On the basis of postcolonial theory, this study shows how Jewish scholars, in the controversies about the "essence" of Judaism and Christianity at the beginning of the 20th century, challenged the intellectual hegemony of Liberal Protestantism in Germany. By carefully examining the impact of the political circumstances--the loss of relevance of political liberalism, the spreading of antisemitism, and the crisis of Jewish identity in an age of contested emancipation and assimilation--on the theological discourse, it provides a critical analysis of anti-Jewish implications of Protestant...

The present volume re-evaluates the role that religious confession played in the development and understanding of the sciences and medicine in the sixteenth century. It presents the results of an international, interdisciplinary conference held in Wittenberg in December 1998. Scholars from Israel, Italy, Great Britain and Germany discussed the ways in which religious conviction and the development of the natural sciences and medicine influenced each other in the sixteenth century. Contrary to the still widespread view that relations between religion and the sciences at the dawn of the...

Josef Albo (around 1380-1444) is considered to be the last Jewish Philosopher of the Middle Ages. Following the basic ideas of Maimonides he writes his Sefer ha-iqqarim, his Book of Principles, in the interval between the Tortosa Disputation and the expulsion of the Jews from Spain with the intention to strengthen his correligionists against Christian attacks. In Early Modem Times the book becomes an important source for Christian Hebraists in theological discussions. Sina Rauschenbach's book is the first detailed monography on Josef Albo. Moreover, the Christian reception of...

Chajim H. Steinthal (1823-1899) was one of the most important philosophical linguists and teachers of the āScience of Judaismā. His multilayered and diverse scholarly works sprang from the solid foundation of an exceptionally broad and comprehensive education. Among other things, together with Moritz Lazarus he founded the discipline of Volkerpsychologie (psychology of nations). Steinthal taught mainly at the University of Berlin and the Hochschule (later Lehranstalt) fur die Wissenschaft des Judentums. The volume contains the results of an interdisciplinary...

In comparison to the Iberian Inquisitions little research has been done on the attitude of the Roman and Universal Inquisition to the Jews. The present volume deals with the relations between the Catholic Church, Jews and Judaism and the potential of the now accessible sources in the archive of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome for throwing new light on this intricate relationship. It starts with contributions by Kenneth Stow, Piet van Boxel, Hanna Węgrzynek, Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin, Eleazar Gutwirth, Michael Studemund-Halevy and Sandra Neves Silva on key areas of the...

Based on a comparative and interdisciplinary approach, this volume for the first time interprets the biography and philosophy of the German Jewish thinker Samuel Holdheim (1806-1860), shedding new light on a neglected phenomenon of nineteenth century Jewish intellectual history - the radical Reform Movement that started in Germany and culminated in the American Jewish Reform ideology. Leading scholars of modern Jewish history and thought from Germany, France, Belgium and the United States present a thorough reading of Holdheim's influential writings in the broader context of the debates...

The essays assembled here represent the leading Hermann Cohen scholars from the United States, Canada, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, the Netherlands, and Israel. Emerging from their efforts is a new set of explorations both in Cohen's own system and also in his relation to a wide-range of subsequent thinkers. They open Cohen's Ethics of Pure Will in two ways. First, they show us the deep questions that are operating within Cohen's texts, and second they raise questions for ethics itself, particularly in relation to Jewish tradition. That specific topic, the primacy of ethics for Judaism,...

Joseph of Rosheim, sixteenth-century leader of the Jews in the Holy Roman Empire, left historical writings that are presented here in a critical edition published now for the first time in English translation. The principal part of the book is devoted to a Hebrew manuscript--a chronicle--left by R. Joseph, in which he describes incidents from the history of his life and that of the Jews in his day and age. R. Joseph writes with extreme terseness, often in cryptic language, and therefore his chronicle appears here with prefaces, background information and a commentary. The prefaces provide...