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Showing 1 - 7 of
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Why Hebrew, here and now? What is its value for contemporary
Americans? In What We Talk about When We Talk about Hebrew (and
What It Means to Americans) scholars, writers, and translators
tackle a series of urgent questions that arise from the changing
status of Hebrew in the United States. To what extent is that
status affected by evolving Jewish identities and shifting
attitudes toward Israel and Zionism? Will Hebrew programs survive
the current crisis in the humanities on university campuses? How
can the vibrancy of Hebrew literature be conveyed to a larger
audience? The volume features a diverse group of distinguished
contributors, including Sarah Bunin Benor, Dara Horn, Adriana
Jacobs, Alan Mintz, Hannah Pressman, Adam Rovner, Ilan Stavans,
Michael Weingrad, Robert Whitehill-Bashan, and Wendy Zierler. With
lively personal insights, their essays give fellow Americans a
glimpse into the richness of an exceptional language. Celebrating
the vitality of modern Hebrew, this book addresses the challenges
and joys of being a Hebraist in America in the twenty-first
century. Together these essays explore ways to rekindle an interest
in Hebrew studies, focusing not just on what Hebrew means-as a
global phenomenon and long-lived tradition-but on what it can mean
to Americans.
The subject of Jewish identity is one of the most vexed and
contested issues of modern religious and ethnic group history. This
interdisciplinary collection draws on work in law, anthropology,
history, sociology, literature, and popular culture to consider
contemporary and historical responses to the question "Who and what
is Jewish?" These essays are focused especially on the issues of
who creates the definitions, and how, and in what social and
political contexts. The ten leading authorities writing here also
look at the forces, ranging from new genetic and reproductive
technologies to increasingly multicultural societies, that push
against established boundaries. The authors examine how Jews have
imagined themselves and how definitions of Jewishness have been
established, enforced, challenged, and transformed. Does being a
Jew require religious belief, practice, and formal institutional
affiliation? Is there a biological or physical aspect of Jewish
identity? What is the status of the convert to another religion?
How do definitions play out in different geographic and historical
settings? What makes Boundaries of Jewish Identity distinctive is
its attention to the various Jewish "epistemologies" or ways of
knowing who counts as a Jew. These essays reveal that possible
answers reflect the different social, intellectual, and political
locations of those who are asking. This book speaks to readers
concerned with Jewish life and culture and to audiences interested
in religious, cultural, and ethnic studies. It provides an
excellent opportunity to examine how Jews fit into an increasingly
diverse America and an increasingly complicated global society.
Why Hebrew, here and now? What is its value for contemporary
Americans? In What We Talk about When We Talk about Hebrew (and
What It Means to Americans) scholars, writers, and translators
tackle a series of urgent questions that arise from the changing
status of Hebrew in the United States. To what extent is that
status affected by evolving Jewish identities and shifting
attitudes toward Israel and Zionism? Will Hebrew programs survive
the current crisis in the humanities on university campuses? How
can the vibrancy of Hebrew literature be conveyed to a larger
audience? The volume features a diverse group of distinguished
contributors, including Sarah Bunin Benor, Dara Horn, Adriana
Jacobs, Alan Mintz, Hannah Pressman, Adam Rovner, Ilan Stavans,
Michael Weingrad, Robert Whitehill-Bashan, and Wendy Zierler. With
lively personal insights, their essays give fellow Americans a
glimpse into the richness of an exceptional language. Celebrating
the vitality of modern Hebrew, this book addresses the challenges
and joys of being a Hebraist in America in the twenty-first
century. Together these essays explore ways to rekindle an interest
in Hebrew studies, focusing not just on what Hebrew means-as a
global phenomenon and long-lived tradition-but on what it can mean
to Americans.
The subject of Jewish identity is one of the most vexed and
contested issues of modern religious and ethnic group history. This
interdisciplinary collection draws on work in law, anthropology,
history, sociology, literature, and popular culture to consider
contemporary and historical responses to the question "Who and what
is Jewish?" These essays are focused especially on the issues of
who creates the definitions, and how, and in what social and
political contexts. The ten leading authorities writing here also
look at the forces, ranging from new genetic and reproductive
technologies to increasingly multicultural societies, that push
against established boundaries. The authors examine how Jews have
imagined themselves and how definitions of Jewishness have been
established, enforced, challenged, and transformed. Does being a
Jew require religious belief, practice, and formal institutional
affiliation? Is there a biological or physical aspect of Jewish
identity? What is the status of the convert to another religion?
How do definitions play out in different geographic and historical
settings? What makes Boundaries of Jewish Identity distinctive is
its attention to the various Jewish "epistemologies" or ways of
knowing who counts as a Jew. These essays reveal that possible
answers reflect the different social, intellectual, and political
locations of those who are asking. This book speaks to readers
concerned with Jewish life and culture and to audiences interested
in religious, cultural, and ethnic studies. It provides an
excellent opportunity to examine how Jews fit into an increasingly
diverse America and an increasingly complicated global society.
In recent years, gender studies and feminist thinking have had a
growing influence on the study of world literature. But only noe,
in this volume, is a range of studies devoted to the field of
modern Hebrew and Yiddish literature. Here international scholars
bring a diversity of approaches, perspectives, and themes to the
works of women writers and to the representations of women in
writing by men. Among the many writers discussed in the book are
Esther Raab, Yocheved Bat Miriam, Celia Dropkin, Hayyim Nahman
Bialik, A.B. Yehoshua, and Ahron Appelfeld. In addition, three
women novelists write about thier own craft. Annotated
bibliographies provide strong guidance for future research into
gender issues.
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