Monthly Archives: February 2025

(Documenting Dispossession) No Other Land

A lot of press attention has gone to the superb documentary No Other Land about the struggle of local Palestinian activists of Masafer Yatta in the occupied West Bank against the Israeli state working to expropriate their lands. Much of … Continue reading

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(Forthcoming) In The Image: Virtual Religion and Philosophical Talmud

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JEWISH STUDIES SEMINAR: ISRAEL (Syllabus)

JEWISH STUDIES SEMINAR: ISRAEL JSP/REL 439 Spring 2025 W 3:45-6:30, Huntington Hall 103 Zachary Braiterman Office hours: W 11-12 or by appointment zbraiter@syr.edu Zionism was a secular movement that aspired to establish a homeland for the Jewish people. What was … Continue reading

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St. Donatus of Arezzo in the New Age of Trump (Picking up the Pieces)

I was moved by this image of St. Donatus of Arezzo, painted by Pietro Lorenzetti for the Church of Santa maria della Pieve in Arezzo (1320), and recently on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Donatus is a saint … Continue reading

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Anti-Politics of Israel and Palestine (Negative Affect in the Age of Misinformation)

If the essence of “the political” is the binding together of a collective across social difference then what one would otherwise call politics today in the Age of Trump and Musk is distinctly anti-political. Anti-politics is fed by binary things. … Continue reading

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(Netanyahu) Demons (Hamas) (Trump)

The morality and politics of Israel and Palestine under Netanyahu and Hamas, and Trump. To grasp the situation, one has to think 3 things at the same time. –Hamas opened the pits of hell on October 7. –Netanyahu and the … Continue reading

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(Dostoyevsky) Demons (Luke)

Now a large herd of swine was feeding there on the hillside; and they begged him to let them enter these. So he gave them leave. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd … Continue reading

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Demon (Dictionary Definition) מַזִּיק

מַזִּיק m. (נָזַק) one who does damage, destroys, wastes. Yoma 80ᵇ, sq. כי יאכל פרט למ׳ ‘if he eats’ (Lev. XXII, 14) which excludes him who wastes (by eating excessively).—In gen. (ה) מ׳ the offender that occasioned damage, opp. ניזק … Continue reading

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Demons (מַּזִּיקִין)

Abba Binyamin says: If the eye was given permission to see, no creature would be able to withstand the demons. Abaye said: They are more numerous than we and they stand over us like mounds of earth surrounding a pit. … Continue reading

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