Judaism Books

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Book SynopsisIn the last century, the tragic events of the Holocaust and the subsequent founding of the state of Israel brought about tremendous changes for Jewish communities all over the world. This book explores what may be the next watershed moment for the Jews: the inclusion of millions of people from developing nations who self-define as Jewish but who have no historical ties with established centres of Jewish life. These emerging groups bring expanding notions of what it means to be Jewish. This comparative ethnographic study, the first of its kind, presents in-depth analyses of the backgrounds, motivations, and sociohistorical contexts of emerging Jewish communities in Cameroon, Ghana, India, and other postcolonial locales. It investigates theramifications of these new movements for the larger Judeo-Christian world, particularly with regard to issues of multiculturalism, immigration, race relations, and messianic expectations concerning the prophecy of Isaiah 11:12, according to which God will “assemble the dispersed of Israel, and gather together the scattered of Judah from the four corners of the earth.”Trade Review“This is a brilliant work of scholarship. There is barely a page which fails to provide some insight into the Jewish condition. This work is simply exceptional in terms of its methodological sure-footedness, the clarity of the writing, and the analysis of an extremely important phenomenon that affects the lives of millions of people and will have the potential to change the lives of many more.” —Tudor Parfitt, author of Black Jews in Africa and the Americas “Nathan P. Devir’s work is truly on the cutting edge of scholarship in Jewish and religious studies. The book promises to be a game changer in the way questions of identity (religious, ethnic, cultural, linguistic) are treated both inside and outside of Jewish studies.” —William F. S. Miles, author of Afro-Jewish Encounters from Timbuktu to the Indian Ocean and Beyond “Devir’s work encourages introspection as to what in fact comprises—or should or can possibly comprise—Jewish identity. The discussion of emergent Jewish groups offers remarkable windows into religious communal formation and raises sharp questions related to diverse fields.” —Adam Rovner, author of In the Shadow of Zion: Promised Lands Before Israel “This lucidly written, superbly researched, and occasionally witty work makes a major contribution to understanding an understudied Jewish population. Highly recommended.”—CHOICE magazine “Devir’s well-written book does not judge, but presents facts and balanced views instead. New Children of Israel is an important and original contribution to the Jewish Studies scholarship as well as to the study of the phenomenon of growing globalized religious movements largely due to the Internet.” —African Studies Review

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Book SynopsisYehuda Amichai is one of the twentieth century's (and Israel's) leading poets. In this remarkable book, Nili Scharf Gold offers a profound reinterpretation of Amichai's early works and reconstructs his poetic biography. Her close reading of his oeuvre, untapped notebooks, and a cache of unpublished letters to a woman identified as Ruth Z. that Gold discovered convincingly demonstrates how the poet's German past infused his work, despite his attempts to conceal it as he adopted an Israeli identity.

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Book SynopsisPart of an ongoing series published in cooperation with "Index on Censorship" that deals with religion and free expression, "The Jewish Case" is distinctive in several ways. To begin with, even calling Judaism a religion is problematic: the breadth of Judaism, combined with its antiquity, gives Jewish sensibility a complexity that defies the simple distinction between 'religious' and 'secular'. That complexity affects the entire discussion of the Jewish case on tolerance and censorship - especially today, when Israel and its relationship to Zionism are central political and social concerns. In the light of this difficulty, Brian Klug in "The Jewish Case" develops a critique of Jewish sensibilities from within - confronting Judaism with itself - rather than attacking it from the outside. Focusing on the current controversy over Israel, and drawing on three basic features of Judaism - iconoclasm, commitment to argument, and respect for human dignity - Klug makes a Jewish case for outspokenness.

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Book SynopsisSeventy-five years after the Holocaust, 100,000 Jews live in Germany. Their community is diverse and vibrant, and their mere presence in Germany is symbolically important. In Rebuilding Jewish Life in Germany, scholars of German-Jewish history, literature, film, television, and sociology illuminate important aspects of Jewish life in Germany from 1949 to the present day. In West Germany, the development of representative bodies and research institutions reflected a desire to set down roots, despite criticism from Jewish leaders in Israel and the Diaspora. In communist East Germany, some leftist Jewish intellectuals played a prominent role in society, and their experience reflected the regime’s fraught relationship with Jewry. Since 1990, the growth of the Jewish community through immigration from the former Soviet Union and Israel have both brought heightened visibility in society and challenged preexisting notions of Jewish identity in the former “land of the perpetrators.” Trade Review"An original and important book." -- Guy Miron"A most welcome addition to the field, Rebuilding Jewish Life in Germany expands on the existing literature in crucial ways, allowing us to understand better the communal affairs, ideological proclivities, and identity politics of Jews in both Germanies after 1945." -- Anthony D. Kauders * author of Democratization and the Jews: Munich 1945-1965 *"If Jews are the canaries in the coalmine of German democracy, then this book chronicles the strength of their song. Seventy-five years after the Holocaust, these essays lay bare the trauma, conflicts, and remarkable resilience of Germany’s Jews. They are a must-read for anyone interested in the health of German democracy and its Jewish community." -- Jonathan R. Zatlin * author of The Currency of Socialism: Money and Political Culture in East Germany *"The academic prose is readable in this well-edited collection, and authors work to clarify the sometimes confusing cultural and political aspects of the communities and literary productions they study. This makes several chapters particularly suitable for undergraduate reading, inviting junior scholars to investigate the field further. Recommended." * Choice *"Provides important contributions to studies of post-1949 German Jewry in two key arenas: its chronological focus, which incorporates the 1990s and 2000s within the scope of postwar history, and its embrace of multiple academic disciplines, including literature studies, film and television studies, sociology, and history." * Central European History *"The editors rightly advocate to overcome the national perspective in the presentation of European-Jewish history and to replace it with a transnational comparative approach." * Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft *Table of ContentsContents Introduction Jay Howard Geller and Michael Meng Chapter 1: The Politics of Jewish Representation in Early West Germany Jay Howard Geller Chapter 2: We have the right to exist here: Jewish Politics and the Challenges of Wiedergutmachung in Post-Holocaust Germany Andrea A. Sinn Chapter 3: Bernhard Brilling and the Reconstruction of Jewish Archives in Postwar Germany Jason Lustig Chapter 4: Whose Heritage?: Early Postwar German-Jewish History as Remigrants’ History—The Case of Hamburg Miriam Rürup Chapter 5: Migration, Memory and New Beginnings: The Postwar Jewish Community in Frankfurt am Main Tobias Freimüller Chapter 6: Helmut Eschwege and Jewish Life in the German Democratic Republic Alexander Walther Chapter 7: Learning Years on the Path to Dissidence: Stefan Heym’s Friendship with Robert Havemann and Wolf Biermann Cathy S. Gelbin Chapter 8: Ernst Bloch’s Eschatological Marxism Michael Meng Chapter 9: Diasporic Place-Making in Barbara Honigmann Katja Garloff Chapter 10: Tur Tur’s Lantern on a Tiny Island: New Historiographical Perspectives on East German Jewish History Constantin Goschler Chapter 11: Community Responses to the Immigration of Russian-Speaking Jews to Germany, 1990–2006 Joseph Cronin Chapter 12: Policing the East: The New Jewish Hero in Dominik Graf’s Crime Drama Im Angesicht des Verbrechens Jill Suzanne Smith Chapter 13: “You are my liberty:” On the Negotiation of Holocaust and Other Memories for Israelis in Berlin Irit Dekel Epilogue Jay Howard Geller and Michael Meng

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Book SynopsisThis volume gathers an array of voices to tell the stories of Cleveland’s twentieth century Jewish community. Strong and stable after an often turbulent century, the Jews of Cleveland had both deep ties in the region and an evolving and dynamic commitment to Jewish life. The authors present the views and actions of community leaders and everyday Jews who embodied that commitment in their religious participation, educational efforts, philanthropic endeavors, and in their simple desire to live next to each other in the city’s eastern suburbs. The twentieth century saw the move of Cleveland’s Jews out of the center of the city, a move that only served to increase the density of Jewish life. The essays collected here draw heavily on local archival materials and present the area’s Jewish past within the context of American and American Jewish studies.Trade ReviewCleveland has played an out-sized role in American Jewish history. The essays in this book help to explain why. Many of the themes taken up in this volume illuminate the American Jewish experience as a whole. -- Jonathan D. Sarna * author of American Judaism: A History *""All those essays are informative, and if any of these areas coincide with your own interests, I will not hesitate to recommend these essays along with their voluminous footnotes. Their scholarship is undeniable." * San Diego Jewish World *"Taken together, these essays speak to the religious diversity of Cleveland Jews and to the ongoing significance of migration across national and municipal borders....One hopes that these essays will help lay the groundwork for more extensive studies of Cleveland Jewish life beyond the alphabet soup of Jewish organizations in the twentieth century." * Journal of Jewish Identities *"This book complements previous research on Midwestern Jewish communities well. It will be a useful read for scholars of urban Jewish history between the coasts, those in the local Cleveland community, and students of post-World War II Jewish history more broadly... I was wowed by the impressive collections of the WRHS and will refer back to the volume’s wonderfully rich and unique contributions to post-World War II Jewish history." -- Wendy F. Soltz * H-Net *Table of ContentsContents Foreword Stephen H. Hoffman Introduction: Cleveland and its Jews: New Perspectives on Communal History Eli Lederhendler Chapter 1: “A Link in the Great American Chain”: The Evolution of Jewish Orthodoxy in Cleveland to 1940 Ira Robinson Chapter 2: Jewish Philanthropy in Cleveland to 1990 David C. Hammack Chapter 3: Abraham Hayyim Friedland and the Context, Structures, and Content of Jewish Education Sylvia Abrams and Lifsa Schachter Chapter 4: Everyman vs. Superman: Harvey Pekar, Comics, and Cleveland Samantha Baskind Chapter 5: Ethnic Identity and Local Politics: Abba Hillel Silver as Community Leader and International Politician in Cleveland, 1940-1950 Zohar Segev Chapter 6: “She Will Be the Mary Poppins We Have Been Searching For”: The Rise of Feminism and Organizational Change in the Cleveland Section of the National Council of Jewish Women Mary McCune Chapter 7: Trepidation, Tolerance, and Turnover: Jewish-Black Relations in Cleveland Neighborhoods, 1920-1960 Todd Michney Chapter 8: Jewish Suburbanization and Jewish Presence in the “City without Jews” Mark Souther Chapter 9: Suburban Temple and the Creation of Postwar American Judaism Rachel Gordan Chapter 10: People-to-People: Cleveland’s Jewish Community and the Exodus of Soviet Jews Shaul Kelner Afterword Sean Martin Acknowledgments Notes on Contributors Index

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