Ignaz Goldziher (1850-1921), one of the founders of modern Arabic and Islamic studies, was a Hungarian Jew and a Professor at the University of Budapest. A wunderkind who mastered Hebrew, Latin, Greek, Turkish, Persian, and Arabic as a teenager, his works reached international acclaim long before he was appointed professor in his native country. From his initial vision of Jewish religious modernization via the science of religion, his academic interests gradually shifted to Arabic-Islamic themes. Yet his early Jewish program remained encoded in his new scholarly pursuits. Islamic studies was a refuge for him from his grievances with the Jewish establishment; from local academic and social irritations he found comfort in his international network of colleagues. This intellectual and academic transformation is explored in the book in three dimensions – scholarship on religion, in religion (Judaism and Islam), and as religion – utilizing his diaries, correspondences and his little-known early Hungarian works.

This book proposes a new reconstruction of the Temple, which differs from conventional descriptions in Jewish literary sources during the First and Second Temple eras. Individual descriptions of the Temple are examined independently and the influence of earlier descriptions on subsequent ones is considered. Detailed architectural diagrams and three-dimensional models accompany the different reconstructions of the temple. Michael Chyutin examines the descriptions of the Meeting-Tent Tabernacle Temple, the descriptions of Solomon's Temple according to "1 Kings and 2 Chronicles", descriptions of Ezekiel's temple and its courtyards, the Temple and courtyards described in the Temple Scroll, the Second Temple according to Josephus Flavius and other sources, and the Temple as described in the Midoth Tractate. Descriptions of regional planning and the Temple City according to Ezekiel and the New Jerusalem Scroll are also examined. The final chapter examines architectural characteristics common to all of the descriptions, with the aim of identifying a unique architectural theory.

Rabbinic Creativity in the Modern Middle East provides a window for readers of English around the world into hitherto almost inaccessible halakhic and ideational writings expressing major aspects of the cultural intellectual creativity of Sephardic-Oriental rabbis in modern times. The text has three sections: Iraq, Syria, and Egypt, and each section discusses a range of original sources that reflect and represent the creativity of major rabbinic figures in these countries. The contents of the writings of these Sephardic rabbis challenge many commonly held views regarding Judaism's responses to modern challenges. By bringing an additional, non-Western voice into the intellectual arena, this book enriches the field of contemporary discussions regarding the present and future of Judaism. In addition, it focuses attention on the fact that not only was Judaism a Middle Eastern phenomenon for most of its existence but that also in recent centuries important and interesting aspects of Judaism developed in the Middle East. Both Jews and non-Jews will be enriched and challenged by this non-Eurocentric view of modern Judaic creativity.

In addition to three scrolls containing the Book of Joshua, the Qumran caves brought to light five previously unknown texts rewriting this book. These scrolls (4Q123, 4Q378, 4Q379, 4Q522, 5Q9), as well as a scroll from Masada (Mas 1039-211), are commonly referred to as the Apocryphon of Joshua. While each of these manuscripts has received some scholarly attention, no attempt has yet been made to offer a detailed study of all these texts. The present monograph fills this gap by providing improved editions of the six scrolls, an up-to-date commentary and a detailed discussion of the biblical exegesis embedded in each scroll. The analysis of the texts is followed by a reassessment of the widely accepted view considering 4Q123, 4Q378, 4Q379, 4Q522, 5Q9 and Mas 1039-211 as copies of a single composition. Finally, the monograph attempts to place the Qumran scrolls rewriting the Book of Joshua within the wider context of Second Temple Jewish writings concerned with the figure of Joshua.

This book examines Jewish life in Vienna just after the Nazi-takeover in 1938. Who were Vienna's Jews, how did they react and respond to Nazism, and why? Drawing upon the voices of the individuals and families who lived during this time, together with new archival documentation, Ilana Offenberger reconstructs the daily lives of Vienna's Jews from Anschluss in March 1938 through the entire Nazi occupation and the eventual dissolution of the Jewish community of Vienna. Offenberger explains how and why over two-thirds of the Jewish community emigrated from the country, while one-third remained trapped. A vivid picture emerges of the co-dependent relationship this community developed with their German masters, and the false hope they maintained until the bitter end. The Germans murdered close to one third of Vienna's Jewish population in the "final solution" and their family members who escaped the Reich before 1941 chose never to return; they remained dispersed across the world. This is not a triumphant history. Although the overwhelming majority survived the Holocaust, the Jewish community that once existed was destroyed.

This book presents pedagogical strategies for today's diverse Israel Studies classrooms. It offers Israel-specific innovations for online teaching, tested methods for organizing global virtual exchanges that uplift marginalized voices in Israel, including Palestinian voices, and an intellectual and political overview of the field. Informed by the author's experiences in the classroom and principles shared with her by fellow instructors, the book provides a guide to developing an Israel Studies syllabus or integrating Israel Studies units into an existing curriculum

Zvi Mark uncovers previously unknown and never-before-discussed aspects of Rabbi Nachman's personal spiritual world. The first section of the book, Revelation, explores Rabbi Nachman's spiritual revelations, personal trials and spiritual experiments. Among the topics discussed is the powerful "Story of the Bread," wherein Rabbi Nachman receives the Torah as did Moses on Mount Sinai - a story that was kept secret for 200 years. The second section of the book, Rectification, is dedicated to the rituals of rectification that Rabbi Nachman established. These are, principally, the universal rectification, the rectification for a nocturnal emission and the rectification to be performed during pilgrimage to his grave. In this context, the secret story, "The Story of the Armor," is discussed. The book ends with a colorful description of Bratzlav Hasidism in the 21st century.

The occurrence of treaties throughout the Ancient Near East has been investigated on a number of occasions, generally in order to resolve certain questions arising in the biblical field. As a result of that focus, the existence of a similar institution in a number of different cultures has not been treated as a problem in itself. Generally the existence of treaties throughout the area has been taken for granted, or a simple borrowing model has been used to explain how similar forms came to be used in different cultures. Why forms were similar across the area has not been probed. This work investigates treaty occurrences in different cultures and finds that the forms used correlate with ways of maintaining political control both internally and over vassals. Related concepts are projected in official accounts of history. Thus one can roughly distinguish threats based on power from persuasion based on benevolence and historical precedent, though various combinations of these two occur. There is a likely further connection of the means chosen to the degree of centralisation of power within the society. Underlying the local traditions is a common tradition which has to be dated to the pre-literate period. Biblical covenants fit within this pattern. The cultures treated are Mesopotamia, the Hittites, Egypt, Syrian centres and Israel.

Judaism and Science canvases three millennia of Jewish attitudes towards nature and its study. It answers many questions about the complex relationship of religion and science. How did religious attitudes and dogmas affect Jewish attitudes towards natural knowledge? How was Jewish interest in science reflected, and was facilitated by, links with other cultures - Egypt and Assyria and Babylon in ancient times, Moslem culture in medieval times, and Christian culture during the Renaissance and since? How did science serve as a bridge between religious communities that were otherwise estranged and embattled? How did science serve as a vehicle of assimilation into the wider intellectual culture in which Jews found themselves? The book considers the attitudes and work of particular Jews in different epochs. It takes an "eagle's-eye view" of its subject, considering broad themes from a high vantage, but also swooping down to consider particular individuals at high focus, and in detail. Judaism and Science encompasses the entire history of the interaction of Jews and natural knowledge. BLPart I: The Sages of Israel and Natural Wisdom describes the images of nature and natural philosophy in the two most important sets of books on the Jewish bookshelf: the Biblical corpus and the Talmudic/Early Rabbinic corpus Part II: Jews and Natural Philosophy shows how Jews explained nature, especially the nature of the heavens, or astronomy and astrology, in medieval times and early modern times. BLPart III: Jews and Science -- describes the entry of Jews into modern science, beginning in 19th century Europe and 20th century United States, USSR and Israel, emphasizing the social background of the rapid entryof Jews into modern sciences, and of their remarkable successes. BLThe volume includes annotated primary source documents, a timeline of important events, and an bibliography of essential primary and secondary sources for further research..

.Breitowitz focuses on what many regard as the cutting issue of Jewish law as it grapples with the disintegrative forces of twentieth-century life: the problem of the Agunah or stranded wife. In addition, the Agunah issue raises intriguing questions about the impotence of religious law in a secular society and how the establishment and free exercise clauses intersect to facilitate or hinder the accommodation of religious interests.

All legal avenues available to secure relief are discussed, including the use of prenuptial agreements, the application of tort theory, and the rather exotic approach of the New York Get law, as well as the constitutional and common law impediments, to the implementation of these remedies. The text also includes comparative law material to illustrate how other legal systems, particularly the state of Israel, have handled this problem. As the most comprehensive book on the subject, it is invaluable to students of Jewish and family law and to practitioners of family law.

Old Testament texts frequently offer a theological view of history. This is very evident in the Books of Chronicles and in the final section of Ben Sira (Ecclesiasticus). Today there is renewed interest in both these works as significant theological and cultural Jewish documents from the centuries before Jesus. Both Chronicles and Ben Sira aim to recreate a national identity centered on temple piety. Some chapters in this volume consider the portrayal of Israelite kings like David, Hezekiah, and Josiah, while others deal with prophets like Samuel and Elijah.

In the course of the nineteenth century, the boundaries that divided Protestants, Catholics and Jews in Germany were redrawn, challenged, rendered porous and built anew. This book addresses this redrawing. It considers the relations of three religious groups-Protestants, Catholics, and Jews-and asks how, by dint of their interaction, they affected one another.Previously, historians have written about these communities as if they lived in isolation. Yet these groups coexisted in common space, and interacted in complex ways. This is the first book that brings these separate stories together and lays the foundation for a new kind of religious history that foregrounds both cooperation and conflict across the religious divides. The authors analyze the influences that shaped religious coexistence and they place the valences of co-operation and conflict in deep social and cultural contexts. The result is a significantly altered understanding of the emergence of modern religious communities as well as new insights into the origins of the German tragedy, which involved the breakdown of religious coexistence.

Gender in the Book of Ben Sira is a semantic analysis and, also, an investigation of hermeneutical pathways for performing such an analysis. A comparison of possible Greek and Hebrew gender taxonomies precedes the extensive delineation of the target-category, gender. The delineation includes invisible influences in the Book of Ben Sira such as the author's choices of genre and his situation as a member of a colonized group within a Hellenistic empire. When the Book of Ben Sira's genre-constrained invectives against women and male fools are excluded, the remaining expectations for women and for men are mostly equivalent, in terms of a pious life lived according to Torah. However, Ben Sira says nothing about distinctions at the level of how "living according to Torah" would differ for the two groups. His book presents an Edenic ideal of marriage through allusions to Genesis 1 to 4, and a substantial overlap of erotic discourse for the female figures of Wisdom and the "intelligent wife" creates tropes similar to those of the Song of Songs. In addition, Ben Sira's colonial status affects what he says and how he says it; by writing in Hebrew, he could craft the Greek genres of encomium and invective to carry multiple levels of meaning that subvert Hellenistic/Greek claims to cultural superiority.

Sephardic and Ashkenazic Judaism have long been studied separately. Yet, scholars are becoming ever more aware of the need to merge them into a single field of Jewish Studies. This volume opens new perspectives and bridges traditional gaps. The authors are not simply contributing to their respective fields of Sephardic or Ashkenazic Studies. Rather, they all include both Sephardic and Ashkenazic perspectives as they reflect on different aspects of encounters and reconsider traditional narratives. Subjects range from medieval and early modern Sephardic and Ashkenazic constructions of identities, influences, and entanglements in the fields of religious art, halakhah, kabbalah, messianism, and charity to modern Ashkenazic Sephardism and Sephardic admiration for Ashkenazic culture. For reasons of coherency, the contributions all focus on European contexts between the fourteenth and the nineteenth centuries.

This volume addresses the complex topic of the preeminent status of the divine feminine power, to be referred also as Female, within the theosophical structures of many important Kabbalists, Sabbatean believers, and Hasidic masters. This privileged status is part of a much broader vision of the Female as stemming from a very high root within the divine world, then She was emanated and constitutes the tenth, lower divine power, and even in this lower state She is sometime conceived of governing this world and as equal to the divine Male. Finally, She is conceived of as returning to Her original place in special moments, the days of Sabbath, the Jewish Holidays or in the eschatological era. Her special dignity is sometime related to Her being the telos of creation, and as the first entity that emerged in the divine thought, which has been later on generated. In some cases, an uroboric theosophy links the Female Malkhut, directly to the first divine power, Keter. The author points to the possible impact of some of the Kabbalistic discussions on conceptualizations of the feminine in the Renaissance period.

The articles in this volume originated from lectures given in two meetings devoted to the Samaritans. The first was the sixth conference of the SociA(c)tA(c) da (TM)Etudes Samaritaines, which took place at the University of Haifa in July 2004. The second meeting was part of the SBL International Conference in Vienna, July 2007.The volume reflects the current state of research on the Samaritans. It presents a wide spectrum of approaches, including historical questions, the political, religious and social context of the Samaritans in the past and present, linguistic approaches, the role of the Samaritans in the Talmudic literature, and questions of identity of the Samaritans up to now, to name just a few.

The Nuremberg Miscellany [Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nurnberg, Bibliothek, 8 Degrees Hs. 7058 (Rl. 203)] is a unique work of scribal art and illumination. Its costly parchment leaves are richly adorned and illustrated with multicolour paint and powdered gold. It was penned and illustrated in southern Germany - probably Swabia - in 1589 and is signed by a certain Eliezer b. Mordechai the Martyr. The Miscellany is a relatively thin manuscript. In its present state, it holds a total of 46 folios, 44 of which are part of the original codex and an additional bifolio that was attached to it immediately or soon after its production. The book is a compilation of various Hebrew texts, most of which pertain to religious life. Others are home liturgies, Biblical exegeses, comments on rites and customs, moralistic texts, homiletic and ethical discourses, and an extensive collection of home liturgies, its major part being dedicated to the life cycle. The unparalleled text compilation of the Nuremberg Miscellany on the one hand, and the naive, untrained illustrations on the other hand, are puzzling. Its illustrations are hardly mindful of volume, depth or perspective, and their folk-art nature suggests that an unprofessional artist, possibly even the scribe himself, may have executed them. Whoever the illustrator was, his vast knowledge of Jewish lore unfolds layer after layer in a most intricate way. His sharp eye for detail renders the images he executed a valid representation of contemporary visual culture. The iconography of the Nuremberg Miscellany, with its 55 decorated leaves, featuring 25 text illustrations, falls into two main categories: biblical themes, and depictions of daily life, both sacred and mundane. While the biblical illustrations rely largely on artistic rendering and interpretation of texts, the depictions of daily life are founded mainly on current furnishings and accoutrements in Jewish homes. The customs and rituals portrayed in the miscellany attest not only to the local Jewish Minhag, but also to the influence and adaptation of local Germanic or Christian rites. They thus offer first-hand insights to the interrelations between the Jews and their neighbors. Examined as historical documents, the images in the Nuremberg Miscellany are an invaluable resource for reconstructing Jewish daily life in Ashkenaz in the early modern period. In a period from which only scanty relics of Jewish material culture have survived, retrieving the pictorial data from images incorporated in literary sources is of vital importance in providing the missing link. Corroborated by similar objects from the host society and with descriptions in contemporary Jewish and Christian written sources, the household objects, as well as the ceremonial implements depicted in the manuscript can serve as effective mirrors for the material culture of an affluent German Jewish family in the Early Modern period. The complete Nuremberg Miscellany is reproduced in the appendix of this book.

The author discusses how religious groups, especially Jews, Mormons and Jesuits, were labeled as foreign and constructed as political, moral and national threats in Scandinavia in different periods between c. 1790 and 1960. Key questions are who articulated such opinions, how was the threat depicted, and to what extent did it influence state policies towards these groups. A special focus is given to Norway, because the Constitution of 1814 included a ban against Jews (repelled in 1851) and Jesuits (repelled in 1956), and because Mormons were denied the status of a legal religion until freedom of religion was codified in the Constitution in 1964. The author emphasizes how the construction of religious minorities as perils of society influenced the definition of national identities in all Scandinavia, from the late 18th Century until well after WWII. The argument is that Jews, Mormons and Jesuits all were constructed as "anti-citizens", as opposites of what it meant to be "good" citizens of the nation. The discourse that framed the need for national protection against foreign religious groups was transboundary. Consequently, transnational stereotypes contributed significantly in defining national identities.

This book elaborates Jean Amery's critique of philosophy and his discussion of some central philosophical themes in At the Mind's Limits and his other writings. It shows how Amery elaborates the shortcomings and unfitness of philosophical theories to account for torture, the experience of homelessness, and other indignities, and their inability to assist with overcoming resentment. It thus teases out the philosophical import of Jean Amery's critique of philosophy, which constitutes his own philosophical testament of being an inmate at Auschwitz. This book situates At the Mind's Limits in the context of twentieth-century Continental philosophy. On the one hand, it elaborates Amery's engagement with key philosophical figures. On the other hand, it shows how thoroughly Amery denounces the limits of the philosophical enterprise, and its impotence in capturing and accounting for the crimes of the Third Reich.

The gift of the land of Israel by God is an essential element in Jewish identity, religiously and politically. That the gift came at the expense of the local Canaanites has stimulated deep reflections and heated debate in Jewish literature, from the creation of the Bible to the twenty-first century. The essays in this book examine the theological, ethical, and political issues connected with the gift and with the fate of the Canaanites, focusing on classical Jewish texts and major Jewish commentators, legal thinkers, and philosophers from ancient times to the present.

The medieval Ashkenazi manuscripts of the Small Book of Commandments (Sefer Mitzvot Katan, or 'SeMaK' for short), which was written by Isaac of Corbeil, attest a scribal culture in which rabbinical knowledge and piety were combined with creative freedom in manuscript design. This study is concerned with the creation, composition and circulation of manuscripts of the SeMaK and concentrates on the book as an artefact. The focus of the author's attention is the manuscripts' material nature, their artistic embellishment and the personal touches that scribes added to them. With the act of writing a text and decorating a SeMaK manuscript, they 'appropriated' the text, so to speak, giving it a character of its very own. They drew on a visual language in the process - or rather, on visual languages, which occupy a special place between pure writing culture and pure painting culture. It was in this area 'in between' the two that spontaneous touches arose, ranging from changes in the physical arrangement of the text (mise-en-page) to drawings and doodles added in the margins. An examination of paratextual elements broadens the reader's knowledge about Jewish scribal culture and grants insights into medieval book art, material culture and Judeo-Christian co-existence in the Middle Ages as well as throwing some light on Jewish values, ideals and eschatological hopes.

This book examines the fundamentals of Jewish demography and sociology around the world. It is not only concerned with documenting patterns of population change but also with an intriguing and ever-present issue like "Who is a Jew?" The latter transcends the limits of quantitative assessment and deeply delves into the nature, boundaries, and quality of group identification. A growing challenge is how to bridge between concept - related to ideals and theory - and reality - reflecting field research. Divided into six sections, the book discusses historical demography, immigration and settlement, population dynamics, social stratification and economy, family and Jewish identity in the U.S., and Jewish identity in Israel. The volume represents the dynamic and diverse nature of the study of world and local Jewish populations. It shows how that field of study provides an important contribution to the broader and now rapidly expanding study of religious and ethnic groups. Scholars in disciplines such as history, geography, sociology, economics, political science, and especially demography follow and analyze the social and cultural patterns of Jews in different places around the globe, at various times, and from complementary perspectives. They make use of historical sources that have recently become accessible, utilize new censuses and surveys, and adopt advanced analytical methods. While some of their observations attest to consistency in the Jews' demographic and identificational patterns, others evolve and ramify in new directions that reflect general processes in the areas and societies that Jews inhabit, internal changes within Jewish communities, and intergenerational trends in personal preferences of religious and ethnic orientations. This volume brings together contributions from scholars around the world and presents new and updated research and insights.