Sexual Artifice marks the evolution of Genders from a triannual journal to a biannual anthology. Henceforth, each volume will have a focus on a particular gender-related issue, offering original essays on the specific theme.

This volume proposes that there is something more to the social construction of gender than what social science has been able to describe. On the contested state of international politics, public imagery, and nationalist cinema, the artifice of sexuality wields an enormous power to influence the interpretation of our social selves and the world we live in....

Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook (1865-1935) was the first Ashkenazic chief rabbi of mandatory Palestine. Admired for the incredible diversity of his talents and interests--talmudist, halakhist, kabbalist, mystic, theologian, moralist, poet, and communal leader--Rav Kook's world outlook extolled breadth and derided narrow specialization. More than any other Orthodox thinker in modern times, he addressed, squarely and boldly, the confrontation between Judaism and the modern world. Kook serves as a natural model to those Jews who seek a religious understanding of and response to the culture and...