::: readings

Robyn Shifrin. Interview. Conducted 16 October 2008 in Provo, Utah.

Conducting an interview with Robyn Shifrin who moved to Provo, Utah about four months ago and is a practicing Jew was a very positive experience. Talking with her about her experiences here, where she is very much alone, isolated from her family and from a community of fellow beleivers, I learned a lot about what role community plays in supporting one’s religious practicies. She talked about her history, about what life was like growing up in Clevland, going to Hebrew school in the afternoons, holidays and the Sabbath. She also talked about the religious significance of her Bat Mitzvah as a pivitol moment of religious self-realization, followed by a subsequent departure from this during her teenage years and eventual re-awakening in her early 20s. Her vocation (teaching English as a Foreign or Second Language) has taken her all around the world, including Prague in the Czek Republic. She also lived in Israel for some time and would have loved to stay but with escalating conflict her parents told her that she should come home.

Since moving out here, Robyn has learned a lot about Mormons and has found the family of believers here to be very similar to the one she enjoyed in the days of her youth. She commented that, if one has to be completley separated from all others of their religious faith, perhaps it is best to be surrounded by those who are strong adherants to their own (but who do not seek to enforce that sincerity upon others). She has found Provo to be a great place, and sees many parallels between the interactions of Mormon culture and doctrine and the interactions of Jewish culture and doctrine.

Ruth R. Wisse. Jews and Power. Schocken Books (2007).

Wisse, in Jews and Power, gives a brief overview of the history of the Jews, highlighting their relationship with the power structures of the countries in which they have lived since the beginnings of the Diaspora in the 1st Century. Hers is mostly a history of the ways in which Jews maintained their own identity while struggling to perserve themselves without the sustaining and protective influence of a nation-state. She discusses the emergence of Yiddish and the importance of language, including the revival of Hebrew. She also discusses the difficulties of the Arab-Jewish relationship, stating explicitly that: “Common opposition to Usrael remains to the present day the strongest univying political element among Arab and muslim countries that otherwise compete with one another” (138).

I found this depiction of the Christian-Muslim conflict over the Holy Lands to be very facinating, especially in that no where did it mention or discuss Jews. This seems to have been a result of the methood of presentation, that is, in telling history through the stories of two individuals (King Richard and Saladin) and their opposition to one another. As a result of no comparable single figure among the Jews and their nationless status (i.e. they had not monarch, no military leader, no military at all, and no cities to defend or attack) there was apparently no place for a discussion of their role in this film.

They most certainly were both in Muslim countries and Christian ones as well, and there is no reason not to discuss them during this period, only the filmmakers of this specific piece were not interested for (probably) reasons of time contraints and the lack of a single major figure through whom the story could be told.

Josephus (d. c100). from The Jewish War.

Josephus is an interesting example of the pressures of assimilation and the desire to nevertheless remain a Jew. His story is only known to us because of his assimilation. Had he not made decisions to support the Romans, and more specifically, Vespesian, than he would not have lived beyond the battle of Jotapata. Instead, however, after prophesying Vespesian’s rise to power he is subsequently spared and even manages to rise to power with the general’s rise to emperor, becoming “histor” and recorder of history and under the reign of Titus he goes to Rome and writes The Jewish War, reconciling his loyalty to the emperor with his Jewishness by highlighting the Jews as a very strong foe (or, in the cases of exaggeration, making it out to be so).

One point of intrigue in the account of the final moments of the battle over Jotapata, is the fact that (not wanting to fall victim to Roman ridicule and slavery) the remaining 40 Jews commit “suicide”, i.e. they each kill each other, rather than to submit to the Romans. Because they could not, according to Jewish laws, kill themselves, this meant that one of them would have to remain alive. They cast lots to see who that would be and, not surprisingly, it was their leader Josephus. He wrote about his initial attempts to dissuade the others from the determination to commit suicide this way:

“Fearing an assault and believing that it would be a betrayal of God’s commands if he died before imparting his message, Josephus in this critical situation proceeded to philosophize: “What, comrades, ” he said, “is this thirst for our own destruction?… If I am shrinking from the sword of the Romans, I should fully deserve to die by my own hand; but if they want to spare an enemy, are we not more justified in sparing ourselves? It would be folly to inflict on ourselves the treatment which we want to prevent by our quarrel with them!” (65).

(It goes on to recount the drawing of lots and then Josephus’ prophecy to Vespasian of his eventual rise to power).

But this all highlights the difficulties and Josephus’ attempt to preserve his pride about being a Jew while maintaining his position in the Roman court.

Quotes from Text:

“Fearing an assault and believing that it would be a betrayal of God’s commands if he died before imparting his message, Josephus in this critical situation proceeded to philosophize: “What, comrades, ” he said, “is this thirst for our own destruction?… If I am shrinking from the sword of theR omans, I should fully deserve to die by my own hand; but if they want to spare an enemy, are we not more justified in sparing ourselves? It would be folly to inflict on ourselves the treatment which we want to prevent by our quarrel with them!

“By these and many similar arguments Josephus tried to deter his companions from suicide…

“But in this predicament, his resourcefulness did not forsake him. Trusting to God’s protections, he hazarded his life on one last throw, saying: “As we are resolved to die, come, let us draw lots and decide the order in which we are to kill each other in turn… He, however–should we way by fortune or by divine providence–was left with one other man; and, anxious neither to be condemned by the lot, nor, if he were left as the last, stain his hand with the blood of a fellow countryman, her persuaded this man also, under a pact, to remain alive.

“Having thus survived both a war with the Romans and with how own companions, Josephus was brought by Nacanor before Vespasian. The Romans all rushed to see him…. However, Vespasian ordered him to be guarded with every precaution, since he intended to send him shortly to Nero.

“Hearing this, Josephus asked for a private interview with him. Vespasian ordered everyone except his son Titus and two friends to withdraw, and Josephus thus addressed him: “You suppose, Vespasian that in the person of Josephus you have taken a mere prisoner; but I come to you as a messenger of a greater destiny. Had I not been sent on this errand by God, I knew the Jewish law and how it becomes a general to die. Are you sending me to Nero? Why then? Will Nero and those who follow him before your accession remain long on the throne? You, Vespasian, will be Caesar and emperor, you and your son here. So bind me then more securely in chains and keep more for yourself…” While he did not release Josephus from imprisonment or chains, he presented him with clothing and other valuable gifts and continued to treat him with kindness and consideration.” (65-66)