize his own religious community and the greater social landscape of the border area, Perl proved that he did not need to conform to the expectations of Anglo-Christian identity to succeed. Challenging theories of whiteness studies scholars, Perl never sacrificed his Jewish identity, had a boulevard named after him, and came to be known as “Mr. Brownsville.” Indeed, Perl’s profound impact on the Brownsville-Matamoros community was the result of his ability to occupy an “in-between,” interstitial position that did not require him to blend in with majority cultures; that is, Perl remained distinctly Jewish while simultaneously involving himself in both Anglo and Mexican arenas. Immersing himself in every aspect of bordertown life, Perl occupied multiple roles of community authority, serving as a businessman, rabbi, a Charro Days founder, cultural diplomat, court chaplain and radio host. A close examination of Perl’s life and considerable legacy demonstrates how new acculturation models are needed to better understand the manner in which Jews like Perl have adapted and contributed to dominant cultures.Item “Shake your tuchas” : Jewish parody rappers and the performance of Jewish masculinity(2012-12) Tyson, Lana Kimura; O'Meara, Caroline; Seeman, Sonia Tamar, 1958-; Dell'Antonio, AndrewAmerican Jewish rappers have become an increasingly prevalent topic in Jewish popular and scholarly media, where critics and scholars seek to understand how hip-hop performance and consumption serves as a platform for exploring and articulating Jewish identity. This thesis explores the work of what I term “Jewish parody rappers”—rappers who foreground Jewishness while destabilizing normative American Jewish identity using humor or parody—in order to demonstrate how nuanced gender and ethnoracial identity performances can be found in an often overlooked segment of Jewish rap. Using Jamie Moshin’s concept of “New Jewishness,” I argue that Jewish parody rappers recontextualize tropes of Jewish masculinity through black hip-hop codes, evoking a long history of Jewish engagement with African-American performance. Through an examination of Jewish parody rappers and their performances—including the Beastie Boys, 2 Live Jews, Chutzpah, and Athens Boys Choir—I demonstrate how these New Jews destabilize, or queer, Jewish identity through hip-hop performance. The Beastie Boys’ parodic performances highlight Jewishness as a liminal identity as they use the malleable and performative markers of Jewish masculinity to foreground their whiteness in the black-dominated arena of hip-hop. 2 Live Jews and Chutzpah recuperate tropes of effeminate and impotent Jewish masculinity through their extended parodies. Harvey Katz of Athens Boys Choir plays with tropes of Jewish masculinity not only to queer Jewishness, like other Jewish parody rappers, but also to articulate an explicitly queer Jewish identity. Each of these core samples illuminates various ways in which Jewish parody rappers perform New Jewish identity; however, these rappers do not evade the specter of problematic racial appropriation as they articulate Jewishness through and against tropes of black hip-hop hypermasculinity.Item Troubling Trypho : associative-group language in Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho the Jew(2016-12) Fitzgerald, Ryan Austin; Friesen, Steven J.Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho the Jew is a vital text in the study of early Jewish Christian relations. This paper argues that Justin attempts to portray Christians as a legitimate and cohesive genos, ethnos, and laos, what I will call an “associative-group,” over and against his construction of Jews. Using Denise Kimber Buell’s argument that Justin defines Christianity in ethnoracial terms in contrast to Erich Gruen’s critique that ancient people did not think of self identification in modern ethnoracial manners, I examine what I call Justin’s “associative-group” identity. Justin constructs Christianity as the “true” associative-group of God, connected through creative lineage from the patriarchs through Jesus. Justin uses the failure of the Jews in the Bar Kokhba revolt as proof that they are not the associative-group defined by their relationship to God or land, nor have they been since their rejection of Jesus as God’s Messiah.