A leading public intellectual’s timely reckoning with how Jews can and should make sense of their tradition and each other.

What does it mean to be a Jew? At a time of worldwide crisis, venerable answers to this question have become unsettled. In To Be a Jew Today, the legal scholar and columnist Noah Feldman draws on a lifelong engagement with his religion to offer a wide-ranging interpretation of Judaism in its current varieties. How do Jews today understand their relationship to God, to Israel, and to each other―and live their lives accordingly?

Writing sympathetically but incisively about diverse outlooks, Feldman clarifies what’s at stake in the choice of how to be a Jew, and discusses the shared “theology of struggle” that Jews engage in as they wrestle with who God is, what God wants, or whether God exists. He shows how the founding of Israel has transformed Judaism itself over the last century―and explores the ongoing consequences of that transformation for all Jews, who find the meaning of their Jewishness and their views about Israel intertwined, no matter what those views are. And he examines the analogies between being Jewish and belonging to a large, messy family―a family that often makes its members crazy, but a family all the same. Written with learning, empathy and clarity, To Be a Jew Today is a critical resource for readers of all faiths.

This book examines the challenges in developmental assessment of infants and toddlers and provides best practices for implementing standardized assessments in early intervention settings. It starts with an overview of standardized assessment practices and discusses how specific tools can be used in early intervention for different purposes (e.g., eligibility for services). The book explains the importance of the Fidelity of Implementation of Assessment (FOI-A) approach in creating standardized assessment for infants and toddlers. Chapters provide a checklist-based framework for FOI-A, with details on technological supports for test administration and data collection as well as training and supervision models. In addition, chapters discuss ways of engaging families, gaining their trust, and including them in their children's educational planning. Topics featured in this book include: The Battelle Development Inventory, 2nd Edition (BDI-2) and its use in the assessment of young children. Using checklists to improve fidelity of implementation for standardized assessments. Using checklists to support early intervention directors and teams. How to provide feedback to early interventionists and other professionals on FOI-A. Recommendations to improve FOI-A. Fidelity of Implementation in Assessment of Infants and Toddlers is a must-have resource for researchers, clinicians and related professionals, and graduate students in varied fields including child and school psychology, pediatrics, social work, behavioral therapy, infant and early childhood development, and early education and care.

A brilliant and urgent appraisal of one of the most profound conflicts of our time
Even before George W. Bush gained reelection by wooing religiously devout "values voters," it was clear that church-state matters in the United States had reached a crisis. With" Divided by God," Noah Feldman shows that the crisis is as old as this country--and looks to our nation's past to show how it might be resolved.
Today more than ever, ours is a religiously diverse society: Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist as well as Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish. And yet more than ever, committed Christians are making themselves felt in politics and culture.
What are the implications of this paradox? To answer this question, Feldman makes clear that again and again in our nation's history diversity has forced us to redraw the lines in the church-state divide. In vivid, dramatic chapters, he describes how we as a people have resolved conflicts over the Bible, the Pledge of Allegiance, and the teaching of evolution through appeals to shared values of liberty, equality, and freedom of conscience. And he proposes a brilliant solution to our current crisis, one that honors our religious diversity while respecting the long-held conviction that religion and state should not mix.
"Divided by God" speaks to the headlines, even as it tells the story of a long-running conflict that has made the American people who we are.

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice Why the conventional wisdom about the Arab Spring is wrong The Arab Spring promised to end dictatorship and bring self-government to people across the Middle East. Yet everywhere except Tunisia it led to either renewed dictatorship, civil war, extremist terror, or all three. In The Arab Winter, Noah Feldman argues that the Arab Spring was nevertheless not an unmitigated failure, much less an inevitable one. Rather, it was a noble, tragic series of events in which, for the first time in recent Middle Eastern history, Arabic-speaking peoples took free, collective political action as they sought to achieve self-determination. Focusing on the Egyptian revolution and counterrevolution, the Syrian civil war, the rise and fall of ISIS in Syria and Iraq, and the Tunisian struggle toward Islamic constitutionalism, Feldman provides an original account of the political consequences of the Arab Spring, including the reaffirmation of pan-Arab identity, the devastation of Arab nationalisms, and the death of political Islam with the collapse of ISIS. He also challenges commentators who say that the Arab Spring was never truly transformative, that Arab popular self-determination was a mirage, and even that Arabs or Muslims are less capable of democracy than other peoples. Above all, The Arab Winter shows that we must not let the tragic outcome of the Arab Spring disguise its inherent human worth. People whose political lives had been determined from the outside tried, and for a time succeeded, in making politics for themselves. That this did not result in constitutional democracy or a better life for most of those affected doesn't mean the effort didn't matter. To the contrary, it matters for history-and it matters for the future.

A tiny, ebullient Jew who started as America's leading liberal and ended as its most famous judicial conservative. A Klansman who became an absolutist advocate of free speech and civil rights. A backcountry lawyer who started off trying cases about cows and went on to conduct the most important international trial ever. A self-invented, tall-tale Westerner who narrowly missed the presidency but expanded individual freedom beyond what anyone before had dreamed.
Four more different men could hardly be imagined. Yet they had certain things in common. Each was a self-made man who came from humble beginnings on the edge of poverty. Each had driving ambition and a will to succeed. Each was, in his own way, a genius.
They began as close allies and friends of FDR, but the quest to shape a new Constitution led them to competition and sometimes outright warfare. SCORPIONS tells the story of these four great justices: their relationship with Roosevelt, with each other, and with the turbulent world of the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War. It also serves as a history of the modern Constitution itself.

This book examines the challenges in developmental assessment of infants and toddlers and provides best practices for implementing standardized assessments in early intervention settings. It starts with an overview of standardized assessment practices and discusses how specific tools can be used in early intervention for different purposes (e.g., eligibility for services). The book explains the importance of the Fidelity of Implementation of Assessment (FOI-A) approach in creating standardized assessment for infants and toddlers. Chapters provide a checklist-based framework for FOI-A, with details on technological supports for test administration and data collection as well as training and supervision models. In addition, chapters discuss ways of engaging families, gaining their trust, and including them in their children's educational planning. Topics featured in this book include: The Battelle Development Inventory, 2nd Edition (BDI-2) and its use in the assessment of young children. Using checklists to improve fidelity of implementation for standardized assessments. Using checklists to support early intervention directors and teams. How to provide feedback to early interventionists and other professionals on FOI-A. Recommendations to improve FOI-A. Fidelity of Implementation in Assessment of Infants and Toddlers is a must-have resource for researchers, clinicians and related professionals, and graduate students in varied fields including child and school psychology, pediatrics, social work, behavioral therapy, infant and early childhood development, and early education and care.

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice Why the conventional wisdom about the Arab Spring is wrong The Arab Spring promised to end dictatorship and bring self-government to people across the Middle East. Yet everywhere except Tunisia it led to either renewed dictatorship, civil war, extremist terror, or all three. In The Arab Winter, Noah Feldman argues that the Arab Spring was nevertheless not an unmitigated failure, much less an inevitable one. Rather, it was a noble, tragic series of events in which, for the first time in recent Middle Eastern history, Arabic-speaking peoples took free, collective political action as they sought to achieve self-determination. Focusing on the Egyptian revolution and counterrevolution, the Syrian civil war, the rise and fall of ISIS in Syria and Iraq, and the Tunisian struggle toward Islamic constitutionalism, Feldman provides an original account of the political consequences of the Arab Spring, including the reaffirmation of pan-Arab identity, the devastation of Arab nationalisms, and the death of political Islam with the collapse of ISIS. He also challenges commentators who say that the Arab Spring was never truly transformative, that Arab popular self-determination was a mirage, and even that Arabs or Muslims are less capable of democracy than other peoples. Above all, The Arab Winter shows that we must not let the tragic outcome of the Arab Spring disguise its inherent human worth. People whose political lives had been determined from the outside tried, and for a time succeeded, in making politics for themselves. That this did not result in constitutional democracy or a better life for most of those affected doesn't mean the effort didn't matter. To the contrary, it matters for history-and it matters for the future.

A leading public intellectual’s timely reckoning with how Jews can and should make sense of their tradition and each other.

What does it mean to be a Jew? At a time of worldwide crisis, venerable answers to this question have become unsettled. In To Be a Jew Today, the legal scholar and columnist Noah Feldman draws on a lifelong engagement with his religion to offer a wide-ranging interpretation of Judaism in its current varieties. How do Jews today understand their relationship to God, to Israel, and to each other—and live their lives accordingly?

Writing sympathetically but incisively about diverse outlooks, Feldman clarifies what’s at stake in the choice of how to be a Jew, and discusses the shared “theology of struggle” that Jews engage in as they wrestle with who God is, what God wants, or whether God exists. He shows how the founding of Israel has transformed Judaism itself over the last century—and explores the ongoing consequences of that transformation for all Jews, who find the meaning of their Jewishness and their views about Israel intertwined, no matter what those views are. And he examines the analogies between being Jewish and belonging to a large, messy family—a family that often makes its members crazy, but a family all the same.

Written with learning, empathy and clarity, To Be a Jew Today is a critical resource for readers of all faiths.

"Noah Feldman is a rapidly rising star in the American intellectual firmament. This elegant set of essays showcases his keen intelligence and sweeping erudition. It illuminates America's mission in Iraq, and much more."--Fareed Zakaria, Editor, "Newsweek International," author of "The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad,"

"If you are wrestling with the question of why the United States is in Iraq, committed to the reconstruction of that troubled nation, there is no better place to start than with Noah Feldman's timely and thought-provoking new book. Deftly weaving his own experiences in the rebuilding of Iraq, political philosophy, constitutional law, and a broad perspective on American interests in the world, Feldman elevates the debate on this issue above the platitudes of the politicians."--Kenneth M. Pollack, Director of Research, Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution

"Intervening in another country and rebuilding its institutions after tyranny amounts to a moral promise. Noah Feldman's fine book is a lucid, passionate, and closely reasoned examination of what it means to try to keep that promise. There are plenty of books around that treat nation building as a technical or military exercise. This is the book that thinks through nation building as a moral challenge and an exercise in promise keeping."--Michael Ignatieff, Director, Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Harvard University, author of "The Lesser Evil"

"A coherent, tightly argued, penetrating, timely, and provocative book. Noah Feldman provides both a clear-sighted discussion of constitutional aspects of nation building and a fascinating account of postwarIraq."--G. John Ikenberry, Albert G. Milbank Professor of Politics and International Affairs, Princeton University, author of "The Nation State in Question"

A brave and timely examination of America's great dilemma in the Muslim world
Published just as the United States went to war in Iraq, "After Jihad "put Noah Feldman "into the center of an unruly brawl now raging in policy circles over what to do with the Arab world" ("The New York Times Book Review").
A year later, the questions Feldman raises-and answers-are at the center of every serious discussion about America's role in the world. How can Islam and democracy be reconciled? How can the United States sponsor emerging Islamic democrats without appeasing radicals and terrorists? Can we responsibly remain allies with stable but repressive Arab regimes, chaotic emerging democracies, and Israel as well?
"After Jihad" made Feldman, in a stroke, the leading Western authority on emerging Islamic democracy--and the most prominent adviser to the Iraqis drafting a constitution for their newly freed nation. This paperback edition--which includes a new preface taking account of recent events--is the best single book on the nature of Islam today and on the forms Islam is likely to take in the coming years.

Perhaps no other Western writer has more deeply probed the bitter struggle in the Muslim world between the forces of religion and law and those of violence and lawlessness as Noah Feldman. His scholarship has defined the stakes in the Middle East today. Now, in this incisive book, Feldman tells the story behind the increasingly popular call for the establishment of the shari'a--the law of the traditional Islamic state--in the modern Muslim world.

Western powers call it a threat to democracy. Islamist movements are winning elections on it. Terrorists use it to justify their crimes. What, then, is the shari'a? Given the severity of some of its provisions, why is it popular among Muslims? Can the Islamic state succeed--should it? Feldman reveals how the classical Islamic constitution governed through and was legitimated by law. He shows how executive power was balanced by the scholars who interpreted and administered the shari'a, and how this balance of power was finally destroyed by the tragically incomplete reforms of the modern era. The result has been the unchecked executive dominance that now distorts politics in so many Muslim states. Feldman argues that a modern Islamic state could provide political and legal justice to today's Muslims, but only if new institutions emerge that restore this constitutional balance of power.

"The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State" gives us the sweeping history of the traditional Islamic constitution--its noble beginnings, its downfall, and the renewed promise it could hold for Muslims and Westerners alike. In a new introduction, Feldman discusses developments in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, and other Muslim-majority countries since the Arab Spring and describes how Islamists must meet the challenge of balance if the new Islamic states are to succeed.