Kategoria BISAC: Religion >> Judaism - General

Following World War II, members of the sizable Jewish community in what had been Kurdistan, now part of Iraq, left their homeland and resettled in Palestine where they were quickly assimilated with the dominant Israeli-Jewish culture.

The Jews of Kurdistan is a unique historical document in that it presents a picture of Kurdish Jewish life and culture prior to World War II. It is the only ethnological study of the Kurdish Jews ever written and provides a comprehensive look at their material culture, life cycles, religious practices, occupations, and relations with the Muslims.
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A minority within Judaism, the Karaites are known as a 'reading community'-one that looks to the Bible as the authority in all areas of life, including intimate relations and hygiene. Here Ruth Tsoffar considers how Egyptian Kariates of the San Francisco Bay Area define themselves, within both California culture and Judaism, in terms of the Bible and its bearing on their bodies. Women's perspectives play a large role in this ethnography; it is their bodies that are especially regulated by rules of cleanliness and purity to the point where their biological cycles-menstruation, procreation,...

What does it mean to be a Jewish woman today? To an Orthodox woman, it means living a religious way of life in which serving God totally defines her self-perception and her role as wife and mother. For the secular woman, it means having a sense of belonging, although not necessarily to a specific Jewish community. Most contemporary Jewish women fall somewhere in between, but at the core of all of their identities is a complex interweaving of religious and ethnic elements, a shared history, and a collective memory of periods of prejudice, persecution, wandering, and resettlement.

What does it mean to be a Jewish woman today? To an Orthodox woman, it means living a religious way of life in which serving God totally defines her self-perception and her role as wife and mother. For the secular woman, it means having a sense of belonging, although not necessarily to a specific Jewish community. Most contemporary Jewish women fall somewhere in between, but at the core of all of their identities is a complex interweaving of religious and ethnic elements, a shared history, and a collective memory of periods of prejudice, persecution, wandering, and resettlement.

Mordecai M. Kaplan, a pioneering figure in the reinterpretation and redefinition of Judaism in the 20th century, embraced religious liberalism, naturalism, and empiricism, and gave expression to a unique American attitude in philosophy and theology. This volume, the first comprehensive treatment of Kaplan since his death in 1983 . . . illustrates Kaplan's links to traditional Jewish roots and demonstrates his evolutionary philosophy of Jewish culture, his Zionist orientation, and the vast range of his thought and action. The volume also features a complete bibliography of Kaplan's...

The way we understand particular spaces is mediated by our perceptions of the difference between the sacred and the profane. Throughout history, different peoples have revered vastly diverse spaces as sacred for vastly diverse reasons.

In Sacred Spaces, Benjamin Z. Kedar and R. J. Zwi Werblowsky have compiled a wide-ranging collection of essays exploring a broad array of ancient and contemporary holy places. The book reviews sacred spaces of the ancient religions--Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Indian and East-Asian Religions--and discusses how these spaces have been...

A deeply reflective work, written by a number of eminent scholars both Jewish and Christian who represent a variety of disciplines and perspectives, this book explores basic issues in Wiesel's work -the nature of God, madness, silence, horror, and hope. With essays by such authorities among others, as Robert McAfee Brown, Eugene J. Fisher, Hary James Cargas, Eva Fleuschner, and Irving Abrahamson, the bool reflects the inspitation of Wiesel's reconstructed belief in God, humanity, and the future. These eminent theologians, literary scholars, and philosophers show how Wiesel's thinking has...

Every morning Jewish men offering their prayers to God in the traditional manner include the line Blessed are you Lord our God, King of the universe who has not made me a woman. Regardless of one's interpretation of this line, it is an inescapable fact that traditional Judaism views women and men and their places within Judaism quite differently.

But Judaism is not a static religion. It has always been influenced by changes in its surrounding environment. Throughout history, issues of gender have both influenced and been influenced by classical and modern Jewish perspectives. This...

Every morning Jewish men offering their prayers to God in the traditional manner include the line Blessed are you Lord our God, King of the universe who has not made me a woman. Regardless of one's interpretation of this line, it is an inescapable fact that traditional Judaism views women and men and their places within Judaism quite differently.

But Judaism is not a static religion. It has always been influenced by changes in its surrounding environment. Throughout history, issues of gender have both influenced and been influenced by classical and modern Jewish perspectives. This...

How did Judaism, a religion so often defined by its minority status, attain equal footing in the trinity of Catholicism, Protestantism, and Judaism that now dominates modern American religious life?
THE AMERICANIZATION OF THE JEWS seeks out the effects of this evolution on both Jews in America and an America with Jews. Although English, French, and Dutch Jewries are usually considered the principal forerunners of modern Jewry, Jews have lived as long in North America as they have in post- medieval Britain and France and only sixty years less than in Amsterdam.
As one of the four...