Examines the intellectual life of Sephardic Jewry from the Spanish expulsion in 1492 through the first half of the 20th century. Discusses the background to the expulsion from Spain, the Jews' tribulations, and their reactions - the effort to understand the meaning of their suffering. Deals with the Converso phenomenon and the problems they encountered. Describes rationalist and anti-rationalist thought following the expulsion, and the messianic movements which arose. Pp. 144-149 discuss the blood libels in Damascus and Rhodes in 1840 and the kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara in 1858, and the Jewish organizations which were established to aid persecuted Jews (e.g. B'nai B'rith, Alliance Israélite Universelle).

"The purpose of this book is to elevate stories and storytelling in people's esteem, so they will understand their holiness and appreciate them at their full worth. There are those who enjoy stories and storytelling but in the back of their minds think, 'After all, they're only stories.' But in the same way that the Western Wall of the Temple is not just a wall, a mere pile of stones, neither are the stories of the Torah or of the tzaddikim 'just stories.' Holy stories are the light of the world. When we understand that, when both tellers and listeners know they are engaged in sacred activity, we will hold stories and storytelling more dear. The teller will tell with the tongue of faith, the listeners will hear with ears of faith, and the circle of holiness will be closed." -from the Introduction

Jews, Christians and Polytheists in the Ancient Synagogue explores the ways in which divergent ethnic, national and religious communities interacted with one another within the synagogue in the Greco-Roman period. It presents new perspectives regarding the development of the synagogue and its significance of this institution for understanding religion and society under the Roman Empire.

During the course of the twelfth century, increasing numbers of Jews migrated into western Christendom from Islamic lands. But western Christendom was both appealing and threatening to the Jewish immigrants. Indeed, western Christendom was entering a phase of intense missionizing activity, some of which was directed at the long-term Jewish residents of Europe and the Jewish newcomers. The writings of twelfth- and thirteenth-century leaders from southern France and northern Spain constitute the first evidence of Jewish anti-Christian polemics from within western Christendom. These leaders were fully cognizant of the core Christian thrusts, described them in detail for their co-religionists, and rebutted them carefully. This study recreates some of the clarification and rebuttal, and examines the techniques of persuasion adopted by the Jewish polemicists in order to reassure their Jewish readers of the truth of Judaism and the error of Christianity.

Book by Davis, Moshe

This book is A thoughtful meditation on the values of Judaism and the ideals of the Declaration of Independence. As he makes clear, there is such a thing as the American-Hebraic idea, which is manifested in the ideals of human dignity, the Rule of Law, the democratic ideal, the rights of conscience, and the pursuit of happiness. It is certain to appeal to American Jews who are seeking identity as Americans and as Jews, and to any reader interesting in understanding why Jews feel rooted in modern America -- from AbeBooks website.

Maimonides' vision of Judaism was deeply elitist, but at the same time profoundly universalistic. He was highly critical of the regnant Jewish culture of his day, which he perceived as so heavily influenced by ancient Jewish mysticism as to be debased. While focusing on that critique, Kellner skilfully and accessibly demonstrates how Maimonides used philosophy in order to purify a corrupted and paganized religion and to present distinctions fundamental to Judaism as institutional, sociological, and historical, rather than ontological. In Maimonides' hands, metaphysical distinctions are translated into moral challenges.

Rabbi Meir Kahane is a member of the Israeli Knesset. According to public opinion polls, the movement he heads is gaining enormous power among Israelis, and particularly among the young. Kahane has long been a thorn in the buttocks of the wealthy and entrenched Jewish leadership. His founding of the Jewish Defense League, his demands for Jewish defense of poor and elderly Jews in the inner cities, his taking to the streets in the late '60s and his use of violence to draw international attention to the Soviet Jewish problem, have all gained him the hostility of so-called Jewish leaders. In Uncomfortable Questions for Comfortable Jews, Meir Kahane touches the most painful nerves and psyches of those Jewish liberals who would prefer to believe that Judaism and Zionism arc compatible with liberal concepts. He challenges us all with such agonizing questions as: If a Jewish and Zionist state was created in Israel to guarantee a homeland for Jews with a guaranteed permanent Jewish majority and Jewish sovereignty, will Arabs be allowed to peacefully and democratically become a majority and turn Israel into an Arab nation? * If the answer is "No," isn't that a contradiction of the western democratic thesis: "one person, one vote"'? * Is Zionism, which calls for a Jewish majority, not in total conflict with Western democracy, which insists on majority rule, no matter who constitutes the majority? * Can any Jewish leader or even an average Jew offer a young Jew any logical reason not to marry a non-Jew? Or even the slightest logical reason to insist on being a Jew rather than a "human being"? * Is Israel a Jewish state or is it a Hebrew-speaking gentilized one whose secular youth haven't the slightest idea of what Jewishness is and who dream of living in the fleshpots of the West? * How many Arabs will sit in the Knesset in ten years? In twenty years? Will they become a majority and vote Israel out of existence? * Does that matter? * Does anyone care? These are but a few of the challenging questions Kahane asks and it is the reason Jewish leaders have tried to build mountains of antagonism against him to insure that this book is buried and that Jews do not read it. Uncomfortable questions indeed-and Rabbi Kahane offers Jewish answers. The language and the ideas are not "polite" and "temperate." He isn't following the doctrine of phoniness to "be nice" because, in the end, he is talking about a single issue: Jewish survival.

This seven volume collection is the definitive anthology of the writings of Rabbi Meir Kahane, selected from the columns in the Jewish Press and other publications. Spanning a period of thirty years, it contains a wealth of topics: Judaism, Zionism, Israel, the Holocaust, assimilation, territorial concessions, violence and peace.Rabbi Meir Kahane was a master of the both the deed and the word. These writings will inspire, teach, and chastise, as they did when they first appeared. It is impossible to remain indifferent to the fiery words of this modern-day Jewish prophet.Generations of former Soviet Jews will forever thank Rabbi Kahane for helping them obtain freedom. Future generations of Israelis, for their part, may well be grateful for his inspired vision that can enable peaceful Jewish life in the Land of Israel.This collection is published in the hope that it will serve as a guide to every thinking person for whom the destiny of the Jewish people is important. Beyond Words will surely take its place in the library of outstanding Jewish literature.

The unique duality of Jewish existence, wherein a major Jewish centre in the Land of Israel flourished alongside a large and prosperous diaspora, was one of the outstanding features of Second Temple and post-Temple Jewish life. As in modern times, ongoing Jewish dispersion raised questions that went to the heart of Jewish self-identity, and declarations of allegiance to the ancestral homeland were frequently accompanied by seemingly contrary expressions of 'local-patriotism' on the part of Jewish diaspora communities. The destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple in 70 CE, and the subsequent failure under Bar-Kokhba to revive political independence (135 CE) forced Jews in Judaea as well as in the diaspora to re-evaluate the nature of the bonds that linked Jews throughout the world to 'The Land', and at the same time effected a re-examination of the authority structure that claimed priority for the communal leaders still functioning in Jewish Palestine. The chapters of this book, first delivered in Oxford as the Third Jacobs Lectures in Rabbinic Thought in January 1994, address a broad spectrum of questions relating to the centre-diaspora reality of Jewish life in Late Antiquity.

This interpretive study aruges that a trialogue between the three forms of monotheism must be something deeper than merely a meeting of Jewish, Christian and Muslim intellectuals, and that cooperation among them is essential to defend the West against Asian religious nihilism.

Representing the spectrum of subfields within Jewish Studies, the contributing scholars to this volume use beginnings as a hermeneutic stance to analyze texts in their area. While each essay is a significant contribution to its own subfield - Bible, Talmud, Kabbalah, Modern Jewish Thought, Feminist and Cultural Studies - the essays taken as a whole present new possibilities for exploring the space that is Jewish Studies and beginning an inquiry into what might constitute a definable hermeneutics of Jewish texts.

This book traces the global, national, and local origins of the conflict between Muslims and Jews in France, challenging the belief that rising anti-Semitism in France is rooted solely in the unfolding crisis in Israel and Palestine. Maud Mandel shows how the conflict in fact emerged from processes internal to French society itself even as it was shaped by affairs elsewhere, particularly in North Africa during the era of decolonization. Mandel examines moments in which conflicts between Muslims and Jews became a matter of concern to French police, the media, and an array of self-appointed spokesmen from both communities: Israel's War of Independence in 1948, France's decolonization of North Africa, the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, the 1968 student riots, and Francois Mitterrand's experiments with multiculturalism in the 1980s. She takes an in-depth, on-the-ground look at interethnic relations in Marseille, which is home to the country's largest Muslim and Jewish populations outside of Paris. She reveals how Muslims and Jews in France have related to each other in diverse ways throughout this history - as former residents of French North Africa, as immigrants competing for limited resources, as employers and employees, as victims of racist aggression, as religious minorities in a secularizing state, and as French citizens. In Muslims and Jews in France, Mandel traces the way these multiple, complex interactions have been overshadowed and obscured by a reductionist narrative of Muslim-Jewish polarization. (AllBooks)

This book traces the global, national, and local origins of the conflict between Muslims and Jews in France, challenging the belief that rising anti-Semitism in France is rooted solely in the unfolding crisis in Israel and Palestine. Maud Mandel shows how the conflict in fact emerged from processes internal to French society itself even as it was shaped by affairs elsewhere, particularly in North Africa during the era of decolonization. Mandel examines moments in which conflicts between Muslims and Jews became a matter of concern to French police, the media, and an array of self-appointed spokesmen from both communities: Israel's War of Independence in 1948, France's decolonization of North Africa, the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, the 1968 student riots, and François Mitterrand's experiments with multiculturalism in the 1980s. She takes an in-depth, on-the-ground look at interethnic relations in Marseille, which is home to the country's largest Muslim and Jewish populations outside of Paris. She reveals how Muslims and Jews in France have related to each other in diverse ways throughout this history--as former residents of French North Africa, as immigrants competing for limited resources, as employers and employees, as victims of racist aggression, as religious minorities in a secularizing state, and as French citizens. In Muslims and Jews in France, Mandel traces the way these multiple, complex interactions have been overshadowed and obscured by a reductionist narrative of Muslim-Jewish polarization.

Jacob Neusner is Research Professor of Religion and Theology at Bard College and Senior Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Theology at Bard. He has published more than 900 books and unnumbered articles, both scholarly and academic and popular and journalistic, and is the most published humanities scholar in the world. He has been awarded nine honorary degrees, including seven US and European honorary doctorates. He received his AB from Harvard College in 1953, his PhD from Columbia University and Union Theological Seminary in 1961, and rabbinical ordination and the degree of Master of Hebrew Letters from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in 1960. Neusner is editor of the 'Encyclopedia of Judaism' (Brill, 1999. I-III) and its Supplements; Chair of the Editorial Board of 'The Review of Rabbinic Judaism, ' and Editor in Chief of 'The Brill Reference Library of Judaism', both published by E. J. Brill, Leiden, The Netherlands. He is editor of 'Studies in Judaism', University Press of America. Neusner resides with his wife in Rhinebeck, New York. They have a daughter, three sons and three daughters-in-law, six granddaughters and two grandsons.

The author presents his philosophy of contemporaryJewish duty. He provides an in-depth examination of the covenant and a way of looking at it in the late twentieth century.

Discusses Jewish identity in America as reflected in the culture of immigrants and descendants of immigrants. Self-hatred or, at least, ambivalence about oneself in the face of native American values is one theme. Ch. 5 (pp. 98-125), "To Make 'a Jew': Projecting Antisemitism in Post-War America", analyzes two novels - Arthur Miller's "Focus" and Saul Bellow's "The Victim" - that explore the psychosocial dimensions of postwar antisemitism. They raise the question whether possibilities of Jewish-Gentile relations might lead to personal and social renovation. In "Focus", a crypto-fascist antisemite who has internalized racist stereotypes finally identifies symbolically as a Jew. In "The Victim", both Jew and Gentile partially overcome their mutual stereotyping. The main Jewish protagonist also overcomes some negative aspects of his self-image.