Thursday, June 15, 2023

2023: Conservative Jews - Constantine

 


Conservative Jews
Conservative Jews. Orientation in Judaism, growing mainly out of Ashkenazi environments in Germany in the 19th century.  Their orientation lies in the middle between Reform Judaism and Orthodox Judaism.  The Conservative Jews claim that the long tradition of studying the religion is an indication that Judaism must be interpreted according to the context of the society and time.  They allow some adjustments of Judaism to modern times and lifestyles, but are concerned about preserving the central values of Judaism.  The sacredness of the Sabbath is preserved.  The dietary laws are respected and observed, but modified compared to traditional Judaism, and they are conscious about learning Hebrew.

Nevertheless, the Conservative Jews believe that the laws of the Torah and Talmud have divine origins, and hence that Jewish law must be the fundament of a Jew’s life.  However, the Conservative Jews also realize that there is a human element to it, that there can be influences from other cultures.  They believe that the Will of God has been revealed at numerous occasions, and that the revelation of the Will of God on top of Mount Sinai is the strongest and clearest.  They believe that divine revelations can occur even today.  

Conservative Judaism began with the German Jew Zacharias Franckel who protested against Reform Judaism, which he thought went too far in modernizing the religion.  In 1845, Franckel founded Conservative Judaism after a series of Reform conferences in Germany.  Franckel thought that elements of traditional Judaism had to be investigated, and that elements of the Written Law (the Torah -- the first five books of the Old Testament) and the Oral Law (codified in the Mishnah and interpreted in the Talmud) that had been defined for a specific period of time should be reformed, but nothing more.

Conservative Judaism is not really a homogeneous orientation, but more of a theological coalition of several orientations.  The same applies to rituals, where there also are different rules for the different schools.  The conservative movement is today very much occupied with whether or not new generations will live as true conservative Jews or not.  The background for this concern is that many appear to believe that all they have to do is to belong to conservative synagogue, and not adhere to the many regulations.

Conservative Judaism has also been active in politics, especially in the Zionist movement from the end of the nineteenth century.  

In 1985, news was made when Conservative Judaism began ordaining women rabbis for the first time.  

Conservative Judaism (also known as Masorti Judaism outside of the United States) is a modern stream of Judaism that arose out of intellectual currents in Germany in the mid-19th century and took institutional form in the United States in the early 1900s.

Conservative Judaism has its roots in the school of thought known as Positive-Historical Judaism, developed in 1850s Germany as a reaction to the more liberal religious positions taken by Reform Judaism. The term conservative was meant to signify that Jews should attempt to conserve Jewish tradition, rather than reform or abandon it, and does not imply the movement's adherents are politically conservative. Because of this potential for confusion, a number of Conservative Rabbis have proposed renaming the movement, and outside of the United States and Canada, in many countries including Israel and the United Kingdom, it is today known as Masorti Judaism (Hebrew for "Traditional").

In the United States and Canada, the term Conservative, as applied, does not always indicate that a congregation is affliliated with the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, the movement's central institution and the one to which the term, without qualifier, usually refers. Rather, it is sometimes employed by unaffiliated groups to indicate a range of beliefs and practices more liberal than what is affirmed by the Orthodox, and more traditional than the more liberal Jewish denominations (Reform and Reconstructionist Judaism). The moniker Conservadox is sometimes employed to refer to the right wing of this spectrum, although "Traditional" is used as well (as in the Union for Traditional Judaism).

The Conservative-Masorti movement is unified on a global level by Masorti Olami, representing affiliated congregations in the Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia. Masorti Olami unites a number of smaller national and regional organizations, including:

    * The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism (USCJ) in the United States and Canada,
    * The Assembly of Masorti Synagogues in the United Kingdom,
    * Masorti Europe in Europe,
    * Masorti AmLat in Latin America,

The international association of Conservative/Masorti Rabbis is known as the Rabbinical Assembly; the Cantor's Assembly is the organization of chazanim. The global youth movement is known as NOAM (an acronym for No'ar Masorti); its North American chapter is called the United Synagogue Youth. The movement maintains numerous Rabbinical seminnaries and other educational institutions.


Constantine the African
Constantine the African (Constantinus Africanus) (c.1020-1087).  First person to introduce Arab medicine into Europe.  Born in Tunisia, he infused new life in the medical school of Salerno, where he translated into Latin the best works of Arab medicine which had appeared up to his time.

Constantine the African (Latin: Constantinus Africanus) (c. 1020 – 1087) was an eleventh-century translator of Greek and Islamic medical texts.

Born in Carthage or Sicily, Constantine was a native of Carthage, then under Arab rule. As a Christian he had a good knowledge of Latin, enabling him to translate medical works into that language from Arabic. He was invited to join the Schola Medica Salernitana by Alfano I, Archbishop of Salerno c.1065 in order to aid in the translation of various Arabic manuscripts. His translations helped reintroduce Greek medicine to Western Europe. He also adapted popular Arabic handbooks for travellers in his book Viaticum. The twentieth chapter of the first book of that work deals with the subject of love.

Constantine knew Greek, Latin, Arabic, and several other languages, acquired during his extensive travels in Syria, India, Ethiopia, Egypt, and Persia. Constantine studied at the University of Salerno, which was Western Europe's first organized medical school. Later, he entered the Monte Cassino, the monastery founded by St. Benedict in 529 near Cassino, Principality of Benevento. He died there in 1087.

The first of his works of translation from Arabic to Latin was the Complete Book of the Medical Art, from the kitab al-malaki (Royal Book) of the 10th-century Persian physician 'Ali ibn al-'Abbas, in 1087. This text was the first comprehensive Arabic medical text. Shortly after, the work came to be known as the Pantegni, “complete art”. The significance of this text was that it was an important resource for the student of the transmission of scientific ideas inasmuch as the Complete Book of the Medical Art contains a compilation of 128 known manuscripts. This text also contains a survey of the 108 known Latin manuscripts of Constantine the African. This text rapidly became part of the standard medical curriculum for students.

Constantine's 37 translated books from Arabic to Latin introduced knowledge of Greek and Arabic medicine to the West. Among them were two treatises by Isaac Israeli ben Solomon, or Isaac the Jew, the greatest Jewish physician of the Western Caliphate of Córdoba, whose translations of Hippocrates and Galen first gave Western Europe a view of Greek medicine as a whole.
Constantinus Africanus see Constantine the African
Africanus, Constantinus see Constantine the African

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