Religion as a Public Good: Jews and Other Americans on Religion in the Public Square explores the often controversial topic of how religion ought to relate to American public life. The sixteen distinguished contributors, both Jewish and Christian, reflect on the topic out of their own disciplines-social ethics, political theory, philosophy, law, history, theology, and sociology. and take a stand based on their religious convictions and political beliefs. The volume is at once scholarly and committed, polemic and civil, reflective and activist. Written in the shadow of 9/11, it invites a new consideration of how religion enhances democratic public life with full awareness of the dangers that religion can sometimes pose. The volume is polemical, as befits the topic, but also civil, as befits a dialogue about an issue of profound significance for democratic citizenship.

Jewish Polity and American Civil Society is a study of the civic and political engagements of American Jews as mediated by their communal and denominational institutions. The book explores how the various branches of the organized Jewish community seek to influence public affairs. Over the course of the last century, Jewish agencies and religious movements have tried to shape public debate and public policy on such issues as civil rights, church-state relations, and American foreign policy. The book sets the history of Jewish engagement in these areas into historical context; analyzes the motives, strategies, and tactics of various Jewish groups, and evaluates their successes and failures. The book also explores the underlying idea-the public philosophy-that informs American Jews' understanding of civic and political engagement.

Holiness is a challenge for contemporary Jewish thought. The concept of holiness is crucial to religious discourse in general and to Jewish discourse in particular. "Holiness" seems to express an important feature of religious thought and of religious ways of life. Yet the concept is ill defined. This collection explores what concepts of holiness were operative in different periods of Jewish history and bodies of Jewish literature and offers preliminary reflections on their theological and philosophical import today. The contributors illumine some of the major episodes concerning holiness in the history of the development in the Jewish tradition. They are challenged to think about the problems and potential implicit in Judaic concepts of holiness, to make them explicit, and to try to retrieve the concepts for contemporary theological and philosophical reflection. Not all of the contributors push into philosophical and theological territory, but they all provide resources for the reader to do so. Holiness is elusive but it need not be opaque. This volume makes Jewish concepts of holiness lucid, accessible, and intellectually engaging.