Search results

'A deeply humane, learned and personal reflection on Jewish identity' Rowan Williams 'This inspiring book has made me a better Jew, one who understands more, who knows more' Daniel Finkelstein 'This remarkable book takes us on a journey: geographic, historical, cultural, philosophical, political, autobiographical and, yes, religious' Michael Marmot Being Jewish Today gives an account of both the journey of a particular British Jew and the journey of millions of women and men through today's p...

Conflict and change are fundamental elements of social reality and of the Jewish historical experience. This collection presents the work of a distinguished group of scholars exploring the themes of social, political, religious, intellectual, and institutional movements and change in Jewish history. These scholars demonstrate that social change throughout Jewish life has assumed many different manifestations, and can occur in revolutionary and dramatic ways as well as in more common gradual and...

In this unprecedented masterwork, The Scholar's Haggadah: Ashkenazic, Sephardic, and Oriental Versions, Heinrich Guggenheimer presents the first Haggadah to treat the texts of all Jewish groups on an equal footing and to use their divergences and concurrences as a key to the history of the text and an understanding of its development. The Seder (the ceremony of the Passover night) is one of the most universally celebrated rituals among Jewish families, for what it commemorates-Jewish freedom fr...

This volume contains Harriet Martineau's writings on the history of England and its efforts and negotiations to promote peace between 1826 and 1834, providing a detailed account of the political revolutions and democratic and military reforms that shaped England's history.

This is the first full-length study of the author of the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, one of the most widely distributed books of religious interest ever published. Drawn from all four sections of Rabbi Yosef Caro's Shulchan Aruch, the bedrock compilation of religious law, the Kitzur set forth the 'laws required to be known by every Jew, written in simple language and appropriately arranged,' as he stated in a notice announcing its publication. While achieving these objectives, he presented the materi...

The book focuses on the most prominent exponents of the universalistic ideology of American Reform Judaism in the 1930s and 1940s. Those who attempted to maintain unquestioning fealty to the principles of universalistic Reform, even in view of the disheartening realities of the Holocaust, are the heroes of the plot that unfolds here. The way they struggled for their beliefs should be viewed as a point of departure for a more general discussion of the challenge posed by the Holocaust to the moder...

At least since the seventeenth century, the traditional God of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam has been under pressure to conform to the scientific worldview. Across the monotheistic traditions there has emerged a "liberal" conception of God compatible with a thoroughgoing naturalism. For many, this liberal "new" God is the only credible God. But is it a useful God? Does belief in so malleable a deity come from, or lead to, different political, moral, psychological, or aesthetic phenomena from...

These one-hundred devotions remind readers how fully God's grace covers every slip and stumble. Our best can never be good enough, but grace is greater than our largest shortcoming. Writing with humor and heart, four of America's best-loved inspirational writers share their own lives, inviting readers to find the blessings in the challenges. Whether you are facing deadlines, double-scheduled meetings, growing loads of laundry, or all that and more, if you begin your day with a reminder of God's...

What does Martin Buber mean, in I and Thou, by the claim that the one thing that matters is full acceptance of presence? An attempt to answer this question led the author on a journey of exploration through Buber's early writings, to reach a clarification of Buber's predialogical concept of God. She examines Buber's first major philosophical work: Daniel: Dialogues in Realization, drawing attention to inaccuracies in the available English translation. Buber's desire for presence, she finds, bega...

In 1839, Muslims attacked the Jews of Meshhed, murdering 36 of them, and forcing the conversion of the rest. While some managed to escape across the Afghan border, and some turned into true believing Muslims, the majority adopted Islam only outwardly, while secretly adhering to their Jewish faith. Jadid al-Islam is the fascinating story of how this community managed to survive, at the risk of their lives, as crypto-Jews in an inimical Shi'i Muslim environment. Based on unpublished original Pers...

This biography of a pioneering Zionist and leader of American Reform Judaism adds significantly to our understanding of American and southern Jewish history. Max Heller was a man of both passionate conviction and inner contradiction. He sought to be at the center of current affairs, not as a spokesperson of centrist opinion, but as an agitator or mediator, constantly struggling to find an acceptable path as he confronted the major issues of the day-racism and Jewish emancipation in eastern Eur...