First published in 1970, Professor Gerschenkron's theme is the contribution which the study of Russian economic history can make to the problems which have preoccupied Western historians. He first considers the way in which the case of the old Believers in Russia, who refused to support the official church but played an important entrepreneurial role in nineteenth-century economic development, bears upon Max Weber's celebrated thesis on the relations between the Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism. In the course of his discussion, Professor Gerschenkron provides important information on the doctrinal beliefs of this group, their social status and the extent to which they were persecuted and discriminated against by the State. His conclusion is that the persecution certainly afforded sufficient impulse to engage in profitable activities and to develop the traits Weber considered as specific features of the 'capitalist' spirit.

Provides a basis for considering the claims of a wide variety of Jewish and Christian writers in the Judeo-Christian tradition, from biblical times to the present, who have wrestled with the issues of religious pluralism. In many cases these thinkers have reflected on the merits of one another's faith; alternatively, they have considered the truth-claims of their own faith in relation to the world's religions. Profiles on some 90 thinkers, such as Augustine, Helen Fry, and Baruch Spinoza, provide the type of information most commonly sought by students and general readers, including biographical details, theological position, and samples of work. The author is a professor of Judaism at the University of Wales, and visiting professor of interfaith dialog at Middlesex University. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

"From an award-winning journalist, a provocative, deeply reported expose of the history and present crisis of anti-Semitism in France--and its dire consequences for the rest of Europe. Hate explores the alarming history and present predicament of anti-Semitism in France. By examining the issue at local, international, and personal levels--interviewing everyday French men and women as well as powerful leaders such as National Front president Marine Le Pen--Weitzmann attempts to understand how nine Jews have been murdered by French citizens in the last eight years, and how France has become the number one country from which Western jihadists flee to join ISIS and other extremist Middle Eastern organizations. How do contemporary French Jews grapple with these troubling facts, and with the historical legacies of the French Revolution, the Holocaust, and the Gaullist "Arab-French policy"? While internationally minded consumers of the news may have some knowledge of the events Weitzmann describes--including the 2013 "Day of Anger" and the rise of France's popular, and famously anti-Semitic, comedian Dieudonne M'bala M'bala--these controversies are largely unknown in the States, and utterly shocking in the unity Weitzmann gives them here. In his hands, these events are not just the story of French anti-Semitism, but that of the breakdown of a major Western power, of the dark side of our global age"--

This book reflects on one of the most pressing challenges of our time: the current and historical relationships that exist between the faith-traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It begins with discussion on the state of Jewish-Christian relations, examining antisemitism and the Holocaust, the impact of Israel and theological controversies such as covenant and mission. Kessler also traces different biblical stories and figures, from the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, demonstrating Jewish-Christian contact and controversy. Jews and Christians share a sacred text, but more surprisingly, a common exegetical tradition. They also need to deal with some of the more problematic and violent biblical texts. Jews, Christians and Muslims includes reflection on the encounter with Islam, including topics associated with a divergent history and memory as well contemporary relations between the three Abrahamic faiths. Kessler's writings shed light on common purpose as well as how to manage difference, both vital in forming a positive identity and sustaining a flourishing community.

Although Paul's writings have been intensively studied by Christian theologians, they have been dismissed by Jewish scholars as the meditations of an antagonistic apostate who broke completely with his Jewish past. In this revisionist account of Paul's work, Alan Segal argues that Paul's life can be better understood by taking his Jewishness seriously, and that Jewish history can be illuminated greatly by examining Paul's writings. By reading Paul from the viewpoint of the religion he left behind, Segal sheds new light on the man who played a critical role in both Judaism and Christianity.

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"This book re-evaluates the prevailing notion that Jews in medieval Christian Europe lived under an appalling regime of ecclesiastical limitation, governmental exploitation and expropriation, and unceasing popular violence. Robert Chazan argues that, while Jewish life in medieval Western Christendom was indeed beset with grave difficulties, it was nevertheless an environment rich in opportunities; the Jews of medieval Europe overcame obstacles, grew in number, explored innovative economic options, and fashioned enduring new forms of Jewish living. His research also provides a reconsideration of the legacy of medieval Jewish life, which is often depicted as equally destructive and projected as the underpinning of the twentieth-century catastrophes of antisemitism and the Holocaust. Dr Chazan's research proves that, although Jewish life in the medieval West laid the foundation for much Jewish suffering in the post-medieval world, it also stimulated considerable Jewish ingenuity, which lies at the root of impressive Jewish successes in the modern West"--

The first contacts between Greece, the Aegean and India are generally thought to have occurred at the beginning of the sixth century BC. There is now, however, growing evidence of much earlier but indirect connections, reaching back into prehistory. These were initially between India and its Indus Civilisation (Meluhha) and the Near East and then finally with the societies of the Early and Middle Bronze Age Aegean,with their slowly emerging palace-based economies and complex social structures. Starting in the middle of the third millennium BC but diminishing after approximately 1800 BC, these connections point to a form of indirect or what might be called 'trickle-down' contact between the Aegean and India. From the start, until 2500 BC, the objects and commodities that formed this contact were transported overland, through Northern Iran, but after that time, the Harappans took control and we see a structured trade using the sea out through the Persian Gulf. These contacts can also be placed into three categories: (a) the importation of objects manufactured in India or made from Indian commodities imported into the Near East,which eventually found their way to the Aegean and have parallels at Indian sites; (b) the importation of inorganic commodities such as tin, possibly some gold and lapis lazuli, exported from India or Central Asia under Harappan control; and (c) the importation of non-perishable organic commodities. This study views the Aegean as part of a greater trade network and here the author has attempted to both evaluate and re-evaluate what evidence and speculation there are for such contacts, particularly for the commodities such as tin and lapis lazuli as well as more recently discovered objects

For more than forty years there was a single synagogue in the quiet town of Williamette, Oregon. But then disagreements over gender roles, homosexuality, Israeli politics, and other issues tore the synagogue in two. Where there was once one Jewish community under one roof, there are now two hostile congregations_one Reconstructionist, one Orthodox_across the street from one another. Through a year as a participant in both congregations and in-depth interviews, Zuckerman tells a mesmerizing story of this religious schism. Strife in the Sanctuary then contemplates why religious groups split apart and how religious symbols come to mean different things to different groups. The first book-length study of a single congregation breaking in two, Strife in the Sanctuary provides a welcome ethnographic study for sociologists of religion. Plus, its moving story makes it an excellent read for undergraduate classes or anyone interested in religious divisions.

Ancient biblical Judaism ascribed magical and supernatural properties to blood. Both Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity inherited this attitude toward blood, and adopted, each in its own way, symbolic and spiritualized rituals connected with blood. Throughout the centuries, Judaism and Christianity borrowed beliefs and rituals from one another. Argues that the blood libel emerged as a negative by-product of an increase in popular eucharistic piety. Encouragement for this accusation was provided by the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, which approved the doctrine of transubstantiation and heightened popular interest in blood, especially Christian blood. The alleged Jewish consumption of Christian blood seemed to prove the dogma of transubstantiation in popular consciousness. In the 19th century the blood libel emerged again in Europe, devoid of its theological underpinning but supplemented with a belief in blood as the bearer of heredity, and hence of the ethnic and racial traits of the person. Academic authorities, from August Rohling to the Nazi Erich Bischof, tried to prove the truth of the blood libel and created the theory of blood - i.e. racial pollution. It was in such a form that blood mysticism was picked up by the Nazis. The revival of the blood libel in the 19th century provoked a wave of literature refuting the accusation. Paradoxically, while Jews were vigorously rejecting the claim that human blood played a role in their rituals, some of them adopted the blood language of modern nationalism, a belief in the nation-making "Jewish blood".

Rural Revolt in Mexico is a historical investigation of how subaltern political activity engages imperialism, capitalism, and the United States. In this volume, Daniel Nugent has gathered a group of leading scholars whose work examines the relationship of revolts by peasants and Indians in Mexico to the past century of U.S. intervention—from the rural rebellions of the 1840s through the 1910 revolution to the 1994 uprising in Chiapas. Through their studies of social movements and popular mobilization in the Mexican countryside, the contributors argue for understanding rural revolts in terms of the specific historical contexts of particular regions and peoples, as well as the broader context of unequal cultural, political, and economic relations between Mexico and the United States. Exploring the connections between external and internal factors in social movements, these essays reveal the wide range of organized efforts through which peasants and Indians have struggled to shape their own destiny while confronted by the influence of U.S. capital and military might. Originally published as a limited edition in 1988 by the Center for U. S.–Mexican Studies, this volume presents a pioneering effort by Latin Americanist scholars to sympathetically embrace and enrich work begun in Subaltern Studies between 1982 and 1987 by projecting it onto a different region of historical experience. This revised and expanded edition includes a new introduction by Daniel Nugent and an extensive essay by Adolfo Gilly on the recent Chiapas uprising.

Many studies written about the Jewish-Christian relationship are primarily historical overviews that focus on the Jewish background of Christianity, the separation of Christianity from Judaism, or the medieval disputations between the two faiths. This book is one of the first studies to examine the relationship from a philosophical and theological viewpoint. Carefully drawing on Jewish classical sources, Novak argues that there is actual justification for the new relationship between Judaism and Christianity from within Jewish religious tradition. He demonstrates that this new relationship is possible between religiously committed Jews and Christians without the two major impediments to dialogue: triumphalism and relativism. One of the very few books on this topic written by a Jewish theologian who speaks specifically to modern Christian concerns, it will provide the groundwork for a more serious development of Jewish-Christian dialogue in our day.

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.

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.

Twenty years ago, Ayatollah Khomeini called for the assassination of Salman Rushdie--and writers around the world instinctively rallied to Rushdie's defense. Today, according to writer Paul Berman, "Rushdie has metastasized into an entire social class"--an ever-growing group of sharp-tongued critics of Islamist extremism, especially critics from Muslim backgrounds, who survive only because of pseudonyms and police protection. And yet, instead of being applauded, the Rushdies of today (people like Ayan Hirsi Ali and Ibn Warraq) often find themselves dismissed as "strident" or as no better than fundamentalist themselves, and contrasted unfavorably with representatives of the Islamist movement who falsely claim to be "moderates." How did this happen? In THE FLIGHT OF THE INTELLECTUALS, Berman--"one of America's leading public intellectuals" ( Foreign Affairs )--conducts a searing examination into the intellectual atmosphere of the moment and shows how some of the West's best thinkers and journalists have fumbled badly in their efforts to grapple with Islamist ideas and violence. Berman's investigation of the history and nature of the Islamist movement includes some surprising revelations. In examining Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, he shows the rise of an immense and often violent worldview, elements of which survives today in the brigades of al-Qaeda and Hamas. Berman also unearths the shocking story of al-Banna's associate, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who collaborated personally with Adolf Hitler to incite Arab support of the Nazis' North African campaign. Echoes of the Grand Mufti's Nazified Islam can be heard among the followers of al-Banna even today. In a gripping and stylish narrative Berman also shows the legacy of these political traditions, most importantly by focusing on a single philosopher, who happens to be Hassan al-Banna's grandson, Oxford professor Tariq Ramadan--a figure widely celebrated in the West as a "moderate" despite his troubling ties to the Islamist movement. Looking closely into what Ramadan has actually written and said, Berman contrasts the reality of Ramadan with his image in the press. In doing so, THE FLIGHT OF THE INTELLECTUALS sheds light on a number of modern issues--on the massively reinvigorated anti-Semitism of our own time, on a newly fashionable turn against women's rights, and on the difficulties we have in discussing terrorism--and presents a stunning commentary about the modern media's peculiar inability to detect and analyze some of the most dangerous ideas in contemporary society.

Documents the tension between the ultra-Orthodox and the secular Jews, discussing both the history, politics, and culture that continues to fuel the animosity between these two groups.

The daughter of Oliver Golden, an African American expatriate and agrarian activist of the early 1900's, and Bertha Bialek, youngest daughter of Polish American emigres of Jewish descent, Lily Golden has a special place in history. In this account of her experience, Golden provides a connection between the contemporary and historical relationships of America to Russia. Golden offers a distinctly different and refreshing point of view of the lives and experiences of Russia in her often alluring and romantic, sometimes bitterly painful, yet always vivid and intimate details of her life as a dark-skinned Russian surviving in and struggling against turbulent changes. She brings her tale of a sometimes charmed sometimes challenged existence full circle in her descriptions of her ultimate contact with distant relatives in the United States. Lily Golden allows the reader access into her lifelong revelation that family and community ties are boundless by time and geography.--page 4 of cover.

Hinduism has become a vital 'other' for Judaism over the past decades. The book surveys the history of the relationship from historical to contemporary times, from travellers to religious leadership. It explores the potential enrichment for Jewish theology and spirituality, as well as the challenges for Jewish identity.