Judaism Books

Book SynopsisEmil L. Fackenheim, one of the most significant Jewish thinkers of the twentieth century, is best known for his deep and rich engagement with the implications of the Nazi Holocaust on Jewish thought, Christian theology, and philosophy. However, his career as a philosopher and theologian began two decades prior to his first efforts to confront that horrific event. In this book, renowned Fackenheim expert Michael L. Morgan offers the first examination of the full scope of Fackenheim’s 60-year career, beyond simply his work on the Holocaust.Fackenheim’s Jewish Philosophy explores the most important themes of Fackenheim’s philosophical and religious thought and how these remained central, if not always in immutable ways, over his entire career. Morgan also provides insight into Fackenheim’s indebtedness to Kant, Hegel, and rabbinic midrash, as well as the changing character of his philosophical “voice.” The work concludes with a chapteTrade Review'A perceptive book written by a foremost student and interpreter.' -- Z. Garber Choice Magazine; vol 51:07:14 'Morgan's discussions are lucid, engaging, informative, and truly stimulating. He succeeds in bringing us into the presence of a philosophical teacher who, despite all shortcomings, gave voice to by now classical concerns of modern Jewish philosophy.' -- Michael Zank Notre Dame Philosophical Review, November 2014Table of ContentsIntroduction I. Can There Be Judaism Without Revelation? II. Selfhood and Freedom: From Situated Agency to the Hermeneutical Self III. Philosophy after Auschwitz: the Primacy of the Ethical IV. Fackenheim's Return to Kant V. The Hegelian Dimension in Fackenheim's Thought VI. Redemption, Messianism, and the State of Israel VII. History and Thought: Meaning and Dialectic VIII. The Midrash and Its Framework: Before and After Auschwitz IX. The Voice of the Jewish Philosopher X. Fackenheim's Legacy: Resources for Mending the World

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Book SynopsisReason and Revelation before Historicism, the first full-length comparison of Strauss and Fackenheim,places the informal teacher and student in conversation alongside sections of their analyses of notable thinkers.Table of ContentsCHAPTER 1 BACKGROUND AND INTRODUCTION Part I: Review of Literature * Introduction Part II General Background * Why is There a Tension Between Philosophy and Revelatory Theology? * The Tension Between Philosophy and Revelatory Theologyin Modern Western Thought* Strauss and Fackenheim on the Tension between Philosophy and Revelatory Theology in Modern Western Thought* The Tension Between Philosophy and Revelation in Jewish Philosophy* The Dead End of Resolving the Tension* Strauss and Fackenheim: Two Options to Restore Reason and Revelation Part III: Development of Argument in Chapter Form* Overview in Chapter Form* Strauss and Fackenheim: A Note on Methodology CHAPTER 2 STRAUSS' FORMULATION OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN REASON AND REVELATION IN MODERN THOUGHT AND HIS REJECTION OF A PRACTICAL SYNTHESIS Part I: Strauss on Western Philosophy * Introduction* Strauss on the Ancient Philosophers* Strauss on Machiavelli* Strauss on Hobbes* Strauss on Heidegger Part II: Strauss on Jewish Philosophy * Strauss on the Bible* Strauss on Spinoza* Strauss on Cohen* Strauss on Rosenzweig* Conclusion CHAPTER 3 FACKENHEIM'S FORMULATION OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PHILOSOPHY AND REVELATORY THEOLOGY IN MODERN THOUGHT Part I Fackenheim on Western Philosophy * Introduction* Fackenheim on Kant* Fackenheim on Hegel* Fackenheim on Schelling* Fackenheim on Heidegger Part II Fackenheim on Jewish Philosophy * Fackenheim on the Bible* Fackenheim on Spinoza* Fackenheim on Rosenzweig* Fackenheim on Buber Part III Fackenheim's Synthesis * Fackenheim's Synthesis of Revelatory Religion and Philosophy CHAPTER 4 THE PROBLEM OF HISTORICISM * Introduction* The Necessity of "Openness" In Philosophic and/or Religious Thought* The Problem of Historicism: Strauss' Return to Natural Right* The Problem of Historicism: Fackenheim the Philosopher's Return to History* The Problem of Historicism: Fackenheim the Theologian's Return to History* Conclusion CHAPTER 5 REASON AND REVELATION: JEWISH THOUGHT AFTER STRAUSS AND FACKENHEIM * Introduction* Strauss: Jerusalem and Athens* Fackenheim's Rejection of the Return to Greek Thought* Results from Beginning with and Fackenheim's Position* The Present Writer's Position BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Book SynopsisProviding perspectives from the global North and South, faith leaders, scholars and activists demonstrate the complex connections between faith and abortion, how women and pregnant people are positioned in society and how morality is claimed and challenged.Table of Contents1. Introduction - Kellie Turtle and Fiona Bloomer 2. Redeemed by reproduction? Exploring compulsory motherhood and abortion stigma - Selina Palm 3. Suspending judgement: exploring pedagogical approaches that centre the contextual embodied experiences of those affected in the process of sexual reproductive health and rights decision making and ethical reflection - Charlene van der Walt 4. Pastoral guidelines through a reproductive justice lens - Emilie Weiderud 5. Abortion in Malaysia: challenges and necessity - Syarifatul Adibah 6. The power of religious voice in abortion law reform advocacy: inter-faith approaches to abortion law reform in Malawi - Brian Ligomeka 7. Abortion and faith in Latin America: an interfaith perspective - María de los Ángeles Roberto 8. Sri Lanka: abortion and Buddhism – a conversation with Dakshitha Wickremarathne - Dakshitha Wickremarathne and Fiona Bloomer 9. Reflections on faith-based abortion advocacy as the US faces a future without Roe: a conversation with Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg - Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg and Kellie Turtle 10. Marking the absence of an embodied theology: an analysis of how people of faith talk about abortion in Northern Ireland - Nóirín MacNamara and Fiona Bloomer 11. Seeds of hope in progressive Christian discourse on abortion in Northern Ireland - Kellie Turtle 12. Faith voices for reproductive justice in Northern Ireland - Kellie Turtle and participants from Faith Voices for Reproductive Justice 13. Conclusion - Kellie Turtle and Fiona Bloomer

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Book SynopsisSarah Imhoff tells the story of the queer, disabled, Zionist writer Jessie Sampter (1883–1938), whose body and life did not match typical Zionist ideals and serves as an example of the complex relationships between the body, queerness, disability, religion, and nationalism.Trade Review“Sarah Imhoff presents the remarkable story of Jessie Sampter, whose life breaks with all the conventional associations of a Zionist pioneer. Disabled due to polio, living with a woman in mandate-era Palestine, and a pacifist and internationalist with right-wing Zionist politics, Sampter violated expectations and flouted conventions. Using feminist theory and crip theory, Imhoff reconstructs Sampter’s life and the vital challenges she presented in her day and in our own.” -- Susannah Heschel, Eli M. Black Distinguished Professor of Jewish Studies, Dartmouth CollegeTable of ContentsAcknowledgments vii Introduction 1 1. A Religious Life 27 2. A Life with Disability 68 3. A Queer Life 106 4. A Theological-Political Life 144 5. Afterlives 193 Notes 223 Bibliography 249 Index 263

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Book SynopsisJewish and Islamic histories have long been interrelated. Both traditions emerged from ancient cultures born in the Middle East and both are rooted in texts and traditions that have often excluded women. This book explores the relationship between these two religions through the prism of gender.Trade Review"The book could be helpful for graduate students hoping to think theoretically about gender in religion and history. With its succinct and compelling introductions for each part as well as an afterword by Scott and a glossary, the book is also made highly useable for undergraduates or novices." * Religious Studies Review *"This volume is a solid beginning to a serious scholarly treatment of the topics surrounding gender in Judaism and Islam, It fills an important gap in the scholarship and promises to open the field to further critical studies. It addresses similarities and differences in womens issues and experiences within Jewish and Islamic national, religious, and ethnic identities." * Reading Religion *"While this collection of essays is most useful for those with some background on the topics, it will also appeal to scholars hoping to expand their knowledge on many different aspects of Judaism and Islam. The essays do a great job of bridging ideas of the past with those of the present, making this volume valuable for scholars of history and current cultural trends as well as for researchers in anthropology, sociology womens health, media studies, Middle East studies, legal studies, literary studies, and more." * Feminist Collections *"Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet and Beth S. Wenger are to be congratulated for assembling a compelling collection that illuminates a wide range of issues around gender in Judaism and Islam drawn from discussions of Muslim and Jewish law to analyses of contemporary feminism to crimes of passion and 'honor killings' in the modern Arab world. Written by eminent scholars in accessible prose, these powerful pieces carry us beyond stereotypes and politics toward mutual understanding and shared knowledge." -- Deborah Dash Moore,Frederick G.L. Huetwell Professor of History, University of Michigan"A long overdue volume exploring commonalities and differences among Jewish and Muslim women along with gendered aspects of their religious and cultural experiences. Path breaking in its range and scope, with outstanding chapters by leading historians in the field, this work puts Islamic and Jewish Studies into a rich dialogue. By emphasizing shared histories and intersecting paths, it delivers on its promises, opening new vistas for understanding complexities in the lives of Muslims and Jews, past and present." -- Beth Baron,Director, Middle East and Middle Eastern American Center, CUNYTable of ContentsContents Part I. Comparative Perspectives 13 1 Jewish and Muslim Feminist Theologies in Dialogue: Discourses of Difference 17 Susannah Heschel 2 Jewish and Islamic Legal Traditions: Diffusions of Law 46 Amira Sonbol Part II. Limits of Biology: Bodily Purity and Religiosity 69 3 Scholarly versus Women's Authority in the Islamic Law of Menstrual Purity 73 Marion Katz 4 Gender Duality and Its Subversions in Rabbinic Law 106 Charlotte Elisheva Fonrobert 5 Gender and Reproductive Technologies in Shia Iran 126 Soraya Tremayne Part III. Crimes of Passion: Formative Texts and Traditions 151 6 Not a Man: Joseph and the Character of Masculinity in Judaism and Islam 155 Lori Lefkovitz 7 Dishonorable Passions: Law and Virtue in Muslim Communities 181 Catherine Warrick 8 Legislating the Family: Gender, Jewish Law, and Rabbinical Courts in Mandate Palestine 203 Lisa Fishbayn Joffe Part IV. Cultural Depictions of Jewish and Muslim Women 237 9 A Literary Perspective: Domestic Violence, the "Woman Question," and the "Arab Question" in Early Zionism 241 Andrea Siegel

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Book SynopsisFinalist for the 2021 National Jewish Book Award in American Jewish StudiesHonorable Mention, 2021 Saul Viener Book Prize, given by the American Jewish Historical SocietyReveals nostalgia as a new way of maintaining Jewish continuityIn 2007, the Museum at Eldridge Street opened at the site of a restored nineteenth-century synagogue originally built by some of the first Eastern European Jewish immigrants in New York City. Visitors to the museum are invited to stand along indentations on the floor where footprints of congregants past have worn down the soft pinewood. Here, many feel a palpable connection to the history surrounding them.Beyond the Synagogue argues that nostalgic activities such as visiting the Museum at Eldridge Street or eating traditional Jewish foods should be understood as American Jewish religious practices. In making the case that these practices are not just cultural, but are actually religious, RTrade ReviewGross seeks to expand how we understand the practice of American Judaism to include Jewish nostalgia, and argues that any notions of American Jewish religiosity being in ‘decline’ are false; it’s rather how we understand American Judaism that needs to be expanded. * Alma Magazine *Gross demonstrates how nostalgia does much of the same work as religion and can therefore be properly understood as religious itself ... Gross compellingly points to a Jewish life that seems to have been flourishing already for members of at least four generations of American Jews. She gives her readers tools to ask a vital question: where to look to discover robust Jewish life as it is occurring all around us. * Moment Magazine *Gross’ assessment of the way institutional Judaism dismisses activities that aren’t officially Jewish is well-argued and comprehensive ... and her book challenges prevailing orthodoxies of American Jewish life with respect and purpose. * Jewish Exponent *A stunning and timely volume on heritage production and material nostalgia that is sure to be an instant classic on American Jewishness. This is groundbreaking scholarship at multiple levels of analysis: for its compelling reconfigurations of American Jewish religious practice—and for its elegant expansion of American religion’s affective parameters. A must read! -- Sally M. Promey, editor of Sensational Religion: Sensory Cultures in Material PracticeBrilliant and innovative, Beyond the Synagogue is a game changer. Each chapter draws us in, deepening our understanding of how objects and places participate in nostalgia. Gross’s book is destined to change the way we think about how and where Jews ‘do’ religion. -- Laura Arnold Leibman, author of The Art of the Jewish FamilyThis studious and careful book is brave and beautiful in equal measure. I defy anyone who reads it to be left unmoved by the power of what Gross records. Beyond the Synagogue proves definitively that studying religion requires thinking about what people feel in the present as they think again about pasts they can't stop retelling. -- Kathryn Lofton, author of Consuming ReligionIn this vivid and convincing work, Rachel Gross creatively expands what counts as religious practice. Museum spaces, deli menus, genealogical enterprises, and children’s toys—Gross explores them all as revealing facets of American Jewish memory, the materials of both nostalgia and ongoing religious expression. She powerfully evokes the longing for remembrance, for a palpable reconnection with the past, contained within seemingly ordinary objects and activities. -- Leigh E. Schmidt, Washington University in St. LouisBeyond the Synagogue breaks important methodological ground in the study of American Jewish religion, especially by drawing key theoretical insights from the field of American religion. * American Religion *The freshness of Gross's argument… and the liveliness of her writing, is certain to attract both scholars and general readers with an interest in secular Judaism and American Jewish culture. * Contemporary Jewry *

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Book SynopsisCelebrated sex expert and bestselling author Dr. Ruth Westheimer bridges the gap between sex and religion in this provocative exploration of intimacy in the Jewish faithIn this light-hearted, lively tour of Jewish sexuality, Dr. Ruth K. Westheimer and Jonathan Mark team up to reveal how the Jewish tradition is much more progressive than popular wisdom might lead one to believe. Applying Dr. Ruth's acclaimed brand of couples therapy to such Biblical relationships as Abraham and Sarah, and Joseph and Potiphar's wife, the authors enlist Biblical lore to explore such topics as surrogacy, incest, and arranged marriages. They offer a clearer understanding of the intertwining relationships between sexuality and spirituality through incisive investigations of the Song of Songs, Ruth, Proverbs, Psalms, and some of the bawdier tales of the Prophets. One chapter provides a provocative new perspective on the Sabbath as a weekly revival, highlighting not only its spiritual nature, but also its maTrade Review"America's favorite sex therapist probably best known for making the word orgasm a TV talk show favorite, collaborates with Jewish Week editor Mark in a more significant accomplishment—a thoughtful study of the roles of sexuality in Judaica." * Booklist *

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Ogren offers an insightful revisionist take on how esoteric Jewish texts shaped American religious thought in the 17th and 18th centuries ... Historians of American Judaism must take a look." * Publishers Weekly *"Ogren has authored a tour de force with this well-written and captivating volume that reexamines the role of religion in the period leading up to American independence. A must for readers interested in an often untold perspective on the history and religious identity of the United States." * STARRED Library Journal *"This learned and ambitious study reevaluates the role of Kabbalah in shaping early American religious sensibilities and sheds important new light upon the Kabbalistic interests of such key figures as the Mathers, George Keith, Judah Monis, and Ezra Stiles. A path-breaking contribution." -- Jonathan D. Sarna, Joseph H. & Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History, Brandeis University"Anyone interested in the history of the colonial period and the development of spirituality in America, as well as in the impact of Kabbalah on Christian intellectuals, will welcome Brian Ogren’s remarkable book. This is a fascinating, thorough, and compelling study of a very important topic and I highly recommend it." -- Yaakov Ariel, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill"Radically changes our understanding of the intellectual links between colonial American Puritanism, identity formation, and the esoteric literature of rabbinic scholarship, the mysticism of the Kabbalah, Zohar, and Sefer Yetzirah. Ogren is the foremost scholar to trace the influence of kabbalistic literature and Jewish thought . . . drawing on archival resources few have bothered to examine. This is an intellectual feast of the first order and a credit to American religious historiography." -- Reiner Smolinski, Georgia State University"Offers a groundbreaking, often breathtaking story, based on first-rate scholarship, about the relation between forms of Kabbalist thought and major figures and ideas in early America. It is a gripping, thoughtful, and often surprising account that will provoke a reconsideration of the intellectual sources of American ideals and of early modern thought more generally." -- Christia Mercer, Gustave M. Berne Professor of Philosophy, Columbia University"The book offers intriguing insights into American History and the History of Religion between 1680 and 1780 and adds innovatively to our understanding of American identity." * Religious Studies Review *"Ogren's analysis of the use and impact of Kabbalah on early religious thought in the New World is remarkable… [T]here is little doubt that Kabbalah and the Founding of America will shape the future study of early Protestant Christian theology and its ties to Jewish thought traveling between the Old World and the New." * Reform Jewish Quarterly *"Ogren takes no shortcuts when it comes to scholarly analysis of his texts and the endless complexities of kabbalistic thought. In the end, his book is about finding Judaism and Jewish thought precisely where it was not supposed to be, and then rethinking both Judaism and Protestantism in response." * The American Jewish Archives Journal *

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Book SynopsisReveals how young American Jewish children come to develop their views about IsraelIsrael has long occupied a prominent place in the lives and imaginations of American Jews, serving as both a symbolic touchstone and a source of intercommunal conflict. In My Second-Favorite Country, Sivan Zakai offers the first longitudinal study of how American Jewish children come to think and feel about Israel, tracking their evolving conceptions from kindergarten to fifth grade. This work sheds light on the perception of Israel in the minds of Jewish children in the US and provides a rich case study of how children more generally develop ideas and beliefs about self, community, nation, and world. In contrast to popular views of America's youth as naive or uninterested, this book illuminates both the complexity of their thinking and their desire to be included in conversations about important civic and political matters. Zakai draws from compelling empirical data to prove that children spend considerTrade Review"Featuring impressive data and compelling prose, My Second-Favorite Country is the first longitudinal study of American Jewish children that is outside of the framework of heritage tourism. . . . Will certainly make a lasting impression in the field of Jewish Studies." -- Ari Y. Kelman, Stanford University"Exceptionally well-crafted and fascinating. By illustrating Jewish-American children’s grappling with identity and community, Zakai has provided a necessary and long overdue contribution to Jewish Studies." -- Theodore Sasson, Middlebury College"Rich in anecdotes, featuring children sharing their thoughts in their own words, My Second-Favorite Country serves as important testimony that conveys the need to listen to children on the topic of Israel. By arguing for making Israel part of what Jewish children know versus just a place they have positive feelings about, Zakai charts a course forward for helping them become authentically attached to Israel." * Contemporary Jewry *"In My Second-Favorite Country: How American Jewish Children Think About Israel, Sivan Zakai offers a novel suggestion for how to approach Israel education: let’s listen carefully to students’ sense-making. Zakais’ book is a must-read for educators who see it as their responsibility to help students make sense of the world in which they live, in which we all live, and in which we all may have a lasting impact." * Reading Religion *

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Book SynopsisReveals how young American Jewish children come to develop their views about IsraelIsrael has long occupied a prominent place in the lives and imaginations of American Jews, serving as both a symbolic touchstone and a source of intercommunal conflict. In My Second-Favorite Country, Sivan Zakai offers the first longitudinal study of how American Jewish children come to think and feel about Israel, tracking their evolving conceptions from kindergarten to fifth grade. This work sheds light on the perception of Israel in the minds of Jewish children in the US and provides a rich case study of how children more generally develop ideas and beliefs about self, community, nation, and world. In contrast to popular views of America's youth as naive or uninterested, this book illuminates both the complexity of their thinking and their desire to be included in conversations about important civic and political matters. Zakai draws from compelling empirical data to prove that children spend considerTrade Review"Featuring impressive data and compelling prose, My Second-Favorite Country is the first longitudinal study of American Jewish children that is outside of the framework of heritage tourism. . . . Will certainly make a lasting impression in the field of Jewish Studies." -- Ari Y. Kelman, Stanford University"Exceptionally well-crafted and fascinating. By illustrating Jewish-American children’s grappling with identity and community, Zakai has provided a necessary and long overdue contribution to Jewish Studies." -- Theodore Sasson, Middlebury College"Rich in anecdotes, featuring children sharing their thoughts in their own words, My Second-Favorite Country serves as important testimony that conveys the need to listen to children on the topic of Israel. By arguing for making Israel part of what Jewish children know versus just a place they have positive feelings about, Zakai charts a course forward for helping them become authentically attached to Israel." * Contemporary Jewry *"In My Second-Favorite Country: How American Jewish Children Think About Israel, Sivan Zakai offers a novel suggestion for how to approach Israel education: let’s listen carefully to students’ sense-making. Zakais’ book is a must-read for educators who see it as their responsibility to help students make sense of the world in which they live, in which we all live, and in which we all may have a lasting impact." * Reading Religion *"Zakai (Jewish education, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Los Angeles) has written an important study about how Jewish American children attending Jewish day schools relate to Israel." * CHOICE *

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Book SynopsisAn exploration of the emergence of Rabbinic Judaism drawing on primary sources and new methodsOver the past generation, several major findings and methodological innovations have led scholars to reevaluate the foundation of Judaism. The Dead Sea Scrolls were the most famous, but other materials have further altered our understanding of Judaism's development after the Biblical era.This volume explores some of the latest clues into how early Judaism took shape, from the invention of rabbis to the parting of Judaism and Christianity, to whether ancient Jews considered themselves a nation. Rather than having simply evolved, normative Judaism is now understood to be the result of one approach having achieved prominence over many others, competing for acceptance in the wake of the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in the year 70 CE. This new understanding has implications for how we think about Judaism today, as the collapse of rabbinic authority is leading to tTrade ReviewA spectacular round-up of superb authors, all of them expert in fields relating to the transition centuries between the Hebrew Bible and the emergence of Judaism -- and Christianity too. One after another, the essays provide the state of the question: what scholars are saying now, and why. If there is such a thing as a scholarly page-turner, this is it, a rewarding synopsis of scholarship on pretty much every page -- Dr. Lawrence A. Hoffman,Barbara and Stephen Friedman Professor of Liturgy, Worship and Ritual, Hebrew Union CollegeOutstanding scholars of early Judaism share cutting edge research and new insights in this highly readable anthology. The succinct and accessible essays foreground the varieties of Judaisms and Jewish writings in late ancient times, the separation of Christianity from its Jewish origins, evolving constructions of gender, the development of the synagogue and its liturgy, and the consolidation of rabbinic Judaism in clear and compelling ways. This volume is sure to be welcomed by teachers of formative Judaism and Christianity, their students, and interested general readers. -- Judith R. Baskin,Philip H. Knight Professor of Humanities, University of Oregon

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewQueer Judaism refuses simple narratives that pit queer lives against religion. Instead, it beautifully examines how LGBT activists in Israel work within Orthodox Judaism to give their lives and identities meaning, even as they struggle within this tradition to make space for themselves. Avishai’s brilliant, moving ethnography sets a new standard for scholarship in religion and sexuality. It’s a must read. -- Anthony Petro, author of After the Wrath of God: AIDS, Sexuality, and American ReligionAn engaging book about people whose proud, public existence became possible over a very short time. Pushing beyond old notions of reconciling conflicting identities, Avishai illustrates how actors gently seized a political and cultural moment and organized to articulate the meaning their lives derived from existing at the intersection of orthodox religion and `unorthodox’ sexuality. Ultimately, Queer Judaism is a story of how queerness can foster life and growth in institutions, culture, and individuals—and its limits. -- Dawne Moon, author of God, Sex, and Politics: Homosexuality and Everyday TheologiesDrawing on interviews with dozens of gay religious Israeli Jews and activists, experiences at Orthodox LGBTQ events and time researching and reading message boards, Avishai traces the history of gay activism in Israel’s religious worlds and the rapid transformation in attitudes and advocacy. -- Amy Spiro * The Times of Israel *Queer Judaism includes excerpts from numerous interviews that show the heartbreak of those who have not been accepted by their families and/or community. However, these are the same people who are creating a new version of Orthodoxy simply by living their lives and expecting acceptance. Their use of Jewish texts has also helped them become more actively engaged in Judaism. Queer Judaism will inspire and challenge readers as it shows the active development of religious change in Israel. * The Reporter *

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Book SynopsisWinner, 2016 Best First Book Prize from the Immigration and Ethnic History SocietyFinalist, 2016 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish LiteratureWinner, 2015 Book Prize from the Southern Jewish Historical Society Finalist, 2015 Jordan Schnitzer Book Award from the Association for Jewish Studies Winner, 2014 National Jewish Book Award in American Jewish Studies from the Jewish Book CouncilThe majority of Jewish immigrants who made their way to the United States between 1820 and 1924 arrived nearly penniless; yet today their descendants stand out as exceptionally successful. How can we explain their dramatic economic ascent? Have Jews been successful because of cultural factors distinct to them as a group, or because of the particular circumstances that they encountered in America? The Rag Race argues that the Jews who flocked to the United States during the age of mass migration were aided appreciably by their association with a particular cornerTrade ReviewInThe Rag Race, Adam Mendelsohn traces the intertwined fates of the Jewish community and the garment industries in America and Britain...Like any good historical writer, he turns documents and data into relatable human stories. * Sewjewish.com *An inquiry into the wellspring of modern Jewish economic success, [The Rag Race] attends to the origins of the garment industry, poking around in the dusty, and often little-known, corners of a global exchange basedon kinship and the Jewish collective...The Rag Raceis a remarkable achievement, a testament to the vitality of the historical imagination. * Jewish Review of Books *Deeply researched and beautifully written, The Rag Race returns to a classic topicthe story of Jewish immigrants in the clothing industryto shed entirely new light on the route that led from the sweatshop to success. Moving the conventional starting point backward, from the turn of the twentieth century to the early 19th century, Mendelsohn demonstrates how early differences in Jewish settlement and the structure of the garment trade led to divergent Jewish trajectories on both the U.S. and British sides of the Anglophone world. An outstanding example of comparative history, The Rag Race offers insights that any scholar or student of immigration will appreciate. -- Roger Waldinger,Distinguished Professor of Sociology, University of California, Los AngelesDrawing upon the social and economic historiography of Britain, Australia, and the United States, this book weaves together disparate historical threads into a seamless narrative with a compelling argument. Making shrewd use of historical comparison, it illuminates the interplay of inherited culture with historically contingent structures of opportunity. The result is a book studded with insight, and written with wit and style. -- Jerry Z. Muller,author of Capitalism and the JewsMendelsohn joins the scholarly debate over the roots of Jewish economic success in the U.S. This he does with great style and energy, offering vivid descriptions, telling detail, and clear arguments, all based on meticulous research. This is a superb book that is a model of comparative and transnational history. It should be read not only by historians of American or modern Jewry, but by historians of immigration, business, fashion, and urban life. * American Historical Review *With this gracefully written monograph, deeply researched on three continents, Mendelsohn joins a cohort of scholars writing Jewish economic history through a transnational lens. * Choice *Table of ContentsContents Introduction: The Rag Race 1 1 Goblin Market: London, 1843 18 2 New York City: A Rag-Fair Sort of Place 37 3 Rumpled Foot Soldiers of the Market Revolution 58 4 Clothing Moses 91 5 The Empire's New Clothes 112 6 A New Dawn in the West 134 7 Clothing the Blue and Gray 159 8 A Ready-Made Paradise 183 Conclusion 207 Acknowledgments 229 Notes 233 Index 287 About the Author 297

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"In this impressive book, Taragin-Zeller skillfully articulates a new way to think about religiously inspired decision-making that goes beyond established tropes concerning piety and duty, and focuses in a sensitive and sophisticated way on how couples think in nuanced and flexible, albeit often anguished, ways about reproductive planning. Fascinating and poignant." -- Simon Coleman, Chancellor Jackman Professor of Religion, University of Toronto"Taragin-Zeller’s remarkable ability to bridge many fields will be celebrated by diverse scholars in anthropology, gender studies, religion, and politics, and by those curious about the powerful intersections of intimate desires and the state." -- Nurit Stadler, author of Yeshiva Fundamentalism: Piety, Gender, and Resistance in the Ultra-Orthodox World"This beautiful book illuminates matters at the heart of contemporary Israel and its timely struggles over nationhood. Taragin-Zeller skillfully brings to life everyday uncertainties around family-making among religious people and, in doing so, contributes invaluable insights on timeless questions of subjectivity and ethics." -- Ayala Fader, Fordham University

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Book SynopsisWINNER, 2024 Jordan Schnitzer Book Award- Social Sciences, Anthropology, and Folklore Category, given by the Association for Jewish StudiesAn intimate account of Orthodox family planning amid shifting state policies in IsraelIn recent years, Israeli state policies have attempted to dissuade Orthodox Jews from creating large families, an objective that flies in the face of traditional practices in their community. As state desires to cultivate a high-income, tech-centered nation come into greater conflict with common Orthodox familial practices, Jewish couples are finding it increasingly difficult to actualize their reproductive aims and communal expectations. In The State of Desire, Lea Taragin-Zeller provides an intimate examination of the often devastating effects of Israel's steep cutbacks in child benefits, which are aimed at limiting the rapid increase in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish population. Taragin-Zeller takes the reader beyond Orthodox taboos, capturing how cracks in religiousTrade ReviewIn this impressive book, Taragin-Zeller skillfully articulates a new way to think about religiously inspired decision-making that goes beyond established tropes concerning piety and duty, and focuses in a sensitive and sophisticated way on how couples think in nuanced and flexible, albeit often anguished, ways about reproductive planning. Fascinating and poignant. -- Simon Coleman, Chancellor Jackman Professor of Religion, University of TorontoTaragin-Zeller’s remarkable ability to bridge many fields will be celebrated by diverse scholars in anthropology, gender studies, religion, and politics, and by those curious about the powerful intersections of intimate desires and the state. -- Nurit Stadler, author of Yeshiva Fundamentalism: Piety, Gender, and Resistance in the Ultra-Orthodox WorldThis beautiful book illuminates matters at the heart of contemporary Israel and its timely struggles over nationhood. Taragin-Zeller skillfully brings to life everyday uncertainties around family-making among religious people and, in doing so, contributes invaluable insights on timeless questions of subjectivity and ethics. -- Ayala Fader, Fordham University

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Book SynopsisFinalist for the 2021 National Jewish Book Award in American Jewish StudiesHonorable Mention, 2021 Saul Viener Book Prize, given by the American Jewish Historical SocietyReveals nostalgia as a new way of maintaining Jewish continuityIn 2007, the Museum at Eldridge Street opened at the site of a restored nineteenth-century synagogue originally built by some of the first Eastern European Jewish immigrants in New York City. Visitors to the museum are invited to stand along indentations on the floor where footprints of congregants past have worn down the soft pinewood. Here, many feel a palpable connection to the history surrounding them.Beyond the Synagogue argues that nostalgic activities such as visiting the Museum at Eldridge Street or eating traditional Jewish foods should be understood as American Jewish religious practices. In making the case that these practices are not just cultural, but are actually religious, RTrade ReviewGross seeks to expand how we understand the practice of American Judaism to include Jewish nostalgia, and argues that any notions of American Jewish religiosity being in ‘decline’ are false; it’s rather how we understand American Judaism that needs to be expanded. * Alma Magazine *Gross demonstrates how nostalgia does much of the same work as religion and can therefore be properly understood as religious itself ... Gross compellingly points to a Jewish life that seems to have been flourishing already for members of at least four generations of American Jews. She gives her readers tools to ask a vital question: where to look to discover robust Jewish life as it is occurring all around us. * Moment Magazine *Gross’ assessment of the way institutional Judaism dismisses activities that aren’t officially Jewish is well-argued and comprehensive ... and her book challenges prevailing orthodoxies of American Jewish life with respect and purpose. * Jewish Exponent *A stunning and timely volume on heritage production and material nostalgia that is sure to be an instant classic on American Jewishness. This is groundbreaking scholarship at multiple levels of analysis: for its compelling reconfigurations of American Jewish religious practice—and for its elegant expansion of American religion’s affective parameters. A must read! -- Sally M. Promey, editor of Sensational Religion: Sensory Cultures in Material PracticeBrilliant and innovative, Beyond the Synagogue is a game changer. Each chapter draws us in, deepening our understanding of how objects and places participate in nostalgia. Gross’s book is destined to change the way we think about how and where Jews ‘do’ religion. -- Laura Arnold Leibman, author of The Art of the Jewish FamilyThis studious and careful book is brave and beautiful in equal measure. I defy anyone who reads it to be left unmoved by the power of what Gross records. Beyond the Synagogue proves definitively that studying religion requires thinking about what people feel in the present as they think again about pasts they can't stop retelling. -- Kathryn Lofton, author of Consuming ReligionIn this vivid and convincing work, Rachel Gross creatively expands what counts as religious practice. Museum spaces, deli menus, genealogical enterprises, and children’s toys—Gross explores them all as revealing facets of American Jewish memory, the materials of both nostalgia and ongoing religious expression. She powerfully evokes the longing for remembrance, for a palpable reconnection with the past, contained within seemingly ordinary objects and activities. -- Leigh E. Schmidt, Washington University in St. LouisBeyond the Synagogue breaks important methodological ground in the study of American Jewish religion, especially by drawing key theoretical insights from the field of American religion. * American Religion *The freshness of Gross's argument… and the liveliness of her writing, is certain to attract both scholars and general readers with an interest in secular Judaism and American Jewish culture. * Contemporary Jewry *

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Book Synopsis73rd National Jewish Book Awards FinalistCharts how changes to Jewish education in the nineteenth century served as a site for the wholescale reimagining of Judaism itselfThe earliest Jewish Sunday schools were female-led, growing from one school in Philadelphia established by Rebecca Gratz in 1838 to an entire system that educated vast numbers of Jewish youth across the country. These schools were modeled on Christian approaches to religious education and aimed to protect Jewish children from Protestant missionaries. But debates soon swirled around the so-called sorry state of feminized American Jewish supplemental learning, and the schools were taken over by men within one generation of their creation. It is commonly assumed that the critiques were accurate and that the early Jewish Sunday school was too feminized, saccharine, and dependent on Christian paradigms. Tracing the development of these schools from their inception through the firstTrade ReviewFills a major gap in the history of Jewish education in America. This is the first detailed study of the decades between the founding of the first Jewish Sunday School in 1838 and the development of the alternative model of the Talmud Torah during the earliest years of the 20th century. A significant contribution to the fields of religion, education, and history. -- Melissa R. Klapper, Rowan UniversityMeticulously researched and elegantly written. Featuring tremendous original historical research and vivid prose, this is an engaging and impressive addition to the study of religion in the United States and American Jewish history. -- Jodi Eichler-Levine, author of Painted Pomegranates and Needlepoint Rabbis: How Jews Craft Resilience and Create CommunityJewish Sunday Schools is an engrossing, cohesive history of the unsung, integral role of women in American Jewish religious education. * Foreword Reviews *This title offers a window into the formation of the American Jewish community. A very well-researched book of interest to anyone who ever attended or sent their child to a Jewish Sunday school. * Library Journal *Yares skillfully details early framings of nineteenth-century American Judaism while placing those framings within the context of American religion. Jewish Sunday Schools will provoke and inform those thinking about current issues in American Jewish education. -- Karla Goldman, author of Beyond the Synagogue Gallery: Finding a Place for Women in American Judaism

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Book SynopsisHow the Wise Men Got to Chelm is the first in-depth study of Chelm literature and its relationship to its literary precursors. When God created the world, so it is said, he sent out an angel with a bag of foolish souls with instructions to distribute them equally all over the worldone fool per town. But the angel's bag broke and all the souls spilled out onto the same spot. They built a settlement where they landed: the town is known as Chelm. The collected tales of these fools, or wise men, of Chelm constitute the best-known folktale tradition of the Jews of eastern Europe. This tradition includes a sprawling repertoire of stories about the alleged intellectual limitations of the members of this old and important Jewish community. Chelm did not make its debut in the role of the foolish shtetl par excellence until late in the nineteenth century. Since then, however, the town has led a double lifeas a real city in eastern Poland and as an imaginary place onto which questions of Jewish iTrade Review"Bernuth...provides a detailed and comprehensive examination of the evolution of some of the best-known Yiddish folk stories--those revolving around the comically foolish men of the town of Chelm--that places those tales in historical and cultural context." * Publishers Weekly *"[Von Bernuth] provides a comprehensive survey of all the collections of Chelm stories and their predecessors published since 1700, shows how the tales explored Jewish identity, community and history, and delivers a few punch lines." * The Jerusalem Post *"von Bernuth succeeds admirably in showing how the mythic locale allowed for the expression of various Jewish fantasies and anxieties over the past century and a half, and indeed continues to do so today." * Times Higher Education *"A beautifully-written work of meticulous scholarship. How the Wise Men Got to Chelm is the first book in any language to fully explore the humor and the seriousness in one of the most enduring and beloved legends of popular Jewish culture. Von Bernuth not only traces the origins of the fools of Chelm, but goes further to illuminate what these stories reveal about the intersections of European and Jewish cultures and the shifts in Jewish cultural development over a three hundred year period." -- Anita Norich,Tikva Frymer-Kensky Collegiate Professor, University of Michigan"This book is deeply learned, immensely sympathetic, and refreshingly free of cultural anxiety or chauvinism, Ruth von Bernuth squarely sets this famous genre within a milieu that is at once thoroughly Germanic and distinctively Jewish, and she carefully traces the continuities and transitions from early modern to twentieth-century expressions. Very wise indeed, this is a model analysis of the creative workings of not only Jewish but other diasporas as well." -- Jonathan Boyarin,Diann G. and Thomas Mann Professor of Modern Jewish Studies, Cornell University"Using the example of 'foolish' culture, von Bernuth shows that Jews shared the assumptions, themes and expressions of the general German culture, while lending that culture a Jewish inflection. Yet, social barriers persisted. Von Bernuth illuminates this paradoxical combination of cultural partnership and social alienation, showcasing the relationship between minority and majority groups. Her book is a milestone in both literary history and cultural studies." -- Moshe Rosman,author of How Jewish Is Jewish History?"One can only wonder what the Wise Men of Chelm would have said about a book like this. It has all the scholarship one could ask for but also an ability to home in on basic questions. It offers a sense of perspectiveand a sense of humor. It breaks the canonsit is fun to read and is a mine of information. It transforms a collection of stories that are usually dismissed as light reading for children into a powerful tool for understanding how different cultures learn from each otherand also maintain their identities. The author shares her knowledge generouslybut never forgets the basic humanity of the figures about whom she writes. The Men of Chelm would probably say: Start reading and see if you can stop!" -- Shaul Stampfer,Sandrow Professor of Soviet and East European Jewish History, Hebrew University"How the Wise Men Got to Chelmshows how these stories have changed over time to include debates about the efficacy of Zionism or communism, or to discuss the apparent silliness of Hasidic traditions." * Times Literary Supplement *

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Book SynopsisDespite an outpouring of scholarship on the Holocaust, little work has focused on what happened to Europe's Jewish communities after the war ended. And unlike many other European nations in which the majority of the Jewish population perished, France had a significant post-war Jewish community that numbered in the hundreds of thousands. Post-Holocaust France and the Jews, 19451955 offers new insight on key aspects of French Jewish life in the decades following the end of World War II. How Jews had been treated during the war continued to influence both Jewish and non-Jewish society in the post-war years. The volume examines the ways in which moral and political issues of responsibility combined with the urgent problems and practicalities of restoration, and it illustrates how national imperatives, international dynamics, and a changed self-perception all profoundly helped to shape the fortunes of postwar French Judaism.Comprehensive and informed, this volume offers a rich variety of Trade ReviewThis astute and wide-ranging collection captures multiple dimensions of French Jews reactions after World War II to a society that simultaneously had delivered 76,000 of them to death yet saved almost nine-tenths of those who had been born in France. Appearing at a time when the existence of a French Jewish community seems imperiled once more, this book is especially instructive. -- Peter Hayes,Theodore Zev Weiss Holocaust Educational Foundation Professor, Northwestern UniversityThis important and much-needed volume brings together an impressive collection of international scholars to tell the complex and fascinating story of postwar France. It is a story of destruction and reconstruction, despair and hope, memory and desire. Not only does this book help us to understand the convoluted relationship between France and the Jews, it deftly enriches our understanding of sociopolitical renewal within the broader context of European transnationalism. -- Aaron W. Hughes,author of The Study of Judaism: Identity, Authenticity, ScholarshipIn shining a light on the early post-war period, this readable and thought-provoking volume resonates with recent Anglophone scholarly contributions by Shannon Fogg and Leora Auslander on the work of the French restitution committee in the late 1940s. * Journal of Jewish Studies *Erudite and eloquent, the collection overcomes the constraints of a decennial approach, encouraging us to reflect on the changing historical relationship between Jews and the state, and illustrating consistently how decisions taken at this time affect Jews in contemporary France. Above all, it paints a poignant and vivid picture of a community that, in the aftermath of calamity, sought to combine new and existing tactics to rebuild for the future. * French History *This book should be essential reading for scholars of the Jewish dimension of French culture in the twentieth century. * French Studies *This edited volume examines the reconstruction of Jewish life in France after the Holocaust. Focusing on the first ten years after the war, editors Hand and Katz bring together diverse scholars whose essays will engage students and scholars of French and Jewish history.Cohesive and thought provoking, this book offers new paths of inquiry on a decade of critical change in France. Summing Up: Highly recommended. * Choice *Table of ContentsContents 1. The Revival of French Jewry in Post- Holocaust France: Challenges and Opportunities 26 David Weinberg 2. Th e Encounter between "Native" and "Immigrant" Jews in Post- Holocaust France: Negotiating Diff erence 38 Maud Mandel 3. Centralizing the Political Jewish Voice in Post- Holocaust France: Discretion and Development 58 Samuel Ghiles- Meilhac 4. Post- Holocaust Book Restitutions: How One State Agency Helped Revive Republican Franco- Judaism 71 Lisa Moses Leff 5. Lost Children and Lost Childhoods: Memory in Post- Holocaust France 85 Daniella Doron 6. Orphans of the Shoah and Jewish Identity in Post- Holocaust France: From the Individual to the Collective 118 Susan Rubin Suleiman 7. Jewish Children's Homes in Post- Holocaust France: Personal T.moignages 139 Lucille Cairns 8. Post- Holocaust French Writing: Refl ecting on Evil in 1947 156 Bruno Chaouat vi | Contents 9. L.on Poliakov, the Origins of Holocaust Studies, and Th eories of Anti- Semitism: Rereading Br.viaire de la haine 169 Jonathan Judaken 10. Andr. Neher: A Post- Shoah Prophetic Vocation 193 Edward K. Kaplan

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Book SynopsisWinner, 2017 National Jewish Book Award in American Jewish Studies presented by the Jewish Book Council Finalist, 2017 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, presented by the Jewish Book Council An engaging history of how Jews forged their own religious culture on the American frontierJews on the Frontier offers a religious history that begins in an unexpected place: on the road. Shari Rabin recounts the journey of Jewish people as they left Eastern cities and ventured into the American West and South during the nineteenth century. It brings to life the successes and obstacles of these travels, from the unprecedented economic opportunities to the anonymity and loneliness that complicated the many legal obligations of traditional Jewish life. Without government-supported communities or reliable authorities, where could one procure kosher meat? Alone in the American wilderness, how could one find nine co-religionists for a minyan (prTrade ReviewRabin makes a compelling case here that the full arc of American Jewish history cannot ignore the young Jewish men who pursued their livelihoods by heading for the frontier. Their religious inconsistencies, creativities, and sense of empowerment as ordinary Jews may actually serve as a better template for thinking about how Judaism developed in America. * Annals of Iowa *Rabins clarion call to reimagine the labels we use to describe ourselves, to embrace diasporism, and to resist centralized practices speaks to a generation that actively deconstructs patriarchal and heteronormative structures, thinks more globally, and operates outside the institutional framework. . . . Jews on the Frontieris a valuable read not only for scholars of American Jewish and American religious history, but change-minded activists and citizens as well. * Marginalia Review of Books *Jews on the Frontier stands as a significant historiographical intervention in de-centering established institutions and denominations and the Protestant secular from the narratives of minority religions and religious communities. * Reading Religion *Rabin convincingly describes frontier mobility as the motive force behind one of the most creative and constructive eras in American Judaism. * The Journal of Southern Religion *In [an] enlightening study largely focusing on the preCivil War South and West, Rabinexamines the intertwining of Jews and mobility in the 19th-century US...Impressively documented, this intriguing exploration is appropriate for general libraries. * Choice *Jews on the Frontier is a compelling account of the cultural and spiritual changes experienced by American Jews outside the main coastal cities and their large congregations before the large East-European emigration waves of the late Nineteenth-Century. * Civil War Book Review *"Scholars of immigration have toiled for years on the question of how mobility affects nationalities and group identities alike. In Jews on the Frontier, Shari Rabin gives this framework an interesting twist by investigating mobility’s influence on religion. By relying on personal letters, published articles, and other first-hand testimonies, Rabin argues that the expanding United States created a uniquely American religion. * American Jewish Archives Journal *Generating as many questions about the nineteenth century American Jewish experience as answers, Rabins study enables us to take its measure, to see Jewish life on its own terms: as a full-throttled, complex, lively culture all its own rather than a backdrop to the sea changes of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. * American Historical Review *For far too long, historians of American Jews have glossed over most of the nineteenth century, as preamble for the truer or more interesting histories of twentieth-century American Jewry. Rabin offers a deeply researched, beautifully rendered case for the centrality of the nineteenth century to how we understand American Judaism. By looking toward ethnographic models, material culture, and narrative techniques, she argues that the provisionality, the instability, and the mobility of nineteenth-century Judaism created new modes of Jewish life suitable to endure in the American environment. Following in the footsteps of Robert Orsi, Leigh Eric Schmidt, and Kathryn Lofton, who all expertly wed ethnography to deep historical inquiry, Rabin allows the reader to understand the human contours of Jewish life in motion. -- Lila Corwin Berman,Temple UniversityJews on the Frontier is one of the most significant contributions in years to the study of nineteenth-century American Judaism with vast implications for students of American religion generally. An eye-opening and creative study of how mobility shaped distinctive patterns of religious life. -- Jonathan D. Sarna,author of American Judaism: A HistoryRabin’s religious studies scholarship differs from the typical histories of both American Jews in particular and Jewish history more broadly… [her] scholarship attends to place and space, nature, and infrastructure, and it also analyzes national particulars without being fully bounded by them. * Journal of Religion *The book can be read as a contribution to a number of fields ... Rabin has demonstrated convincingly the significance of mobility and thus space in the history of American Judaism and so has pointed the way for other scholars to do the same in the history of American religion more broadly. * American Religion *American Judaism is often treated as a more recent phenomenon, with much of the scholarly focus going to the communities that emerged in the wake of the new immigration era in the 1880s through the 1920s, yet Jews have continuously resided in what would become the United States since 1654. Jews on the Frontier breaks away from this traditional view to explore how Jews engaged with their Judaism while living outside of major Jewish communities. Jews on the Frontier is a compelling book about the process of Jews adapting to American life during the nineteenth century. [This book] serves to fill in chronological and geographical gaps in the current Jewish historical scholarship. * H-Borderlands *Jews on the Frontier is a compelling book about the process of Jews adapting to American life during the nineteenth century...[It] serves to fill in chronological and geographical gaps in the current Jewish historical scholarship. -- H-Net Reviews * H-Net Reviews *

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Book SynopsisWinner, 2016 Best First Book Prize from the Immigration and Ethnic History SocietyFinalist, 2016 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish LiteratureWinner, 2015 Book Prize from the Southern Jewish Historical Society Finalist, 2015 Jordan Schnitzer Book Award from the Association for Jewish Studies Winner, 2014 National Jewish Book Award in American Jewish Studies from the Jewish Book CouncilThe majority of Jewish immigrants who made their way to the United States between 1820 and 1924 arrived nearly penniless; yet today their descendants stand out as exceptionally successful. How can we explain their dramatic economic ascent? Have Jews been successful because of cultural factors distinct to them as a group, or because of the particular circumstances that they encountered in America? The Rag Race argues that the Jews who flocked to the United States during the age of mass migration were aided appreciably by their association with a particular cornerTrade ReviewInThe Rag Race, Adam Mendelsohn traces the intertwined fates of the Jewish community and the garment industries in America and Britain...Like any good historical writer, he turns documents and data into relatable human stories. * Sewjewish.com *An inquiry into the wellspring of modern Jewish economic success, [The Rag Race] attends to the origins of the garment industry, poking around in the dusty, and often little-known, corners of a global exchange basedon kinship and the Jewish collective...The Rag Raceis a remarkable achievement, a testament to the vitality of the historical imagination. * Jewish Review of Books *Deeply researched and beautifully written, The Rag Race returns to a classic topicthe story of Jewish immigrants in the clothing industryto shed entirely new light on the route that led from the sweatshop to success. Moving the conventional starting point backward, from the turn of the twentieth century to the early 19th century, Mendelsohn demonstrates how early differences in Jewish settlement and the structure of the garment trade led to divergent Jewish trajectories on both the U.S. and British sides of the Anglophone world. An outstanding example of comparative history, The Rag Race offers insights that any scholar or student of immigration will appreciate. -- Roger Waldinger,Distinguished Professor of Sociology, University of California, Los AngelesDrawing upon the social and economic historiography of Britain, Australia, and the United States, this book weaves together disparate historical threads into a seamless narrative with a compelling argument. Making shrewd use of historical comparison, it illuminates the interplay of inherited culture with historically contingent structures of opportunity. The result is a book studded with insight, and written with wit and style. -- Jerry Z. Muller,author of Capitalism and the JewsMendelsohn joins the scholarly debate over the roots of Jewish economic success in the U.S. This he does with great style and energy, offering vivid descriptions, telling detail, and clear arguments, all based on meticulous research. This is a superb book that is a model of comparative and transnational history. It should be read not only by historians of American or modern Jewry, but by historians of immigration, business, fashion, and urban life. * American Historical Review *With this gracefully written monograph, deeply researched on three continents, Mendelsohn joins a cohort of scholars writing Jewish economic history through a transnational lens. * Choice *Table of ContentsContents Introduction: The Rag Race 1 1 Goblin Market: London, 1843 18 2 New York City: A Rag-Fair Sort of Place 37 3 Rumpled Foot Soldiers of the Market Revolution 58 4 Clothing Moses 91 5 The Empire's New Clothes 112 6 A New Dawn in the West 134 7 Clothing the Blue and Gray 159 8 A Ready-Made Paradise 183 Conclusion 207 Acknowledgments 229 Notes 233 Index 287 About the Author 297

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Book Synopsis2017 Jordan Schnitzer Book Award in Jewish Literature and LinguisticsHonorable Mention, 2016 Baron Book Prize presented by AAJRA monster tour of the Golem narrative across various cultural and historical landscapesIn the 1910s and 1920s, a golem cult swept across Europe and the U.S., later surfacing in Israel. Why did this story of a powerful clay monster molded and animated by a rabbi to protect his community become so popular and pervasive? The golem has appeared in a remarkable range of popular media: from the Yiddish theater to American comic books, from German silent film to Quentin Tarantino movies. This book showcases how the golem was remolded, throughout the war-torn twentieth century, as a muscular protector, injured combatant, and even murderous avenger. This evolution of the golem narrative is made comprehensible by, and also helps us to better understand, one of the defining aspects of the last one hundred years: mass warfare and its ancillary technologies. In the twentiTrade ReviewBarzilai makes a bold even brilliant connection between . . . the golem and . . . the soldier. * Times Literary Supplement *[Barzilai] wisely decides to focus on . . . golem representations in response to war and other mass violence. Barzilais extensive research and clear, interesting style make this a fine work. * Publishers Weekly *The multiple strands ofGolemare what constitute its great strength, presented not just chronologically but within themes that cross eras and borders Barzilai painstakingly analyses films, books and comics to reveal the Golems enduring cultural presence and influence. And the violence of this appealing creature, especially the idea of Jewish violence, is what makes it simultaneously so threatening. * Jewish Chronicle *A thorough and suggestive review . . .with a wide array of 20th-century sources, including films and cartoon literature. It will be a useful resource for those interested in modern history and culture. * Choice *Barzilai offers a fascinating analysis of how a legendary monster was appropriated in the last century as a way of understanding the baffling reality of war. . . . A creative and thoughtful approach, this book raises the deeper and unresolved questions of when, if ever, an act of violence justifies a violent response. Although Barzilai does not attempt to answer this question, she raises it as one of the unavoidable issues faced by an oppressed people who, in their fiction, have access to a protective monster. * Reading Religion *Fascinating and well argued, Golemexamines the modern incarnations of the old Jewish myth, tracking its many meanings as it crosses between generations and cultures, from the muddy trenches of WWI to the killing fields of science fiction. An indispensable text for anyone looking to understand our ongoing fascination with the golem figure, in all its malleable forms. -- Helene Wecker,author of The Golem & the JinniIn her wide-ranging Golem: Modern Wars and Their Monsters, Maya Barzilai argues that the myth of the golem tells us something about humanity more generally. It teaches us about what she calls 'the golem condition,' inwhich 'the fantasies of expanding our capacities and transgressing our natural boundaries are always curbed by the inborn limitations of human existence.' * Jewish Review of Books *This tracking of the adaptations of the Golem myth from World War I to the present becomes a probing cultural history of the past hundred years. Maya Barzilai moves with assurance from fiction, theater, and film to comic books and graphic novels, perceptively commenting on their formal aspects while preserving a lucid sense of the relevant historical contexts. This is a splendid piece of critical reflection. -- Robert Alter,University of California, BerkeleyBarzilai certainly puts her finger on a central paradox of European and Jewish culture coming out of the Great War: how can death and technological creativity coexist? The golem myth is a clever and successful way to probe that question. . . . Fascinating and intellectually venturesome. -- Alan Mintz,Chana Kekst Professor of Jewish Literature, The Jewish Theological SeminarySavior, soldier, demon, oafa golem is all these and more, and Barzilai guides us a fascinating tour of its supple mythology through shifting cultural and historical contexts. -- Jonathan Kellerman and Jesse Kellerman,authors of The Golem of ParisGolem: Modern Wars and their Monstersis highly recommended to those with an interest in the intersection between Jewish tradition and pop culture, as well as anyone with a focus on monster and twentieth century cultural studies. * The Journal of Religion and Culture *As Barzilai notes that future wars will likely be characterized by growing dependence on golem-like entities—whether drones or cyborgs or robots equipped with artificial intelligence—her book provides a timely meditation on the human effects of remote and automated violence. * Political and Legal Anthropology Review *

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Book SynopsisJewish and Islamic histories have long been interrelated. Both traditions emerged from ancient cultures born in the Middle East and both are rooted in texts and traditions that have often excluded women. This volume focuses attention on the theoretical innovations that gender scholarship has brought to the study of Muslim and Jewish experiences.Trade ReviewThe book could be helpful for graduate students hoping to think theoretically about gender in religion and history. With its succinct and compelling introductions for each part as well as an afterword by Scott and a glossary, the book is also made highly useable for undergraduates or novices. * Religious Studies Review *This volume is a solid beginning to a serious scholarly treatment of the topics surrounding gender in Judaism and Islam, It fills an important gap in the scholarship and promises to open the field to further critical studies. It addresses similarities and differences in womens issues and experiences within Jewish and Islamic national, religious, and ethnic identities. * Reading Religion *While this collection of essays is most useful for those with some background on the topics, it will also appeal to scholars hoping to expand their knowledge on many different aspects of Judaism and Islam. The essays do a great job of bridging ideas of the past with those of the present, making this volume valuable for scholars of history and current cultural trends as well as for researchers in anthropology, sociology womens health, media studies, Middle East studies, legal studies, literary studies, and more. * Feminist Collections *Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet and Beth S. Wenger are to be congratulated for assembling a compelling collection that illuminates a wide range of issues around gender in Judaism and Islam drawn from discussions of Muslim and Jewish law to analyses of contemporary feminism to crimes of passion and 'honor killings' in the modern Arab world. Written by eminent scholars in accessible prose, these powerful pieces carry us beyond stereotypes and politics toward mutual understanding and shared knowledge. -- Deborah Dash Moore,Frederick G.L. Huetwell Professor of History, University of MichiganA long overdue volume exploring commonalities and differences among Jewish and Muslim women along with gendered aspects of their religious and cultural experiences. Path breaking in its range and scope, with outstanding chapters by leading historians in the field, this work puts Islamic and Jewish Studies into a rich dialogue. By emphasizing shared histories and intersecting paths, it delivers on its promises, opening new vistas for understanding complexities in the lives of Muslims and Jews, past and present. -- Beth Baron,Director, Middle East and Middle Eastern American Center, CUNYTable of ContentsContents Part I. Comparative Perspectives 13 1 Jewish and Muslim Feminist Theologies in Dialogue: Discourses of Difference 17 Susannah Heschel 2 Jewish and Islamic Legal Traditions: Diffusions of Law 46 Amira Sonbol Part II. Limits of Biology: Bodily Purity and Religiosity 69 3 Scholarly versus Women's Authority in the Islamic Law of Menstrual Purity 73 Marion Katz 4 Gender Duality and Its Subversions in Rabbinic Law 106 Charlotte Elisheva Fonrobert 5 Gender and Reproductive Technologies in Shia Iran 126 Soraya Tremayne Part III. Crimes of Passion: Formative Texts and Traditions 151 6 Not a Man: Joseph and the Character of Masculinity in Judaism and Islam 155 Lori Lefkovitz 7 Dishonorable Passions: Law and Virtue in Muslim Communities 181 Catherine Warrick 8 Legislating the Family: Gender, Jewish Law, and Rabbinical Courts in Mandate Palestine 203 Lisa Fishbayn Joffe Part IV. Cultural Depictions of Jewish and Muslim Women 237 9 A Literary Perspective: Domestic Violence, the "Woman Question," and the "Arab Question" in Early Zionism 241 Andrea Siegel

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Book SynopsisWinner, 2019 Saul Viener Book Prize, given by the American Jewish Historical SocietyA groundbreaking history of the practice of Jewish name changing in the 20th century, showcasing just how much is in a nameOur thinking about Jewish name changing tends to focus on clichés: ambitious movie stars who adopted glamorous new names or insensitive Ellis Island officials who changed immigrants' names for them. But as Kirsten Fermaglich elegantly reveals, the real story is much more profound. Scratching below the surface, Fermaglich examines previously unexplored name change petitions to upend the clichés, revealing that in twentieth-century New York City, Jewish name changing was actually a broad-based and voluntary behavior: thousands of ordinary Jewish men, women, and children legally changed their names in order to respond to an upsurge of antisemitism. Rather than trying to escape their heritage or pass as non-Jewish, most name-changers remained active mTrade ReviewFermaglichs thoroughly researched book delves into many implications of changing ones name and examines the way that Jewish culture was shaped overall by the practice. * Jewish Exponent *An important history . . . Well-written and thoroughly documented . . . demonstrates the struggle that individuals underwent to become fully realized as Jewish Americans. Highly recommended. * STARRED Library Journal *Fascinating . . . A fine contribution to an important, previously underexplored area of American Jewish identity and social history. * Publishers Weekly *Fermaglich's thorough research and bright insights produce a provocative account of a seldom-explored cultural phenomenon. * Kirkus Reviews *The real history behind Jewish name changing in the US . . . a worthy accomplishment. One doesn't have to be a . . . historian to appreciate A Rosenberg by Any Other Name . . . anyone with an interest in the subject matter [can] enjoy it. * Foreword Reviews *Kirsten Fermaglich’s insightful book explores the seemingly ordinary phenomenon of Jewish name changing to shed light on broad themes of racial and ethnic identity, and the complicated ways that Americans—and particularly American Jews—negotiated the markers of distinctiveness and racial “otherness” with the goals of integration and access... While only a minority of Jews petitioned to change their names, the phenomenon proves to be an instructive window for examining the changing boundaries of race and ethnicity in America. -- The Journal of American HistoryBoth entertaining and enlightening, A Rosenberg By Any Other Name comes up smelling, well, like a rose. -- Canadian Jewish NewsContesting longstanding stereotypes, Fermaglich (history and Jewish studies, Michigan State Univ.) creatively examines name changing by Jews in the US, focusing on New York City Jews. From the onset of her study, Fermaglich refutes the notion that name changing was an individual or isolated act, asserting that it dramatically impacted American Jewish culture. -- CHOICEThe beauty of A Rosenberg by Any Other Name lies in its choice of a site so rife with potential and yet, one that seems so utterly banal. Fermaglich offers us new appreciation for the levels of complexity that Jewish identity was forced to take on in post-war America. It is a powerful story about anti-semitism, adaptation, markers of identity, and the kinds of choices and sacrifices that people must make in the name of access, privilege, and commitments to their communities. -- Deborah Dash Moore,author of Jewish New York: The Remarkable Story of a City and a People

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Book SynopsisBiography: Neusner is a social commentator, a post-Holocaust theologian, and an outspoken political figure. Jacob Neusner (born 1932) is one of the most important figures in the shaping of modern American Judaism. He was pivotal in transforming the study of Judaism from an insular project only conducted byand of interest toreligious adherents to one which now flourishes in the secular setting of the university. He is also one of the most colorful, creative, and difficult figures in the American academy. But even those who disagree with Neusner's academic approach to ancient rabbinic texts have to engage with his pioneering methods. In this comprehensive biography, Aaron Hughes shows Neusner to be much more than a scholar of rabbinics. He is a social commentator, a post-Holocaust theologian, and was an outspoken political figure during the height of the cultural wars of the 1980s. Neusner's life reflects the story of what happened as Jews migrated to the suburbs in the late 1940s, darinTrade Review"In this respectfully balanced biography, Hughes explores the life of Jacob Neusner, a renowned scholar of Judaism and a controversial figure in the American academy...The author presents an interesting and widely accessible life story that should appeal to readers interested in American Judaism, Jewish studies, or the academy itself." * Kirkus Reviews *"InJacob Neusner: An American Jewish Iconoclast, religious studies scholar Aaron Hughes has written an insightful biography of a different kind of academic." * H-Net Reviews *"A lively and readable account of the life of a fascinating figure who more than deserves a biography." -- Religious Studies Review"Even those who disagree with Hughes's conclusions, however, will learn from Jacob Neusner. Well written and well researched, the volume serves as a valuable first step in understanding one of the most significant religion scholars of the past generation." * Journal of Religion *"Aaron Hughes has written a comprehensive, compelling, and candid intellectual portrait of Jacob Neusner and his unparalleled lifetime of achievements. By detailing the original and vital contributions Neusner has made to Judaic and Religious Studies as well as to modern religious and political thought, Hughes has succeeded brilliantly in highlighting the singular significance Neusner holds as an academic, as a religious thinker, and as a public intellectual. Hughes has given his readers a captivating intellectual biography to savor!" -- David Ellenson,Chancellor Emeritus and former President of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion"Aaron Hughess chronicle deftly displays the development and impact of Jacob Neusners intellectual achievements and the academic, political, and cultural contexts from which they emerged. With clarity and concision, this book limns the key issuessome of which are complex and reconditethat shaped the study of Judaism when Neusners career began and shows how his innovative, independent, and transformative scholarship created a contemporary academic field." -- William Scott Green,University of Miami"Not only is Jacob Neusner a much needed, long awaited biography of perhaps the most important American Jewish thinker of the mid to late twentieth century, but it offers a window into the creation of Jewish studies in the American academy. Aaron Hughes illuminates Neusners pathbreaking role in the construction of Judaic studies scholarship as we now know it. More than this, he presents a balanced account of Neusner the radical, innovative, compelling and rambunctious scholar and Neusner the conservative political activist and public intellectual. Drawing connections between Neusners demanding and volatile personality and his extraordinary brilliance and productivity, Hughes sheds much needed light on this luminary. This is a concise book about excess that covers so much of what made Jacob Neusner, 'Neusner'!" -- Laura S. Levitt,Temple University

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Book Synopsis2017 Jordan Schnitzer Book Award in Jewish Literature and LinguisticsHonorable Mention, 2016 Baron Book Prize presented by AAJRA monster tour of the Golem narrative across various cultural and historical landscapesIn the 1910s and 1920s, a golem cult swept across Europe and the U.S., later surfacing in Israel. Why did this story of a powerful clay monster molded and animated by a rabbi to protect his community become so popular and pervasive? The golem has appeared in a remarkable range of popular media: from the Yiddish theater to American comic books, from German silent film to Quentin Tarantino movies. This book showcases how the golem was remolded, throughout the war-torn twentieth century, as a muscular protector, injured combatant, and even murderous avenger. This evolution of the golem narrative is made comprehensible by, and also helps us to better understand, one of the defining aspects of the last one hundred years: mass warfare and its ancillary technologies. In the twentiTrade Review"Barzilai makes a bold even brilliant connection between . . . the golem and . . . the soldier." * Times Literary Supplement *"[Barzilai] wisely decides to focus on . . . golem representations in response to war and other mass violence. Barzilais extensive research and clear, interesting style make this a fine work." * Publishers Weekly *"The multiple strands ofGolemare what constitute its great strength, presented not just chronologically but within themes that cross eras and borders Barzilai painstakingly analyses films, books and comics to reveal the Golems enduring cultural presence and influence. And the violence of this appealing creature, especially the idea of Jewish violence, is what makes it simultaneously so threatening." * Jewish Chronicle *"A thorough and suggestive review . . .with a wide array of 20th-century sources, including films and cartoon literature. It will be a useful resource for those interested in modern history and culture." * Choice *"Barzilai offers a fascinating analysis of how a legendary monster was appropriated in the last century as a way of understanding the baffling reality of war. . . . A creative and thoughtful approach, this book raises the deeper and unresolved questions of when, if ever, an act of violence justifies a violent response. Although Barzilai does not attempt to answer this question, she raises it as one of the unavoidable issues faced by an oppressed people who, in their fiction, have access to a protective monster." * Reading Religion *"Fascinating and well argued, Golemexamines the modern incarnations of the old Jewish myth, tracking its many meanings as it crosses between generations and cultures, from the muddy trenches of WWI to the killing fields of science fiction. An indispensable text for anyone looking to understand our ongoing fascination with the golem figure, in all its malleable forms." -- Helene Wecker,author of The Golem & the Jinni"In her wide-ranging Golem: Modern Wars and Their Monsters, Maya Barzilai argues that the myth of the golem tells us something about humanity more generally. It teaches us about what she calls 'the golem condition,' inwhich 'the fantasies of expanding our capacities and transgressing our natural boundaries are always curbed by the inborn limitations of human existence.'" * Jewish Review of Books *"This tracking of the adaptations of the Golem myth from World War I to the present becomes a probing cultural history of the past hundred years. Maya Barzilai moves with assurance from fiction, theater, and film to comic books and graphic novels, perceptively commenting on their formal aspects while preserving a lucid sense of the relevant historical contexts. This is a splendid piece of critical reflection." -- Robert Alter,University of California, Berkeley"Barzilai certainly puts her finger on a central paradox of European and Jewish culture coming out of the Great War: how can death and technological creativity coexist? The golem myth is a clever and successful way to probe that question. . . . Fascinating and intellectually venturesome." -- Alan Mintz,Chana Kekst Professor of Jewish Literature, The Jewish Theological Seminary"Savior, soldier, demon, oafa golem is all these and more, and Barzilai guides us a fascinating tour of its supple mythology through shifting cultural and historical contexts." -- Jonathan Kellerman and Jesse Kellerman,authors of The Golem of Paris"Golem: Modern Wars and their Monstersis highly recommended to those with an interest in the intersection between Jewish tradition and pop culture, as well as anyone with a focus on monster and twentieth century cultural studies." * The Journal of Religion and Culture *"As Barzilai notes that future wars will likely be characterized by growing dependence on golem-like entities—whether drones or cyborgs or robots equipped with artificial intelligence—her book provides a timely meditation on the human effects of remote and automated violence." * Political and Legal Anthropology Review *

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Book SynopsisThe complete story of Jewish Harlem and its significance in American Jewish historyNew York Times columnist David W. Dunlap wrote a decade ago that on the map of the Jewish Diaspora, Harlem Is Atlantis. . . . A vibrant hub of industry, artistry and wealth is all but forgotten. It is as if Jewish Harlem sank 70 years ago beneath waves of memory beyond recall. During World War I, Harlem was the home of the second largest Jewish community in America. But in the 1920s Jewish residents began to scatter to other parts of Manhattan, to the outer boroughs, and to other cities. Now nearly a century later, Jews are returning uptown to a gentrified Harlem. The Jews of Harlem follows Jews into, out of, and back into this renowned metropolitan neighborhood over the course of a century and a half. It analyzes the complex set of forces that brought several generations of central European, East European, and Sephardic Jews to settle there. It explains the dynamics that led Jews to exit this part of GoTrade Review"This well-written volume makes clear that the Harlem Jewish community significantly influenced American Jewry as a whole . . . This is a must-read for anyone interested in the history of American Judaism." * Publishers Weekly *"What stays with you long after you have finished [The Jews of Harlem] is Gurock's steadfast devotion to his subject." * Jewish Review of Books *"The Jews of Harlem skillfully traces Jewish Harlem from its tentative beginnings to the years when Jewish life there rivaled that of the Lower East Side, and from the massive migration elsewhere to the community's even more tentative reemergence today. It's an important piece of American Jewish history." * Segula Magazine *"Nearly forty years after the publication of his first monograph,When Harlem Was Jewish, 18701930(1979), Jeffrey S. Gurock has returned to Harlem, revisiting the story of the Jewish communitys beginnings in the 1870s and 1880s, its heyday in the early twentieth century, and its rapid decline after World War I, and adding something that seemed unlikely in the 1970s: the return of Jews to the neighborhood." * The American Historical Review *"Athoughtful and comprehensive history of Jewish Harlem." * American Jewish Archives Journal *"The studies by Gurock are very valuable not only for anyone interested in American Jewish history, but they also make a significant contribution to other fields. Scholars and general readership who are interested in the history of New York, as well as urban history in general and African American history, will find Gurock's volume an indispensable addition to those fields." * American History *"The Jews of Harlem is a masterful work of scholarship that further concretizes Jeffrey Gurock's position as a preeminent academic practitioner. In parallel, it offers the reader a unique perspective from which to witness transitions in American Judaism, as well as the way one of its prime chroniclers interfaces with the story he tells." * Journal of Religion *"Gurock traces anew the history of Jewish Harlem, a subject he first explored in When Harlem Was Jewish, 1870-1930. While the earlier work told the story of an important, but largely forgotten, community, this well-written, comprehensive study examines a neighborhood whose history "is not over, but rather a work in progress"... this book is not merely a localized case study, but one that has great significance for Jewish American as a whole." * Journal of American Ethnic History *"Jeffrey Gurock is the historian of Jewish Harlem, but he is also its anthropologist and sociologist. He chronicles the fortunes of this storied neighborhood treasured by blacks and Jews and now home to both groups with the fresh-eyed relish of an explorer discovering a new land yet with the authority of an old-timer intimately familiar with every block and alley. He has populated his fascinating tale of Jewish Harlem's development, decline, and resurgence not just with events and institutions but with flesh and blood people who bring the community to vivid life." -- Joseph Berger,author of The Pious Ones: The World of Hasidim and Their Battles with America"Jeffrey Gurock offers an evocative account of the evolution of Jewish Harlem. This book is a 'must read' for anyone interested in race, religion, and culture in New York's ever-changing neighborhood." -- Beth S. Wenger,Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania"No one knows the history of the Jews in Harlem as well as Jeffrey S. Gurock, and this latest book recounts in wonderful detail not only their move uptown from the Lower East Side early in the 20th century, but their important role in the revival of the neighborhood in the 21st century. The Jews of Harlem is engagingly written and persuasively argued, and it will soon be recognized as a classic account of community change in a contested environment." -- Kenneth T. Jackson,Barzun Professor of History, Columbia University""Jeffrey Gurock has done it again! His well-crafted narrative presents a convincing history of Parkchesters transition from a whites-only melting pot to a complex and racially diverse alternative to suburbia. Gurock raises significant questions that are persuasively answered by his solid research and clear-eyed analysis. His chapters throb with real life tensions and controversies, and finally with lessons about how reason and comity ultimately can prevail over intolerance. " -- Thomas Kessner,The Graduate Center, City University of New York"Taking the long view, across the twentieth century and beyond, allows Gurock to show how Harlem’s history encapsulates the ‘crucial variances in fates’ (246) between Jews and African Americans—the former, progressively absorbed into whiteness and middle-class property ownership, while the latter remained in the grip of racial injustices including housing and employment discrimination—as well as the complex, sometimes tense relations between them." * Journal of Modern Jewish Studies *

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Book SynopsisAn exploration of the emergence of Rabbinic Judaism drawing on primary sources and new methodsOver the past generation, several major findings and methodological innovations have led scholars to reevaluate the foundation of Judaism. The Dead Sea Scrolls were the most famous, but other materials have further altered our understanding of Judaism's development after the Biblical era.This volume explores some of the latest clues into how early Judaism took shape, from the invention of rabbis to the parting of Judaism and Christianity, to whether ancient Jews considered themselves a nation. Rather than having simply evolved, normative Judaism is now understood to be the result of one approach having achieved prominence over many others, competing for acceptance in the wake of the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in the year 70 CE. This new understanding has implications for how we think about Judaism today, as the collapse of rabbinic authority is leading to tTrade ReviewA spectacular round-up of superb authors, all of them expert in fields relating to the transition centuries between the Hebrew Bible and the emergence of Judaism -- and Christianity too. One after another, the essays provide the state of the question: what scholars are saying now, and why. If there is such a thing as a scholarly page-turner, this is it, a rewarding synopsis of scholarship on pretty much every page -- Dr. Lawrence A. Hoffman,Barbara and Stephen Friedman Professor of Liturgy, Worship and Ritual, Hebrew Union CollegeOutstanding scholars of early Judaism share cutting edge research and new insights in this highly readable anthology. The succinct and accessible essays foreground the varieties of Judaisms and Jewish writings in late ancient times, the separation of Christianity from its Jewish origins, evolving constructions of gender, the development of the synagogue and its liturgy, and the consolidation of rabbinic Judaism in clear and compelling ways. This volume is sure to be welcomed by teachers of formative Judaism and Christianity, their students, and interested general readers. -- Judith R. Baskin,Philip H. Knight Professor of Humanities, University of Oregon

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Book SynopsisUnifies for the first time the results of various excavations of the Galilean city. Here, archaeologists and historians of the Second Temple Period work together to understand the site and its significance to profile Galilee and the region around the lake in the Early Roman period.Trade Review"Such a thorough report on Magdala has been needed for some time and now that the excavations have progressed so far, it can be produced. I am confident that archaeologists, New Testament scholars, and scholars of early Judaism will find this volume attractive and informative." David Fiensy, Professor of New Testament, Kentucky Christian University

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Book SynopsisWhile for many today the idea of an embodied God seems simplistic - even pedestrian - Christoph Markschies reveals that in antiquity, the educated and uneducated alike subscribed to this very idea. More surprisingly, the idea that God had a body was held by both polytheists and monotheists.Table of Contents1. The Body of God after Antiquity 2. The Body of God in the Judeo-Christian Bible and the Early Christian Theologians 3. The Body of God and Divine Statues in Antiquity 4. The Bodies of Gods and the Bodies of Souls in Late Antiquity 5. The Body of God and Late Antique Jewish Mysticism 6. The Body of God in Late Antique Christian Theology 7. The Body of God and Antique Christology Conclusion: Settled Conceptions of God?

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Book SynopsisSurprisingly little scholarly attention has been focused on inheritance as a unique and crucial concept for Israelite and Jewish religious life and belief. This paucity of attention extends to Matthew's Gospel, where inheritance terms appear on four occasions. Daniel Daley argues that these passages play a vital role in Matthew's overall narrative.Table of Contents 1. Introduction: Matthew and Jewish Tradition 2. Inheritance in the Hebrew Bible 3. Inheritance in the Second Temple Period: Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha 4. Inheritance in the Second Temple Period: The Qumran Scrolls 5. Inheritance in the Gospel of Matthew 6. Conclusion: Matthew and the Promise of Discipleship

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Book SynopsisReligion, Redemption, and Revolution closely examines the intertwined intellectual development of one of the most important Jewish thinkers of the twentieth century, Franz Rosenzweig, and his friend and teacher, Christian sociologist Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy. The first major English work on Rosenstock-Huessy, it also provides a significant reinterpretation of Rosenzweig's writings based on the thinkers' shared insights — including their critique of modern Western philosophy, and their novel conception of speech.This groundbreaking bookprovides a detailed examination of their ‘new speech thinking’ paradigm, a model grounded in the faith traditions of Judaism and Christianity. Wayne Cristaudo contrasts this paradigm against the radical liberalism that has dominated social theory for the last fifty years. Religion, Redemption, and Revolution provides powerful arguments for the continued relevance of Rosenzweig and Rosenstock-Huessy's

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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 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 Attributes7 Diverse Interpretations and Disputed Instructions: Reading the Guide for the Perplexed Further ReadingNotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisCircumventing the Law probes the rabbinic logic behind the use of loopholes, the legal phenomenon of finding and using gaps within law to achieve otherwise illegal outcomes. The logic of ha’aramah, a subset of rabbinic legal circumventions mostly defined as a tool for private life, underpins both well-known circumventions, such as selling leaven before Passover, and lesser-known mechanisms, such as designating an animal intended for sacrifice “blemished” before birth to allow it to be slaughtered for food instead. Elana Stein Hain traces the development of these loopholes over time, revealing that rabbinic literature does not consistently accept or reject loopholes. Instead, rabbinic Judaism applies categories of evasion (prohibited), avoidance (permitted), and avoision (contested) to loopholes on a case-by-case basis. The intended outcome of a given loophole determines its classification, as does the legal integrity of the circumventive process in question. Yet these understandings of loopholes are not static—instead, rabbinic attitudes toward loopholing change over time. Early works display an objective, performative understanding of the self and of intention, but evolve over time to reflect more subjective and intimate understanding of the self and intention. This evolution redefines what legal integrity means in Jewish legal philosophy. Circumventing the Law brings readers through the Second Temple period to the modern era to see how loopholing has evolved over millennia. With a focus on late antiquity, Stein Hain explores tannaitic literature, the Palestinian Talmud, and contemporaneous Greco-Roman and Persian thought to show that when warranted, Jewish rhetoric and philosophy around understandings of loopholes was a unique phenomenon that relied on changes in understanding the definition of integrity itself, a key finding for scholars of Jewish Studies and of religious and of secular law writ large.Trade Review"More than a historical and comparative phenomenology of rabbinic legal ‘loopholes,’ this conceptually sophisticated and beautifully written volume offers a fascinating exploration of the role of values, intention, and subjectivity in classical rabbinic jurisprudence and exposes the paradoxical faithfulness behind the circumvention of divine law." * Christine Hayes, author of What's Divine About Divine Law: Early Perspectives *"Elana Stein Hain offers a provocative and persuasive reading of early rabbinic techniques for circumventing the law that immeasurably enriches our understanding of the early rabbinic worldview and invites readers to reconsider how our varying understandings of human nature shape legal rules from within." * Suzanne Last Stone, Yeshiva University *

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Book SynopsisThis book explores the question: How did the rabbis of the first two centuries CE approach bodies that are born with variant genitals—bodies that they could not identify as definitely male or female? The rabbis had constructed a system in which every behavior was governed by one’s sex/gender, posing a conundrum both for people who did not fit into that model and for the rabbinic enterprise itself. Despite this, their texts contain dozens of references to intersex. And the Sages Did Not Know examines the rabbis’ legal texts and concludes that they had multiple approaches to intersex people. Sarra Lev analyzes seven different rabbinic responses to this conflict of their own making. Through their rulings on how intersex people should conduct themselves in multiple circumstances, the early rabbis treat intersex people as unidentifiable males or females, as indeterminate, as male, as non-gendered, as sui generis, as part-male/part-female, as a sustainable paradox, and, finally, as a way for them to think about gender, having nothing to do with intersex people themselves. This is the first such work that concentrates primarily on the potential effects of these rabbinic texts on intersex persons themselves rather than focusing on what the texts offer readers whose interest is rabbinic approaches to sex and gender or gender diversity. Although the rabbinic texts do not include the voices of known intersex people, these materials do offer us a window into how one small group of people approached intersex bodies, and how those approaches were both similar to and different from those we recognize today.Trade Review"With this meticulous and erudite study of the early rabbinic texts about the figure of the nonbinary body, the androginos, Sarra Lev offers a compelling case for using the late ancient material in the contemporary conversation about intersex embodiment. Lev beautifully weaves together the rabbinic legal discourse with contemporary intersex voices, thereby crafting a space of possibility for a different future for these late ancient Jewish texts. A critical contribution toward contending with the Jewish and—by implication—with the U.S. binary sex/gender system of law." * Charlotte Elisheva Fonrobert, Stanford University *

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Book SynopsisElementary Biblical Hebrew: An Introduction to the Language and its History gives students a general overview of the language and focuses on its main characteristics. The text avoids a heavy-handed academic approach and instead emphasizes the basics of general understanding.Students are exposed to commentaries and word studies that provide a strong linguistic foundation while introducing Biblical Hebrew's primary components. Chapters include strategies and hints for learning the language, as well as activities and exercises that allow for application.The second edition features a new preface, fresh translation keys for Chapters 7 and 8, and new vocabulary words in Chapters 3 through 8.Elementary Biblical Hebrew takes an ancient language and places it in an engaging, relevant context to make it come alive for students. The text is enriched with charts, illustrations, and full-colour photography. It is an excellent choice for courses in the language, as well as introductory or survey courses on the Old Testament.

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Book SynopsisWhat is between us and the Christians is a deep dark affair which will go for another hundred generations . . .” (Amos Oz, Judas) Among the great social shifts of the post–World War II era is the unlikely sea-change in Jewish Christian relations. We read each other’s scriptures and openly discuss differences as well as similarities. Yet many such encounters have become rote and predictable. Powerful emotions stirred up by these conversations are often dismissed or ignored. Demonstrating how such emotions as shame, envy, and desire can inform these encounters, Holy Envy: Writing in the Jewish Christian Borderzone charts a new way of thinking about interreligious relations. Moreover, by focusing on modern and contemporary writers (novelists and poets) who traffic in the volatile space between Judaism and Christianity, the book calls attention to the creative implications of these intense encounters. While recognizing a long-overdue need to address a fundamentally Christian narrative underwriting twentieth century American verse, Holy Envy does more than represent Christianity as an aesthetically coercive force, or as an adversarial other. For the book also suggests how literature can excavate an alternative interreligious space, at once risky and generative. In bringing together recent accounts of Jewish Christian relations, affect theory, and poetics, Holy Envy offers new ways into difficult and urgent, conversations about interreligious encounters. Holy Envy is sure to engage readers who are interested in literature, religion, and, above all, interfaith dialogue.Table of ContentsPreface | vii Acknowledgments | xix 1 Holy Envy: Writing in the Jewish Christian Borderzone | 1 2 Lives of the Saints: Mina Loy and Gertrude Stein | 27 3 Hiding in Plain Sight: Louis Zukofsky, Shame, and the Sorrows of Yiddish | 54 4 Unholy Envy: Karl Shapiro and the Problem of “Judeo-Christianity” | 80 5 The Certainty of Wings: Denise Levertov and the Legacy of Her Hebrew-Christian Father | 108 6 Coda: Holy Insecurity | 133 Notes | 143 Works Cited | 151 Index | 163

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Book SynopsisScholars tend to call them 'rites of passage'. Most people prefer to speak of them as life cycle events or milestones. Jews like to speak of simchas, when there's something (a birth, bar or bat mitzvah, or wedding, for example) to celebrate. Whatever we call them and however we commemorate them, these are key moments for individuals and for the families and communities of which they are a part. This volume offers new insights into rituals as old as the Hebrew Bible and as new as the twenty-first century in contexts as familiar as the American Midwest and as exotic as Karaism. In the process, they examine and frequently affirm some of the rituals that have traditionally been associated with these events. At the same time, readers are invited to cast a critical eye on the ways in which these customs have developed in recent years. The authors, who include congregational leaders as well as scholars, also affirm the need to expand or enhance existing ceremonies to include groups whose needs have not traditionally been addressed. These groups include women and children with disabilities. In this way, the articles in this volume are of practical value for those seeking to transform their own religious experiences or those of their community.

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Book SynopsisA Knight at the Opera examines the remarkable and unknown role that the medieval legend (and Wagner opera) Tannhäuser played in Jewish cultural life in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The book analyzes how three of the greatest Jewish thinkers of that era, Heinrich Heine, Theodor Herzl, and I. L. Peretz, used this central myth of Germany to strengthen Jewish culture and to attack anti-Semitism. Readers will see how Tannhäuser evolves from a medieval knight to Peretz's pious Jewish scholar in the Land of Israel. The book also discusses how the founder of Zionism, Theodor Herzl, was so inspired by Wagner's opera that he wrote The Jewish State while attending performances of it. A Knight at the Opera uses Tannhäuser as a way to examine the changing relationship between Jews and the broader world during the advent of the modern era, and to question if any art, even that of a prominent anti-Semite, should be considered taboo.

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Book SynopsisAuthor of more than thirteen books and several volumes of poetry, screenwriter, and director, Edith Bruck is one of the leading literary voices in Italy, attracting increasing attention in the English-speaking world not least for her powerful Holocaust testimony, which is often compared with the work of her contemporaries Primo Levi and Giorgio Bassani. Born in Hungary in 1932, she was deported with her family to the concentration camps of Auschwitz, Dachau, Christianstadt, Landsberg, and Bergen-Belsen, where she lost both her parents and a brother. After the war, she traveled widely until 1954 when she settled in Rome. She has lived there ever since. This important new study is motivated by a desire to better understand and situate Bruck's art as well as to advance (and, when necessary, to revise) the critical discourse on her considerable and eclectic body of work. As such, it underscores and analyzes the intermedial nature of her contributions to contemporary Italian culture, which should no longer be understood merely in terms of her willingness to revisit the subject of the Holocaust on the printed page or the silver screen. It also includes previously unpublished interviews with the author. The book will be of broad interest to scholars and students of Jewish (especially Holocaust) studies, Italian literature, film studies, women's studies, and postcolonial culture."This is the first comprehensive scholarly analysis of the work produced by a main contemporary author of Italian Holocaust literature, focused on Bruck's overall artistic production (novels, poetry, film, and TV productions). It will offer scholars and students alike a new interpretive perspective and a valuable source of reference for their studies." Gabriella Romani, Seton Hall University.

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