Author: Louis Finkelstein
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Civilization
Languages : en
Pages : 970

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Book Description

Author: Judith R. Baskin
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316224368
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 559

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Book Description
The Cambridge Guide to Jewish History, Religion, and Culture is a comprehensive and engaging overview of Jewish life, from its origins in the ancient Near East to its impact on contemporary popular culture. The twenty-one essays, arranged historically and thematically, and written specially for this volume by leading scholars, examine the development of Judaism and the evolution of Jewish history and culture over many centuries and in a range of locales. They emphasize the ongoing diversity and creativity of the Jewish experience. Unlike previous anthologies, which concentrate on elite groups and expressions of a male-oriented rabbinic culture, this volume also includes the range of experiences of ordinary people and looks at the lives and achievements of women in every place and era. The many illustrations, maps, timeline, and glossary of important terms enhance this book's accessibility to students and general readers.

Author: Lawrence Fine
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271090081
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
The ubiquity of friendship in human culture contributes to the fallacy that ideas about friendship have not changed and remained consistent throughout history. It is only when we begin to inquire into the nature and significance of the concept in specific contexts that we discover how complex it truly is. Covering the vast expanse of Jewish tradition, from ancient Israel to the twenty-first century, this collection of essays traces the history of the beliefs, rituals, and social practices surrounding friendship in Jewish life. Employing diverse methodological approaches, this volume explores the particulars of the many varied forms that friendship has taken in the different regions where Jews have lived, including the ancient Near East, the Greco-Roman world, Europe, and the United Sates. The four sections—friendship between men, friendship between women, challenges to friendship, and friendships that cross boundaries, especially between Jews and Christians, or men and women—represent and exemplify universal themes and questions about human interrelationships. This pathbreaking and timely study will inspire further research and provide the groundwork for future explorations of the topic. In addition to the editor, the contributors are Martha Ackelsberg, Michela Andreatta, Joseph Davis, Glenn Dynner, Eitan P. Fishbane, Susannah Heschel, Daniel Jütte, Eyal Levinson, Saul M. Olyan, George Savran, and Hava Tirosh-Samuelson.

Author: Joseph Telushkin
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062046047
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 1079

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Book Description
What does it mean to be a Jew? How does one begin to answer so extensive a question? In this insightful and completely updated tome, esteemed rabbi and bestselling author Joseph Telushkin helps answer the question of what it means to be a Jew, in the largest sense. Widely recognized as one of the most respected and indispensable reference books on Jewish life, culture, tradition, and religion, Jewish Literacy covers every essential aspect of the Jewish people and Judaism. In 352 short and engaging chapters, Rabbi Telushkin discusses everything from the Jewish Bible and Talmud to Jewish notions of ethics to antisemitism and the Holocaust; from the history of Jews around the world to Zionism and the politics of a Jewish state; from the significance of religious traditions and holidays to how they are practiced in daily life. Whether you want to know more about Judaism in general or have specific questions you'd like answered, Jewish Literacy is sure to contain the information you need. Rabbi Telushkin's expert knowledge of Judaism makes the updated and revised edition of Jewish Literacy an invaluable reference. A comprehensive yet thoroughly accessible resource for anyone interested in learning the fundamentals of Judaism, Jewish Literacy is a must for every Jewish home.

Author: John Efron
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315508990
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1162

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Book Description
The Jews: A History, second edition, explores the religious, cultural, social, and economic diversity of the Jewish people and their faith. The latest edition incorporates new research and includes a broader spectrum of people - mothers, children, workers, students, artists, and radicals - whose perspectives greatly expand the story of Jewish life.

Author: Israel Shahak
Publisher: Pluto Press
ISBN: 9780745308197
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 148

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Book Description
'Shahak subjects the whole history of Orthodoxy ... to a hilarious and scrupulous critique.' --Christopher Hitchens, The Nation

Author: David N. Myers
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199912858
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 162

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Book Description
How have the Jews survived? For millennia, they have defied odds by overcoming the travails of exile, persecution, and recurring plans for their annihilation. Many have attempted to explain this singular success as a result of divine intervention. In this engaging book, David N. Myers charts the long journey of the Jews through history. At the same time, it points to two unlikely-and decidedly this-worldly--factors to explain the survival of the Jews: antisemitism and assimilation. Usually regarded as grave dangers, these two factors have continually interacted with one other to enable the persistence of the Jews. At every turn in their history, not just in the modern age, Jews have adapted to new environments, cultures, languages, and social norms. These bountiful encounters with host societies have exercised the cultural muscle of the Jews, preventing the atrophy that would have occurred if they had not interacted so extensively with the non-Jewish world. It is through these encounters--indeed, through a process of assimilation--that Jews came to develop distinct local customs, speak many different languages, and cultivate diverse musical, culinary, and intellectual traditions. Left unchecked, the Jews' well-honed ability to absorb from surrounding cultures might have led to their disappearance. And yet, the route toward full and unbridled assimilation was checked by the nearly constant presence of hatred toward the Jew. Anti-Jewish expression and actions have regularly accompanied Jews throughout history. Part of the ironic success of antisemitism is its malleability, its talent in assuming new forms and portraying the Jew in diverse and often contradictory images--for example, at once the arch-capitalist and revolutionary Communist. Antisemitism not only served to blunt further assimilation, but, in a paradoxical twist, affirmed the Jew's sense of difference from the host society. And thus together assimilation and antisemitism (at least up to a certain limit) contribute to the survival of the Jews as a highly adaptable and yet distinct group.

Author: Houman M. Sarshar
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1788319265
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
Living continuously in Iran for over 2700 years, Jews have played an integral role in the history of the country. Frequently understood as a passive minority group, and often marginalized by the Zoroastrian and succeeding Muslim hegemony,, the Jews of Iran are instead portrayed in this book as having had an active role in the development of Iranian history, society, and culture. Examining ancient texts, objects, and art from a wide range of times and places throughout Iranian history, as well as the medieval trade routes along which these would have travelled, The Jews of Iran offers in-depth analysis of the material and visual culture of this community. Additionally, an exploration of modern novels and accounts of Jewish-Iranian women's experiences sheds light on the social history and transformations of the Jews of Iran from the rule of Cyrus the Great (c. 600-530 BCE) to the Iranian Revolution of 1978/9 and onto the present day. By using the examples of women writers such as Gina Barkhordar Nahai and Dalia Sofer, the implications of fictional representation of the history of the Jews of Iran and the vital importance of communal memory and tradition to this community are drawn out. By examining the representation of identity construction through lenses of religion, gender, and ethnicity, the analysis of these writers' work highlights how the writers undermine the popular imagining and imaging of the Jewish 'other' in an attempt to create a new narrative integrating the Jews of Iran into the idea of what it means to be Iranian. This long view of the Jewish cultural influence on Iran's social, economic, political, and cultural development makes this book a unique contribution to the field of Judeo-Iranian studies and to the study of Iranian history more broadly.

Author: Benjamin Blech
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9781592572403
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 468

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Book Description
An updated and revised edition of one of The Complete Idiot's Guidespopular religion and history titles. Additional information about Jews in early American history through the 19th century. Expanded coverage of Jewish history and culture in the places you might least expect - Asia and South America. Jewish history and culture brought up to date to 2004.

Author: Howard Eilberg-Schwartz
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438401906
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 406

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Book Description
By shifting attention from the image of Jews as a textual community to the ways Jews understand and manage their bodies — for example, to their concerns with reproduction and sexuality, menstruation and childbirth— this volume contributes to a revisioning of what Jews and Judaism are and have been. The project of re-membering the Jewish body has both historical and constructive motivations. As a constructive project, this book describes, renews, and participates in the complex and ongoing modern discussion about the nature of Jewish bodies and the place of bodies in Judaism.