From the Editors

Matti Bunzl and Rachel Havrelock

Dear Colleagues,

We don't venture to provide any formal definition of anxiety or to try to qualify the half smile that passes many people's lips when they hear the term "Jewish anxiety." But we do wonder about the source of anxiety. Is it best understood as an internal cognitive or psychological state or as a response to external factors? Does the anxiety of an ethnic or cultural group manifest genetic inclination or is it the result of historical circumstances that produce a particular response? Hoping to have peaked your curiosity, but not anxiety, we present the Anxiety Issue.

This is our final issue as editors of Perspectives. We look back fondly on five years and ten issues, as well as forward to the continuation of the magazine under the editorship of Laura Lieber and Jonathan Hess. This year we launched online Perspectives with great excitement around connecting and expanding the community of Jewish Studies. We hope that the online version of AJS Perspectives will become an important part of your reading, referencing, and teaching lives. Articles and questionnaires from all of our past issues are on the website along with the featured artwork from the issues and information about the artists. We see the online and print editions of Perspectives as a valuable way to showcase some of the best work in Jewish Studies and disseminate it to the wider public. This production would be impossible without the many talents of managing editor, Karin Kugel, whom we thank for years of wonderful, collaborative work.

Without anxiety, we pass the project on to a great new team and look forward to watching it change and grow.

Matti Bunzl
Wien Museum, Vienna

Rachel Havrelock
University of Illinois at Chicago