Search results for ""Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion""

Nelson Glueck was born in 1900 to a struggling immigrant Jewish family in Cincinnati. By 1950, he had excavated remains of the civilization of the ancient Nabataeans in Transjordan, described a biblical copper-mining industry at the shore of the Red Sea, and shown how the Negev could support a large population if proper irrigation techniques were used. A personal friend of David Ben-Gurion, Abba Eban, Golda Meir, Henrietta Szold, and Judah Magnes, among other notables worldwide, this pioneer in the burgeoning field of biblical archaeology was known affectionately in the nascent state of Israel as "Ha-Professor" (the Professor). By 1950, Glueck was also well into his long tenure (1947-1971) as president of Hebrew Union College, the institution that had ordained him as a Reform rabbi in 1923 and supported his further studies toward the doctorate he earned in 1927 at the University of Jena in Germany. As president, Glueck oversaw the merger of HUC with the Jewish Institute of Religion. He expanded the Cincinnati-based institution to include schools in New York, Los Angeles, and Jerusalem. He encouraged the creation of the Schools of Jewish Communal Service and Jewish Education in California. And he founded and nurtured the School of Biblical and Archaeological Studies in Jerusalem, which now bears his name. Jonathan Brown and Laurence Kutler describe and document Nelson Glueck's many achievements and also record some of the fascinating adventures of this extraordinary charismatic man whose life straddled two distinct Jewish worlds.

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The bare outline of the story of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls is well known both to scholars and in the popular imagination. The precise details—the sequence and causal interplay of events, even some of the key players behind the scenes—are less well known and sometimes completely forgotten or misconstrued. The recovery of this history in all its complexity is vital for understanding how and why scholarly work on the Scrolls developed as it did over the six decades during which the texts were slowly published. Dr. Kalman recovers the fascinating story of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion's involvement with the Dead Sea Scrolls from their discovery in 1948 until the early 1990s when they were first made accessible to all scholars and to the public. Scholars at HUC-JIR actively participated in efforts to acquire and preserve the manuscripts and played a significant part in breaking the monopoly of scholars initially assigned to publish them. Despite these activities, a number of HUC-JIR’s influential teachers took a negative view of the scrolls. As a consequence, rabbinical students either did not encounter the material or left the institution with a view of it that was far from the mainstream. This book traces the activities of HUC-JIR’s administration and faculty over five decades, the contribution they made to the new academic field, and their influence on how knowledge of the Dead Sea Scrolls was shared with the community at large. Many details about security negatives stored at HUC and about the bootleg reconstruction are revealed for the first time.

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Hebrew Union College Annual is the flagship journal of Hebrew Union College Press and the primary face of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion to the academic world. From its inception in 1924, its goal has been to cultivate Jewish learning and facilitate the dissemination of cutting-edge scholarship across the spectrum of Jewish Studies, including Bible, Rabbinics, Language and Literature, History, Philosophy, and Religion.

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Hebrew Union College Annual is the flagship journal of Hebrew Union College Press and the primary face of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion to the academic world. From its inception in 1924, its goal has been to cultivate Jewish learning and facilitate the dissemination of cutting-edge scholarship across the spectrum of Jewish Studies, including Bible, Rabbinics, Language and Literature, History, Philosophy, and Religion.

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Hebrew Union College Annual is the flagship journal of Hebrew Union College Press and the primary face of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion to the academic world. From its inception in 1924, its goal has been to cultivate Jewish learning and facilitate the dissemination of cutting-edge scholarship across the spectrum of Jewish Studies, including Bible, Rabbinics, Language and Literature, History, Philosophy, and Religion.

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Hebrew Union College Annual is the flagship journal of Hebrew Union College Press and the primary face of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion to the academic world. From its inception in 1924, its goal has been to cultivate Jewish learning and facilitate the dissemination of cutting-edge scholarship across the spectrum of Jewish Studies, including Bible, Rabbinics, Language and Literature, History, Philosophy, and Religion.

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Hebrew Union College Annual is the flagship journal of Hebrew Union College Press and the primary face of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion to the academic world. From its inception in 1924, its goal has been to cultivate Jewish learning and facilitate the dissemination of cutting-edge scholarship across the spectrum of Jewish Studies, including Bible, Rabbinics, Language and Literature, History, Philosophy, and Religion.

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Hebrew Union College Annual is the flagship journal of Hebrew Union College Press and the primary face of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion to the academic world. From its inception in 1924, its goal has been to cultivate Jewish learning and facilitate the dissemination of cutting-edge scholarship across the spectrum of Jewish Studies, including Bible, Rabbinics, Language and Literature, History, Philosophy, and Religion.

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Hebrew Union College Annual is the flagship journal of Hebrew Union College Press and the primary face of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion to the academic world. From its inception in 1924, its goal has been to cultivate Jewish learning and facilitate the dissemination of cutting-edge scholarship across the spectrum of Jewish Studies, including Bible, Rabbinics, Language and Literature, History, Philosophy, and Religion.

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Hebrew Union College Annual is the flagship journal of Hebrew Union College Press and the primary face of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion to the academic world. From its inception in 1924, its goal has been to cultivate Jewish learning and facilitate the dissemination of cutting-edge scholarship across the spectrum of Jewish Studies, including Bible, Rabbinics, Language and Literature, History, Philosophy, and Religion.

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Hebrew Union College Annual is the flagship journal of Hebrew Union College Press and the primary face of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion to the academic world. From its inception in 1924, its goal has been to cultivate Jewish learning and facilitate the dissemination of cutting-edge scholarship across the spectrum of Jewish Studies, including Bible, Rabbinics, Language and Literature, History, Philosophy, and Religion.

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Hebrew Union College Annual is the flagship journal of Hebrew Union College Press and the primary face of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion to the academic world. From its inception in 1924, its goal has been to cultivate Jewish learning and facilitate the dissemination of cutting-edge scholarship across the spectrum of Jewish Studies, including Bible, Rabbinics, Language and Literature, History, Philosophy, and Religion.

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Hebrew Union College Annual is the flagship journal of Hebrew Union College Press and the primary face of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion to the academic world. From its inception in 1924, its goal has been to cultivate Jewish learning and facilitate the dissemination of cutting-edge scholarship across the spectrum of Jewish Studies, including Bible, Rabbinics, Language and Literature, History, Philosophy, and Religion.

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Hebrew Union College Annual is the flagship journal of Hebrew Union College Press and the primary face of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion to the academic world. From its inception in 1924, its goal has been to cultivate Jewish learning and facilitate the dissemination of cutting-edge scholarship across the spectrum of Jewish Studies, including Bible, Rabbinics, Language and Literature, History, Philosophy, and Religion.

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Hebrew Union College Annual is the flagship journal of Hebrew Union College Press and the primary face of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion to the academic world. From its inception in 1924, its goal has been to cultivate Jewish learning and facilitate the dissemination of cutting-edge scholarship across the spectrum of Jewish Studies, including Bible, Rabbinics, Language and Literature, History, Philosophy, and Religion.

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Hebrew Union College Annual is the flagship journal of Hebrew Union College Press and the primary face of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion to the academic world. From its inception in 1924, its goal has been to cultivate Jewish learning and facilitate the dissemination of cutting-edge scholarship across the spectrum of Jewish Studies, including Bible, Rabbinics, Language and Literature, History, Philosophy, and Religion.

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Hebrew Union College Annual is the flagship journal of Hebrew Union College Press and the primary face of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion to the academic world. From its inception in 1924, its goal has been to cultivate Jewish learning and facilitate the dissemination of cutting-edge scholarship across the spectrum of Jewish Studies, including Bible, Rabbinics, Language and Literature, History, Philosophy, and Religion.

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Hebrew Union College Annual is the flagship journal of Hebrew Union College Press and the primary face of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion to the academic world. From its inception in 1924, its goal has been to cultivate Jewish learning and facilitate the dissemination of cutting-edge scholarship across the spectrum of Jewish Studies, including Bible, Rabbinics, Language and Literature, History, Philosophy, and Religion.

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Hebrew Union College Annual is the flagship journal of Hebrew Union College Press and the primary face of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion to the academic world. From its inception in 1924, its goal has been to cultivate Jewish learning and facilitate the dissemination of cutting-edge scholarship across the spectrum of Jewish Studies, including Bible, Rabbinics, Language and Literature, History, Philosophy, and Religion.

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Hebrew Union College Annual is the flagship journal of Hebrew Union College Press and the primary face of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion to the academic world. From its inception in 1924, its goal has been to cultivate Jewish learning and facilitate the dissemination of cutting-edge scholarship across the spectrum of Jewish Studies, including Bible, Rabbinics, Language and Literature, History, Philosophy, and Religion.

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The Hebrew Union College Annual is the flagship journal of Hebrew Union College Press and the primary face of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion to the academic world. With a history spanning nearly a century, it stands as a chronicle of Jewish scholarship through the twentieth century and into the twenty-first.

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Hebrew Union College Annual is the flagship journal of Hebrew Union College Press and the primary face of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion to the academic world. From its inception in 1924, its goal has been to cultivate Jewish learning and facilitate the dissemination of cutting-edge scholarship across the spectrum of Jewish Studies, including Bible, Rabbinics, Language and Literature, History, Philosophy, and Religion.

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Hebrew Union College Annual is the flagship journal of Hebrew Union College Press and the primary face of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion to the academic world. From its inception in 1924, its goal has been to cultivate Jewish learning and facilitate the dissemination of cutting-edge scholarship across the spectrum of Jewish Studies, including Bible, Rabbinics, Language and Literature, History, Philosophy, and Religion.

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Hebrew Union College Annual is the flagship journal of Hebrew Union College Press and the primary face of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion to the academic world. From its inception in 1924, its goal has been to cultivate Jewish learning and facilitate the dissemination of cutting-edge scholarship across the spectrum of Jewish Studies, including Bible, Rabbinics, Language and Literature, History, Philosophy, and Religion.

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Hebrew Union College Annual is the flagship journal of Hebrew Union College Press and the primary face of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion to the academic world. From its inception in 1924, its goal has been to cultivate Jewish learning and facilitate the dissemination of cutting-edge scholarship across the spectrum of Jewish Studies, including Bible, Rabbinics, Language and Literature, History, Philosophy, and Religion.

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Hebrew Union College Annual is the flagship journal of Hebrew Union College Press and the primary face of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion to the academic world. From its inception in 1924, its goal has been to cultivate Jewish learning and facilitate the dissemination of cutting-edge scholarship across the spectrum of Jewish Studies, including Bible, Rabbinics, Language and Literature, History, Philosophy, and Religion.

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Hebrew Union College Annual is the flagship journal of Hebrew Union College Press and the primary face of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion to the academic world. From its inception in 1924, its goal has been to cultivate Jewish learning and facilitate the dissemination of cutting-edge scholarship across the spectrum of Jewish Studies, including Bible, Rabbinics, Language and Literature, History, Philosophy, and Religion.

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Hebrew Union College Annual is the flagship journal of Hebrew Union College Press and the primary face of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion to the academic world. From its inception in 1924, its goal has been to cultivate Jewish learning and facilitate the dissemination of cutting-edge scholarship across the spectrum of Jewish Studies, including Bible, Rabbinics, Language and Literature, History, Philosophy, and Religion.

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Hebrew Union College Annual is the flagship journal of Hebrew Union College Press and the primary face of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion to the academic world. From its inception in 1924, its goal has been to cultivate Jewish learning and facilitate the dissemination of cutting-edge scholarship across the spectrum of Jewish Studies, including Bible, Rabbinics, Language and Literature, History, Philosophy, and Religion.

Read more less

Hebrew Union College Annual is the flagship journal of Hebrew Union College Press and the primary face of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion to the academic world. From its inception in 1924, its goal has been to cultivate Jewish learning and facilitate the dissemination of cutting-edge scholarship across the spectrum of Jewish Studies, including Bible, Rabbinics, Language and Literature, History, Philosophy, and Religion.

Read more less

Hebrew Union College Annual is the flagship journal of Hebrew Union College Press and the primary face of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion to the academic world. From its inception in 1924, its goal has been to cultivate Jewish learning and facilitate the dissemination of cutting-edge scholarship across the spectrum of Jewish Studies, including Bible, Rabbinics, Language and Literature, History, Philosophy, and Religion.

Read more less

Hebrew Union College Annual is the flagship journal of Hebrew Union College Press and the primary face of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion to the academic world. From its inception in 1924, its goal has been to cultivate Jewish learning and facilitate the dissemination of cutting-edge scholarship across the spectrum of Jewish Studies, including Bible, Rabbinics, Language and Literature, History, Philosophy, and Religion.

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Hebrew Union College Annual is the flagship journal of Hebrew Union College Press and the primary face of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion to the academic world. From its inception in 1924, its goal has been to cultivate Jewish learning and facilitate the dissemination of cutting-edge scholarship across the spectrum of Jewish Studies, including Bible, Rabbinics, Language and Literature, History, Philosophy, and Religion.

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Hebrew Union College Annual is the flagship journal of Hebrew Union College Press and the primary face of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion to the academic world. From its inception in 1924, its goal has been to cultivate Jewish learning and facilitate the dissemination of cutting-edge scholarship across the spectrum of Jewish Studies, including Bible, Rabbinics, Language and Literature, History, Philosophy, and Religion. David H. Aaron and Jason Kalman served as Editors for the current volume and Sonja Rethy as Managing Editor.

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Hebrew Union College Annual is the flagship journal of Hebrew Union College Press and the primary face of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion to the academic world. From its inception in 1924, its goal has been to cultivate Jewish learning and facilitate the dissemination of cutting-edge scholarship across the spectrum of Jewish Studies, including Bible, Rabbinics, Language and Literature, History, Philosophy, and Religion. It was in January 1919 that a new quarterly journal first appeared on the American intellectual scene: the Journal of Jewish Lore and Philosophy was the first incarnation of what would later become the Hebrew Union College Annual. David Neumark, Professor of Philosophy at Hebrew Union College, conceived his journal as a clearinghouse for Jewish scholarship, and so the Hebrew Union College Annual remains today. With a history spanning nearly a century, it stands as a chronicle of Jewish scholarship through the twentieth century and into the twenty-first.

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The Hebrew Union College Annual is the flagship journal of the Hebrew Union College Press and the primary face of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion to the academic world. From its inception in 1924, its goal has been to cultivate Jewish learning and facilitate the dissemination of cutting-edge scholarship across the spectrum of Jewish studies, including The Bible, rabbinics, language and literature, history, philosophy, and religion.It was in January 1919 that a new quarterly journal first appeared on the American intellectual scene: the Journal of Jewish Lore and Philosophy was the first incarnation of what would later become the Hebrew Union College Annual. David Neumark, professor of philosophy at Hebrew Union College, USA conceived his journal as a clearinghouse for Jewish scholarship, and so the Hebrew Union College Annual remains today. With a history spanning nearly a century, it stands as a chronicle of Jewish scholarship through the twentieth century and into the twenty-first.

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Internationally recognized scholar David Ellenson shares twenty-three of his most representative essays, drawing on three decades of scholarship and demonstrating the consistency of the intellectual-religious interests that have animated him throughout his lifetime. These essays center on a description and examination of the complex push and pull between Jewish tradition and Western culture. Ellenson addresses gender equality, women’s rights, conversion, issues relating to who is a Jew, the future of the rabbinate, Jewish day schools, and other emerging trends in American Jewish life. As an outspoken advocate for a strong Israel that is faithful to the democratic and Jewish values that informed its founders, he also writes about religious tolerance and pluralism in the Jewish state. The former president of Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion, the primary seminary of the Reform movement, Ellenson is widely respected for his vision of advancing Jewish unity and of preparing leadership for a contemporary Judaism that balances tradition with the demands of a changing world. Scholars and students of Jewish religious thought, ethics, and modern Jewish history will welcome this erudite collection by one of today’s great Jewish leaders.

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Mordecai M. Kaplan, a pioneering figure in the reinterpretation and redefinition of Judaism in the 20th century, embraced religious liberalism, naturalism, and empiricism, and gave expression to a unique American attitude in philosophy and theology. This volume, the first comprehensive treatment of Kaplan since his death in 1983 . . . illustrates Kaplan's links to traditional Jewish roots and demonstrates his evolutionary philosophy of Jewish culture, his Zionist orientation, and the vast range of his thought and action. The volume also features a complete bibliography of Kaplan's writings. -- ChoiceA must for every serious thinker probing American Jewish culture, history and theology. -- Alfred GottschalkPresident, Hebrew Union College--Jewish Institute of Religion These highly knowledgeable essays provide us with a new and more complex image of a central personality in 20th century American Jewish life. They are indispensable for understanding the influences that helped shape Mordecai Kaplan's thought and personality, the nature of his relationships with significant contemporaries, and the various aspects of his ideology and practical program for American Jewry. -- Professor Michael A. MeyerDepartment of Jewish HistoryHebrew Union College--Jewish Institute of Religion This leading American Jewish thinker of the pre-war period is still the point of departure for any attempt to construct a Judaism for this new age in the history of the Jewish people. The volume brings them an and this thought to life. -- Dr. Arthur GreenPresident, Reconstructionist Rabbinical College

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Confronting the challenges of the 20th century, from modernity and the Great War to the Holocaust and postmodern culture, Jewish thinkers have wrestled with such fundamental issues as redemption and revelation, eternity and history, messianism and politics. From the turn of the century through the 1920s, European Jewish intellectuals confronted alienation and the challenges of modernity by seeking secure grounds for a meaningful life. After the Holocaust and the fall of Nazism, the rich results of their thinking—on topics such as transcendence, redemption, revelation, and politics—were reinterpreted in an atmosphere of increasing disillusion and fragmentation. In Interim Judaism, Michael L. Morgan traces the evolution of this shift in values, as expressed in the work of social thinkers, novelists, artists, and poets as well as philosophers and theologians at the beginning and end of the century. Focusing on the problem of objectivity, the experience of the transcendent, and the relationship between redemption and politics, he argues that the outcome for contemporary Jews is a pragmatic style of religiosity that has abandoned traditional conceptions of Judaism and is searching and waiting for new ones, a condition that he describes as "interim Judaism."Published with the generous support of Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion, Cincinnati

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Songs of Sonderling is the story of Jacob Sonderling's unique contributions to Jewish liturgical music. Rabbi Sonderling was many things: a descendant of Chassidic rebbes, a rationalist, a Reform rabbi, a Zionist, an army chaplain, a celebrated orator, an artistic soul. From his early career at the Hamburg Temple and German Army service in World War I, to his wandering years in the Eastern United States and founding of the Society for Jewish Culture–Fairfax Temple in Los Angeles, Sonderling cultivated a unique aesthetic vision of Judaism, a "five-sense appeal."Jonathan L. Friedmann and John F. Guest document and analyze Sonderling's experience and expression of Judaism through music. Rabbi Sonderling's vision yielded liturgical commissions from exiled Viennese Jewish composers who arrived in Los Angeles in the 1930s and 1940s. Through these musical settings, activities at the Fairfax Temple, and involvement with the Los Angeles campus of the Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion, Sonderling made an indelible mark on the city's Jewish community and the wider musical world.Songs of Sonderling focuses on the commissions Sonderling made from 1938 to 1945: Ernst Toch's Cantata of the Bitter Herbs, Arnold Schoenberg's Kol Nidre, Erich Wolfgang Korngold's A Passover Psalm and Prayer, and Eric Zeisl's Requiem Ebraico. Through musical analyses and an examination of Sonderling's career in Los Angeles, Friedmann and Guest contribute to the study of Jewish liturgical music, to Jewish history in the American West, to Jewish identity in the twentieth century, and to Jewish diaspora writ large.

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In 1972, twenty-six-year-old Sally Jane Priesand from Cleveland, Ohio became the first in a line of women rabbis to receive ordination from the faculty of a rabbinical seminary. She was not first woman to study: nearly one hundred years earlier, Julia Ettinger had studied with Hebrew Union College's founder and first president, Isaac Mayer Wise. And HUC had formally agreed to ordain women fifty years before Priesand's ordination. But unprecedented transformations quickly swept over American Jewish life in the wake of Priesand's ordination. Women began to flourish in the American rabbinate. In just two decades, they comprised one-half of the student body in the Rabbinic School of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, one-half of the student body of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, and approximately one-third of the student body of Jewish Theological Seminary. This collection of essays, written by distinguished rabbis and scholars, seeks to examine the significance of women in the modern rabbinate. The essays address the history of women's journey to ordination; how the existence of women rabbis changed and challenged Reform Judaism and the larger Jewish community; the impact this transformation of the rabbinate had on liturgy and theology, Jewish identity, and Jewish communal leadership; and how women rabbis might affect the future of the rabbinate, congregational life, and Jewish communal life in the twenty-first century. The authors trace the history of women in the rabbinate, the present impact of women rabbis, and possible trajectories in this changing face of Judaism.

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Scholem, Arendt, KlempererIntimate Chronicles in Turbulent TimesSteven E. AschheimThe way three prominent German-Jewish intellectuals confronted Nazism, as revealed by their intimate writings.Through an examination of the remarkable diaries and letters of three extraordinary and distinctive German-Jewish thinkers—Gershom Scholem, Hannah Arendt, and Victor Klemperer—Steven E. Aschheim illuminates what these intimate writings reveal about their evolving identities and world views as they wrestled with the meaning of being both German and Jewish in Hitler's Third Reich. In recounting how their personal and private selves responded to the public experiences these writers faced, their letters and diaries provide a striking composite portrait. Scholem, a scholar of Jewish mysticism and the spiritual traditions of Judaism; Arendt, a political and social philosopher; and Klemperer, a professor of literature and philology, were all highly articulate German-Jewish intellectuals, shrewd observers, and acute analysts of the pathologies and special contours of their times. From their intimate writings Aschheim constructs a revealing "history from within" that sheds new light on the complexity and drama of the 20th-century European and Jewish experience.Steven E. Aschheim holds the Vigevani Chair of European Studies and teaches in the Department of History at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. He is author of Brothers and Strangers: The East European Jew in German and German-Jewish Consciousness, 1800–1923; The Nietzsche Legacy in Germany, 1890–1990; and Culture and Catastrophe: German and Jewish Confrontations with National Socialism and Other Crises.Published in association with Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion, CincinnatiMay 2001120 pages, 5 1/2 x 8 1/2, indexcloth 0-253-33891-3 $19.95 s / £15.50

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What will hold American Jewry and Israel together as the traditional "crisis glue" melts down and the familiar and practiced Israeli call for aid retreats to the remote background of each community's existence? This is the question addressed by participants in a 1996 conference sponsored by the Center for North American Jewry of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. Beyond Survival and Philanthropy is a collection of answers to this complex question offered by thirty-one leading Israeli and American scholars, educators, journalists, and communal leaders. They consider the cultural currents that have shifted American Jewish attitudes toward Israel from a mobilization model to a search-for-personal-meaning model and trace the historical roots of present tensions between religious and secular Jews in Israel. The views of Yehezkel Kaufmann, Ahad Ha-Am, and David Ben-Gurion are used to help differentiate between the state of exile, the sense of exile, and the recognition of exile. The place of Israel in American Jewish education and the treatment of American Jewry in Israeli schools is considered, and the backstory of recent efforts to streamline the institutional complex that raises funds for Israel and local needs in American Jewish communities is explored. Speaker of the Knesset Avraham Berg presents his view of how the changing natures of both Zionism and Judaism will affect all Jews in the twenty-first century. Sometimes agreeing, sometimes disagreeing, but always expanding upon these presentations, authors of the response essays in the volume reflect and underscore the values that precipitated this discussion: recognition of the unity of the Jewish people and of the continuing to share diverse views and opinions in order to formulate and address the crucial and sometimes radical choices that confront American Jewry and Israel.

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David Ellenson prefaces this fascinating collection of twenty-three essays with a remarkably candid account of his intellectual journey from boyhood in Virginia to the scholarly immersions in the history, thought, and literature of the Jewish people that have informed his research interests in a long and distinguished academic career. Ellenson, President of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, has been particularly intrigued by the attempts of religious leaders in all denominations of Judaism, from Liberal to Neo-Orthodox, to redefine and reconceptualize themselves and their traditions in the modern period, as both the Jewish community and individual Jews entered radically new realms of possibility and change. The essays are grouped into five sections. In the first, Ellenson reflects upon the expression of Jewish values and Jewish identity in contemporary America, explains his debt to Jacob Katz's socio-religious approach to Jewish history, and shows how the works of non-Jewish social historian Max Weber highlight the tensions between the universalism of western thought and Jewish demands for a particularistic identity. In the second section, "The Challenge of Emancipation," he indicates how Jewish religious leaders in nineteenth-century Europe laboured to demonstrate that the Jewish religion and Jewish culture were worthy of respect by the larger gentile world. In a third section, "Denominational Responses," Ellenson shows how the leaders of Liberal and Orthodox branches of Judaism in Central Europe constructed novel parameters for their communities through prayer books, legal writings, sermons, and journal articles. The fourth section, "Modern Response," takes a close look at twentieth-century Jewish legal decisions on new issues such as the status of women, fertility treatments, and even the obligations of the Israeli government towards its minority populations. Finally, review essays in the last section analyse a few landmark contemporary works of legal and liturgical creativity: the new Israeli Masorti prayer book, David Hartman's works on covenantal theology, and Marcia Falk's Book of Blessings. As Ellenson demonstrates, "The reality of Jewish cultural and social integration into the larger world after Emancipation did not signal the demise of Judaism. Instead, the modern setting has provided a challenging context where the ongoing creativity and adaptability of Jewish religious leaders of all stripes has been tested and displayed."

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