Sephardi Religious Responses to Modernity

Sephardi Religious Responses to Modernity

Author: Norman A. Stillman

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-11-05

Total Pages: 115

ISBN-13: 113436542X

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First Published in 1995. Throughout the nineteenth century the entire structure of the Ashkenazi world crumbled. What remains of Ashkenazi Jewry today is split into irreconcilable religious camps on the one hand, and a large body of secularized Jews of greater or lesser ethnicity on the other. The Sephardi and Oriental Jews, who form the other great branch of world Jewry, had a very different encounter with the forces of modernity. This book examines some of their responses to its challenges. The Sephardi religious leaders, who had been historically more open to general culture, reacted with neither the anti-traditionalism of Reform Judaism nor the Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox 's uncompromising rejection of everything new. Their response was rather one of active and creative halakhic engagement coupled with a tolerant attitude toward the growing secularized elements of their communities. Much has been written on the social, economic, and political transformation of Sephardi and Oriental Jewry in the modem era. However, this is the first book in English devoted to the religious changes taking place in this important segment of Jewry which now constitutes the majority of Jews in the Jewish state.


The Jewish Contribution to Civilization

The Jewish Contribution to Civilization

Author: Jeremy Cohen

Publisher: Liverpool University Press

Published: 2007-12-27

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 1800345402

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This book investigates the idea of a distinct ‘Jewish contribution to civilization’ as it has been understood from the seventeenth century to the present. Offering a broad spectrum of academic opinion, it explores the role that the concept has played in Jewish self-definition and how it has influenced the history of the Jews and of others. It also considers the centrality of the concept in modern Jewish culture and for modern Jewish studies.


Response to Modernity

Response to Modernity

Author: Michael A. Meyer

Publisher: Wayne State University Press

Published: 1995-04-01

Total Pages: 518

ISBN-13: 0814337554

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Comprehensive and balanced history of the Reform Movement. The movement for religious reform in modern Judaism represents one of the most significant phenomena in Jewish history during the last two hundred years. It introduced new theological conceptions and innovations in liturgy and religious practice that affected millions of Jews, first in central and Western Europe and later in the United States. Today Reform Judaism is one of the three major branches of Jewish faith. Bringing to life the ideas, issues, and personalities that have helped to shape modern Jewry, Response to Modernity offers a comprehensive and balanced history of the Reform Movement, tracing its changing configuration and self-understanding from the beginnings of modernization in late 18th century Jewish thought and practice through Reform's American renewal in the 1970s.


From Catalonia to the Caribbean: The Sephardic Orbit from Medieval to Modern Times

From Catalonia to the Caribbean: The Sephardic Orbit from Medieval to Modern Times

Author: Federica Francesconi

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2018-08-20

Total Pages: 377

ISBN-13: 9004376712

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From Catalonia to the Caribbean: The Sephardic Orbit from Medieval to Modern Times is a polyphonic collection of essays in honor of Jane S. Gerber’s contributions as a leading scholar and teacher. Each chapter presents new or underappreciated source materials or questions familiar historical models to expand our understanding of Sephardic cultural, intellectual, and social history. The subjects of this volume are men and women, rich and poor, connected to various Sephardic Diasporas—Spanish, Portuguese, North African, or Middle Eastern—from medieval to modern times. They each, in their own way, challenged the expectations of their societies and helped to define the religious, ethnic, and intellectual experience of Sephardim as well as surrounding cultures throughout the world.


Rabbinic Creativity in the Modern Middle East

Rabbinic Creativity in the Modern Middle East

Author: Zvi Zohar

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2013-06-20

Total Pages: 410

ISBN-13: 1472507398

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Rabbinic Creativity in the Modern Middle East provides a window for readers of English around the world into hitherto almost inaccessible halakhic and ideational writings expressing major aspects of the cultural intellectual creativity of Sephardic-Oriental rabbis in modern times. The text has three sections: Iraq, Syria, and Egypt, and each section discusses a range of original sources that reflect and represent the creativity of major rabbinic figures in these countries. The contents of the writings of these Sephardic rabbis challenge many commonly held views regarding Judaism's responses to modern challenges. By bringing an additional, non-Western voice into the intellectual arena, this book enriches the field of contemporary discussions regarding the present and future of Judaism. In addition, it focuses attention on the fact that not only was Judaism a Middle Eastern phenomenon for most of its existence but that also in recent centuries important and interesting aspects of Judaism developed in the Middle East. Both Jews and non-Jews will be enriched and challenged by this non-Eurocentric view of modern Judaic creativity.


Ladino Rabbinic Literature and Ottoman Sephardic Culture

Ladino Rabbinic Literature and Ottoman Sephardic Culture

Author: Matthias B. Lehmann

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2005-11-03

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 9780253111623

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In this pathbreaking book, Matthias B. Lehmann explores Ottoman Sephardic culture in an era of change through a close study of popularized rabbinic texts written in Ladino, the vernacular language of the Ottoman Jews. This vernacular literature, standing at the crossroads of rabbinic elite and popular cultures and of Hebrew and Ladino discourses, sheds valuable light on the modernization of Sephardic Jewry in the Eastern Mediterranean in the 19th century. By helping to form a Ladino reading public and imparting shape to its values, the authors of this literature negotiated between perpetuating rabbinic tradition and addressing the challenges of modernity. The book offers close readings of works that examine issues such as social inequality, exile and diaspora, gender, secularization, and the clash between scientific and rabbinic knowledge. Ladino Rabbinic Literature and Ottoman Sephardic Culture will be welcomed by scholars of Sephardic as well as European Jewish history, culture, and religion.


Diasporas and Exiles

Diasporas and Exiles

Author: Howard Wettstein

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2002-10-07

Total Pages: 302

ISBN-13: 0520926897

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Diaspora, considered as a context for insights into Jewish identity, brings together a lively, interdisciplinary group of scholars in this innovative volume. Readers needn't expect, however, to find easy agreement on what those insights are. The concept "diaspora" itself has proved controversial; galut, the traditional Hebrew expression for the Jews' perennial condition, is better translated as "exile." The very distinction between diaspora and exile, although difficult to analyze, is important enough to form the basis of several essays in this fine collection. "Identity" is an even more elusive concept. The contributors to Diasporas and Exiles explore Jewish identity—or, more accurately, Jewish identities—from the mutually illuminating perspectives of anthropology, art history, comparative literature, cultural studies, German history, philosophy, political theory, and sociology. These contributors bring exciting new emphases to Jewish and cultural studies, as well as the emerging field of diaspora studies. Diasporas and Exiles mirrors the richness of experience and the attendant virtual impossibility of definition that constitute the challenge of understanding Jewish identity.


Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewry

Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewry

Author: Zion Zohar

Publisher: NYU Press

Published: 2005-06

Total Pages: 351

ISBN-13: 0814797059

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Sephardic Jews have contributed some of the most important Jewish philosophers, poets, biblical commentators, Talmudic and Halachic scholars, and scientists, and have had a significant impact on the development of Jewish mysticism. Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewry brings together original work from the world's leading scholars to present a deep introductory overview of their history and culture over the past 1500 years.