%0 Journal Article
%T Identity Under (Re)construction: The Jewish Community from Transylvania before and after the Second World War
%A Codruta Cuceu
%J Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies
%D 2008
%I Seminar for the Interdisciplinary Research of Religions and Ideologies
%X When talking about the identity of a certain community, we are inclined to appeal to essentialist, almost metaphysical notions. This often results in a unitary, deeply rooted and stable perception of the analyzed community. But this view is not always accurate enough, for it does not offer an account of a specific history. By offering a short history and a structural presentation of the Jewish community from Transylvania, before and shortly after the Second World War, our article¡¯s purpose is to overpass, by questioning, the shortcomings of an essentialist interpretation of the discussed community. Taking into account the long history of pogroms, applied anti-Semitism and persecutions on religious or ethnic grounds that took place along the 20th century, our work aims at depicting whether religion was and remained a major characteristic, i.e. an unique communal specificity in the re(creation) of Jewish identity in Transylvania, before and after the Second World War.
%K Jewish identity
%K Transylvanian Jewry
%K Second World War
%K ghetto
%K Neolog Judaism
%K Magyarization
%U http://jsri.ro/ojs/index.php/jsri/article/view/393