The Jewish Philosophy Reader is the first comprehensive anthology of classic writings on Jewish philosophy from the Bible to the present. Complementing the History of Jewish Philosophy, the Reader is divided into four parts:
* Foundations and First Principles
* Medieval and Renaissance Jewish Philosophy
* Modern Jewish Thought
* Contemporary Jewish philosophy

eBook available with sample pages: PB:0415168600

This volume contains some one hundred previously unknown and mostly unpublished responsa written by Professor Ginzberg between 1913 and 1953. They deal with a wide array of topics including changes in the liturgy, mixed pews in the synagogue, the use of grape juice during Prohibition, art in the synagogue, euthenasia, burial practices, and artificial insemination, as well as forceful responsa to anti-Semites such as Pranaitis, the "expert" witness at the Beiliss trial in Kiev in 1913. These responsa contribute much to our understanding of Ginzberg's approach to Jewish law, his biography, the history of Conservative halakhah, and the history of American Jewry in the first half of the twentieth century. But, above all. the provide us with a model of a leading Talmudic scholar who did not hide in his ivory tower but rather came down to his people and guided it through the complicated halakhic problems of modern times.

Jacques Waardenburg writes about relations between Muslims and adherents of other religions. After illuminating various aspects of Islam from an outside point of view in his volume "Islam" (published in 2002 by de Gruyter) his second volume changes the perspective: The author shows how Muslims perceived non-Muslims - particularly Christianity and "the West," but also Judaism and Asian religions - in many centuries of religious dialogue and tensions. The main focus is on Muslim minorities in Western countries and on religious dialogues of which he provides first-hand knowledge through his participation in several important dialogue meetings. After 50 years of research and personal involvement, Waardenburg aims at a mutual understanding and reconciliation of Islam and other religions, particularly Christianity, both on an international level as well as on a more local level where "old" and "new," Christian and Muslim Europeans live together.

Women rabbis are changing the face of Judaism. Discover how their interpretations of the Torah can enrich your perspective. "Rich and engaging makes available to a wide readership the collective wisdom of women who have changed the face of Judaism." Judith Plaskow, author, Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective; Professor of Religious Studies, Manhattan College Here, for the first time, women's unique experiences and perspectives are applied to the entire Five Books of Moses, offering all of us the first comprehensive commentary by women. In this groundbreaking book, more than 50 women rabbis come together to offer us inspiring insights on the Torah, in a week-by-week format. Included are commentaries by the first women ever ordained in the Reform, Reconstructionist and Conservative movements, and by many other women across these denominations who serve in the rabbinate in a variety of ways. This rich resource offers new perspectives to inspire all of us to gain deeper meaning from the Torah and a heightened appreciation of Judaism. A major contribution to modern biblical commentary. The gift of choice for every young woman s bat mitzvah, and for anyone wanting a new, exciting view of Torah. Contributing Rabbis: Rebecca T. Alpert Lia Bass Miriam Carey Berkowitz Elizabeth Bolton Analia Bortz Sharon Brous Judith Gary Brown Nina Beth Cardin Diane Aronson Cohen Sandra J. Cohen Cynthia A. Culpeper Lucy H.F. Dinner Lisa A. Edwards Amy Eilberg Sue Levi Elwell Rachel Esserman Helaine Ettinger Susan Fendrick Lori Forman Dayle A. Friedman Elyse D. Frishman Nancy Fuchs-Kreimer Shoshana Gelfand Laura Geller Elyse M. Goldstein Julie K. Gordon Claire Magidovitch Green Rosette Barron Haim Jill Hammer Karyn D. Kedar Sarra Levine Valerie Lieber Ellen Lippmann Sheryl Nosan Stacy K. Offner Sara Paasche-Orlow Barbara Rosman Penzner Hara E. Person Audrey S. Pollack Sally J. Priesand Geela-Rayzel Raphael Laura M. Rappaport Debra Judith Robbins Rochelle Robins Gila Colman Ruskin Sandy Eisenberg Sasso Ilene Schneider Rona Shapiro Michal Shekel Beth J. Singer Sharon L. Sobel Ruth H. Sohn Julie Ringold Spitzer z l Shira Stern Pamela Wax Nancy Wechsler-Azen Nancy H. Wiener Elana Zaiman"

The series Beihefte zur Zeitschrift fur die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft (BZAW) covers all areas of research into the Old Testament, focusing on the Hebrew Bible, its early and later forms in Ancient Judaism, as well as its branching into many neighboring cultures of the Ancient Near East and the Greco-Roman world.

Modern Jewish debate about euthanasia regularly pivots on interpretations of the Talmudic story of Rabbi Chananya ben Teryadon being burned alive by the Romans sometime in the second century. Though many modern bioethicists say this fiery story presents a clear and precise position on euthanasia, the narrative itself is more complicated and ambiguous. The implications of this disconnect between the story as it is and how bioethicists read it are problematic for patients, the Jewish textual tradition, and for modern bioethics as a whole. Applying fresh critical analysis to this tale, Jonathan Crane traces the fascinating and challenging story of narratives and norms in modern Jewish bioethics. The result is an unprecedented examination of the impact of a classic story in all its variants, and of narrative in general, on contemporary bioethical discourse.

The Torah. The family. The kiddush. The joy. In Jewish Neighborhoods in California: History and Development, Keith Warwick amplifies the essence of Judaism as experienced in California s historic Jewish neighborhoods. Both memory and history, this book contains facts, images, inspiration and a little of what the author calls poetry. There have been, are, and will be Jewish neighborhoods in California, which is home to over a million Jews. These range from Oakland's Jewish Community Center, which was active in West Oakland until the 1960s, to several Jewish enclaves in San Francisco. Los Angeles is a national Center of Judaism. Warwick traces its development over time. The city's Fairfax District contains only a sliver of the Jewry that it held in the early 1900s, while the Pico Robertson Jewish neighborhood is actively growing and is currently home to a growing community of Orthodox Jews. This book captures their vibrant history and changing present.

The forgotten legacy of religious Jewish anarchism, and the adventures and ideas of its key figures, finally comes to light in this book. Set in the decades surrounding both world wars, No masters but God identifies a loosely connected group of rabbis and traditionalist thinkers who explicitly appealed to anarchist ideas in articulating the meaning of the Torah, traditional practice, Jewish life and the mission of modern Jewry. Full of archival discoveries and first translations from Yiddish and Hebrew, it explores anarcho-Judaism in its variety through the works of Yaakov Meir Zalkind, Yitshak Nahman Steinberg, Yehudah Leyb Don-Yahiya, Avraham Yehudah Heyn, Natan Hofshi, Shmuel Alexandrov, Yehudah Ashlag and Aaron Shmuel Tamaret. With this ground-breaking account, Hayyim Rothman traces a complicated story about the modern entanglement of religion and anarchism, pacifism and Zionism, prophetic anti-authoritarianism and mystical antinomianism. -- .

The Stolen Narrative of the Bulgarian Jews and the Holocaust collects narratives of Bulgarian Jews who survived the Holocaust. Through the analysis of eye-witness testimonies, archival documents, photographs, and researchers' investigations, the authors weave a complex tapestry of voices that were previously underrepresented, ignored, and denied. Taken together, the collected memories offer an alternative perspective that counters official accounts and corroborates war crimes.

Judaism and Islam compare because they concur that God cares deeply not only about attitudes but actions, not only about what one says to God but how one conducts affairs at home and in the village.
In this sourcebook, the authors have selected key passages from the laws of Judaism and Islam which allow a close examination of their mode of expression and medium of thought as well as the substance of the laws themselves. The selected passages concentrate on areas critical to the life of piety and faith as actually practised within the two faith-communities - the relationship between the believer and God, between and among believers, at home in marriage, outside the home in the community and between the faithful and the infidels (for Islam) or idolaters (for Judaism).
Judaism and Islam in Practice presents an invaluable collection of sources of Jewish and Islamic law and provides a unique analysis of the similarities and contrasts between the two faiths.

In this collection more than twenty student essays and papers are brought together to celebrate the legacy of the Hebrew Bible. Within such diverse disciplines as art, literature, philosophical thought, gender studies, prophecy, the nature of God, mysticism, and the unimaginable domains of the American Frontier and The Jerry Springer Show, the students of Central Washington University have revealed that the sacred literature of the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament in Christian tradition, has not only imparted its wisdom on the western world of past centuries, but is still a vibrant source of inspiration and knowledge speaking to those within contemporary society.

The War Texts is the name given to a small group of Dead Sea Scrolls that depict the preparation for and the various phases of the eschatological battle between the 'Sons of Light' and the 'Sons of Darkness'. Jean Duhaime briefly surveys the history of these texts from their initial discovery to their official publication. He describes the different scrolls and gives details of their contents and their relationships to one another. Duhaime summarizes the various reasons supporting a dating of this composition to the Hellenistic or Roman period and provides an example of the use of the Bible in the War Texts. The contributors to the Companion to the Qumran Scrolls series take account of all relevant and recently published texts and provide extensive bibliographies. The books in the series are authoritatively written in accessible language and are ideal for students and non-specialist scholars. Companion to the Qumran Scrolls, 6

Priests in Exile is the first comprehensive scholarly opus in English to reconstruct the history of the mysterious Temple of Onias, a Jewish temple built by a Jerusalemite high priest in his Egyptian exile that functioned in parallel with the Temple of Jerusalem. Piotrkowski's book addresses a topic that is mysterious, important and anomalous: a Jewish community of mercenary priests in the (Egyptian) Diaspora in which the priestly sacrificial ritual was carried out daily over a period of more than two hundred years until the first century CE, outlasting the Jerusalem Temple by about three years. Although the book focuses on the very circumscribed topic of the parallel Temple it casts a wide net, placing the story in the context of Jewish Diaspora life in ancient times. Ancient topics and texts are brought to bear, including papyri, epigraphy, archaeology, as well as the modern literature. Piotrkowski throws new light on a fascinating episode of ancient Jewish history that is usually left in the dark.

The second volume of the Corpus Inscriptionum Iudaeae/Palaestinae covers the inscriptions of Caesarea Maritima and the coastal region of the Middle Coast from Tel Aviv in the south to Haifa in the north from the time of Alexander to the Muslim conquest. The approx. 1,050 texts comprise all the languages used for inscriptions during this period (Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Aramaic, Samaritan, Syrian, and Persian) and are arranged according to the principal settlements and their territory. The great majority of the texts belongs to Caesarea, the capital of the province of Judaea/Syria Palaestina. No other place in Judaea has produced more Latin inscriptions than this area, reflecting the strong Roman influence on the city.

Zionism and the State of Israel provides a topical and controversial analysis of the development of Zionism and the recent history and politics of Israel.
This thought-provoking study examines the ways in which the Bible has been used to legitimize the implementation of the ideological and political programme of Zionism, and the consequences this has had.

The Philosophical Pathos of Susan Taubes offers a detailed analysis of an extraordinary figure in the twentieth-century history of Jewish thought, Western philosophy, and the study of religion. Drawing on close readings of Susan Taubes's writings, including her correspondence with Jacob Taubes, scholarly essays, literary compositions, and poems, Elliot R. Wolfson plumbs the depths of the tragic sensibility that shaped her worldview, hovering between the poles of nihilism and hope. By placing Susan Taubes in dialogue with a host of other seminal thinkers, Wolfson illumines how she presciently explored the hypernomian status of Jewish ritual and belief after the Holocaust; the theopolitical challenges of Zionism and the dangers of ethnonationalism; the antitheological theology and gnostic repercussions of Heideggerian thought; the mystical atheism and apophaticism of tragedy in Simone Weil; and the understanding of poetry as the means to face the faceless and to confront the silence of death in the temporal overcoming of time through time. Wolfson delves into the abyss that molded Susan Taubes's mytheological thinking, making a powerful case for the continued relevance of her work to the study of philosophy and religion today.

"The Sage in Jewish Society of Late Antiquity" explores the social position of rabbis in Palestinian (Roman) and Babylonian (Persian) society from the period of the fall of the Temple to late antiquity. Author Richard Kalmin argues that ancient rabbinic sources depict comparable differences between Palestinian and Babylonian rabbinic relationships with non-Rabbis." The Sage in Jewish Society of Late Antiquity" provides a cultured and stimulating analysis of the role of the sage in late antiquity and sheds new light on rabbinic comments on such diverse topics as biblical heroes and genealogy and lineage.

An intimate and candid examination of the changing nature of belief and where it can lead us from the life experience of one of Judaism's leading thinkers.

For over five decades, Rabbi Neil Gillman has helped people think through the most challenging questions at the heart of being a believing religious person. In this intimate rethinking of his own theological journey he explores the changing nature of belief and the complexities of reconciling the intellectual, emotional and moral questions of his own searching mind and soul.If what we have in recognizing, speaking of and experiencing God is a wide-ranging treasury of humanly crafted metaphors, what, then, is the ultimate reality, the ultimate nature of God? What lies beyond the metaphors?If humanity was an active partner in revelation if the human community participated in what was revealed and gave it meaning what then should be the authority of Jewish law?How do we cope intellectually, emotionally and morally with suffering, the greatest challenge to our faith commitment, relationship with God and sense of a fundamentally ordered world?Death is inevitable but why is it built in as part of the total life experience?"

In separate multi-volumed works, form-analytical English translations of the Mishnah, Tosefta, Yerushalmi, and Bavli have been set forth. Outlines of the Yerushalmi and the Bavli have been brought about, and those outlines of the two Talmuds have been compared. In addition, for each subject the main points of the Halakhah of the topical expositions or tractates of the Mishnah-Tosefta-Yerushalmi-Bavli have been set forth. The theological message of the respective tractates has been spelled out. Here, we follow a single tractate through the principal documents of formative Judaism as these have already presented them. How the academic commentaries, outlines and comparisons, and theological summaries yield a systematic account of the Halakhah in its documentary unfolding is thus fully exposed.

2006 National Jewish Book Award, Modern Jewish Thought

Long the object of curiosity, admiration, and gossip, rabbis' wives have rarely been viewed seriously as American Jewish religious and communal leaders. We know a great deal about the important role played by rabbis in building American Jewish life in this country, but not much about the role that their wives played. The Rabbi's Wife redresses that imbalance by highlighting the unique contributions of "rebbetzins" to the development of American Jewry.

Tracing the careers of "rebbetzins" from the beginning of the twentieth century until the present, Shuly Rubin Schwartz chronicles the evolution of the role from a few individual rabbis' wives who emerged as leaders to a cohort who worked together on behalf of American Judaism. The Rabbi's Wife reveals the ways these women succeeded in both building crucial leadership roles for themselves and becoming an important force in shaping Jewish life in America.