Jews and Shoes »

Edna Nahshon is Associate Professor of Hebrew at the Jewish Theological Seminary and Senior Associate, Center of Hebrew and Jewish Studies, Oxford University.

Shoes are an integral part of Jewish material culture. Although they appear in some of the most foundational biblical stories, they are generally regarded as no more than lowly, albeit essential, accessories.

Jews and Shoes takes a fresh look at the makings and meanings of shoes, cobblers, and barefootedness in Jewish experience. The book shows how shoes convey theological, social, and economic concepts, and as such are intriguing subjects for inquiry within a wide range of cultural, artistic, and historic contexts.

The book's multidisciplinary approach encompasses a wide range of contributions from disciplines as diverse as fashion, visual culture, history, anthropology, Bible and Talmud, and performance studies. Jews and Shoes will appeal to students, scholars and general readers alike who are interested to find out more about the practical and symbolic significance of shoes in Jewish culture since antiquity.

Introduction: Jews and Shoes, Edna Nahshon
• Part 1: Religion and the Bible
• 1. The Biblical Shoe, Ora Prouser
• "... Put Off Thy Shoes From Off Thy Feet ..." * 2. The Halitzah Shoe, Catherine Heszer
• The Halitza Shoe: Between Female Subjugation and Symbolic Emasculation
• 3. The Tombstone Shoe, Rivka Parciack
• The Living within the Dead: Shoe-Shaped Tombstones at Jewish Cemeteries
• 4. The Israeli Shoe, Orna Ben-Meir
• 'Biblical Sandals' and Native Israeli Identity
• Part 2: Memories and Commemoration
• 5. The Shtetl Shoe, Mayer Kirshenblatt and Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett
• How to Make a Shoe
• 6. The Folkloristic Shoe, Robert A. Rothstein
• Shoes and Shoemakers in Yiddish Language and Folklore
• 7. The Holocaust Shoe, Jeffrey Feldman
• Untying Memory: Shoes as Holocaust Discourse
• Part 3: Ideology and Economics
• 8. The Cobbler's Shoe, Natalia Aleksiun
• Shoes, Poverty and National Minority: Shoemakers in the Discourse of Jewish Intellectuals in Interwar Poland
• 9. The Wanderer's Shoe, Shelly Zer-Zion * The Cobbler's Penalty: the Wandering Jew in Search for Salvation
• 10. The Equalizing Shoe, Ayala Raz
• On Shoes, Pioneers, and the Zionist Search for Equality
• Part 4: Theatre, Art and Film
• 11. The Fetishist's Shoe, Andrew Ingall * 'Poems of Pedal Atrocity': Sexuality, Ethnicity, and Religion in the Art and Literature of Bruno Schulz
• 12. The Artist's Shoe, Sonya Rapoport
• Digging Into the Jewish Roots of Shoe-Field
• 13. The Theatrical Shoe, Dorit Yerushalmi
• The Voice of Shoemaking: Cobblers on the Israeli Stage
• 14. The Cinematic Shoe, Jeanette Malkin
• Shoes and the City: Ernst Lubitsch and the Urban 'Jewish' Film