Judaism Books

Book SynopsisThis book deals comprehensively with different aspects of collective victimhood in contemporary Israel, but also with the wider implications of this important concept for many other societies, including the Palestinian one. The eight highly-diverse, scholarly chapters included in this volume offer analysis of the politics of victimhood (viewing it as increasingly dominant within contemporary Israel), assess victimhood as a focal point of the Jewish historical legacy, trace the evolution and changes of Zionist thought as it relates to a sense of national victimhood, study the possibility of the political transformation of victimhood through changing perceptions and policies by top Israeli leaders, focus on important events that have contributed to the evolvement of the victimhood discourse in Israel and beyond (e.g. the 1967 Six-Day and 1973 Yom Kippur wars in the Middle East), examine the politics and ideology of victimhood within the Palestinian national movement, and offer new ways oTrade ReviewThis is a fascinating collection of essays, and I can see it being a very effective way to generate student interest and classroom discussion, at both the undergraduate and graduate level. Ilan Peleg notes at the outset that “victimhood is a rather universal theme among human beings,” and arguments offered by the contributing scholars support this assertion. After a very effective opening chapter by Peleg that sets out the analytic framework of the volume, the contributors address a wide range of topics related to victimhood, including its relationship with Zionism, the way that Israeli prime ministers have dealt with the issue, how Holocaust memory was affected by the outcome of the 1967 War, and even victimhood in the Palestinian national identity, among other very interesting chapters. This is a well-written and well-organized book, and it will find its way into many classrooms and research projects. -- Gregory Mahler, Earlham CollegeNo understanding of the complexities of the Israeli society, or of the seemingly intractable conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, can be complete without an analysis of the deep sense of victimhood that is so pervasive among the citizens of the state. Peleg put together a set of unusually informed and well written chapters analyzing the various dimensions of this emotion, and the result is a compelling text that is essential for the understanding of Israel and the region in general. The introductory chapter provides a valuable tool for the understanding of victimhood in conflicts among nations. -- Jonathan Mendilow, Rider UniversityThis important and highly informative interdisciplinary collection brings together some of the foremost scholars on what has long been a central feature of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - the “politics of victimhood”. Shedding new light on this complex and multifaceted phenomenon, the editors and the contributors have accomplished an exceptional feat, demonstrating how the interaction between historical, ideological, psychological, and environmental factors have engendered a highly entrenched sense of victimhood that feeds into the intractability of the conflict. The essays in this book will be a highly valuable addition to many course syllabi on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. -- Oded Haklai, Queen’s UniversityThis important book surveys the psychological and political ramifications of victimhood. While it focuses primarily on the Israeli and Palestinian conflicts, it provides a general theory of how victimhood affects the national consciousness and international images of any given population and their visions of history and memory. Its essays detail the ways in which victimhood is used politically and ultimately, how individuals may transform to get beyond such narratives. These profound insights not only apply to the Middle East, but to numerous other political narratives that dominate other areas of the world. As such, this is a valuable contribution to the general analysis of comparative politics and international studies -- Frank Louis Rusciano, Rider UniversityTable of Contents1.Introduction—Hegemonic Victimhood Discourse in Contemporary Israel and Beyond: A Conceptual Introduction and an Analytical Framework 2.The Politics of Victimhood: A Vision of an Apocalypse 3.Zionism and Victimization: From Rejection to Acceptance 4.Israeli Prime Ministers: Transforming the Victimhood Discourse 5.Embracing Victimhood: How 1967 Transformed Holocaust Memory and Jewish Identity in Israel and the United States 6.Historical Victimhood and the Israeli Collective Consciousness: Incongruous Legacies 7.The Politics of Victimhood in the Palestinian National Identity 8.Transforming Victimhood: From Competitive Victimhood to Sharing Superordinate Identity 9.Moving Beyond the Victim-Victimizer Dichotomy: Reflecting on Palestinian-Israeli Dialogue

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Book SynopsisThis book deals comprehensively with different aspects of collective victimhood in contemporary Israel, but also with the wider implications of this important concept for many other societies, including the Palestinian one. The eight highly-diverse, scholarly chapters included in this volume offer analysis of the politics of victimhood (viewing it as increasingly dominant within contemporary Israel), assess victimhood as a focal point of the Jewish historical legacy, trace the evolution and changes of Zionist thought as it relates to a sense of national victimhood, study the possibility of the political transformation of victimhood through changing perceptions and policies by top Israeli leaders, focus on important events that have contributed to the evolvement of the victimhood discourse in Israel and beyond (e.g. the 1967 Six-Day and 1973 Yom Kippur wars in the Middle East), examine the politics and ideology of victimhood within the Palestinian national movement, and offer new ways oTrade ReviewThe idea of collective victimhood exists in many cultures, but the idea has made a particularly strong impression on Israeli politics. These studies take a close look at how victimhood has (or has not) impacted the history of Zionism and the rhetoric of various Israeli prime ministers both internally and externally. There are also crucial ramifications connected with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the treatment of refugees. Highly recommended for academic collections. * AJL Newsletter *Victimhood Discourse in Contemporary Israel offers a rich interdisciplinary analysis of a critical obstacle to progress in settling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It will be valuable to students and scholars of IsraelStudies, as well as those of other societies trapped in a conflict so generously fueled by victimhood narratives. * Israel Studies Review *This is a fascinating collection of essays, and I can see it being a very effective way to generate student interest and classroom discussion, at both the undergraduate and graduate level. Ilan Peleg notes at the outset that “victimhood is a rather universal theme among human beings,” and arguments offered by the contributing scholars support this assertion. After a very effective opening chapter by Peleg that sets out the analytic framework of the volume, the contributors address a wide range of topics related to victimhood, including its relationship with Zionism, the way that Israeli prime ministers have dealt with the issue, how Holocaust memory was affected by the outcome of the 1967 War, and even victimhood in the Palestinian national identity, among other very interesting chapters. This is a well-written and well-organized book, and it will find its way into many classrooms and research projects. -- Gregory Mahler, Earlham CollegeNo understanding of the complexities of the Israeli society, or of the seemingly intractable conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, can be complete without an analysis of the deep sense of victimhood that is so pervasive among the citizens of the state. Peleg put together a set of unusually informed and well written chapters analyzing the various dimensions of this emotion, and the result is a compelling text that is essential for the understanding of Israel and the region in general. The introductory chapter provides a valuable tool for the understanding of victimhood in conflicts among nations. -- Jonathan Mendilow, Rider UniversityThis important and highly informative interdisciplinary collection brings together some of the foremost scholars on what has long been a central feature of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - the “politics of victimhood”. Shedding new light on this complex and multifaceted phenomenon, the editors and the contributors have accomplished an exceptional feat, demonstrating how the interaction between historical, ideological, psychological, and environmental factors have engendered a highly entrenched sense of victimhood that feeds into the intractability of the conflict. The essays in this book will be a highly valuable addition to many course syllabi on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. -- Oded Haklai, Queen’s UniversityThis important book surveys the psychological and political ramifications of victimhood. While it focuses primarily on the Israeli and Palestinian conflicts, it provides a general theory of how victimhood affects the national consciousness and international images of any given population and their visions of history and memory. Its essays detail the ways in which victimhood is used politically and ultimately, how individuals may transform to get beyond such narratives. These profound insights not only apply to the Middle East, but to numerous other political narratives that dominate other areas of the world. As such, this is a valuable contribution to the general analysis of comparative politics and international studies -- Frank Louis Rusciano, Rider UniversityTable of Contents1.Introduction—Hegemonic Victimhood Discourse in Contemporary Israel and Beyond: A Conceptual Introduction and an Analytical Framework2.The Politics of Victimhood: A Vision of an Apocalypse3.Zionism and Victimization: From Rejection to Acceptance4.Israeli Prime Ministers: Transforming the Victimhood Discourse5.Embracing Victimhood: How 1967 Transformed Holocaust Memory and Jewish Identity in Israel and the United States6.Historical Victimhood and the Israeli Collective Consciousness: Incongruous Legacies7.The Politics of Victimhood in the Palestinian National Identity8.Transforming Victimhood: From Competitive Victimhood to Sharing Superordinate Identity9.Moving Beyond the Victim-Victimizer Dichotomy: Reflecting on Palestinian-Israeli Dialogue

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Book SynopsisCreation and Contingency in Early Patristic Thought: The Beginning of All Things explores the interface between philosophy and theology in the development of the seminal Christian doctrine of creation ex nihilo. While its main focus lies in an analysis of first to third century patristic accounts of creation, it is likewise attuned to their parallelism with Middle Platonic commentaries on Plato's theory of cosmological origins in the Timaeus. Just as Christian thinkers sounded out the theological implications of Gn 1:1-2, the successors to Plato's Academy debated the significance of his teaching (Tim. 28b) that the world came to be. The fact that both Genesis and the Timaeus address the beginning of all things served as a means of bridging the conceptual gap between the Greek philosophical tradition and a Christian perspective rooted in scriptural teaching. Plato's Timaeus and the doxographies it inspired thus provided early Fathers of the Church with the dialecticalTrade ReviewThis superbly-written work fills a void when examining the cosmogonies of the 2nd and 3rd centuries. Instead of tracing the rarely-used expression 'ex nihilo,' Torchia's focusing in on the metaphysical concept of 'contingency' is brilliant, showing how Athens and Jerusalem stressed the unquestioned omnipotence of the divine and the obvious mutability of matter in different ways. -- David Meconi, SJ Director, The Catholic Studies Centre, Saint Louis UniversityWhat do the earliest Greek patristic readings of the opening verses of Genesis have to do with Plato's Timaeus? For the answer, I highly recommend Torchia's excellent account. -- Andrew Hofer, O.P., Dominican House of StudiesJoseph Torchia has given us a careful and thought-provoking study of the development of the Christian doctrine of creation ex nihilo. Beginning with an examination of the doctrine of creation in Scripture, where a metaphysical dimension of creation from non-being is discernable only inchoately, Torchia traces the emergence of an explicitly metaphysical doctrine within the early Church. Through dialogue with and assimilation of the Greek philosophical traditions (viz. Plato and the Middle Platonists) patristic thinkers ultimately articulated the idea that God’s role as Creator involves fundamentally an existential creation from non-being. Such a development paved the way for new and more sophisticated theological and metaphysical questions to be asked within the Christian Tradition.Fr. Torchia’s study will be helpful and particularly illuminating for graduate students and anyone who is interested in questions regarding the development of doctrine, the relationship between Hellenistic philosophy and Christian thought, faith and reason in the Christian Tradition, and patristic metaphysics of creation (protology). -- Ron Rombs, University of DallasTable of ContentsPrefaceIntroductionPart I: In the Beginning: Scriptural and Platonic Perspectives Chapter 1: A Scriptural Point of DepartureChapter 2: Plato on Cosmological OriginsChapter 3: Middle Platonic Responses Part II: The Shape of Things to ComeChapter 4: The Creation Account of Philo JudaeusChapter 5: Creation and Cosmos in the Apostolic FathersPart III: Forging the Doctrine Chapter 6: The Christian Platonism of Justin MartyrChapter 7: The Christian Philosophy of Athenagoras of Athens Chapter 8: Tatian of Syria: The ‘Stages’ of CreationChapter 9: Theophilus of Antioch: At the ThresholdChapter 10: The Alexandrian School Epilogue: Creation as ‘Beginning’BibliographyIndexAbout the Author

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Book SynopsisIn the last three decades, hundreds of books and essays have been published on women, gender, and Jewish Studies. This burgeoning scholarship has not been adequately theorized, contextualized, or historicized. This book argues that Jewish feminist studies is currently constrained by multiple frames of reference that require re-examination, a self-critical awareness, and a serious reflective inquiry into the models, paradigms, and assumptions that inform, shape, and define this area of academic interest. This book is the first critical analysis of Jewish feminist scholarship, tracing it from its tentative beginnings in the late 1970s to contemporary academic articulations of its disciplinary projects. It focuses on the assumptions, evasions, omissions, inconsistencies, and gaps in this scholarship, and notably the absence of debate, contestation, and interrogation of authoritative articulations of its presumed goals, investments, and priorities. The book teases out implicit thinking aboTrade ReviewIn her new brilliant book, Esther Fuchs once again demonstrates that she is a dazzling intellect and a courageous thinker. Her critique of current modes of feminist theorizing in Jewish studies is extraordinary, and her rigorous mind demands that we think in more complex ways. Fuchs is a fearless trailblazer, exposing outmoded ways of thinking in order to lead us to more sophisticated and insightful feminist theorizing. -- Susannah Heschel, Dartmouth CollegeJewish Feminism: Framed and Reframed makes an important contribution to the literature. -- Marla Brettschneider, University of New HampshireTable of ContentsPrologue Introduction: Jewish Feminism Framed 1. Jewish Feminist Scholarship: The Liberal Frame 2. Jewish Feminist Theory: The Personal Frame 3. The New Jewish Studies: The Masculinist Frame 4. Women and Holocaust Studies: The Essentialist Frame Bibliography

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Book SynopsisIn the last three decades, hundreds of books and essays have been published on women, gender, and Jewish Studies. This burgeoning scholarship has not been adequately theorized, contextualized, or historicized. This book argues that Jewish feminist studies is currently constrained by multiple frames of reference that require re-examination, a self-critical awareness, and a serious reflective inquiry into the models, paradigms, and assumptions that inform, shape, and define this area of academic interest. This book is the first critical analysis of Jewish feminist scholarship, tracing it from its tentative beginnings in the late 1970s to contemporary academic articulations of its disciplinary projects. It focuses on the assumptions, evasions, omissions, inconsistencies, and gaps in this scholarship, and notably the absence of debate, contestation, and interrogation of authoritative articulations of its presumed goals, investments, and priorities. The book teases out implicit thinking aboTrade ReviewIn her new brilliant book, Esther Fuchs once again demonstrates that she is a dazzling intellect and a courageous thinker. Her critique of current modes of feminist theorizing in Jewish studies is extraordinary, and her rigorous mind demands that we think in more complex ways. Fuchs is a fearless trailblazer, exposing outmoded ways of thinking in order to lead us to more sophisticated and insightful feminist theorizing. -- Susannah Heschel, Dartmouth CollegeJewish Feminism: Framed and Reframed makes an important contribution to the literature. -- Marla Brettschneider, University of New HampshireTable of ContentsPrologueIntroduction: Jewish Feminism Framed1. Jewish Feminist Scholarship: The Liberal Frame2. Jewish Feminist Theory: The Personal Frame3. The New Jewish Studies: The Masculinist Frame4. Women and Holocaust Studies: The Essentialist FrameBibliography

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Book SynopsisMenasseh ben Israel (16041657) was one of the best-known rabbis in early modern Europe. In the course of his life he became an important Jewish interlocutor for Christian scholars interested in Hebrew studies and negotiated with Oliver Cromwell and Parliament the return of the Jews to England. Born to a family of former conversos, Menasseh was versed in Christian theology and astutely used this knowledge to adapt the content and tone of his publications to the interests and needs of his Christian readers. Judaism for Christians: Menasseh Ben Israel (16041657) is the first extensive study to systematically focus on key titles in Menasseh's Latin works and discuss the success and failure of his strategies of translation in the larger context of early modern Christian Hebraism. Rauschenbach also examines the mistranslation of his books by Christian scholars, who were not yet ready to share Menasseh's vision of an Abrahamic theology and of a republic of letters whose members were not diviTrade ReviewThis is an illuminating study of an important but all-too-often overlooked early modern rabbi and his contribution to Jewish intellectual history. A superb work of scholarship and valuable and welcome addition to the literature. -- Steven Nadler, University of Wisconsin-MadisonJudaism for Christians: Menasseh Ben Israel (1604–1657) is a particularly good book. It offers an excellent exploration of the career and writings of one of the most fascinating figures in the Jewish world in the early modern era. It places Ben Israel’s agenda and deeds within the larger picture of Jewish attempts to improve their relationships and build better channels of communications with the Christian Protestant world. Sina Rauschenbach should be commended for the breadth and depth of her writing. -- Yaakov Ariel, The University of North Carolina at Chapel HillTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction 1.Two Worlds, Two Traditions: Christian Hebraists and Amsterdam Sephardim 2.Menasseh Enters the Christian Public Sphere: From the First Years in Portugal to the Publication of the Latin Conciliator 3.Approaches to an Abrahamic Theology: Menasseh’s Books on Creation and Resurrection 4.Jewish Contributions to Christian Debates: De Termino Vitae Libri III and the Treatise on Human Frailty 5.Jewish Debates on Christian Millenarianism: Menasseh’s Esperança de Israel and Spes Israelis 6.The Resettlement of Jews in England: The Humble Addresses and Vindiciae Judaeorum 7.Jewish Reactions: Menasseh ben Israel and the Sephardic Jews of Amsterdam 8.Menasseh ben Israel: Mediating and Protecting Jewish Knowledge Bibliography Index About the Author

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Book SynopsisUsing the Hebrew Book of Josippon as a prism, this study analyzes the dialogue surrounding Jewish history among Renaissance humanists. Notwithstanding its focus on the Renaissance, the author's analysis extends to the consumption of Josippon in the High Middle Ages and into interpretations by sixteenth- and seventeenth-century humanists. With a focus on both Christian and Jewish discourse, the author examines the mythical and historical narratives that developed from Josippon.Table of ContentsChapter 1: Josippon: A Source of General History and Role Models for Medieval JewsChapter 2: The Christian Reception of Sefer Josippon in the Middle AgesChapter 3: Josippon as a Source for Founding Myths: A Jewish Version of Renaissance ForgeriesChapter 4: The Book of Josippon in the Renaissance: Christian Hebraists and Religious PolemicChapter 5: The Book of Josippon in the Renaissance: Jewish Historiography and Religious PolemicChapter 6: Fifteenth-Century Vernacular Translations of the Book of JosipponChapter 7: Demolishing the Myth: The Book of Josippon under Humanistic Scrutiny

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Book SynopsisThis book is about what makes food Jewish, or better, who and how one makes food Jewish. Making food Jewish is to negotiate between the local, regional, and now global foods available to eat and the portable Jewish taste preferences Jews have inherited from their sacred texts and calendars. What makes Jewish food Jewish, and what makes Jewish eating practices continually viable and meaningful are not fixed dietary rules and norms, but rather culinary interpretations and adaptations of them to new times and places culinary midrash. Jewish cuisine is a fusion of interactions, a reflection of displacement, and intentional positioning and re-positioning vis a vis sacred texts, old and new lands, Jewish and non-Jewish neighbors, old and new family combinations, re-imaginings of our personal ethnic, gender, and other identities. Jonathan Brumberg-Kraus questions Jewish identity in particular, and identity generally as something fixed, stable, and singular, and unintentional. Jewish food choTrade ReviewAn affable and spirited tour d'horizon of the Jewish culinary landscape, Jonathan Brumberg-Kraus's book enhances our understanding of the complex and often fraught relationship between culture and cuisine. Drawing on a wide range of sources, from rabbinic commentaries to contemporary cookbooks and personal anecdote, it reminds earnest foodies and casual eaters alike why food matters. -- Jenna Weissman Joselit, author of Set in Stone: America's Embrace of the Ten CommandmentsTable of ContentsPart One: Setting the Table Introduction: Gastronomic Judaism as Vernacular Religion Part Two: Jewish Preferences for Everyday Foods Chapter 1: Meat Chapter 2: Bread Chapter 3: Vegetables and Fruit Part Three: Jewish Preferences for Exceptional Holiday Foods Chapter 4: A Taste for the Bittersweet: Charoset and the Hillel Sandwich Chapter 5: Jews Like it Hot: Cholent /Hamin Part Four: What Makes These Foods Jewish? Chapter 6: When and Where? Holidays, Home, and the Diaspora Season Our Joy Chapter 7: Who Says? Kosher, Kosher Style, and Cookbooks Chapter 8: Treif and Transgressive Jewish Eating Chapter 9: Mitzvot of the Mouth: Eating and Reading, Eating and Talking About It Chapter 10: Jewish Flavor Principles and Culinary Midrash Chapter 11: Jewish Flavor Principles

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Book SynopsisThis book describes the taste preferences and practices of gastronomic Judaism from ancient to contemporary times. Not merely fixed dietary rules and norms, but rather culinary interpretations and adaptations of them to new times and places makes food “Jewish” and makes Jewish eating practices continually viable and meaningful.Table of ContentsPart One: Setting the TableIntroduction: Gastronomic Judaism as Vernacular ReligionPart Two: Jewish Preferences for Everyday Foods Chapter 1: MeatChapter 2: BreadChapter 3: Vegetables and FruitPart Three: Jewish Preferences for Exceptional Holiday FoodsChapter 4: A Taste for the Bittersweet: Charoset and the Hillel SandwichChapter 5: Jews Like it Hot: Cholent /HaminPart Four: What Makes These Foods Jewish?Chapter 6: When and Where? Holidays, Home, and the Diaspora Season Our JoyChapter 7: Who Says? Kosher, Kosher Style, and CookbooksChapter 8: Treif and Transgressive Jewish EatingChapter 9: Mitzvot of the Mouth: Eating and Reading, Eating and Talking About ItChapter 10: Jewish Flavor Principles and Culinary MidrashChapter 11: Jewish Flavor Principles

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Book SynopsisThis is a book about women in survival communities and the ways that survival and theology are used to shut down women''s voices. Mariam Youssef examines the ways in which the condition of survival puts religious women in a bind by embedding paradigms into theology that, more often than not, reinforce women''s subordination as a condition of survival. Women in survival communities are not only grappling with the existential threat that comes with their survival identities but also struggling to make their voices heard within their own communities where their needs are frequently put on the back burner. Survival communities often find themselves responding to their trauma in ways that prescribe strict patriarchal norms, promoting notions of gender binary and compulsory heterosexuality.Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Chapter 1: Contextualizing Survival Chapter 2: The Promised Land: Gender and Black Liberation Theology Chapter 3: Continuity and the Hidden God: Gender and Jewish Holocaust Theology Chapter 4: The Church of the Martyrs and the Second Sex: Gender and Diasporic Coptic Theology Chapter 5: What Now? Present and Future Trajectories of Survival Bibliography About the Author

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Book SynopsisHistorical Continuity in the Emergence of Modern Hebrew offers a new perspective on the emergence processes of Modern Hebrew and its relationship to earlier forms of Hebrew. Based on a textual examination of select case studies of language use throughout the modernization of Hebrew, this book shows that due to the unconventional sociolinguistic circumstances in the budding speech community, linguistic processes did not necessarily evolve in a linear manner, blurring the distinction between true and apparent historical continuity. The emergent language's standardization involved the restructuring of linguistic habits that had initially taken root among the first speakers, often leading to a retreat from early contact-induced or non-classical phenomena. Yael Reshef demonstrates that as a result, superficial similarity to earlier forms of Hebrew did not necessarily stem from continuity, and deviation from canonical Hebrew features does not necessarily stem from change.Trade ReviewThis carefully researched, well-documented, and richly illustrated volume adds new and important insights into the puzzling question of the relationship between Modern Hebrew and its classical forebears (Biblical, Rabbinical, and Medieval) as representing change and/or continuity. The book will be of interest to Hebraists, general and Semitic linguists, and typologists, and its contents are accessible both to established scholars and to beginning students in these domains. -- Ruth A. Berman, Tel Aviv UniversityIn the detailed and theoretically-informed empirical studies that make up this book, Yael Reshef takes us beyond the myths, presuppositions, and speculations that characterize most discussions of the emergence of Modern Hebrew. Reshef uncovers how the particular history of Modern Hebrew and its diverse speakers led to surprising, non-linear, and hitherto invisible processes that shaped the language. It will fascinate anyone interested in Hebrew or in language variation and change -- and it made me completely rethink my conceptions of continuity and change in language. -- Eitan Grossman, Hebrew University of JerusalemThis volume provides a clear and concise overview of the issue of historical continuity as a factor in the emergence of Modern Hebrew. It makes an important contribution to scholarship in its examination of the question of superficial vs. actual continuity between earlier Hebrew sources and the nascent modern language. The work will be of great use to scholars and students seeking to understand the early development of contemporary Hebrew. -- Lily Kahn, University College LondonTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Chapter 1: History, Culture, and the Speech Community Chapter 2: Emergent Modern Hebrew as a Distinct Linguistic Phase Chapter 3: The Role of Inherited Non-Classical Elements in the Emergence of a Colloquial Register Chapter 4: The Rise and Fall of Honorifics Chapter 5: Adjective Grading – The Formation of a Paradigm Chapter 6: The Standardization of Action Nouns Chapter 7: True and Apparent Continuity in the Genesis of Modern Hebrew Bibliography

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Book SynopsisThis groundbreaking neo-Maimonidean work establishes, on independently philosophical grounds, the intellectual warrant of Jewish religious thinking as devotional intelligence. It demonstrates the purchase and intellectual authority of such thinking by appeal to two dialectically interrelated principles: on the one hand, the metaphysical principle that knowing is of being; and, on the other, sacral attunement, a normative principle. Part I distinguishes this study from leading work in contemporary philosophy of Judaism. It introduces the game-changing bid to privilege intelligence in the onto-epistemological Aristotelian sense, over epistemologically orchestrated, post-Enlightenment reason when it comes to assessing the intellectual soundness of religious thinking. Part II distills contemporary elements of Aristotle's onto-epistemological psychology of intelligence that Maimonides incorporated in his philosophy of Jewish religious thinking. Further, it finds in Hegel a bridge between MTrade ReviewPhillip Stambovsky’s neo-Maimonidean book is an intriguing and original attempt to rethink the notions of intelligence and the intelligible within the context of continental philosophy of religion. -- Yitzhak Y. Melamed, Professor of Philosophy, Charlotte Bloomberg Chair in the Humanities, Johns Hopkins UniversityTable of ContentsPreface Introduction Part I Jewish Philosophy and the Idea of a Philosophical Science of Devotional Intelligence Chapter 1 Philosophy of Judaism and the Idea of a “Science of Knowing” Dedicated to Jewish Religious Thinking Chapter 2 Devotional Intelligence as the Focus of an Essay in the Science of Knowing Part II Intelligence and Maimonidean Religious Thinking: That Knowing is of Being Chapter 3 Maimonides, Intelligence and Judgment in Religious Thinking Chapter 4 Intelligence in Maimonides’ Ontotheology and in Aristotle’s De anima: Tracing and Retrieving the Onto-Epistemological Core of Devotional Intelligence Chapter 5 G. W. F. Hegel’s Psychology of Intelligence as a Resource for a Modern Maimonidean Appendix I: Hegel’s Conception of Intuition and Devotional Judgment Appendix II: Prophetic Intuition Part III Devotion as Sacral Attunement: Meaning and the Factor of the Transcendent Chapter 6 Fundamental Attunement, the Religious Act, and the Onto-Epistemology of the Sacred Chapter 7 The Shared Warrant of Sacrally Attuned and Scientific Judgment: Meaning and the Factor of the Transcendent Part IV Application and Amplifications: The Intellectual Warrant of Religious Thinking of the Divine Names Chapter 8 Jewish Religious Thinking that Identifies the Attributive Divine Names with the Tetragrammaton Conclusion Bibliography Index About the Author

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Book SynopsisThe Animal in the Synagogue explores Franz Kafka's sense of being a Jew in the modern world and its literary and linguistic ramifications. It falls into two parts. The first is organized around the theme of Kafka's complex and often self-derogatory understanding and assessment of his own Jewishness and of the place the modern Jew occupies in the abyss of the world (Martin Buber). That part is based on a close reading of Kafka's correspondence with his Czech lover, Milena Jesenska, and on a meticulous analysis, thematic, stylistic, and structural, of Kafka's only short story touching openly and directly upon Jewish social and ritual issues, and known as In Our Synagogue (the titlenot by the author). In both the letters and the short story images of small animalsrepulsive, dirty, or otherwise objectionableare used by Kafka as means of exploring his own manhood and the Jewish tradition at large as he understood it.The second part of the book focuses on Kafka's placTrade ReviewThis excellent book offers a bright discussion of Kafka's being-Jewish, revealing the complexities of his life and letters as a German-Jewish author—dealing with "Kafka's impossibilities", illuminating the poetical and political aspects of his animal-writings, engaging so well his wit and darkness. -- Galili Shahar, Tel Aviv UniversityThere is no dispute that Dan Miron is the most important scholar and critic of the 20th and the 21st century of Jewish literature as it materializes in Hebrew, Yiddish and German. From a bird’s view at the richness, the wisdom and the brilliance of his scholarship his new book, The Animal in the Synagogue: Franz Kafka's Jewishness, shines as the pinnacle of a scholarly project, the pillars of which Miron planted dozens of years ago. His courage and his scholarly greatness can be defined by his critique of the axiom that Jewish literature should be judged against the Zionist achievement of the establishment of Jewish sovereignty based on national territorialization. True to his personal and political pact with Modern Jewish literature, the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish nation was an option that as a Zionist he tied his life with. But his obligation to Jewish literature, in Hebrew and in other tongues, is clear-eyed and never blurs his rigorous stance as a philologist and as a historian. Well-versed in each and every detail of the vast spaces of Jewish literatures he turns now to tackle the Jewishness of Kafka’s oeuvre as part of the enormous variety and the richness of Jewish literatures while resisting their reduction. Thus, in a brilliant discussion of the Modern Jewish literary context, he studies the way in which literature expresses Kafka’s Jewishness. -- Hannan Hever, Yale UniversityDan Miron combines huge erudition with interpretive courage that reminds what humanist interpretation should be about. Miron provides us with a deep, insightful, and inspiring reading of Kafka. Miron takes the reader on a courageous and convoluted literary and philosophical journey. A significant, imaginative, unique and bewildering journey, in which a Jewish version of the Nietzschean image of “dancing upon the abyss” is performed perfectly both by Miron and his hero. -- Shoshana Ronen, University of WarsawTable of ContentsTranslator’s IntroductionFirst Part: Forest-AnimalChapter 1Chapter 2Chapter 3Chapter 4Chapter 5Chapter 6Chapter 7Chapter 8Chapter 9Chapter 10Second Part: The Three ImpossibilitiesChapter 11Chapter 12Chapter 13Chapter 14Chapter 15Works Cited About the Author

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Book SynopsisThe Arc of the Covenant studies the social, cultural, and political factors that contributed to exceptional Jewish educational success in St. Paul, Minnesota in the latter half of the twentieth century. The book draws on archival sources, interviews with principal figures, and wide-ranging research on Jewish education and community dynamics to elucidate the story's intriguing improbabilities. Why such success in a midsize, midcentury, midwestern river town with a relatively small Jewish population of limited resources? How did it happen, and how have circumstances changed in recent years? The answers are to be found at the intersection of broad historical forces and local circumstances. Though focused on a particular place and time, the implications reach far beyond St. Paul, then and now, making Arc of the Covenant a timely resource for current Jewish educational planners, along with educators in other communities dedicated to the transmission of a sacred heritage.Trade ReviewWith thorough, solid research that is written in a lively and passionate style, Earl Schwartz has produced a timely study and prescription for Jewish Education that rabbis, community leaders, and parents must not ignore. -- Jonathan Paradise, Professor Emeritus, Classical and Near Eastern Studies, University of MinnesotaTable of ContentsList of Figures Preface Introduction Part One Chapter I: How far is it from the banks of the Jordan to the banks of the Mississippi? Chapter II: The Last Quarter of the Twentieth Century Chapter III: At the Beginning of the Twenty-First Century Chapter IV: The St. Paul Jewish Community Planning Process. Part Two Chapter V: Hindsight and Foresight Chapter VI: Current Circumstances and Future Prospects Chapter VII: The Arc, and the Ark Appendix I: A Communal Curriculum for These Times Appendix II: St. Paul Communal Jewish High School Education Initiative Brit Bibliography Index About the Author

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Book SynopsisRabbi on the Ganges: A Jewish-Hindu Encounter is the first work to engage the new terrain of Hindu-Jewish religious encounter.The book offers understanding into points of contact between the two religions of Hinduism and Judaism. Providing an important comparative account, the work illuminates key ideas and practices within the traditions, surfacing commonalities between the jnana and Torah study, karmakanda and Jewish ritual, and between the different Hindu philosophic schools and Jewish thought and mysticism, along with meditation and the life of prayer and Kabbalah and creating dialogue around ritual, mediation, worship, and dietary restrictions. The goal of the book is not only to unfold the content of these faith traditions but also to create a religious encounter marked by mutual and reciprocal understanding and openness.Trade ReviewBrill’s serious, respectful treatment of the Jewish-Hindu encounter in Rabbi on the Ganges provides much needed breathing room for Jewish lay readers to think about Hinduism with a respected Modern Orthodox Jewish writer who clearly cherishes his experience. . . . Brill approaches Hinduism with an appreciative eye, looking not to debunk, but to find riches. . . The riches in Rabbi on the Ganges are many, and the text also points to places for further, important developments for Jewish readers interested in Hinduism. . . . We can only speculate what the world Judaism of today would like if the majority of the Jewish diaspora had settled in Southeast Asia, or in India in particular. It is a tantalizing thought experiment, through which Brill would be a most enjoyable guide. * Journal of Interreligious Studies *This work is the best comparative analysis ever of Jewish and Hindu philosophy and religious thought. Brill knows his Jewish sources impeccably, and with skilled observations of daily life and engaging dialogues with Hindu thinkers and texts, we accompany him on his journey. This is a groundbreaking dialogue, and through Brill’s appreciative eyes Hindus and Jews will come to understand both the other and themselves in a new way. It has my highest recommendation. -- Nathan Katz, Distinguished Professor, Emeritus, Florida International UniversityThe late Swami Dayananda Saraswati declared Hinduism and Judaism to be the two fountainheads of Religion in our world—the one of the Abrahamic traditions and the other of the Dharmic religions. Yet for the most part in the course of history, the two have remained foreign to one another.In recent times this has changed dramatically, not least of all reflected in the fact that India is frequently the preferred destination of young Israeli Jews. However serious attempts to understand the religious world of the other have been rare. Alan Brill’s book is an impressive pioneering work in this regard and will enable those familiar with Jewish teaching to gain a serious comprehensive understanding of Hindu religious thought, practice, and devotion. Moreover the clarity and insights he provides will enlighten not only Jews, but all those who wish to gain understanding of the rich wisdom and forms of Hindu religious life. -- David Rosen, International Director of Interreligious AffairsBrill succeeds in juxtaposing a comprehensive introduction to Hindu history, thought, and practice with personal reflections drawn from his experiences in India. A Highly readable contribution to the growing field of Indo-Judaic studies, and an invitation to further Hindu-Jewish dialogue. -- Yudit Kornberg Greenberg, George D. and Harriet W. Cornell Endowed Chair of Religion, Rollins CollegeRabbi, professor, traveler, storyteller, spiritual seeker, all of these roles have woven together to enable an outstanding achievement: Alan Brill's Rabbi on the Ganges. This book serves both as an introduction to Hinduism and also as a comparative study of Hinduism and Judaism. Brill has an ability to sift between the essential and the trivial that allows this introduction to be significant and meaningful, exploring the history of Hinduism and its variety of denominations and philosophies.Despite the enormous amount of information, the book doesn't feel dense but rather very readable. In terms of the comparison to Judaism, there are insights both relating to the rituals and practices of these religions but also the deep spiritual teaching. Brill also shows parallel developments in both religions, such as regarding the status of women and responses to modernity.One of the most significant messages of the book is showing how the contemporary Jewish view of Hinduism is based on a Hinduism of antiquity rather than the Hinduism of today. For me, this book has been transformative, and I believe that it will form a basis for a fruitful relationship between Judaism and Hinduism. -- Rabbi Yakov Nagen, senior educator Otniel YeshivaTable of ContentsPrefaceAcknowledgments Encountering Hinduism From A Jewish Perspective Vedic Worldview Darshan-Philosophies Hindu Denominations Hindu Texts and Piety Godliness Worship Karma-Kanda Modernity Epilogue: The Malida Offering BibliographyAbout the Author

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Book SynopsisNewly revised and updated, the definitive guide to planning a Jewish wedding - written by bestselling novelist Anita Diamant.Trade Review“No two weddings are alike, and in The Jewish Wedding Now Anita Diamant has spot-on advice for every couple -- from the most traditional to the most cutting edge. Whether your wedding is interfaith, LGBTQ, very observant or just Jewish, she will walk you through every step of this emotionally fraught, ritually complex and spiritually fertile life-cycle moment. Without judging what couples should choose or avoid, Diamant explains, teaches, describes and inspires.” -- Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president Union for Reform Judaism“I have recommended Anita Diamant’s earlier editions of The Jewish Wedding Now to countless couples I’ve married for 25 years. This newest edition is in many ways more a new book than just an update. Diamant takes on the realities of Jewish life as it really is - with depth and sensitivity. LGBTQ, multifaith, Jews of color are present in the fullness of who we are – not only as apologetic add-ons. Issues of complicated family structures at weddings are confronted directly. Divorce is a an acknowledged reality in our communities and families. Kudos to Anita Diamant! This book will serve the Jewish community – as we truly are – well!” -- Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum, D.D.I know you. You wish you already knew someone who would explain what’s what in Jewish wedding land. Someone who loves the gorgeous Jewish tradition and all that it offers. Someone who also gets that the modern world is actually a tremendous asset. Someone who has good taste and isn’t afraid to say it like it is. Well, your wish came true. Anita Diamant is that person and Jewish Wedding Now is all you need. I pray all your wedding dramas get resolved so easily. -- Noa Kushner, Founding Rabbi of The Kitchen, a religious start-up in San FranciscoAnita Diamant has given us a gift with The Jewish Wedding Now, which refreshingly offers us depth, inclusivity, and accessibility. This is a must read for Jewish couples planning their special day to be cherished forever! -- Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz, Founder & President, Uri L'Tzedek: Orthodox Social JusticeThis revised version of a beloved classic offers an accessible, diverse, and sensitive guide for Jews who love and those who love them to create meaningful weddings and marriages. It's not just a book about love, it's a book about making love and life matter more in a fast changing world. -- Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie, Founder of Lab/Shul, New York www.labshul.orgThe Jewish Wedding Now is a precious resource, revealing the spiritual gifts of Jewish wedding traditions to a wider community of loving partners and ritual practitioners. LGBTQ families and interfaith families should be embraced by Jewish tradition, and Anita Diamant's words (and heart) open the door to Jewish wisdom as wide as it was always meant to be. With this new gift from one of the world's most eloquent, sensitive teachers, a couple's celebration might end up transforming the entire world. To couples hoping to create a meaningful wedding, individual spiritual seekers, and ritual facilitators of every variety, I cannot recommend The Jewish Wedding Now highly enough! -- Rabbi Menachem Creditor, Congregation Netivot Shalom, Berkeley, CA"...a very helpful framework for couples who want to honor tradition with contemporary values. Diamant offers advice about choosing a rabbi, cantor, or other officiant; scheduling; and creating meaningful vows." * Booklist *" [Diamant] urges couples to strive for authenticity by creating a ceremony that blends innovation with the traditional Jewish legal requirements. And she makes it easy for them to do so, with a soup-to-nuts description of all the steps on the path to the chuppah that will be accessible to even those with minimal familiarity with the rituals.” * Publisher's Weekly *“Practical and inspiring…the single best gift that you could give to anyone contemplating or planning a Jewish wedding…But the book is not just for the betrothed. The Jewish Wedding Now offers a surprising new look at an ancient rite for every curious reader.” * Jewish Journal.com *

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Book SynopsisEphraim Moses Lilien (1874-1925) was one of the most important Jewish artists of modern times. As a successful illustrator, photographer, painter and printer, he became the first major Zionist artist. Surprisingly there has been little in-depth scholarly research and analysis of Lilien's work available in English, making this book an important contribution to historical and art-historical scholarship.Concentrating mainly on his illustrations for journals and books, Lynne Swarts acknowledges the importance of Lilien's groundbreaking male iconography in Zionist art, but is the first to examine Lilien's complex and nuanced depiction of women, which comprised a major dimension of his work. Lilien's female images offer a compelling glimpse of an alternate, independent and often sexually liberated modern Jewish woman, a portrayal that often eluded the Zionist imagination. Using an interdisciplinary approach to integrate intellectual and cultural history with issues of gender, Jewish history Trade ReviewOnce you see what Swarts shows here, you’ll see an entirely new early Zionist culture. You’ll wonder why you never thought to ask the questions this book so deftly and convincingly answers. * Maya Balakirsky Katz, Bar-Ilan University Department of Jewish Art, Israel and editor Images: A Journal of Jewish Art and Visual Culture *Gender, Orientalism and the Jewish Nation: At the German Fin de Siècle widens our understanding of how artists at this period, in particular Ephraim Moses Lilien, used extensively portrayals of women to further the national goal of Zionism. By looking astutely at these images and seeing them within the social and historical context, Lynne M. Swarts has made a major contribution to the way gender and orientalism figured prominently in the building of a national idea. Her work, elegantly produced, deserves special recognition as she breaks new ground in thinking about the interrelationship between visual culture and historical phenomena. * Richard I. Cohen, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, author of Jewish Icons. Art and Society in Modern Europe *A sound and informative analysis of a rich subject. Although it has a strong academic basis, the book is approachable, with many specialist historical aspects outlined. The many illustrations give us a view of Lilien’s art and related images. * Alexander Adams Art Blog *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Finding Blind Spots Chapter One: Ephraim Moses Lilien and His Oeuvre: Context and Contested Issues Chapter Two: ‘We Put All our Hope in Him’: Lilien, Zionism and Male Aesthetics Chapter Three: Boundaries and Borderlines: The ‘New Woman’ and the New Jewish Woman Chapter Four: The Dangerous ‘Other’: Lilien’s Femmes Fatales, Other Male Avant-garde Behaviour and Elsa Lasker-Schüler’s Transgendered Vision Chapter Five: Biblical Heroines, Biblical Illustrations and the Search for Meaning Chapter Six: Ost und West, Zionism and the Construction of German Jewish Orientalism Chapter Seven: The Exotic ‘Other’: Lilien’s Oriental Beauties and a Jewish Oriental Voice? Conclusion Bibliography

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Book SynopsisIn Repentance for the Holocaust, C. K. Martin Chung develops the biblical idea of turning (tshuvah) into a conceptual framework to analyze a particular area of contemporary German history, commonly referred to as Vergangenheitsbewältigung or coming to terms with the past. Chung examines a selection of German responses to the Nazi past, their interaction with the victims' responses, such as those from Jewish individuals, and their correspondence with biblical repentance. In demonstrating the victims' influence on German responses, Chung asserts that the phenomenon of Vergangenheitsbewältigung can best be understood in a relational, rather than a national, paradigm. By establishing the conformity between those responses to past atrocities and the idea of turning, Chung argues that the religious texts from the Old Testament encapsulating this idea (especially the Psalms of Repentance) are viable intellectual resources for dialogues among victims, perpTrade ReviewIn its attempt to model a desecularizing methodology his study draws renewed attention to received critical commonplaces surrounding German Vergangenheinbewaltigung, offering a rich bank of historical examples. The book also demonstrates how important, but also how difficult, it is to (re)admit not just the sociology of religion but also theology itself into the realm of contemporary interdisciplinarity. * The German Quarterly *The issues discussed in this book continue to have resonance in, for example, current German policy on refugees and on attitudes to Israel. The first part of the book is biblical scholarship; the second relates to postwar German history. It is quite possible to be interested in one of these parts without being interested in the other. Either way, Chung writes really well and explains difficult and controversial issues very clearly and fairly. * The European Legacy *Chung approaches the aftermath of the Holocaust from a theological angle. His work is structured clearly and with the reader in mind, enabling them to navigate what is quite a dense text with ease, reading it in either a linear fashion or cross-referencing between the biblical analysis and relevant study of the German response. * Journal of Jewish Studies *Table of ContentsIntroduction: The German Problem of VergangenheitsbewältigungPart I: The Jewish Devise of Repentance: From Individual, Divine-Human to Interhuman, Collective "Turning"Chapter 1: "Turning" in the God-human relationship Chapter 2: Interhuman and collective repentance )Part II: Mutual-Turning in German Vergangenheitsbewältigung: Responses and Correspondence1: "People, not devils"2: "Fascism was the great apostasy"3: "The French must love the German spirit now entrusted to them"4: "One cannot speak of injustice without raising the question of guilt"5: "You won't believe how thankful I am for what you have said"6: "Courage to say No and still more courage to say Yes" (P6) Chapter 7: "Raise our voice, both Jews and Germans"8: "The appropriateness of each proposition depends upon who utters it"9: "Hitler is in ourselves, too"10: "I am Germany"11: "Know before whom you will have to give an account"12: "We take over the guilt of the fathers"13: "Remember the evil, but do not forget the good"14: "We are not authorized to forgive"

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Book SynopsisA new afterword to this edition, The Duty to RememberBut What? tackles difficult issues of guilt and innocence on the individual and societal levels. Zygmunt Bauman explores the silences found in debates about the Holocaust, and asks what the historical facts of the Holocaust tell us about the hidden capacities of present-day life. He finds great danger in such phenomena as the seductiveness of martyrdom; going to extremes in the name of safety; the insidious effects of tragic memory; and efficient, scientific implementation of the death penalty. Bauman writes, Once the problem of the guilt of the Holocaust perpetrators has been by and large settled... the one big remaining question is the innocence of all the restnot the least the innocence of ourselves.Among the conditions that made the mass extermination of the Holocaust possible, according to Bauman, the most decisive factor was modernity itself. Bauman''s provocative interpretation counters the tendency to reduce the Holocaust

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Book SynopsisThe Salvation of Israel investigates Christianity''s eschatological Jew: the role and characteristics of the Jews at the end of days in the Christian imagination. It explores the depth of Christian ambivalence regarding these Jews, from Paul''s Epistle to the Romans, through late antiquity and the Middle Ages, to the Puritans of the seventeenth century. Jeremy Cohen contends that few aspects of a religion shed as much light on the character and the self-understanding of its adherents as its expectations for the end of time. Moreover, eschatological beliefs express and mold an outlook toward nonbelievers, situating them in an overall scheme of human history and conditioning interaction with them as that history unfolds.Cohen''s close readings of biblical commentary, theological texts, and Christian iconography reveal the dual role of the Jews of the last days. For rejecting belief and salvation in Jesus Christ, they have been linked to the false messiahtheTable of ContentsIntroduction Part I: All Israel Will Be Saved 1. Paul and the Mystery of Israel's Salvation 2. The Pauline Legacy: From Origen to Pelagius 3. The Latin West: From Augustine to Luther and Calvin Part II: The Jews and Antichrist 4. Antichrist and the Jews in Early Christianity 5. Jews and the Many Faces of Antichrist in the Middle Ages 6. Antichrist and Jews in Literature, Drama, and Visual Arts Part III: At the Forefront of the Redemption 7. Honorius Augustodunensis, the Song of Songs, and Synagoga Conversa 8. Jewish Converts and Christian Salvation: Pablo de Santa María, Bishop of Burgos 9. Puritans, Jews, and the End of Days Afterword

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Book SynopsisAnother Modernity is a rich study of the life and thought of Elia Benamozegh, a nineteenth-century rabbi and philosopher whose work profoundly influenced Christian-Jewish dialogue in twentieth-century Europe. Benamozegh, a Livornese rabbi of Moroccan descent, was a prolific writer and transnational thinker who corresponded widely with religious and intellectual figures in France, the Maghreb, and the Middle East. This idiosyncratic figure, who argued for the universalism of Judaism and for interreligious engagement, came to influence a spectrum of religious thinkers so varied that it includes proponents of the ecumenical Second Vatican Council, American evangelists, and right-wing Zionists in Israel. What Benamozegh proposed was unprecedented: that the Jewish tradition presented a solution to the religious crisis of modernity. According to Benamozegh, the defining features of Judaism were universalism, a capacity to foster interreligious engagement, and the political power and mythical allure of its theosophical tradition, Kabbalah—all of which made the Jewish tradition uniquely equipped to assuage the post-Enlightenment tensions between religion and reason. In this book, Clémence Boulouque presents a wide-ranging and nuanced investigation of Benamozegh's published and unpublished work and his continuing legacy, considering his impact on Christian-Jewish dialogue as well as on far-right Christians and right-wing religious Zionists.Trade Review"Another Modernity offers a brilliant portrait of Elia Benamozegh, a fascinating and largely hidden gem of modern Jewish thought. Clémence Boulouque deftly captures the Italian rabbi's singular approach to mysticism, universalism, and the role of Judaism in the modern world; she is the ideal scholar to bring Benamozegh out of an undeserved obscurity." -- Jessica Maya Marglin * University of Southern California *"Clémence Boulouque brilliantly succeeds in elucidating previously neglected aspects of the work of a rabbi and philosopher who lived at the crossroads of irreconcilable worlds, yet provided a broad and consistent version of Judaism that was at once traditional and modern. This intelligent, well-informed, well-written book is an important step towards comprehending the multi-faceted thought of Elia Benamozegh." -- Alessandro Guetta, INALCO * Paris *"Boulouque['s] work gives a detailed description of Benamozegh['s] character and analyzes various aspects of his thought, from political to kabbalistic, with a very rich bibliography... The book is written smoothly, and succeeds to give a complete vision of Benamozegh's thought, analyzing different perspectives, but above all gives a vast overview of what modernity is and how Benamozegh dealt with it, in a different way from classical models." -- Andrea Yaakov Lattes * Sephardic Horizons *Table of ContentsContents and Abstracts1The Moroccan World of a Livornese Jew chapter abstractChapter 1 explores how the fortunes of Livorno, Benamozegh's place of birth and of lifelong residence, where his parents had settled after leaving Morocco, shaped his understanding of diversity, his assertive engagement with the Christian world, and his feeling of alienation from a place once vibrant, but by his time relegated to the commercial and intellectual margins of Europe. His Moroccan background exemplifies the importance of commercial and rabbinic networks in the Mediterranean and accounts for his view of Kabbalah as an essential part of the Jewish tradition in an age when it had generally fallen out of favor among the enlightened figures of Judaism. 2An Italian Jewish Patriot in the Risorgimento chapter abstractChapter 2 delves into Benamozegh's coming of age under the Risorgimento and the way it exposed him to the thinking of its Christian thinkers and ideologues, such as Gioberti and Mazzini. It uncovers how some of his tropes regarding Israel as a nation, articulating patriotism with a universalist and divine mission, were drawn from these towering Italian figures. His redefinition of the interaction between Jews and the nation, and his opposition to the religious rejection of modernity, exemplified by the Pope, are all best understood against the backdrop of the Risorgimento, of which he was a witness and participant. 3The Banned Author and the Oriental Publisher chapter abstractChapter 3 examines how the utter disgrace of a rabbinic ban (herem) affected Benamozegh. In a very rare and harsh measure, his Hebrew biblical commentary was banned and burned in 1865 in Aleppo because it contained too many references to sources outside the Jewish tradition. The herem discouraged Benamozegh from any further major enterprise in Hebrew. However, he kept a presence, as a publisher, in the Mediterranean and his endeavors deserve significant attention: it was the largely Hebrew catalogue of his printing press, with a distribution and network of authors spanning the Maghreb and the Mashriq, that functioned as his commitment to an Oriental modernity. 4Expanding His Readership: Benamozegh's Turn to French chapter abstractChapter 4 examines Benamozegh's turn to a French audience and the affinities of his themes with the main French thinkers of this era, such as Renan, Leroux, or Michelet. The right tone for persuading his readers and the question of the audience he targeted turned out to be stumbling blocks as he tried to refashion himself as an intellectual but, sometimes bombastically, strove to convince secular readers of the need to reassess the significance of religion in order to confront the challenges of modernity. After penning a scathing Jewish and Christian Ethics, his apology for the universal values of Judaism culminated in his posthumous crowning achievement, Israel and Humanity. 5The Afterlives of a Posthumous Manuscript chapter abstractChapter 5 is a study of the fate of Israel and Humanity, Benamozegh's posthumous manuscript, and the controversies that surround the editorial changes made by Benamozegh's Christian disciple, Aimé Pallière, who was entrusted with its publication by the Livornese rabbi's family and turned the 1,900-page manuscript into the 735-page first edition published in 1914. Yet no previous scholarship had ever compared Benamozegh's original manuscript to the one published by Pallière in 1914. This book fills this lacuna and provides further insights into the inner world of Benamozegh and his influences. 6Situating Benamozegh in the Debate on Jewish Universalism chapter abstractChapter 6 situates Benamozegh in the debate about universalism in his time, and about the universalism of Judaism found in the works of Spinoza, Kant, and Mendelssohn. The claim of Jewish universalism, an index of Judaism's adequation with the modern world, must be measured against the competing claims of philosophy, Christianity, and Reform Judaism. Benamozegh also sought to establish the universalism of Judaism based on its antecedence in religious history, thus grounding himself in a sort of modern historicism that he resisted when it came to biblical criticism. He also strove to establish Judaism as a delicate articulation between reason and feelings, which rested on the nascent fields of psychology or anthropology and thus on a more scientific universalism. 7Normativity and Inclusivity in Modernity: The Role and Limits of the Noahide Laws chapter abstractChapter 7 turns to Benamozegh's interpretation of the Noahide Laws, central to his system. Based on rational revelation but with edicts resembling natural law, they convey both internal and external normativity. This ancient legislation functions as a theological construct that sits well with one of modernity's features: the imperative of locating normativity within itself. Additionally, Benamozegh contended, the legislation shows that Judaism is not ethnocentric in nature and manifests its inclusivism. Yet, in his defense of Noahism as a solution for the crisis of Christianity, he turned a blind eye to the laws' arguably hierarchical nature which can be taken as indicating minimal universalism. 8Cosmopolitanism and Universalism: The Political Value of Judaism in an Age of Nations chapter abstractChapter 8 examines the logic of Benamozegh's universalism through his treatment of the role of nations. As a witness and vocal supporter of the Italian Risorgimento and the advent of nation-states, Benamozegh had emphasized the political acumen of Judaism and its relevance to modern, nation-based societies. In his view, universalism could only be achieved through the particularism of nations—not in the abstract manner he believed had been promoted by Pauline Christianity, focused on individuals, which could not elicit any true religious belonging. 9Universalism in Particularism: Benamozegh's Legacies, between Levinas and Religious Zionism chapter abstractChapter 9 demonstrates that the notion of Jewish universalism through particularism is one of Benamozegh's notable contributions, which he predicated on Noahism but also on the role of the nations in Judaism. The French philosopher Levinas is often credited with this concept, which he furthered when he posited a "universalist particularism," an inclusivism that has nevertheless lent itself to conflicting legacies. This chapter probes the tenets of Benamozegh's system and the turn to an ethnocentric reading of Jewish particularism by thinkers such as Léon Askénazi, Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook, and the religious-Zionist movement in contemporary Israel. 10Kabbalah: Reason and the Power of Myth chapter abstractChapter 10 describes how Benamozegh penned his defense of Kabbalah as a marker of modernity in a counterintuitive fashion: as both science and myth. First, he redefined Kabbalah as a form of knowledge: by calling it theosophy, and thus imbuing it with scientific overtones, he presented a version of Kabbalah compatible with reason—a far cry from what common enlightened views of it would have been. At the same time, by highlighting its mythical qualities as well, he also sought to show the need for human narratives that go beyond reason. 11Beyond Dualism: Kabbalah and the Coincidence of Opposites chapter abstractChapter 11 is devoted to Benamozegh's presentation of Kabbalah as a vehicle for understanding and achieving religious unity and progress. His use of kabbalistic hermeneutics, predicated on the key concepts of coincidence of opposites, of berur (clarification) and of illuy (elevation), aimed (a) to suspend commonly held binaries such as science and faith, East and West, worldliness and transcendence, and (b) to prove Kabbalah's affinity with nineteenth-century conceptions of assimilation and of progress. 12Kabbalah as Politics chapter abstractChapter 12 examines Benamozegh's reading of Kabbalah as capable of underwriting a political project that involved the remaking of a secretive, esoteric tradition into a public, exoteric conversation. Benamozegh claimed Kabbalah as a centerpiece of Jewish thought that should help to revisit Western culture in order to reform its materialistic tendencies, thus pushing against the Orientalism tropes of his time. This stance foreshadows one of the turning points in the reception of Kabbalah in the twentieth century, exemplified by the works of such thinkers as Yehuda Ashlag, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, and Léon Askénazi, in which its themes and concepts can be used as a political discourse. 13Religious Enmity and Tolerance Reconsidered chapter abstractChapter 13 examines Benamozegh's theoretical constructs, by which he tried to neutralize the notion of religious enmity—a category, he argued, that was created by Christianity and which was bound to foster ontological hostility. In his quest for religious coexistence, he emphasized the concept of interdependence and rejected that of tolerance, which he viewed as an insufficient proposition; it was but a variation on pragmatism or utilitarianism. The chapter also probes Benamozegh's Jewish theology of other religions, and its universalism predicated on the unifying quality of Judaism, against the typology of pluralism and inclusivism. 14"The Iron Crucible" and Loci of Religious Contact chapter abstractChapter 14 focuses on the meaning and loci of religious encounters in the Bible and in the Jewish tradition, and analyzes the concept of "iron crucible," the metaphor Benamozegh used for the complexity of religious assimilation. This metaphor, which refers to the Israelites' sojourn in Egypt, designates a place where identities intermingled and where the Jewish religion was refined through its contact with paganism—but also where, paradoxically, this blending did not preclude a sense of hierarchy in this assimilation process. This concept is a crucial aspect of Benamozegh's system, whereby the greater the proximity, the greater the tension across religious traditions. 15Self-Assertion and a Jewish Theology of Religions chapter abstractChapter 15 details Benamozegh's worldview and the inextricable link between theology and the politics of identity underlying it. The Jewish theology of other religions that he proposed mostly reimagined a relationship with Christianity, one where the tradition of a minority, namely Judaism, could be used to overcome the flaws of the dominant culture. But its tone also raises questions regarding the nature and purpose of religious dialogue: self-reformation or reformation of other religions. Because of its confident (and at times triumphant) tone, it is also a statement about Jewish self-perception in modernity and corresponds to a more assertive turn in Jewish thought at the turn of the century. 16Modes of Interreligious Engagement: From Theory to Social Practices chapter abstractChapter 16 examines the theory and practices of interreligious rapprochement, encounters, and dialogue in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Retracing the stages of such endeavors prior to the Second World War helps refine the categories used to describe these modes of interaction and to consider how they have applied to intellectual efforts and social practices, including the Second Vatican Council in 1965, against the conceptual legacy of Benamozegh. Because Benamozegh's work aimed to bring about religious unity, and because he found a disciple in Aimé Pallière and a posthumous audience for his calls to promote coexistence, assessing the implementation of this prescriptive and convoluted thought is a necessary conclusion of this study.

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Book SynopsisA magisterial, modern reading of the deepest mysteries in the Kabbalistic tradition. Seekers of the Face opens the profound treasure house at the heart of Judaism's most important mystical work: the Idra Rabba (Great Gathering) of the Zohar. This is the story of the Great Assembly of mystics called to order by the master teacher and hero of the Zohar, Rabbi Shim'on bar Yochai, to align the divine faces and to heal Jewish religion. The Idra Rabba demands a radical expansion of the religious worldview, as it reveals God's faces and bodies in daring, anthropomorphic language. For the first time, Melila Hellner-Eshed makes this challenging, esoteric masterpiece meaningful for everyday readers. Hellner-Eshed expertly unpacks the Idra Rabba's rich grounding in tradition, its probing of hidden layers of consciousness and the psyche, and its striking, sacred images of the divine face. Leading readers of the Zohar on a transformative adventure in mystical experience, Seekers of the Face allows us to hear anew the Idra Rabba's bold call to heal and align the living faces of God.Trade Review"Melila Hellner-Eshed's deep grasp of some of the most complicated and elusive parts of the zoharic literature is palpable and highly impressive, matched by her ability to convey the striking wisdom of the Idra Rabba in a wonderfully lucid, engaging, and evocative manner. Her love for the Zohar is contagious." -- Eitan P. Fishbane * The Jewish Theological Seminary, author ofThe Art of Mystical Narrative: A Poetics of the Zohar *"Having read this book, I know that I will never read the Zohar in the same way again. All students of Kabbalah will come to view Seekers of the Face as a prerequisite, with its unique and innovative synthesis of the Jewish tradition, Jungian theory, mysticism, and feminist thought." -- Pinchas Giller * American Jewish University, author of Kabbalah: A Guide for the Perplexed *"The Zohar is the masterpiece of Jewish mysticism, and one of its greatest narratives is the Idra Rabba. For seven centuries, this intricate tale has perplexed readers—but now Melila Hellner-Eshed, a brilliant Israeli scholar of Kabbalah, has decoded the Idra Rabba, revealing its deepest secret: how God needs us." -- Daniel Matt * translator of The Zohar: Pritzker Edition *"The personal way that Hellner-Eshed connects with her subject and draws her readers into this astonishing realm makesSeekers of the Faceparticularly captivating... By means of her sensitive and methodical approach, Hellner-Eshed has made accessible one of the most difficult and abstruse medieval Jewish texts. Written for a general readership but replete with invaluable insights and wide-ranging references to the contemporary scholarship on her subject,Seekers of the Faceis well worth reading by any and all." -- Mark Verman * H-Judaic *Table of ContentsContents and AbstractsPart One, Chapter 1: Introduction to the Idra Rabba chapter abstractWhat is the Idra Rabba? This chapter covers the place of the Idra Rabba in zoharic literature as well as its reception, history, and scholarship. Part One, Chapter 2: The Language of Divine Faces chapter abstractThis chapter follows the history of the language of the face of God from the Bible to midrashic and liturgical sources, as well as in psychoanalysis and philosophy. Part One, Chapter 3: The Gaze chapter abstractThis chapter discusses "the gaze" as healing, in mother-child relationships and in the divine faces. We also look at the restorative power of bathing in the light of God's face. Part One, Chapter 4: Reflections on Ze'eir Anpin chapter abstractThis chapter looks at Ze'eir Anpin as the God of Judgment, dual consciousness, Ze'eir Anpin and Gnosis, the dynamic between splitting and healing, and the importance of praying for the life of Ze'eir Anpin. Part One, Chapter 5: Literature, Mysticism, Praxis chapter abstractThis chapter covers the secrets of the Godhead and also narrative, simultaneity, paradoxical language, the idraic midrash, space, time, consciousness, experience, the personality of the teacher and the role of the circle of disciples, as well as religious practice in the Idra. Part One, Chapter 6: Overarching Themes in the Idra Rabba chapter abstractThis chapter explores four overarching themes that connect the whole Idra Rabba: the mythic account of the emergence of many faces of the Divine; the unfolding of existence; various ways of attenuating the power of Judgment (Din); reading through the lens of consciousness, Oneness, and the dual male and female. Part One, Chapter 7: What Is the Idra Rabba Trying to Communicate? chapter abstractThis chapter lays out the Zohar as a manifesto calling for the healing of the face of Jewish religion. Part Two, Chapter 8: Entering the Idra Rabba chapter abstractThe chapter is a close reading of the account of the opening of the Great Gathering. Part Two, Chapter 9: The Kings of Edom: The First Appearance chapter abstractThis chapter explores the myth of the kings of Edom from the Bible to the Zohar, its place in the Zohar, and its first appearance in the Idra Rabba. Part Two, Chapter 10: Arikih Anpin: Origins chapter abstractThis chapter looks at the origins of how the Divine attains a face, especially a skull and a brain. Part Two, Chapter 11: Arikh Anpin: Features of the Face chapter abstractThis chapter delves into the elements of the divine face: hair/regulation of divine flow; forehead/will; eyes/providence; nose/length of breath. Part Two, Chapter 12: Arraying Arikh Anpin's Beard chapter abstractThis chapter provides an overview of the beard in Zohar and idraic literature as well as the thirteen tiqqunim of the beard. Part Two, Chapter 13: The Kings of Edom: The Second Appearance chapter abstractContinuing the exploration of the myth of the Edom, this chapter looks at the themes of balance and lack of balance, and the masculine and feminine. Part Two, Chapter 14: Ze'eir Anpin Comes into Being chapter abstractThis chapter discusses God in the likeness of Adam (the human being), the emergence of Ze'eir Anpin's skull and brain. Part Two, Chapter 15: Ze'eir Anpin's Head and Its Features chapter abstractThis chapter is about the parts of the head of Ze'eir Anpin as an expression of dual consciousness: hair/transmission, forehead/judgmental providence, eyes/divine providence in duality, nose/divine wrath, and ears/attentiveness, discernment, and mechanisms of delay. Part Two, Chapter 16: The Tiqqunim of Ze'eir Anpin: The Language of Flowing Bounty chapter abstractThis chapter is about the beard of Ze'eir Anpin as an expression of divine attributes. Part Two, Chapter 17: The Ancient of Ancients and Ze'eir Anpin: All Is One chapter abstractThis chapter deals with the complex unity of the divine faces. Part Two, Chapter 18: Forming the Male and Female Body chapter abstractThis chapter explores the emanation of the divine masculine and feminine bodies, and the sources of the idraic myth of those bodies. Part Two, Chapter 19: The Kings of Edom: The Third Appearance chapter abstractThis chapter looks at the third appearance of the mythical kings of Edom in the Idra Rabba. Part Two, Chapter 20: Separation and Coupling chapter abstractThe topic in this chapter is the separation and individuation of masculine and feminine bodies, as well as their first coupling. Part Two, Chapter 21: Sweetening Judgment chapter abstractThis chapter explores the idraic myth of the birth of Cain and Abel and their archetypal role, the birth of Seth, and finally the ideal coupling of the divine male and female. Part Two, Chapter 22: Emerging from the Idra Rabba chapter abstractThis chapter looks at the end of the Idra Rabba and its themes of fear of revealing too much, the death of the Companions, validating the Assembly, and amplifying the figure of Rabbi Shimon.

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Book SynopsisIn this rich intellectual history of the French-Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas's Talmudic lectures in Paris, Ethan Kleinberg addresses Levinas's Jewish life and its relation to his philosophical writings while making an argument for the role and importance of Levinas's Talmudic lessons. Pairing each chapter with a related Talmudic lecture, Kleinberg uses the distinction Levinas presents between "God on Our Side" and "God on God's Side" to provide two discrete and at times conflicting approaches to Levinas's Talmudic readings. One is historically situated and argued from "our side" while the other uses Levinas's Talmudic readings themselves to approach the issues as timeless and derived from "God on God's own side." Bringing the two approaches together, Kleinberg asks whether the ethical message and moral urgency of Levinas's Talmudic lectures can be extended beyond the texts and beliefs of a chosen people, religion, or even the seemingly primary unit of the self. Touching on Western philosophy, French Enlightenment universalism, and the Lithuanian Talmudic tradition, Kleinberg provides readers with a boundary-pushing investigation into the origins, influences, and causes of Levinas's turn to and use of Talmud.Trade Review"Can we read Levinas's work as wholly immanent to the history of philosophy, or must we see it as the worldly trace of a transcendent truth? Kleinberg explores this contest between history and revelation without presuming to declare the victor. A venturesome and ingeniously crafted book that confirms the author's leading role in modern European intellectual history." -- Peter Gordon * Harvard University *"A boundary-pushing, interdisciplinary work, challenging scholars and students to think through and with the audacity of Levinas's claim for alterity." -- Sarah Hammerschlag * University of Chicago *

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Book SynopsisIn this rich intellectual history of the French-Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas's Talmudic lectures in Paris, Ethan Kleinberg addresses Levinas's Jewish life and its relation to his philosophical writings while making an argument for the role and importance of Levinas's Talmudic lessons. Pairing each chapter with a related Talmudic lecture, Kleinberg uses the distinction Levinas presents between "God on Our Side" and "God on God's Side" to provide two discrete and at times conflicting approaches to Levinas's Talmudic readings. One is historically situated and argued from "our side" while the other uses Levinas's Talmudic readings themselves to approach the issues as timeless and derived from "God on God's own side." Bringing the two approaches together, Kleinberg asks whether the ethical message and moral urgency of Levinas's Talmudic lectures can be extended beyond the texts and beliefs of a chosen people, religion, or even the seemingly primary unit of the self. Touching on Western philosophy, French Enlightenment universalism, and the Lithuanian Talmudic tradition, Kleinberg provides readers with a boundary-pushing investigation into the origins, influences, and causes of Levinas's turn to and use of Talmud.Trade Review"Can we read Levinas's work as wholly immanent to the history of philosophy, or must we see it as the worldly trace of a transcendent truth? Kleinberg explores this contest between history and revelation without presuming to declare the victor. A venturesome and ingeniously crafted book that confirms the author's leading role in modern European intellectual history." -- Peter Gordon * Harvard University *"A boundary-pushing, interdisciplinary work, challenging scholars and students to think through and with the audacity of Levinas's claim for alterity." -- Sarah Hammerschlag * University of Chicago *

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Book SynopsisThis career-spanning anthology from prominent Jewish historian David Biale brings over a dozen of his key essays together for the first time. These pieces, written between 1974 and 2016, are all representative of a method Biale calls "counter-history": "the discovery of vital forces precisely in what others considered marginal, disreputable and irrational." The themes that have preoccupied Biale throughout the course of his distinguished career—in particular power, sexuality, blood, and secular Jewish thought—span the periods of the Bible, late antiquity, and the Middle Ages to the twentieth century. Exemplary essays in this volume argue for the dialectical relationship between modernity and its precursors in the older tradition, working together to "brush history against the grain" in order to provide a sweeping look at the history of the Jewish people. This volume of work by one of the boldest and most intellectually omnivorous Jewish thinkers of our time will be essential reading for scholars and students of Jewish studies.Trade Review"Over the course of his career, David Biale has distinguished himself for both his critical acumen and his capacious interests. Written in the contrarian spirit of "counter-history," these essays exemplify his singular passion for unsettling conventional ideas concerning the norms and boundaries of the Jewish past. A superb, thought-provoking collection."—Peter E. Gordon, author of Migrants in the Profane: Critical Theory and the Question of Secularization"David Biale has always been a trailblazer. This collection highlights the many ingenious roads he has opened for scholars of the Jewish past. Rigorous in method, delicate in touch, Biale sheds light on corners of history that others deemed marginal or taboo, inviting us to engage in an exploration of "counter-history" that remains directly at the field's heart."—Sarah Abrevaya Stein, co-editor of Wartime North Africa: A Documentary History 1934-1950"Intellectually exciting and apleasure to read, the essays in this collection are a fine introduction to many important thinkers in the Jewish tradition."—Bob Goldfarb, Jewish Book Council"Taking a constructivist approach, Biale'sexamination of historical contexts includes the Tanakh, the midrash, myth, politics, and more to arrive at a complex exploration of radicalism embedded within Jewish traditions. His genealogical methodology traces critical topics from their historical or textual origins to present understandings, exploring and connecting diverging exegeses along the way.... Recommended."—A. Lieberman, CHOICE"Throughout the essays in this compilation, Biale traces diverse voices that some might call counter-canonical or even 'heretical,' or as Biale puts it, 'feature inversions of convention or hidden traditions that challenge the canon.' ...For those familiar with Jewish history, these essays provide interesting perspectives and alternative views."—David Tesler, Association of Jewish Libraries ReviewsTable of ContentsIntroduction: Between Canon and Counterhistory 1. The God with Breasts: El Shaddai in the Bible 2. Korah in the Midrash: The Hairless Heretic as Hero 3. Counterhistory and Jewish Polemics against Christianity: The Sefer Toldot Yeshu and the Sefer Zerubavel 4. "The Torah Speaks the Language of Human Beings": Abraham Ibn Ezra's Radical Interpretation of the Bible 5. Between Melancholy and a Broken Heart: A Note on Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav's Depression 6. The Kabbalah in Nachman Krochmal's Philosophy of History 7. Masochism and Philosemitism: The Strange Case of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch 8. Historical Heresies and Modern Jewish Identity 9. Shabbtai Zvi and the Seductions of Jewish Orientalism 10. Leo Strauss: The Philosopher as Weimar Jew 11. Arendt in Jerusalem: Hannah Arendt on the Eichmann Trial 12. Gershom Scholem's "Ten Unhistorical Aphorisms on the Kabbalah": Text and Commentary 13. The Threat of Messianism: An Interview with Gershom Scholem (August 14, 1980) 14. Mysticism and Politics in Modern Israel: The Messianic Ideology of Abraham Isaac Ha-Cohen Kook 15. The End of Enlightenment? Epilogue: By the Waters of San Francisco: A Partial Autobiography

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Book SynopsisInteriority and Law presents a groundbreaking reassessment of a medieval Jewish classic, Baḥya ibn Paquda's Guide to the Duties of the Hearts. Michaelis reads this work anew as a revolutionary intervention in Jewish law, or halakha. Overturning perceptions of Baḥya as the shaper of an ethical-religious form of life that exceeds halakha, Michaelis offers a pioneering historical and conceptual analysis of the category of "inner commandments" developed by Baḥya. Interiority and Law reveals that Baḥya's main effort revolved around establishing a new legal formation—namely, the "duties of the hearts"—which would deal entirely with human interiority. Michaelis takes up the implications of Baḥya's radical innovation, examining his unique mystical model of proximity to God, which he based on an increasingly growing fulfillment of the inner commandments. With an integrative approach that puts Baḥya in dialogue with other medieval Muslim and Jewish religious thinkers, this work offers a fresh perspective on our understanding of the interconnectedness of the dynamic, neighboring religious traditions of Judaism and Islam. Contributing to conversations in the history of religion, Jewish studies, and medieval studies on interiority and mysticism, this book reveals Baḥya as a revolutionary and demanding thinker of Jewish law.Trade Review"Examining Duties of the Hearts afresh, Michaelis uncovers a much more audacious and radical Baḥyā than the pious image we know. This thoughtful, thoroughly researched, and well-argued book sheds new light on the dynamics that fashioned medieval Jewish thought."—Sarah Stroumsa, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem"Interiority and Law is a masterful achievement. Michaelis has disclosed the philological nuances of Baḥya's classic work with illuminating originality; and with phenomenological insight revealed the inherent spiritual imperatives of Jewish religious practice. This is a work to be studied and cherished by those interested in Jewish and Islamic thought, and their profound interconnections."—Michael Fishbane, University of Chicago"Interiority and Law presents a brilliant and original interpretation of Duties of the Hearts. In Michaelis's compelling reading, Baḥya extends legal normativity to the interior sphere. It is a wonderful and extraordinary contribution."—Moshe Halbertal, The Hebrew University of JerusalemTable of ContentsIntroduction 1. Duties and Supererogatory Acts 2. Inner Duties 3. Proximity 4. The World to Come 5. Bāin and Tradition

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Book SynopsisThe most famous of all medieval Jewish thinkers, Moses Maimonides is known for his monumental contributions to Jewish law, theology and medicine, and for an influence that extends into the wider world. His remarkable work, The Guide for the Perplexed, is notoriously difficult to interpret, since Maimonides aimed it at those already versed in both philosophy and the rabbinic tradition and used literary techniques to test his readers and force them to think through his arguments. Daniel Davies explores Maimonides’ approaches to issues of perennial and universal concern: human nature and the soul, the problem of evil, the creation of the world, the question of God’s existence, and negative theology. He addresses the unusual ways in which Maimonides presented his arguments, contextualising Maimonides’ thought in the philosophy and religion of his own time, as well as elucidating it for today’s readers. This philosophically rich introduction is an essential guide for students and scholars of medieval philosophy, philosophy of religion, theology and Jewish studies.Trade Review‘A welcome addition to general expositions of Maimonides’ thought. Much more than an introduction, this book is a deeply philosophical encounter with some of the major themes of Maimonides’ writings, one that is thoroughly conversant with classical and contemporary perspectives. Daniel Davies offers original interpretations of thorny issues, sensible approaches to scholarly disputes, and a steady guide for beginning and advanced readers of Maimonides.’Charles Manekin, University of Maryland‘Many discussions of Maimonides concentrate on interpretation and methodology. But Davies goes to the heart of Maimonides as a philosopher, expounding with great clarity his most powerful arguments and original positions.’John Marenbon, University of Cambridge‘Authored by one of the world’s top Maimonides scholars, this outstanding and comprehensive book is one of the best gateways into the world of the thinker who single-handedly created Jewish philosophy. A unique literary and scholarly achievement, this is one of the best works of Jewish philosophy of recent times.’Yitzhak Y. Melamed, Johns Hopkins UniversityTable of ContentsAcknowledgements 1 Biography and Introduction2 Life and Humanity3 The Problem of Evil4 Creation and Infinity5 The Nature of Belief in God’s Existence6 Necessary Existence and Divine Attributes 7 Diverse Interpretations and Disputed Instructions: Reading the Guide for the Perplexed Further ReadingNotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisThe most famous of all medieval Jewish thinkers, Moses Maimonides is known for his monumental contributions to Jewish law, theology and medicine, and for an influence that extends into the wider world. His remarkable work, The Guide for the Perplexed, is notoriously difficult to interpret, since Maimonides aimed it at those already versed in both philosophy and the rabbinic tradition and used literary techniques to test his readers and force them to think through his arguments. Daniel Davies explores Maimonides’ approaches to issues of perennial and universal concern: human nature and the soul, the problem of evil, the creation of the world, the question of God’s existence, and negative theology. He addresses the unusual ways in which Maimonides presented his arguments, contextualising Maimonides’ thought in the philosophy and religion of his own time, as well as elucidating it for today’s readers. This philosophically rich introduction is an essential guide for students and scholars of medieval philosophy, philosophy of religion, theology and Jewish studies.Trade Review‘A welcome addition to general expositions of Maimonides’ thought. Much more than an introduction, this book is a deeply philosophical encounter with some of the major themes of Maimonides’ writings, one that is thoroughly conversant with classical and contemporary perspectives. Daniel Davies offers original interpretations of thorny issues, sensible approaches to scholarly disputes, and a steady guide for beginning and advanced readers of Maimonides.’Charles Manekin, University of Maryland‘Many discussions of Maimonides concentrate on interpretation and methodology. But Davies goes to the heart of Maimonides as a philosopher, expounding with great clarity his most powerful arguments and original positions.’John Marenbon, University of Cambridge‘Authored by one of the world’s top Maimonides scholars, this outstanding and comprehensive book is one of the best gateways into the world of the thinker who single-handedly created Jewish philosophy. A unique literary and scholarly achievement, this is one of the best works of Jewish philosophy of recent times.’Yitzhak Y. Melamed, Johns Hopkins UniversityTable of ContentsAcknowledgements 1 Biography and Introduction2 Life and Humanity3 The Problem of Evil4 Creation and Infinity5 The Nature of Belief in God’s Existence6 Necessary Existence and Divine Attributes7 Diverse Interpretations and Disputed Instructions: Reading the Guide for the Perplexed Further ReadingNotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisIn this biography, Gerald and Deborah Strober draw from original source materials and numerous interviews to detail the life and career of the esteemed Rabbi Marc Tanenbaum, a seminal 20th century figure in interfaith relations in the US and around the world. From his position as Director of Interreligious Affairs at the American Jewish Committee, Rabbi Tanenbaum was deeply involved in the historic Vatican II Council, which promulgated a landmark encyclical on Catholic-Jewish relations. Rabbi Tanenbaum also was one of the few Jewish leaders who worked closely with Reverend Billy Graham and other evangelicals. He worked tirelessly as a civil rights activist and was active in the cause of Soviet Jewry, as well.Confronting Hate details this esteemed career and his interactions with the likes of television legends Norman Lear, Don Hewitt, and Franco Zeffirelli; Jesse Jackson; Martin Luther King, Jr.; and several US presidents, from Dwight D. Eisenhower to George H.W. Bush. This book leaves no stone unturned in covering the public and private aspects of the life of “the human rights rabbi.” The authors bring to light the immense international influence that Rabbi Tanenbaum has even today, more than twenty-five years after his passing.Trade Review"In this compelling and important volume, Deborah Hart Strober and Gerald S. Strober meticulously unfold the fascinating life and groundbreaking career of Rabbi Marc Tanenbaum, an iconic religious figure in the 20th century who played key roles in Jewish-Christian reconciliation, the civil rights struggle, the liberation of Soviet Jews, and political opposition to racial or ethnic injustice world-wide. More than a biography, Confronting Hate serves as a call to arms, inspiring and informing those who seek social justice in today’s troubled world."--Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor at Harvard University"From his support of my parents and the Civil Rights Movement, to other causes of righteousness, the life examples of Rabbi Marc Tanenbaum as depicted in Confronting Hate, reflect a global leader concerned about justice for humankind and one who understood the significance of reconciliation in the pursuit of justice. His life exemplars in working together across different races, nationalities and religions to fight injustice reflect an understanding of what my father stated in his letter to religious leaders from the Birmingham jail: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” In light of the divisiveness and inhumanity that is reported daily, it is clear that mankind is still grappling with this truth. Struggle is a never-ending process, but the life examples in this book are a tangible resource to help leaders in this generation and in generations to come in their pursuit of justice and freedom."--Rev. Dr. Bernice A. King, CEO, The King Center “This book tells a remarkable historical story that everyone should know. Rabbi Marc Tanenbaum is a man to be remembered, and this is a book that will haunt your memory, long after you have turned its pages.”--Rabbi Irving (Yitz) Greenberg, President Emeritus, CLAL: the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership; and author of For the Sake of Heaven and Earth: the New Encounter of Judaism and Christianity "There is no one in my memory quite like Rabbi Marc Tanenbaum. He was a man of peace and fellowship with the fiery heart of a warrior who would fight to the death for his beliefs. I could express this quality a thousand ways, but they would all add up to the unique man and giant among us who was Marc Tanenbaum. Hate had no more fierce an enemy than Marc."--Norman Lear "Confronting Hate vividly conveys the extraordinary impact of Marc Tanenbaum’s distinguished and influential career as well as his larger-than-life persona. In capturing Tanenbaum’s groundbreaking, pioneering role in the field of interfaith relations, as well as his immense diplomatic and coalition building skills, Deborah and Gerald Strober illuminate the traits that drove his achievements in seminal events of American and international history in the second half of the 20th century."--Rabbi David Saperstein, former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom and Director Emeritus, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism "Marc Tanenbaum shared his wisdom and his warmth while he lived. He spoke with a voice that allowed us to be inspired by his Journey with us. This eloquent and candid biography captures the man, his work, and his humanity."--Liv Ullmann “As this book amply documents, my friend, Marc, stood tall as a man of faith, peace and compassion who envisioned and labored for a better world through inter-religious cooperation. He was a blessing to his family, friends and the Jewish people."--Rabbi Arthur Schneier"Though we have come to take for granted the healing of the Christian-Jewish wound, this compelling and inspiring biography of an American Jewish hero reminds us of how hard-won that achievement has been. As we face growing challenges to Jewish well-being in the 21st century, one sorely misses the wisdom, compassion and quiet determination of Rabbi Marc Tanenbaum."--Yossi Klein Halevi, senior fellow, Shalom Hartman Institute, Jerusalem"When it comes to chronicling the life of a rabbi whose public life epitomized tikkun olam, this book hits the mark." --Hadassah Magazine

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Book SynopsisA Fun Take on "Judaism for Dummies" that Will Answer All Questions Wondered by the Goyim and Jewish People Alike! When the subject of religion comes up, people often get very shy and are worried about offending. Now, if there was only a book that covered all the nooks and crannies of a religion, written in an easily digestible way... Well, now there is! Written by Rabbi Avram Mlotek, Why Jews Do That is a terrific look into the Jewish religion, answering all the tough questions you've been afraid to ask. But this isn't just for the Jews among us. Just because you're Catholic, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, or the like, doesn't mean you cannot enjoy an inside look to find out if Jews believe in Jesus, what kosher really is, and how we keep our yarmulkes secured to our heads. So have no fear, as Jews are here to help! Some of the tough questions answered by Rabbi Mlotek include: What's with Jews and candles? Do Jews have confession like Catholics? Why are Jews obsessed with food? Is sex kosher? What about marijuana? And much more! Why Jews Do That is your one-stop shop for answers to all the questions you wanted to know, but were too shy to ask. So whether you're a devout follower, a casual observer, someone marrying into the faith, or just interested in buffing up your Bible knowledge, Rabbi Mlotek will guide you through the challah, mitzvahs, and shiksas that make Jewish life so...lively.

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