A challenging look at two great Jewish philosophers, and what their thinking means to our understanding of God, truth, revelation and reason. Moses Maimonides (1138-1204) is Jewish history's greatest exponent of a rational, philosophically sound Judaism. He strove to reconcile the teachings of the Bible and rabbinic tradition with the principles of Aristotelian philosophy, arguing that religion and philosophy ultimately must arrive at the same truth. Baruch Spinoza (1632-77) is Jewish history's most illustrious "heretic." He believed that truth could be attained through reason alone, and that philosophy and religion were separate domains that could not be reconciled. His critique of the Bible and its teachings caused an intellectual and spiritual upheaval whose effects are still felt today. Rabbi Marc D. Angel discusses major themes in the writings of Maimonides and Spinoza to show us how modern people can deal with religion in an intellectually honest and meaningful way. From Maimonides, we gain insight on how to harmonize traditional religious belief with the dictates of reason. From Spinoza, we gain insight into the intellectual challenges which must be met by modern believers.

David Daube (1909-1999) was an eminent authority on Talmudic, Roman and ancient law, who taught legal history and jurisprudence at Cambridge, Aberdeen, Oxford and Berkeley. He was also in the vanguard of scholars who established the importance of Jewish and Talmudic perspectives to the understanding of the New Testament. This book, first published in 1947 and now reissued, contains five ground-breaking essays on the legal issues present in a number of Old Testament narratives including the story of Joseph and his brothers. Among the topics discussed are theft, deception, evidence, liability and punishment. These are set in the wider context of the growth of codes in the Pentateuch, Rabbinic interpretations of the Torah, and Roman sources including Macrobius and Gaius. Daube's book will resonate afresh in the scholarly climate of the twenty-first century, where the relationships between law and religion and between Judaism and Christianity are again the subject of lively debate.

Based on years of research conducted mostly in Arabic sources, Meir Litvak and Ester Webman track the evolution of post-World War II perceptions of the Holocaust and their parallel emergence in the wake of the Arab-Israeli conflict of 1948. Following the establishment of the State of Israel, Arab attitudes toward the Holocaust became entangled with broader anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic sentiments. Litvak and Webman track this discourse through the work of leading intellectuals and turn to representations of the Holocaust in the media and culture of Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, and among the Palestinian people. Their chronological history, which spans sixty years, provides a remarkable perspective on the origins, development, and tenaciousness of anti-Holocaust belief. From Empathy to Denial is the first comprehensive investigation of Holocaust denial in the Arab world, and is based on years of painstaking historical research of mostly Arabic language sources. The authors explore how Holocaust denial emerged after the Second World War, how it paralleled the wider Arab-Israeli conflict after the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 and how it subsequently became entangled with broader anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic sentiment. In particular Litvak and Webman look at the role of leading intellectuals, the media and other cultural forms in Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and among the Palestinians and how their representation of the Holocaust has evolved in the last sixty years.

Volume II: A Time for Gathering. Between 1820 and 1880, European Jews arrived in the United States in ever greater numbers. While later Jewish immigrants would criticize their "rush" to assimilation, the Jews of this period created the institutions that continue to shape Jewish life in America. In A Time for Gathering , Hasia Diner describes this "second wave" of Jewish migration.

This book provides the first dedicated study of the Evian Conference of July 1938, an international initiative called by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt. While on the surface the conference appeared as an attempt to alleviate the distress faced by Jews being forced out of Germany and Austria, in reality it only served to demonstrate that the nations of the world were not willing to accept Jews as refugees. Since the Holocaust, a generally-held assumption has been that the Evian Conference represented a lost opportunity to save Germany’s Jews, and that the conference failed to rescue the Jews of Europe. In this study, Paul Bartrop argues that in fact it did not fail when measured against the original reasons for which it was called. Exposing many of the myths surrounding the meeting, this work addresses a glaring lacuna in the literature of the Holocaust, and places the so-called 'failure' of the Evian Conference into its proper context.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Author Mark Braverman shows how the Jewish quest for safety and empowerment and the Christian endeavor to atone for centuries of anti-Semitism have combined to suppress the conversations needed to bring about a just and lasting peace in the Holy Land. Fatal Embrace charts Braverman's journey as an American Jew struggling with the difficult realities of modern Israel. The book vividly describes the spiritual and psychological forces driving the discourse and is a call to action to Americans of all faiths.

Essays examining the emergence of Jewish scholarship during the period 1818 - 1919, concentrating on the Wissenschaft des Judentums movement.

Join renowned historian Max I. Dimont in his exploration of the history and roots of Judaism. Among many provocative subjects he investigates are:; The Transformation of the British Anglicans into Hebraic Puritans; The Rise and Fall of German Scientific Judaism; The Tidal Waves of Russian Immigration (1880--1940); The Romantic Revolution; The Great Awakening; The Shaping of Modern Judaism; Jews, God, and Destiny

Through his hundreds of lectures, Rabbi Wein has brought the Torah perspective on history to thousands of listeners. In this original work, he paints a magnificent, panoramic picture of our people in the centuries that shaped us and our world. This major work has the touches of luxury you expect in books of this magnitude, including a ribbon place-marker and embossed foil-stamped jacket. Large 8-1/2 x 11 coffee-table format. Beautifully written and illustrated, it is accurate and incisive, yet personal and passionate. It is informative, provocative, and inspiring. Seldom is must reading so enjoyable.

Referring to the chosen-ness of the Jewish people, Paul, the Apostle, ?For God's free gifts and his calling are irrevocable? (Rom. 11: 29). This messenger to the Gentiles understood the unique calling of his people, Israel. So does Daniel Juster. In The Irrevocable Calling, he expands Paul's words, showing how Israel was uniquely chosen to bless the world and how these blessings can be enjoyed today.

Ever wonder why Christmas is on Dec. 25 or why the Catholic Church set this date for the Nativity? The Talmud states that the truest Jewish prophets were born during Passover and died during Passover. Since the gospels inform us that Jesus was crucified during a Passover, it can be reasoned that, as a Jewish prophet, he was also born during a Passover. Therefore, Jesus lived an integral life, or one of perfection with time. This is not a new idea. Many of the early Church Fathers thought about this concept, but the political climate of the period halted its full development--that is, until now.

""Steven Fine's This Holy Place is a comprehensive treatment of the synagogue as a place of sanctity in Late Antiquity. This book is essential for an understanding of how the synagogue became the central Jewish communal institution and how it served as a substitute for the destroyed Jerusalem Temple during the long period of Jewish exile from the Land of Israel. Fine's mastery of both archaeological evidence and a wide variety of literary sources makes this a major contribution to the field."" --Lawrence H. Schiffman, New York University ""Fine has mastered an unusually wide range of disciplines--rabbinical sources, archaeology, art and epigraphy. . . . His book is thoroughly researched, well written, and engagingly presented. It should be required reading for anyone interested in how this most central institution of Jewish life was perceived and presented."" --Lee I. Levine, Hebrew University of Jerusalem ""I read [This Holy Place] with the greatest profit and enjoyment. It is an important contribution to the entire nature of late antique civilization and not only to Jewish studies."" --Peter Brown, Princeton University Steven Fine is the Dean Pinkhos Churgin Professor of Jewish History at Yeshiva University.

At a time when American Jews should feel more secure and cohesive than ever, civil war is tearing apart their community. Congregations, neighborhoods, even families are taking sides in battles about Jewish identity and Jewish authenticity. The conflict pits fundamentalist against secularist, denomination against denomination, even liberal against conservative within each branch of Jewry. Jew vs. Jew tells the story of how American Jewry has increasingly -- and perhaps terminally -- broken apart in the last forty years. Jew vs. Jew stretches in time from 1960 to 2000. It travels the country from Florida to New England, from Los Angeles to the Catskills in New York, from Cleveland to Denver, and it also crosses the ocean to Israel to show how tensions within the Jewish state inflame those among American Jews. The flash-points range from conversion standards to the role of women, from the peace process in Israel to the sexual climate on an Ivy League campus. But behind them all, as Samuel Freedman writes, lie common causes. First, far from unifying American Jews, Israel now divides them on both political and religious grounds. Second, neither America nor the larger world presents Jews with a single enemy against whom to coalesce. Third, and most important, nothing in the Jewish history of persecution, oppression, and exile prepared the Chosen People for the challenge posed by America, the challenge of being absorbed into a tolerant and diverse nation, being accepted so thoroughly that the intermarriage rate tops 50 percent. Jew vs. Jew introduces readers to memorable places and characters. Freedman describes one of the final summers at a Labor Zionist camp in the Catskills whose brand of secular Jewishness is becoming obsolete because Zionism succeeded in creating Israel. He tells the story of Orthodox and Reform Jews in a Cleveland suburb who are fighting about the construction of several synagogues -- and, on a deeper level, about whether unity or pluralism ought to be the goal of Jewish life. He portrays a Florida Jew so violently opposed to the Oslo peace accords that he planted a bomb in a synagogue where Shimon Peres was speaking. He tells about a Los Angeles congregation that spent three years debating whether or not to honor the Biblical matriarchs in its liturgy.We come to know the Long Island neighbors who cannot tolerate sharing even a property line because their versions of Jewish identity are so irreconcilably different. Jew vs. Jew is a work of vigorous reporting, lucid writing, and intellectual curiosity. And even as it chronicles an embittered and polarized community, it refuses to take sides or pass judgment. Instead, with compassion and acuity, Jew vs. Jew bears witness.

Surveys Jewish holidays, history, and culture, and suggests non-religious ways to celebrate one's ethnic heritage.

The life and history of Jesus from a Jewish point of view, emphasizing the similarity of Jesus' views and the Pharisees' interpretation of Judaism and contradicting the traditional Christian understanding of his life and ideas.

The Pentateuch And The Haftaroth is a book written by Abraham Benisch in 1889. The book is a comprehensive guide to the Jewish scriptures, specifically the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, known as the Pentateuch, and the related readings from the Prophets, known as the Haftaroth. The Pentateuch, which includes the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, is considered the foundation of Jewish law and tradition. The Haftaroth, on the other hand, are selections from the books of the Prophets that are read in synagogues on Sabbaths and holidays, and are meant to complement the themes of the Torah portion.Benisch's book provides a detailed analysis of each section of the Pentateuch and the corresponding Haftarah reading, examining the historical context, literary style, and theological themes of each passage. The book also includes translations of the Hebrew text, as well as commentary and interpretation from various Jewish scholars throughout history.Overall, The Pentateuch And The Haftaroth is a valuable resource for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of Jewish scripture and tradition.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.

For two millennia Christianity has stated that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah prophesized about in Jewish scripture. But how have Christians justified these claims? And from what sources do they draw their evidence that Jesus was in fact the Messiah? Biblical scholar, Alfred Edersheim, in an extremely thorough study of Jewish scripture examines how Jesus Christ fulfilled the Messianic hopes of many Old Testament prophecies. Through the course of twelve lectures Edersheim provides brilliant insight into the Old Testament and how the texts within it provide clear evidence of prophecy for the coming of Jesus Christ. Yet, Edersheim does not stop at studying the Old Testament alone but also uses the Pentateuch, the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha to provide further examples that Jesus was indeed prophesized about by Jewish texts many centuries before he was born. This book is essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand more fully how Jesus' life was intertwined with old Jewish texts and for those who are looking for a scholarly, yet accessible, account of this fascinating topic. Alfred Edersheim (1825-89) was a Vienna-born biblical scholar who converted from Judaism to Christianity. A veteran minister and missionary to the Jews of Romania, Edersheim left an enduring and priceless legacy to followers of Christ. Among his most widely read works are The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, The Temple: Its Ministry and Services, and Bible History Old Testament.

Jews were emancipated at a time when high culture was becoming an integral part of German citizenship. German Jews felt a powerful urge to integrate, to find their Jewish substance in German culture and craft an identity as both Germans and Jews. In this reprint edition, based on the 1983 Efroymson Memorial Lectures given at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati, George Mosse argues that they did this by adopting the concept of Bildung-the idea of intellectual and moral self-cultivation-and combining it with key Enlightenment ideas such as optimism about human potential, individualism and autonomy, and a connection between knowledge and morality through aesthetics. Personal friendships could be devoted to common pursuit of Bildung and become a means of overcoming differences, becoming a means for integration into German society. Mosse traces how Jewish artists, writers, and thinkers actively sought to participate in German culture and communicate these ideals through popular culture, scholarship, and political activity. From the historical biographies, novels, and short stories of Stefan Zweig and Emil Ludwig; to the psychoanalysis of Freud, which sought to subject irrationality to reason; to the revolutionary thought of Walter Benjamin-Jews sought to influence a mass political culture that was fast drifting into irrationality. As individualism was subsumed into nationalism, and eventually the German political right's racist version of nationalism, German-Jewish dialogue became more difficult. Jews remained idealistic as German society became less rational, their ideas corresponded less and less to the realities of German life, and they drifted out of the mainstream into an intellectual isolation. Yet out of this German-Jewish dialogue, what had once been part of German culture became a central Jewish heritage. The ideal of cultivating a personal identity beyond religion and nationality, the liberal outlook on society and politics, and the desire to transcend history by stressing what united rather than divided individuals and nations infiltrated Jewish life became an inspiration for many men and women searching to humanize their society and their own lives. Mosse's lectures trace the emergence of a form of Jewishness which resisted cultural ghettoization in favor of the pursuit of that which is universally human.

Biblical historian Max Dimont, author of the classic Jews, God, and History, explores the mystery surrounding the predictions Jesus made about his fate. Examining the gospel, Dimont recreates the drama in three acts using his knowledge of the events recorded in the Bible. Thoughtful and fascinating, Appointment in Jerusalem, examines the questions that have surrounded religion for centuries. Who was Jesus, the Christian messiah or a member of a Jewish Sect? Dimont's insight is intelligent and surprising.