Description
Book SynopsisA Centennial, writes Hebrew College President Rabbi Sharon Cohen Anisfeld, “is an invitation to reflect on the last century of teaching and learning at Hebrew College, to ask ourselves what has changed and what has endured, to explore accomplishments and share ongoing struggles, to articulate our aspirations for the next one hundred years.” A compilation of captivating essays on Jewish studies alongside powerful personal memoirs from the College’s earliest years until today, Ḥiddushim captures and celebrates the spirit of a learning community connected to its source and brimming with spiritual and intellectual creativity as it carries forward its legacy of rootedness and renewal into the future.
Table of ContentsIntroduction
Divrei Berakhah: Opening Blessing
Sharon Cohen Anisfeld
Message from the Editors
Arthur Green, Michael Fishbane, and Jonathan D. Sarna
Section I: Memory and History
1. A Home for Jewish Learning in “The City on the Hill”: The History of Hebrew College
Daniel Judson
2. Four Men Entered an Orchard
Arnold J. Band
3. Girsa de-Yanquta, or Hebrew in the Afternoon: A Memoir of the Prozdor in Worcester
Ira Robinson
4. Israel Studies and the Hebrew (Teachers) College: A Memoir
Ilan Troen
5. What They Celebrated, He Mourned: Arnold Wieder’s The Early Jewish Community of Boston’s North End (1962)
Jonathan D. Sarna
6. Searching for Treasure: A Journey Back to Hebrew College
Daniel Klein
7. Across Five Pesaḥs
Shayna Rhodes
Section II: Studies in Jewish Thought, History, and Literature
8. The Fate of the First Clothing
Rachel Adelman
9. Seeking Sarah
Anne Lapidus Lerner
10. Jacob and Esau: Twinship and Identity Confusion
George Savran
11. The Book of Judith: A Literary Appreciation
Judith A. Kates
12. A Woman Walks into a Bar: Betrothal Stories in Bavli Qiddushin
Jane L. Kanarek
13. What Problem? Medieval and Contemporary Responses to the “Oven of Akhnai” Story
Michael Rosenberg
14. Legal Authority, Memory, and Moral Worthiness: Tosefta Pisḥa 4.13-14 and Later Rabbinic Traditions
Michael Fishbane
15. Mystical Ethics: Rabbi Moshe Cordovero and Tomer Devorah as Commentary on the Idra Rabbah
Melila Hellner-Eshed
16. R. Levi Yiẓḥaq of Zelichow and His Quest for Leadership in the Early Hasidic Movement
Avraham Yiẓḥaq (Arthur) Green
17. “Seek Me and Live”: Reflections on the Spiritual Journey
Ariel Evan Mayse
18. Rabbi Elimelekh Shapiro of Grodzisk: Sketching a Nineteenth-Century Hasidic Leader
Nehemia Polen
19. The Lives of Berish Ba‘al Teshuvah
Avinoam J. Stillman
20. Contemporary Israeli Explorations of Spiritual and Psychological Insights in the Tales of Rabbi Naḥman of Bratslav
David C. Jacobson
21. A Mystical Reunion in Manitoba: Howard Thurman and Zalman Schachter-Shalomi
Or N. Rose
22. “Kakha Zeh Ḥinukhi”—“That Makes It Educational”: Parabolic Style in Kafka, Keret, and Castel Bloom
Abigail Esther Gillman
Section III: Studies in Jewish Education
23. Reading the Sefat Emet for Religious Consciousness: Modulations on Or ha-Ganuz
Elie Holzer
24. Growing Up Jewish: Me’ah and American Jewish Adulthood
David B. Starr
25. Striving for Shlemut: Navigating Explicit and Implicit Religiosity in Jewish Education
Michael Shire
Contributors
