This book examines the most frequent form of Jew-hatred: Israel-related antisemitism. After defining this hate ideology in its various manifestations and the role the internet plays in it, the author explores the question of how Israel-related antisemitism is communicated and understood through the language used by readers in below-the-line comments. Drawing on a corpus of over 6,000 comments from traditionally left-wing news outlets The Guardian and Die Zeit, the author examines both implicit and explicit comparisons made between modern-day Israel and both colonial Britain and Nazi Germany. His analyses are placed within the context of resurgent neo-nationalism in both countries, and it is argued that these instances of antisemitism perform a multi-faceted role in absolving guilt, re-writing history, and reinforcing in-group status. This book will be of interest not only to linguistics scholars, but also to academics in fields such as internet studies, Jewish studies, hate speech and antisemitism.

In Israel, where the Orthodox rabbinate wields historically sanctioned influence over the legal definitions of marriage and parenthood, same-sex parenthood raises important questions such as what constitutes belonging to the national collective, who has the authority to define the norms of reproduction, and where the boundaries of Orthodox Judaism begin and end. Judaism in Motion addresses these questions from a transgenerational perspective that pays heed to how religiously informed rules, norms, and practices of transferring material properties, names, and societal belonging are adopted and transformed. It presents a detailed ethnographic account of the dynamic interaction between kinship, religion, and the state that complicates the commonly held assumption that places same-sex parenthood in a radically secular sphere that stands in stark opposition to Orthodox Judaism. Taking same-sex parenthood as a prism through which society at large is reflected, this volume further explores how transformations of societal structures take place, and what flexibility and leeway exist in organized religions.

These ancient stories whisper truth to your soul.

Great stories have the power to draw the heart. But certain stories have the power to draw the heart to God and awaken the better angels of our nature. Such are the tales of the rabbis of the Talmud, colorful, quirky yarns that tug at our heartstrings and test our values, ethics, morality and our imaginations.

In this collection for people of all faiths and backgrounds, Rabbi Burton Visotzky draws on four decades of telling and teaching these legends in order to unlock their wisdom for the contemporary heart. He introduces you to the cast of characters, explains their motivations, and provides the historical background needed to penetrate the wise lessons often hidden within these unusual narratives.

In learning how and why these oft-told tales were spun, you discover how they continue to hold value for our lives."

This volume provides a historical narrative, historiographical reviews, and scholarly analyses by leading scholars throughout the world on the hitherto understudied topic of Shanghai Jewish refugees. Few among the general public know that during the Second World War, approximately 16,000 to 20,000 Jews fled the Nazis, found unexpected refuge in Shanghai, and established a vibrant community there. Though most of them left Shanghai soon after the conclusion of the war in 1945, years of sojourning among the Chinese and surviving under the Japanese occupation generated unique memories about the Second World War, lasting goodwill between the Chinese and Jews, and contested interpretations of this complex past. The volume makes two major contributions to the studies of Shanghai Jewish refugees. First, it reviews the present state of the historiography on this subject and critically assesses the ways in which the history is being researched and commemorated in China. Second, it compiles scholarship produced by renowned scholars, who aim to rescue the history from isolated perspectives and look into the interaction between Jews, Chinese, and Japanese.

How can we order the world while accepting its enduring ambiguities? Rethinking Pluralism suggests a new approach to the problem of ambiguity and social order, which goes beyond the default modern position of 'notation' (resort to rules and categories to disambiguate). The book argues that alternative, more particularistic modes of dealing with ambiguity through ritual and shared experience better attune to contemporary problems of living with difference. It retrieves key aspects of earlier discussions of ambiguity evident in rabbinic commentaries, Chinese texts, and Greek philosophical and dramatic works, and applies those texts to modern problems. The book is a work of recuperation that challenges contemporary constructions of tradition and modernity. In this, it draws on the tradition of pragmatism in American philosophy, especially John Dewey's injunctions to heed the particular, the contingent and experienced as opposed to the abstract, general and disembodied. Only in this way can new forms of empathy emerge congruent with the deeply plural nature of our present experience. While we cannot avoid the ambiguities inherent to the categories through which we construct our world, the book urges us to reconceptualize the ways in which we think about boundaries - not just the solid line of notation, but also the permeable membrane of ritualization and the fractal complexity of shared experience.

Amidst the growing forums of kinky Jews, orthodox drag queens, and Jewish geisha girls, we find today's sexy Jewess in a host of reflexive plays with sexed-up self-display. A social phantasm with real legs, she moves boldly between neo-burlesque striptease, comedy television, ballet movies, and progressive porn to construct the 21st Century Jewish American woman through charisma and comic craft, in-your-face antics, and offensive charm. Her image redresses longstanding stereotypes of the hag, the Jewish mother, and Jewish American princess that have demeaned the Jewish woman as overly demanding, inappropriate, and unattractive across the 20th century, even as Jews assimilated into the American mainstream. But why does "sexy" work to update tropes of the Jewish woman? And how does sex link to humor in order for this update to work? Entangling questions of sexiness to race, gender, and class, The Case of the Sexy Jewess frames an embodied joke-work genre that is most often, but not always meant to be funny. In a contemporary period after the thrusts of assimilation and women's liberation movements, performances usher in new versions of old scripts with ranging consequences. At the core is the recuperative performance of identity through impersonation, and the question of its radical or conservative potential. Appropriating, re-appropriating, and mis-appropriating identity material within and beyond their midst, Sexy Jewess artists play up the failed logic of representation by mocking identity categories altogether. They act as comic chameleons, morphing between margin and center in countless number of charged caricatures. Embodying ethnic and gender positions as always already on the edge while ever more in the middle, contemporary Jewish female performers extend a comic tradition in new contexts, mobilizing progressive discourses from positions of newfound race and gender privilege.

This book by prominent rabbi Kaufmann Kohler explains the beliefs, traditions and history of the Jewish faith. Detailed yet accessible explanations of the tenets of the religion are offered by Kohler, whose decades spent in devotion and study of Judaism imbue the pages with an authentic and intimate knowledge of the faith from ancient times onward. First published in 1918, this account of the Jewish religion was praised by Kohler's contemporaries in the American Jewish community. Kaufmann Kohler was a Jewish intellectual and rabbi who rose to prominence after emigrating to the USA at a young age after formal education in various schools in Germany. Over decades, he became a respected public figures advocating Reform Judaism, and influenced the development and public prominence of the Jewish religion. A frequent committee member and speaker at various rabbinic conferences, Kohler was also enthusiastic about science, using his writing skills to contribute articles to various scientific journals.

Ours is the first generation in modern times to understand the truly universal human condition and to seek to bring all peoples of the earth together in peace and harmony. We are the first generation to truly understand that we are faced with the challenge of either inhabiting our planet harmoniously or not inhabiting it at all.<p> Filling our future is the fundamentalism that threatens to pit one religion against another. But, our different relationships and understandings of G-d should not be the reason for conflict but the source of goodwill in building our relationships with one another and our ability to understand others. The covenant with the Jewish people was not the first made between the Almighty and mankind.<p> Before the revelation at Mt. Sinai, G-d commanded Adam and then made a covenant with Noah, giving them the guidelines for the universal religion of mankind. The most well-known part of this covenant is the seven universal commandments, or the Seven Noahide Laws. For this reason, Judaism and Jews do not proselytize, but rather seek to guide the nations of the world in developing their own relationship with the Almighty and implementing these potentially unifying laws of basic human nature.<p> This book offers you a glimpse into the tremendous mystical power and meaning of G-d's covenant with humanity and the Seven Noahide Laws, as explained in Kabbalah. It focuses on their spiritual and inner dimensions and inspires a deeper look at our best hope for achieving world peace and a better future for all beings.

From the early national period to the present day, American Jews have devised an expanding array of educational frameworks for the Jewish education and enculturation of successive generations. Concomitantly, Jewish education, once viewed as a family responsibility in the United States, has come to be seen as a matter of community concern. "And you Shall Teach Them Diligently": A Concise History of Jewish Education in the United States, 1776-2000 examines the trend toward communal responsibility for Jewish education and sxplores in historical context the origins and growth of such institutions as Jewish day schools, Talmud Torah programs, congregational supplementary schools, early childhood education centers, residential summer camps, Jewish community centers, bureaus of Jewish Education, youth groups, Jewish studies courses at universities, campus-based programs for Jewish college students, adult education, Israel experience programs, colleges of Jewish studies, and rabbinical seminaries. This book provides essential background for understanding contemporary Jewish educational realities and more effectively addressing twenty-first century needs.

Ignaz Maybaum (1897-1976) is widely recognized as one of the foremost Jewish theologians of the post-Holocaust era. Although he is mentioned in most treatments of post-Holocaust Jewish theology, his works are out of print and are only accessible to a small readership. Nicholas de Lange (who worked closely with Maybaum in his lifetime), has made a representative selection from his writings, under various headings: Judaism in the Modern Age, Trialogue between Jew, Christian, and Muslim, the Holocaust, and Zion. In an Introduction, he sets Maybaum's thoughts against the background of their time, indicates their main lines, and assesses how much of them is still of value today.

This book explores the protests of Job from the perspectives of Jewish, Christian, and Islamic religious and philosophical traditions. Shira Weiss examines how challenges to divine justice are understood from a Jewish theological perspective, including the pro-protest and anti-protest traditions within rabbinic literature, in an effort to explicate the ambiguous biblical text and Judaism's attitude towards the suffering of the righteous. Scott Davison surveys Christian interpretations of the book of Job and the nature of suffering in general before turning to a comparison of the lamentations of Jesus and Job, with special attention to the question of whether complaints against God can be expressions of faith. Sajjad Rizvi presents the systematic ambiguity of being present in monistic approaches to reality as one response to evil and suffering in Islam, along with approaches that attempt a resolution through the essential erotic nature of the cosmos, and explores the suggestion that Job is the hero of a metaphysical revolt that is the true sign of a friend of God. Each author also provides a response essay to the essays of the other two authors, creating an interfaith dialogue around the problem of evil and the idea of protest against the divine.

The last in a series of three volumes edited by Marc Lee Raphael surveying some of the major rabbinic and lay personalities who have shaped Judaism in America for the past two centuries, this work focuses on Orthodox Judaism. Along with a basic description of the achievements of some of the most notable leaders, a bibliography of their writings and sources for further study is included as well as an essay on Orthodox rabbinic organizations and a survey of American Orthodox periodicals. Of interest to scholars, students, and lay persons alike, this volume will inform readers about the earliest communities of Jews who settled in America as they developed the institutions of Orthodox Jewish life and set a public standard of compliance with Jewish law. These early American Jews followed a Spanish-Dutch version of Sephardic customs and rites. Their synagogues used traditional prayer books, promoted the celebration of Jewish holidays, established mikvahs, acquired Passover provisions, and arranged for cemetery land and burial services. While many of these Sephardic immigrants did not maintain halakha in their daily regimen as did their European counterparts, they set a public standard of compliance with Jewish law, thus honoring Jewish tradition. Further immigration of thousands of Jews from Western and Central Europe in the middle of the 19th century brought a world of traditional piety and extensive Jewish learning to America, exemplified by Rabbi Abraham Rice, who served in Baltimore, and Yissachar Dov (Bernard) Illowy, who served communities from Philadelphia to New Orleans. Such men marked the beginning of a learned and scholarly rabbinate in America. This volume provides valuablebiographical insights regarding some of the most notable religious leaders in American Orthodoxy.

This book untangles a web of ideas about politics, religion, exile, and community that emerged at a key moment in Jewish history and left a lasting mark on Jewish ideas. In the shadow of their former member Baruch Spinoza's notoriety, and amid the aftermath of the Sabbatian messianic movement, the Spanish and Portuguese Jews of seventeenth-century Amsterdam underwent a conceptual shift that led them to treat their self-governed diaspora community as a commonwealth. Preoccupied by the question of why and how Jews should rule themselves in the absence of a biblical or messianic sovereign state or king, they forged a creative synthesis of insights from early modern Christian politics and Jewish law and traditions to assess and argue over their formidable communal government. In so doing they shaped a proud new theopolitical self-understanding of their community as analogous to a Christian state. Through readings of rarely studied sermons, commentaries, polemics, administrative records, and architecture, Anne Albert shows that a concentrated period of public Jewish political discourse among the community's leaders and thinkers led to the formation of a strong image of itself as a totalizing, state-like entity-an image that eventually came to define its portrayal by twentieth-century historians. Her study presents a new perspective on a Jewish population that has long fascinated readers, as well as new evidence of Jewish reactions to Spinoza and Sabbatianism, and analyses the first Jewish reckoning with modern western political concepts.

This collected volume is based on the proceedings of a symposium held in 2018 at York University, Canada, which was held to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Israel. This symposium highlighted contemporary Jewish identity, Israel-Diaspora relations, and how Jewish life has been transformed in light of various types of antisemitism. The book considers the diasporic Jewish experiences through examining the intersections between various Jewish communities sociologically, historically, and geographically. The text covers world Jewry in general, and each of the diaspora and Israeli Jewries more specifically in the context of mutual responsibility, but also focuses on areas of tension concerning values and political matters. The challenges of antisemitism, racism, and nationalism are explored in terms of the relationship of the Jewish diasporas to their host countries. This text also covers antisemitism, which may take the form of traditional antisemitism or of the new antisemitism in the era of anti-Israel activity related to the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement. The latter movement is especially prevalent on university campuses and has an impact on students, faculty, and staff. This volume is unique in its international perspective in examining issues of Jewish identity, Israel-diaspora relations, and antisemitism and will appeal to students and researchers working in the field.

Nineteen ninety-five is the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the death camps and of the martyrdom of the Protestant theologian and resistance leader, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The author weaves together the stories of his studies at the Shoah archives and former death camps in Central and Eastern Europe and at the Israeli Holocaust memorial. Following the reflections and narratives there is a lengthy compilation of resources for worship services, interfaith observances, and both study and dialogue programs. The unique section on liturgical resources includes models for seasonal services, historical background, sermons and sermon outlines, prayers, readings, hymns, litanies, other resources, and an annotated bibliography.

The term desire in the Hebrew Bible covers a wide range of human longings, emotions, and cravings. The direct and explicit term of desire is nevertheless limited to only two roots found in the Decalogue-the verb forms of the lexical roots and , which reflect not only the dynamics of desire occurring in human beings, but also in God. With an comprehensive semantic analysis and an overview of the synonyms and antonyms, the author shows that the verb form of the lexical root denotes a variety of needs related to human existence including aspiration for God while the verb form of the lexical root denotes the desire to acquire material wealth and possessions beyond basic needs. All the findings are compared on two levels-in relation to human beings (objects and people) and in relation to God-and ultimately serve for the interpretation of the roots in both versions of the Decalogue (Exod 20:17 and Deut 5:21) to resolve questions concerning the meaning of the desire in Tenth Commandment and substantiate whether the answers to life's questions provided by the Bible correspond to modern society.

At every critical juncture in Jewish history, Jews have understood a dynamic theology to be essential for a vital Jewish community. This important collection sets the next stage of Jewish theological thought, bringing together a cross section of powerful new voices from all movements in Judaism to inspire and stimulate discussion both now and in the years to come. Provocative and wide-ranging, these invigorating and challenging insights from a new generation's thought leaders create a coherent and inspiring picture of Jewish belief. Together, they explore the breadth and depth of contemporary Jewish theological thinking:

Foundation of belief: How is it informed by sacred texts? How does it inform life experience?

Limits of Jewish belief: What can a Jew believe and still call Jewish theology?

The series Religion and Society (RS) contributes to the exploration of religions as social systems- both in Western and non-Western societies; in particular, it examines religions in their differentiation from, and intersection with, other cultural systems, such as art, economy, law and politics. Due attention is given to paradigmatic case or comparative studies that exhibit a clear theoretical orientation with the empirical and historical data of religion and such aspects of religion as ritual, the religious imagination, constructions of tradition, iconography, or media. In addition, the formation of religious communities, their construction of identity, and their relation to society and the wider public are key issues of this series.

The promise of land and progeny to the patriarchs-Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob-is a central, recurring feature of the Pentateuch. From the beginning of the story of Abraham to the last moment of Moses's life, this promise forms the guiding theological statement for each narrative. Yet literary and historical inquiries ascribe the promise texts to a variety of sources, layers, and redactions, raising questions about how the promise functioned in its original manifestations and how it can be used to understand the formation of the Pentateuch as a whole. Joel S. Baden reexamines the patriarchal promise in its historical and contemporaneous contexts, evaluating the benefits and drawbacks of both final-form and literary-historical approaches to the promise. He pays close attention to the methodologies employed in both documentary and non-documentary analyses and aims to bring source-critical analysis of the promise to bear on the understanding of the canonical text for contemporary readers. The Promise to the Patriarchs addresses the question of how the literary-historical perspective can illuminate and even deepen the theological meaning of the Pentateuch, particularly of the promise at the heart of this central biblical corpus.