Research Bites

Church of the Holy Sepulchre

Research Bites, season 6: The Public and the Sacred

In this season of the MBSF podcast, 5 Buber fellows are sharing their cutting-edge research.

 

In this episode, Dr. Kathatrina Palmberger takes us back in time to the foundation of the Holy Sepulchre Church in Jerusalem. By looking at the unique art and architecture of the church, this episode sheds light on the people who created it: the Crusaders'. This episode will uncover the historical significance of this extraordinary church and the Crusaders' efforts to integrate their identity into its architecture.

Why Does Food Matter?

Research Bites, season 6: The Public and the Sacred

In this season of the MBSF podcast, 5 Buber fellows are sharing their cutting-edge research.

 

This episode is about food and people; Dr. Limor Yungman examines why food matters and why it is more than just eating. Looking at recipes from long ago, she discusses how food impacts places, cultures, and economic trade. Through these recipes, we can learn not only about the history of food but also about the role that food plays in the world.

I paid my dues

In this mini-series, Dr. Anna Gutgarts, Dr. Amit Gvaryahu and Dr. Idit Ben-Or will talk about how money makes the bonds that connect us to other people – and separates us as well. It's about how money constitutes what is public and what is private. 

 

In the third act of the mini-series about money, Dr. Amit Gvaryahu will talk about how paying money would constitute the body politic of the ancient Jewish people and the Jerusalem temple, year after year.

Our house

This mini series is about how money makes the bonds that connect us to other people – and separates us as well. It's about how money constitutes what is public and what is private.

This is the second episode of the series. In this episode, Dr. Anna Gutgarts will talk about how medieval individuals worked together with institutions like churches in the urban environment of Crusader Jerusalem.

Money, money, money

In this mini-series, Dr. Anna Gutgarts, Dr. Amit Gvaryahu and Dr. Idit Ben-Or will talk to each other about the role of money in making the bonds that connect us to other people – and erecting the fences that separate us from them, too. 

This is the first act, in which Dr. Idit Ben-Or will talk about enterprising English individuals who made their own coins, and what exactly other people did with them, besides, of course, buying beer.

Do some facts call out for explanation?

Some things seem like they just can't be coincidences. They seem to call for explanation. If you toss a coin many times and it repeatedly lands heads, that might be an example. Philosophers have used this idea to argue for some far-reaching conclusions, such as that there aren't really any numbers, that other universes exist and, more famously, that an all-powerful god exists. But what does it mean for something to call for explanation? And, are these arguments good ones?

The problem of evil

In the 5th century C.E. the Greek philosopher Proclus wrote that “the same argument that keeps the whole world perfect posits evil among beings.”

In the eighteenth century, the satirist Bernard Mandeville would inspire the economist Adam Smith with his poem describing a city where “every Part was full of Vice, Yet the whole Mass a Paradise.” Connecting these two distant thinkers is the claim that evil somehow contributes to the good of the whole. How can such an articulation of good and evil make sense? And how can studying such historical arguments be relevant to understanding our situation today?

Revisiting the Old Heimat: German – German-Jewish Relations after the Second World War

Only fifteen years after the Second World War some cities in western Germany started to contact former citizens living abroad who had been persecuted during National Socialism. A few of these cities also granted invitations to these former victims of National Socialism, inviting them to visit their former places of residency in Germany for one or two weeks. Some of these contacts and invitations started in the 1960s. Since the 1980s they took place all over Germany. Surprisingly, most of these contacts and invitations were not initiated by German politicians. Instead, former victims of the Nazi persecution within the cities as well as abroad played a major role in the initiation and the success of these initiatives. This apparent paradox is at the center of this episode about “invitations to the old hometown”.

Indonesian Tourism to Jerusalem

Tens of thousands of Indonesian tourists come to Israel/Palestine every year. Some of them come in groups that consist only of Muslims, while others are made up by Christians. How are the experiences and itineraries of the two types of groups different, and how are they similar? And what can we learn from these about tourism, identity formation, Indonesia, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

Religious Mobility and Identity among Christians in Kenya

We often think of religious membership as clear-cut and exclusive: A member of group A could not possibly also be a follower of group B. Conversely, and especially among scholars observing disempowered populations, religion is often seen as instrumental – a means for accumulating material, social, or symbolic capital. How do these two perspectives fit together in Kenya – a diverse and predominantly Christian country with high rates of material insecurities? How has the Christian revival of recent decades, associated with neo-Pentecostalism and with becoming born again, influenced patterns of mobility and conceptions of religious belonging among Kenyan Christians? And what are the broader social and political implications of such observations?

In this episode, Prof. Ruth HaCohen interviews Yonatan Gez, an anthropologist that specializes in Religion and society in East Africa.