Title search results
Showing 1721 - 1740 of 4042 items
Becoming Eve: My Journey from Ultra-Orthodox Rabbi to Transgender Woman
By Abby Stein. 2019
The powerful coming-of-age story of an ultra-Orthodox child who was born to become a rabbinic leader and instead became a…
womanAbby Stein was raised in a Hasidic Jewish community in Brooklyn, isolated in a culture that lives according to the laws and practices of eighteenth-century Eastern Europe, speaking only Yiddish and Hebrew and shunning modern life. Stein was born as the first son in a dynastic rabbinical family, poised to become a leader of the next generation of Hasidic Jews. But Abby felt certain at a young age that she was a girl. She suppressed her desire for a new body while looking for answers wherever she could find them, from forbidden religious texts to smuggled secular examinations of faith. Finally, she orchestrated a personal exodus from ultra-Orthodox manhood to mainstream femininity-a radical choice that forced her to leave her home, her family, her way of life. Powerful in the truths it reveals about biology, culture, faith, and identity, Becoming Eve poses the enduring question: How far will you go to become the person you were meant to be?Genius & Anxiety: How Jews Changed the World, 1847-1947
By Norman Lebrecht. 2019
A unique chronicle of the years 1847-1947, the century when the Jewish people changed the world—and it changed them.In a…
hundred-year period, a handful of men and women changed the way we see the world. Many of them are well known—Marx, Freud, Proust, Einstein, Kafka. Others have vanished from collective memory despite their enduring importance in our daily lives. Without Karl Landsteiner, for instance, there would be no blood transfusions or major surgery. Without Paul Ehrlich, no chemotherapy. Without Siegfried Marcus, no motor car. Without Rosalind Franklin, genetic science would look very different. Without Fritz Haber, there would not be enough food to sustain life on earth. What do these visionaries have in common? They all had Jewish origins. They all had a gift for thinking in wholly original, even earth-shattering ways. In 1847 the Jewish people made up less than 0.25% of the world&’s population, and yet they saw what others could not. How? Why? Norman Lebrecht has devoted half of his life to pondering and researching the mindset of the Jewish intellectuals, writers, scientists, and thinkers who turned the tides of history and shaped the world today as we know it. In Genius & Anxiety, Lebrecht begins with the Communist Manifesto in 1847 and ends in 1947, when Israel was founded. This robust, magnificent volume, beautifully designed, is an urgent and necessary celebration of Jewish genius and contribution.Authentically Orthodox: A Tradition-Bound Faith in American Life
By Zev Eleff. 2020
With a fresh perspective, Authentically Orthodox: A Tradition-Bound Faith in American Life challenges the current historical paradigm in the study…
of Orthodox Judaism and other tradition-bound faith communities in the United States.Paying attention to "lived religion," the book moves beyond sermons and synagogues and examines the webs of experiences mediated by any number of American cultural forces. With exceptional writing, Zev Eleff lucidly explores Orthodox Judaism’s engagement with Jewish law, youth culture and gender, and how this religious group has been affected by its indigenous environs. To do this, the book makes ample use of archives and other previously unpublished primary sources. Eleff explores the curious history of Passover peanut oil and the folkways and foodways that battled in this culinary arena to both justify and rebuff the validity of this healthier substitute for other fatty ingredients. He looks at the Yeshiva University quiz team’s fifteen minutes of fame on the nationally televised College Bowl program and the unprecedented pride of young people and youth culture in the burgeoning Modern Orthodox movement. Another chapter focuses on the advent of women’s prayer groups as an alternative to other synagogue experiences in Orthodox life and the vociferous opposition it received on the grounds that it was motivated by "heretical" religious and social movements. Whereas past monographs and articles argue that these communities have moved right toward a conservative brand of faith, Eleff posits that Orthodox Judaism—like other like-minded religious enclaves—ought to be studied in their American religious contexts. The microhistories examined in Authentically Orthodox are some of the most exciting and understudied moments in American Jewish life and will hold the interest of scholars and students of American Jewish history and religion.Demons, Angels, and Writing in Ancient Judaism
By Annette Yoshiko Reed. 2020
What did ancient Jews believe about demons and angels? This question has long been puzzling, not least because the Hebrew…
Bible says relatively little about such transmundane powers. In the centuries after the conquests of Alexander the Great, however, we find an explosion of explicit and systematic interest in, and detailed discussions of, demons and angels. In this book, Annette Yoshiko Reed considers the third century BCE as a critical moment for the beginnings of Jewish angelology and demonology. Drawing on early 'pseudepigrapha' and Aramaic Dead Sea Scrolls, she reconstructs the scribal settings in which transmundane powers became a topic of concerted Jewish interest. Reed also situates this development in relation to shifting ideas about scribes and writing across the Hellenistic Near East. Her book opens a window onto a forgotten era of Jewish literary creativity that nevertheless deeply shaped the discussion of angels and demons in Judaism and Christianity.Moon Puerto Vallarta: With Sayulita, the Riviera Nayarit & Costalegre (Travel Guide)
By Madeline Milne. 2020
Towering mountains and turquoise sea, street food and cutting-edge cuisine, old-world vibes and world-class luxury: Explore a tropical paradise full…
of surprises with Moon Puerto Vallarta. Inside you'll find:Flexible itineraries for spending time in Puerto Vallarta, Banderas Bay North, Sayulita and the Riviera Nayarit, and Costa AlegreStrategic advice for outdoor adventurers, beach bums, surfers, wellness travelers, culture mavens, and moreMust-see highlights and unique experiences: Relax on soft beaches and take a dip in warm waters, go standup paddleboarding, or hike through the lush jungle. Discover quiet coves for snorkeling, spot humpback whales and sea turtles, or take a surfing lesson. Enjoy tacos from a street vendor, feast on Mexican delicacies at a waterfront restaurant, or drop anchor and grill your freshly-caught fish in a palapa. Shop from local artists along the winding cobblestone streets, or spend a day volunteering at a turtle rescue camp. Visit a tequila distillery, sample local raicilla, and dance to cumbia along the famed Malecón How to experience Puerto Vallarta like an insider, support local and sustainable businesses, avoid crowds, and respectfully engage with the cultureExpert insight from local author Madeline Milne on where to eat, how to get around, and where to stayFull-color photos and detailed maps throughout Reliable background information on the landscape, climate, wildlife, and history, as well as common customs and etiquette Handy tools including a Spanish phrasebook, packing suggestions, and travel tips for families with kids, seniors, travelers with disabilities, and LGBTQ travelersExperience Puerto Vallarta your way with Moon's practical tips and local know-how.Exploring more of Mexico? Check out Moon Tijuana, Ensenada & Valle de Guadalupe Wine Country.Rabbinic Drinking: What Beverages Teach Us About Rabbinic Literature
By Jordan D. Rosenblum. 2020
Though ancient rabbinic texts are fundamental to analyzing the history of Judaism, they are also daunting for the novice to…
read. Rabbinic literature presumes tremendous prior knowledge, and its fascinating twists and turns in logic can be disorienting. Rabbinic Drinking helps learners at every level navigate this brilliant but mystifying terrain by focusing on rabbinic conversations about beverages, such as beer and wine, water, and even breast milk. By studying the contents of a drinking vessel—including the contexts and practices in which they are imbibed—Rabbinic Drinking surveys key themes in rabbinic literature to introduce readers to the main contours of this extensive body of historical documents. Features and Benefits:Contains a broad array of rabbinic passages, accompanied by didactic and rich explanations and contextual discussions, both literary and historicalThematic chapters are organized into sections that include significant and original translations of rabbinic textsEach chapter includes in-text references and concludes with a list of both referenced works and suggested additional readingsA History of the Talmud
By David C. Kraemer. 2019
It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of the Talmud in Judaism and beyond. Yet its difficult language and its…
assumptions, so distant from modern sensibilities, render it inaccessible to most readers. In this volume, David C. Kraemer offers students of Judaism a sophisticated and accessible introduction to one of the religion's most important texts. Here, he brings together his expertise as a scholar of the Talmud and rabbinic Judaism with the lessons of his experience as director of one of the largest collections of rare Judaica in the world. Tracing the Talmud's origins and its often controversial status through history, he bases his work on the most recent historical and literary scholarship while making no assumptions concerning the reader's prior knowledge. Kraemer also examines the continuities and shifts of the Talmud over time and space. His work will provide scholars and students with an unprecedented understanding of one of the world's great classics and the spirit that animates it.A comprehensive treatment of the early Christian approaches to the Temple and its role in shaping Jewish and Christian identity…
The first scholarly work to trace the Temple throughout the entire New Testament, this study examines Jewish and Christian attitudes toward the Temple in the first century and provides both Jews and Christians with a better understanding of their respective faiths and how they grow out of this ancient institution. The centrality of the Temple in New Testament writing reveals the authors’ negotiations with the institutional and symbolic center of Judaism as they worked to form their own religion.Becoming Diaspora Jews: Behind the Story of Elephantine (The Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library)
By Karel Van Toorn. 2019
Based on a previously unexplored source, this book transforms the way we think about the formation of Jewish identity This…
book tells the story of the earliest Jewish diaspora in Egypt in a way it has never been told before. In the fifth century BCE there was a Jewish community on Elephantine Island. Why they spoke Aramaic, venerated Aramean gods besides Yaho, and identified as Arameans is a mystery, but a previously little explored papyrus from Egypt sheds new light on their history. The papyrus shows that the ancestors of the Elephantine Jews came originally from Samaria. Due to political circumstances, they left Israel and lived for a century in an Aramean environment. Around 600 BCE, they moved to Egypt. These migrants to Egypt did not claim a Jewish identity when they arrived, but after the destruction of their temple on the island they chose to deploy their Jewish identity to raise sympathy for their cause. Their story—a typical diaspora tale—is not about remaining Jews in the diaspora, but rather about becoming Jews through the diaspora.Ghetto: The History of a Word
By Daniel B. Schwartz. 2019
Few words are as ideologically charged as “ghetto,” a term that has described legally segregated Jewish quarters, dense immigrant enclaves,…
Nazi holding pens, and black neighborhoods in the United States. Daniel B. Schwartz reveals how the history of ghettos is tied up with struggle and argument over the slippery meaning of a word.Dirty Work: My Gruelling, Glorious, Life-changing Summer In the Wilderness
By Anna Maxymiw. 2019
Lands of Lost Borders meets The Electric Woman in this vibrant coming-of-age memoir about a young woman's fierce, filthy, exhausting,…
and joyous experience working at a wilderness lodge.When Anna Maxymiw accepts a summer job as a housekeeper at a fishing lodge in Northern Ontario, she has little idea what to expect. At twenty-three, she has decided to step away from her master's degree and city life to board a floatplane bound for the remote boreal forest. For sixty-seven days, Anna will be working and living alongside twelve strangers. Together this group of young men and women will keep the lodge running. While the fishing guides head out on the water with the fishermen who are the lodge's guests, the women stay on land to clean and serve. Against the backdrop of a vast lake, wild storms, and hot days and eerily still nights, Anna encounters bears, bugs, and the lore surrounding the lake's legendary pike. As the summer progresses, complex (and sometimes fraught) bonds form between the men and women who work at the lodge, the ownership of the lodge changes hands, and tensions build. And Anna notices a shift in her outlook, too: she finds herself letting go of fears and insecurities and welcoming surprises and possibilities, both good and bad, with a willingness to be changed by them.Warm, funny, vulnerable, and wise, Dirty Work offers a singular perspective on the age-old impulse to leave familiar surroundings behind. This memoir is for anyone who has ever felt the urge to test themselves and wondered how they'd fare and who they'd be when they come out on the other side.Journeys in the Wild: The Secret Life of a Cameraman
By Gavin Thurston. 2019
From Gavin Thurston, the award-winning Blue Planet II and Planet Earth II cameraman with a foreword by Sir David Attenborough…
comes extraordinary and adventurous true stories of what it takes to track down and film our planet's most captivating creatures.Gavin has been a wildlife photographer for over thirty years. Against a backdrop of modern world history, he's lurked in the shadows of some of the world's remotest places in order to capture footage of the animal kingdom's finest: prides of lions, silverback gorillas, capuchin monkeys, brown bears, grey whales, penguins, mosquitoes - you name it he's filmed it.From journeys to the deepest depths of the Antarctic Ocean and the wide expanse of the Saharan deserts, to the peaks of the Himalayas and the wild forests of the Congo, Gavin's experiences describe much more than just the incredible array of animals he's filmed. He invites you to come inside the cameraman's hidden world and discover the hours spent patiently waiting for the protagonists to appear; the inevitable dangers in the wings and the challenges faced and overcome; and the heart-warming, life-affirming moments the cameras miss as well as capture.Perfectly planned year-round getaways from the nation’s capital Washington, DC, is within striking distance of all types of adventures. You…
can read by the ocean one weekend and hike mountains in Shenandoah National Park or visit a Civil War battlefield the next. Add a booming local wine and beer scene and there are now more reasons to get out town than ever before. This book is an idea generator for exciting ways to spend a weekend outside the city. It’s a curated menu of trips, from wine tasting escapes to stress- bashing hikes to lake house trips with your crew. You can use this guide as a checklist of cool DC-adjacent getaways to tick off, or play weekend roulette— just close your eyes, flip the pages, and pick an adventure, including: • Beach and Bay Escapes • Outdoorsy Fun • Wine and Beer Trails • Small Town Vibes • Living History • Destination StaysSouls in Dispute: Converso Identities in Iberia and the Jewish Diaspora, 1580-1700 (Jewish Culture and Contexts)
By David L. Graizbord. 2004
Throughout the Middle Ages, the Iberian Peninsula was home to a rich cultural mix of Christians, Jews, and Muslims. At…
the end of the fifteenth century, however, the last Islamic stronghold fell, and Jews were forced either to convert to Christianity or to face expulsion. Thousands left for other parts of Europe and Asia, eventually establishing Sephardic communities in Amsterdam, Venice, Istanbul, southwestern France, and elsewhere.More than a hundred years after the expulsion, some Judeoconversos—descendants of Spanish and Portuguese Jews who had converted to Christianity—were forced to flee the Iberian Peninsula once again to avoid ethnic and religious persecution. Many of them joined the Sephardic Diaspora and embraced rabbinic Judaism. Later some of these same people or their descendants returned to Iberian lands temporarily or permanently and, in a twist that Jewish authorities considered scandalous, reverted to Catholicism. Among them were some who betrayed their fellow conversos to the Holy Office.In Souls in Dispute, David L. Graizbord unravels this intriguing history of the renegade conversos and constructs a detailed and psychologically acute portrait of their motivations. Through a probing analysis of relevant inquisitorial documents and a wide-ranging investigation into the history of the Sephardic Diaspora and Habsburg Spain, Graizbord shows that, far from being simply reckless and vindictive, the renegades used their double acts of border crossing to negotiate a dangerous and unsteady economic environment: so long as their religious and social ambiguity remained undetected, they were rewarded with the means for material survival. In addition, Graizbord sheds new light on the conflict-ridden transformation of makeshift Jewish colonies of Iberian expatriates—especially in the borderlands of southwestern France—showing that the renegades failed to accommodate fully to a climate of conformity that transformed these Sephardic groups into disciplined communities of Jews.Ultimately, Souls in Dispute explains how and why Judeoconversos built and rebuilt their religious and social identities, and what it meant to them to be both Jewish and Christian given the constraints they faced in their time and place in history.Out of Istanbul: A Journey of Discovery along the Silk Road
By Bernard Ollivier. 2003
Upon retirement at the age of sixty-two, and grieving his deceased wife, renowned journalist Bernard Ollivier felt a sense of…
profound emptiness: What do I do now? While some see retirement as a chance to cash in their chips and settle into a comfy armchair, Ollivier still longed for more. Searching for inspiration, he strapped on his gear, donned his hat, and headed out the front door to hike the Way of St. James, a 1400-mile journey from Paris to Compostela, Spain. At the end of that road, with more questions than answers, he decided to spend the next few years hiking another of history’s great routes: the Silk Road. Out of Istanbul is Ollivier’s stunning account of the first part of that 7,200-mile journey. The longest and perhaps most mythical trade route of all time, the Silk Road is in fact a network of routes across Europe and Asia, some going back to prehistoric times. During the Middle Ages, the transcribed travelogue of one Silk Road explorer, Marco Polo, helped spread the fame of the Orient throughout Europe.Heading east out of Istanbul, Ollivier takes readers step by step across Anatolia and Kurdistan, bound for Tehran. Along the way, we meet a colorful array of real-life characters: Selim, the philosophical woodsman; old Behçet, elated to practice English after years of self-study; Krishna, manager of the Lora Pansiyon in Polonez, a village of Polish immigrants; the hospitable Kurdish women of Dogutepe, and many more. We accompany Ollivier as he explores bazaars, mosques, and caravansaries—true vestiges of the Silk Road itself—and through these encounters and experiences, gains insight into the complex political and social issues facing modern-day Turkey.Ollivier’s journey, far from bragging about some tremendous achievement, humbly takes the reader on a colossal adventure of human proportions, one in which walking itself, through a kind of alchemy, fosters friendships and fellowship.The Long Life of Magical Objects: A Study in the Solomonic Tradition (Magic in History)
By Allegra Iafrate. 2019
This book explores a series of powerful artifacts associated with King Solomon via legendary or extracanonical textual sources. Tracing their…
cultural resonance throughout history, art historian Allegra Iafrate delivers exciting insights into these objects and interrogates the ways in which magic manifests itself at a material level.Each chapter focuses on a different Solomonic object: a ring used to control demons; a mysterious set of bottles that constrain evil forces; an endless knot or seal with similar properties; the shamir, known for its supernatural ability to cut through stone; and a flying carpet that can bring the sitter anywhere he desires. Taken together, these chapters constitute a study on the reception of the figure of Solomon, but they are also cultural biographies of these magical objects and their inherent aesthetic, morphological, and technical qualities.Thought-provoking and engaging, Iafrate’s study shows how ancient magic artifacts live on in our imagination, in items such as Sauron’s ring of power, Aladdin’s lamp, and the magic carpet. It will appeal to historians of art, religion, folklore, and literature.In order to understand contemporary Jewish identity in the twenty-first century, one needs to look beyond the Synagogue, the holy…
days and Jewish customs and law to explore such modern phenomena as mass media and their impact upon Jewish existence. This book delves into the complex relationship between Judaism and the mass media to provide a comprehensive examination of modern Jewish identity in the information age. Covering Israel as well as the Diaspora populations of the US and UK, the author looks at journalism, broadcasting, advertising and the internet to give a wide-ranging analysis of how the Jewish religion and Jewish people have been influenced by the media age. He tackles questions such as: What is the impact of Judaism on mass media? How is the religion covered in the secular Israeli media? Does the coverage strengthen religious identity? What impact does the media have upon secular-religious tensions? Chapters explore how the impact of Judaism is to be found particularly in the religious media in Israel – haredi and modern Orthodox – and looks at the evolution of new patterns of religious advertising, the growth and impact of the internet on Jewish identity, and the very legitimacy of certain media in the eyes of religious leaders. Also examined are such themes as the marketing of rabbis, the `Holyland’ dimension in foreign media reporting from Israel, and the media’s role in the Jewish Diaspora. An important addition to the existing literature on the nature of Jewish identity in the modern world, this book will be of great interest to scholars of media studies, media and religion, sociology, Jewish studies, religion and politics, as well as to the broader Jewish and Israeli communities.Jewish Law Annual Volume 20 (Jewish Law Annual #20)
By Berachyahu Lifshitz. 2013
Volume 20 of The Jewish Law Annual features six detailed studies. The first three articles consider questions which fall under…
the rubric of halakhic methodology. The final three articles address substantive questions regarding privacy, cohabitation and medical triage. All three ‘methodological’ articles discuss creative interpretation of legal sources. Two (Cohen and Gilat) consider the positive and forward-thinking aspects of such halakhic creativity. The third (Radzyner) examines tendentious invocation of new halakhic arguments to advance an extraneous interest. Cohen explores positive creativity and surveys the innovative midrashic exegeses of R. Meir Simha Hakohen of Dvinsk, demonstrating his willingness to base rulings intended for implementation on such exegesis. Gilat examines exegetical creativity as to the laws of capital offenses. Midrashic argumentation enables the rabbinical authorities to set aside the literal sense of the harsh biblical laws, and implement more suitable penological policies. On the other hand, Radzyner’s article on tendentious innovation focuses on a situation where novel arguments were advanced in the context of a power struggle, namely, Israeli rabbinical court efforts to preserve jurisdiction. Two articles discuss contemporary dilemmas. Spira & Wainberg consider the hypothetical scenario of triage of an HIV vaccine, analyzing both the talmudic sources for resolving issues related to allocating scarce resources, and recent responsa. Warburg discusses the status of civil marriage and cohabitation vis-à-vis payment of spousal maintenance: can rabbinical courts order such payment? Schreiber’s article addresses the question of whether privacy is a core value in talmudic law: does it indeed uphold a ‘right to privacy,’ as recent scholars have claimed? The volume concludes with a review of Yuval Sinai’s Application of Jewish Law in the Israeli Courts (Hebrew).Confronting Hate: The Untold Story of the Rabbi Who Stood Up for Human Rights, Racial Justice, and Religious Reconciliation
By Deborah Hart Strober, Gerald S. Strober. 1958
In this biography, Gerald and Deborah Strober draw from original source materials and numerous interviews to detail the life and…
career of the esteemed Rabbi Marc Tanenbaum, a seminal 20th century figure in interfaith relations in the US and around the world. From his position as Director of Interreligious Affairs at the American Jewish Committee, Rabbi Tanenbaum was deeply involved in the historic Vatican II Council, which promulgated a landmark encyclical on Catholic-Jewish relations. Rabbi Tanenbaum also was one of the few Jewish leaders who worked closely with Reverend Billy Graham and other evangelicals. He worked tirelessly as a civil rights activist and was active in the cause of Soviet Jewry, as well.Confronting Hate details this esteemed career and his interactions with the likes of television legends Norman Lear, Don Hewitt, and Franco Zeffirelli; Jesse Jackson; Martin Luther King, Jr.; and several US presidents, from Dwight D. Eisenhower to George H.W. Bush. This book leaves no stone unturned in covering the public and private aspects of the life of “the human rights rabbi.” The authors bring to light the immense international influence that Rabbi Tanenbaum has even today, more than twenty-five years after his passing.Jews and Power (Jewish Encounters Series)
By Ruth R. Wisse. 2007
Taking in everything from the Kingdom of David to the Oslo Accords, Ruth Wisse offers a radical new way to…
think about the Jewish relationship to power. Traditional Jews believed that upholding the covenant with God constituted a treaty with the most powerful force in the universe; this later transformed itself into a belief that, unburdened by a military, Jews could pursue their religious mission on a purely moral plain. Wisse, an eminent professor of comparative literature at Harvard, demonstrates how Jewish political weakness both increased Jewish vulnerability to scapegoating and violence, and unwittingly goaded power-seeking nations to cast Jews as perpetual targets. Although she sees hope in the State of Israel, Wisse questions the way the strategies of the Diaspora continue to drive the Jewish state, echoing Abba Eban's observation that Israel was the only nation to win a war and then sue for peace. And then she draws a persuasive parallel to the United States today, as it struggles to figure out how a liberal democracy can face off against enemies who view Western morality as weakness. This deeply provocative book is sure to stir debate both inside and outside the Jewish world. Wisse's narrative offers a compelling argument that is rich with history and bristling with contemporary urgency. From the Hardcover edition.