The Study of Judaism
The Study of Judaism

Author: Aaron W. Hughes

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2013-09-04

Total Pages: 174

ISBN-13: 1438448635

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The relationship between Jewish studies and religious studies is a long and complicated one, full of tensions and possibilities. Whereas the majority of scholars working within Jewish studies contend that the discipline is in a very healthy state, many who work in theory and method in religious studies disagree. For them, Jewish studies represents all that is wrong with the modern academic study of religion: too introspective, too ethnic, too navel-gazing, and too willing to reify or essentialize data that it constructs in its own image. In this book, Aaron W. Hughes explores the unique situation of Jewish studies and how it intersects with religious studies, noting particular areas of concern for those interested in the field's intellectual health and future flourishing. Hughes provides a detailed study of origins, principles, and assumptions, documenting the rise of Jewish studies in Germany and its migration to Israel and the United States. Current issues facing the academic study of Judaism are discussed, including the role of private foundations that seek inroads into the academy.

A Life in Letters, 1914-1982
A Life in Letters, 1914-1982

Author: Gershom Scholem

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 572

ISBN-13: 9780674006423

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Inscribing a life that epitomized the intellectual ferment and political drama of an era, this selection of letters gives readers an intimate view of one of the leading lights of Israel during its founding and formative years. 6 halftones.

The Father of Jewish Mysticism
The Father of Jewish Mysticism

Author: Daniel Weidner

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2022-10-04

Total Pages: 274

ISBN-13: 0253062101

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The Father of Jewish Mysticism offers an incisive look at the early life and writings of Gershom Scholem (1897–1982), the father of modern Jewish mysticism and a major 20th-century Jewish intellectual. Daniel Weidner offers the first full-length study, published in English, of Scholem's thought. Scholem, a historian ofthe Kabbalah and sharp critic of Jewish assimilation, played a major role in the study and popularization of Jewish mysticism. Through his work on the Kabbalah, Scholem turned the closed world of mystical texts into a force for Jewish identity. Skillfully drawing on Scholem's early diaries and writings, The Father of Jewish Mysticism introduces a young, soon-to-be legendary intellectual in search of himself and Judaism.

Political Theologies in the Holy Land
Political Theologies in the Holy Land

Author: David Ohana

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2009-10-16

Total Pages: 418

ISBN-13: 1135211345

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This book examines the role of messianism in Zionist ideology, from the birth of the Zionist movement through to the present. Is shows how messianism is not just a religious or philosophical term but a very tangible political practice and theology which has shaped Israeli identity. The author explores key issues such as: the current presence of messianism in the Israeli public sphere and the debates with jewish settlers in the occupied territories after the 1967 war the difference between transcendental messianism and promethean messianism the disparity between the political ideology and political practice in the history of Israel the evolution of the messianic idea in the actions of David Ben-Gurion the debate between Martin Buber, Gershom Scholem, Isaiah Leibowitz, J. L. Talmon and other intellectual figures with Ben-Gurion the implications of political theology and the presence of messianic ideas in Israeli politics As the first book to examine the messianism in Israeli debate since the creation of the Israeli state, it will be particularly relevant for students and scholars of Political Science, modern intellectual history, Israel studies, Judaism and messianism.

The Scholems
The Scholems

Author: Jay Howard Geller

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2019-03-15

Total Pages: 464

ISBN-13: 1501731580

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The evocative and riveting stories of four brothers—Gershom the Zionist, Werner the Communist, Reinhold the nationalist, and Erich the liberal—weave together in The Scholems, a biography of an eminent middle-class Jewish Berlin family and a social history of the Jews in Germany in the decades leading up to World War II. Across four generations, Jay Howard Geller illuminates the transformation of traditional Jews into modern German citizens, the challenges they faced, and the ways that they shaped the German-Jewish century, beginning with Prussia's emancipation of the Jews in 1812 and ending with exclusion and disenfranchisement under the Nazis. Focusing on the renowned philosopher and Kabbalah scholar Gershom Scholem and his family, their story beautifully draws out the rise and fall of bourgeois life in the unique subculture that was Jewish Berlin. Geller portrays the family within a much larger context of economic advancement, the adoption of German culture and debates on Jewish identity, struggles for integration into society, and varying political choices during the German Empire, World War I, the Weimar Republic, and the Nazi era. What Geller discovers, and unveils for the reader, is a fascinating portal through which to view the experience of the Jewish middle class in Germany.

The Wiley-Blackwell History of Jews and Judaism
The Wiley-Blackwell History of Jews and Judaism

Author: Alan T. Levenson

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2012-05-21

Total Pages: 709

ISBN-13: 1405196378

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In The Wiley-Blackwell History of Jews and Judaism, a team of internationally-renowned scholars offer a comprehensive and authoritative overview of Jewish life and culture, from the biblical period to contemporary times. Provides a comprehensive and authoritative overview of the main periods and themes of Jewish history, from Biblical Israel, through medieval and early modern periods, to Judaism since the Holocaust, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and Judaism today Brings together an international team of established and emerging scholars across a range of disciplines Discusses how to present Judaism - to both non-Jews and Jews - as a religious system on its own terms and with its own unique vocabulary Explores the latest scholarship on a range of issues, including folk practices, politics, economic structure, the relationship of Judaism to Christianity, and the nature of Zionism diaspora and its implications for contemporary Israel Considers Jewish historiography and the lives of ordinary people, the achievements of Jewish women, and the sustained interaction of Jews within the environments they inhabited Edited by a leading scholar in Jewish studies and history

Against the Grain
Against the Grain

Author: Ezra Mendelsohn

Publisher: Berghahn Books

Published: 2013-10-01

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 1782380035

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Highlighting the seminal role of German Jewish intellectuals and ideologues in forming and transforming the modern Jewish world, this volume analyzes the political roads taken by German Jewish thinkers; the impact of the Holocaust on the Central and East European Jewish intelligentsia; and the conundrum of modern Jewish identity. Several of German Jewry’s most outstanding figures such as Scholem, Strauss, and Kohn are discussed. Inspired by Steven E. Aschheim’s work, several contributors focus on the fraught relationship between German and East European Jews (the so-called Ostjuden) and between German Jews and their non-Jewish neighbors. More generally, this book examines how Central European Jewish thinkers reacted to the terrible crises of the twentieth century—to war, genocide, and the existential threat to the very existence of the Jewish people. It is essential reading for those interested in the triumphs and tragedies of modern European Jewry.

Renaissance and Rebirth
Renaissance and Rebirth

Author: Brian Ogren

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 333

ISBN-13: 9004177647

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Metempsychosis was a prominent element in Renaissance conceptualizations of the human being, the universe, and the place of the human person in the universe. A variety of concepts emerged in debates about metempsychosis: human to human reincarnation, human to vegetal, human to animal, and human to angelic transmigration. As a complex and changing doctrine, metempsychosis gives us a well-placed window for viewing the complex and dynamic contours of Jewish thought in late fifteenth century Italy; as such, it enables us to evaluate Jewish thought in relation to non-Jewish Italian developments. This book addresses the problematic question of the roles and achievements of Jews who lived in Italy in the development of Renaissance culture in its Jewish and its Christian dimensions.

How to Measure a World?
How to Measure a World?

Author: Martin Shuster

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2021-04-06

Total Pages: 162

ISBN-13: 0253054575

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What does it mean to wonder in awe or terror about the world? How do you philosophically understand Judaism? In How to Measure a World?: A Philosophy of Judaism, Martin Shuster provides answers to these questions and more. Emmanuel Levinas suggested that Judaism is best understood as an anachronism. Shuster attempts to make sense of this claim by alternatively considering questions of the inscrutability of ultimate reality, of the pain and commonness of human suffering, and of the ways in which Judaism is entangled with the world. Drawing on phenomenology and Jewish thought, Shuster offers novel readings of some of the classic figures of Jewish philosophy while inserting other voices into the tradition, from Moses Maimonides to Theodor W. Adorno to Walter Benjamin to Stanley Cavell. How to Measure a World? examines elements of the Jewish philosophical record to get at the full intellectual scope and range of Levinas's proposal. Shuster's view of anachronism thereby provokes an assessment of the world and our place in it. A particular understanding of Jewish philosophy emerges, not only through the traditions it encompasses, but also through an understanding of the relationship between humans and their world. In the end, Levinas's suggestion is examined theoretically as much as practically, revealing what's at stake for Judaism as much as for the world.

Jewish Studies Between the Disciplines / Judaistik zwischen den Disziplinen
Jewish Studies Between the Disciplines / Judaistik zwischen den Disziplinen

Author: Klaus Herrmann

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2003-06-01

Total Pages: 526

ISBN-13: 9047402758

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Peter Schäfer who celebrated his 60th birthday on 29 June 2003 has left a decidedly firm imprint on the young discipline "Jewish Studies" in Germany, which could only be set up at a German university after the Shoah. For someone directing a “small” academic institution he has managed during his academic career to guide and influence a strikingly large number of students in their scholarly pursuits in the field. The collected essays of this volume encompass quite a variety of topics, whereby the focal points in Peter Schäfer’s own research are not difficult to recognize in the themes chosen by his former students: mysticism and magic are most conspicuous, followed by Rabbinic Judaism and the studies on the Middle Ages and the Early Modern and Modern Periods. Of note is also the fact that the methodological approaches of these contributions are no less manifold than their themes. Part of the contributions of this book were submitted in English, and all the German-language texts have an English summary or abstract.