Fashioning Jews

Description

This volume presents papers delivered at the 24th Annual Klutznick-Harris Symposium, held at Creighton University in October 2011. The contributors look at all aspects of the intimate relationship between Jews and clothing, through case studies from ancient, medieval, recent, and contemporary history. Papers explore topics ranging from Jewish leadership in the textile industry, through the art of fashion in nineteenth century Vienna, to the use of clothing as a badge of ethnic identity, in both secular and religious contexts.
Acknowledgments

Editor’s Introduction

Contributors

Unshod on Holy Ground: Ancient Israel’s “Disinherited” Priesthood, by Christine Palmer

How Do You Know a Jew When You See One?: Reflections on Jewish Costume in the Roman World, by Steven Fine

From Iconic O to Yellow Hat: Anti-Jewish Distinctive Signs in Renaissance Italy, by Flora Cassen

How Should a Rabbi Be Dressed? The Question of Rabbinical Attire in Italy from Renaissance to Emancipation (Sixteenth–Nineteenth Centuries), by Asher Salah

The Clerks’ Work: Jews, Clerical Work, and the Birth of the American Garment Industry, by Adam D. Mendelsohn

Ella Zirner-Zwieback, Madame d’Ora, and Vienna’s New Woman, by Lisa Silverman

Photographers, Jews, and the Fashioning of Women in the Weimar Republic, by Nils Roemer

Weimar Jewish Chic: Jewish Women and Fashion in 1920s Germany, by Kerry Wallach

Unbuttoned: Clothing as a Theme in American Jewish Comedy, by Ted Merwin

“What a Strange Power There Is in Clothing”: Women’s Tallitot, by Rachel Gordan

Aboriginal Yarmulkes, Ambivalent Attire, and Ironies of Contemporary Jewish Identity, by Eric K. Silverman

Sujets

• Couture et Tricot
• Fashion
• Crafts
• Hobbies

Informations

• Publié par: Purdue University Press
• Date de parution: 15 octobre 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 2
• EAN13: 9781612492926
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Fashioning Jews: Clothing, Culture, and Commerce
Studies in Jewish Civilization Volume 24
Proceedings of the Twenty-Fourth Annual Symposium of the Klutznick Chair in Jewish Civilization and the Harris Center for Judaic Studies
October 23–24, 2011
Other volumes in the Studies in Jewish Civilization Series Distributed by the Purdue University Press
2010 – Rites of Passage: How Today’s Jews Celebrate, Commemorate, and Commiserate
2011 – Jews and Humor
2012 – Jews in the Gym: Judaism, Sports, and Athletics
Fashioning Jews: Clothing, Culture, and Commerce
Studies in Jewish Civilization Volume 24
Editor: Leonard J. Greenspoon
The Klutznick Chair in Jewish Civilization
Purdue University Press West Lafayette, Indiana
Copyright © 2013, by Creighton University
Published by Purdue University Press
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
Paper ISBN: 978-1-55753-657-0
ePDF ISBN: 978-1-61249-291-9
ePUB ISBN: 978-1-61249-292-6
No part of Studies in Jewish Civilization (ISSN 1070-8510) Volume 24 may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Dedicated in Memory of Magda Morsel
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Editor’s Introduction
Contributors
Unshod on Holy Ground: Ancient Israel’s “Disinherited” Priesthood
Christine Palmer
How Do You Know a Jew When You See One? Reflections on Jewish Costume in the Roman World
Steven Fine
From Iconic O to Yellow Hat: Anti-Jewish Distinctive Signs in Renaissance Italy
Flora Cassen
How Should a Rabbi Be Dressed? The Question of Rabbinical Attire in Italy from Renaissance to Emancipation (Sixteenth–Nineteenth Centuries)
Asher Salah
The Clerks’ Work: Jews, Clerical Work, and the Birth of the American Garment Industry
Adam D. Mendelsohn
Ella Zirner-Zwieback, Madame d’Ora, and Vienna’s New Woman
Lisa Silverman
Photographers, Jews, and the Fashioning of Women in the Weimar Republic
Nils Roemer
Weimar Jewish Chic: Jewish Women and Fashion in 1920s Germany
Kerry Wallach
Unbuttoned: Clothing as a Theme in American Jewish Comedy
Ted Merwin
“What a Strange Power There Is in Clothing”: Women’s Tallitot
Rachel Gordan
Aboriginal Yarmulkes, Ambivalent Attire, and Ironies of Contemporary Jewish Identity
Eric K. Silverman
Acknowledgments
The Twenty-Fourth Annual Klutznick-Harris Symposium took place on October 23 and October 24, 2011, in Omaha, Nebraska. The title of the Symposium, from which this volume also takes its title, is “Fashioning Jews: Clothing, Culture, and Commerce.”
Most of the chapters in this volume are based on the presentations made at the Symposium. For this collection, Steven Fine and Adam D. Mendelsohn chose to write on topics somewhat different from their Symposium presentations. Two other Symposium presenters were unable to submit articles for this volume. I offer a special thanks to Lisa Silverman, through whose research we found the picture for the cover.
As has been the case for previous Symposia, this Symposium also attracted a large and enthusiastic audience consisting of students, Creighton faculty and staff, members of the Jewish community, and other scholars. Or, to put it another way, the Klutznick-Harris Symposium has not gone out of fashion or out of style.
I cannot recall the exact moment when we decided on “Fashioning Jews” as the topic for the Twenty-Fourth Annual Symposium. Undoubtedly, our decision owes much to the beneficial influence of my wife Ellie, without whose trained eye I would never be able to match shirt with pants, to say nothing of pairs of similarly colored socks.
As in past years, the success of this Symposium owed much to the dedication and wisdom of two of my colleagues, Dr. Ronald Simkins, director of the Kripke Center for the Study of Religion and Society at Creighton University, and Dr. Jean Cahan, director of the Harris Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. We were happy to welcome Pam Yenko, who works with both Ron and me. Her unflagging enthusiasm, stamina, and work ethic never failed to energize others. Equally energetic and efficient was Mary Sue Grossman, who is affiliated with the Center for Jewish Life (part of the Jewish Federation of Omaha).
This volume is the fourth in our ongoing collaboration with the Purdue University Press, the staff of which, under Director Charles Watkinson, continues to make us feel welcome in every possible way.
In addition to the Harris Center, the Kripke Center, and the Jewish Federation of Omaha, this Symposium is supported by the generosity of the following:

The Ike and Roz Friedman Foundation
The Riekes Family
Creighton University Lectures, Films and Concerts
The Creighton College of Arts and Sciences
The Center for Jewish Life
The Henry Monsky Lodge of B’nai B’rith Gary and Karen Javitch
The Dr. Bruce S. Bloom Memorial Endowment and Others.
This volume is dedicated to Magda Morsel, who persevered in the face of war and persecution.
Leonard J. Greenspoon Omaha, Nebraska May 2013 [e-mail]
Editor’s Introduction
My mother-in-law, Magda Morsel, was born Magda Guttman in a Czechoslovakian village near the Hungarian border. One of eleven children, she was a teenager when World War II began.
In early 1944, members of her family were taken to Auschwitz. There she was forced to make and mend clothing for the S.S. officers and their families. Together with three of her sisters, Magda survived this concentration camp and other horrors before being liberated by the British at Bergen-Belsen.
From her earliest days as a young girl, Magda showed interest and aptitude in designing and sewing clothes. In the mid-1950s, Magda, her husband Sigi, and their daughter Ellie moved to Richmond, Virginia. During her years there, she worked in the alterations department of an upscale women’s clothing store, where she built an appreciative and loyal following as head fitter. We can only imagine what additional opportunities would have been open to her had not war and the Holocaust intervened to cut short her youth and her education.
She also had the time and opportunity to design some of her own clothing as well as clothing for her daughter, including Ellie’s wedding dress. Later, Magda took great delight in making dresses for our two daughters, Gallit and Talya. In all of this, Magda never worked from a pattern she purchased; she always made her own.
We dedicate this volume to Magda Morsel. In doing so, we also acknowledge other Jewish women and men who never had the chance to fulfill their talents or their dreams.
The chapters in this volume provide a richly textured picture of many aspects of the relationship between Jews and fashion from biblical times to the contemporary world. Through their choices—what to wear, how to wear it, when to wear it, how to make it, how to sell it, and where to buy it—Jews as individuals and as a group have had wide influence within their own communities and frequently in the larger world they inhabited.
We also recognize that frequently Jews were not given any choice as to what they would wear, how they would wear it, or where they would buy it. In these situations, clothing was one of the means by which Jews were forced into inferior positions. Even when Jews had choices, they were often restricted by those in positions of power.
Thus it is that fashion, which might appear to some as a narrow or even peripheral topic, elicits a series of multidimensional and multidisciplined studies that appreciably enhance our understanding of Jewish history. There are few topics more closely related to daily life and living than the making, procuring, and wearing of clothes.
Today we often speak of a particular person or a particular event as making a fashion statement. But, as should be clear, people use fashion, or more broadly clothes, to make all sorts of statements all the time. As I summarize the contents of this collection, arranged in essentially chronological order, I will to the full extent possible use primary documentation to illuminate the arguments made in each chapter.
Christine Palmer is the author of the first chapter, “Unshod on Holy Ground: Ancient Israel’s ‘Disinherited’ Priesthood.” Within the Hebrew Bible, she observes, the detailed descriptions of priestly vestments make no mention of footwear. The classic rabbinic midrash to the book of Exodus, Exodus Rabbah , notes the absence and explains it in this way: “Wherever the Shechinah [the divine presence] appears one must not go about with shoes on; and so we find in the case of Joshua; Put off thy shoe (Josh. 5:15). Hence the priests ministered in the Temple barefooted.” Palmer’s explanation, based on a judicious reading of vast numbers of passages from biblical and extra-biblical sources, takes us in another direction, which allows readers to appreciate how bare feet give expression to the subservient role and status of the priest.
The second chapter in this collection that relates to the ancient world is Steven Fine’s “How Do You Know a Jew When You See One? Reflections on Jewish Costume in the Roman World.” After carefully sifting through the sources, Fine concludes that in antiquity Jews did not dress distinctly. This conclusion, which will likely surprise some readers, is based on a careful reading of well-known sources such as Philo, Josephus, and rabbinic literature. It is also buttressed by a lesser-known funerary inscription in “Greco-Latin” script that reads: “In Memorial of Anastasius and Decusanis and Benjamin, their son.” Through these words and the addition of some Jewish symbols, a non-Jewish artifact, complete with images of the deceased, was transformed into a Jewish one.
In the next chapter, Flora Cassen quotes from th