The Radical American Judaism of Mordecai M. Kaplan

The Radical American Judaism of Mordecai M. Kaplan PDF Author: Mel Scult
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253010888
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
“An important and powerful work that speaks to Mordecai M. Kaplan’s position as perhaps the most significant Jewish thinker of the twentieth century.” (Deborah Dash Moore coeditor of Gender and Jewish History) Mordecai M. Kaplan, founder of the Jewish Reconstructionist movement, is the only rabbi to have been excommunicated by the Orthodox rabbinical establishment in America. Kaplan was indeed a radical, rejecting such fundamental Jewish beliefs as the concept of the chosen people and a supernatural God. Although he valued the Jewish community and was a committed Zionist, his primary concern was the spiritual fulfillment of the individual. Drawing on Kaplan’s 27-volume diary, Mel Scult describes the development of Kaplan’s radical theology in dialogue with the thinkers and writers who mattered to him most, from Spinoza to Emerson and from Ahad Ha-Am and Matthew Arnold to Felix Adler, John Dewey, and Abraham Joshua Heschel. This gracefully argued book, with its sensitive insights into the beliefs of a revolutionary Jewish thinker, makes a powerful contribution to modern Judaism and to contemporary American religious thought. “An interesting, stimulating, and well-done analysis of Kaplan’s life and thought. All students of contemporary Jewish life will benefit from reading this excellent study.” —Jewish Media Review “The book is highly readable―at times almost colloquial in its language and style―and is recommended for anybody with a familiarity with Kaplan but who wants to understand his thought within a broader context.” —AJL Reviews

The Radical American Judaism of Mordecai M. Kaplan

The Radical American Judaism of Mordecai M. Kaplan PDF Author: Mel Scult
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253010888
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 360

Get Book Here

Book Description
“An important and powerful work that speaks to Mordecai M. Kaplan’s position as perhaps the most significant Jewish thinker of the twentieth century.” (Deborah Dash Moore coeditor of Gender and Jewish History) Mordecai M. Kaplan, founder of the Jewish Reconstructionist movement, is the only rabbi to have been excommunicated by the Orthodox rabbinical establishment in America. Kaplan was indeed a radical, rejecting such fundamental Jewish beliefs as the concept of the chosen people and a supernatural God. Although he valued the Jewish community and was a committed Zionist, his primary concern was the spiritual fulfillment of the individual. Drawing on Kaplan’s 27-volume diary, Mel Scult describes the development of Kaplan’s radical theology in dialogue with the thinkers and writers who mattered to him most, from Spinoza to Emerson and from Ahad Ha-Am and Matthew Arnold to Felix Adler, John Dewey, and Abraham Joshua Heschel. This gracefully argued book, with its sensitive insights into the beliefs of a revolutionary Jewish thinker, makes a powerful contribution to modern Judaism and to contemporary American religious thought. “An interesting, stimulating, and well-done analysis of Kaplan’s life and thought. All students of contemporary Jewish life will benefit from reading this excellent study.” —Jewish Media Review “The book is highly readable―at times almost colloquial in its language and style―and is recommended for anybody with a familiarity with Kaplan but who wants to understand his thought within a broader context.” —AJL Reviews

The Radical American Judaism of Mordecai M. Kaplan

The Radical American Judaism of Mordecai M. Kaplan PDF Author: Mel Scult
Publisher: Modern Jewish Experience
ISBN: 9780253010759
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
Mordecai M. Kaplan, founder of the Jewish Reconstructionist movement, is the only rabbi to have been excommunicated by the Orthodox rabbinical establishment in America. Kaplan was indeed a heretic, rejecting such fundamental Jewish beliefs as the concept of the chosen people and a supernatural God. Although he valued the Jewish community and was a committed Zionist, his primary concern was the spiritual fulfillment of the individual. Drawing on Kaplan's 27-volume diary, Mel Scult describes the development of Kaplan's radical theology in dialogue with the thinkers and writers who mattered to him most, from Spinoza to Emerson and from Ahad Ha-Am and Matthew Arnold to Felix Adler, John Dewey, and Abraham Joshua Heschel. This gracefully argued book, with its sensitive insights into the beliefs of a revolutionary Jewish thinker, makes a powerful contribution to modern Judaism and to contemporary American religious thought.

The American Judaism of Mordecai M. Kaplan

The American Judaism of Mordecai M. Kaplan PDF Author: Emanuel Goldsmith
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814732577
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 479

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Book Description
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

Dynamic Judaism

Dynamic Judaism PDF Author: Mordecai Menahem Kaplan
Publisher: Fordham Univ Press
ISBN: 9780823213108
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 263

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Book Description
Mordecai M. Kaplan began his life's journey with the confines of a small Lithuanian town on the outskirts of Vilna. He was born on a Friday evening in June of 1881. Kaplan's submergence in a total Jewish atmosphere is illustrated by the fact that he knew his day of birth only by the Jewish calendar until he went to the New York Public Library as a young man to look up the corresponding date. Kaplan's family was a traditional one in every aspect, and his father, Israel Kaplan, was a learned man.

Judaism Faces the Twentieth Century

Judaism Faces the Twentieth Century PDF Author: Mel Scult
Publisher: Wayne State University Press
ISBN: 9780814322802
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 444

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Book Description
Kaplan, who died in 1983 at the age of 102, arrived in America as a boy, and, as he grew, sought to find ways of making Judaism compatible with the American experience and the modern temper. He founded the Jewish Center and the Society for the Advancement of Judaism, establishing the prototypes for the modern expanded synagogue. This biography reappraises the significance of his contributions and offers an intimate look at the man and his thinking. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

A Modern Heretic and a Traditional Community

A Modern Heretic and a Traditional Community PDF Author: Jeffrey S. Gurock
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 9780231504492
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
Mordecai Kaplan, the founder of the Reconstructionist movement, was the most influential and controversial radical Jewish thinker in the twentieth century. This book examines the intellectual influences that moved Kaplan from Orthodoxy and analyzes the combination of personal, strategic, and career reasons that kept Kaplan close to Orthodox Jews, posing a question crucial to the understanding of any religion: Can an established religious group learn from a heretic who has rejected its most fundamental beliefs?

Communings of the Spirit

Communings of the Spirit PDF Author: Mel Scult
Publisher: Wayne State University Press
ISBN: 0814347681
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 445

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Book Description
Scholars of Judaica and rabbinical studies will value this honest look at the preeminent American Jewish thinker and rabbi of our times.

A Year with Mordecai Kaplan

A Year with Mordecai Kaplan PDF Author: Steven Carr Reuben
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 0827617836
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 295

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Book Description
You are invited to spend a year with the inspirational words, ideas, and counsel of the great twentieth-century thinker Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, through his meditations on the fifty-four weekly Torah portions and eleven Jewish holidays. A pioneer of ideas and action—teaching that “Judaism is a civilization” encompassing Jewish culture, art, and peoplehood; demonstrating how synagogues can be full centers for Jewish living (building one of the first “shuls with a pool”); and creating the first-ever bat mitzvah ceremony (for his daughter Judith)—Kaplan transformed the landscape of American Jewry. Yet much of Kaplan’s rich treasury of ethical and spiritual thought is largely unknown. Rabbi Steven Carr Reuben, who studied closely with Kaplan, offers unique insight into Kaplan’s teachings about ethical relationships and spiritual fulfillment, including how to embrace godliness in everyday experience, our mandate to become agents of justice in the world, and the human ability to evolve personally and collectively. Quoting from the week’s Torah portion, Reuben presents Torah commentary, a related quotation from Kaplan, a reflective commentary integrating Kaplan’s understanding of the Torah text, and an intimate story about his family or community’s struggles and triumphs—guiding twenty-first-century spiritual seekers of all backgrounds on how to live reflectively and purposefully every day.

The Jew in the Modern World

The Jew in the Modern World PDF Author: Paul R. Mendes-Flohr
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780195074536
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 772

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Book Description
The last two centuries have witnessed a radical transformation of Jewish life. Marked by such profound events as the Holocaust and the establishment of the state of Israel, Judaism's long journey through the modern age has been a complex and tumultuous one, leading many Jews to ask themselves not only where they have been and where they are going, but what it means to be a Jew in today's world. Tracing the Jewish experience in the modern period and illustrating the transformation of Jewish religion, culture, and identity from the 17th century to 1948, the updated edition of this critically acclaimed volume of primary materials remains the most complete sourcebook on modern Jewish history. Now expanded to supplement the most vital documents of the first edition, The Jew in the Modern World features hitherto unpublished and inaccessible sources concerning the Jewish experience in Eastern Europe, women in Jewish history, American Jewish life, the Holocaust, and Zionism and the nascent Jewish community in Palestine on the eve of the establishment of the State of Israel. The documents are arranged chronologically in each of eleven chapters and are meticulously and extensively annotated and cross-referenced in order to provide the student with ready access to a wide variety of issues, key historical figures, and events. Complete with some twenty useful tables detailing Jewish demographic trends, this is a unique resource for any course in Jewish history, Zionism and Israel, the Holocaust, or European and American history.

Jewish Bialystok and Its Diaspora

Jewish Bialystok and Its Diaspora PDF Author: Rebecca Kobrin
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253004284
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 770

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Book Description
The mass migration of East European Jews and their resettlement in cities throughout Europe, the United States, Argentina, the Middle East and Australia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries not only transformed the demographic and cultural centers of world Jewry, it also reshaped Jews' understanding and performance of their diasporic identities. Rebecca Kobrin's study of the dispersal of Jews from one city in Poland -- Bialystok -- demonstrates how the act of migration set in motion a wide range of transformations that led the migrants to imagine themselves as exiles not only from the mythic Land of Israel but most immediately from their east European homeland. Kobrin explores the organizations, institutions, newspapers, and philanthropies that the Bialystokers created around the world and that reshaped their perceptions of exile and diaspora.