From the Paper
"This research will compare and contrast what it means to have faith in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The research will set forth the historical and cultural context out of which these three monotheistic faiths emerged and will discuss both convergences and divergences in the belief systems of each religion.

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all arose out of the same geographical region, comprising the eastern Mediterranean area and reaching eastward into Asia Minor. Chronologically the first of the three religions, Judaism appears to have been distinguished chiefly by its monotheistic aspect. The monotheistic innovation may not have begun with Judaism. The Amarna period of Egypt, marked by the pharaoh Akhenaten's (also Ikhnaton and Akhenaton, reign 1353-1336 B.C.) establishment of a version of monotheism as sun worship, has been interpreted as a ..."

From the Paper
"This report reviews two books describing personal experiences in Nazi concentration camps during World War II: Night, by Elie Wiesel, and Survival in Auschwitz, by Primo Levi. Both books convey similar horror stories about the Holocaust. The stories of the two men will be compared, and the styles and treatment of the subject will be contrasted.

Wiesel's account of experiences in Auschwitz and Buchenwald and a few points in between projects a family focus. His youth was undoubtedly a factor in his perspective: he was only twelve when Jews in his Hungarian town of Sighet were initially rounded up for slaughter, and only fourteen when he and his family were shipped to Auschwitz. Wiesel recalls the attitudes of the townspeople when the first stories of mass genocide reached their ears -- overwhelmingly, the stories were met with disbelief and ... "

Abstract
According to Christopher R. Browning's aptly-titled history of the German Reserve Police Battalion 101, "Ordinary Men", the most significant single factor influencing any given policeman's decision to participate in acts of Nazi genocide, was that individual's personal willingness to obey the orders given to him as a soldier and as a German. In other words, how much was that individual willing to be subject to, for want of a better word, peer pressure? The paper shows that this is in direct contrast to the thesis advocated by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen in his book, "Hitler's Willing Executioners". Goldhagen stresses that the actions of the policemen, soldiers and citizens who enforced the larger Reich ideological agenda were performed enthusiastically. The paper explains Goldhagen's belief that this willingness was the result of many years of anti-Semitic propaganda in Germany, extending back in historical time to the earliest days of German Lutheranism's influences on Christianity.

From the Paper
"The actions of the Reserve Police Battalion 101 become, in essence, even more chilling when viewed through Browning's schema of explanation. It is easy to rationalize inhumanity as a symptom of German culture, and to state that all human beings have pure free will to resist the pressures of position, country, and ideology. The idea that one can still retain one's ethical, moral compass (as evidenced by the disgust and horror of the policemen) and act against it when structural pressures persuade one to do otherwise is far more disturbing and a far more bracing slap in the ethical face of one's judgment."

Tags:Jewish, propaganda, structuralism

Abstract
This paper looks at how difficult it was for the Romans to accept the Christian religion and how they gradually tried to suppress it and how Christianity was still able to spread throughout the world. It includes specific historical dates, events, places and people such as Alexander the Great, the Jewish states, persecutions during Jesus' ministry, Herod the Great and Pontius Pilate, and Nero, the emperor of Rome trying to rid the empire of Christianity. The paper concludes by talking about Constantine and how he proclaimed the Edict Toleration.

From the Paper
"The Christian religion was hard for the Romans to accept at first. A historical person had conquered death and promised a blessed afterlife to all who believed in him. The new faith demanded that every believer practice love and justice in new communities made up of Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female, rich and poor, educated and ignorant. Christians had no temples or other holy places, no priests, no ordinary sacrifices, no oracles, or any visible gods. They had no initiations; they made no pilgrimages, did not practice divination, would not venerate the emperor, and challenged the final authority of the father (or oldest male) in family life. Christians were accused of being atheists who undermined traditional society."

Tags:bible, christianity, church, constantine, edict, empire, history, jewish, leaders, maccabeenians, nero, persecutions, pharisees, pilate, pontius, religion, religious, roman, sadducees, toleration

Abstract
The paper discusses the book which was written by a participant-observer of the culture surrounding a Jewish Senior Citizen Center in California. The paper shows that the novel depicts life in the Jewish ghetto for the men and women, most of them in their eighties or nineties.

From the Paper
"The Center is located near the beach in an urban California area. At one time it was in the heart of a thriving Jewish community, but the neighborhood has changed drastically, particularly in the last ten years before the research for the book was begun. Because of the age and physical condition of the members, as well as the downward trend in the socioeconomic status of the surrounding area, the Center is constantly threatened with extinction. This is one of the reasons that the author was so anxious to do this particular fieldwork."

Tags:senior, citizen, Jewish, anthropology, aging, culture

Abstract
This paper discusses the spread of Christianity in Ancient Rome. It outlines the origins of Christianity, including the response of the Jews and the impact on Jewish life in Jerusalem. It discusses the preaching of Jesus, and its continuation after his death by Paul. The paper goes on to discuss the response of Roman leaders to its growing popularity.

From the Paper
"Between the first and second centuries, Christianity gradually became the prevailing religion of Rome. The burden of how to respond to this new religion was placed upon the Roman government. Many kings or emperors of the Romans responded to Christianity in a different fashion. Over this large amount of time Christianity fought its way into the hearts and souls of the Roman people. "

Tags:Christ, Jew, Herod, Messiah, Temple, conversion

Abstract
This paper describes the dilemmas which faced the Viennese composer as a modern, assimilated Jew. It then examines the image of Moses that Arnold Schoenberg created in his works on that theme. Specifically, the paper discusses how Schoenberg's Moses differs from the traditional or historical one and what can we conclude about the composer's Jewish identity on the basis of this comparison. Further, the paper discusses how this was Schoenberg's response to the Viennese public's racism and rejection with which he was confronted.

Table of Contents:
Introduction
Dilemmas Faced By Arnold Schoenberg
Religious Works
Conclusion

From the Paper
"These are questions which remained unanswered and could not be resolved by Schoenberg. What he did accomplish in this major grand testament, was to use the Bible to speak relevant lessons to his generation. The conflicts of the Torah are internalized and spiritualized. The mob takes on the role which the naive masses of uncomprehending Jews played in his world in Vienna, especially those who believed their future in Vienna to be secure. The mob opted for the tangible, yet fleeting, pleasures of Aaron over the sublime, yet intangible, ones that God offered to them through Moses. Similarly, the Jews in Vienna chose to believe in the efficacy of assimilation and a self-abnegation until, in many cases, it was too late."

Tags:anti-semitism, symbolism, composer, identity

Abstract
The paper provides a detailed assessment of the Arab/Israeli conflict and its influence on tension between the Islamic world and the West. The paper examines a number of religious factors and issues such as the status of Jerusalem and its importance in Islamic tradition which, it contends, is the primary reason for Muslim antipathy towards Israel. According to the paper, it is the West's consistent support of Israeli that has ultimately caused the resurgence of anti western sentiment in the Arab Muslim world and terrorism.

From the Paper
"The historical relationship between the Muslim world and the West has often been one of enmity and distrust. Moreover, in recent years the divisions have appeared to become more protracted and divisive. In definitional terms it is sometimes problematic to use ambiguous terms like Muslim and Western 'Worlds'. However, it is nonetheless important to note that that the history of relations between the two has invariably been characterised by "continuing and deeply conflictual relations between Islam and Christianity".
"This historical tendency towards disagreement and division has manifested itself in a number of ways. Central among these is the ongoing conflict between Israel and her Arab neighbours which since the establishment of the Israeli state in 1948 has come to personify the lasting nature of disagreement between Islam and the West. Moreover, although some academic authorities have attempted to play down its significance; it is certainly possible to see the manner in which religious motivation has often formed the foundation on which age old tensions rest. As such, any assessment of the modern conflict between Israel and the Arabs must ultimately be based on a religious foundation whilst simultaneously accounting for other factors."

Tags:islam, christianity, jerusalem, arab, prophets, religious

Abstract
This paper examines the historical background of the conflict in the Middle East between Palestine and Israel, and notes that while this conflict is promoted in the media as being a relatively ?new? phenomenon that it is actually another stage in an ongoing conflict between these two peoples. Factors that are addressed as contributing to this conflict are those of religion and politics. There is a strong slant towards the Palestinians being unjustly vilified in the media. There is a brief mention of Osama bin Laden and his involvement in the conflict.

From the Paper
"The recent hostilities between the Palestinian and the Israeli people is a negative note in what had seemed to be progress in ending the ongoing conflict between these separate people. Prior to the events of violence that were started once more in the spring of last year, the Palestinian and the Israeli people were apparently working towards a position of peace in the Middle East. However, this was not to be. The existing social tensions between the Palestinian and the Israeli people was too deeply rooted within their histories and cultures to provide a simple solution, which the negotiations that were prevalent at the time were attempting to achieve. "

Tags:accord, arab, arafat, bin, jerusalem, jew, laden, muslim, nations, osama, oslo, united

Abstract
This essay offers a nuanced historical account and explanation of why the Jewish dietary rule came to insist on the prohibition of the consumption of certain animals, while others were tolerated, with particular reference to the time when the rule came to be fleshed out. More specifically, the paper looks into the case of pigs or pork as an animal whose inclusion in the list of those unclean might strike as particularly odd to the modern reader. Given the similarities they had with oxen, sheep and goats as domesticated and herbivorous livestock, swine, it seems fair to say, had little reason to be excluded. But this short piece argues that their labelling as unclean had as much to do with the peculiar circumstances in which Leviticus and Deuteronomy were written as with the consistency of the religious doctrine based on an adherence to the tenet of separate spheres which pigs and other animals fell foul of.

Outline;
Introduction
Reasons for the Exclusion of Pig: Hygiene and Habit
Criticism of Hygiene and Habit Interpretation
Contextualising Dietary Law: Babylonic Exile and Anti-desert Mentality
Distinctive Categories and Aberrations
Conclusions

From the Paper
"That pork was unhygienic does not stand up to much scrutiny either. Criticising the hygienic rationale, Jean Soler for example, correctly makes the obvious point that the nomadic Hebrew tribes, who lived at the time when these rules were drawn up, did not possess sufficient medical knowledge to be able to pronounce the pig unclean based on the infectious dangers it posed to man. Even though it would be tempting to suppose that the kind of hot and arid climate in which the ancient Israelites lived was particularly hazardous for the transmission of diseases, the lack of even physicians to prepare for this possibility at that time points to the extent to which medical reasons could not plausibly be carted out to account for why pigs were expressly forbidden."

Tags:pork, unclean, unhygienic, Leviticus