In and Around Maimonides presents eight highly focused studies on Moses Maimonides and those around him.

This volume describes the attitudes towards Gentiles in both ancient Judaism and the early Christian tradition. The Jewish relationship with and views about the Gentiles played an important part in Jewish self-definition, especially in the Diaspora where Jews formed the minority among larger Gentile populations. Jewish attitudes towards the Gentiles can be found in the writings of prominent Jewish authors (Josephus and Philo), sectarian movements and texts (the Qumran community, apocalyptic literature, Jesus) and in Jewish institutions such as the Jerusalem Temple and the synagogue. In the Christian tradition, which began as a Jewish movement but developed quickly into a predominantly Gentile tradition, the role and status of Gentile believers in Jesus was always of crucial significance. Did Gentile believers need to convert to Judaism as an essential component of their affiliation with Jesus, or had the appearance of the messiah rendered such distinctions invalid? This volume assesses the wide variety of viewpoints in terms of attitudes towards Gentiles and the status and expectations of Gentiles in the Christian church.

This book comprehensively discusses the topic of Jews fleeing the Holocaust to China. It is divided into three parts: historical facts; theories; and the Chinese model. The first part addresses the formation, development and end of the Jewish refugee community in China, offering a systematic review of the history of Jewish Diaspora, including historical and recent events bringing European Jews to China; Jewish refugees arriving in China: route, time, number and settlement; the Jewish refugee community in Shanghai; Jewish refugees in other Chinese cities; the "Final Solution" for Jewish refugees in Shanghai and the "Designated Area for Stateless Refugees"; friendship between the Jewish refugees and the local Chinese people; the departure of Jews and the end of the Jewish refugee community in China. The second part provides deeper perspectives on the Jewish refugees in China and the relationship between Jews and the Chinese. The third part explores the Chinese model in the history of Jewish Diaspora, focusing on the Jews fleeing the Holocaust to China and compares the Jewish refugees in China with those in other parts of the world. It also introduces the Chinese model concept and presents the five features of the model.

The study of the Books of Chronicles has focused in the past mainly on its literary relationship to Historical Books such as Samuel and Kings. Less attention was payed to its possible relationships to the priestly literature. Against this backdrop, this volume aims to examine the literary and socio-historical relationship between the Books of Chronicles and the priestly literature (in the Pentateuch and in Ezekiel). Since Chronicles and Pentateuch (and also Ezekiel) studies have been regarded as separate fields of study, we invited experts from both fields in order to open a space for fruitful discussions with each other. The contributions deal with connections and interactions between specific texts, ideas, and socio-historical contexts of the literary works, as well as with broad observations of the relationship between them.

Systematically reading Jewish exegesis in light of Homeric scholarship, this book argues that more than 2000 years ago Alexandrian Jews developed critical and literary methods of Bible interpretation which are still extremely relevant today. Maren R. Niehoff provides a detailed analysis of Alexandrian Bible interpretation, from the second century BCE through newly discovered fragments to the exegetical work done by Philo. Niehoff shows that Alexandrian Jews responded in a great variety of ways to the Homeric scholarship developed at the Museum. Some Jewish scholars used the methods of their Greek colleagues to investigate whether their Scripture contained myths shared by other nations, while others insisted that significant differences existed between Judaism and other cultures. This book is vital for any student of ancient Judaism, early Christianity and Hellenistic culture.

Salomon Maimon was one of the most important and influential Jewish intellectuals of the Enlightenment. This is the first English translation of his principal work, first published in Berlin in 1790. "Essay on Transcendental Philosophy" presents the first English translation of Salomon Maimon's principal work, originally published in Berlin in 1790. This book expresses his response to the revolution in philosophy wrought by Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason". Kant himself was full of praise for the book and it went on to exercise a decisive influence on the course of post-Kantian German idealism. Yet, despite his importance for the work of such key thinkers as Fichte, Schelling and Hegel, Maimon never achieved the prominence he deserved. Today interest in Maimon's work is increasing rapidly, thanks in large part to prominent acclaim by Gilles Deleuze. This long-overdue translation brings Maimon's seminal text to an English-speaking audience for the first time. The text includes a comprehensive introduction, a glossary, translator's notes and a full bibliography. It also includes translations of correspondence between Maimon and Kant and a letter Maimon wrote to a Berlin journal clarifying the philosophical position of the Essay, all of which bring alive the context of the book's publication for the modern reader.

Pinchas Giller offers a wide-ranging overview of the most influential school of kabbalah in modernity, the Jerusalem kabbalists of the Beit El Yeshivah. The school is associated with the writings and personality of a charismatic Yemenite Rabbi, Shalom Shar'abi. Shar'abi's activity overwhelmed the Jerusalem Kabbalah of the eighteenth-century, and his acolytes are the most active mystics in contemporary Middle Eastern Jewry to this day. Today, this meditative tradition is rising in popularity in Jerusalem, New York, and Los Angeles, both among traditional Beit El kabbalists and memebers of the notorious Kabbalah Learning Centers. After providing the historical setting, Giller examines the characteristic mystical practices of the Beit El School. The dominant practice is that of ritual prayer with mystical "intentions", or kavvanot. The kavvanot themselves are the product of thousands of years of development, and incorporate many traditions and bodies of lore. Giller examines the archaeology of the kavvanot literature, the principle of the sacred names that make up the majority of kavvanot, the development of particular rituals, and the innovative mystical and devotional practices of the Beit El kabbalists to this day. The first book in the English language to address the character and spread of jewish mysticism through the Middle East in early modernity, it will be a guide post for further study of this vast topic.

This volume comprises fifteen essays classified in three major sections. Some of these essays raise theoretical and methodological issues while others focus on specific topics. The time span ranges from late biblical period to the present. The volume reflects the current thought of some of the major scholars in the field in various shapes and contexts as well as from a variety of perspectives: inner-biblical, qumranic, New Testament, various rabbinic literature (targumic, midrashic, halachic, and Medieval kabalistic), and some modern interpretation. The essays reflect the contemporary thought of some of the foremost scholars in the field of biblical exegesis from a variety of standpoints, moving the biblical exegesis well beyond its conventional limits, and enriching the knowledge and deepening the understanding of the readers.

Liturgy, a complex interweaving of word, text, song, and behavior is a central fixture of religious life in the Jewish tradition. It is unique in that it is performed and not merely thought. Because liturgy is performed by a specific group at a specific time and place it is mutable. Thus, liturgical reasoning is always new and understandings of liturgical practices are always evolving. Liturgy is neither preexisting nor static; it is discovered and revealed in every liturgical performance.
Jewish Liturgical Reasoning is an attempt to articulate the internal patterns of philosophical, ethical, and theological reasoning that are at work in synagogue liturgies. This book discusses the relationship between internal Jewish liturgical reasoning and the variety of external philosophical and theological forms of reasoning that have been developed in modern and post liberal Jewish philosophy. Steven Kepnes argues that liturgical reasoning can reorient Jewish philosophy and provide it with new tools, new terms of discourse and analysis, and a new sensibility for the twenty-first century.
The formal philosophical study of Jewish liturgy began with Moses Mendelssohn and the modern Jewish philosophers. Thus the book focuses, in its first chapters, on the liturgical reasoning of Moses Mendelssohn, Hermann Cohen, and Franz Rosenzweig. However, it attempts to augment and further develop the liturgical reasoning of these figures with methods of study from Hermeneutics, Semiotic theory, post liberal theology, anthropology and performance theory. These newer theories are enlisted to help form a contemporary liturgical reasoning that can respond to such events as the Holocaust, the establishmentof the State of Israel, and interfaith dialogue between Jews, Christians, and Muslims.

This is a study of two metaphors, 'an eternal planting' and 'a house of holiness', which were used extensively by the DSS Community in expression of their self-understanding. These two metaphors embrace a wide range of biblical themes which they appropriated for themselves. The sectarian writings and non-sectarian writings used by the community have been examined in order to bring out the theology behind these two metaphors. Each passage is compared and contrasted primarily with the Hebrew Bible to see how the text has been reworked or nuanced to suit its new context.

It is concluded that these two metaphors express the deep yearning of the DSS Community for a complete restoration of Israel, for a return to Edenic conditions as before the Fall, and for a temple which was pure. These metaphors contribute to the community's self-understanding of themselves as the 'eternal planting', or True Israel, the faithful remnant, who practised justice and righteousness and awaited the eschaton. They beleived that they were indeed a 'kingdom of priests and a holy nation'. They understood themselves to be a proleptic temple in advance of the eschatological temple to be built by God. They were also the true priests, functioning in God's heavenly temple carrying out the priestly ministry of atonement, teaching, intercession, and blessing. These two metaphors appear to be quite distinct at first sight, but on closer examination they are seen to convey many complementary theological ideas.

This collection presents innovative research by scholars from across the globe in celebration of Gabriele Boccaccini's sixtieth birthday and to honor his contribution to the study of early Judaism and Christianity. In harmony with Boccaccini's determination to promote the study of Second Temple Judaism in its own right, this volume includes studies on various issues raised in early Jewish apocalyptic literature (e.g., 1 Enoch, 2 Baruch, 4 Ezra), the Dead Sea Scrolls, and other early Jewish texts, from Tobit to Ben Sira to Philo and beyond. The volume also provides several investigations on early Christianity in intimate conversation with its Jewish sources, consistent with Boccaccini's efforts to transcend confessional and disciplinary divisions by situating the origins of Christianity firmly within Second Temple Judaism. Finally, the volume includes essays that look at Jewish-Christian relations in the centuries following the Second Temple period, a harvest of Boccaccini's labor to rethink the relationship between Judaism and Christianity in light of their shared yet contested heritage.

Jewish Women's History from Antiquity to the Present is broad in geographical scope exploring Jewish women's lives in what is now Eastern and Western Europe, Britain, Israel, Turkey, North Africa, and North America. Editors Federica Francesconi and Rebecca Lynn Winer focus the volume on reconstructing the experiences of ordinary women and situating those of the extraordinary and famous within the gender systems of their times and places. The twenty-one contributors analyze the history of Jewish women in the light of gender as religious, cultural, and social construct. They apply new methodologies in approaching rabbinic sources, prescriptive literature, and musar (ethics), interrogating them about female roles in the biblical and rabbinic imaginations, and in relation to women's restrictions and quotidian actions on the ground. They explore Jewish's women experiences of persecution, displacement, immigration, integration, and social mobility from the medieval age through the nineteenth century. And for the modern era, this volume assesses women's spiritual developments; how they experienced changes in religious and political societies, both Jewish and non-Jewish; the history of women in the Holocaust, their struggle through persecution and deportation; women's everyday concerns, Jewish lesbian activism, and the spiritual sphere in the contemporary era. Contributors reinterpret rabbinical responsa through new lenses and study a plethora of unpublished and previously unknown archival sources, such as community ordinances and court records, alongside autobiographies, letters, poetry, narrative prose, devotional objects, the built environment, illuminated manuscripts, and early printed books. This publication is significant within the field of Jewish studies and beyond; the essays include comparative material and have the potential to reach scholarly audiences in many related fields but are also written to be accessible to all, with the introductions in every chapter aimed at orienting the enthusiast from outside academia to each time and place.

This unique study is the first systematic examination to be undertaken of the high priesthood in ancient Israel, from the earliest local chief priests in the pre-monarchic period down to the Hasmonaean priest-kings in the first century BCE. It discusses material from the Old Testament and Apocrypha, together with contemporary documents and coins. It challenges the view that by virtue of his office the high priest became sole political leader of the Jews in later times.