The first few decades of the eighteenth century witnessed an important moment in Jewish-Christian relations, as influential Christian scholars increasingly looked to Jewish texts to reveal the truths of their own faith. To what extent could postbiblical writings help them better understand the New Testament? And who would best be able to explicate these connections?Connecting the Covenants focuses on two separate but entwined stories, the first centering around the colorful character of Moses Marcus. The English-born son of wealthy parents and the grandson of the famous autobiographical author Glikl of Hameln, Marcus was a prominent Jew educated in the Ashkenazic yeshivah at Hamburg. On New Year's Day, 1723, Marcus was baptized as a Christian, later publishing a justification of his conversion and a vindication of his newly discovered faith in a small book in London. A trophy convert, he was promoted by figures at the highest levels of the Anglican Church as a cultural mediator between Judaism and Christianity. His modest successes in the world of the elite clerical establishment were followed, however, by conspicuous failures, both intellectual and material.The second story that David Ruderman tells emerges against the background of Marcus's professional decline. In the end, the prize convert proved to be a theologian of limited ability, far outstripped in sophistication and openness to rabbinic learning by a circle of Enlightenment Protestant scholars. It was not the Jew who had abjured Judaism who was willing or able to apply the Mishnah and Talmud to Christian exegesis, but figures such as William Whiston, Anthony Collins, William Wotton, and the Dutch scholar William Surenhusius who seized upon the ways to connect the covenants.

"Since the groundbreaking publication of Postmissionary Messianic Judaism (2005), Mark Kinzer has challenged theologians and religious leaders to consider the essential ecumenical vocation of Jewish disciples of Jesus. Proposing a bilateral ecclesiology in solidarity with Israel, he argued that the overcoming of Christian supersessionism required a robust affirmation of the distinctive calling of Jews within the community of Jesus the Messiah. In this way, Kinzer's work put the issue of Jewish followers of Jesus on the theological agenda for those seeking a reparative reconfiguration of the relationship between the church and the Jewish people. In recent years, Kinzer has attended to the theological implications of this perspective and has widened his focus to include not only the Messianic Jewish movement but also Jews within Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant churches. The present collection of essays reflects this wider concern. According to Kinzer, the theological stones of contention are Christology conceived of as Messianology, ecclesiology understood as Israelology, and eschatology imagined as Zionology. Moreover, it is the presence of Jewish disciples of Jesus that concretizes these theological abstractions in the form of Jewish flesh and blood, summoning Jews and Christians to rethink their relationship to one another in ways that express their essential mutual dependence." --

"Beyond the immediate issues of politics and economics lie the larger and deeper realities of history and fidelity. As a Jew I am asking in these essays traditional religious questions in light of our present circumstances: What does it mean to be Jewish after the Holocaust and the consolidation of our empowerment in Israel/Palestine? Coming from a situation of oppression, what does it mean for Jewish history and theology to continue oppressing the Palestinian people? Has our empowerment in Israel brought us the freedom we so urgently needed, or has our abuse of power in Israel brought us a new enslavement and ghettoization which we did not seek, but now pursue almost blindly? Can we be healed of our trauma of Holocaust by finalizing the trauma of the Palestinian people which we as Jews have inflicted? At the lighting of the Shabbat candles, shall we bless our endeavor and thank God for making us into a warrior people?"--

Over forty premier world religious and scholars, of all major faith traditions, were asked the following: -Who is a figure who inspires your interfaith work? -How does this figure inspire you, and what lessons, applications, and concrete expressions has this inspiration taken in your life? The result is a stunning overview of the interfaith movement, its history, role models and heroes. Historical presentation complements the personal and experiential voice of the authors, making this not only a work for interfaith education but also a resource for spiritual inspiration. --

Text: English, French, German

"Across almost the entire expanse of Jewish history, Jews have had to adjust to being ruled by empires. In antiquity alone Jews lived under a succession of imperial powers - Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, and Seleucid - before having to deal with the Romans. Judaism (of course) was shaped by each successive encounter with an imperial power. But as Katell Berthelot argues in this book, Rome and Roman imperialism presented Jews with unique ideological challenges, and compelled Jews to rethink key aspects of their own self-definition. Long before Rome became Christian, Jews recognized pagan Romans as unprecedented rivals because of some striking similarities between the two peoples. Previously Jews were ruled by empires associated with kingdoms and kings. By contrast, "Rome" was first and foremost a city and a people - and Romans thought of their city and themselves as a people in ways uncomfortably close to the ways Jews defined themselves: as an Israelite people tied to a capital city, Jerusalem. Moreover both Romans and Jews conceived of themselves as a pious people with a divine calling; both thought they possessed the most perfect laws ever written; and both believed themselves to be entrusted with a universal mission that implied bringing peace to the world. This was too close for comfort. The disturbingly close parallels led some Jews to feel that Rome was in fact trying to take Israel's place in God's plan for the world. Revealingly, the ancient rabbis depicted this rivalry by turning to the famous biblical story of the sibling rivals Jacob and Esau, associating the Jews with the former and the Romans with the latter. The perceived rivalry led to a series of innovations in Jewish self-perceptions in late antiquity in several areas that Berthelot will discuss in a series of book chapters: innovations in Jewish understandings of power, citizenship (or membership in a people), and law. Berthelot argues that in some cases the Jewish sources imitate or mimic Roman representations (of, e.g. legal thinking and practice), and in other cases propose a countermodel"--

"A history of the World Jewish Congress (WJC) from its founding in 1936 through 2016. Among the topics covered are the WJC's role during World War II; the WJC's contribution to the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg; post-WWII attitudes to and relationships with Jews living in Germany; the WJC's relationship and interaction with the State of Israel; the WJc's role and impact at the United Nations; the WJC's diplomatic efforts on behalf of North African Jewry during the 1950's and 1960's; materialization of the Holocaust at Auschwitz-Birkenau; the WJC's role in launching the Jewish-Vatican dialogue; advocacy on behalf of Soviet Jewry; the WJC's role in the campaign to repeal the UN's "Zionism is Racism" resolution; forcing Swiss banks to disgorge Holocaust-era assets belonging to Jews; the Kurt Walheim Affair; the WJC's interaction with communist countries; the WJC's role regarding terrorist attacks on Jewish institutions in Buenos Aires; the World Jewish Congress today; and WJC President Ronald S. Lauder's vision of the Jewish future"--

The Gnostic Imagination is the first comprehensive study of the relationship between Gnosticism and Merkabah mysticism. It includes an exhaustive analysis of Gershom Scholem's views on the subject, an analytical survey of other secondary literature, and a focused examination of primary sources. The work explores a wide range of topics including myth, exegesis, ascent traditions, and cosmology. Although the main focus is on western Gnostic traditions and Merkabah mysticism, the book also includes relevant material from Mandaeism and from later stages of Jewish mysticism such as German Pietism and Kabbalah. Not only is this volume the first to survey and evaluate the history of scholarship on this complex subject, but it also creates new pathways for future studies by illuminating the crucial methodological and topical issues in the field.

"Internationally recognized scholar David Ellenson shares twenty-three of his most representative essays, drawing on three decades of scholarship and demonstrating the consistency of the intellectual-religious interests that have animated him throughout his lifetime. These essays center on a description and examination of the complex push and pull between Jewish tradition and Western culture. Ellenson addresses gender equality, women's rights, conversion, issues relating to who is a Jew, the future of the rabbinate, Jewish day schools, and other emerging trends in American Jewish life. As an outspoken advocate for a strong Israel that is faithful to the democratic and Jewish values that informed its founders, he also writes about religious tolerance and pluralism in the Jewish state. The former president of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, the primary seminary of the Reform movement, Ellenson is widely respected for his vision of advancing Jewish unity and of preparing leadership for a contemporary Judaism that balances tradition with the demands of a changing world. Scholars and students of Jewish religious thought, ethics, and modern Jewish history will welcome this erudite collection by one of today's great Jewish leaders"--