Jewish Men at the Crossroads
Jewish Men at the Crossroads

Author: Charles Simon

Publisher:

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 144

ISBN-13: 9781478707219

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"It's often said that, when lost or at a crossroads, men refuse to ask for directions. They would rather stubbornly wander around or go the wrong way than admitting they need help. Here is a phenomenal GPS for men seeking a way forward. The Federation of Jewish Men's Clubs has done it again - a terrific anthology of reflections on men's issues that will enhance your relationships with others, with the community, with Judaism, and with your self." - Dr. Ron Wolfson. Fingerhut Professor of Education, American Jewish University; and author, Relational Judaism: Using the Power of Relationships to Transform the Jewish Community (Jewish Lights Publishing). "This volume boldly asks the questions in public that the community is privately wondering about Jewish men, their family roles and their future place in the synagogue and Jewish community." - Rabbi Kerry Olitzky. Executive Director of the Jewish Outreach Institute and author of many books that bring Jewish wisdom into everyday life, including, most recently, as coeditor of Jewish Men Pray (Jewish Lights Publishing). How do we explain the disappearance of men from the Jewish community? Why do so many of today's Jewish men find their experience in the synagogue unfulfilling? Indeed why do they stay? Jewish Men at the Crossroads addresses these and other questions facing modern Jewish men - everything from intermarriage to co-parenting, sexual dysfunction to retirement, the role of men in a post-feminist world to the role of God in men's lives. Jewish Men at the Crossroads is essential reading for today's Jewish man.

Hidden Heretics
Hidden Heretics

Author: Ayala Fader

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2022-04-05

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 0691234485

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"This book concerns a cohort of ultra-orthodox Jews based in the greater New York area who, while retaining membership and close familial and other ties with their strictly observant communities, seek out secular knowledge about the world on the down low (so to speak), both online and via in-person encounters. Ayala Fader conducted her ethnographic research in these rarified social circles for years, developing relationships of trust with the mostly young married men and women who have taken to clandestine methods to find alternative social spaces in which to question what it means to be ethical and what a life of self-fulfillment looks like. Fader's book reveals the stresses and strains that such "double-lifers" experience, including the difficulty these life choices inject into relationships with wives, husbands, and one's children. Not all of these "double-lifers" become atheists. Fader's interlocutors can be placed on a broad spectrum ranging from religiously observant but open-minded at one end to atheism on the other. The rabbinical leadership of these ultra-orthodox communities are well aware of this phenomenon and of how unfiltered internet access makes such alternative forms of seeking an ever-present temptation. (Some ultra-orthodox rabbis have been sounding the alarm for years, claiming that the internet represents more of a threat to community survival today than the Holocaust did in the last century.) Fader's book examines the institutional responses of ultra-orthodox communities to the double-lifers. These include what is typically referred to as a Torah-based type of "religious therapy" conducted by trained members of these communities who as therapists and "life coaches" blend elements of modern psychiatry with ultra-orthodoxy and "treat" troubling, potentially life-altering doubt and skepticism as symptoms of underlying emotional pathology"--

At the Crossroads
At the Crossroads

Author: Jacques Kornberg

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2012-02-01

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 1438409540

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A founding father of modern Israel, Ahad Ha-am (1856-1927) was one of the shapers of the contemporary Zionist consciousness. His career spanned the era of Russian Jewry's nationalist awakening. During the last decade of the nineteenth century, he was the leading theorist of the Russian Zionist movement. Afterwards, he was overshadowed by Theodore Herzl, who imposed his own stamp on Zionism. With the failure of Herzl's diplomacy and his early death in 1904, Russian Zionists abandoned Herzl's priorities and gradually refashioned the program of the Zionist organization in their own image. More than anyone else, Ahad Ha-am provided the ideological authority for this shift. Until At the Crossroads, there were no up-to-date studies of Ahad Ha-am. This long-awaited collection includes 14 essays by internationally known scholars in modern Jewish history and literature. The essays range from studies of Ahad Ha-am as a literary stylist, his role in the revival of Hebrew, his political thought and activity, his debates with famous contemporaries about the Jewish future, and the reinterpretation of his ideas by his Zionist disciples. The overall picture presented by this book is a new image of Ahad Ha-am—far less Westernized and far more embedded in the nineteenth-century Jewish and Russian cultural milieu than was previously thought.

Jewish Men and the Holocaust: Sexuality, Emotions, Masculinity
Jewish Men and the Holocaust: Sexuality, Emotions, Masculinity

Author: Florian Zabransky

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2024-10-21

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 3111335682

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During the Holocaust, amid death and violence, Jewish men were not mere powerless victims. Linking gender studies with a history of sexuality and emotions will highlight intimate agency, power struggles, negotiations of relationships, social dynamics, and representations of masculinities. Considering the agency and vulnerability will further convey intimate choices, the representation of masculine ideals, intimate violence, and the expression of various emotions such as honour and love. As research on the Holocaust often links women with sexuality or portrays women as gendered beings, it is crucial to excavate the intimate, hidden lives of Jewish men and their specific intimate experiences as men. The analysis not only demonstrates how Jewish men remember and make sense of their experiences, but also how they chose to form the narrative and how they represented their ordeal in four chapters, namely ghettos, concentration camps, Jewish resistance in the countryside, and finally, DP camps in the aftermath of the Holocaust. The consideration of these four spaces allows a nuanced, innovative understanding of the intimate history of Jewish men during the Holocaust, i.e. how some men established male dominated structures and established intimate strategies to find solace and pleasure.

Crossroads
Crossroads

Author: Stephen L. Bryant

Publisher: Tate Publishing

Published: 2010-02

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 1615665455

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Paddy O'Doul, a popular and upstanding Irish pub owner, was brutally murdered after closing one night. No one he knew could have wanted him dead. Even more mysterious were the large sums of money that he left in his will. Reeling from the baffling events, his family attempts to uncover the truth. Annie, O'Doul's daughter and a brilliant lawyer, Macklin, a unique private investigator with a dangerous past, and Rusty, a skillful undercover cop, are brought together by these troubling events. Together, they begin to uncover the truth behind Paddy's untimely death. What follows is a whirlwind of chaos as an unknown evil reveals sweeping plans for their community. With no limits to power, corruption, or wealth, The mysterious entity known only as B.A. crushes all opposition to its dark undertakings. When the plot behind the recent murders is revealed to be more wicked than imaginable, and when the lust for death goes far deeper than a single, Irish pub owner, can anyone possibly stand against the evil that is descending upon them? Only God knows, and he does in fact have a plan.

To Change the Church
To Change the Church

Author: Ross Douthat

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Published: 2019-03-19

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 1501146939

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A New York Times columnist and one of America’s leading conservative thinkers considers Pope Francis’s efforts to change the church he governs in a book that is “must reading for every Christian who cares about the fate of the West and the future of global Christianity” (Rod Dreher, author of The Benedict Option). Born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in 1936, today Pope Francis is the 266th pope of the Roman Catholic Church. Pope Francis’s stewardship of the Church, while perceived as a revelation by many, has provoked division throughout the world. “If a conclave were to be held today,” one Roman source told The New Yorker, “Francis would be lucky to get ten votes.” In his “concise, rhetorically agile…adroit, perceptive, gripping account (The New York Times Book Review), Ross Douthat explains why the particular debate Francis has opened—over communion for the divorced and the remarried—is so dangerous: How it cuts to the heart of the larger argument over how Christianity should respond to the sexual revolution and modernity itself, how it promises or threatens to separate the church from its own deep past, and how it divides Catholicism along geographical and cultural lines. Douthat argues that the Francis era is a crucial experiment for all of Western civilization, which is facing resurgent external enemies (from ISIS to Putin) even as it struggles with its own internal divisions, its decadence, and self-doubt. Whether Francis or his critics are right won’t just determine whether he ends up as a hero or a tragic figure for Catholics. It will determine whether he’s a hero, or a gambler who’s betraying both his church and his civilization into the hands of its enemies. “A balanced look at the struggle for the future of Catholicism…To Change the Church is a fascinating look at the church under Pope Francis” (Kirkus Reviews). Engaging and provocative, this is “a pot-boiler of a history that examines a growing ecclesial crisis” (Washington Independent Review of Books).

Israeli Institutions at the Crossroads
Israeli Institutions at the Crossroads

Author: Raphael Cohen-Almagor

Publisher: Psychology Press

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 9780415363600

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This is a fascinating collection of essays about Israeli society and its institutions. It is written by practitioners who have experience and understanding, who are equipped with the insight and knowledge, and who bore responsibility while serving the public in the various institutions. Among the authors are former State President Yitzhak Navon, former cabinet minister Gad Yaakobi, former Deputy Speaker of the Knesset Naomi Chazan, former Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein, Former Supreme Court President Meir Shamgar, the State Comptroller Eliezer Goldberg, and former member of the Press Council Raphael Cohen-Almagor. The decision-makers provide fresh, practical observations and personal, valuable accounts of their respective roles. The book aims to tackle timely concerns, analyzing the relationships between democracy and bureaucracy, the military-political complex, the issue of separation of powers in democracy and more specifically the role of the Supreme Court, and the need for a written, solid constitution. It also discusses citizenship education. The book will be useful to researchers on Israeli democracy, students, teachers, historians, sociologists, political scientists and legal scholars who wish to better understand this fascinating society and its institutions.

Women at the Crossroads
Women at the Crossroads

Author: Chana Bracha Siegelbaum

Publisher: Chana Bracha Siegelbaum

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 1936068095

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Women at the Crossroads: A Woman's Perspective on the Weekly Torah Portion comprises 53 essays pertaining to women based on each of the weekly Torah Portions throughout the year. Rebbetzin Chana Bracha Siegelbaum discusses in-depth the characters and dilemmas of the women in the Torah that are relevant to the issues which women encounter today. The author explores the underlying values of laws and rituals that pertain to women by examining the inherent nature of women as presented in the Torah. Based on the intricacies of the Torah text, she shows the beauty and depth of the role of women as portrayed in the Torah and teaches the importance of women and their immense influence on society as prime movers of history. The book is divided into five chapters, corresponding to the five books of the Torah. Each chapter is divided into sections according to each Torah portion. In addition, it includes a comprehensive and useful compilation of biographies of the commentaries quoted in the book. Expounding the Torah text through methodical research of Midrash, Talmud and traditional commentators, such as Rashi and the Ramban, placed side-by-side with Chassidic masters like the Me'or v'Shemesh and modern commentators including Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, Rebbetzin Chana Bracha Siegelbaum weaves together the strands that make up the tapestry of life for the contemporary woman.Rather than paying homage to the external, competitive, masculine world, the author demonstrates how Jewish women of today may look inwards to the women in the Torah for guidance in choosing their priorities in life.