Description
Book SynopsisEmet le-Ya‘akov comprises a collection of essays celebrating the career and achievements of Rabbi Dr. Jacob J. Schacter, who has served the American and international Jewish community with distinction in his roles as a synagogue rabbi, university professor, and public intellectual. These articles, like the honoree, recognize the importance of both history and memory, emphasize the necessity of accuracy in historiography, and do not shy away from inconvenient truths. They are divided into three categories that help frame the discussion around “facing the truths of history”: Textual Traditions, Memory and Making of Meaning, and (Re)Creating a Usable Past. The volume also includes a brief sketch of Schacter’s life and work and a bibliography of his publications.
Table of Contents“For Truth Is More Precious than Anything Else”
Zev Eleff and Shaul Seidler-Feller
Bibliography of the Writings of Jacob J. Schacter
Menachem Butler
Textual Traditions
1. Maimonides’s Mishneh Torah on the Messianic Age: Reactions and Controversies through the Ages
David Berger
2. A New Paradigm of the Jew/Gentile Relationship: Maimonides’s Analysis of the Miẓvah le-Haḥayoto
Ari Berman
3. In the Ecumenical Footsteps of Rabbi Jacob Emden: The Curious Case of Pinchas Lapide
Mark Gottlieb
4. Rationalizing Kerei u-Ketiv: Radak’s Methodology in His Biblical Commentaries
Naomi Grunhaus
5. “The Law Follows the Lenient View in Mourning”: The History and Reconsideration of a Talmudic Principle
Shmuel Hain
6. A Community for the Sake of Heaven: Emden’s Understandings of Christianity and Islam
Susannah Heschel
7. Tosafist Collections in the Writings of Ḥayyim Joseph David Azulai (Ḥida): The Case of Tosefot Shittah
Ephraim Kanarfogel
8. Grandfather and Grandson: Teachers and Interpreters in Hebrew Ben Sira and Greek Sirach
Ari Lamm
9. Rabbi Jacob Joshua Falk’s Final Salvo in the Emden-Eibeschuetz Controversy: Ḥarvot Ẓurim
Shnayer Leiman
10. The Taboo against “Next Year in Jerusalem” in the American Haggadah (1837–1942)
Jonathan D. Sarna
11. Twentieth-Century American Orthodox Responses to Living in a Malkhut shel Ḥesed
Elana Stein Hain
12. Reception of Malachi’s Temple Critique in Judaism
Shlomo Zuckier
Memory and the Making of Meaning
13. The Last Trial of Jacob Emden: Community, Memory, Authority
Elisheva Carlebach
14. Papering Over an Era of American Orthodox Pragmatism: The Case of College
Zev Eleff and Menachem Butler
15. Cultural Memory, Spiritual Critique, and Piyyut
Michael Fishbane
16. “A Faithful Home in Israel”? Jewish Dis/Connections in Contemporary American Jewish Literature
Sylvia Barack Fishman
17. Who Is Not a Jew? Notes on the Reception of the Principle “Though He Sinned, He Remains an Israelite”
Matt Goldish
18. New York Jewish History and Memory: Opportunities and Challenges
Jeffrey S. Gurock
19. Inscribing Communal Memory: Memorbücher in Early Modern and Modern Europe
Debra Kaplan
20. Pilgrims’ Progress? Ḥakham Ẓevi and the History of Visitors to Israel Observing One Day of Yom Tov
Yosie Levine
21. Herschel Schacter’s Encounter with Mordecai Kaplan
Rafael Medoff
(Re)Creating a Usable Past
22. Remember, Research, Commemorate: The (Re)Making of a Holocaust Research Institute
Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz
23. Prayer in a Time of Pandemic: Loneliness, Liturgy, and Virtual Community
Lois C. Dubin
24. Or Nogah and the Uses of History: Blidstein, Petuchowski, and the Diverse Readings of a Nineteenth-Century Reform Halakhic Text
David Ellenson
25. From Rabbiner Doktor to Rabbanit Doctor: Academic Education and the Evolution of Israeli Religious Leadership
Adam S. Ferziger
26. Why Was Titus Killed by a Gnat? Reflections on a Rabbinic Legend
Steven Fine
27. Anchor to Springboard: Uses and Revaluations of Masorah in Medieval Ashkenaz
Talya Fishman
28. Ḥasdai Crescas, Royal Courtier: A Reappraisal
Benjamin R. Gampel
29. The Slifkin Affair: Contexts, Texts, and Subtexts of Israeli and American Orthodox Responses
Benjamin J. Samuels
30. A Guide for Today’s Perplexed? The Changing Face of Maimonidean Scholarship
David Shatz
31. The Image of the Gra in the Writings of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik
Jeffrey R. Woolf
Contributors
