The Jews of Eastern Europe, 1772-1881 Israel Bartal. Translated by Chaya Naor "The book represents a remarkable achievement. Bartal presents the broad contours of nineteenth-century East European Jewish history even as he reworks them into a nontraditional narrative. He offers readers basic information about the staple features of the East European Jewish story--including the Hasidic and haskalah movements, the struggle for emancipation in two empires, the shtetl, population growth, urbanization, emigration, the crystallization of orthodox Judaism, and the rise of Jewish nationalism--while at...
The Jews of Eastern Europe, 1772-1881 Israel Bartal. Translated by Chaya Naor "The book represents a remarkable achievement. Bartal presents the broad...
Delves into Jewish religion and culture at a time of profound social and political revolution in the wider European culture. In September 1791, two years after the Revolution, French Jews were granted full rights of citizenship. General and Jewish scholarship has traditionally focused on this turning point of emancipation while often overlooking many of the most crucial aspects of French Jewish history. In Rites and Passages, Jay R. Berkovitz argues that no serious treatment of Jewish emancipation can ignore the cultural history of the Jews during the ancien regime. It was during the late...
Delves into Jewish religion and culture at a time of profound social and political revolution in the wider European culture. In September 1791, two ye...
Unveiling Eve Reading Gender in Medieval Hebrew Literature Tova Rosen Rosen's discourse is dense but enlightening; in a clear and nuanced fashion she demonstrates the benefits to be gained through gender premises in literary pursuits. . . . Highly recommended."--Choice "Rosen wears her vast learning lightly and well. She brings to bear on the texts an enormous erudition in the various genres of Hebrew writing from medieval Spain which served as intertextual web for the poetry as well as Arabic literature, Latin and medieval European Romance literatures, and even the early European...
Unveiling Eve Reading Gender in Medieval Hebrew Literature Tova Rosen Rosen's discourse is dense but enlightening; in a clear and nuanced fashion she ...
In a penetrating exploration of the various ways memories and representations of the Jewish past have been reconfigured in new historical circumstances, Renewing the Past, Reconfiguring Jewish Culture focuses on two key eras of encounter between Jews and non-Jews: the golden age of Sephardic culture in Islamic al-Andalus, on the one hand, and on the other, the period of the European Enlightenment and the Jewish Enlightenment, or Haskalah, which it inspired. The writings assembled here engage with key issues to understand how in both epochs the cultural orientation of Jewish society...
In a penetrating exploration of the various ways memories and representations of the Jewish past have been reconfigured in new historical circumsta...
Souls in Dispute Converso Identities in Iberia and the Jewish Diaspora, 1580-1700 David L. Graizbord "Graizbord has profitably charted new territory, namely, an in-depth examination of 'renegades, ' or those conversos who departed from Christianity and Iberia only to return to both later. . . . Compelling and useful."--Journal of Religion Throughout the Middle Ages, the Iberian Peninsula was home to a rich cultural mix of Christians, Jews, and Muslims. At the end of the fifteenth century, however, the last Islamic stronghold fell, and Jews were forced either to convert to Christianity...
Souls in Dispute Converso Identities in Iberia and the Jewish Diaspora, 1580-1700 David L. Graizbord "Graizbord has profitably charted new territory, ...
Hebraica Veritas? Christian Hebraists and the Study of Judaism in Early Modern Europe Edited by Allison P. Coudert and Jeffrey S. Shoulson "Superb. . . . Examining the Christian study of Hebrew and Jewish texts, mostly in early modern Europe (with some medieval materials included), the contributors probe the degree of positive interactions between Jews and Christian and also uncover heretofore-hidden Jewish contributions to the Western intellectual tradition."--Choice "An erudite collection of essays whose scholarship is clearly a match for the figures and writings which it is...
Hebraica Veritas? Christian Hebraists and the Study of Judaism in Early Modern Europe Edited by Allison P. Coudert and Jeffrey S. Shoulson "Superb. . ...
Focusing on an epoch of spectacular demographic, political, economic, and cultural changes for European Jewry, Cultural Intermediaries chronicles the lives and thinking of ten Jewish intellectuals of the Renaissance, nine of them from Italy and one a Portuguese exile who settled in the Ottoman empire after a long sojourn in Italy. David B. Ruderman, Giuseppe Veltri, and the other contributors to this volume detail how, in the relative openness of cultural exchange encountered in such intellectual centers as Florence, Mantua, Pisa, Naples, Ferrara, and Salonika, these Jewish savants...
Focusing on an epoch of spectacular demographic, political, economic, and cultural changes for European Jewry, Cultural Intermediaries chron...
Exclusion and Hierarchy Orthodoxy, Nonobservance, and the Emergence of Modern Jewish Identity Adam S. Ferziger "A very readable and intelligent study of Orthodoxy in modern times."--Journal of the Association for Jewish studies "This book enhances our understanding of an essential feature in modern Orthodoxy that has heretofore been underemphasized. Ferziger's sociological approach to rabbinic responsa is rare in the English-language literature, and his theoretical framework is well thought out, clearly presented, and very useful."--Samuel Heilman "This very nuanced and informed study...
Exclusion and Hierarchy Orthodoxy, Nonobservance, and the Emergence of Modern Jewish Identity Adam S. Ferziger "A very readable and intelligent study ...
A Kingdom of Priests Ancestry and Merit in Ancient Judaism Martha Himmelfarb According to the account in the Book of Exodus, God addresses the children of Israel as they stand before Mt. Sinai with the words, "You shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation" (19:6). The sentence, Martha Himmelfarb observes, is paradoxical, for priests are by definition a minority, yet the meaning in context is clear: the entire people is holy. The words also point to some significant tensions in the biblical understanding of the people of Israel. If the entire people is holy, why does it need...
A Kingdom of Priests Ancestry and Merit in Ancient Judaism Martha Himmelfarb According to the account in the Book of Exodus, God addresses the childre...
The Censor, the Editor, and the Text The Catholic Church and the Shaping of the Jewish Canon in the Sixteenth Century Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin. Translated by Jackie Feldman "An important book, one that makes us reflect on past conclusions. . . . Raz-Krakotzkin writes history by emphasizing the nuances and inconsistencies intrinsic to cultural change and acculturation, a method that is not to be superciliously dismissed. If readers follow the author's own careful lead, they will be well rewarded."--Association for Jewish Studies Review "In this brilliantly argued book, Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin...
The Censor, the Editor, and the Text The Catholic Church and the Shaping of the Jewish Canon in the Sixteenth Century Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin. Translated...
