Self-Exposure as Theory: The Double Mark of the Male Jew

Freud's Jewish identity, circumcision, and the theory of castration anxiety: problem or pride?

“…Even Jews who do not accept religious beliefs and, for example, reject dietary laws and the celebration of Jewish holidays tend to have their sons circumcised (Goldman, 1999). Circumcision thus seems to be the bottom line for the most modern of Jews, and even though there are Jews who reject circumcision the practice seems to be at the core of Jewish identity (Boyarin & Boyarin, 1995;Goldman, 1999;Pollack, 2011). When Jews talk about circumcision it is with reference to male circumcision.…”

“…Punzi participate in the creation of the world (Boyarin & Boyarin, 1995;Steinsaltz, 1999). The circumcision thus traditionally carries deep meanings and is an example of how elevation of the physical is central to Judaism (Heller, 2003;Steinsaltz, 1999).…”

“…These meanings are however not limited to religiousness but becomes part of Jewishness even among those Jews who identify themselves as Godless. This means that through circumcision the individual man transgresses himself and becomes a part of both history and future, and is symbolically and physically inscribed into Jewishness, and the personal as well as social responsibilities and possibilities that are connected to being a Jew (Boyarin & Boyarin, 1995;Goldman, 1999). Circumcision thus concerns the tension that is inherently connected to developing a sense of belonging as well as a cultural identity, and simultaneously developing a sense of being a separate individual (Boyarin & Boyarin, 1995;Cantz, 2012;Goldman, 1999).…”

Gender and the Political

“…138 It is in this context that genocide registers as a specifically modern possibility and that Boyarin can claim that the Holocaust represents "the funeral pyre of the Enlightenment and of a certain culminating vision of Europe as the problem of difference resolved." 139 Just as modernity renders genocide a thinkable practice, the modern structure of gender representation-dependent as it is upon the binary opposition of Man and Woman, operating in a society that privileges technology as progress and administered by the bureaucratic state-gives rise to the possibility of sexocide. It is this possibility that Solanas articulates.…”

Is Jew/Greek Greek/Jew; or does 'Hebrew' mean Cross-over? the Tightrope, the Window, and the Text- an Excursus on Identity

“…Referrin g to a sim ilar experien ce of duality in Storm A fter Paradise: the Politics of Jew ish M em ory, Jonathan Boyarin (1994) favours the term practice in a double sen se: on one hand, em bedded, lived iden tity, and continual necessary approximation, on the other. O ne can only be a`practisin g' Jew , and so accordingly, a`practisin g' academ ic as w ell.…”