Author: Daniel Landes
Publisher: Jason Aronson, Incorporated
ISBN: 1461662427
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 308
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Book Description
Today, humankind stands at a crossroads. In the past decades, technological advancements have transformed societies, giving us extraordinary capabilities. Our achievements, however, prove to be a double-edges sword, for the genius that enables is to enhance the quality and length of life has also put into our hands the means with which to destroy ourselves. How will we respond to the ultimate and absolute responsibility of preserving humanity? How will countries balance their need for self-defense and their desire for power? Where will societies turn for guidance as they grapple with the questions of survival? In Confronting Omnicide: Jewish Reflections on Weapons of Mass Destruction¸ Rabbi Daniel Landes has collected essays, by fifteen prominent Jewish thinkers and leaders, that address these issues. The authors of these essays represent a broad spectrum of religious and political ideologies and include Reuven Kimelman, Irving Greenberg, Lord Immanuel Jakobovits, Pinchas H. Peli, and Maurice Friedman. They share the basic assumptions that the threat of global destruction through nuclear and chemical warfare is a real possibility against which humans have no “fail-safe” mechanism; that we must search for solutions while avoiding apathetic fatalism and false optimism; and that the Jewish people have a special responsibility, because of their history and their culture, to respond to this crisis. Drawing on a rich variety of Jewish literary sources, including the Bible, rabbinic literature, and Jewish law and thought, the contributors to Confronting Omnicide explore different facets of the nuclear threat. For example, does Jewish law distinguish between civilians and combatants in the struggle to defeat an enemy, and if so, how does this affect military decisions? In Jewish law, owning wild dogs is prohibited as a violation of the biblical verse, “Thou shalt not bring blood upon thy house,” because of the seeming inevitability of the dog attacking the innocent. Is the very possession of a nuclear and chemical arsenal wrong, then, if its existence enables us to bring blood upon the collective house of humankind? Jewish tradition has classically required a just order before agreeing to peace with an enemy. But is that a realistic requirement in an age when peace is merely the absence of overt hostilities? Many of these essays also examine the Holocaust and the parallels and distinctions that can be made between it and absolute destruction. The paradox of power, the threat of its concentration and the vulnerability of its absence, is also discussed in this volume. Confronting Omnicide does “advocate specific strategic and political positions,” Rabbi Landes states. “It rather attempts to create a vocabulary and language for confronting the difficult decisions that will need to be made by both policy makers and an informed citizenry.” Its perspectives provide insightful guidance and encourage the development of a sense of individual and communal responsibility as we navigate our perilous journey into the twenty-first century.
Author: Richard Sorabji
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351890387
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 290
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Book Description
9/11 and the subsequent invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq have left many people baffled and concerned. This interdisciplinary study of the ethics of war provides an excellent orientation not only to present, but also to future conflicts. It looks both back at historical traditions of ethical thought and forward to contemporary and emerging issues. The Ethics of War traces how different cultures involved in present conflicts have addressed similar problems over the centuries. Distinguished authors reflect how the Graeco-Roman world, Byzantium, the Christian just war tradition, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism and the Geneva Conventions have addressed recurrent ethical problems of war. Cutting-edge essays by prominent modern theorists address vital contemporary issues including asymmetric war, preventive war, human rights and humanitarian intervention. Distinguished academics, ethical leaders, and public policy figures have collaborated in this innovative and accessible guide to ethical issues in war.
Author: Stuart A. Cohen
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317148843
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 210
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Book Description
Religion now plays an increasingly prominent role in the discourse on international security. Within that context, attention largely focuses on the impact exerted by teachings rooted in Christianity and Islam. By comparison, the linkages between Judaism and the resort to armed force are invariably overlooked. This book offers a corrective. Comprising a series of essays written over the past two decades by one of Israel's most distinguished military sociologists, its point of departure is that the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, quite apart from revolutionizing Jewish political activity, also triggered a transformation in Jewish military perceptions and conduct. Soldiering, which for almost two millennia was almost entirely foreign to Jewish thought and practice, has by virtue of universal conscription (for women as well as men) become a rite of passage to citizenship in the Jewish state. For practicing orthodox Jews in Israel that change generates dilemmas that are intellectual as well as behavioural, and has necessitated both doctrinal and institutional adaptations. At the same time, the responses thus evoked are forcing Israel's decision-makers to reconsider the traditional role of the Israel Defence Force (IDF) as their country's most evocative symbol of national unity.
Author: Sharon Erickson Nepstad
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190268573
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 263
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Book Description
From Gandhi's movement to win Indian independence to the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011, an expanding number of citizens have used nonviolent action to win political goals. While such events have captured the public imagination, they have also generated a new surge of scholarly interest in the field of nonviolence and civil resistance studies. Although researchers have produced new empirical data, theories, and insights into the phenomenon of nonviolent struggle, the field is still quite unfamiliar to many students and scholars. In Nonviolent Struggle: Theories, Strategies, and Dynamics, sociologist Sharon Nepstad provides a succinct introduction to the field of civil resistance studies, detailing its genesis, key concepts and debates, and a summary of empirical findings. Nepstad depicts the strategies and dynamics at play in nonviolent struggles, and analyzes the factors that shape the trajectory and outcome of civil resistance movements. The book draws on a vast array of historical examples, including the U.S. civil rights movement, the Indonesian uprising against President Suharto, the French Huguenot resistance during World War II, and Cesar Chavez's United Farm Workers. Nepstad describes both principled and pragmatic nonviolent traditions and explains various categories of nonviolent action, concluding with an assessment of areas for future research. A comprehensive treatment of the philosophy and strategy of nonviolent resistance, Nonviolent Struggle is essential reading for students, scholars, and anyone with a general interest in peace studies and social change.
Author: Paul Hedges
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 147258855X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 269
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Book Description
Contemporary Muslim-Christian Encounters: Developments, Diversity and Dialogues addresses the key issues in the present day global encounter between Christians and Muslims. Divided into two parts, the first examines theoretical issues and concerns which affect dialogue between the two traditions. The second part highlights case studies from around the world. Chapters come from established scholars including Reuven Firestone, Douglas Pratt and Clinton Bennett, emerging scholars, as well as practitioner perspectives. Highlighting the diversity within the field of "Christian-Muslim" encounter, case studies cover examples from the US and globally, and include dialogue in the US post 9/11, Nigerian Muslims and Christians, and Christian responses to Islamophobia in the UK. Covering unique areas and those not explored in detail elsewhere, Contemporary Muslim-Christian Encounters: Developments, Diversity and Dialogues will be of interest to advanced students, researchers, and interfaith professionals.
Author: Torkel Brekke
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134291515
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 449
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Book Description
This book explores how issues of ethics in war and warfare have been treated by major ethical traditions of Asia. It opens a discussion about whether there are universal standards in the ideologies of warfare between the major religious traditions of the world. While the chapters are written by specialists in Asian cultures, some of the conceptual apparatus is drawn from the scholarly discourse on just war, developed in the study of the ethical tradition of Christianity. Taking a comparative approach, the book looks at six different Asian religious, philosophical and political traditions: Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, China and Japan; and is organized according to geography. This innovative approach opens a new field of research on war and ideology, and extends the debate on modern warfare, universalism and human rights.
Author: Steven T. Katz
Publisher: University Press of America
ISBN: 0761851461
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 309
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Book Description
This collection of essays was inspired by the desire to create a suitable tribute to Dr. Irving Greenberg. Dr. Greenberg has been one of the truly major figures in the American Jewish community for the past forty years. A community activist and a theologian of distinction, he has influenced not only the practical direction of Jewish life, especially through his work with the leadership of Jewish Federations throughout the country, but also the shape of contemporary Jewish thought through his writings on the Holocaust, the State of Israel, and traditional Jewish themes. The outstanding list of authors who have contributed to this volume, writing on central issues in traditional and modern Jewish thought and history, are a testimony to Dr. Greenberg's repercussive presence and theological contribution. Those interested in the contemporary American Jewish community and the nature and shape of modern Jewish thought at the beginning of the new millennium will find this a valuable, thought-provoking addition to their libraries.
Author: Sohail H. Hashmi
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521545266
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 558
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Book Description
Publisher Description
Author: Adele Reinhartz
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195356713
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 239
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Book Description
Unnamed characters--such as Lot's wife, Jephthah's daughter, Pharaoh's baker, and the witch of Endor--are ubiquitous in the Hebrew Bible and appear in a wide variety of roles. Adele Reinhartz here seeks to answer two principal questions: first, is there a "poetics of anonymity," and if so, what are its contours? Second, how does anonymity affect the readers' response to and construction of unnamed biblical characters? The author is especially interested in issues related to gender and class, seeking to determine whether anonymity is more prominent among mothers, wives, daughters, and servants than among fathers, husbands, sons and kings and whether the anonymity of female characters functions differently from that of male characters.
Author: Louis Newman
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317347234
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 286
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Book Description
For courses in Religion, Judaism and Ethics. This text offers an overview of the Jewish ethical tradition as it has evolved from biblical times to the present. Provides an overview of the central beliefs of classical Judaism and the ways in which these frame traditional Jewish approaches to issues in ethics, both theoretical and practical.
