16 May 90 JUDAIC STUDIES #42 21 Iyar 50 BS"D To send a note to this listserv on any issue of common interest, address it to judaica@taunivm Edited by Y. Greenbaum CONTENTS 1) MJSA Conference; Philadelphia Consortium 2) Circumcision 3) Foreskins 4) Rentals 1) MJSA Conference; Philadelphia Consortium Passed-From: Marc Bregman Passed-Date: Sun, 13 May 1990 15:52 IST Date: Fri, 11 May 90 16:58:49 EDT Sender: HUMANIST Discussion From: Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 4, No. 0036. Friday, 11 May 1990. (1) Date: Friday, 11 May 1990 00:04 (18 lines) From: Tzvee Zahavy Subject: Midwest Jewish Studies Association The Second Annual meeting of the MJSA will take place September 16-17 at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. Please send suggestions for papers, sessions and presenters to S. Daniel Breslauer, Department of Religion, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045. The meeting will stress pedagogy with emphasis on methodologies and ideologies of research and teaching in Jewish studies especially the problems of teaching Judaica and/or Hebraica in the Midwest context. Other suggestions are also welcome. The $25 registration fee will include dinner. Preregister with a check to the University of Minnesota sent to Ms. Lori Graven, Dept. of Professional Development, 217 Nolte Center, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455. You may also contact me for further information regarding registration or paper/session proposals through Bitnet at MAIC @ UMINN1 or by mail at CNES, 176 Klaeber Ct., University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455. (2) Date: Friday, 11 May 1990 1644-EST (41 lines) From: KRAFT@PENNDRLS Subject: Philadelphia Consortium Announcement THE PHILADELPHIA CONSORTIUM ON THE STUDY OF RELIGION The Philadelphia Consortium on the Study of Religion, organized in April, 1989, provides an umbrella organization for encouraging and facilitating cooperation in the academic study of religion among institutions and departments of religion-- undergraduate, graduate, seminary, and post-graduate--and their faculty and students. At the present the Consortium consists of forty-seven institutions within a hundred mile radius of Philadelphia. Dr. Robert B. Wright, Chair of the Religion Department, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, is the Chair of the Consortium. Four projects sponsored by the Consortium to date are: a monthly calendar of special events in Consortium schools; a sharing of graduate level courses for cross-registration purposes (both of these facilitated by Temple University); A "Guide to the Libraries of Member Institutions," produced by Dr. Robert Emmet McLaughlin, Chair of the Department of Religious Studies, Villanova University. The fourth project, produced by Dr. Glenn A. Koch, Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary, is a Directory of 226 faculty, listing personal and professional facts, including fields of specialization and areas of research. In addition, the Directory lists the Consortium's statement of purpose, officers and committees, and member institutions. Printed directories, as well as electronic forms of it, are available. Contact Dr. Koch at Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary, City & Lancaster Aves., Philadelphia, PA 19151, for orders (Ph. 215-896-5000). The printed Directory is $13.00. For further Consortium information contact Dr. Wright: 617 Anderson Hall, Philadelphia, PA, 19122 (Ph. 215-787-7923). 2) Circumcision Passed-From: "Lewis M. Barth" Passed-Date: Tue, 15 May 90 09:58:42 PDT ANNOUNCEMENT OF PUBLICATION: BERIT MILA IN THE REFORM CONTEXT, ed. Lewis M. Barth (Berit Mila Board of Reform Judaism: New York, 1990); textbook for training of Mohalim and Mohalot in Reform Judaism. Deals with liturgy, sociology and psychology, Berit Mila in history and in Reform Judaism, halakhic and medical issues related to Berit Mila. Available through: Central Conference of American Rabbis, 192 Lexington Avenue, New York, New York 10016; Hebrew Union College, c/o Behrman House, 235 Watchung Avenue, West Orange, New Jersey 07052; or the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, 838 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10021-7046. Price: $30. Review copies for journals and further information may be requested directly by contacting: Lewis M. Barth, Berit Mila Board of Reform Judaism, c/o Hebrew Union College, 3077 University Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90007; Bitnet: BARTH@USCVM; Compuserve: 71231,331. Brief Table of Contents: I. Introduction, Lewis M. Barth; II. The Living Religious Experience: The Liturgy of Berit Mila, Richard N. Levy; Enhancing the Ritual of Berit Mila Through the Use of Ceremonial Art, Isa Aron and Grace Cohen Grossman; Berit Mila as Education Experience, Michael Zeldin; Berit Mila as Religious/Poetic Metaphor, William Cutter; III. The Living Social and Ethnic Experience: Reflections on Circumcision as Sacrifice Stanley F. Chyet and Norman B. Mirsky; "Who is a Jew?": Issues of Jewish Status and Identity and Their Relationship to the Nature of Judaism in the Modern World, David Ellenson; A Brief Assessment of the Significance of Reform Mohalut in a Socio-Historical Context, Bruce Phillips; IV. Berit Mila Through the Ages: Circumcision in the Biblical Period, Stanley Gevirtz; Circumcision in the Rabbinic Period: Midrash and Aggadah, Lewis M. Barth; Attitudes Toward Circumcision: Jewish and Non-Jewish Perspectives in Antiquity and the Middle Age, Michael Signer; Berit Mila and the Origins of Reform Judaism, Sanford Ragins; Berit Mila Within the History of the Reform Movement, Michael A. Meyer; The Concept of the Covenant in Reform Judaism, Eugene B. Borowitz; V. Berit Mila and the Jewish Legal Tradition: Circumcision in Early Halachah: Mishna and Talmud, Bernard M. Zlotowitz; Berit Mila Issues in Modern Orthodoxy and Reform Judaism, Mordecai Finley; VI. Medical Perspectives on a Religious Rite: Medical Issues and Berit Mila, Thomas Goldenberg; Appendix: CCAR Report on Patrilineal Descent. 3) Foreskins Passed-From: Marc Bregman Passed-Date: Fri, 18 May 1990 14:58 IST Perhaps one of the Judaica group can help the Humanist out with his foreskin problem?! Date: Thu, 17 May 90 18:20:12 EDT Sender: HUMANIST Discussion From: Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 4, No. 0071. Thursday, 17 May 1990. (3) Date: Wed, 16 May 90 21:42:29 EDT (32 lines) From: FLANNAGA%OUACCVMB.BITNET@CORNELLC.cit.cornell.edu Subject: And now for something completely different: foreskins In lines 144-45 of Milton's tragedy Samson Agonistes, the Chorus in describing one of Samson's famous victories uses an image that many editors and critics wish it hadn't: "...A thousand fore-skins fell, the flower of Palestin In Ramath-lechi famous to this day ...." The subject is no doubt painful to most men reading it, and especially to the uncircumcised. I have been wondering about it for years, ever since, in the fourth grade of an Episcopalian prep-school, my religion teacher told an awe-inspired class of all-boys that the Israelites in battle enumerated their slain and bragged about their kill by cutting off the foreskins of their enemies and displaying them in their tents after battle. My suggestible pre-teen mind immediately formed an image that I have never forgotten, of the inside of an Israelite battle tent with its little clothesline of foreskins rward yforward yy and to brag about, a little like the lines of beads that count scores in a pool hall. I have to make a note on the passage in _Samson Agonistes_, for the edition I am working on. I am not embarrassed by the passage but I am confused. Do the foreskins stand for the fallen Philistines, by synecdoche, the (yuck!) part standing for the whole, as in Alastair Fowler's note (1968 Longman edition), in which he identifies "foreskins" as "uncircumcised Philistines" (1968)? Or are those foreskins *real* foreskins that Samson bothered to cut off, rather fastidiously, after the battle? Are there some biblical scholars or experts on ancient combat out there who might help us puzzle this one out? Roy Flannagan 4) Rentals From: MELURI@HUJIVMS Date: Fri, 11 May 90 12:17 +0300 Rental Available from Aug. 22/Sept. 1 for one year. Furnished 4 1/2 room apt. in Givat Mordechai (near Givat Ram) 2 bedroom and large study or 3 bedrooms; dining area; small study, lg living room, appliances, 2 b-rms. Contact: MELURI@HUJIVMS or (02)787579. Melammed, Uri and Renee Levine From: Bolozky@UMass (Shmuel Bolozky, Judaic Studies, 413-545-2550) Date: Thu, 17 May 90 14:51:13 EDT JERUSALEM 2 1/2 bdrm, fully furn, in Kiryat Shmuel, Sept-June 413-736-7875