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Judaism Made Simple: Flash
By C. M. Hoffman. 2011
The books in this bite-sized new series contain no complicated techniques or tricky materials, making them ideal for the busy,…
the time-pressured or the merely curious. Judaism Made Simple is a short and to-the-point guide to Judaism. In just 96 pages, the reader will learn all about the history, beliefs and traditions of this major world faith. Ideal for the busy, the time-pressured or the merely curious, Judaism Made Simple is a quick, no-effort way to break into this fascinating topic. discover the Torah learn about synagogues find out what is kosher look at jewish festivals think about the holocaustJudaism: All That Matters (All That Matters)
By Keith Kahn-Harris. 2012
For a group of people so limited in number, the Jewish community has had a huge impact on both global…
events and local politics. In this vibrant new look at Judaism, sociologist and cultural critic Keith Kahn-Harris provides a remarkably sharp insight into this history, and particularly the diverse Jewish communities (and diverse ideas of Jewishness) that exist today.An Introduction to Early Judaism
By James C. Vanderkam. 2022
Based on the best archaeological research, this volume explores the history of Judaism during the Second Temple period (516 BCE–70…
CE), describing the body of Jewish literature written during these centuries and the most important groups, institutions, and practices of the time. Particularly interesting are VanderKam&’s depiction of events associated with Masada and, more briefly, the Bar Kokhba revolt—as well as his commentary on texts unearthed in places like Elephantine and Qumran. Now in its second edition, with additional material and updated throughout, this book remains the preeminent guide to early Judaism for anyone looking for a text that is concise and accessible while still comprehensive—and written by one of the foremost experts in the field.Powers of Pilgrimage: Religion in a World of Movement
By Simon Coleman. 2021
A groundbreaking reframing of religious pilgrimagePious processions. Sites of miraculous healing. Journeys to far-away sacred places. These are what are…
usually called to mind when we think of religious pilgrimage. Yet while pilgrimage can include journeying to the heart of sacred shrines, it can also occur in apparently mundane places. Indeed, not everyone has the resources or mobility to take part in religiously inspired movement to foreign lands, and some find meaning in religious movement closer to home and outside of officially sanctioned practices. Powers of Pilgrimage argues that we must question the universality of Western assumptions of what religion is and where it should be located, including the notion that “genuine” pilgrimage needs to be associated with discrete, formally recognized forms of religiosity. This necessary volume makes the case for expanding our gaze to reconsider the salience, scope, and scale of contemporary forms of pilgrimage and pilgrimage-related activity. It shows that we need to reflect on how pilgrimage sites, journeys, rituals, stories, and metaphors are entangled with each other and with wider aspects of people’s lives, ranging from an action as trivial as a stroll down the street to the magnitude of forced migration to another country or continent. Offering a new theoretical lexicon and framework for exploring human pilgrimage, Powers of Pilgrimage presents a broad overview of how we can understand pilgrimage activity and proposes that it should be understood not solely as going to, staying at, and leaving a sacred place, but also as occurring in ordinary times, places, and practices.American Jewish Year Book 2020: The Annual Record of the North American Jewish Communities Since 1899 (American Jewish Year Book #120)
By Arnold Dashefsky, Ira M. Sheskin. 2022
The American Jewish Year Book, which spans three different centuries, is the annual record of the North American Jewish communities and…
provides insight into their major trends. Part I of the current volume contains the lead article: Chapter 1, “Pastrami, Verklempt, and Tshoot-spa: Non-Jews’ Use of Jewish Language in the US” by Sarah Bunin Benor. Following this chapter are three on domestic and international events, which analyze the year’s events as they affect American Jewish communal and political affairs. Three chapters analyze the demography and geography of the US, Canada, and world Jewish populations. Part II provides lists of Jewish institutions, including federations, community centers, social service agencies, national organizations, synagogues, Hillels, camps, museums, and Israeli consulates. The final chapters present national and local Jewish periodicals and broadcast media; academic resources, including Jewish Studies programs, books, journals, articles, websites, and research libraries; and lists of major events in the past year, Jewish honorees, and obituaries. While written mostly by academics, this volume conveys an accessible style, making it of interest to public officials, professional and lay leaders in the Jewish community, as well as the general public and academic researchers. The American Jewish Year Book has been a key resource for social scientists exploring comparative and historical data on Jewish population patterns. No less important, the Year Book serves organization leaders and policy makers as the source for valuable data on Jewish communities and as a basis for planning. Serious evidence-based articles regularly appear in the Year Book that focus on analyses and reviews of critical issues facing American Jews and their communities which are indispensable for scholars and community leaders.Calvin Goldscheider, Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Ungerleider Professor Emeritus of Judaic Studies, Brown University They have done it again. The American Jewish Year Book has produced yet another edition to add to its distinguished tradition of providing facts, figures and analyses of contemporary life in North America. Its well-researched and easily accessible essays offer the most up to date scrutiny of topics and challenges of importance to American Jewish life; to the American scene of which it is a part and to world Jewry. Whether one is an academic or professional member of the Jewish community (or just an interested reader of all things Jewish), there is not another more impressive and informative reading than the American Jewish Year Book. Debra Renee Kaufman, Professor Emerita and Matthews Distinguished University Professor, Northeastern UniversitySefer Yeṣirah, or "Book of Formation," is one of the most influential Jewish compositions of late antiquity. First attested to…
in the tenth century C.E. and attributed by some to the patriarch Abraham himself, Sefer Yeṣirah claims that the world was created by the powers of the decimal number system and the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. This short, enigmatic treatise was considered canonical by Jewish philosophers and Kabbalists and has fascinated Western thinkers and writers as diverse as Leibnitz and Borges. Nonetheless, Sefer Yesirah is nearly impossible to contextualize, mainly owing to its unique style and the fact that it does not refer to, nor is it referenced by, any other source in late antiquity. After a century and a half of modern scholarship, the most fundamental questions regarding its origins remain contested: Who wrote Sefer Yeṣirah? Where and when was it written? What was its "original" version? What is the meaning of this treatise?In "Sefer Yeṣirah" and Its Contexts, Tzahi Weiss explores anew the history of this enigmatic work. Through careful scrutiny of the text's evolution, he traces its origins to the seventh century C.E., to Jews who lived far from rabbinic circles and were familiar with the teachings of Syriac Christianity. In addition, he examines the reception of Sefer Yeṣirah by anonymous commentators and laypeople who, as early as the twelfth century C.E., regarded Sefer Yeṣirah as a mystical, mythical, or magical treatise, thus significantly differing from the common rabbinic view in that period of the text as a philosophical and scientific work. Examined against the backdrop of this newly sketched historical context, Sefer Yeṣirah provides a unique and surprising aperture to little-known Jewish intellectual traditions of late antiquity and the early Middle Ages which, despite their distance from the rabbinic canon, played a vital role in the development of medieval Jewish learning and culture.Hinduism and Tribal Religions (Encyclopedia of Indian Religions)
By Madhu Khanna, Pankaj Jain, Rita D. Sherma, Jeffery D. Long. 2022
This volume offers an overview of Hinduism as found in India and the diaspora. Exploring Hinduism in India in dynamic…
interaction, rather than in isolation, the volume discusses the relation of Hinduism with other religions of Indian origin and with religions which did not originate in India but have been a major feature of its religious landscape. These latter religions include Islam and Christianity and, to a lesser extent, Zoroastrianism and Judaism. The volume also covers Hinduism’s close association with Tribal Religions, sometimes called Primal Religions. As its second main theme, the volume examines the phenomenon of Hinduism in the diaspora. The Indian diaspora is now beginning to make its presence felt, both in India and abroad. In India, the Indian government annually hosts a diaspora event called Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (PBD), in recognition of the growing importance of the twenty-million-strong diaspora. Although not all Indians are Hindus, most are, both in India and abroad, and a strong sense of Hindu identity is emerging among diasporic Hindus. This volume fills the need felt by Hindus both in India and the diaspora for more knowledge about modern-day Hinduism, Hindu history and traditions. It takes into account three main aspects of Hinduism: that the active pan-Indian and diasporic language of the Hindus is English; that modern Hindus need a rational rather than a devotional or traditional exposition of the religion; and that they need information about and arguments to address the stereotypes which characterize the presentation of Hinduism in academia and the media, especially in the West.Jews, Turks, and Infidels
By Morton Borden. 1984
Borden reveals the ways in which many mainstream Protestants worked to maintain preferential treatment for Christians in common law, state…
constitutions, and federal practices, even attempting through interpretation and amendment to alter the meaning of the U.S. Constitution. Even though religious freedom was guaranteed by the constitution in 1788, it took the sustained efforts of vigilant Jews during the nineteenth century to fulfill the constitution's promise of religious equality.Originally published in 1984.A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.Margarete Susman - Religious-Political Essays on Judaism (Jewish Thought and Philosophy)
By Elisa Klapheck. 2021
Margarete Susman was among the great Jewish women philosophers of the twentieth century, and largely unknown to many today. This…
book presents, for the first time in English, six of her important essays along with an introduction about her life and work. Carefully selected and edited by Elisa Klapheck, these essays give the English-speaking reader a taste of Susman’s religious-political mode of thought, her originality, and her importance as Jewish thinker. Susman's writing on exile, return, and the revolutionary impact of Judaism on humanity, illuminate enhance our understanding of other Jewish philosophers of her time: Martin Buber, Franz Rosenzweig, and Ernst Bloch (all of them her friends). Her work is in particularly fitting company when read alongside Jewish religious-political and political thinkers such as Bertha Pappenheim, Hannah Arendt, Simone Weil, and Gertrud Stein. Initially a poet, Susman became a follower of the Jewish Renaissance movement, secular Messianism, and the German Revolution of 1918. This collection of essays shows how Susman's work speaks not only to her own time between the two World Wars but to the present day.The Chassidic Approach to Joy
By Shloma Majeski. 1996
Today there is a desperate search to find the key to overcome anxiety, anger, and depression; to master those negative…
feelings which incapacitate thousands of intelligent, capable individuals, and drain the joy of life from many others. For more than two centuries, individuals who have lived by the teachings of Jewish mysticism and Chassidus have been recognized as people full of joy and inspiration, radiating life and energy. This genuine joy comes from profound spiritual awareness on life and an absolute clarity of direction, living for a purpose. Now with the Chassidic Approach to Joy you too can explore the mystical depths of your soul as well as the universe at large, on the well-traveled path to pure, internal happiness.Frontiers of Jewish Scholarship: Expanding Origins, Transcending Borders (Jewish Culture and Contexts)
By Anne O. Albert, Noah S. Gerber, and Michael A. Meyer. 2022
The birth of modern Jewish studies can be traced to the nineteenth-century emergence of the Wissenschaft des Judentums, a movement…
to promote a scholarly approach to the study of Judaism and Jewish culture. Frontiers of Jewish Scholarship offers a collection of essays examining how Wissenschaft extended beyond its original German intellectual contexts and was transformed into a diverse, global field. From the early expansion of the new scholarly approaches into Jewish publications across Europe to their translation and reinterpretation in the twentieth century, the studies included here collectively trace a path through largely neglected subject matter, newly recognized as deserving attention.Beginning with an introduction that surveys the field's German origins, fortunes, and contexts, the volume goes on to document dimensions of the growth of Wissenschaft des Judentums elsewhere in Europe and throughout the world. Some of the contributions turn to literary and semantic issues, while others reveal the penetration of Jewish studies into new national contexts that include Hungary, Italy, and even India. Individual essays explore how the United States, along with Israel, emerged as a main center for Jewish historical scholarship and how critical Jewish scholarship began to accommodate Zionist ideology originating in Eastern Europe and eventually Marxist ideology, primarily in the Soviet Union. Finally, the focus of the volume moves on to the land of Israel, focusing on the reception of Orientalism and Jewish scholarly contacts with Yemenite and native Muslim intellectuals.Taken together, the contributors to the volume offer new material and fresh approaches that rethink the relationship of Jewish studies to the larger enterprise of critical scholarship while highlighting its relevance to the history of humanistic inquiry worldwide.Not in God's Name: Confronting Religious Violence
By Jonathan Sacks. 2015
Despite predictions of continuing secularisation, the twenty-first century has witnessed a surge of religious extremism and violence in the name…
of God.In this powerful and timely book, Jonathan Sacks explores the roots of violence and its relationship to religion, focusing on the historic tensions between the three Abrahamic faiths: Judaism, Christianity and Islam.Drawing on arguments from evolutionary psychology, game theory, history, philosophy, ethics and theology, Sacks shows how a tendency to violence can subvert even the most compassionate of religions. Through a close reading of key biblical texts at the heart of the Abrahamic faiths, Sacks then challenges those who claim that religion is intrinsically a cause of violence, and argues that theology must become part of the solution if it is not to remain at the heart of the problem.This book is a rebuke to all those who kill in the name of the God of life, wage war in the name of the God of peace, hate in the name of the God of love, and practise cruelty in the name of the God of compassion.For the sake of humanity and the free world, the time has come for people of all faiths and none to stand together and declare: Not In God's Name.(P)2016 Hodder & StoughtonThe Return of the Absent Father offers a new reading of a chain of seven stories from tractate Ketubot in…
the Babylonian Talmud, in which sages abandon their homes, wives, and families and go away to the study house for long periods. Earlier interpretations have emphasized the tension between conjugal and scholarly desire as the key driving force in these stories. Haim Weiss and Shira Stav here reveal an additional layer of meaning to the father figure's role within the family structure. By shifting the spotlight from the couple to the drama of the father's relationship with his sons and daughters, they present a more complex tension between mundane domesticity and the sphere of spiritual learning represented by the study house.This coauthored book presents a dialogic encounter between Weiss, a scholar of rabbinic literature, and Stav, a scholar of modern Hebrew literary studies. Working together, they have produced a book resonant in its melding of the scholarly norms of rabbinics with a literary interpretation based in feminist and psychoanalytic theory.The Holocaust and the Christian World: Reflections on the Past, Challenges for the Future
By Carol Rittner, Stephen D. Smith, Irena Steinfeldt. 2019
The Holocaust and the Christian World is a gripping book in which Christian and Jewish scholars present essays that detail…
the world’s descent into the madness of anti-Semitism. Exploring the harmful effects of scholarly treatments of Scripture (minimizing or mythologizing the Jewish character of the Old Testament), Darwinian views of "the races," and Hitler’s ghastly plans for the "Final Solution" (with widespread Christian silence), these essays give a brilliant overview while adding thoughtful detail. The book includes timelines, resource lists, and church statements regarding the Holocaust and is also packed with many archival photographs. This new edition of the book also includes documentation of more recent efforts to repent and to change the teaching of contempt within various Christian churches.Memory and Religion from a Postsecular Perspective (European Remembrance and Solidarity)
By Zuzanna Bogumił, Yuliya Yurchuk. 2022
The book argues that religion is a system of significant meanings that have an impact on other systems and spheres…
of social life including cultural memory. The editors call for a postsecular turn in memory studies which would provide a more reflective and meaningful approach to the constant interplay between the religious and the secular. This opens up new perspectives on the intersection of memory and religion and helps memory scholars become more aware of the religious roots of the language they are using in their studies of memory. By drawing on examples from different parts of the world, the contributors to this volume explain how the interactions between the religious and the secular produce new memory forms and content in the heterogenous societies of the present-day world. These analysed cases demonstrate that religion has a significant impact on cultural memory, family memory and the contemporary politics of history in secularized societies. At the same time, politics, grassroots movements and different secular agents and processes have so much influence on the formation of memory by religious actors that even religious, ecclesiastic and confessional memories are affected by the secular. This volume is ideal for students and scholars of memory studies, religious studies and history.The Rational Passover Haggadah
By Dennis Prager. 2022
Dennis Prager, author of The Rational Bible—which, upon its first publication, was the number one bestselling non-fiction book in America—turns his…
attention to the Haggadah, the book used for the most widely celebrated Jewish ritual, the Passover Seder. As with Prager&’s multi-volume commentary on the Torah, the explanations included with this Haggadah are equally valuable for religious and non-religious Jews, as well as for non-Jews. It provides enough thought-provoking ideas and insights to last the reader a lifetime.The Myth of the Twelve Tribes of Israel: New Identities Across Time and Space
By Andrew Tobolowsky. 2022
The Myth of the Twelve Tribes of Israel is the first study to treat the history of claims to an…
Israelite identity as an ongoing historical phenomenon from biblical times to the present. By treating the Hebrew Bible's accounts of Israel as one of many efforts to construct an Israelite history, rather than source material for later legends, Andrew Tobolowsky brings a long-term comparative approach to biblical and nonbiblical “Israelite” histories. In the process, he sheds new light on how the structure of the twelve tribes tradition enables the creation of so many different visions of Israel, and generates new questions: How can we explain the enduring power of the myth of the twelve tribes of Israel? How does “becoming Israel” work, why has it proven so popular, and how did it change over time? Finally, what can the changing shape of Israel itself reveal about those who claimed it?Righteous Gentiles of The Holocaust: Genocide and Moral Obligation
By David P. Gushee. 2003
"Righteous Gentiles of the Holocaust by David P. Gushee is an authoritative and indispensable exploration of a highly important aspect…
of the Holocaust, the willingness of a small, but morally significant, number of non-Jews to take on great risks for themselves and their families to rescue Jews from the Nazi death machine. In this well-documented, well-written book, Gushee explores the full range of Gentile responses to the plight of the Jews from overt hostility and obscene brutality to altruistic rescue, the better to understand the achievements of truly Righteous Gentiles. Highly recommended for anyone interested in the Holocaust."―Richard L. Rubenstein, President Emeritus, Distinguished Professor of Religion, University of BridgeportIn Eve's Attire: Modesty, Judaism and the Female Body
By Delphine Horvilleur. 2013
Does modernity trample on tradition, or can it in fact be a vehicle for the sacred?How can one determine whether…
an interpretation is legitimate, anachronistic or corrupted?Does sexual obsession have a textual origin, and is it woman's destiny to be veiled?In Eve's Attire confronts these questions and more to suggest another interpretation of religious traditions surrounding the female body and the erotic.As current fundamentalist religious discourse expresses a growing fixation on modesty, women are increasingly reduced to those parts of their bodies that arouse desire, effectively "genitalised" until the totality of their bodies becomes taboo. In resistance to such interpretations of religious text, which see even a woman's voice as an erotic organ to be silenced, Rabbi Delphine Horvilleur looks not only at religious texts themselves, but also at their interpreters, as she unpicks readings that make the woman a temptress, and modesty the instrument of her oppression. She shows us how nakedness, as expressed by Adam, Eve or Noah, refers to a culture of desire and not a wish to suppress it and explores how the veil was originally intended: not to reject, but to approach the other.Through her analysis of the meaning of modesty and nudity in Judaism, Delphine Horvilleur explores the societal and religious obsession with the female body and its representation and asks questions about how we can engage more critically with interpretations of sacred texts.Translated from the French by Ruth DiverAfter their expulsion from Spain in 1492, Sephardi Jews such as Isaac Abravanel, Abraham Saba, and Isaac Arama wrote biblical…
commentaries that stressed the significance of land. They interpreted Judaism as a tradition whose best expression and ultimate fulfillment took place away from cities and in rural settings. Iberian-Jewish authors rooted their moral teachings in an ethical treatment of the natural world, elucidating ancient agricultural laws and scrutinizing the physical context and built environments of Bible stories. The Land Is Mine asks what inspired this and suggests that the answer lies not in timeless exegetical or theological trends, but in the material realities of late medieval and early modern Iberia, during a period of drastic changes in land use.The book uses a highly traditional source base in a decidedly untraditional way. In Jewish Studies, Andrew D. Berns observes, biblical commentary is typically studied as an intramural activity. Though scholars have conceded that Jewish scriptural exegesis welcomes material and ideas from other fields and traditions, little to no work treats premodern Hebrew Bible commentary as also drawing upon Classical and Christian sources as well as contemporary writings on land management and political economy. Abravanel, Saba, and Arama were engaged with questions that had broad resonance during their lives: the proper way to treat the land, the best occupations to pursue, and the ideal setting for human community. Scriptural commentary was the forum in which they addressed these problems and posed solutions to them.A work of intellectual history,The Land Is Mine demonstrates that it is impossible to understand Jewish culture without considering the physical realities on which it depended.