In contemporary bioethics, the autonomy of the patient has assumed considerable importance. Progressing from a more limited notion of informed consent, shared decision making calls upon patients to voice the desires and preferences of their authentic self, engaging in choice among alternatives as a way to exercise deeply held values. One influential opinion in Jewish bioethics holds that Jewish law, in contradistinction to secular bioethics, limits the patient's exercise of autonomy only in those instances in which treatment choices are sensitive (...) to preferences. Here, we analyze a discussion in the Mishna, a foundational text of rabbinic Judaism, regarding patient autonomy in the setting of religiously mandated fasting, and commentaries in the Babylonian and Palestinian Talmuds, finding both a more expansive notion of such autonomy and a potential metaphysical grounding for it in the importance of patient self-knowledge. (shrink)

This chapter evaluates the use of the Babylonian Talmud for the study of the history of late-Roman Palestine using astrology as a case example. It explains that the Babylonian Talmud contains much material which derives from Palestine and may sometimes preserve Palestinian rabbinic material in a form closer to the original than is found in Palestinian compilations. Palestinian sources often do not contain trustworthy evidence about Palestinian Sages and institutions.

This book engages with the philosophical thought of French-Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas. It studies some of his Talmudic readings and his concern for a Jewish "universal ethics." It does so in relation to the protracted Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the moral imperatives that apply to the conduct of the State of Israel and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) vis-à-vis the Palestinian people. The book not only looks at what Levinas understands about the moral "universality" of the Talmud, but (...) also applies this understanding to the assessment of the IDF military operations ongoing in Gaza since 07 October 2023. In this way, the author makes a distinction between the moral teaching of rabbinic Judaism to which Levinas appeals for its universality (on the one hand) and the ideology of political Zionism (on the other hand) to which Levinas subscribed, hence moral critique of the latter required in view of this moral teaching. A unique contribution, this book will be indispensable to scholars and researchers of European philosophy, Jewish ethics, religious studies, Talmudic studies, and contemporary moral philosophy, as well as those interested in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. (shrink)

This paper compares the Babylonian and Palestinian talmudic traditions on the fate of the ark of the covenant—either lost before or during the Babylonian conquest, or buried in the Temple precincts (b. Yom’a 53b–54a; y. Sheqalim 6:1–2, 49c). In the Babylonian Talmud, the ark and the cherubim are described in highly erotic, feminized terms, blurring traditional gender categories of Israel and God. The feminization of the ark serves as a “survival strategy” to counter the defiling gaze of the (...) gentile conqueror, but also preserves the sacred center as a locus of longing for Jews in diaspora. (shrink)

In the rabbinic literature from the land of Israel the poor are depicted not as passive recipients of gifts and support, but as independent agents who are responsible for their own behaviour. Communal care for the needy was expected to go beyond their basic needs for food, clothing and shelter; the physical safety of the poor and the value of their time as well as their dignity and self-worth were also included in the scope of charity. In this monograph, Yael (...) Wilfand offers a comprehensive and contextual analysis of major rabbinic texts on poverty and charity composed during the first five centuries of the Common Era in the land of Israel, principally the Mishnah, the Tosefta, the Palestinian Talmud and midrashim. She shows that, for the rabbis, the poor were not necessarily considered outsiders; indeed, some students and rabbis in Palestine may have personally experienced poverty. Wilfand claims that such socio-economic diversity contributed to the thinking of these rabbis, who rarely saw poverty as a result of transgression (in contrast to the Babylonian Talmud). This book presents a number of contrasting viewpoints held by Palestinian rabbis over such questions as: Must communal administrators ensure applicants' eligibility for alms? Should the newly indigent from wealthy families receive exceptional levels of support? Might neighbouring gentiles qualify for economic assistance from Jewish communal sources? By examining Palestinian rabbinic sources within the contexts both of the hegemonic Greco-Roman (later, Christian) milieu and of the biblical heritage, this volume offers an absorbing account of some ancient approaches to timeless social challenges. (shrink)

Introduction Paul Boshears The following excerpt from Paul Amitai's In Between States: Field notes and speculations on postwar landscapes (2012) confounds its reader. Presenting an alternate history of the State of Israel as a space station orbiting Earth, the excitement of possibilities crackles across the texts and images. Like Chris Marker's La Jeteé, the accompanying static images distort the viewer's temporality: are these archaeological items, images from a past, or a future? Why isn't this our future? In Between States can (...) also be seen as complementing Larissa Sansour's provocative science fiction works, Space Exodus (2009) which "documents" the Palestinian space program, and her Nation Estate (2012), in which Palestine is relocated into a skyscraper. Amitai's vision opens onto an intergalactic diaspora, wherein the refugees of World War II are given the stars as Western Europe continues to fight over terrestial colonies. —PFB Auditorium, Hoechst AG headquarters, Industriepark-Höchst, 2011. In 1941 an investigation by the US Justice Department exposed a marriage cartel between John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil (now ExxonMobil) and I.G. Farben. The two corporations had formed a joint operation in 1927 called Standard IG Farben. It was revealed that the two had shared patents in order to control prices and markets in their respective regions. Standard was accused of hiding patents from the US Navy and supplying fuel to German submarines, which lead to charges of criminal conspiracy. The Pentagon intervened, requesting that President Roosevelt stop the investigation in order to protect war production and oil supply. Roosevelt agreed, and the Senate committee investigating the matter, headed by Senator Harry Truman, was halted. Standard Oil paid a fine of $5000 and promised to stop supplying fuel to the enemies. Auditorium, Hoechst AG headquarters, Industriepark-Höchst, 2011. Furious at the decision to terminate the investigation of acts he considered treason, Truman initiated a new inquiry into Standard Oil’s war-time practices after succeeding Roosevelt as president in 1945. With the chief executives of I.G Farben simultaneously on trial at Nuremburg, Truman brokered a deal with the Allies that reduced or withdrew criminal charges leveled against both corporations in exchange for Standard Oil and I.G. Farben’s sponsorship of one of Truman’s most ambitious postwar projects—the relocation of the Jewish people. Detail, Sanofi-Aventis advertisement, 2011. The third critical player in this bold experiment was the nascent North Atlantic Space Agency. Formed by Allied forces using the seized assets and engineering expertise of Hitler’s hitherto classified space program (conquer Earth, then the stars), the North Atlantic Space Agency was a pre-NATO foray into interstellar nation building, with orbital occupation as the first point of order. By 1947, NASA was nearly ready to deploy the first manned space station. Standard Oil and I.G. Farben’s advanced fuel refinement capacities and deep, war-enriched financial resources allowed NASA to speed up their launch schedule significantly. Detail, Sanofi-Aventis advertisement, 2011. Diplomatic efforts to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine were failing to gain traction, while post-colonial England held its ground on immigration restrictions and bands of Jews and Arabs battled over territory on the ground. More immediate was the issue of temporarily housing Holocaust survivors and refugees across scorched Europe. Leaders of the continental nations demonstrated, at best, reluctance to accommodate the Jews, who in turn were, at the least, resistant to returning to the same bloody cocktail from which they had fled. Truman used the impasse to advance a plan for NASA’s space station to be put to use as a temporary Jewish outpost, an orbital displaced persons camp, to be operated by the US Army. Detail, Infaserv Höchst advertisement, 2011. Final preparations advanced rapidly. Viewing the orbital displaced persons (ODP) camp as a solution to their immigration problem both at home and abroad, England came on board as a willing partner. Spaceship Exodus was positioned for takeoff on German farmland 20 kilometers southwest of Frankfurt. On December 30, 1947, one month after the UN General Assembly voted down the separation plan for Palestine, Exodus rocketed into the atmosphere hauling the first module of barracks designed to house 1,500 refugees. Transport vehicles arrived shortly thereafter, loaded down with leftover wartime military rations and 3,000 Jews of Russian and Polish origin. Detail, Infaserv Höchst advertisement, 2011. "The camp is the space that is opened when the state of exception begins to become the rule."—Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer, trans. Daniel Heller-Roazen, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995), 96. Detail, Infaserv Höchst advertisement, 2011. The ODP camp proved to be a longer-term solution than originally envisioned. Additional installations were positioned to form swollen clusters of interlocking units – sleeping quarters, schools, clinics, canteens. The UN was brought in to monitor the camp following two chaotic years of US Army control in which food shortages, pandemic diseases, and rampant black market trade had brought the camp to near total collapse. No less bureaucratic or ineffectual, the UN relief agency at least had prior experience facilitating contexts of a similar magnitude and could potentially predict outcomes. Detail, Infaserv Höchst advertisement, 2011. What had been unexpected was the degree to which the camp would evolve into its own self-regulated, hive-like ecosystem where previously accepted rules of conduct were not applicable. The ODP camp was an exceptional space, a riverboat casino, an offshore research lab of social experimentation and entrepreneurial innovation. No longer Earth-bound, touching soil knotted by prescripts of Talmudic law, the camp residents were able to rationalize loopholes and detonate barriers standing in the way of absolute production. The Jewish archipelago was renamed Israel after the ancient homeland. If the temple couldn’t be rebuilt in the motherland, a post-national rhizome would sprout up in its stead. Eyes everywhere, beyond all borders. More information on the project at the author's site. (shrink)

Rabbinic tradition, as given in the Palestinian and Babylonian versions of the Talmud, transmits an account of Rabbi Elisha ben Abuyah only to depreciate him for the “pariah” that he was during his lifetime. For one who accepts rabbinic authority, there can be no moral ambiguity about the character of the man, his beliefs, or his aspirations.1 The twelfth-century philosopher and rabbi Moses Maimonides spared no criticism of Elisha. Maimonides wrote The Guide for the Perplexed with the object (...) of enlightening “a religious man who has been trained to believe in the truth of our holy Law, who conscientiously fulfills his moral and religious duties, and at the same time has been successful in his philosophical studies .. (shrink)

In this article, I study several midrashic passages preserved in the Babylonian Talmud that deal with Satan. The verses that they are based on are nearly all drawn from the book of Job. I find that these midrashim strongly support the conclusions of Ishay Rosen-Zvi’s monograph Demonic Desires in several ways, notably that Satan is not the font and origin of evil in the world as he is in other branches or wings of the ancient Jewish imagination.

As artificial intelligence (AI) technologies increasingly permeate daily life, understanding adoption in marginalized contexts is vital to ensuring equitable and responsible use. This mixed-methods study examines Palestinian women’s engagement with AI, focusing on how demographic factors, cultural norms, and personal perceptions shape adoption. A survey of 162 participants revealed that while more than 70% viewed AI as useful for household and educational tasks, only 38% expressed strong behavioral intention to adopt it, exposing a notable gap between perceived usefulness and (...) willingness to use. One-way ANOVA analyses showed statistically significant differences across educational levels (p <.01), employment status (p <.05), and prior technology experience (p <.01), whereas marital status and number of children had no significant effect. Complementing these results, semi-structured interviews with 12 women highlighted both empowering and cautionary dimensions: participants reported AI’s role in streamlining domestic responsibilities and supporting children’s learning, but also voiced concerns about privacy, fairness in design, and technological overdependence. These findings underscore the importance of responsible AI practices through targeted digital literacy programs, culturally sensitive design, and awareness initiatives. By situating AI adoption within a marginalized and gendered context, the study advances debates on fairness, trust, and human-centered design in responsible AI. (shrink)

This article explores the unraveling of subjectivity under conditions of imperial and genocidal trauma. It does so by staging encounters between critical race theory, psychoanalytic and post/colonial approaches through a transnational Asian consideration of Cambodian and Palestinian documentary films made by Rithy Panh, Raed Andoni and Kamal Aljafari. In particular I consider the psychical-philosophical dimensions of picturing the unspeakable effects of war and genocide, both in terms of Global South filmmakers and participants, as well as theoretical audiences, especially via (...) the notion of unraveling as it relates to Jacques Lacan’s concept of “the quilting point”, wherein signification is forged. Representations of trauma, particularly genocide, do not suture the spectator to an imaginary world, as per traditional psychoanalytic film theory; rather, they unquilt at its site/sight, leaving the spectator in a psychotic limbo. Finally, this article reworks Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s influential essay, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” by analyzing the political and phantasmatic structures sustaining the west’s silence about Israel’s genocidal campaign in Palestine. (shrink)

The ‘Marwa’ elementary school (pseudonym) – an Israeli public school on the border between Israel and the Palestinian Authority – is a unique educational institution in that, despite being not religious, it only accepts from Grade 1 through to Grade 6 girls. Several years ago, the principal decided to implement a Philosophy with Children (PwC) programme as an alternative pedagogy. This paper surveys how the educational faculty regarded the introduction of this curriculum and how it contributed towards the development (...) of philosophical discursive skills, a classroom atmosphere of friendship and caring, and critical and creative thinking competence amongst the students. (shrink)

This paper examines the moral experiences of Palestinian healthcare professionals working at a specialised referral hospital in East Jerusalem during the early months of the Gaza War. Drawing on semi‐structured interviews with hospital staff providing oncology care, it analyses how understandings of what constitutes “good” care in a context of occupation, segregation, and genocidal violence are shaped by competing normative frameworks. Three ethical perspectives initially emerged: medical ethics, which prioritises evidence‐based protocols; humanitarian ethics, which emphasises neutrality in line with (...) donor requirements; and communitarian ethics, which understands care as an expression of solidarity and national duty. The paper argues that to fully capture the moral labour of healthcare workers, a fourth frame is needed: care ethics, which highlights the relational and reparative dimensions of care work. This perspective is crucial in a context where occupation and segregation deeply affect the “care triangle” of patients, companions, and healthcare providers. Viewing care as a relational practice that resists division and exclusion also offers a strategy to alleviate the moral distress that can arise when professionals are unable to provide care they themselves see as “good enough.” The paper calls on employers, communities, and colleagues to value and support the care work professionals provide beyond their clinical tasks, while also recognising the limits of individual responsibility by acknowledging and addressing the structural barriers they face. Ultimately, an end to occupation and segregation remains the primary condition for enabling good care. (shrink)

This chapter presents an interview between the editors and the author about her work on and lived experiences and observations of the breadth of Palestinian resistance. The chapter discusses Palestinians’ varied resistance strategies over the past decades and the role of political and structural factors that influence social psychological processes linked to resistance under repression in this context. The author stresses the importance of considering complex intragroup and intergroup processes and differences in the psychology of resistance, instead of framing (...) it as a binary intergroup issue, and the need to go beyond certain prototypes of resistance. Additionally, the importance of solidarity for resistance in this context, and the need to ground psychological analyses of resistance in history and the social structure, are emphasized. (shrink)

Drawing on Levinasian concepts of sleep, insomnia, and the il y a, this paper examines the liminal states of insomnia and sleep within the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Sleep and insomnia, being proximates of death as well as displacement and anonymous existence successively, are topics that have not, to the best of our knowledge, received any critical commentary within (post)colonial studies. This paper argues that the Israeli military occupation deprives Palestinians from sleep, casting them into the horror and anonymous existence of (...) insomnia which, like the Israeli occupation, signifies impervious dialogue and is a catalyst for both psychic and physical displacement. As the Israeli occupation deprives Palestinians of place and sleep, two terms in the words of Levinas recognised as intertwined, it is the ethical responsibility of Palestinians and Palestinian leaders to arm themselves with wakefulness so as to secure their homeland (place) and to fortify themselves against displacement and the horror of the night. Sleep reveals an ethical dimension when examined closely within the Israeli-Palestinian conflict due to its subtle proximity to death. Hence, we contend that falling asleep on the part of Palestinians is unethical due to its direct adverse effects, namely, displacement and death. (shrink)

As a powerful discursive trope, irony is used to interpret the recent Israeli-Palestinian ‘conflict’ since 7 October 2023. Hinging on various political discourses, the paper examines the workings of the political language, emphasising irony. Interconnected with semiotics, hyperrealism and Jean Baudrillard’s concepts of simulacra, where the boundaries between what is real and imaginary are blurred, the paper aims to fulfil three objectives. First, it stresses the importance of studying irony in understanding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and how language is (...) used to manufacture consent, especially in media discourses. Second, based on the definition of a ‘lack of fit’ between what is real and what is imaginary, the paper argues that irony surpasses the classic pragmatic interpretations. It is used as a social critique but also contributes to the hyperreal. Third, the paper explains how the use of language in political media discourses aims to score ideological goals. (shrink)

In August 2019, the local council of Umm al-Fahem, Israel, cancelled a scheduled performance of the known Palestinian rapper Tamer Nafar, claiming that Nafar’s artistic work did not meet with the town’s accepted religious, moral, and social norms. Subsequently, residents of the town and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, petitioned the Court against the local council’s interference with Nafar’s freedom of artistic expression. Significantly, Nafar was not among the petitioners. The Court concurred with the petitioners, determining that (...) the local council had no authority to interfere with Nafar’s artistic content, and if there was concern regarding detrimental effects on public peace or security, police security should be provided for the event. Despite this ruling from an Israeli court, Nafar refused to perform in Umm al-Fahm. Instead, he accepted an invitation for dialogue with the conservative non-liberal forces within Umm al-Fahm council, a dialogue that resulted in reconciliation. I argue that Nafar’s decision, as a liberal subject to choose dialogue with non-liberal forces in Palestinian society embodies the conceptual foundations of post-secularism, which extend beyond the binary of liberal/non liberal divisions and binaries and pave the way for internal dialogue between religious and secular actors. It constructs a platform for liberal subjects in Palestinian society to be heard in the public Palestinian sphere, providing social and political alternatives to the violent authority of Israeli law. (shrink)

For some, the 1967 war meant a setback to grand Arab projects; but the Palestinians understood the war in physical and epistemic terms. This is because the war made it clear to them that Israel and Zionism are capable of physically erasing Palestine as well as its history. The Palestinian existential fear of epistemic erasure (athazagoraphobia), following the complete occupation of their land, has produced works that affirm epistemic presence through the assertion of history and ownership. Athazagoraphobia refers to (...) an existential human fear of death both physically and memorially––namely, human continuity. As a result, Palestinian discourse, responding to athazagoraphobia, centers around questions of origins, genealogy, and beginnings. Moreover, Palestinian reaction to athazagoraphobia opens up a discussion about the impact of this reaction on larger intellectual projects that deal with universal themes. Consequently, this article offers additional insights into the relationship between the 1948 and 1967 wars. (shrink)

In this book, the late Prof. Yaacov Bar-Siman-Tov argues that the failure of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process so far has been mainly the result of the inability of both sides to reach an agreed formula for linking justice to peace. The issues of justice and injustice are focused mainly on the outcomes of the 1947-1949 first Arab-Israeli War and specifically in the creation of the Palestinian refugee problem. The conflicting historical narratives of the two sides regarding the question (...) of responsibility for the injustice done to the Palestinians turn the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into a classic case of linking the issues of justice and peace. Given that the two sides often define the conflict in terms of injustice and unfairness, these issues have particular relevance for the peace process, and this is what makes dealing with them as barriers to the resolution of the conflict so problematic. Yaacov Bar-Siman-Tov argues that the link between justice and peace is an important issue requiring both sides' attention, but, given the wide and currently unbridgeable gap separating the two sides, it should be postponed to the phase of reconciliation rather than being included in the process of conflict resolution. The two-state solution is endorsed as the best and practical solution and as a first step for a "just peace" in this conflict, to be followed by reconciliation. Highly topical, this book is essential reading for scholars and researchers of International Relations, Peace Studies and the Arab-Israeli conflict. (shrink)

This comparative ethnography of a Muslim and a Christian Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon focuses on contrasting social belonging processes through a ritualization approach. Leonardo Schiocchet argues that contrasts emerge out of the intersectionality of religiosity, nationhood, refugeeness and politics, and synthesizes academic research on piety and moral self-cultivation and on the everyday life of religious communities. He contributes to the literature on refugees at large, and Palestinian refugees in particular, with the unique dense socio-historical portrait of two (...) refugee camps for which there is almost no recorded literature. (shrink)

Understanding people’s attitudes toward conciliatory policies in territorial interethnic conflicts is important for a peaceful conflict resolution. We argue that ingroup identification in combination with the largely understudied territorial ownership perceptions can help us explain attitudes toward conciliatory policies. We consider two different aspects of ingroup identification—attachment to one’s ethnic ingroup as well as ingroup superiority. Furthermore, we suggest that perceptions of ingroup and outgroup ownership of the territory can serve as important mechanisms that link the different forms of ingroup (...) identification with conciliatory policies. In the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, among Israeli Jews, we found that ingroup superiority, but not attachment, was negatively related to conciliatory policies. This relationship was explained by lower outgroup ownership perceptions of the territory. Our findings highlight the relevance of studying ingroup superiority as a particularly relevant dimension of identification that represents a barrier to acknowledging outgroup’s territorial ownership, and is thus indirectly related to less support for conciliatory policies in intergroup conflict settings. (shrink)

To date, the transition from patrilineality to matrilineality in Rabbinic Judaism remains without a convincing explanation. However, an anthropological hypothesis makes it possible to consider this evolution as being finally coherent, when patrilineality proved to be too dominant to remain functional. This hypothesis can be reinforced by taking into account the political context of the Roman period, which led the rabbis to rethink the survival of communities without a Messianic project. The emphasis on internal cultural transmission thus took the place (...) of any form of political and religious action against the Romans. (shrink)

kerekh 1. Maʼamarim mi-masekhtot Berakhot ṿe-Shabat -- kerekh 2. Maʼamarim mi-masekhtot ʻEruvin, Pesaḥim, R.h. ṿe-Yoma -- kerekh 3. Masekhtot Sukah, Betsah, Taʻanit, Megilah, Moʻed ḳaṭan ṿa-Ḥagigah.

Preliminary Material /Louis M. Epstein --Polygamy /Louis M. Epstein --Concubinage /Louis M. Epstein --Levirate Marriage /Louis M. Epstein --Intermarriage /Louis M. Epstein --Incest /Louis M. Epstein --Other Marriage Prohibitions /Louis M. Epstein --Abbreviations /Louis M. Epstein --Register of Foreign Terms /Louis M. Epstein --Bibliography /Louis M. Epstein --Index of Subjects and Names /Louis M. Epstein.

This volume looks at tractate Menachot, which is concerned mostly with grain offered at the Temple to atone for various misdeeds. Fogel approaches the text, page by page, commenting with doses of humor and comparisons in a manner meant to explain the text for contemporary readers.