Continuing its distinguished tradition of focusing on central political, sociological, and cultural issues of Jewish life in the last century, this latest volume in the annual Studies in Contemporary Jewry series focuses on how Jewry has been studied in the social science disciplines. Its symposium consists of essays that discuss sources, approaches, and debates in the complementary fields of demography, sociology, economics, and geography. The social sciences are central for the understanding of contemporary Jewish life and have engendered much controversy over the past few decades. To a large extent, the multitude of approaches toward Jewish social science research reflects the nature of population studies in general, and that of religions and ethnic groups in particular. Yet the variation in methodology, definitions, and measures of demographic, socioeconomic, and cultural patterns is even more salient in the study of Jews. Different data sets have different definitions for what is "Jewish" or "who is a Jew." In addition, Jews as a group are characterized by high rates of migration, including repeated migration, which makes it difficult to track any given Jewish population. Finally, the question of identification is complicated by the fact that in most places, especially outside of Israel, it is not clear whether "being Jewish" is primarily a religious or an ethnic matter - or both, or neither. This volume also features an essay on American Jewry and North African Jewry; review essays on rebuilding after the Holocaust, Nazi war crimes trials, and Jewish historiography; and reviews of new titles in Jewish studies.

While many aspects of Sonship have been analyzed in books on Judaism, this book constitutes the first attempt to address the category of Sonship in Jewish mystical literature as a whole - a category much more vast than ever imagined. Idel's aim is to point out the many instances where Jewish thinkers, especially the mystics among them, resorted to concepts of Sonship and their conceptual backgrounds, and thus to show the existence of a wide variety of understandings of hypostatic sons in Judaism. By this survey, not only can the mystical forms of Sonship in Judaism be better understood, but the concept of Sonship in religion in general can also be enriched. "The Kogod Library of Judaic Studies" aims to publish new research in all areas of Judaic studies with the potential to both enrich and deepen the understanding of Jewish culture and history and to influence and mould Jewish life and philosophy. The series reflects the existence of plural Jewish identities and streams involved in a lively and continuous multi-vocal religious discourse, and in creating a cultural mosaic.

This study presents the first comprehensive reconstruction of the 'New Jerusalem' Scroll from the Dead Sea, through integration of all the known fragments into a single entity. Secret ceremonies in the temple are discussed; an architectural reconstruction of the elements described in the scroll is presented, accompanied by computerized plans; a consideration of the tradition of planning the ideal city leads to an examination of the use of metrology, mathematics; and a number mysticism in the plan of the 'New Jerusalem'. A comparison is also made with the traditions of building orthogonal cities in Egypt, Greece, Rome and the Holy Land, as manifested in archaeological findings.>

The Torah Unabridged is a detailed examination of legal reasoning in the Hebrew Bible. Focusing on the exegetical operations by which biblical laws related to intermarriage were applied to circumstances and persons that lie outside the sphere of their explicit content, this book reconstructs the ways in which laws regarding intermarriage evolved, were interpreted, and were applied across time and place. William A. Tooman argues that the "exegetical impulse" to expand upon the gaps left by laws relating to marriage in the Torah is expressed in several distinctive ways in later texts in the Hebrew Bible. Adopting a diachronic approach, Tooman examines the techniques biblical writers used in their appropriation, expansion, and manipulation of legal ideas within earlier biblical texts in order to apply the laws to more situations, circumstances, and people. Tooman's analysis reveals that from Exodus to Ezra-Nehemiah, legal reasoning on intermarriage moved in a singular direction: toward an ever-greater restriction of marriage between Israelites/Jews and gentiles. The final chapter sums up the ways that this was accomplished, summarizing the logical and exegetical operations executed in the process of expanding the relevance of these laws, and describing the hermeneutical assumptions that motivated the process. Grounded in a detailed philological analysis of the Hebrew texts, this tightly argued monograph is an important impetus to further debate in the field. It will be welcomed by biblical scholars and by specialists in the history of law.

Delving into a traditionally underexplored period, this book focuses on the treatment of Greek Jews under the dictatorship of Ioannis Metaxas in the years leading up to the Second World War. Almost 86% of Greek Jews died in the Holocaust, leading many to think this was because of Metaxas and his fascist ideology. However, the situation in Greece was much more complicated; in fact, Metaxas in his policies often attempted to quash anti-Semitism. The Fourth of August Regime and Greek Jewry, 1936-1941 explores how the Jews fit (and did not fit) into Metaxas's vision for Greece. Drawing on unpublished archival sources and Holocaust survivor testimonies, this book presents a ground-breaking contribution to Greek history, the history of Greek anti-Semitism, and sheds light on attitudes towards Jews during the interwar period.

This book examines a central issue in talmudic studies that concerns the genesis of halakhic (legal) divergence between the Talmuds produced by the Palestinian rabbinic community (c. AD 370) and the Babylonian rabbinic community (c. AD 650). Hayes analyses selected divergences between parallel passages of the two talmuds and debates whether external influences or internal factors best account for the differences.

The starting point for any study of the Bible is the text of the Masora, as designed by the Masoretes. The ancient manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible contain thousands of Masora comments of two types: Masora Magna and Masora Prava. How does this complex defense mechanism, which contains counting of words and combinations from the Bible, work? Yosef Ofer, of Bar-Ilan University and the Academy of the Hebrew Language, presents the way in which the Masoretic comments preserve the Masoretic Text of the Bible throughout generations and all over the world, providing comprehensive information in a short and efficient manner. The book describes the important manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible, and the methods of the Masora in determining the biblical spelling and designing the forms of the parshiot and the biblical Songs. The effectiveness of Masoretic mechanisms and their degree of success in preserving the text is examined. A special explanation is offered for the phenomenon of qere and ketiv. The book discusses the place of the Masoretic text in the history of the Bible, the differences between the Babylonian Masora and that of Tiberias, the special status of the Aleppo Codex and the mystery surrounding it. Special attention is given to the comparison between the Aleppo Codex and the Leningrad Codex (B 19a). In addition, the book discusses the relationship between the Masora and other tangential domains: the grammar of the Hebrew language, the interpretation of the Bible, and the Halakha. The book is a necessary tool for anyone interested in the text of the Bible and its crystallization.

How do science and religion interact? This study examines the ways in which two minorities in Britain - the Quaker and Anglo-Jewish communities - engaged with science. Drawing on a wealth of documentary material, much of which has not been analysed by previous historians, Geoffrey Cantor charts the participation of Quakers and Jews in many different aspects of science: scientific research, science education, science-related careers, and scientific institutions. The responses of both communities to the challenge of modernity posed by innovative scientific theories, such as the Newtonian worldview and Darwin's theory of evolution, are of central interest.

Winner of an Honorable Mention in the Latin American Jewish Studies Association (LAJSA) 2017 Book Award competition for an outstanding book on a Latin American Jewish topic in the social sciences or humanities published in English, Spanish, or Portuguese. Landscapes of Memory and Impunity chronicles the aftermath of the most significant terrorist attack in Argentina's history-the 1994 AMIA bombing that killed eighty-five people, wounded hundreds, and destroyed the primary Jewish mutual aid society. This volume, edited by Annette H. Levine and Natasha Zaretsky, presents the first comprehensive, multidisciplinary work about this decisive turning point in Jewish Argentine history-examining the ongoing impact of this violence and the impunity that followed. Chapters explore political protest movements, musical performance, literature, and acts of commemoration. They emphasize the intersecting themes of memory, narrative and representation, Jewish belonging, citizenship, and justice-critical fault lines that frame Jewish life after the AMIA attack, while also resonating with historical struggles for pluralism in Argentina.

The factionalism and denominationalism of modern Jewry makes it supremely difficult to create a definition of the Jewish people. Instead of serving as a uniting force around which community is formed, Judaism has itself become a source of divisions. Consequently, attempts to identify beliefs or practices essential for membership in the Jewish people are almost doomed to failure.Aiming to take readers beyond the divisions that characterize modern Jewry, this book explores the ever contentious question of who is a Jew. Through a historical survey of the shifting boundaries of Jewish identity and deviance over time, the book provides new insights into how Jewish law over the centuries has erected boundaries to govern and maintain the collective identity of the Jewish people. Drawing on these historical strategies the book identifies the causes and reasons that underlie them, and employs these in order to help construct a guide for creating a structure of boundaries relevant for contemporary Jewish existence.

The Western Wall-Judaism's holiest site-occupies a prominent position in contemporary Jewish and Israeli discourse, current events, and local politics. In The Western Wall: The Dispute over Israel's Holiest Jewish Site, 1967-2000, Kobi Cohen-Hattab and Doron Bar offer a detailed exploration of the Western Wall plaza's evolution in the late twentieth century. The examination covers the role of archaeology in defining the space, the Western Wall's transformation as an Israeli and Jewish symbol, and the movement to open it to a variety of Jewish denominations. The book studies the central processes and shifts that took place at the Western Wall during the three decades that followed the Six-Day War-a relatively short yet crucial chapter in Jerusalem's extensive history.

In the second book of Samuel, the prophet Nathan tells King David that God will give to him and his descendants a great and everlasting kingdom. In this study William Schniedewind looks at how this dynastic Promise has been understood and transmitted from the time of its first appearance at the inception of the Hebrew monarchy until the dawn of Christianity. He shows in detail how, over the centuries, the Promise grew in importance and prestige.

This book examines Christian ethnographic writing about the Jews in early modern Europe, offering a systematic historical analysis of this literary genre and arguing its importance for better understanding both the period in general and Jewish-Christian relations in particular. The book focuses on nearly 80 texts from Western Europe (mostly Germany) that describe the customs and ceremonies of the contemporary Jews, containing both descriptions and illustrations of their subjects. Deutsch is one of the first scholars to study these unique writings in extensive detail. He examines books in which Christian authors describe Jewish life and provides new interpretations of Christian perceptions of Jews, Christian Hebraism, and the attention paid by the Hebraist to contemporary Jews and Judaism. Since many of the authors were converts, studying their books offers new insights into conversion during the period. Their work presents new perspectives the study of religion, developments in the field of anthropology and ethnography, and internal Christian debates that arose from the portrayal of Jewish life. Despite the lack of attention by modern scholars, some of these books were extremely popular in their time and represent one of the important ways by which Jews were perceived during the period. The key claim of the study is that, although almost all of the descriptions of Jewish customs are accurate, the authors chose to concentrate mainly on details that show the Jewish ceremonies as anti-Christian, superstitious, and ridiculous; these details also reveal the deviation of Judaism from the Biblical law. Deutsch suggests that these ethnographic descriptions are better defined as polemical ethnographies and argues that the texts, despite their polemical tendency, represent a shift from writing about Judaism as a religion to writing about Jews, and from a mode of writing based on stereotypes to one based on direct contact and observation.

Joseph B. Soloveitchik's philosophy plays a significant role in twentieth century Jewish thought. This book focuses on the first stages of Soloveitchik's philosophy, through a systematic and detailed discussion of his essay Halakhic Man. Schwartz analyzes this essay at three main levels: first, he considers its complex writing style and relates it to Soloveitchik's aims in the writing of this work. Second, the author compares Halakhic Man to other contemporary writings of Soloveitchik. Third, he lays out the essay's philosophical background. Through this analysis, Schwartz successfully exposes hidden layers in Halakhic Man, which may not be immediately evident.

Parenting a challenge? Then discover how the timeless wisdom of Judaism can help. Rabbi Herbert Cohen, a parent, teacher, and school principal for decades, gives practical advice to help you develop a better relationship between you and your child. Laced with real-life anecdotes, Kosher Parenting, provides an invaluable resource for parents searching for a more effective way to parent. a penetrating and practical volume that combines the timeless wisdom of our rabbinical sages with the realities of contemporary life. children and students. --Rabbi Aaron Rakeffet, Professor of Talmud, Gruss Kollel of Yeshiva University in Israel The art of parenting is a subtle one that requires much thought. How to share with our children both the skills needed to prosper in modern times and the love of our Creator, vital to making to making that prosperity valuable, is no small task. This book shares the wisdom of its author Rabbi Dr. Herbert Cohen in the art of parenting and is definitely worth reading. --Michael J. Broyde, Dayan, Beth Din of America.

In August 2007, leading scholars from the world of Genizah Studies assembled in Cambridge for a conference marking the retirement of Stefan Reif, Professor of Medieval Hebrew at the University of Cambridge and founder of the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit. This collection of papers demonstrates the breadth and vitality of Genizah Studies today, much of which is due to Reif s efforts over his thirty-three years as director of the Unit. See a recent review of the book here.

The product of many years of intensive work, this volume represents the first time a comprehensive study of such magnitude and scope has been prepared for the reading public. Combining the skills of journalist and scholar, the author has composed a work that is not only easy-to-read, but is meticulous in its factual information. Mr. Beller is a Canadian journalist who spent many years in Latin America studying all the communities and their people at first hand.

This book addresses a lacuna in the study of Jewish and Israeli history - that of journeys taken by Jews in the 20th century towards Israel - which is also a neglected subject in the more general fields of migration and refugee studies. Dr. Gadi BenEzer, a psychologist and anthropologist, eloquently shows how such journeys are life changing events that affect individuals, families, and communities in a variety of ways. Based on narrative research of Jewish people who have undergone journeys on their way to Israel from around the world, the author is able to pose original questions and give initial convincing answers. The powerful personal accounts are followed by a thought-provoking analysis.

"[A] rich, engaging, scholarly, and nuanced chronicle of an . . . often-tormented interethnic, interreligious, interracial relationship."
"--MultiCultural Review"

"Bold and uncompromising. Cleverly, he turns a lot of revisionist race history on its head."
-- "Patterns of Prejudice"

"Insight, authority and scrupulousness are among the virtues of Seth Forman's account of the interaction of two conspicuous minorities in the postwar era. In its clarity and its wisdom, "Blacks in the Jewish Mind" constitutes a marvelous advance over previous scholarship; and in showing how frequently Jews misunderstood their own communal interests, this book offers a challenge to the present even as the past is illuminated."
"--Stephen Whitfield, Brandeis University"

Since the 1960s the relationship between Blacks and Jews has been a contentious one. While others have attempted to explain or repair the break-up of the Jewish alliance on civil rights, Seth Forman here sets out to determine what Jewish thinking on the subject of Black Americans reveals about Jewish identity in the U.S. Why did American Jews get involved in Black causes in the first place? What did they have to gain from it? And what does that tell us about American Jews?

In an extremely provocative analysis, Forman argues that the commitment of American Jews to liberalism, and their historic definition of themselves as victims, has caused them to behave in ways that were defined as good for Blacks, but which in essence were contrary to Jewish interests. They have not been able to dissociate their needs--religious, spiritual, communal, political--from those of African Americans, and have therefore acted in ways whichhave threatened their own cultural vitality.

Avoiding the focus on Black victimization and white racism that often infuses work on Blacks and Jews, Forman emphasizes the complexities inherent in one distinct white ethnic group's involvement in America's racial dilemma.

This volume is concerned with the origin and development of the Targum to the Prophets, focusing for this purpose upon the Twelve Prophets (from Nahum to Malachi). A wide-ranging introductory chapter sets current research in context by surveying almost two centuries of Targumic study. It is argued that the evidence in the extant text for a Second Commonwealth phase in the Targum's history is meagre and that, in particular, the Qumran Habakkuk "pesher" is not dependent upon the Targum to Habakkuk. Other issues discussed are the Hebrew "Vorlage" of the Targum, incipit formulae, 'Additional Targum' and the standard Targum, the "haggadah" in the Targum to Zechariah 3 in the light of a (so-called) Eastern Aramaic linguistic element, Targum and Peshi?ta, land and divine presence, and the final redaction of the Targum.