Herzog College

This article examines the complex linguistic phenomenon of Hebrew–Yiddish diglossia within Hasidic homiletic literature, particularly focussing on sermons from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. While previous scholarship has emphasised Hebrew’s dominance in Hasidic written works, this study demonstrates how Yiddish has played a crucial role in preserving and transmitting Hasidic teachings. Through analysis of primary sources, three distinct models of Hebrew–Yiddish integration are identified: parallel texts in both languages within the same volume, limited Yiddish passages integrated within predominantly Hebrew texts, and a complete amalgamation where the languages become nearly inseparable. Analysis indicates that Hasidic authors and editors deliberately preserved Yiddish elements to maintain the authenticity of the tzaddik’s original oral teachings while adhering to Hebrew’s traditional status in religious literature. This linguistic practice elevated Eastern Yiddish’s cultural position concurrent with similar (but different) developments in Haskalah literature. Furthermore, the study demonstrates how Hasidic literature’s incorporation of spoken Yiddish into sacred texts contributed to the language’s legitimisation as a medium for religious discourse. This examination offers new perspectives on linguistic hierarchies in religious Jewish texts and illuminates how Hasidic literature developed innovative solutions to balance authenticity and tradition in religious writing.

This article examines two key practices in shaping Holocaust remembrance: Educational trips to Poland for Israeli youth and Holocaust films. Both educational tour guides and cinematic directors face challenges in representing trauma, navigating between historical realism and fragmented, implicit representations that reflect the post-traumatic experience. By analyzing the methods employed by tour guides alongside a corpus of Holocaust films, we explore the balance between these two modes of representation. The application of cinematic categories to the context of educational trips allows for a nuanced discussion of emotional experiences during these journeys and offers insights into how participants can be effectively prepared for their emotional engagement. We argue that integrating objective historical facts with measured exposure to the trauma’s intensity fosters a productive emotional and cognitive stance, which is crucial for ethical remembrance.

Visual features need to be temporally integrated to detect motion signals and solve the many ill-posed problems of vision. It has previously been shown that such integration occurs in windows of unconscious processing of up to 450 milliseconds. However, whether features are integrated should be governed by perceptually meaningful mechanisms. Here, we expand on previous findings suggesting that subjective perception and integration may be linked. Specifically, different observers were found to group elements differently and to exhibit corresponding feature integration behavior. If the former were to influence the latter, perception would appear to not only be the outcome of integration but to potentially also be part of it. To test any such linkages more systematically, we here examined the role of one of the key perceptual grouping cues, color similarity, in the Sequential Metacontrast Paradigm (SQM). In the SQM, participants are presented with two streams of lines that are expanding from the center outwards. If several lines in the attended motion stream are offset, offsets integrate unconsciously and mandatorily for periods of up to 450 milliseconds. Across three experiments, we presented lines of varied colors. Our results reveal that individuals who perceive differently colored lines as "popping out" from the motion stream do not exhibit mandatory integration but that individuals who perceive such lines as part of an integrated motion stream do show offset integration behavior across the entire stream. These results attest to the proposed linkage between subjective perception and integration behavior in the SQM.

La loi Guizot traitant de l’organisation de l’enseignement primaire et du contrôle de l’école insiste sur l’importance de l’instruction morale et religieuse dans les écoles de l’État. Or, si l’enseignement religieux dans les écoles catholiques et protestantes au 19e siècle a été largement traité dans l’historiographie contemporaine, il n’en est pas de même pour l’éducation juive à la même époque. Cette étude se propose de combler cette lacune en se concentrant sur l’instruction religieuse des juifs de France au 19e siècle, sur la base des différents manuels scolaires consacrés à cette matière.

ABSTRACT Background Children with specific learning disabilities (SLD) may experience distress and low self-esteem in their relationships. Aims This exploratory research explored (1) how art therapy contributes to understanding the experiences and relationships of children with SLD and (2) common themes these children express in art. Methods In this case-study, three Israeli children (11–13 years) with SLD attended three research sessions in their homes. They created four drawings symbolising daily life experiences and relationships with teachers, friends, family, and self. The Understand Me and My Surroundings tool was used in each session to prompt discussions of their art. Results During art therapy, participants nonverbally expressed perceived interactions, interpersonal relationships, and externalised feelings. They created art in silence and not always in the suggested order. Thematic analysis identified the main themes of trusting special education teachers, conflict between friendships and classroom type, parental support, and home (family) as support for self. Conclusions The participants’ perspectives on their relationships and themselves emphasise the importance of understanding the experiences of children with SLD. Teachers, parents, and clinicians who interact with these children should be aware of their feelings and support them in areas where they struggle (e.g. academically or socially). Implications for practice and future research Art therapy can help assess children throughout the school year to understand their experiences, such as bullying or social anxiety. However, further research is needed to draw more definitive conclusions about the experiences of children with SLD in inclusion classes. Plain-language summary Children with specific learning disabilities (SLD) may experience distress and low self-esteem in their relationships at school and home. This study looked at how art therapy helped three children aged 11 to 13 years who have SLD and their common experiences and found that it helped them express their emotions and feel better about themselves. Specifically, art therapy helped them depict their feelings, cope with their SLD, improve their relationships with teachers, friends, and parents, and increase their self-esteem. It is a way for parents, teachers, and mental health professionals to listen to and support children with SLD. However, more research is needed on the experiences of children with SLD in inclusion classrooms.

ABSTRACT Introduction Music-Oriented Parent Counseling (MOPC) is a clinical way to work with parents, using musical improvisations and listening. This study examined effects of MOPC on level of stress, quality of life perception and daily use of music by the parents of autistic children. Method Fourteen parents of young autistic children received either three MOPC sessions (n = 7) or ten MOPC sessions (n = 7), parallel to either music therapy (MT) or standard care for their children. Change in parental stress, parents’ perception on children’s and families’ quality of life and the daily use of music (routine and joint music activities) were measured with standardized assessments and parent interviews. Descriptive and inferential parametric statistics were conducted, as well as thematic analysis. Results We found little change and no significant effect on parental stress. Children’s quality of life showed improvement with but not without MT and a tendency towards a larger improvement with high-intensity than low-intensity MOPC. Family quality of life showed less change but a somewhat larger improvement in high-intensity than low-intensity MOPC. Routine music activities increased in high-intensity MOPC but decreased in low-intensity MOPC; joint music activities showed less change but a similar trend. Qualitative analysis of the interviews suggested that parents participating in high-intensity MOPC felt less stressed, perceived improved quality of life, and increased music use. Discussion Findings provide preliminary support for high-intensity MOPC to help parents of autistic children increase children’s and families’ quality of life and music use. More research is needed to confirm these findings.

The purpose of the present research was to examine the contribution of attachment orientations (anxiety, avoidance) to academic persistence among at-risk youth and non-at-risk youth and the potential mediating role of students’ perceptions of teacher’s emotional responsiveness. We conducted a cross-sectional survey, in which 411 adolescents (57.8% male) completed self-report questionnaires designed to evaluate anxious and avoidant attachment orientation, perception of teacher’s emotional responsiveness, and academic persistence. The findings indicate an association of attachment anxiety with lower academic persistence and perception of the teacher as less emotionally available. In the same vein, perceived teacher emotional responsiveness was associated with higher academic persistence. In addition, at-risk youth perceived their teachers as less emotionally available and displayed lower academic persistence than non-at-risk youth. Finally, the perception of the teacher’s emotional responsiveness mediated the relationship between avoidant attachment and academic persistence: students who scored higher on avoidant attachment perceived their teachers as less emotionally responsive, which, in turn, predicted lower academic persistence. In conclusion, the findings emphasize the importance of teacher responsiveness to students as a safe foundation that may affect academic and socioemotional functioning, especially among at-risk and educationally excluded youth. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.

Information about a moving object is usually poor at each retinotopic location because photoreceptor activation is short, noisy, and affected by shadows, reflections of other objects, and so on. Integration across the motion trajectory may yield a much better estimate about the objects’ features. Using the sequential metacontrast paradigm, we have shown previously that features, indeed, integrate along a motion trajectory in a long-lasting window of unconscious processing. In the sequential metacontrast paradigm, a percept of two diverging streams is elicited by the presentation of a central line followed by a sequence of flanking pairs of lines. When several lines are spatially offset, the offsets integrate mandatorily for several hundreds of milliseconds along the motion trajectory of the streams. We propose that, within these long-lasting windows, stimuli are first grouped based on Gestalt principles of grouping. These processes establish reference frames that are used to attribute features. Features are then integrated following their respective reference frame. Here using occlusion and bouncing effects, we show that indeed such grouping operations are in place. We found that features integrate only when the spatiotemporal integrity of the object is preserved. Moreover, when several moving objects are present, only features belonging to the same object integrate. Overall, our results show that feature integration is a deliberate strategy of the brain and long-lasting windows of processing can be seen as periods of sense making.

Deep neural networks (DNNs) have revolutionized computer science and are now widely used for neuroscientific research. A hot debate has ensued about the usefulness of DNNs as neuroscientific models of the human visual system; the debate centers on to what extent certain shortcomings of DNNs are real failures and to what extent they are redeemable. Here, we argue that the main problem is that we often do not understand which human functions need to be modeled and, thus, what counts as a falsification. Hence, not only is there a problem on the DNN side, but there is also one on the brain side (i.e., with the explanandum—the thing to be explained). For example, should DNNs reproduce illusions? We posit that we can make better use of DNNs by adopting an approach of comparative biology by focusing on the differences, rather than the similarities, between DNNs and humans to improve our understanding of visual information processing in general.