Can the teachings of Judaism provide a sacred framework for repairing the world?

In this groundbreaking volume, leading rabbis, intellectuals, and activists explore the relationship between Judaism and social justice, drawing on ancient and modern sources of wisdom. The contributors argue that American Jewry must move beyond mitzvah days and other occasional service programs, and dedicate itself to systemic change in the United States, Israel, and throughout the world. These provocative essays concentrate on specific justice issues such as eradicating war, global warming, health care, gay rights and domestic violence, offering practical ways to transform theory into practice, and ideas into advocacy.

Rich and passionate, these expressions will inspire you to consider your obligations as a Jew, as an American and as a global citizen, while challenging you to take thoughtful and effective action in the world.

Contributors:

Martha Ackelsberg, PhD Rabbi Rebecca Alpert, PhD Diane Balser, PhD Jeremy Benstein, PhD Rabbi Phyllis Berman Ellen Bernstein Marla Brettschneider, PhD Rabbi Sharon Brous Aryeh Cohen, PhD Stephen P. Cohen, PhD Rabbi Elliot N. Dorff, PhD Aaron Dorfman Jacob Feinspan Rabbi Marla Feldman Sandra M. Fox, LCSW Julia Greenberg Mark Hanis Rabbi Jill Jacobs Rabbi Jane Kanarek, PhD Rabbi Elliot Rose Kukla Joshua Seth Ladon Arieh Lebowitz Rabbi Michael Lerner, PhD Shaul Magid, PhD Rabbi Natan Margalit, PhD Ruth Messinger Jay Michaelson Rabbi Micha Odenheimer Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner Judith Plaskow, PhD Judith Rosenbaum, PhD April Rosenblum Adam Rubin, PhD Danya Ruttenberg Rabbi David Saperstein Joel Schalit Rabbi Sidney Schwarz, PhD Martin I. Seltman, MD Dara Silverman Daniel Sokatch Shana Starobin Naomi Tucker Abigail Uhrman Rabbi Arthur Waskow, PhD Rabbi Melissa Weintraub

Elephants are a keystone species and have been a part of the magic of the thickly forested land of South Africa for millennia. This book focuses on the history and work of Knysna Elephant Park, a leading South African elephant research facility that has been home to more than 40 elephants in 25 years. Unfortunately, all the mystique of the Knysna elephant has been reduced to a single elephant left alive. Exploring a wide range of topics, this book covers the impact of elephants' interactions with tourists, how they recover from trauma and even their relevance in human healthcare. Renowned elephant researchers explain the majesty of the elephant brain, which has the largest temporal lobe devoted to communication, language, spatial memory and cognition. To this effect, the book emphasizes the threat of poaching to these gentle giants, which has almost forced them to extinction. Perhaps if humans pay attention to how elephants symbolize our relationship with nature, we can learn important lessons about humanity itself.

Seymour, a shy young man working for a tyrannical florist, finds a vehicle for private and public success in the form of a maneating plant from outer space. The carniverous shrub helps him to become a celebrity, gets rid of his boss and clears the way for him to woo the girl of his dreams. However, its cannibalistic eating habits become insatiable and it's up to Seymour to cut it down to size. This comedy musical is based on the stage version of the cult movie, and features a memorable cameo performance from Steve Martin as a sadistic dentist.

This volume focuses on the great Roman love poet Propertius. Propertius' poetry reveals an ardent love affair between the poet and his girlfriend, whom he calls 'Cynthia', yet it also offers a snapshot of life in ancient Rome during the Augustan age (20s BC). While this was a period of growth and revival after the crippling civil wars of the previous century, it was also a time when Rome was adjusting to a new form of government under its first emperor. Oxford Readings in Propertius is the first volume on Propertius' poetry to bring together some of the best and most influential scholarship written during the last three decades and put them into dialogue with each other. The articles discuss the recent developments in Propertius scholarship, as well as major critical approaches that have emerged in classical studies in general, and look at issues of text, intertextuality, gender, and the social and political context of Propertius' work.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of mental health in rural America, with the goal of fostering urgently needed research and honest conversations about providing accessible, culturally competent mental health care to rural populations. Grounding the work is an explanation of the history and structure of rural mental health care, the culture of rural living among diverse groups, and the crucial "A's" and "S": accountability, accessibility, acceptability, affordability, and stigma. The book then examines poverty, disaster mental health, ethics in rural mental health, and school counseling. It ends with practical information and treatments for two of the most common problems, suicide and substance abuse, and a brief exploration of collaborative possibilities in rural mental health care.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of mental health in rural America, with the goal of fostering urgently needed research and honest conversations about providing accessible, culturally competent mental health care to rural populations. Grounding the work is an explanation of the history and structure of rural mental health care, the culture of rural living among diverse groups, and the crucial "A's" and "S": accountability, accessibility, acceptability, affordability, and stigma. The book then examines poverty, disaster mental health, ethics in rural mental health, and school counseling. It ends with practical information and treatments for two of the most common problems, suicide and substance abuse, and a brief exploration of collaborative possibilities in rural mental health care.

This volume focuses on the great Roman love poet Propertius. Propertius' poetry reveals an ardent love affair between the poet and his girlfriend, whom he calls 'Cynthia', yet it also offers a snapshot of life in ancient Rome during the Augustan age (20s BC). While this was a period of growth and revival after the crippling civil wars of the previous century, it was also a time when Rome was adjusting to a new form of government under its first emperor. Oxford Readings in Propertius is the first volume on Propertius' poetry to bring together some of the best and most influential scholarship written during the last three decades and put them into dialogue with each other. The articles discuss the recent developments in Propertius scholarship, as well as major critical approaches that have emerged in classical studies in general, and look at issues of text, intertextuality, gender, and the social and political context of Propertius' work.

One girl and one boy, become one woman and one man. When they become parents, it should create a bond that lasts forever. It does.

"A groundbreaking examination of power relations in Roman elegy"

In recent decades, scholars in the field of classics have paid increasing attention to gender and sexual politics in Latin elegiac poetry. In "The Erotics of Domination, " Ellen Greene re-examines long-held scholarly attitudes concerning the representation of male sexual desire and female subjection in the Latin love poetry of Catullus, Propertius, and Ovid. Analyzing first-person poetic personae that critics have often romanticized, Greene finds that whereas the Catullan lover appears to struggle against his own "feminization," the Roman elegiac poets--particularly Propertius and Ovid--proclaim a radically unconventional philosophy in their seemingly deliberate inversion of conventional sex roles. Through the servitude of the male lover to his mistress, the woman achieves, at least nominally, complete domination and control over him.

In recent decades, Latin love poetry has become a significant site for feminist and other literary critics studying conceptions of gender and sexuality in ancient Roman culture.

This new volume, the first to focus specifically on gender dynamics in Latin love poetry, moves beyond the polarized critical positions that argue that this poetry either confirms traditional gender roles or subverts them. Rather, the essays in the collection explore the ways in which Latin erotic texts can have both effects, shifting power back and forth between male and female. If there is one conclusion that emerges, it is that the dynamics of gender in Latin amatory poetry do not map in any single way onto the cultural and historical norms of Roman society. In fact, as several essays show, there is a dialectical relationship between this poetry and Roman cultural practices.

By complicating the views of gender dynamics in Latin love poetry, this exciting new scholarship will stimulate further debates in classical studies and literary criticism with its fresh perspectives.

Although Greek society was largely male-dominated, it gave rise to a strong tradition of female authorship. Women poets of ancient Greece and Rome have long fascinated readers, even though much of their poetry survives only in fragmentary form.This pathbreaking volume is the first collection of essays to examine virtually all surviving poetry by Greek and Roman women. It elevates the status of the poems by demonstrating their depth and artistry. Edited and with an introduction by Ellen Greene, the volume covers a broad time span, beginning with Sappho (ca. 630 b.c.e.) in archaic Greece and extending to Sulpicia (first century B.C.E.) in Augustan Rome. In their analyses, the contributors situate the female poets in an established male tradition, but they also reveal their distinctly ""feminine"" perspectives. Despite relying on literary convention, the female poets often defy cultural norms, speaking in their own voices and transcending their positions as objects of derision in male-authored texts. In their innovative reworkings of established forms, women poets of ancient Greece and Rome are not mere imitators but creators of a distinct and original body of work.

"Reading Sappho" considers Sappho's poetry as a powerful, influential voice in the Western cultural tradition. Essays are divided into four sections: "Language and Literary Context," "Homer and Oral Tradition," "Ritual and Social Context," and "Women's Erotics." Contributors focus on literary history, mythic traditions, cultural studies, performance studies, recent work in feminist theory, and more.
A legendary literary figure, Sappho has attracted readers, critics, and biographers ever since she composed poems on the island of Lesbos at the close of the seventh century B.C. Bringing together some of the best recent criticism on the subject, this volume, together with "Re-Reading Sappho," represents the first anthology of Sappho scholarship, drawing attention to Sappho's importance as a poet and reflecting the diversity of critical approaches in classical and literary scholarship during the last several decades.

"Re-Reading Sappho" reflects the recent fascination with Sappho's "afterlife." The essays examine the changing interpretations of scholars and writers who have read the fragmentary remains of Sappho's poetry. As the contributors explore the ways that each generation creates its own Sappho, the Sapphic tradition itself becomes an index to changing sensibilities and cultural norms about sexuality, gender roles, and notions of fema le authorship.
A legendary literary figure, Sappho has attracted readers, critics, and biographers ever since she composed poems on the island of Lesbos at the close of the seventh century B.C. Bringing together some of the best recent criticism on the subject, this volume, together with "Reading Sappho," represents the first anthology of Sappho scholarship, drawing attention to Sappho's importance as a poet and reflecting the diversity of critical approaches in classical and literary scholarship during the last several decades.

The world has long wished for more of Sappho's poetry, which exists mostly in tantalizing fragments. So the apparent recovery in 2004 of a virtually intact poem by Sappho, only the fourth to have survived almost complete, has generated unprecedented excitement and discussion among scholarly and lay audiences alike. This volume is the first collection of essays in English devoted to discussion of the newly recovered Sappho poem and two other incomplete texts on the same papyri. Containing eleven new essays by leading scholars, it addresses a wide range of textual and philological issues connected with the find. Using different approaches, the contributions demonstrate how the "New Sappho" can be appreciated as a complete, gracefully spare poetic statement regarding the painful inevitability of death and aging.

"Remember the Sweet Things isn't merely a love story. It is a manual for healthy living, told with searing honesty and profound tenderness, and poignancy that touches you on virtually every page."--Wayne Coffey, New York Times bestselling author of The Boys of Winter Ellen Greene's Remember the Sweet Things is a heartfelt, deeply affecting memoir of love, devotion, and a very special marriage, reminding us about what truly matters in life. Fans of Simple Abundance by Sarah Ban Breathnach will appreciate this warm and loving remembrance that author Susan Wiggs calls, "a beautiful meditation on love and life, and an affirmation of the power of gratitude....A true gift to the reader."