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Jewish culture

Jewish culture is the culture of the Jewish people,[1] from its formation in ancient times until the current age. Judaism itself is not a faith-based religion, but an orthoprax and ethnoreligion, pertaining to deed, practice, and identity.[2] Jewish culture covers many aspects, including religion and worldviews, literature, media, and cinema, art and architecture, cuisine and traditional dress, attitudes to gender, marriage, and family, social customs and lifestyles, music and dance.[3] Some elements of Jewish culture come from within Judaism, others from the interaction of Jews with host populations, and others still from the inner social and cultural dynamics of the community. Before the 18th century, religion dominated virtually all aspects of Jewish life, and infused culture. Since the advent of secularization, wholly secular Jewish culture emerged likewise.

Jewish festival in Tétouan, Morocco, 1865
Museum of Jewish culture in Bratislava

History

 
Tombstones from a Jewish cemetery, 13th century, Paris

There has not been a political unity of Jewish society since the united monarchy. Since then Israelite populations were always geographically dispersed (see Jewish diaspora), so that by the 19th century the Ashkenazi Jews were mainly located in Eastern and Central Europe; the Sephardi Jews were largely spread among various communities which lived in the Mediterranean region; Mizrahi Jews were primarily spread throughout Western Asia; and other populations of Jews lived in Central Asia, Ethiopia, the Caucasus, and India. (See Jewish ethnic divisions.)

Although there was a high degree of communication and traffic between these Jewish communities – many Sephardic exiles blended into the Ashkenazi communities which existed in Central Europe following the Spanish Inquisition; many Ashkenazim migrated to the Ottoman Empire, giving rise to the characteristic Syrian-Jewish family name "Ashkenazi"; Iraqi-Jewish traders formed a distinct Jewish community in India; to some degree, many of these Jewish populations were cut off from the cultures which surrounded them by ghettoization, Muslim laws of dhimma, and the traditional discouragement of contact between Jews and members of polytheistic populations by their religious leaders.

Medieval Jewish communities in Eastern Europe continued to display distinct cultural traits over the centuries. Despite the universalist leanings of the Enlightenment (and its echo within Judaism in the Haskalah movement), many Yiddish-speaking Jews in Eastern Europe continued to see themselves as forming a distinct national group — " 'am yehudi", from the Biblical Hebrew – but, adapting this idea to Enlightenment values, they assimilated the concept as that of an ethnic group whose identity did not depend on religion, which under Enlightenment thinking fell under a separate category.

Constantin Măciucă writes of the existence of "a differentiated but not isolated Jewish spirit" permeating the culture of Yiddish-speaking Jews.[4] This was only intensified as the rise of Romanticism amplified the sense of national identity across Europe generally. Thus, for example, members of the General Jewish Labour Bund in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were generally non-religious, and one of the historical leaders of the Bund was the child of converts to Christianity, though not a practicing or believing Christian himself.[citation needed]

The Haskalah combined with the Jewish Emancipation movement under way in Central and Western Europe to create an opportunity for Jews to enter secular society. At the same time, pogroms in Eastern Europe provoked a surge of migration, in large part to the United States, where some 2 million Jewish immigrants resettled between 1880 and 1920. By 1931, shortly before The Holocaust, 92% of the World's Jewish population was Ashkenazi in origin. Secularism originated in Europe as series of movements that militated for a new, heretofore unheard-of concept called "secular Judaism". For these reasons, much of what is thought of by English-speakers and, to a lesser extent, by non-English-speaking Europeans as "secular Jewish culture" is, in essence, the Jewish cultural movement that evolved in Central and Eastern Europe, and subsequently brought to North America by immigrants. During the 1940s, the Holocaust uprooted and destroyed most of the Jewish communities living in much of Europe. This, in combination with the creation of the State of Israel and the consequent Jewish exodus from Arab lands, resulted in a further geographic shift.

 
Sephardi Jewish couple from Sarajevo in traditional clothing. Photo taken in 1900.

Defining secular culture among those who practice traditional Judaism is difficult, because the entire culture is, by definition, entwined with religious traditions: the idea of separate ethnic and religious identity is foreign to the Hebrew tradition of an " 'am yisrael". (This is particularly true for Orthodox Judaism.) Gary Tobin, head of the Institute for Jewish and Community Research, said of traditional Jewish culture:

The dichotomy between religion and culture doesn't really exist. Every religious attribute is filled with culture; every cultural act filled with religiosity. Synagogues themselves are great centers of Jewish culture. After all, what is life really about? Food, relationships, enrichment … So is Jewish life. So many of our traditions inherently contain aspects of culture. Look at the Passover Seder — it's essentially great theater. Jewish education and religiosity bereft of culture is not as interesting.[5]

Yaakov Malkin, Professor of Aesthetics and Rhetoric at Tel Aviv University and the founder and academic director of Meitar College for Judaism as Culture[6] in Jerusalem, writes:

Today very many secular Jews take part in Jewish cultural activities, such as celebrating Jewish holidays as historical and nature festivals, imbued with new content and form, or marking life-cycle events such as birth, bar/bat mitzvah, marriage, and mourning in a secular fashion. They come together to study topics pertaining to Jewish culture and its relation to other cultures, in havurot, cultural associations, and secular synagogues, and they participate in public and political action coordinated by secular Jewish movements, such as the former movement to free Soviet Jews, and movements to combat pogroms, discrimination, and religious coercion. Jewish secular humanistic education inculcates universal moral values through classic Jewish and world literature and through organizations for social change that aspire to ideals of justice and charity.[7]

In North America, the secular and cultural Jewish movements are divided into three umbrella organizations: the Society for Humanistic Judaism (SHJ), the Congress of Secular Jewish Organizations (CSJO), and Workmen's Circle.

Philosophy and religion

Jewish philosophy includes all philosophy carried out by Jews, or in relation to the religion of Judaism. The Jewish philosophy is extended over several main eras in Jewish history, including the ancient and biblical era, medieval era and modern era (see Haskalah).

The ancient Jewish philosophy is expressed in the bible. According to Prof. Israel Efros the principles of the Jewish philosophy start in the bible, where the foundations of the Jewish monotheistic beliefs can be found, such as the belief in one god, the separation of god and the world and nature (as opposed to Pantheism) and the creation of the world. Other biblical writings that associated with philosophy are Psalms that contains invitations to admire the wisdom of God through his works; from this, some scholars suggest, Judaism harbors a Philosophical under-current[8] and Ecclesiastes that is often considered to be the only genuine philosophical work in the Hebrew Bible; its author seeks to understand the place of human beings in the world and life's meaning.[9] Other writings related to philosophy can be found in the Deuterocanonical books such as Sirach and Book of Wisdom.

During the Hellenistic era, Hellenistic Judaism aspired to combine Jewish religious tradition with elements of Greek culture and philosophy. The philosopher Philo used philosophical allegory to attempt to fuse and harmonize Greek philosophy with Jewish philosophy. His work attempts to combine Plato and Moses into one philosophical system.[10] He developed an allegoric approach of interpreting holy scriptures (the bible), in contrast to (old-fashioned) literally interpretation approaches. His allegorical exegesis was important for several Christian Church Fathers and some scholars hold that his concept of the Logos as God's creative principle influenced early Christology. Other scholars, however, deny direct influence but say both Philo and Early Christianity borrow from a common source.[11]

 
The opening page of Spinoza's magnum opus, Ethics

Between the Ancient era and the Middle Ages most of the Jewish philosophy concentrated around the Rabbinic literature that is expressed in the Talmud and Midrash. In the 9th century Saadia Gaon wrote the text Emunoth ve-Deoth which is the first systematic presentation and philosophic foundation of the dogmas of Judaism. The Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain included many influential Jewish philosophers such as Moses ibn Ezra, Abraham ibn Ezra, Solomon ibn Gabirol, Yehuda Halevi, Isaac Abravanel, Nahmanides, Joseph Albo, Abraham ibn Daud, Nissim of Gerona, Bahya ibn Paquda, Abraham bar Hiyya, Joseph ibn Tzaddik, Hasdai Crescas and Isaac ben Moses Arama. The most notable is Maimonides who is considered, beside the Jewish world, to be a prominent philosopher and polymath in the Islamic and Western worlds. Outside of Spain, other philosophers are Natan'el al-Fayyumi, Elia del Medigo, Jedaiah ben Abraham Bedersi and Gersonides.

Philosophy by Jews in Modern era was expressed by philosophers, mainly in Europe, such as Baruch Spinoza founder of Spinozism, whose work included modern Rationalism and Biblical criticism and laying the groundwork for the 18th-century Enlightenment.[12] His work has earned him recognition as one of Western philosophy's most important thinkers; Others are Isaac Orobio de Castro, Tzvi Ashkenazi, David Nieto, Isaac Cardoso, Jacob Abendana, Uriel da Costa, Francisco Sanches and Moses Almosnino. A new era began in the 18th century with the thought of Moses Mendelssohn. Mendelssohn has been described as the "'third Moses,' with whom begins a new era in Judaism," just as new eras began with Moses the prophet and with Moses Maimonides.[13] Mendelssohn was a German Jewish philosopher to whose ideas the renaissance of European Jews, Haskalah (the Jewish Enlightenment) is indebted. He has been referred to as the father of Reform Judaism, though Reform spokesmen have been "resistant to claim him as their spiritual father".[14] Mendelssohn came to be regarded as a leading cultural figure of his time by both Germans and Jews. The Jewish Enlightenment philosophy included Menachem Mendel Lefin, Salomon Maimon and Isaac Satanow. The next 19th century comprised both secular and religious philosophy and included philosophers such as Elijah Benamozegh, Hermann Cohen, Moses Hess, Samson Raphael Hirsch, Samuel Hirsch, Nachman Krochmal, Samuel David Luzzatto, and Nachman of Breslov founder of Breslov. The 20th century included the notable philosophers Jacques Derrida, Karl Popper, Emmanuel Levinas, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Hilary Putnam, Alfred Tarski, Ludwig Wittgenstein, A. J. Ayer, Walter Benjamin, Raymond Aron, Theodor W. Adorno, Isaiah Berlin and Henri Bergson.

Philo
(c. 25 BCE–c. 50 CE))
Nahmanides
(1194–1270)
Maimonides
(1135/1138–1204)
Baruch Spinoza
(1632–1677)
Moses Mendelssohn
(1729–1786)
 
 
 
 
 
Schneur Zalman of Liadi
(1745–1812)
Ludwig Wittgenstein
(1889–1951)
Hannah Arendt
(1906–1975)
Menachem Mendel Schneerson
(1902–1994)
 
 
 
 

Education and politics

A range of moral and political views is evident early in the history of Judaism, that serves to partially explain the diversity that is apparent among secular Jews who are often influenced by moral beliefs that can be found in Jewish scripture, and traditions. In recent centuries, secular Jews in Europe and the Americas have tended towards the political left[citation needed], and played key roles in the birth of the 19th century's labor movement and socialism. While Diaspora Jews have also been represented on the conservative side of the political spectrum, even politically conservative Jews have tended to support pluralism more consistently than many other elements of the political right. Some scholars[15] attribute this to the fact that Jews are not expected to proselytize, derived from Halakha. This lack of a universalizing religion is combined with the fact that most Jews live as minorities in diaspora countries, and that no central Jewish religious authority has existed since 363 CE. Jews value education, and the value of education is strongly embedded in Jewish culture.[16][17]

Economic activity

 
David Ricardo (1772–1823). He was one of the most influential of the classical economists[18][19]

In the Middle Ages, European laws prevented Jews from owning land and gave them powerful incentive to go into other professions that non-Jewish Europeans were not willing to follow.[20] During the medieval period, there was a very strong social stigma against lending money and charging interest among the Christian majority. In most of Europe until the late 18th century, and in some places to an even later date, Jews were prohibited by Roman Catholic governments (and others) from owning land. On the other hand, the Church, because of a number of Bible verses (e.g., Leviticus 25:36) forbidding usury, declared that charging any interest was against the divine law, and this prevented any mercantile use of capital by pious Christians. As the Canon law did not apply to Jews, they were not liable to the ecclesiastical punishments which were placed upon usurers by the popes. Christian rulers gradually saw the advantage of having a class of men like the Jews who could supply capital for their use without being liable to excommunication, and so the money trade of western Europe by this means fell into the hands of the Jews.

However, in almost every instance where large amounts were acquired by Jews through banking transactions the property thus acquired fell either during their life or upon their death into the hands of the king. This happened to Aaron of Lincoln in England, Ezmel de Ablitas in Navarre, Heliot de Vesoul in Provence, Benveniste de Porta in Aragon, etc. It was often for this reason that kings supported the Jews, and even objected to them becoming Christians (because in that case their fortunes earned by usury could not be seized by the crown after their deaths). Thus, both in England and in France the kings demanded to be compensated by the church for every Jew converted. This type of royal trickery was one factor in creating the stereotypical Jewish role of banker and/or merchant.

As a modern system of capital began to develop, loans became necessary for commerce and industry. Jews were able to gain a foothold in the new field of finance by providing these services: as non-Catholics, they were not bound by the ecclesiastical prohibition against "usury"; and in terms of Judaism itself, Hillel had long ago re-interpreted the Torah's ban on charging interest, allowing interest when it's needed to make a living.[citation needed]

Science and technology

The strong Jewish tradition of religious scholarship often left Jews well prepared for secular scholarship. In some times and places, this was countered by banning Jews from studying at universities, or admitting them only in limited numbers (see Jewish quota). Over the centuries, Jews have been poorly represented among land-holding classes, but far better represented in academia, professions, finance, commerce and many scientific fields. The strong representation of Jews in science and academia is evidenced by the fact that 193 persons known to be Jews or of Jewish ancestry have been awarded the Nobel Prize, accounting for 22% of all individual recipients worldwide between 1901 and 2014.[21] Of whom, 26% in physics,[22] 22% in chemistry[23] and 27% in Physiology or Medicine.[24] In the fields of mathematics and computer science, 31% of Turing Award recipients[25] and 27% of Fields Medal in mathematics[26] were or are Jewish.

 
The structure of DNA. The Jewish X-ray crystallographer, Rosalind Franklin, made a crucial contribution to the discovery of DNA's structure, when she discovered its double helix structure with a backbone consisting of phosphate groups[27][28][29]

The early Jewish activity in science can be found in the Hebrew Bible where some of the books contain descriptions of the physical world. Biblical cosmology provides sporadic glimpses that may be stitched together to form a Biblical impression of the physical universe. There have been comparisons between the Bible, with passages such as from the Genesis creation narrative, and the astronomy of classical antiquity more generally.[30] The Bible also contains various cleansing rituals. One suggested ritual, for example, deals with the proper procedure for cleansing a leper (Leviticus 14:1–32). It is a fairly elaborate process, which is to be performed after a leper was already healed of leprosy (Leviticus 14:3), involving extensive cleansing and personal hygiene, but also includes sacrificing a bird and lambs with the addition of using their blood to symbolize that the afflicted has been cleansed.

The Torah proscribes Intercropping (Lev. 19:19, Deut 22:9), a practice often associated with sustainable agriculture and organic farming in modern agricultural science.[31][32] The Mosaic code has provisions concerning the conservation of natural resources, such as trees (Deuteronomy 20:19–20) and birds (Deuteronomy 22:6–7).

During Medieval era astronomy was a primary field among Jewish scholars and was widely studied and practiced.[33] Prominent astronomers included Abraham Zacuto who published in 1478 his Hebrew book Ha-hibbur ha-gadol[34] where he wrote about the Solar System, charting the positions of the Sun, Moon and five planets.[34] His work served Portugal's exploration journeys and was used by Vasco da Gama and also by Christopher Columbus. The lunar crater Zagut is named after Zacuto's name. The mathematician and astronomer Abraham bar Hiyya Ha-Nasi authored the first European book to include the full solution to the quadratic equation x2 – ax + b = 0,[35] and influenced the work of Leonardo Fibonacci. Bar Hiyya proved by the method of indivisibles the following equation for any circle: S = LxR/2, where S is the surface area, L is the circumference length and R is radius.[36]

 
German edition of the astronomy book De scientia motvs orbis, originally by Mashallah ibn Athari

Garcia de Orta, Portuguese Renaissance Jewish physician, was a pioneer of Tropical medicine. He published his work Colóquios dos simples e drogas da India in 1563,[37] which deals with a series of substances, many of them unknown or the subject of confusion and misinformation in Europe at this period. He was the first European to describe Asiatic tropical diseases, notably cholera; he performed an autopsy on a cholera victim, the first recorded autopsy in India. Bonet de Lattes known chiefly as the inventor of an astronomical ring-dial by means of which solar and stellar altitudes can be measured and the time determined with great precision by night as well as by day. Other related personalities are Abraham ibn Ezra, whose the Moon crater Abenezra named after, David Gans, Judah ibn Verga, Mashallah ibn Athari an astronomer, The crater Messala on the Moon is named after him.

Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist and is considered one of the most prominent scientists in history, often regarded as the "father of modern physics". His revolutionary work on the relativity theory transformed theoretical physics and astronomy during the 20th century. When first published, relativity superseded a 200-year-old theory of mechanics created primarily by Isaac Newton.[38][39][40] In the field of physics, relativity improved the science of elementary particles and their fundamental interactions, along with ushering in the nuclear age. With relativity, cosmology and astrophysics predicted extraordinary astronomical phenomena such as neutron stars, black holes, and gravitational waves.[38][39][40] Einstein formulated the well-known Mass–energy equivalence, E = mc2, and explained the photoelectric effect. His work also effected and influenced a large variety of fields of physics including the Big Bang theory (Einstein's General relativity influenced Georges Lemaître), Quantum mechanics and nuclear energy.

 
Castle Romeo (nuclear test), a large number of Jewish scientists were involved in Project Manhattan

The Manhattan Project was a research and development project that produced the first atomic bombs during World War II and many Jewish scientists had a significant role in the project.[41] The theoretical physicist Robert Oppenheimer, often considered the "father of the atomic bomb", was chosen to direct the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1942. The physicist Leó Szilárd, that conceived the nuclear chain reaction; Edward Teller, "the father of the hydrogen bomb" and Stanislaw Ulam; Eugene Wigner contributed to theory of Atomic nucleus and Elementary particle; Hans Bethe whose work included Stellar nucleosynthesis and was head of the Theoretical Division at the secret Los Alamos laboratory; Richard Feynman, Niels Bohr, Victor Weisskopf and Joseph Rotblat.

The mathematician and physicist Alexander Friedmann pioneered the theory that universe was expanding governed by a set of equations he developed now known as the Friedmann equations. Arno Allan Penzias, the physicist and radio astronomer co-discoverer of the cosmic microwave background radiation, which helped establish the Big Bang theory, the scientists Robert Herman and Ralph Alpher had also worked on that field. In quantum mechanics Jewish role was significant as well and many of most influential figures and pioneers of the theory were Jewish: Niels Bohr and his work on the atom structure, Max Born (Schrödinger equation), Wolfgang Pauli, Richard Feynman (Quantum chromodynamics), Fritz London work on London dispersion force and London equations, Walter Heitler and Julian Schwinger work on Quantum electrodynamics, Asher Peres a pioneer in Quantum information, David Bohm (Quantum potential).

Sigmund Freud, known as the father of psychoanalysis, is one of the most influential scientists of the 20th century. In creating psychoanalysis, a clinical method for treating psychopathology through dialogue between a patient and a psychoanalyst,[42] Freud developed therapeutic techniques such as the use of free association and discovered transference, establishing its central role in the analytic process. Freud's redefinition of sexuality to include its infantile forms led him to formulate the Oedipus complex as the central tenet of psychoanalytical theory. His analysis of dreams as wish-fulfillments provided him with models for the clinical analysis of symptom formation and the mechanisms of repression as well as for elaboration of his theory of the unconscious as an agency disruptive of conscious states of mind.[43] Freud postulated the existence of libido, an energy with which mental processes and structures are invested and which generates erotic attachments, and a death drive, the source of repetition, hate, aggression and neurotic guilt.[44]

 
The first functioning laser, created by Theodore H. Maiman in 1960[45][46]

John von Neumann, a mathematician and physicist, made major contributions to a number of fields,[47] including foundations of mathematics, functional analysis, ergodic theory, geometry, topology, numerical analysis, quantum mechanics, hydrodynamics and game theory.[48] In made also a major work with computing and the development of the computer, he suggested and described a computer architecture called Von Neumann architecture and worked on linear programming, self-replicating machines, stochastic computing), and statistics. Emmy Noether was an influential mathematician known for her groundbreaking contributions to abstract algebra and theoretical physics. Described by many prominent scientists as the most important woman in the history of mathematics,[49][50][incomplete short citation] she revolutionized the theories of rings, fields, and algebras. In physics, Noether's theorem explains the fundamental connection between symmetry and conservation laws.[51]

 
Israeli Shavit space launcher

More remarkable contributors include Heinrich Hertz and Steven Weinberg in Electromagnetism; Carl Sagan, his contributions were central to the discovery of the high surface temperatures of Venus and known for his contributions to the scientific research of extraterrestrial life; Felix Hausdorff (founder of topology); Edward Witten (M-theory); Vitaly Ginzburg and Lev Landau (Ginzburg–Landau theory); Yakir Aharonov (Aharonov–Bohm effect); Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen (EPR paradox); Moshe Carmeli (Gauge theory). Rudolf Lipschitz (Lipschitz continuity); Paul Cohen (Continuum hypothesis, Axiom of choice); Laurent Schwartz (theory of distribution); Grigory Margulis (Lie group); Richard M. Karp (Theory of computation); Adi Shamir (RSA, cryptography); Judea Pearl (Artificial intelligence, Bayesian network); Max Newman (Colossus computer); Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi (Jacobi elliptic functions, Jacobian matrix and determinant, Jacobi symbol). Sidney Altman (Molecular biology, RNA); Melvin Calvin (Calvin Cycle); Otto Wallach (Alicyclic compound); Paul Berg (biochemistry of nucleic acids); Ada Yonath (Crystallography, structure of the ribosome); Dan Shechtman (Quasicrystal); Julius Axelrod and Bernard Katz (Neurotransmitter); Elie Metchnikoff (discovery of Macrophage); Selman Waksman (discovery of Streptomycin); Rosalind Franklin (DNA); Carl Djerassi (the pill); Stephen Jay Gould (Evolutionary biology); Baruch Samuel Blumberg (Hepatitis B virus); Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin (developers of the Polio vaccines); Paul Ehrlich (discovery of the Blood–brain barrier); In fields such as psychology and neurology: Otto Rank, Viktor Frankl, Stanley Milgram and Solomon Asch; linguistics: Noam Chomsky, Franz Boas, Roman Jakobson, Edward Sapir, Joseph Greenberg; and sociology: Theodor Adorno, Nathan Glazer, Erving Goffman, Georg Simmel.

Beside Scientific discoveries and researches, Jews have created significant and influential innovations in a large variety of fields such as the listed samples: Siegfried Marcus- automobile pioneer, inventor of the first car; Emile Berliner- developer of the disc record phonograph; Mikhail Gurevich- co-inventor of the MIG aircraft; Theodore Maiman- inventor of the laser; Robert Adler- inventor of the wireless remote control for televisions; Edwin H. Land – inventor of Land Camera; Bob Kahn- inventor of TCP and IP; Bram Cohen- creator of Bittorent; Sergei Brin and Larry Page- creators of Google; Laszlo BiroBallpoint pen; Simcha Blass- Drip irrigation; Lee Felsenstein – designer of Osborne 1; Zeev Suraski and Andi Gutmans co-creators of PHP and founders of Zend Technologies; Ralph H. Baer, "The Father of Video Games".

Garcia de Orta
(1501/2–1568)
Sigmund Freud
(1856–1939)
Albert Einstein
(1879–1955)
Emmy Noether
(1882–1935)

 

 
 
 
Niels Bohr
(1885–1962)
John von Neumann
(1903–1957)
Robert Oppenheimer
(1904–1967)
Richard Feynman
(1918–1988)
 
 
 
 

Literature and poetry

In some places where there have been relatively high concentrations of Jews, distinct secular Jewish subcultures have arisen.[52] For example, ethnic Jews formed an enormous proportion of the literary and artistic life of Vienna, Austria at the end of the 19th century, or of New York City 50 years later (and Los Angeles in the mid-late 20th century). Many of these creative Jews were not particularly religious people. In general, Jewish artistic culture in various periods reflected the culture in which they lived.

 
Gutenberg Bible. The Bible was authored by Jews during the Iron Ages and the Classical era. It comprises cultural values, basic human values, mythology and religious beliefs of both Judaism and Christianity[53]

Literary and theatrical expressions of secular Jewish culture may be in specifically Jewish languages such as Hebrew, Yiddish, Judeo-Tat or Ladino, or it may be in the language of the surrounding cultures, such as English or German. Secular literature and theater in Yiddish largely began in the 19th century and was in decline by the middle of the 20th century. The revival of Hebrew beyond its use in the liturgy is largely an early 20th-century phenomenon, and is closely associated with Zionism. Apart from the use of Hebrew in Israel, whether a Jewish community will speak a Jewish or non-Jewish language as its main vehicle of discourse is generally dependent on how isolated or assimilated that community is. For example, the Jews in the shtetls of Poland and the Lower East Side of New York City during the early 20th century spoke Yiddish at most times, while assimilated Jews in 19th and early 20th-century Germany spoke German, and American-born Jews in the United States speak English.

Jewish authors have both created a unique Jewish literature and contributed to the national literature of many of the countries in which they live. Though not strictly secular, the Yiddish works of authors like Sholem Aleichem (whose collected works amounted to 28 volumes) and Isaac Bashevis Singer (winner of the 1978 Nobel Prize), form their own canon, focusing on the Jewish experience in both Eastern Europe, and in America. In the United States, Jewish writers like Philip Roth, Saul Bellow, and many others are considered among the greatest American authors, and incorporate a distinctly secular Jewish view into many of their works. The poetry of Allen Ginsberg often touches on Jewish themes (notably the early autobiographical works such as Howl and Kaddish). Other famous Jewish authors that made contributions to world literature include Heinrich Heine, German poet, Mordecai Richler, Canadian author, Isaac Babel, Russian author, Franz Kafka, of Prague, and Harry Mulisch, whose novel The Discovery of Heaven was revealed by a 2007 poll as the "Best Dutch Book Ever".[54]

 
Hebrew Book Week in Jerusalem

In Modern Judaism: An Oxford Guide, Yaakov Malkin, Professor of Aesthetics and Rhetoric at Tel Aviv University and the founder and academic director of Meitar College for Judaism as Culture in Jerusalem, writes:

Secular Jewish culture embraces literary works that have stood the test of time as sources of aesthetic pleasure and ideas shared by Jews and non-Jews, works that live on beyond the immediate socio-cultural context within which they were created. They include the writings of such Jewish authors as Sholem Aleichem, Itzik Manger, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Philip Roth, Saul Bellow, S.Y. Agnon, Isaac Babel, Martin Buber, Isaiah Berlin, Haim Nahman Bialik, Yehuda Amichai, Amos Oz, A.B. Yehoshua, and David Grossman. It boasts masterpieces that have had a considerable influence on all of western culture, Jewish culture included – works such as those of Heinrich Heine, Gustav Mahler, Leonard Bernstein, Marc Chagall, Jacob Epstein, Ben Shahn, Amedeo Modigliani, Franz Kafka, Max Reinhardt (Goldman), Ernst Lubitsch, and Woody Allen.[7]

Other notable contributors are Isaac Asimov author of the Foundation series and others such as I, robot, Nightfall and The Gods Themselves; Joseph Heller (Catch-22); R.L. Stine (Goosebumps series); J. D. Salinger (The Catcher in the Rye); Michael Chabon (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, The Yiddish Policemen's Union); Marcel Proust (In Search of Lost Time); Arthur Miller (Death of a Salesman and The Crucible); Will Eisner (A Contract with God); Shel Silverstein (The Giving Tree); Arthur Koestler (Darkness at Noon, The Thirteenth Tribe); Saul Bellow (Herzog); The historical novel series The Accursed Kings by Maurice Druon is an inspiration for George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire novels.[55][56][57]

Among recipient of Nobel Prize in Literature, 13% were or are Jewish.[58]

Another aspect of Jewish literature is the ethical, called Musar literature. This literature has been composed by both religious and secular authors.[59]

Hebrew poetry is expressed by various of poets in different eras of Jewish history. Biblical poetry is related to the poetry in biblical times as it expressed in the Hebrew Bible and Jewish sacred texts. In medieval times the Jewish poetry was mainly expressed by piyyutim and several poets such as Yehuda Halevi, Samuel ibn Naghrillah, Solomon ibn Gabirol, Moses ibn Ezra, Abraham ibn Ezra and Dunash ben Labrat. Modern Hebrew poetry is mostly related to the era of and after the revival of the Hebrew language, pioneered by Moshe Chaim Luzzatto in the Haskalah era and succeeded by poets such as Hayim Nahman Bialik, Nathan Alterman and Shaul Tchernichovsky.

Yehuda Halevi
(c. 1075–1141)
Heinrich Heine
(1797–1856)
Sholem Aleichem
(1859–1916)
Franz Kafka
(1883–1924)
Boris Pasternak
(1890–1960)
Ayn Rand
(1905–1982)
Isaac Asimov
(1920–1992)
Allen Ginsberg
(1926–1997)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Theatre

Yiddish theatre

 
Hana Rovina in The Dybbuk (1920), a play by S. Ansky

The Ukrainian Jew Abraham Goldfaden founded the first professional Yiddish-language theatre troupe in Iași, Romania in 1876. The next year, his troupe achieved enormous success in Bucharest. Within a decade, Goldfaden and others brought Yiddish theater to Ukraine, Russia, Poland, Germany, New York City, and other cities with significant Ashkenazic populations. Between 1890 and 1940, over a dozen Yiddish theatre groups existed in New York City alone, in the Yiddish Theater District, performing original plays, musicals, and Yiddish translations of theatrical works and opera. Perhaps the most famous of Yiddish-language plays is The Dybbuk (1919) by S. Ansky.

Yiddish theater in New York in the early 20th century rivalled English-language theater in quantity and often surpassed it in quality. A 1925 New York Times article remarks, "…Yiddish theater… is now a stable American institution and no longer dependent on immigration from Eastern Europe. People who can neither speak nor write Yiddish attend Yiddish stage performances and pay Broadway prices on Second Avenue." This article also mentions other aspects of a New York Jewish cultural life "in full flower" at that time, among them the fact that the extensive New York Yiddish-language press of the time included seven daily newspapers.[60]

In fact, however, the next generation of American Jews spoke mainly English to the exclusion of Yiddish; they brought the artistic energy of Yiddish theater into the American theatrical mainstream, but usually in a less specifically Jewish form.

Yiddish theater, most notably Moscow State Jewish Theater directed by Solomon Mikhoels, also played a prominent role in the arts scene of the Soviet Union until Stalin's 1948 reversal in government policy toward the Jews. (See Rootless cosmopolitan, Night of the Murdered Poets.)

Montreal's Dora Wasserman Yiddish Theatre continues to thrive after 50 years of performance.

European theatre

From their Emancipation to World War II, Jews were very active and sometimes even dominant in certain forms of European theatre, and after the Holocaust many Jews continued to that cultural form. For example, in pre-Nazi Germany, where Nietzsche asked "What good actor of today is not Jewish?", acting, directing and writing positions were often filled by Jews. Both MacDonald and Jewish Tribal Review would generally be counted as anti-Semitic sources, but reasonably careful in their factual claims. "In Imperial Berlin, Jewish artists could be found in the forefront of the performing arts, from high drama to more popular forms like cabaret and revue, and eventually film. Jewish audiences patronized innovative theater, regardless of whether they approved of what they saw."[61] The British historian Paul Johnson, commenting on Jewish contributions to European culture at the Fin de siècle, writes that

The area where Jewish influence was strongest was the theatre, especially in Berlin. Playwrights like Carl Sternheim, Arthur Schnitzler, Ernst Toller, Erwin Piscator, Walter Hasenclever, Ferenc Molnár and Carl Zuckmayer, and influential producers like Max Reinhardt, appeared at times to dominate the stage, which tended to be modishly left-wing, pro-republican, experimental and sexually daring. But it was certainly not revolutionary, and it was cosmopolitan rather than Jewish.[62]

Jews also made similar, if not as massive, contributions to theatre and drama in Austria, Britain, France, and Russia (in the national languages of those countries). Jews in Vienna, Paris and German cities found cabaret both a popular and effective means of expression, as German cabaret in the Weimar Republic "was mostly a Jewish art form".[63] The involvement of Jews in Central European theatre was halted during the rise of the Nazis and the purging of Jews from cultural posts, though many emigrated to Western Europe or the United States and continued working there.

English-language theatre

 
Rodgers (left) and Hammerstein (right), with Irving Berlin (middle) and Helen Tamiris, watching auditions at the St. James Theatre in 1948

In the early 20th century the traditions of New York's vibrant Yiddish Theatre District both rivaled and fed into Broadway. In the English-speaking theatre Jewish émigrés brought novel theatrical ideas from Europe, such as the theatrical realist movement and the philosophy of Konstantin Stanislavski, whose teachings would influence many Jewish-American acting teachers such as the Yiddish theatre-trained acting theorist Stella Adler. Jewish immigrants were instrumental in the creation and development of the genre of musical theatre and earlier forms of theatrical entertainment in America, and would innovate the new, distinctly American, art form, the Broadway musical.[64]Brandeis University Professor Stephen J. Whitfield has commented that "More so than behind the screen, the talent behind the stage was for over half a century virtually the monopoly of one ethnic group. That is... [a] feature which locates Broadway at the center of Jewish culture".[65] New York University Professor Laurence Maslon says that "There would be no American musical without Jews… Their influence is corollary to the influence of black musicians on jazz; there were as many Jews involved in the form".[66] Other writers, such as Jerome Caryn, have noted that musical theatre and other forms of American entertainment are uniquely indebted to the contributions of Jewish-Americans, since "there might not have been a modern Broadway without the "Asiatic horde" of comedians, gossip columnists, songwriters, and singers that grew out of the ghetto, whether it was on the Lower East Side, Harlem (a Jewish ghetto before it was a black one), Newark, or Washington, D.C."[67] Likewise, in the analysis of Aaron Kula, director of The Klezmer Company,

…the Jewish experience has always been best expressed by music, and Broadway has always been an integral part of the Jewish-American experience… The difference is that one can expand the definition of "Jewish Broadway" to include an interdisciplinary roadway with a wide range of artistic activities packed onto one avenue—theatre, opera, symphony, ballet, publishing companies, choirs, synagogues and more. This vibrant landscape reflects the life, times and creative output of the Jewish-American artist.[68]

In the 19th and early 20th centuries the European operetta, a precursor the musical, often featured the work of Jewish composers such as Paul Abraham, Leo Ascher, Edmund Eysler, Leo Fall, Bruno Granichstaedten, Jacques Offenbach, Emmerich Kalman, Sigmund Romberg, Oscar Straus and Rudolf Friml; the latter four eventually moved to the United States and produced their works on the New York stage. One of the librettists for Bizet's Carmen (not an operetta proper but rather a work of the earlier Opéra comique form) was the Jewish Ludovic Halévy, niece of composer Fromental Halévy (Bizet himself was not Jewish but he married the elder Halevy's daughter, many have suspected that he was the descendant of Jewish converts to Christianity, and others have noticed Jewish-sounding intervals in his music).[69] The Viennese librettist Victor Leon summarized the connection of Jewish composers and writers with the form of operetta: "The audience for operetta wants to laugh beneath tears—and that is exactly what Jews have been doing for the last two thousand years since the destruction of Jerusalem".[70] Another factor in the evolution of musical theatre was vaudeville, and during the early 20th century the form was explored and expanded by Jewish comedians and actors such as Jack Benny, Fanny Brice, Eddie Cantor, The Marx Brothers, Anna Held, Al Jolson, Molly Picon, Sophie Tucker and Ed Wynn. During the period when Broadway was monopolized by revues and similar entertainments, Jewish producer Florenz Ziegfeld dominated the theatrical scene with his Follies.

By 1910 Jews (the vast majority of them immigrants from Eastern Europe) already composed a quarter of the population of New York City, and almost immediately Jewish artists and intellectuals began to show their influence on the cultural life of that city, and through time, the country as a whole. Likewise, while the modern musical can best be described as a fusion of operetta, earlier American entertainment and African-American culture and music, as well as Jewish culture and music, the actual authors of the first "book musicals" were the Jewish Jerome Kern, Oscar Hammerstein II, George and Ira Gershwin, George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind. From that time until the 1980s a vast majority of successful musical theatre composers, lyricists, and book-writers were Jewish (a notable exception is the Protestant Cole Porter, who acknowledged that the reason he was so successful on Broadway was that he wrote what he called "Jewish music").[71] Rodgers and Hammerstein, Frank Loesser, Lerner and Loewe, Stephen Sondheim, Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Schwartz, Kander and Ebb and dozens of others during the "Golden Age" of musical theatre were Jewish. Since the Tony Award for Best Original Score was instituted in 1947, approximately 70% of nominated scores and 60% of winning scores were by Jewish composers. Of successful British and French musical writers both in the West End and Broadway, Claude-Michel Schönberg and Lionel Bart are Jewish, among others.

One explanation of the affinity of Jewish composers and playwrights to the musical is that "traditional Jewish religious music was most often led by a single singer, a cantor while Christians emphasize choral singing."[72] Many of these writers used the musical to explore issues relating to assimilation, the acceptance of the outsider in society, the racial situation in the United States, the overcoming of obstacles through perseverance, and other topics pertinent to Jewish Americans and Western Jews in general, often using subtle and disguised stories to get this point across.[73] For example, Kern, Rodgers, Hammerstein, the Gershwins, Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg wrote musicals and operas aiming to normalize societal toleration of minorities and urging racial harmony; these works included Show Boat, Porgy and Bess, Finian's Rainbow, South Pacific and The King and I. Towards the end of Golden Age, writers also began to openly and overtly tackle Jewish subjects and issues, such as Fiddler on the Roof and Rags; Bart's Blitz! also tackles relations between Jews and Gentiles. Jason Robert Brown and Alfred Uhry's Parade is a sensitive exploration of both anti-Semitism and historical American racism. The original concept that became West Side Story was set in the Lower East Side during Easter-Passover celebrations; the rival gangs were to be Jewish and Italian Catholic.[74]

The ranks of prominent Jewish producers, directors, designers and performers include Boris Aronson, David Belasco, Joel Grey, the Minskoff family, Zero Mostel, Joseph Papp, Mandy Patinkin, the Nederlander family, Harold Prince, Max Reinhardt, Jerome Robbins, the Shubert family and Julie Taymor. Jewish playwrights have also contributed to non-musical drama and theatre, both Broadway and regional. Edna Ferber, Moss Hart, Lillian Hellman, Arthur Miller and Neil Simon are only some of the prominent Jewish playwrights in American theatrical history. Approximately 34% of the plays and musicals that have won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama were written and composed by Jewish Americans.[75]

The Association for Jewish Theater is a contemporary organization that includes both American and international theaters that focus on theater with Jewish content. It has also expanded to include Jewish playwrights.

Hebrew and Israeli theatre

 
Habima theater, 2021

The earliest known Hebrew language drama was written around 1550 by a Jewish-Italian writer from Mantua.[76] A few works were written by rabbis and Kabbalists in 17th-century Amsterdam, where Jews were relatively free from persecution and had both flourishing religious and secular Jewish cultures.[77] All of these early Hebrew plays were about Biblical or mystical subjects, often in the form of Talmudic parables. During the post-Emancipation period in 19th-century Europe, many Jews translated great European plays such as those by Shakespeare, Molière and Schiller, giving the characters Jewish names and transplanting the plot and setting to within a Jewish context.

Modern Hebrew theatre and drama, however, began with the development of Modern Hebrew in Europe (the first Hebrew theatrical professional performance was in Moscow in 1918)[78] and was "closely linked with the Jewish national renaissance movement of the twentieth century. The historical awareness and the sense of primacy which accompanied the Hebrew theatre in its early years dictated the course of its artistic and aesthetic development".[79] These traditions were soon transplanted to Israel. Playwrights such as Natan Alterman, Hayyim Nahman Bialik, Leah Goldberg, Ephraim Kishon, Hanoch Levin, Aharon Megged, Moshe Shamir, Avraham Shlonsky, Yehoshua Sobol and A. B. Yehoshua have written Hebrew-language plays. Themes that are obviously common in these works are the Holocaust, the Arab–Israeli conflict, the meaning of Jewishness, and contemporary secular-religious tensions within Jewish Israel. The most well-known Hebrew theatre company and Israel's national theatre is the Habima (meaning "the stage" in Hebrew), which was formed in 1913 in Lithuania, and re-established in 1917 in Russia; another prominent Israeli theatre company is the Cameri Theatre, which is "Israel's first and leading repertory theatre".[80]

Judeo-Tat theatre

 
Acting troupe in the play Ashig Garib. Judeo-Tat theatre. Derbent, USSR. 1984. First row - from left to right: Katya, Bikel Matatova. Second row - from left to right: musician Israel Izrailov, Roman Izyaev, Avshalum Nakhshunov, Raziil Ilyaguev, Abram Avdalimov. Third row - from left to right: Ilizir Abramov, Anatoly Yusupov, Israel Tsvaygenbaum.

The first theatrical event by Mountain Jews took place in December 1903,[81] when Asaf Agarunov, a teacher and a Zionist, staged a story by Naum Shoykovich, translated from Hebrew, "The Burn for Burn," and staged it in honor of schoolteacher Nagdimuna ben Simona's (Shimunov) wedding.[81]

In 1918, a drama studio was opened in Derbent, Soviet Union headed by Rabbi Yashaiyo Rabinovich.[81]

In 1935, the first Soviet Union theatre opened in Derbent, which included three troupes – Russian, Mountain Jews and Turk. It was based on drama circles, which were led by Manashir and Khanum Shalumov. Initially, in the circle, men played the female roles. Later, women began to take part in the theatre.[82] In 1939, the Judeo-Tat theatre was the winner of the festival of theatres in Dagestan.

During World War II, most of the actors were drafted into the army. Many theatre actors died in the war.[83] In 1943, the theatre resumed its work, and in 1948 it was closed. The official reason was its unprofitability.[83]

In the 1960s, the theatre resumed its activities and experienced its second heyday. The actress, Akhso Ilyaguevna Shalumova (1909-1985), "Honored Artist of the Dagestan ASSR" returned to the theatre. She played the role of (Juhuri:Шими Дербенди) - Shimi Derbendi's wife - Shahnugor, based on the stories of writer Hizgil Avshalumov.[83]

In the 1970s, the People's Judeo-Tat theatre was organized. For many years, its director was Abram Avdalimov, "Honored Cultural Worker of the Dagestan ASSR," singer, actor and playwright. His successor was Roman Izyaev, who was awarded the Order of the Badge of Honour for his meritorious service.[83]

In the 1990s, the Judeo-Tat theatre experienced another crisis: it rarely held performances and did not have any premieres. Only in 2000, when it became a municipal theater, was it able to resume its activity. From 2000 to 2002, the theatre was headed by actor and musician Raziil Semenovich Ilyaguev (1945-2016), "Honored Worker of Culture of the Republic of Dagestan." For the next two years the theatre was headed by Alesya Isakova.

In 2004, Lev Yakovlevich Manakhimov (1950-2021), "Honored Artist of the Republic of Dagestan," became the artistic director of the theatre. After the death of Manakhimov, Boris Yudaev became the head of the theatre.

Cinema

In the era when Yiddish theatre was still a major force in the world of theatre, over 100 films were made in Yiddish. Many are now lost. Prominent films included Shulamith (1931), the first Yiddish musical on film His Wife's Lover (1931), A Daughter of Her People (1932), the anti-Nazi film The Wandering Jew (1933), The Yiddish King Lear (1934), Shir Hashirim (1935), the biggest Yiddish film hit of all time Yidl Mitn Fidl (1936), Where Is My Child? (1937), Green Fields (1937), Dybuk (1937), The Singing Blacksmith (1938), Tevya (1939), Mirele Efros (1939), Lang ist der Weg (1948), and God, Man and Devil (1950).

The roster of Jewish entrepreneurs in the English-language American film industry is legendary: Samuel Goldwyn, Louis B. Mayer, the Warner Brothers, David O. Selznick, Marcus Loew, and Adolph Zukor, Fox to name just a few, and continuing into recent times with such industry giants as super-agent Michael Ovitz, Michael Eisner, Lew Wasserman, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Steven Spielberg, and David Geffen. However, few of these brought a specifically Jewish sensibility either to the art of film or, with the sometime exception of Spielberg, to their choice of subject matter. The historian Eric Hobsbawm described the situation as follows:[84]

It would be ... pointless to look for consciously Jewish elements in the songs of Irving Berlin or the Hollywood movies of the era of the great studios, all of which were run by immigrant Jews: their object, in which they succeeded, was precisely to make songs or films which found a specific expression for 100 per cent Americanness.

A more specifically Jewish sensibility can be seen in the films of the Marx Brothers, Mel Brooks, or Woody Allen; other examples of specifically Jewish films from the Hollywood film industry are the Barbra Streisand vehicle Yentl (1983), or John Frankenheimer's The Fixer (1968). More recently, Call Me By Your Name (2017) can be given as an example of a movie with Jewish sensibility. Jewish film festivals are nowadays conducted in many major cities around the world as vehicles of introducing such films to wider audiences, including among others the Boston JFF, San Francisco JFF, Jerusalem JFF, etc.

Radio and television

The first radio chains, the Radio Corporation of America and the Columbia Broadcasting System, were created by the Jewish-American David Sarnoff and William S. Paley, respectively. These Jewish innovators were also among the first producers of televisions, both black-and-white and color.[85] Among the Jewish immigrant communities of America there was also a thriving Yiddish language radio, with its "golden age" from the 1930s to the 1950s.

Although there is little specifically Jewish television in the United States (National Jewish Television, largely religious, broadcasts only three hours a week), Jews have been involved in American television from its earliest days. From Sid Caesar and Milton Berle to Joan Rivers, Gilda Radner, and Andy Kaufman to Billy Crystal to Jerry Seinfeld, Jewish stand-up comedians have been icons of American television. Other Jews that held a prominent role in early radio and television were Eddie Cantor, Al Jolson, Jack Benny, Walter Winchell and David Susskind. More figures are Larry King, Michael Savage and Howard Stern. In the analysis of Paul Johnson, "The Broadway musical, radio and TV were all examples of a fundamental principle in Jewish diaspora history: Jews opening up a completely new field in business and culture, a tabula rasa on which to set their mark, before other interests had a chance to take possession, erect guild or professional fortifications and deny them entry."[86]

One of the first televised situation comedies, The Goldbergs was set in a specifically Jewish milieu in the Bronx. While the overt Jewish milieu of The Goldbergs was unusual for an American television series, there were a few other examples, such as Brooklyn Bridge (1991–1993) and Bridget Loves Bernie. Jews have also played an enormous role among the creators and writers of television comedies: Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, Selma Diamond, Larry Gelbart, Carl Reiner, and Neil Simon all wrote for Sid Caesar; Reiner's son Rob Reiner worked with Norman Lear on All in the Family (which often engaged anti-semitism and other issues of prejudice); Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld created the hit sitcom Seinfeld, Lorne Michaels, Al Franken, Rosie Shuster, and Alan Zweibel of Saturday Night Live breathed new life into the variety show in the 1970s.

More recently, American Jews have been instrumental to "novelistic" television series such as The Wire and The Sopranos. Variously acclaimed as one of the greatest television series of all time, The Wire was created by David Simon. Simon also served as executive producer, head writer, and show runner. Matthew Weiner produced the fifth and sixth seasons of The Sopranos and later created Mad Men. More remarkable contributors are David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, creators of Game of Thrones TV series; Ron Leavitt co-creator of Married... with Children; Damon Lindelof and J. J. Abrams, co-creators of Lost; David Crane and Marta Kauffman, creators of Friends; Tim Kring creator of Heroes; Sydney Newman co-creator of Doctor Who; Darren Star, creator Sex and the City and Melrose Place; Aaron Spelling, co-creator of Beverly Hills, 90210; Chuck Lorre, co-creator of The Big Bang Theory and Two and a Half Men; Gideon Raff, creator of Prisoners of War which Homeland is based on; Aaron Ruben and Sheldon Leonard co-creators of The Andy Griffith Show; Don Hewitt creator of 60 Minutes; Garry Shandling, co-creator of The Larry Sanders Show; Ed. Weinberger, co-creator of The Cosby Show; David Milch, creator of Deadwood; Steven Levitan, co-creator of Modern Family; Dick Wolf, creator of Law & Order; David Shore, creator House; Max Mutchnick and David Kohan creators of Will & Grace; Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis creators of Once Upon a Time (TV Series). There is also a significant role of Jews in acting by actors such as Sarah Jessica Parker, William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Mila Kunis, Zac Efron, Hank Azaria, David Duchovny, Fred Savage, Zach Braff, Noah Wyle, Adam Brody, Katey Sagal, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Alyson Hannigan, Michelle Trachtenberg, David Schwimmer, Lisa Kudrow and Mayim Bialik.

Music

Jewish musical contributions also tend to reflect the cultures of the countries in which Jews live, the most notable examples being classical and popular music in the United States and Europe. Some music, however, is unique to particular Jewish communities, such as Israeli music, Israeli folk music, Klezmer, Sephardic and Ladino music, and Mizrahi music.

Classical music

 
The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra's 70th Anniversary

Before Emancipation, virtually all Jewish music in Europe was sacred music, with the exception of the performances of klezmorim during weddings and other occasions. The result was a lack of a Jewish presence in European classical music until the 19th century, with a very few exceptions, normally enabled by specific aristocratic protection, such as Salamone Rossi and Claude Daquin (the work of the former is considered the beginning of "Jewish art music").[87] After Jews were admitted to mainstream society in England (gradually after their return in the 17th century), France, Austria-Hungary, the German Empire, and Russia (in that order), the Jewish contribution to the European music scene steadily increased, but in the form of mainstream European music, not specifically Jewish music. Notable examples of Jewish Romantic composers (by country) are Charles-Valentin Alkan, Paul Dukas and Fromental Halevy from France, Josef Dessauer, Karl Goldmark and Gustav Mahler from Bohemia (most Austrian Jews during this time were native not to what is today Austria but the outer provinces of the Empire), Felix Mendelssohn and Giacomo Meyerbeer from Germany, and Anton and Nikolai Rubinstein from Russia. Singers included John Braham and Giuditta Pasta. There were very many notable Jewish violin and pianist virtuosi, including Joseph Joachim, Ferdinand David, Carl Tausig, Henri Herz, Leopold Auer, Jascha Heifetz, and Ignaz Moscheles. During the 20th century the number of Jewish composers and notable instrumentalists increased, as did their geographical distribution. Sample Jewish 20th-century composers include Arnold Schoenberg and Alexander von Zemlinsky from Austria, Hanns Eisler and Kurt Weill from Germany, Viktor Ullmann and Jaromír Weinberger from Bohemia and later the Czech Republic (the former perished at the Auschwitz extermination camps), George Gershwin and Aaron Copland from the United States, Darius Milhaud and Alexandre Tansman from France, Alfred Schnittke and Lera Auerbach from Russia, Lalo Schifrin and Mario Davidovsky from Argentina and Paul Ben-Haim and Shulamit Ran from Israel. There are some genres and forms of classical music that Jewish composers have been associated with, including notably during the Romantic period French Grand Opera. The most prolific composers of this genre included Giacomo Meyerbeer, Fromental Halévy, and the later Jacques Offenbach; Halevy's La Juive was based on Scribe's libretto very loosely connected to the Jewish experience.

While orchestral and operatic music works by Jewish composers would in general be considered secular, many Jewish (as well as non-Jewish) composers have incorporated Jewish themes and motives into their music. Sometimes this is done covertly, such as the klezmer band music that many critics and observers believe lies in the third movement of Mahler's Symphony No. 1, and this type of Jewish reference was most common during the 19th century when openly displaying one's Jewishness would most likely hamper a Jew's chances at assimilation. During the 20th century, however, many Jewish composers wrote music with direct Jewish references and themes, e.g. David Amram (Symphony – "Songs of the Soul"), Leonard Bernstein (Kaddish Symphony, Chichester Psalms), Ernest Bloch (Schelomo), Arnold Schoenberg, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (Violin Concerto no. 2) Kurt Weill (The Eternal Road) and Hugo Weisgall (Psalm of the Instant Dove).

Giacomo Meyerbeer
(1791–1864)
Fanny Mendelssohn
(1805–1847)
Felix Mendelssohn
(1809–1847)
Charles-Valentin Alkan
(1813–1888)
Jacques Offenbach
(1819–1880)
Anton Rubinstein
(1829–1894)
Gustav Mahler
(1860–1911)
Clara Haskil
(1895–1960)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the late twentieth century, prominent composers like Morton Feldman, Gyorgy Ligeti or Alfred Schnittke gave significant contributions to the history of contemporary music

Popular music

The great songwriters and lyricists of American traditional popular music and jazz standards were predominantly Jewish, including Harold Arlen, Jerome Kern, George Gershwin, Frank Loesser, Richard Rodgers and Irving Berlin.

Dance

Deriving from Biblical traditions, Jewish dance has long been used by Jews as a medium for the expression of joy and other communal emotions.[88] Each Jewish diasporic community developed its own dance traditions for wedding celebrations and other distinguished events. For Ashkenazi Jews in Eastern Europe, for example, dances, whose names corresponded to the different forms of klezmer music that were played, were an obvious staple of the wedding ceremony of the shtetl.[89] Jewish dances both were influenced by surrounding Gentile traditions and Jewish sources preserved over time. "Nevertheless the Jews practiced a corporeal expressive language that was highly differentiated from that of the non-Jewish peoples of their neighborhood, mainly through motions of the hands and arms, with more intricate legwork by the younger men."[90] In general, however, in most religiously traditional communities, members of the opposite sex dancing together or dancing at times other than at these events was frowned upon.

Humor

Jewish humor is the long tradition of humor in Judaism dating back to the Torah and the Midrash, but generally refers to the more recent stream of verbal, frequently self-deprecating and often anecdotal humor originating in Europe.[91] Jewish humor took root in the United States over the last hundred years, beginning with vaudeville, and continuing through radio, stand-up, film, and television.[92] A significant number of American comedians have been or are Jewish.[citation needed]

Visual arts

 
"Death of King Saul", by Elie Marcuse (1848). (Tel Aviv Museum of Art)

Compared to music or theater, there is less of a specifically Jewish tradition in the visual arts. The most likely and accepted reason is that, as has been previously shown with Jewish music and literature, before Emancipation Jewish culture was dominated by the religious tradition of aniconism. As most Rabbinical authorities believed that the Second Commandment prohibited much visual art that would qualify as "graven images", Jewish artists were relatively rare until they lived in assimilated European communities beginning in the late 18th century.[93][94] Despite fears by early religious communities of art being used for idolatrous purposes, Jewish sacred art is recorded in the Tanakh and extends throughout Jewish Antiquity and the Middle Ages.[95] The Tabernacle and the two Temples in Jerusalem form the first known examples of "Jewish art". During the first centuries of the Common Era, Jewish religious art also was created in regions surrounding the Mediterranean such as Syria and Greece, including frescoes on the walls of synagogues, of which the Dura Europas Synagogue was the only survivor,[96] prior to its destruction by ISIL in 2017, as well as the Jewish catacombs in Rome.[97][98]

 
Zodiac Wheel Mosaic in the great synagogue of Tzippori (5th century) in Galilee, Israel

A Jewish tradition of illuminated manuscripts in at least Late Antiquity has left no survivors, but can be deduced from borrowings in Early Medieval Christian art. A number of luxury pieces of gold glass from the later Roman period have Jewish motifs. Several Hellenistic-style floor mosaics have also been excavated in synagogues from Late Antiquity in Israel and Palestine, especially of the signs of the Zodiac, which was apparently acceptable in a low-status position on the floor. Some, such as that at Naaran, show evidence of a reaction against images of living creatures around 600 CE. The decoration of sarcophagi and walls at the cave cemetery at Beit She'arim shows a mixture of Jewish and Hellenistic motifs. However, for a period of several centuries between about 700 and 1100 CE there are scarcely any survivals of identifiably Jewish art.

Middle Age Rabbinical and Kabbalistic literature also contain textual and graphic art, most famously illuminated haggadahs such as the Sarajevo Haggadah, and other manuscripts like the Nuremberg Mahzor. Some of these were illustrated by Jewish artists and some by Christians; equally some Jewish artists and craftsmen in various media worked on Christian commissions.[99] Outside of Europe, Yemenite Jewish silversmiths developed a distinctive style of finely wrought silver that is admired for its artistry. Johnson again summarizes this sudden change from a limited participation by Jews in visual art (as in many other arts) to a large movement by them into this branch of European cultural life:

Again, the arrival of the Jewish artist was a strange phenomenon. It is true that, over the centuries, there had been many animals (though few humans) depicted in Jewish art: lions on Torah curtains, owls on Judaic coins, animals on the Capernaum capitals, birds on the rim of the fountain-basis in the 5th century Naro synagogue in Tunis; there were carved animals, too, on timber synagogues in eastern Europe – indeed the Jewish wood-carver was the prototype of the modern Jewish plastic artist. A book of Yiddish folk-ornament, printed at Vitebsk in 1920, was similar to Chagall's own bestiary. But the resistance of pious Jews to portraying the living human image was still strong at the beginning of the 20th century.[100]

 
Wall painting in the Dura Europos synagogue, circa 250 CE

There were few Jewish secular artists in Europe prior to the Emancipation that spread throughout Europe with the Napoleonic conquests. There were exceptions, and Salomon Adler was a prominent portrait painter in 18th-century Milan. The delay in participation in the visual arts parallels the lack of Jewish participation in European classical music until the nineteenth century, and which was progressively overcome with the rise of Modernism in the 20th century. There were many Jewish artists in the 19th century, but Jewish artistic activity boomed during the end of World War I. The Jewish artistic Renaissance has its roots in the 1901 Fifth Zionist Congress, which included an art exhibition featuring Jewish artists E.M. Lilien and Hermann Struck. The exhibition helped legitimize art as an expression of Jewish culture.[101] According to Nadine Nieszawer, "Until 1905, Jews were always plunged into their books but from the first Russian Revolution, they became emancipated, committed themselves in politics and became artists. A real Jewish cultural rebirth".[102] Individual Jews figured in the modern artistic movements of Europe— With the exception of those living in isolated Jewish communities, most Jews listed here as contributing to secular Jewish culture also participated in the cultures of the peoples they lived with and nations they lived in. In most cases, however, the work and lives of these people did not exist in two distinct cultural spheres but rather in one that incorporated elements of both.

 
Itzhak Danziger Nimrod, 1939 The Israel Museum, Jerusalem Collection

During the early 20th century, Jews figured particularly prominently in the Montparnasse movement (including Chaim Soutine, Marc Chagall, Jules Pascin, Yitzhak Frenkel Frenel and Michel Kikoine),[103] and after World War II among the abstract expressionists: Alexander Bogen, Helen Frankenthaler, Adolph Gottlieb, Philip Guston, Al Held, Lee Krasner, Barnett Newman, Milton Resnick, Jack Tworkov, Mark Rothko, and Louis Schanker, as well as among Contemporary artists, Modernists and Postmodernists.[104] Many Russian Jews were prominent in the art of scenic design, particularly the aforementioned Chagall and Aronson, as well as the revolutionary Léon Bakst, who like the other two also painted. One Mexican Jewish artist was Pedro Friedeberg; historians disagree as to whether Frida Kahlo's father was Jewish or Lutheran. Gustav Klimt was not Jewish, but nearly all of his patrons and several of his models were. Among major artists Chagall may be the most specifically Jewish in his themes. But as art fades into graphic design, Jewish names and themes become more prominent: Leonard Baskin, Al Hirschfeld, Peter Max, Ben Shahn, Art Spiegelman and Saul Steinberg.

Jews have also played a very important role in media other than painting; their involvement in sculpture came rather later, perhaps due to lingering feelings against "graven images". But there were many notable Jewish sculptors in the later 19th and 20th centuries, including Moses Jacob Ezekiel (American, d 1917), Sir Jacob Epstein (American-British, d 1959), Ossip Zadkine (French, d 1967) Naum Gabo (Russian, d 1977), Oscar Nemon (Croatian, d 1985), Louise Nevelson (American, d 1988), Herbert Ferber (American, d 1991).

In photography some notable figures are André Kertész, Robert Frank, Helmut Newton, Garry Winogrand, Cindy Sherman, Steve Lehman,[105] and Adi Nes; in installation art and street art some notable figures are Sigalit Landau,[106] Dede,[107] and Michal Rovner.

Camille Pissarro
(1830–1903)
Amedeo Modigliani
(1884–1920)
Diego Rivera
(1886–1957)
Alexander Bogen
(1916–2010)
Marc Chagall
(1887–1985)
 
 
 
 
 

Comics, cartoons, and animation

 
 
Stan Lee (left) and Jack Kirby (right) made a major contribution to the American comic book industry. Their work includes The Avengers, Captain America, Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, and X-Men

Graphic art, as expressed in the art of comics, has been a key field for Jewish artists as well. In the Golden and Silver ages of American comic books, the Jewish role was overwhelming and a large number of the medium's foremost creators have been Jewish.[108]

Max Gaines was a pioneering figure in the creation of the modern comic book when in 1935 he published the first one called Famous Funnies.[109] In 1939, he founded, with Jack Liebowitz and Harry Donenfeld, All-American Publications (the AA Group).[110] The publication is known for the creation of several superheroes such as the original Atom, Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, and Wonder Woman. Donenfeld and Liebowitz were also the owners of National Allied Publications which distributed Detective Comics and Action Comics. That company was also a precursor of DC Comics.

In 1939, the pulp magazine publisher Martin Goodman formed Timely Publications,[111] a company to be known, since the 1960s, as Marvel Comics. At Marvel, Artists such as Stan Lee, Jack Kirby,[112] Larry Lieber and Joe Simon created a large variety of characters and cultural icons including Spider-Man, Hulk, Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Daredevil, and the teams Fantastic Four, Avengers, X-Men (including many of its characters) and S.H.I.E.L.D.. Stan Lee attributed the Jewish role in comics to the Jewish culture.[113]

At DC Comics Jewish role was significant as well; the character of Superman, which was created by the Jewish artists Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel,[108] is partly based on the biblical figure of Samson.[114] It was also suggested the Superman is partly influenced by Moses,[115][116] and other Jewish elements. More at DC Comics are Bob Kane, Bill Finger and Martin Nodell, creators of Green Lantern, Batman[108] and many related characters as Robin, The Joker, Riddler, Scarecrow and Catwoman; Gil Kane, co-creator of Atom and Iron Fist. Many of those involved in the later ages of comics are also Jewish, such as Julius Schwartz, Joe Kubert, Jenette Kahn, Len Wein, Peter David, Neil Gaiman, Chris Claremont and Brian Michael Bendis. There is also a large number of Jewish characters among comics superheroes such as Magneto, Quicksilver, Kitty Pryde, The Thing, Sasquatch, Sabra, Ragman, Legion, and Moon Knight, of whom were and are influenced by events in Jewish history and elements of Jewish life.[117]

In 1944, Max Gaines founded EC Comics.[118] The company is known for specializing in horror fiction, crime fiction, satire, military fiction and science fiction from the 1940s through the mid-1950s, notably the Tales from the Crypt series, The Haunt of Fear, The Vault of Horror, Crime SuspenStories and Shock SuspenStories. Jewish artists that are associated with the publisher include Al Feldstein, Dave Berg, and Jack Kamen.

Will Eisner was an American cartoonist and was known as one of the earliest cartoonists to work in the American comic book industry. He is the creator of the Spirit comics series and the graphic novel A Contract with God.[119] The Eisner Award was named in his honor, and is given to recognize achievements each year in the comics medium.

 
Ralph Bakshi is a director of animated and live-action films, known for films such as Wizards (1977), The Lord of the Rings (1978), and Fire and Ice (1983)

In 1952, William Gaines and Harvey Kurtzman founded Mad, an American humor magazine. It was widely imitated and influential, affecting satirical media as well as the cultural landscape of the 20th century, with editor Al Feldstein increasing readership to more than two million during its 1970s circulation peak.[120] Other known cartoonists are Lee Falk creator of The Phantom and Mandrake the Magician; The Hebrew comics of Michael Netzer creator of Uri-On and Uri Fink creator of Zbeng!; William Steig, creator of Shrek!; Daniel Clowes, creator of Eightball; Art Spiegelman creator of graphic novel Maus and Raw (with Françoise Mouly).

In animation, Jewish animators role is expressed by many: Genndy Tartakovsky is the creator of several animation TV series such as Dexter's Laboratory and Samurai Jack;[121] Matt Stone co-creator of South Park; David Hilberman who helped animate Bambi and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs; Friz Freleng, Looney Tunes;C. H. Greenblatt,Chowder; and Harvey Beaks; Ralph Bakshi, Fritz the Cat, Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures, Wizards, The Lord of the Rings, Heavy Traffic, Coonskin, Hey Good Lookin', Fire and Ice, and Cool World;[122] Alex Hirsch, creator of Gravity Falls; Dave Fleischer and Lou Fleischer, founders of Fleischer Studios; Max Fleischer, animation of Betty Boop, Popeye and Superman; Rebecca Sugar, creator of Steven Universe.[123] Several companies producing animation were founded by Jews, such as DreamWorks, which its products include Shrek, Madagascar, Kung Fu Panda and The Prince of Egypt; Warner Bros., whose animation division is known for cartoons such as Looney Tunes, Tiny Toon Adventures, Animaniacs, Pinky and the Brain and Freakazoid! .

Cuisine

 

Jewish cooking combines the food of many cultures in which Jews have settled, including Middle Eastern, Mediterranean, Spanish, German and Eastern European styles of cooking, all influenced by the need for food to be kosher. Thus, "Jewish" foods like bagels,[124] hummus,[125] stuffed cabbage,[126] and blintzes all come from various other cultures. The amalgam of these foods, plus uniquely Jewish contributions like tzimmis,[127] cholent, gefilte fish[128] and matzah balls,[129] make up Jewish cuisine.

Philo-Semitism

Philo-Semitism (also spelled philosemitism) or Judeophilia is an interest in, respect for and an appreciation of Jewish people, their history, and their culture and the influence of Judaism, particularly on the part of a gentile.[130] Within the Jewish community, philo-Semitism includes an interest in Jewish culture and a love of things that are considered Jewish.[131]

Very few Jews live in East Asian countries, but Jews are viewed in an especially positive light in some of them, partly owing to their shared wartime experiences during the Second World War. Examples include South Korea[132] and China.[133] In general, Jews are positively stereotyped as intelligent, business savvy and committed to family values and responsibility, while in the Western world, the first of the two aforementioned stereotypes more often have the negatively interpreted equivalents of guile and greed. In South Korean primary schools the Talmud is mandatory reading.[132]

See also

References

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Further reading

External links

  • The center for Jewish Art Collection
  • The City Congregation for Humanistic Judaism
  • Congress of Secular Jewish Organizations
  • Festival of Jewish Theater and Ideas
  • The Bezalel Narkiss Index of Jewish Art
  • Heeb – an online magazine about Jewish culture
  • Gesher Galicia

jewish, culture, culture, jewish, people, from, formation, ancient, times, until, current, judaism, itself, faith, based, religion, orthoprax, ethnoreligion, pertaining, deed, practice, identity, covers, many, aspects, including, religion, worldviews, literatu. Jewish culture is the culture of the Jewish people 1 from its formation in ancient times until the current age Judaism itself is not a faith based religion but an orthoprax and ethnoreligion pertaining to deed practice and identity 2 Jewish culture covers many aspects including religion and worldviews literature media and cinema art and architecture cuisine and traditional dress attitudes to gender marriage and family social customs and lifestyles music and dance 3 Some elements of Jewish culture come from within Judaism others from the interaction of Jews with host populations and others still from the inner social and cultural dynamics of the community Before the 18th century religion dominated virtually all aspects of Jewish life and infused culture Since the advent of secularization wholly secular Jewish culture emerged likewise Jewish festival in Tetouan Morocco 1865 Museum of Jewish culture in Bratislava Contents 1 History 2 Philosophy and religion 3 Education and politics 4 Economic activity 5 Science and technology 6 Literature and poetry 7 Theatre 7 1 Yiddish theatre 7 2 European theatre 7 3 English language theatre 7 4 Hebrew and Israeli theatre 7 5 Judeo Tat theatre 8 Cinema 9 Radio and television 10 Music 10 1 Classical music 10 2 Popular music 11 Dance 12 Humor 13 Visual arts 14 Comics cartoons and animation 15 Cuisine 16 Philo Semitism 17 See also 18 References 19 Further reading 20 External linksHistory Edit Tombstones from a Jewish cemetery 13th century Paris There has not been a political unity of Jewish society since the united monarchy Since then Israelite populations were always geographically dispersed see Jewish diaspora so that by the 19th century the Ashkenazi Jews were mainly located in Eastern and Central Europe the Sephardi Jews were largely spread among various communities which lived in the Mediterranean region Mizrahi Jews were primarily spread throughout Western Asia and other populations of Jews lived in Central Asia Ethiopia the Caucasus and India See Jewish ethnic divisions Although there was a high degree of communication and traffic between these Jewish communities many Sephardic exiles blended into the Ashkenazi communities which existed in Central Europe following the Spanish Inquisition many Ashkenazim migrated to the Ottoman Empire giving rise to the characteristic Syrian Jewish family name Ashkenazi Iraqi Jewish traders formed a distinct Jewish community in India to some degree many of these Jewish populations were cut off from the cultures which surrounded them by ghettoization Muslim laws of dhimma and the traditional discouragement of contact between Jews and members of polytheistic populations by their religious leaders Medieval Jewish communities in Eastern Europe continued to display distinct cultural traits over the centuries Despite the universalist leanings of the Enlightenment and its echo within Judaism in the Haskalah movement many Yiddish speaking Jews in Eastern Europe continued to see themselves as forming a distinct national group am yehudi from the Biblical Hebrew but adapting this idea to Enlightenment values they assimilated the concept as that of an ethnic group whose identity did not depend on religion which under Enlightenment thinking fell under a separate category Constantin Măciucă writes of the existence of a differentiated but not isolated Jewish spirit permeating the culture of Yiddish speaking Jews 4 This was only intensified as the rise of Romanticism amplified the sense of national identity across Europe generally Thus for example members of the General Jewish Labour Bund in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were generally non religious and one of the historical leaders of the Bund was the child of converts to Christianity though not a practicing or believing Christian himself citation needed The Haskalah combined with the Jewish Emancipation movement under way in Central and Western Europe to create an opportunity for Jews to enter secular society At the same time pogroms in Eastern Europe provoked a surge of migration in large part to the United States where some 2 million Jewish immigrants resettled between 1880 and 1920 By 1931 shortly before The Holocaust 92 of the World s Jewish population was Ashkenazi in origin Secularism originated in Europe as series of movements that militated for a new heretofore unheard of concept called secular Judaism For these reasons much of what is thought of by English speakers and to a lesser extent by non English speaking Europeans as secular Jewish culture is in essence the Jewish cultural movement that evolved in Central and Eastern Europe and subsequently brought to North America by immigrants During the 1940s the Holocaust uprooted and destroyed most of the Jewish communities living in much of Europe This in combination with the creation of the State of Israel and the consequent Jewish exodus from Arab lands resulted in a further geographic shift Sephardi Jewish couple from Sarajevo in traditional clothing Photo taken in 1900 Defining secular culture among those who practice traditional Judaism is difficult because the entire culture is by definition entwined with religious traditions the idea of separate ethnic and religious identity is foreign to the Hebrew tradition of an am yisrael This is particularly true for Orthodox Judaism Gary Tobin head of the Institute for Jewish and Community Research said of traditional Jewish culture The dichotomy between religion and culture doesn t really exist Every religious attribute is filled with culture every cultural act filled with religiosity Synagogues themselves are great centers of Jewish culture After all what is life really about Food relationships enrichment So is Jewish life So many of our traditions inherently contain aspects of culture Look at the Passover Seder it s essentially great theater Jewish education and religiosity bereft of culture is not as interesting 5 Yaakov Malkin Professor of Aesthetics and Rhetoric at Tel Aviv University and the founder and academic director of Meitar College for Judaism as Culture 6 in Jerusalem writes Today very many secular Jews take part in Jewish cultural activities such as celebrating Jewish holidays as historical and nature festivals imbued with new content and form or marking life cycle events such as birth bar bat mitzvah marriage and mourning in a secular fashion They come together to study topics pertaining to Jewish culture and its relation to other cultures in havurot cultural associations and secular synagogues and they participate in public and political action coordinated by secular Jewish movements such as the former movement to free Soviet Jews and movements to combat pogroms discrimination and religious coercion Jewish secular humanistic education inculcates universal moral values through classic Jewish and world literature and through organizations for social change that aspire to ideals of justice and charity 7 In North America the secular and cultural Jewish movements are divided into three umbrella organizations the Society for Humanistic Judaism SHJ the Congress of Secular Jewish Organizations CSJO and Workmen s Circle Philosophy and religion EditMain article Jewish philosophy See also List of Jewish philosophers The Guide for the Perplexed Maimonides circa 1190 Jewish philosophy includes all philosophy carried out by Jews or in relation to the religion of Judaism The Jewish philosophy is extended over several main eras in Jewish history including the ancient and biblical era medieval era and modern era see Haskalah The ancient Jewish philosophy is expressed in the bible According to Prof Israel Efros the principles of the Jewish philosophy start in the bible where the foundations of the Jewish monotheistic beliefs can be found such as the belief in one god the separation of god and the world and nature as opposed to Pantheism and the creation of the world Other biblical writings that associated with philosophy are Psalms that contains invitations to admire the wisdom of God through his works from this some scholars suggest Judaism harbors a Philosophical under current 8 and Ecclesiastes that is often considered to be the only genuine philosophical work in the Hebrew Bible its author seeks to understand the place of human beings in the world and life s meaning 9 Other writings related to philosophy can be found in the Deuterocanonical books such as Sirach and Book of Wisdom During the Hellenistic era Hellenistic Judaism aspired to combine Jewish religious tradition with elements of Greek culture and philosophy The philosopher Philo used philosophical allegory to attempt to fuse and harmonize Greek philosophy with Jewish philosophy His work attempts to combine Plato and Moses into one philosophical system 10 He developed an allegoric approach of interpreting holy scriptures the bible in contrast to old fashioned literally interpretation approaches His allegorical exegesis was important for several Christian Church Fathers and some scholars hold that his concept of the Logos as God s creative principle influenced early Christology Other scholars however deny direct influence but say both Philo and Early Christianity borrow from a common source 11 The opening page of Spinoza s magnum opus Ethics Between the Ancient era and the Middle Ages most of the Jewish philosophy concentrated around the Rabbinic literature that is expressed in the Talmud and Midrash In the 9th century Saadia Gaon wrote the text Emunoth ve Deoth which is the first systematic presentation and philosophic foundation of the dogmas of Judaism The Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain included many influential Jewish philosophers such as Moses ibn Ezra Abraham ibn Ezra Solomon ibn Gabirol Yehuda Halevi Isaac Abravanel Nahmanides Joseph Albo Abraham ibn Daud Nissim of Gerona Bahya ibn Paquda Abraham bar Hiyya Joseph ibn Tzaddik Hasdai Crescas and Isaac ben Moses Arama The most notable is Maimonides who is considered beside the Jewish world to be a prominent philosopher and polymath in the Islamic and Western worlds Outside of Spain other philosophers are Natan el al Fayyumi Elia del Medigo Jedaiah ben Abraham Bedersi and Gersonides Philosophy by Jews in Modern era was expressed by philosophers mainly in Europe such as Baruch Spinoza founder of Spinozism whose work included modern Rationalism and Biblical criticism and laying the groundwork for the 18th century Enlightenment 12 His work has earned him recognition as one of Western philosophy s most important thinkers Others are Isaac Orobio de Castro Tzvi Ashkenazi David Nieto Isaac Cardoso Jacob Abendana Uriel da Costa Francisco Sanches and Moses Almosnino A new era began in the 18th century with the thought of Moses Mendelssohn Mendelssohn has been described as the third Moses with whom begins a new era in Judaism just as new eras began with Moses the prophet and with Moses Maimonides 13 Mendelssohn was a German Jewish philosopher to whose ideas the renaissance of European Jews Haskalah the Jewish Enlightenment is indebted He has been referred to as the father of Reform Judaism though Reform spokesmen have been resistant to claim him as their spiritual father 14 Mendelssohn came to be regarded as a leading cultural figure of his time by both Germans and Jews The Jewish Enlightenment philosophy included Menachem Mendel Lefin Salomon Maimon and Isaac Satanow The next 19th century comprised both secular and religious philosophy and included philosophers such as Elijah Benamozegh Hermann Cohen Moses Hess Samson Raphael Hirsch Samuel Hirsch Nachman Krochmal Samuel David Luzzatto and Nachman of Breslov founder of Breslov The 20th century included the notable philosophers Jacques Derrida Karl Popper Emmanuel Levinas Claude Levi Strauss Hilary Putnam Alfred Tarski Ludwig Wittgenstein A J Ayer Walter Benjamin Raymond Aron Theodor W Adorno Isaiah Berlin and Henri Bergson Philo c 25 BCE c 50 CE Nahmanides 1194 1270 Maimonides 1135 1138 1204 Baruch Spinoza 1632 1677 Moses Mendelssohn 1729 1786 Schneur Zalman of Liadi 1745 1812 Ludwig Wittgenstein 1889 1951 Hannah Arendt 1906 1975 Menachem Mendel Schneerson 1902 1994 Education and politics EditMain article Jewish education See also Jewish political movements and List of Jews in politics A range of moral and political views is evident early in the history of Judaism that serves to partially explain the diversity that is apparent among secular Jews who are often influenced by moral beliefs that can be found in Jewish scripture and traditions In recent centuries secular Jews in Europe and the Americas have tended towards the political left citation needed and played key roles in the birth of the 19th century s labor movement and socialism While Diaspora Jews have also been represented on the conservative side of the political spectrum even politically conservative Jews have tended to support pluralism more consistently than many other elements of the political right Some scholars 15 attribute this to the fact that Jews are not expected to proselytize derived from Halakha This lack of a universalizing religion is combined with the fact that most Jews live as minorities in diaspora countries and that no central Jewish religious authority has existed since 363 CE Jews value education and the value of education is strongly embedded in Jewish culture 16 17 Economic activity Edit David Ricardo 1772 1823 He was one of the most influential of the classical economists 18 19 In the Middle Ages European laws prevented Jews from owning land and gave them powerful incentive to go into other professions that non Jewish Europeans were not willing to follow 20 During the medieval period there was a very strong social stigma against lending money and charging interest among the Christian majority In most of Europe until the late 18th century and in some places to an even later date Jews were prohibited by Roman Catholic governments and others from owning land On the other hand the Church because of a number of Bible verses e g Leviticus 25 36 forbidding usury declared that charging any interest was against the divine law and this prevented any mercantile use of capital by pious Christians As the Canon law did not apply to Jews they were not liable to the ecclesiastical punishments which were placed upon usurers by the popes Christian rulers gradually saw the advantage of having a class of men like the Jews who could supply capital for their use without being liable to excommunication and so the money trade of western Europe by this means fell into the hands of the Jews However in almost every instance where large amounts were acquired by Jews through banking transactions the property thus acquired fell either during their life or upon their death into the hands of the king This happened to Aaron of Lincoln in England Ezmel de Ablitas in Navarre Heliot de Vesoul in Provence Benveniste de Porta in Aragon etc It was often for this reason that kings supported the Jews and even objected to them becoming Christians because in that case their fortunes earned by usury could not be seized by the crown after their deaths Thus both in England and in France the kings demanded to be compensated by the church for every Jew converted This type of royal trickery was one factor in creating the stereotypical Jewish role of banker and or merchant As a modern system of capital began to develop loans became necessary for commerce and industry Jews were able to gain a foothold in the new field of finance by providing these services as non Catholics they were not bound by the ecclesiastical prohibition against usury and in terms of Judaism itself Hillel had long ago re interpreted the Torah s ban on charging interest allowing interest when it s needed to make a living citation needed Science and technology EditSee also List of Jewish scientists and philosophers List of Jewish Nobel laureates and List of Jewish mathematicians Further information Science and technology in Israel Jewish medicine and Hebrew astronomy The strong Jewish tradition of religious scholarship often left Jews well prepared for secular scholarship In some times and places this was countered by banning Jews from studying at universities or admitting them only in limited numbers see Jewish quota Over the centuries Jews have been poorly represented among land holding classes but far better represented in academia professions finance commerce and many scientific fields The strong representation of Jews in science and academia is evidenced by the fact that 193 persons known to be Jews or of Jewish ancestry have been awarded the Nobel Prize accounting for 22 of all individual recipients worldwide between 1901 and 2014 21 Of whom 26 in physics 22 22 in chemistry 23 and 27 in Physiology or Medicine 24 In the fields of mathematics and computer science 31 of Turing Award recipients 25 and 27 of Fields Medal in mathematics 26 were or are Jewish The structure of DNA The Jewish X ray crystallographer Rosalind Franklin made a crucial contribution to the discovery of DNA s structure when she discovered its double helix structure with a backbone consisting of phosphate groups 27 28 29 The early Jewish activity in science can be found in the Hebrew Bible where some of the books contain descriptions of the physical world Biblical cosmology provides sporadic glimpses that may be stitched together to form a Biblical impression of the physical universe There have been comparisons between the Bible with passages such as from the Genesis creation narrative and the astronomy of classical antiquity more generally 30 The Bible also contains various cleansing rituals One suggested ritual for example deals with the proper procedure for cleansing a leper Leviticus 14 1 32 It is a fairly elaborate process which is to be performed after a leper was already healed of leprosy Leviticus 14 3 involving extensive cleansing and personal hygiene but also includes sacrificing a bird and lambs with the addition of using their blood to symbolize that the afflicted has been cleansed The Torah proscribes Intercropping Lev 19 19 Deut 22 9 a practice often associated with sustainable agriculture and organic farming in modern agricultural science 31 32 The Mosaic code has provisions concerning the conservation of natural resources such as trees Deuteronomy 20 19 20 and birds Deuteronomy 22 6 7 During Medieval era astronomy was a primary field among Jewish scholars and was widely studied and practiced 33 Prominent astronomers included Abraham Zacuto who published in 1478 his Hebrew book Ha hibbur ha gadol 34 where he wrote about the Solar System charting the positions of the Sun Moon and five planets 34 His work served Portugal s exploration journeys and was used by Vasco da Gama and also by Christopher Columbus The lunar crater Zagut is named after Zacuto s name The mathematician and astronomer Abraham bar Hiyya Ha Nasi authored the first European book to include the full solution to the quadratic equation x2 ax b 0 35 and influenced the work of Leonardo Fibonacci Bar Hiyya proved by the method of indivisibles the following equation for any circle S LxR 2 where S is the surface area L is the circumference length and R is radius 36 German edition of the astronomy book De scientia motvs orbis originally by Mashallah ibn Athari Garcia de Orta Portuguese Renaissance Jewish physician was a pioneer of Tropical medicine He published his work Coloquios dos simples e drogas da India in 1563 37 which deals with a series of substances many of them unknown or the subject of confusion and misinformation in Europe at this period He was the first European to describe Asiatic tropical diseases notably cholera he performed an autopsy on a cholera victim the first recorded autopsy in India Bonet de Lattes known chiefly as the inventor of an astronomical ring dial by means of which solar and stellar altitudes can be measured and the time determined with great precision by night as well as by day Other related personalities are Abraham ibn Ezra whose the Moon crater Abenezra named after David Gans Judah ibn Verga Mashallah ibn Athari an astronomer The crater Messala on the Moon is named after him Albert Einstein was a German born theoretical physicist and is considered one of the most prominent scientists in history often regarded as the father of modern physics His revolutionary work on the relativity theory transformed theoretical physics and astronomy during the 20th century When first published relativity superseded a 200 year old theory of mechanics created primarily by Isaac Newton 38 39 40 In the field of physics relativity improved the science of elementary particles and their fundamental interactions along with ushering in the nuclear age With relativity cosmology and astrophysics predicted extraordinary astronomical phenomena such as neutron stars black holes and gravitational waves 38 39 40 Einstein formulated the well known Mass energy equivalence E mc2 and explained the photoelectric effect His work also effected and influenced a large variety of fields of physics including the Big Bang theory Einstein s General relativity influenced Georges Lemaitre Quantum mechanics and nuclear energy Castle Romeo nuclear test a large number of Jewish scientists were involved in Project Manhattan The Manhattan Project was a research and development project that produced the first atomic bombs during World War II and many Jewish scientists had a significant role in the project 41 The theoretical physicist Robert Oppenheimer often considered the father of the atomic bomb was chosen to direct the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1942 The physicist Leo Szilard that conceived the nuclear chain reaction Edward Teller the father of the hydrogen bomb and Stanislaw Ulam Eugene Wigner contributed to theory of Atomic nucleus and Elementary particle Hans Bethe whose work included Stellar nucleosynthesis and was head of the Theoretical Division at the secret Los Alamos laboratory Richard Feynman Niels Bohr Victor Weisskopf and Joseph Rotblat The mathematician and physicist Alexander Friedmann pioneered the theory that universe was expanding governed by a set of equations he developed now known as the Friedmann equations Arno Allan Penzias the physicist and radio astronomer co discoverer of the cosmic microwave background radiation which helped establish the Big Bang theory the scientists Robert Herman and Ralph Alpher had also worked on that field In quantum mechanics Jewish role was significant as well and many of most influential figures and pioneers of the theory were Jewish Niels Bohr and his work on the atom structure Max Born Schrodinger equation Wolfgang Pauli Richard Feynman Quantum chromodynamics Fritz London work on London dispersion force and London equations Walter Heitler and Julian Schwinger work on Quantum electrodynamics Asher Peres a pioneer in Quantum information David Bohm Quantum potential Sigmund Freud known as the father of psychoanalysis is one of the most influential scientists of the 20th century In creating psychoanalysis a clinical method for treating psychopathology through dialogue between a patient and a psychoanalyst 42 Freud developed therapeutic techniques such as the use of free association and discovered transference establishing its central role in the analytic process Freud s redefinition of sexuality to include its infantile forms led him to formulate the Oedipus complex as the central tenet of psychoanalytical theory His analysis of dreams as wish fulfillments provided him with models for the clinical analysis of symptom formation and the mechanisms of repression as well as for elaboration of his theory of the unconscious as an agency disruptive of conscious states of mind 43 Freud postulated the existence of libido an energy with which mental processes and structures are invested and which generates erotic attachments and a death drive the source of repetition hate aggression and neurotic guilt 44 The first functioning laser created by Theodore H Maiman in 1960 45 46 John von Neumann a mathematician and physicist made major contributions to a number of fields 47 including foundations of mathematics functional analysis ergodic theory geometry topology numerical analysis quantum mechanics hydrodynamics and game theory 48 In made also a major work with computing and the development of the computer he suggested and described a computer architecture called Von Neumann architecture and worked on linear programming self replicating machines stochastic computing and statistics Emmy Noether was an influential mathematician known for her groundbreaking contributions to abstract algebra and theoretical physics Described by many prominent scientists as the most important woman in the history of mathematics 49 50 incomplete short citation she revolutionized the theories of rings fields and algebras In physics Noether s theorem explains the fundamental connection between symmetry and conservation laws 51 Israeli Shavit space launcher More remarkable contributors include Heinrich Hertz and Steven Weinberg in Electromagnetism Carl Sagan his contributions were central to the discovery of the high surface temperatures of Venus and known for his contributions to the scientific research of extraterrestrial life Felix Hausdorff founder of topology Edward Witten M theory Vitaly Ginzburg and Lev Landau Ginzburg Landau theory Yakir Aharonov Aharonov Bohm effect Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen EPR paradox Moshe Carmeli Gauge theory Rudolf Lipschitz Lipschitz continuity Paul Cohen Continuum hypothesis Axiom of choice Laurent Schwartz theory of distribution Grigory Margulis Lie group Richard M Karp Theory of computation Adi Shamir RSA cryptography Judea Pearl Artificial intelligence Bayesian network Max Newman Colossus computer Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi Jacobi elliptic functions Jacobian matrix and determinant Jacobi symbol Sidney Altman Molecular biology RNA Melvin Calvin Calvin Cycle Otto Wallach Alicyclic compound Paul Berg biochemistry of nucleic acids Ada Yonath Crystallography structure of the ribosome Dan Shechtman Quasicrystal Julius Axelrod and Bernard Katz Neurotransmitter Elie Metchnikoff discovery of Macrophage Selman Waksman discovery of Streptomycin Rosalind Franklin DNA Carl Djerassi the pill Stephen Jay Gould Evolutionary biology Baruch Samuel Blumberg Hepatitis B virus Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin developers of the Polio vaccines Paul Ehrlich discovery of the Blood brain barrier In fields such as psychology and neurology Otto Rank Viktor Frankl Stanley Milgram and Solomon Asch linguistics Noam Chomsky Franz Boas Roman Jakobson Edward Sapir Joseph Greenberg and sociology Theodor Adorno Nathan Glazer Erving Goffman Georg Simmel See also Category Jewish inventors and List of Israeli inventions and discoveries Beside Scientific discoveries and researches Jews have created significant and influential innovations in a large variety of fields such as the listed samples Siegfried Marcus automobile pioneer inventor of the first car Emile Berliner developer of the disc record phonograph Mikhail Gurevich co inventor of the MIG aircraft Theodore Maiman inventor of the laser Robert Adler inventor of the wireless remote control for televisions Edwin H Land inventor of Land Camera Bob Kahn inventor of TCP and IP Bram Cohen creator of Bittorent Sergei Brin and Larry Page creators of Google Laszlo Biro Ballpoint pen Simcha Blass Drip irrigation Lee Felsenstein designer of Osborne 1 Zeev Suraski and Andi Gutmans co creators of PHP and founders of Zend Technologies Ralph H Baer The Father of Video Games Garcia de Orta 1501 2 1568 Sigmund Freud 1856 1939 Albert Einstein 1879 1955 Emmy Noether 1882 1935 Niels Bohr 1885 1962 John von Neumann 1903 1957 Robert Oppenheimer 1904 1967 Richard Feynman 1918 1988 Literature and poetry EditMain articles Jewish literature and Jewish poetry See also Yiddish literature Ladino language History Judeo Tat literature Hebrew literature Jewish American literature and List of Jews in literature and journalism In some places where there have been relatively high concentrations of Jews distinct secular Jewish subcultures have arisen 52 For example ethnic Jews formed an enormous proportion of the literary and artistic life of Vienna Austria at the end of the 19th century or of New York City 50 years later and Los Angeles in the mid late 20th century Many of these creative Jews were not particularly religious people In general Jewish artistic culture in various periods reflected the culture in which they lived Gutenberg Bible The Bible was authored by Jews during the Iron Ages and the Classical era It comprises cultural values basic human values mythology and religious beliefs of both Judaism and Christianity 53 Literary and theatrical expressions of secular Jewish culture may be in specifically Jewish languages such as Hebrew Yiddish Judeo Tat or Ladino or it may be in the language of the surrounding cultures such as English or German Secular literature and theater in Yiddish largely began in the 19th century and was in decline by the middle of the 20th century The revival of Hebrew beyond its use in the liturgy is largely an early 20th century phenomenon and is closely associated with Zionism Apart from the use of Hebrew in Israel whether a Jewish community will speak a Jewish or non Jewish language as its main vehicle of discourse is generally dependent on how isolated or assimilated that community is For example the Jews in the shtetls of Poland and the Lower East Side of New York City during the early 20th century spoke Yiddish at most times while assimilated Jews in 19th and early 20th century Germany spoke German and American born Jews in the United States speak English Jewish authors have both created a unique Jewish literature and contributed to the national literature of many of the countries in which they live Though not strictly secular the Yiddish works of authors like Sholem Aleichem whose collected works amounted to 28 volumes and Isaac Bashevis Singer winner of the 1978 Nobel Prize form their own canon focusing on the Jewish experience in both Eastern Europe and in America In the United States Jewish writers like Philip Roth Saul Bellow and many others are considered among the greatest American authors and incorporate a distinctly secular Jewish view into many of their works The poetry of Allen Ginsberg often touches on Jewish themes notably the early autobiographical works such as Howl and Kaddish Other famous Jewish authors that made contributions to world literature include Heinrich Heine German poet Mordecai Richler Canadian author Isaac Babel Russian author Franz Kafka of Prague and Harry Mulisch whose novel The Discovery of Heaven was revealed by a 2007 poll as the Best Dutch Book Ever 54 Hebrew Book Week in Jerusalem In Modern Judaism An Oxford Guide Yaakov Malkin Professor of Aesthetics and Rhetoric at Tel Aviv University and the founder and academic director of Meitar College for Judaism as Culture in Jerusalem writes Secular Jewish culture embraces literary works that have stood the test of time as sources of aesthetic pleasure and ideas shared by Jews and non Jews works that live on beyond the immediate socio cultural context within which they were created They include the writings of such Jewish authors as Sholem Aleichem Itzik Manger Isaac Bashevis Singer Philip Roth Saul Bellow S Y Agnon Isaac Babel Martin Buber Isaiah Berlin Haim Nahman Bialik Yehuda Amichai Amos Oz A B Yehoshua and David Grossman It boasts masterpieces that have had a considerable influence on all of western culture Jewish culture included works such as those of Heinrich Heine Gustav Mahler Leonard Bernstein Marc Chagall Jacob Epstein Ben Shahn Amedeo Modigliani Franz Kafka Max Reinhardt Goldman Ernst Lubitsch and Woody Allen 7 Other notable contributors are Isaac Asimov author of the Foundation series and others such as I robot Nightfall and The Gods Themselves Joseph Heller Catch 22 R L Stine Goosebumps series J D Salinger The Catcher in the Rye Michael Chabon The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier amp Clay The Yiddish Policemen s Union Marcel Proust In Search of Lost Time Arthur Miller Death of a Salesman and The Crucible Will Eisner A Contract with God Shel Silverstein The Giving Tree Arthur Koestler Darkness at Noon The Thirteenth Tribe Saul Bellow Herzog The historical novel series The Accursed Kings by Maurice Druon is an inspiration for George R R Martin s A Song of Ice and Fire novels 55 56 57 Among recipient of Nobel Prize in Literature 13 were or are Jewish 58 Another aspect of Jewish literature is the ethical called Musar literature This literature has been composed by both religious and secular authors 59 Hebrew poetry is expressed by various of poets in different eras of Jewish history Biblical poetry is related to the poetry in biblical times as it expressed in the Hebrew Bible and Jewish sacred texts In medieval times the Jewish poetry was mainly expressed by piyyutim and several poets such as Yehuda Halevi Samuel ibn Naghrillah Solomon ibn Gabirol Moses ibn Ezra Abraham ibn Ezra and Dunash ben Labrat Modern Hebrew poetry is mostly related to the era of and after the revival of the Hebrew language pioneered by Moshe Chaim Luzzatto in the Haskalah era and succeeded by poets such as Hayim Nahman Bialik Nathan Alterman and Shaul Tchernichovsky See also Biblical poetry piyyut Jewish poetry from Al Andalus and Modern Hebrew poetry Yehuda Halevi c 1075 1141 Heinrich Heine 1797 1856 Sholem Aleichem 1859 1916 Franz Kafka 1883 1924 Boris Pasternak 1890 1960 Ayn Rand 1905 1982 Isaac Asimov 1920 1992 Allen Ginsberg 1926 1997 Theatre EditYiddish theatre Edit Main article Yiddish theatre Hana Rovina in The Dybbuk 1920 a play by S Ansky The Ukrainian Jew Abraham Goldfaden founded the first professional Yiddish language theatre troupe in Iași Romania in 1876 The next year his troupe achieved enormous success in Bucharest Within a decade Goldfaden and others brought Yiddish theater to Ukraine Russia Poland Germany New York City and other cities with significant Ashkenazic populations Between 1890 and 1940 over a dozen Yiddish theatre groups existed in New York City alone in the Yiddish Theater District performing original plays musicals and Yiddish translations of theatrical works and opera Perhaps the most famous of Yiddish language plays is The Dybbuk 1919 by S Ansky Yiddish theater in New York in the early 20th century rivalled English language theater in quantity and often surpassed it in quality A 1925 New York Times article remarks Yiddish theater is now a stable American institution and no longer dependent on immigration from Eastern Europe People who can neither speak nor write Yiddish attend Yiddish stage performances and pay Broadway prices on Second Avenue This article also mentions other aspects of a New York Jewish cultural life in full flower at that time among them the fact that the extensive New York Yiddish language press of the time included seven daily newspapers 60 In fact however the next generation of American Jews spoke mainly English to the exclusion of Yiddish they brought the artistic energy of Yiddish theater into the American theatrical mainstream but usually in a less specifically Jewish form Yiddish theater most notably Moscow State Jewish Theater directed by Solomon Mikhoels also played a prominent role in the arts scene of the Soviet Union until Stalin s 1948 reversal in government policy toward the Jews See Rootless cosmopolitan Night of the Murdered Poets Montreal s Dora Wasserman Yiddish Theatre continues to thrive after 50 years of performance European theatre Edit Sarah Bernhardt 1864 From their Emancipation to World War II Jews were very active and sometimes even dominant in certain forms of European theatre and after the Holocaust many Jews continued to that cultural form For example in pre Nazi Germany where Nietzsche asked What good actor of today is not Jewish acting directing and writing positions were often filled by Jews Both MacDonald and Jewish Tribal Review would generally be counted as anti Semitic sources but reasonably careful in their factual claims In Imperial Berlin Jewish artists could be found in the forefront of the performing arts from high drama to more popular forms like cabaret and revue and eventually film Jewish audiences patronized innovative theater regardless of whether they approved of what they saw 61 The British historian Paul Johnson commenting on Jewish contributions to European culture at the Fin de siecle writes that The area where Jewish influence was strongest was the theatre especially in Berlin Playwrights like Carl Sternheim Arthur Schnitzler Ernst Toller Erwin Piscator Walter Hasenclever Ferenc Molnar and Carl Zuckmayer and influential producers like Max Reinhardt appeared at times to dominate the stage which tended to be modishly left wing pro republican experimental and sexually daring But it was certainly not revolutionary and it was cosmopolitan rather than Jewish 62 Jews also made similar if not as massive contributions to theatre and drama in Austria Britain France and Russia in the national languages of those countries Jews in Vienna Paris and German cities found cabaret both a popular and effective means of expression as German cabaret in the Weimar Republic was mostly a Jewish art form 63 The involvement of Jews in Central European theatre was halted during the rise of the Nazis and the purging of Jews from cultural posts though many emigrated to Western Europe or the United States and continued working there English language theatre Edit Rodgers left and Hammerstein right with Irving Berlin middle and Helen Tamiris watching auditions at the St James Theatre in 1948 See also Association for Jewish Theatre and List of Jewish American playwrights In the early 20th century the traditions of New York s vibrant Yiddish Theatre District both rivaled and fed into Broadway In the English speaking theatre Jewish emigres brought novel theatrical ideas from Europe such as the theatrical realist movement and the philosophy of Konstantin Stanislavski whose teachings would influence many Jewish American acting teachers such as the Yiddish theatre trained acting theorist Stella Adler Jewish immigrants were instrumental in the creation and development of the genre of musical theatre and earlier forms of theatrical entertainment in America and would innovate the new distinctly American art form the Broadway musical 64 Brandeis University Professor Stephen J Whitfield has commented that More so than behind the screen the talent behind the stage was for over half a century virtually the monopoly of one ethnic group That is a feature which locates Broadway at the center of Jewish culture 65 New York University Professor Laurence Maslon says that There would be no American musical without Jews Their influence is corollary to the influence of black musicians on jazz there were as many Jews involved in the form 66 Other writers such as Jerome Caryn have noted that musical theatre and other forms of American entertainment are uniquely indebted to the contributions of Jewish Americans since there might not have been a modern Broadway without the Asiatic horde of comedians gossip columnists songwriters and singers that grew out of the ghetto whether it was on the Lower East Side Harlem a Jewish ghetto before it was a black one Newark or Washington D C 67 Likewise in the analysis of Aaron Kula director of The Klezmer Company the Jewish experience has always been best expressed by music and Broadway has always been an integral part of the Jewish American experience The difference is that one can expand the definition of Jewish Broadway to include an interdisciplinary roadway with a wide range of artistic activities packed onto one avenue theatre opera symphony ballet publishing companies choirs synagogues and more This vibrant landscape reflects the life times and creative output of the Jewish American artist 68 In the 19th and early 20th centuries the European operetta a precursor the musical often featured the work of Jewish composers such as Paul Abraham Leo Ascher Edmund Eysler Leo Fall Bruno Granichstaedten Jacques Offenbach Emmerich Kalman Sigmund Romberg Oscar Straus and Rudolf Friml the latter four eventually moved to the United States and produced their works on the New York stage One of the librettists for Bizet s Carmen not an operetta proper but rather a work of the earlier Opera comique form was the Jewish Ludovic Halevy niece of composer Fromental Halevy Bizet himself was not Jewish but he married the elder Halevy s daughter many have suspected that he was the descendant of Jewish converts to Christianity and others have noticed Jewish sounding intervals in his music 69 The Viennese librettist Victor Leon summarized the connection of Jewish composers and writers with the form of operetta The audience for operetta wants to laugh beneath tears and that is exactly what Jews have been doing for the last two thousand years since the destruction of Jerusalem 70 Another factor in the evolution of musical theatre was vaudeville and during the early 20th century the form was explored and expanded by Jewish comedians and actors such as Jack Benny Fanny Brice Eddie Cantor The Marx Brothers Anna Held Al Jolson Molly Picon Sophie Tucker and Ed Wynn During the period when Broadway was monopolized by revues and similar entertainments Jewish producer Florenz Ziegfeld dominated the theatrical scene with his Follies Lee Strasberg By 1910 Jews the vast majority of them immigrants from Eastern Europe already composed a quarter of the population of New York City and almost immediately Jewish artists and intellectuals began to show their influence on the cultural life of that city and through time the country as a whole Likewise while the modern musical can best be described as a fusion of operetta earlier American entertainment and African American culture and music as well as Jewish culture and music the actual authors of the first book musicals were the Jewish Jerome Kern Oscar Hammerstein II George and Ira Gershwin George S Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind From that time until the 1980s a vast majority of successful musical theatre composers lyricists and book writers were Jewish a notable exception is the Protestant Cole Porter who acknowledged that the reason he was so successful on Broadway was that he wrote what he called Jewish music 71 Rodgers and Hammerstein Frank Loesser Lerner and Loewe Stephen Sondheim Leonard Bernstein Stephen Schwartz Kander and Ebb and dozens of others during the Golden Age of musical theatre were Jewish Since the Tony Award for Best Original Score was instituted in 1947 approximately 70 of nominated scores and 60 of winning scores were by Jewish composers Of successful British and French musical writers both in the West End and Broadway Claude Michel Schonberg and Lionel Bart are Jewish among others One explanation of the affinity of Jewish composers and playwrights to the musical is that traditional Jewish religious music was most often led by a single singer a cantor while Christians emphasize choral singing 72 Many of these writers used the musical to explore issues relating to assimilation the acceptance of the outsider in society the racial situation in the United States the overcoming of obstacles through perseverance and other topics pertinent to Jewish Americans and Western Jews in general often using subtle and disguised stories to get this point across 73 For example Kern Rodgers Hammerstein the Gershwins Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg wrote musicals and operas aiming to normalize societal toleration of minorities and urging racial harmony these works included Show Boat Porgy and Bess Finian s Rainbow South Pacific and The King and I Towards the end of Golden Age writers also began to openly and overtly tackle Jewish subjects and issues such as Fiddler on the Roof and Rags Bart s Blitz also tackles relations between Jews and Gentiles Jason Robert Brown and Alfred Uhry s Parade is a sensitive exploration of both anti Semitism and historical American racism The original concept that became West Side Story was set in the Lower East Side during Easter Passover celebrations the rival gangs were to be Jewish and Italian Catholic 74 The ranks of prominent Jewish producers directors designers and performers include Boris Aronson David Belasco Joel Grey the Minskoff family Zero Mostel Joseph Papp Mandy Patinkin the Nederlander family Harold Prince Max Reinhardt Jerome Robbins the Shubert family and Julie Taymor Jewish playwrights have also contributed to non musical drama and theatre both Broadway and regional Edna Ferber Moss Hart Lillian Hellman Arthur Miller and Neil Simon are only some of the prominent Jewish playwrights in American theatrical history Approximately 34 of the plays and musicals that have won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama were written and composed by Jewish Americans 75 The Association for Jewish Theater is a contemporary organization that includes both American and international theaters that focus on theater with Jewish content It has also expanded to include Jewish playwrights Hebrew and Israeli theatre Edit Habima theater 2021 The earliest known Hebrew language drama was written around 1550 by a Jewish Italian writer from Mantua 76 A few works were written by rabbis and Kabbalists in 17th century Amsterdam where Jews were relatively free from persecution and had both flourishing religious and secular Jewish cultures 77 All of these early Hebrew plays were about Biblical or mystical subjects often in the form of Talmudic parables During the post Emancipation period in 19th century Europe many Jews translated great European plays such as those by Shakespeare Moliere and Schiller giving the characters Jewish names and transplanting the plot and setting to within a Jewish context Modern Hebrew theatre and drama however began with the development of Modern Hebrew in Europe the first Hebrew theatrical professional performance was in Moscow in 1918 78 and was closely linked with the Jewish national renaissance movement of the twentieth century The historical awareness and the sense of primacy which accompanied the Hebrew theatre in its early years dictated the course of its artistic and aesthetic development 79 These traditions were soon transplanted to Israel Playwrights such as Natan Alterman Hayyim Nahman Bialik Leah Goldberg Ephraim Kishon Hanoch Levin Aharon Megged Moshe Shamir Avraham Shlonsky Yehoshua Sobol and A B Yehoshua have written Hebrew language plays Themes that are obviously common in these works are the Holocaust the Arab Israeli conflict the meaning of Jewishness and contemporary secular religious tensions within Jewish Israel The most well known Hebrew theatre company and Israel s national theatre is the Habima meaning the stage in Hebrew which was formed in 1913 in Lithuania and re established in 1917 in Russia another prominent Israeli theatre company is the Cameri Theatre which is Israel s first and leading repertory theatre 80 Judeo Tat theatre Edit Main article Judeo Tat theatre Acting troupe in the play Ashig Garib Judeo Tat theatre Derbent USSR 1984 First row from left to right Katya Bikel Matatova Second row from left to right musician Israel Izrailov Roman Izyaev Avshalum Nakhshunov Raziil Ilyaguev Abram Avdalimov Third row from left to right Ilizir Abramov Anatoly Yusupov Israel Tsvaygenbaum The first theatrical event by Mountain Jews took place in December 1903 81 when Asaf Agarunov a teacher and a Zionist staged a story by Naum Shoykovich translated from Hebrew The Burn for Burn and staged it in honor of schoolteacher Nagdimuna ben Simona s Shimunov wedding 81 In 1918 a drama studio was opened in Derbent Soviet Union headed by Rabbi Yashaiyo Rabinovich 81 In 1935 the first Soviet Union theatre opened in Derbent which included three troupes Russian Mountain Jews and Turk It was based on drama circles which were led by Manashir and Khanum Shalumov Initially in the circle men played the female roles Later women began to take part in the theatre 82 In 1939 the Judeo Tat theatre was the winner of the festival of theatres in Dagestan During World War II most of the actors were drafted into the army Many theatre actors died in the war 83 In 1943 the theatre resumed its work and in 1948 it was closed The official reason was its unprofitability 83 In the 1960s the theatre resumed its activities and experienced its second heyday The actress Akhso Ilyaguevna Shalumova 1909 1985 Honored Artist of the Dagestan ASSR returned to the theatre She played the role of Juhuri Shimi Derbendi Shimi Derbendi s wife Shahnugor based on the stories of writer Hizgil Avshalumov 83 In the 1970s the People s Judeo Tat theatre was organized For many years its director was Abram Avdalimov Honored Cultural Worker of the Dagestan ASSR singer actor and playwright His successor was Roman Izyaev who was awarded the Order of the Badge of Honour for his meritorious service 83 In the 1990s the Judeo Tat theatre experienced another crisis it rarely held performances and did not have any premieres Only in 2000 when it became a municipal theater was it able to resume its activity From 2000 to 2002 the theatre was headed by actor and musician Raziil Semenovich Ilyaguev 1945 2016 Honored Worker of Culture of the Republic of Dagestan For the next two years the theatre was headed by Alesya Isakova In 2004 Lev Yakovlevich Manakhimov 1950 2021 Honored Artist of the Republic of Dagestan became the artistic director of the theatre After the death of Manakhimov Boris Yudaev became the head of the theatre Cinema EditSee also Cinema of Israel List of Jewish film directors and List of Jewish American media executives In the era when Yiddish theatre was still a major force in the world of theatre over 100 films were made in Yiddish Many are now lost Prominent films included Shulamith 1931 the first Yiddish musical on film His Wife s Lover 1931 A Daughter of Her People 1932 the anti Nazi film The Wandering Jew 1933 The Yiddish King Lear 1934 Shir Hashirim 1935 the biggest Yiddish film hit of all time Yidl Mitn Fidl 1936 Where Is My Child 1937 Green Fields 1937 Dybuk 1937 The Singing Blacksmith 1938 Tevya 1939 Mirele Efros 1939 Lang ist der Weg 1948 and God Man and Devil 1950 The roster of Jewish entrepreneurs in the English language American film industry is legendary Samuel Goldwyn Louis B Mayer the Warner Brothers David O Selznick Marcus Loew and Adolph Zukor Fox to name just a few and continuing into recent times with such industry giants as super agent Michael Ovitz Michael Eisner Lew Wasserman Jeffrey Katzenberg Steven Spielberg and David Geffen However few of these brought a specifically Jewish sensibility either to the art of film or with the sometime exception of Spielberg to their choice of subject matter The historian Eric Hobsbawm described the situation as follows 84 It would be pointless to look for consciously Jewish elements in the songs of Irving Berlin or the Hollywood movies of the era of the great studios all of which were run by immigrant Jews their object in which they succeeded was precisely to make songs or films which found a specific expression for 100 per cent Americanness A more specifically Jewish sensibility can be seen in the films of the Marx Brothers Mel Brooks or Woody Allen other examples of specifically Jewish films from the Hollywood film industry are the Barbra Streisand vehicle Yentl 1983 or John Frankenheimer s The Fixer 1968 More recently Call Me By Your Name 2017 can be given as an example of a movie with Jewish sensibility Jewish film festivals are nowadays conducted in many major cities around the world as vehicles of introducing such films to wider audiences including among others the Boston JFF San Francisco JFF Jerusalem JFF etc Radio and television EditThe first radio chains the Radio Corporation of America and the Columbia Broadcasting System were created by the Jewish American David Sarnoff and William S Paley respectively These Jewish innovators were also among the first producers of televisions both black and white and color 85 Among the Jewish immigrant communities of America there was also a thriving Yiddish language radio with its golden age from the 1930s to the 1950s Although there is little specifically Jewish television in the United States National Jewish Television largely religious broadcasts only three hours a week Jews have been involved in American television from its earliest days From Sid Caesar and Milton Berle to Joan Rivers Gilda Radner and Andy Kaufman to Billy Crystal to Jerry Seinfeld Jewish stand up comedians have been icons of American television Other Jews that held a prominent role in early radio and television were Eddie Cantor Al Jolson Jack Benny Walter Winchell and David Susskind More figures are Larry King Michael Savage and Howard Stern In the analysis of Paul Johnson The Broadway musical radio and TV were all examples of a fundamental principle in Jewish diaspora history Jews opening up a completely new field in business and culture a tabula rasa on which to set their mark before other interests had a chance to take possession erect guild or professional fortifications and deny them entry 86 One of the first televised situation comedies The Goldbergs was set in a specifically Jewish milieu in the Bronx While the overt Jewish milieu of The Goldbergs was unusual for an American television series there were a few other examples such as Brooklyn Bridge 1991 1993 and Bridget Loves Bernie Jews have also played an enormous role among the creators and writers of television comedies Woody Allen Mel Brooks Selma Diamond Larry Gelbart Carl Reiner and Neil Simon all wrote for Sid Caesar Reiner s son Rob Reiner worked with Norman Lear on All in the Family which often engaged anti semitism and other issues of prejudice Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld created the hit sitcom Seinfeld Lorne Michaels Al Franken Rosie Shuster and Alan Zweibel of Saturday Night Live breathed new life into the variety show in the 1970s More recently American Jews have been instrumental to novelistic television series such as The Wire and The Sopranos Variously acclaimed as one of the greatest television series of all time The Wire was created by David Simon Simon also served as executive producer head writer and show runner Matthew Weiner produced the fifth and sixth seasons of The Sopranos and later created Mad Men More remarkable contributors are David Benioff and D B Weiss creators of Game of Thrones TV series Ron Leavitt co creator of Married with Children Damon Lindelof and J J Abrams co creators of Lost David Crane and Marta Kauffman creators of Friends Tim Kring creator of Heroes Sydney Newman co creator of Doctor Who Darren Star creator Sex and the City and Melrose Place Aaron Spelling co creator of Beverly Hills 90210 Chuck Lorre co creator of The Big Bang Theory and Two and a Half Men Gideon Raff creator of Prisoners of War which Homeland is based on Aaron Ruben and Sheldon Leonard co creators of The Andy Griffith Show Don Hewitt creator of 60 Minutes Garry Shandling co creator of The Larry Sanders Show Ed Weinberger co creator of The Cosby Show David Milch creator of Deadwood Steven Levitan co creator of Modern Family Dick Wolf creator of Law amp Order David Shore creator House Max Mutchnick and David Kohan creators of Will amp Grace Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis creators of Once Upon a Time TV Series There is also a significant role of Jews in acting by actors such as Sarah Jessica Parker William Shatner Leonard Nimoy Mila Kunis Zac Efron Hank Azaria David Duchovny Fred Savage Zach Braff Noah Wyle Adam Brody Katey Sagal Sarah Michelle Gellar Alyson Hannigan Michelle Trachtenberg David Schwimmer Lisa Kudrow and Mayim Bialik Music EditMain article Jewish music See also Secular Jewish music Jewish musical contributions also tend to reflect the cultures of the countries in which Jews live the most notable examples being classical and popular music in the United States and Europe Some music however is unique to particular Jewish communities such as Israeli music Israeli folk music Klezmer Sephardic and Ladino music and Mizrahi music Classical music Edit The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra s 70th Anniversary Before Emancipation virtually all Jewish music in Europe was sacred music with the exception of the performances of klezmorim during weddings and other occasions The result was a lack of a Jewish presence in European classical music until the 19th century with a very few exceptions normally enabled by specific aristocratic protection such as Salamone Rossi and Claude Daquin the work of the former is considered the beginning of Jewish art music 87 After Jews were admitted to mainstream society in England gradually after their return in the 17th century France Austria Hungary the German Empire and Russia in that order the Jewish contribution to the European music scene steadily increased but in the form of mainstream European music not specifically Jewish music Notable examples of Jewish Romantic composers by country are Charles Valentin Alkan Paul Dukas and Fromental Halevy from France Josef Dessauer Karl Goldmark and Gustav Mahler from Bohemia most Austrian Jews during this time were native not to what is today Austria but the outer provinces of the Empire Felix Mendelssohn and Giacomo Meyerbeer from Germany and Anton and Nikolai Rubinstein from Russia Singers included John Braham and Giuditta Pasta There were very many notable Jewish violin and pianist virtuosi including Joseph Joachim Ferdinand David Carl Tausig Henri Herz Leopold Auer Jascha Heifetz and Ignaz Moscheles During the 20th century the number of Jewish composers and notable instrumentalists increased as did their geographical distribution Sample Jewish 20th century composers include Arnold Schoenberg and Alexander von Zemlinsky from Austria Hanns Eisler and Kurt Weill from Germany Viktor Ullmann and Jaromir Weinberger from Bohemia and later the Czech Republic the former perished at the Auschwitz extermination camps George Gershwin and Aaron Copland from the United States Darius Milhaud and Alexandre Tansman from France Alfred Schnittke and Lera Auerbach from Russia Lalo Schifrin and Mario Davidovsky from Argentina and Paul Ben Haim and Shulamit Ran from Israel There are some genres and forms of classical music that Jewish composers have been associated with including notably during the Romantic period French Grand Opera The most prolific composers of this genre included Giacomo Meyerbeer Fromental Halevy and the later Jacques Offenbach Halevy s La Juive was based on Scribe s libretto very loosely connected to the Jewish experience While orchestral and operatic music works by Jewish composers would in general be considered secular many Jewish as well as non Jewish composers have incorporated Jewish themes and motives into their music Sometimes this is done covertly such as the klezmer band music that many critics and observers believe lies in the third movement of Mahler s Symphony No 1 and this type of Jewish reference was most common during the 19th century when openly displaying one s Jewishness would most likely hamper a Jew s chances at assimilation During the 20th century however many Jewish composers wrote music with direct Jewish references and themes e g David Amram Symphony Songs of the Soul Leonard Bernstein Kaddish Symphony Chichester Psalms Ernest Bloch Schelomo Arnold Schoenberg Mario Castelnuovo Tedesco Violin Concerto no 2 Kurt Weill The Eternal Road and Hugo Weisgall Psalm of the Instant Dove Giacomo Meyerbeer 1791 1864 Fanny Mendelssohn 1805 1847 Felix Mendelssohn 1809 1847 Charles Valentin Alkan 1813 1888 Jacques Offenbach 1819 1880 Anton Rubinstein 1829 1894 Gustav Mahler 1860 1911 Clara Haskil 1895 1960 In the late twentieth century prominent composers like Morton Feldman Gyorgy Ligeti or Alfred Schnittke gave significant contributions to the history of contemporary music Popular music Edit The great songwriters and lyricists of American traditional popular music and jazz standards were predominantly Jewish including Harold Arlen Jerome Kern George Gershwin Frank Loesser Richard Rodgers and Irving Berlin Dance EditMain article Jewish dance Water Festival Kibbutz Ramat Yohanan Deriving from Biblical traditions Jewish dance has long been used by Jews as a medium for the expression of joy and other communal emotions 88 Each Jewish diasporic community developed its own dance traditions for wedding celebrations and other distinguished events For Ashkenazi Jews in Eastern Europe for example dances whose names corresponded to the different forms of klezmer music that were played were an obvious staple of the wedding ceremony of the shtetl 89 Jewish dances both were influenced by surrounding Gentile traditions and Jewish sources preserved over time Nevertheless the Jews practiced a corporeal expressive language that was highly differentiated from that of the non Jewish peoples of their neighborhood mainly through motions of the hands and arms with more intricate legwork by the younger men 90 In general however in most religiously traditional communities members of the opposite sex dancing together or dancing at times other than at these events was frowned upon Humor EditThe examples and perspective in this section may not represent a worldwide view of the subject You may improve this section discuss the issue on the talk page or create a new section as appropriate April 2017 Learn how and when to remove this template message Main article Jewish humor Jewish humor is the long tradition of humor in Judaism dating back to the Torah and the Midrash but generally refers to the more recent stream of verbal frequently self deprecating and often anecdotal humor originating in Europe 91 Jewish humor took root in the United States over the last hundred years beginning with vaudeville and continuing through radio stand up film and television 92 A significant number of American comedians have been or are Jewish citation needed Visual arts EditSee also List of Jews in the visual arts Further information Visual arts in Israel Death of King Saul by Elie Marcuse 1848 Tel Aviv Museum of Art Compared to music or theater there is less of a specifically Jewish tradition in the visual arts The most likely and accepted reason is that as has been previously shown with Jewish music and literature before Emancipation Jewish culture was dominated by the religious tradition of aniconism As most Rabbinical authorities believed that the Second Commandment prohibited much visual art that would qualify as graven images Jewish artists were relatively rare until they lived in assimilated European communities beginning in the late 18th century 93 94 Despite fears by early religious communities of art being used for idolatrous purposes Jewish sacred art is recorded in the Tanakh and extends throughout Jewish Antiquity and the Middle Ages 95 The Tabernacle and the two Temples in Jerusalem form the first known examples of Jewish art During the first centuries of the Common Era Jewish religious art also was created in regions surrounding the Mediterranean such as Syria and Greece including frescoes on the walls of synagogues of which the Dura Europas Synagogue was the only survivor 96 prior to its destruction by ISIL in 2017 as well as the Jewish catacombs in Rome 97 98 Zodiac Wheel Mosaic in the great synagogue of Tzippori 5th century in Galilee Israel A Jewish tradition of illuminated manuscripts in at least Late Antiquity has left no survivors but can be deduced from borrowings in Early Medieval Christian art A number of luxury pieces of gold glass from the later Roman period have Jewish motifs Several Hellenistic style floor mosaics have also been excavated in synagogues from Late Antiquity in Israel and Palestine especially of the signs of the Zodiac which was apparently acceptable in a low status position on the floor Some such as that at Naaran show evidence of a reaction against images of living creatures around 600 CE The decoration of sarcophagi and walls at the cave cemetery at Beit She arim shows a mixture of Jewish and Hellenistic motifs However for a period of several centuries between about 700 and 1100 CE there are scarcely any survivals of identifiably Jewish art Middle Age Rabbinical and Kabbalistic literature also contain textual and graphic art most famously illuminated haggadahs such as the Sarajevo Haggadah and other manuscripts like the Nuremberg Mahzor Some of these were illustrated by Jewish artists and some by Christians equally some Jewish artists and craftsmen in various media worked on Christian commissions 99 Outside of Europe Yemenite Jewish silversmiths developed a distinctive style of finely wrought silver that is admired for its artistry Johnson again summarizes this sudden change from a limited participation by Jews in visual art as in many other arts to a large movement by them into this branch of European cultural life Again the arrival of the Jewish artist was a strange phenomenon It is true that over the centuries there had been many animals though few humans depicted in Jewish art lions on Torah curtains owls on Judaic coins animals on the Capernaum capitals birds on the rim of the fountain basis in the 5th century Naro synagogue in Tunis there were carved animals too on timber synagogues in eastern Europe indeed the Jewish wood carver was the prototype of the modern Jewish plastic artist A book of Yiddish folk ornament printed at Vitebsk in 1920 was similar to Chagall s own bestiary But the resistance of pious Jews to portraying the living human image was still strong at the beginning of the 20th century 100 Wall painting in the Dura Europos synagogue circa 250 CE There were few Jewish secular artists in Europe prior to the Emancipation that spread throughout Europe with the Napoleonic conquests There were exceptions and Salomon Adler was a prominent portrait painter in 18th century Milan The delay in participation in the visual arts parallels the lack of Jewish participation in European classical music until the nineteenth century and which was progressively overcome with the rise of Modernism in the 20th century There were many Jewish artists in the 19th century but Jewish artistic activity boomed during the end of World War I The Jewish artistic Renaissance has its roots in the 1901 Fifth Zionist Congress which included an art exhibition featuring Jewish artists E M Lilien and Hermann Struck The exhibition helped legitimize art as an expression of Jewish culture 101 According to Nadine Nieszawer Until 1905 Jews were always plunged into their books but from the first Russian Revolution they became emancipated committed themselves in politics and became artists A real Jewish cultural rebirth 102 Individual Jews figured in the modern artistic movements of Europe With the exception of those living in isolated Jewish communities most Jews listed here as contributing to secular Jewish culture also participated in the cultures of the peoples they lived with and nations they lived in In most cases however the work and lives of these people did not exist in two distinct cultural spheres but rather in one that incorporated elements of both Itzhak Danziger Nimrod 1939 The Israel Museum Jerusalem Collection During the early 20th century Jews figured particularly prominently in the Montparnasse movement including Chaim Soutine Marc Chagall Jules Pascin Yitzhak Frenkel Frenel and Michel Kikoine 103 and after World War II among the abstract expressionists Alexander Bogen Helen Frankenthaler Adolph Gottlieb Philip Guston Al Held Lee Krasner Barnett Newman Milton Resnick Jack Tworkov Mark Rothko and Louis Schanker as well as among Contemporary artists Modernists and Postmodernists 104 Many Russian Jews were prominent in the art of scenic design particularly the aforementioned Chagall and Aronson as well as the revolutionary Leon Bakst who like the other two also painted One Mexican Jewish artist was Pedro Friedeberg historians disagree as to whether Frida Kahlo s father was Jewish or Lutheran Gustav Klimt was not Jewish but nearly all of his patrons and several of his models were Among major artists Chagall may be the most specifically Jewish in his themes But as art fades into graphic design Jewish names and themes become more prominent Leonard Baskin Al Hirschfeld Peter Max Ben Shahn Art Spiegelman and Saul Steinberg Jews have also played a very important role in media other than painting their involvement in sculpture came rather later perhaps due to lingering feelings against graven images But there were many notable Jewish sculptors in the later 19th and 20th centuries including Moses Jacob Ezekiel American d 1917 Sir Jacob Epstein American British d 1959 Ossip Zadkine French d 1967 Naum Gabo Russian d 1977 Oscar Nemon Croatian d 1985 Louise Nevelson American d 1988 Herbert Ferber American d 1991 In photography some notable figures are Andre Kertesz Robert Frank Helmut Newton Garry Winogrand Cindy Sherman Steve Lehman 105 and Adi Nes in installation art and street art some notable figures are Sigalit Landau 106 Dede 107 and Michal Rovner Camille Pissarro 1830 1903 Amedeo Modigliani 1884 1920 Diego Rivera 1886 1957 Alexander Bogen 1916 2010 Marc Chagall 1887 1985 Comics cartoons and animation EditSee also List of Jewish American cartoonists Stan Lee left and Jack Kirby right made a major contribution to the American comic book industry Their work includes The Avengers Captain America Fantastic Four Spider Man and X Men Graphic art as expressed in the art of comics has been a key field for Jewish artists as well In the Golden and Silver ages of American comic books the Jewish role was overwhelming and a large number of the medium s foremost creators have been Jewish 108 Max Gaines was a pioneering figure in the creation of the modern comic book when in 1935 he published the first one called Famous Funnies 109 In 1939 he founded with Jack Liebowitz and Harry Donenfeld All American Publications the AA Group 110 The publication is known for the creation of several superheroes such as the original Atom Flash Green Lantern Hawkman and Wonder Woman Donenfeld and Liebowitz were also the owners of National Allied Publications which distributed Detective Comics and Action Comics That company was also a precursor of DC Comics In 1939 the pulp magazine publisher Martin Goodman formed Timely Publications 111 a company to be known since the 1960s as Marvel Comics At Marvel Artists such as Stan Lee Jack Kirby 112 Larry Lieber and Joe Simon created a large variety of characters and cultural icons including Spider Man Hulk Captain America Iron Man Thor Daredevil and the teams Fantastic Four Avengers X Men including many of its characters and S H I E L D Stan Lee attributed the Jewish role in comics to the Jewish culture 113 At DC Comics Jewish role was significant as well the character of Superman which was created by the Jewish artists Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel 108 is partly based on the biblical figure of Samson 114 It was also suggested the Superman is partly influenced by Moses 115 116 and other Jewish elements More at DC Comics are Bob Kane Bill Finger and Martin Nodell creators of Green Lantern Batman 108 and many related characters as Robin The Joker Riddler Scarecrow and Catwoman Gil Kane co creator of Atom and Iron Fist Many of those involved in the later ages of comics are also Jewish such as Julius Schwartz Joe Kubert Jenette Kahn Len Wein Peter David Neil Gaiman Chris Claremont and Brian Michael Bendis There is also a large number of Jewish characters among comics superheroes such as Magneto Quicksilver Kitty Pryde The Thing Sasquatch Sabra Ragman Legion and Moon Knight of whom were and are influenced by events in Jewish history and elements of Jewish life 117 In 1944 Max Gaines founded EC Comics 118 The company is known for specializing in horror fiction crime fiction satire military fiction and science fiction from the 1940s through the mid 1950s notably the Tales from the Crypt series The Haunt of Fear The Vault of Horror Crime SuspenStories and Shock SuspenStories Jewish artists that are associated with the publisher include Al Feldstein Dave Berg and Jack Kamen Will Eisner was an American cartoonist and was known as one of the earliest cartoonists to work in the American comic book industry He is the creator of the Spirit comics series and the graphic novel A Contract with God 119 The Eisner Award was named in his honor and is given to recognize achievements each year in the comics medium Ralph Bakshi is a director of animated and live action films known for films such as Wizards 1977 The Lord of the Rings 1978 and Fire and Ice 1983 In 1952 William Gaines and Harvey Kurtzman founded Mad an American humor magazine It was widely imitated and influential affecting satirical media as well as the cultural landscape of the 20th century with editor Al Feldstein increasing readership to more than two million during its 1970s circulation peak 120 Other known cartoonists are Lee Falk creator of The Phantom and Mandrake the Magician The Hebrew comics of Michael Netzer creator of Uri On and Uri Fink creator of Zbeng William Steig creator of Shrek Daniel Clowes creator of Eightball Art Spiegelman creator of graphic novel Maus and Raw with Francoise Mouly In animation Jewish animators role is expressed by many Genndy Tartakovsky is the creator of several animation TV series such as Dexter s Laboratory and Samurai Jack 121 Matt Stone co creator of South Park David Hilberman who helped animate Bambi and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Friz Freleng Looney Tunes C H Greenblatt Chowder and Harvey Beaks Ralph Bakshi Fritz the Cat Mighty Mouse The New Adventures Wizards The Lord of the Rings Heavy Traffic Coonskin Hey Good Lookin Fire and Ice and Cool World 122 Alex Hirsch creator of Gravity Falls Dave Fleischer and Lou Fleischer founders of Fleischer Studios Max Fleischer animation of Betty Boop Popeye and Superman Rebecca Sugar creator of Steven Universe 123 Several companies producing animation were founded by Jews such as DreamWorks which its products include Shrek Madagascar Kung Fu Panda and The Prince of Egypt Warner Bros whose animation division is known for cartoons such as Looney Tunes Tiny Toon Adventures Animaniacs Pinky and the Brain and Freakazoid Cuisine Edit Latkes with smetana Main article Jewish cuisine Jewish cooking combines the food of many cultures in which Jews have settled including Middle Eastern Mediterranean Spanish German and Eastern European styles of cooking all influenced by the need for food to be kosher Thus Jewish foods like bagels 124 hummus 125 stuffed cabbage 126 and blintzes all come from various other cultures The amalgam of these foods plus uniquely Jewish contributions like tzimmis 127 cholent gefilte fish 128 and matzah balls 129 make up Jewish cuisine Philo Semitism EditMain article Philo Semitism Philo Semitism also spelled philosemitism or Judeophilia is an interest in respect for and an appreciation of Jewish people their history and their culture and the influence of Judaism particularly on the part of a gentile 130 Within the Jewish community philo Semitism includes an interest in Jewish culture and a love of things that are considered Jewish 131 Very few Jews live in East Asian countries but Jews are viewed in an especially positive light in some of them partly owing to their shared wartime experiences during the Second World War Examples include South Korea 132 and China 133 In general Jews are positively stereotyped as intelligent business savvy and committed to family values and responsibility while in the Western world the first of the two aforementioned stereotypes more often have the negatively interpreted equivalents of guile and greed In South Korean primary schools the Talmud is mandatory reading 132 See also Edit Judaism portal Society portalCulture of Israel Humanistic Judaism Jewish folklore Jewish studies Jews and Christmas Secular Culture amp Ideas Traditional Jewish chronology YiddishkeitReferences Edit Lawrence Schiffman Understanding Second Temple and Rabbinic Judaism KTAV Publishing House 2003 p 3 Biale David Not in the Heavens The Tradition of Jewish Secular Thought Princeton University Press 2011 pp 5 6 15 Torstrick Rebecca L Culture and customs of Israel Greenwood Press 2004 Măciucă Constantin preface to Bercovici Israil O sută de ani de teatru evriesc in Romania One 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countries over 85 years Trowbridge Flicks Books 1992 ISBN 0 9489117 2 7 298p Gabler Neal An Empire of Their Own How the Jews Invented Hollywood The Crown Publishing Group 1988 ISBN 0 385 26557 3 Veidlinger Jeffrey Jewish Public Culture in the Late Russian Empire Bloomington Indiana University Press 2009 External links Edit Wikimedia Commons has media related to Jewish culture Wikisource has the text of the 1905 New International Encyclopedia article Jewish Art The center for Jewish Art Collection The City Congregation for Humanistic Judaism Congress of Secular Jewish Organizations Global Directory of Jewish Museums News and reviews about Jewish literature and books Festival of Jewish Theater and Ideas The Bezalel Narkiss Index of Jewish Art Heeb an online magazine about Jewish culture Gesher Galicia Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Jewish culture amp oldid 1150193036, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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