Abstract
An old Jewish joke begins with a man marooned on a desert is-An land. After six months, he is spotted by a passing ship, and a group of sailors comes ashore to rescue him. He shows them around the island, pointing out his hut, his fireplace, and the pile of rocks that has served him for a synagogue. “After all,” he says, “God is everywhere, and even here I need a place to worship Him.” “That’s beautiful,” responds the captain, “but I notice that there’s an identical pile of rocks over there. What’s that one for?” “Oh, that,” responds the man. “That’s the synagogue I don’t go to.”
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Notes
In contrast to many Jewish communities, academics hold a relatively low profile in Jewish Copenhagen. There are relatively few of them, and not many play important roles in the MT. A number of Jewish intellectuals lamented the situation in interviews, with one describing Copenhagen as the most petit bourgeois Jewish community he had ever seen.
Hygge is a sense of coziness and security experienced in settings of intimacy and acceptance. It does not translate well into English, and American culture has no real equivalent of the concept.
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© 2003 Andrew Buckser
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Buckser, A. (2003). The Communal World. In: After the Rescue. Contemporary Anthropology of Religion. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403976864_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403976864_4
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-38695-6
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