I just discovered foodtimeline.org, which is exactly what it sounds like: centuries worth of information about FOOD. If you are writing something historical and you want a starting point for figuring out what people should be eating, this might be a good place?
CHRISTMAS CAME EARLY
this is awesome but the original link just turned into a redirect loop for me, here it is again (x)
OH HELLO
Tag: cool
The #1 thing I’m looking forward to with my master’s thesis is when my drafts will inevitably come back with “antisemitism” corrected to “anti-Semitism” and then I get to explain that Jewish scholars do things differently
I guess the most professionally academic thing to do here is find the explanation for why we spell it as one word, and then quote that as a footnote on my first use of it
Here’s the footnote I used in my most recent paper — feel free to steal it!
“The question of whether to write “anti-Semitism” or “antisemitism” is thorny. I follow the lead of Jewish Studies scholars who argue that antisemitism refers not to a hatred of ‘Semitism’ but specifically to the hatred of Jews, and therefore should be left unhyphenated (while I acknowledge that this position is far from universal). See, e.g., Doris Bergen, “Christians, Protestants, and Christian Antisemitism in Nazi Germany,” Central European History, Vol. 27, No. 3 (1994), 329; and Gavin Langmuir, Toward a Definition of Antisemitism (University of California Press, 1996), 16-17.”
This is the reason I write it the way I do. There’s no such thing as “semitism”; antisemitism was always meant to refer to Jew-hatred.
Good explanation. The term “Semitic” comes from a late 18th century German pseudoscientific racial theory that tried to trace the lineage of different ethnic groups back to the biblical Noah’s sons (Ham, Japheth, and Shem). This is, needless to say, total horseshit. Linguists still use the term “Semitic” for the family of languages that includes Hebrew and Arabic, but aside from that, the term is not legitimately used anymore. There is not now and never has been an ethnic group calling themselves “Semites.”
The term “antisemitism” specifically was coined in 1879 by German racial theorist Wilhelm Marr as a deliberate attempt to make hatred of Jews appear rational and scientifically validated. It was never meant to refer to hatred of all so-called “Semitic” peoples, just Jews. It replaced the more usual term “Judenhass” (Jew-hate), which Marr thought sounded vulgar.
Simon Schama uses “Judeophobia” in his books except when referring to the specifically German race-theory-based phenomenon, which seems a little more precise to me. Judenhass is still probably the most accurate term.
A visual guide to the demons that spooked the Jews of Babylon
Demons are well-known figures in Jewish mysticism. In the Talmud and elsewhere there is a wealth of information about their characters, warnings against them and means to dispel them. In keeping with the Jewish injunction prohibiting the making of statues and masks there are no visual aids to indicate how the demons look. There was a period in history, however, between the rise of Christianity and the Muslim conquest of the Middle East, when Jews (mainly in Babylon) gave demons a shape.
Painstakingly, archaeologist and art historian Dr. Naama Vilozny has copied these images, analyzed their attributes and put together the first visual catalog ever of Jewish demons. Scholars believe the reason Jews in Babylon undertook to draw demons between the 5th and the 7th centuries has to do with a series of relaxations of the strictures, which rabbis gave the Jews as a way of dealing with the challenged posed by the increasing strength of Christianity. Fearing that Jews might prefer the new religion, the rabbis agreed to allow magic that included visual images. The demons Vilozny researched were drawn on “incantation bowls” – simple pottery vessels the insides of which were covered with inscriptions and drawings.
A visual guide to the demons that spooked the Jews of Babylon
For Black History Month, let’s shine the light on Black Jews.
How would you like to uplift and celebrate Black Jews during Black History Month?
What would you like to learn? What would you like to share?
Not a Black Jew, but here’s my favorite bit of Black Jewish history that I’d like to share: Queen Gudit the First.
She ruled the Kingdom of Semien in modern Ethiopia (ancestors of today’s Beta Israeli Jews) and she was one of the most badass Jews in our long history of badasses.
Late in the 10th century, the Axumite empire, one of the most powerful empires in East Africa, decided to expand. Semien was in their path and they thought “Jews?! But we’re…we’re Coptic Christians! THIS CANNOT BE!” and attacked. So Gudit’s father, Gideon, was forced into a war. And he won a few battles but then died, leaving her the throne.
She gathered some allies, picked up a sword, and said “Ok, if the choice is die or submit, we die. But maybe they can die first. Yeah, that sounds better” and she burned the city of Axum to the ground, conquered almost all the territory Axum held, and established almost two centuries of Jewish rule over modern day Ethiopia.
Over those two centuries, the world heard stories of an independent Jewish kingdom in Africa. It was mentioned by Marco Polo and other travelers, and the rulers had claimed to be “ha-Dani”, of the Tribe of Dan.
It wasn’t until the 1400s that the Jewish Kingdom of Semien was fully conquered by the Christian Solomonid dynasty, ending almost 500 years of a Jewish state in Africa, and one that was a force to be reckoned with! The Kingdom was briefly independent again later, but finally fell in the 1600s.
Semien was the last Jewish state before modern Israel, and may be the longest lasting independent Jewish state in all history (it’s not clear exactly how long the original Kingdom of Judah lasted).
tora42's nonsensne 