Why Aren't Jewish Women Circumcised?

Why Aren't Jewish Women Circumcised? PDF Author: Shaye J. D. Cohen
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520212509
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
"This book represents engaged scholarship at its very best. Cohen presents the vast range of texts at his command with brevity and wit. Elegantly written, this is a very stimulating book that is sure to provoke admiration, discussion, and controversy."—David Biale, author of Cultures of the Jews "A distinguished and wide-ranging work of scholarship. Cohen’s definitive discussion of the covenant of circumcision enhances our understanding of Jewish identity formation, women’s status in Judaism, Jewish-Christian polemic, and the impact of diverse cultural environments on the evolution of Jewish tradition."—Judith R. Baskin, author of Midrashic Women

Why Aren't Jewish Women Circumcised?

Why Aren't Jewish Women Circumcised? PDF Author: Shaye J. D. Cohen
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520212509
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 336

Get Book Here

Book Description
"This book represents engaged scholarship at its very best. Cohen presents the vast range of texts at his command with brevity and wit. Elegantly written, this is a very stimulating book that is sure to provoke admiration, discussion, and controversy."—David Biale, author of Cultures of the Jews "A distinguished and wide-ranging work of scholarship. Cohen’s definitive discussion of the covenant of circumcision enhances our understanding of Jewish identity formation, women’s status in Judaism, Jewish-Christian polemic, and the impact of diverse cultural environments on the evolution of Jewish tradition."—Judith R. Baskin, author of Midrashic Women

Christ Circumcised

Christ Circumcised PDF Author: Andrew S. Jacobs
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812206517
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
In the first full-length study of the circumcision of Jesus, Andrew S. Jacobs turns to an unexpected symbol—the stereotypical mark of the Jewish covenant on the body of the Christian savior—to explore how and why we think about difference and identity in early Christianity. Jacobs explores the subject of Christ's circumcision in texts dating from the first through seventh centuries of the Common Era. Using a diverse toolkit of approaches, including the psychoanalytic, postcolonial, and poststructuralist, he posits that while seeming to desire fixed borders and a clear distinction between self (Christian) and other (Jew, pagan, and heretic), early Christians consistently blurred and destabilized their own religious boundaries. He further argues that in this doubled approach to others, Christians mimicked the imperial discourse of the Roman Empire, which exerted its power through the management, not the erasure, of difference. For Jacobs, the circumcision of Christ vividly illustrates a deep-seated Christian duality: the fear of and longing for an other, at once reviled and internalized. From his earliest appearance in the Gospel of Luke to the full-blown Feast of the Divine Circumcision in the medieval period, Christ circumcised represents a new way of imagining Christians and their creation of a new religious culture.

The Covenant of Circumcision

The Covenant of Circumcision PDF Author: Elizabeth Wyner Mark
Publisher: UPNE
ISBN: 9781584653073
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
Scholars and rabbis examine the complicated history and contemporary challenges of the Jewish rite of circumcision.

From Abraham to America

From Abraham to America PDF Author: Eric Kline Silverman
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780742516694
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
Silverman's new book is a comprehensive overview of Jewish circumcision throughout history. Beginning with Genesis, the author traces paradoxes and tensions in biblical-Jewish circumcision as seen both within Judaism and from the dominant, non-Jewish culture, and ends with the current debate over Jewish and routine medical circumcision in America. This book is essential reading in Jewish studies, medical sociology, and Judaic studies/theology.

Unsettled

Unsettled PDF Author: Melvin Konner
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0142196320
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 529

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Book Description
Far reaching, intellectually rich, and passionately written, Unsettled takes the whole history of Western civilization as its canvas and places onto it the Jewish people and faith. With historical insight and vivid storytelling, renowned anthropologist Melvin Konner charts how the Jews endured largely hostile (but at times accepting) cultures to shape the world around them and make their mark throughout history—from the pastoral tribes of the Bronze Age to enslavement in the Roman Empire, from the darkness of the Holocaust to the creation of Israel and the flourishing of Jews in America. With fresh interpretations of the antecedents of today's pressing conflicts, Unsettled is a work whose modern-day reverberations could not be more relevant or timely.

Covenant of Blood

Covenant of Blood PDF Author: Lawrence A. Hoffman
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226347837
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
Central to both biblical narrative and rabbinic commentary, circumcision has remained a defining rite of Jewish identity, a symbol so powerful that challenges to it have always been considered taboo. Lawrence Hoffman seeks to find out why circumcision holds such an important place in the Jewish psyche. He traces the symbolism of circumcision through Jewish history, examining its evolution as a symbol of the covenant in the post-exilic period of the Bible and its subsequent meaning in the formative era of Mishnah and Talmud. In the rabbinic system, Hoffman argues, circumcision was neither a birth ritual nor the beginning of the human life cycle, but a rite of covenantal initiation into a male "life line." Although the evolution of the rite was shaped by rabbinic debates with early Christianity, the Rabbis shared with the church a view of blood as providing salvation. Hoffman examines the particular significance of circumcision blood, which, in addition to its salvific role, contrasted with menstrual blood to symbolize the gender dichotomy within the rabbinic system. His analysis of the Rabbis' views of circumcision and menstrual blood sheds light on the marginalization of women in rabbinic law. Differentiating official mores about gender from actual practice, Hoffman surveys women's spirituality within rabbinic society and examines the roles mothers played in their sons' circumcisions until the medieval period, when they were finally excluded.

Thong of Thongs: 69 Sexy Jewish Stories

Thong of Thongs: 69 Sexy Jewish Stories PDF Author: Kitty Knish
Publisher: Deep Desires Press
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 143

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Book Description
Thong of Thongs is the lovely Kitty Knish's debut collection of 69 sexy Jewish stories, showcasing Jewish humor at its finest. Equal parts kosher and dirty, romantic and raunchy fun. Adam, Eve and the trouser snake; streaking at a kibbutz; Freud’s introduction to submission; these are only a few of the hilariously scandalous tales found inside. Laugh your tuckus off as the Chosen People enjoy their bondage with a side of bagels and lox. *WARNING*: While there is something in this collection for everyone, not every story is for everyone, so please approach this book with an open mind before you unzip your pants. No kvetching here, you’ve been warned!

Slandering the Jew

Slandering the Jew PDF Author: Susanna Drake
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812208242
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 185

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Book Description
As Christian leaders in the first through fifth centuries embraced ascetic interpretations of the Bible and practices of sexual renunciation, sexual slander—such as the accusations Paul leveled against wayward Gentiles in the New Testament—played a pivotal role in the formation of early Christian identity. In particular, the imagined construct of the lascivious, literal-minded Jew served as a convenient foil to the chaste Christian ideal. Susanna Drake examines representations of Jewish sexuality in early Christian writings that use accusations of carnality, fleshliness, bestiality, and licentiousness as strategies to differentiate the "spiritual" Christian from the "carnal" Jew. Church fathers such as Justin Martyr, Hippolytus of Rome, Origen of Alexandria, and John Chrysostom portrayed Jewish men variously as dangerously hypersexual, at times literally seducing virtuous Christians into heresy, or as weak and effeminate, unable to control bodily impulses or govern their wives. As Drake shows, these carnal caricatures served not only to emphasize religious difference between Christians and Jews but also to justify increased legal constraints and violent acts against Jews as the interests of Christian leaders began to dovetail with the interests of the empire. Placing Christian representations of Jews at the root of the destruction of synagogues and mobbing of Jewish communities in the late fourth and early fifth centuries, Slandering the Jew casts new light on the intersections of sexuality, violence, representation, and religious identity.

From the Maccabees to the Mishnah

From the Maccabees to the Mishnah PDF Author: Shaye J. D. Cohen
Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
ISBN: 9780664250171
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
This book explores the period from the 160s to 63 B.C.E., when the Maccabees ruled the Jews, up to the publication of the Mishnah in the second century C.E.

Towers of Gold

Towers of Gold PDF Author: Frances Dinkelspiel
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1429959592
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
Isaias Hellman, a Jewish immigrant, arrived in California in 1859 with very little money in his pocket and his brother Herman by his side. By the time he died, he had effectively transformed Los Angeles into the modern metropolis we see today. In Frances Dinkelspiel's groundbreaking history, the early days of California are seen through the life of a man who started out as a simple store owner only to become California's premier money-man of the late 19th and early 20th century. Growing up as a young immigrant, Hellman quickly learned the use to which "capital" could be put, founding LA's Farmers and Merchants Bank, that city's first successful bank, and transforming Wells Fargo into one of the West's biggest financial institutions. He invested money with Henry Huntington to build trolley lines, lent Edward Doheney the funds that led him to discover California's huge oil reserves, and assisted Harrison Gary Otis in acquiring full ownership of the Los Angeles Times. Hellman led the building of Los Angeles' first synagogue, the Wilshire Boulevard Temple, helped start the University of Southern California and served as Regent of the University of California. His influence, however, was not limited to Los Angeles. He controlled the California wine industry for almost twenty years and, after San Francisco's devastating 1906 earthquake and fire, calmed the financial markets there in order to help that great city rise from the ashes. With all of these accomplishments, Isaias Hellman almost single-handedly brought California into modernity. Ripe with great historical events that filled the early days of California such as the Gold Rush and the San Francisco earthquake, Towers of Gold brings to life the transformation of California from a frontier society whose economy was driven by the barter of hides and exchange of gold dust into a vibrant state with the strongest economy in the nation.