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Ze'ev Jawitz (1847-1924) was one of the foremost intellectuals of
the First Aliyah and a leader of the religious faction within the
Hibbat Zion movement. During his life he experienced the transition
from living in the Diaspora to settling in the homeland, and he
faced complex problems along with rare opportunities. Jawitz sought
to adapt Orthodox Judaism to the changing reality in the Land of
Israel by blending it with the nascent Jewish nationalism. He
engaged in most facets of the Hebrew culture of his time, including
history, literature, philosophy, biblical exegesis, linguistics,
opinion writing, and even politics. He did all this out of an
understanding that a people returning to its land needs a broad
culture and cannot remain confined to the limits of halakha (Jewish
law). This biography is based on rich archival material, most of
which has never before been published. It moves along two axes:
historically, it follows Jawitz's life through the places where he
lived - Warsaw, Yehud, Zikhron Yaakov, Jerusalem, Vilna, Berlin,
Antwerp and London; and intellectually, it analyzes Jawitz's
literary and philosophical work against the backdrop of his time.
Halakha and the Challenge of Israeli Sovereignty examines the
issues surrounding national, political, and religious sovereignty
from the vantage point of halakha and its evolution. The work
analyzes the efforts of the interpretative communities who adhered
to halakha-the rabbinical authorities-as well as other groups who
endeavored to help or to change it: the Jewish jurists in Eretz
Israel who sought to integrate sections of halakha into the Jewish
collective; and the religious academics who wanted more meaningful
recognition of halakha in non-halakhic values. The assessment
extends from the beginning of the Jewish national movement in the
last two decades of the 19th century to the first two decades of
the State of Israel, when weighty problems arose that required a
halakhic response to the challenge of sovereignty. In this, the
volume sheds light on the pliable nature of the concept of halakha,
particularly in conjunction with its application to the notion of
sovereignty.
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