Jews

This item is part of the Political & Rights Issues & Social Movements (PRISM) digital collection, a collaborative initiative between Florida Atlantic University and University of Central Florida in the Publication of Archival, Library & Museum Materials (PALMM).

Thessaloniki, a city with an Ottoman, Byzantine, and Sephardic past, is located in the Balkan area of Macedonia, in northern Greece. Its history is the story of people who have come from someplace else. For several hundred years, the majority population of the city was comprised of Spanish speaking Sephardic Jews who contributed to all aspects of the development of the city. This significant presence is no longer visible unless one specifically knows where to look for its traces. It is not a history that has been silenced or erased, but rather obliterated. In this dissertation, I present the documented presence and transformations of the Jewish population in Thessaloniki from the earliest contributions to present day. This work on absence uses visual anthropology to explore the present day urban environment through an ethnographic account of the city of Thessaloniki. . This is a work about what happens when intentionally omitted histories remain absent from the public sphere. What remains physically present but unrepresented proves equally important in creating and reinforcing memory. Our relationship to our environment also may be compromised by what is absent. This project examines absence through the circumstances by which the past is represented in the present, and looks at how the past is experienced in ways that may be used to invoke, challenge, or re-direct the way a community is remembered.

Scholars of southern Jewish history maintain that ante-bellum southerners displayed genuine philo-Semitism towards their Jewish neighbors. Historians attribute this to the southern Jews "effort to assimilate into southern society and to the presence of other, more preferred, targets of the southerners" animus, namely blacks and Catholics. This analysis, however, is not sufficiently broad to explain the South's Protestant-Jewish dynamic. It neither appraises the relationship from the perspective of the Protestants, nor accounts for the intellectual inconsistencies such a conclusion presents regarding both Protestants and southerners, generally. This thesis identifies and responds to these shortcomings by examining southern philo-Semitism through the eyes of the Protestants and thesis argues that pro-Judaic rhetoric of southern evangelical clergy inundated southerners with favorable references and images of the biblical Jews, causing southerners to develop a high degree of reverence and respect for Jews, whom they saw as their spiritual kinfolk.

As a woman of Moroccan descent, I have been brought up surrounded by a rich culture that places great emphasis on the importance of hospitality and family traditions. This exhibit represents an exploration of porcelain ceramics vessels that have been produced over the past year. The work incorporates tagine forms, plates, tea cups and tea pots that are commonly used while entertaining guests in a Moroccan home. Moroccans welcome the opportunity to show their generosity and hospitality by welcoming guests into their homes to visit and share meals. The vessels are ornately painted and decorated so that meals served will feast the eyes as well as the palate. The porcelain is decorated with ornate finials, underglazes and china painting. The subject of the imagery is a combination of visual anthropology in which random images of people from today's society are contrasted with my own interpretation of ancient geometric design details that are found in North African Zillij cut mosaic tiles. This infuses the work with an imagined sense of time and place. The attempt to harmonize seemingly incongruent elements results in vessels that feel both familiar and eccentric. The layers of color areused to symbolize nature, purity, depth of life and spiritual abundance. The colors are placed randomly in contrast to the symmetry of the geometric designs. The work is displayed in a dining room setting where guests are always welcome to enter. My work as an artist enhances the experience I bring to my students in the classroom.

Three original suites, composed during 2008-2009, are presented and discussed with respect to form, style, and compositional techniques. The subjects are Suite No. 1 (clarinet and piano), Suite No. 2: For Paul, A Master of Music (clarinet, piano, double bass and drums), and Suite No. 3: L'Chaim (two clarinets, flugelhorn, French horn, bandoneon, piano, violin, and cello). Common to all three pieces is the inspiration of klezmer, a Jewish music genre that, during its reemergence over the past thirty-five years, has welcomed the influence of other musical styles. In keeping with the eclectic nature of klezmer, each suite builds upon the previous one with regard to instrumentation, style and technique, and embraces additional genres (jazz and tango). Brief reviews regarding the history and musical characteristics (including modes, ornamentation and improvisation, song types and instrumentation) for all the included genres are also presented for the benefit of compositional context.