This article juxtaposes Anna Pawełczyńska’s writings with the works of Meir Dworzecki and Dov Levin. It will adopt a threefold analytical lens: first, using Pawełczyńska’s writings to reassess the conception of the early resistance that Dworzecki elaborated, second utilising Dworzecki’s viewpoint as a means to articulate Pawełczyńska’s perspective of Amidah, and then looking at Levin’s perspective on Pawełczyńska’s use of partisan testimony as a historical source. The main aims are to contribute to today’s debates on the Jewish resistance and (...) the relevance of partisanship in Holocaust historiography. The article also highlights some debates on the relationship between history and memory, as well as the necessity of rethinking Catholic-Jewish relations in Poland before and after the war. It presses for a new discussion of Dan Michman’s discourse of Jewish resistance, or Yehuda Bauer’s conceptualisation of it, and underscores the originality of Levin’s thought on memory as an essential tool for history. By way of a conclusion, the reader is invited to rethink the Polish World War II historiography and to read Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik’s contribution about the blessings of the Amidah. (shrink)

The Polish Jewish photographer Mendel Grossman captured with his camera (officially and clandestinely) the harsh and cruel reality of the Łódź ghetto: industrial production, suffering, starvation, deportation, and death. In this paper, I depict the Łódź ghetto and the agony of the Jewish people through Grossman's eyes, as well as the cultural, religious, and Zionist activities that took place in the ghetto in the midst of so much destruction and death. I assert that Grossman's photographs humanize the victims and are (...) a crucial source of the suffering and annihilation of the Jewish victims of the Łódź ghetto. Moreover, I argue that Grossman's photographs symbolize courage and defiance (two acts that fall within the spectrum of the term amidah) and are an invaluable source for researching both the Łódź ghetto and the Shoah. (shrink)

This article examines the concept of divine modesty as a criterion for evaluating the coherence of Abrahamic monotheistic conceptions of God. Utilising Nicolas Bommarito's attention-based account of modesty and applying it to the framework of perfect being theology, the article formulates a rigorous philosophical argument termed the ‘Modesty Argument’, which argues that modesty is an essential attribute of a maximally great being, with the Christian conception of God, as evidenced by the exaltation of Jesus and early Christian devotional practices described (...) by Larry Hurtado, being shown to align with this understanding of divine modesty. However, in contrast, both the Islamic conception of God (particularly as expressed through the 99 Names of Allāh, as authoritatively taught by the Qurʾān, Prophet Muhammad, and authoritative individuals such as Imām Alī, Al-Ghazālī and Mullā Ṣadrā) and the Rabbinic Judaic conception of God (as expressed through liturgical traditions such as the Shema, the Amidah, and various other formulations, and theologians such as Moses Maimonides, and other rabbinic authorities) are argued to be inconsistent with this attribute. This analysis thus provides a novel philosophical basis for favouring the Christian conception of God over both the Islamic and Rabbinic Judaic ones, thus addressing a key question in comparative theology and philosophy of religion. (shrink)

This article analyzes two poetic units within a much longer composition composed by Yannai for recitation on Yom Kippur. Specifically, it offers readings of Unit 8, which prefaces the third blessing of the Amidah, and Unit 15, which concludes the work. Both units dwell on the physical experience of Yom Kippur and the ways in which ritual affects the body, permitting us to consider the role of “kinesthetic theology” – i.e., how physical expression and embodied experiences not only reflect (...) but shape belief – in the composition. (shrink)

This article discusses one of the most controversial topics on the creation of Rabbinic Jewish Liturgy—the origin of the Amidah, the main prayer in the Jewish religious public service, after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 E. C. To this end, the formal and literary structure of the Amidah is analyzed followed by a critical discussion on its origin that contributes to the scholarly debate on the topic. An annotated Spanish translation of this first-century prayer is (...) rendered as an Appendix. (shrink)