Jeffrey L. Rubenstein continues his grand exploration of the ancient rabbinic tradition of the Talmudic sages, offering deep and complex analysis of eight stories from the Babylonian Talmud to reconstruct the cultural and religious world of the Babylonian rabbinic academy. Rubenstein combines a close textual and literary examination of each story with a careful comparison to earlier versions from other rabbinic compilations. This unique approach provides insight not only into the meaning and content of the current forms of the stories but also into how redactors reworked those earlier versions to address contemporary moral and religious issues. Rubenstein's analysis uncovers the literary methods used to compose the Talmud and sheds light on the cultural and theological perspectives of the Stammaim — the anonymous editor-redactors of the Babylonian Talmud. Rubenstein also uses these stories as a window into understanding more broadly the culture of the late Babylonian rabbinic academy, a hierarchically organized and competitive institution where sages studied the Torah. Several of the stories Rubenstein studies here describe the dynamics of life in the academy: master-disciple relationships, collegiality and rivalry, and the struggle for leadership positions. Others elucidate the worldview of the Stammaim, including their perspectives on astrology, theodicy, and revelation.

The first anthology by Jewish women of color, with the original edition published in 2003, The Flying Camel 2022 edition remains ahead of the curve and includes new material: a cover and introduction featuring celebrity Yemenite-Israeli band A-WA, along with a musical framework for understanding issues addressed throughout the anthology; a preface sharing how the book was birthed into being and how to use it today; original poems by editor Loolwa Khazzoom, matched with the themes of each essay in the book; and a comprehensive study guide for book clubs and university courses. Like the proverbial phoenix rising from the ashes, the seventeen women of The Flying Camel boldly emerge from the wreckage of their ancient civilizations and invite readers on an intimate journey of self-discovery, creativity, and defiance. Drawing from personal and ancestral memories, amidst the pursuit of soul-filled dreams and longings, anthology contributors navigate geopolitical upheaval and cultural homelessness, crisscrossing four continents and stepping back and forth through the spiritual portals of time. Nothing is quite as it seems, we learn, with identity constructs, loyalties, and politics dependent on so many variables that, ultimately, the borders perhaps dissolve into the greater expansiveness of who we are. Alternately raw and fierce, vulnerable and tender, these gripping stories are deeply personal and uniformly honest, providing a secret passageway deep below the narrow scripts and slogans of today's identity politics, and leading straight into the chamber of the heart. Reflecting a diversity of experience and perspective, and drawing from a collective wealth of knowledge, the stories naturally weave through topics including exile, body image, sexuality, class division, religious practice, domestic violence, the Middle East conflict, and other pertinent issues, in ways that are both insightful and refreshing.

Born into slavery, adopted as an infant by a princess, and raised in the palace of mighty Pharaoh, Moses struggles to define himself. And so do the three women who love him: his own embittered mother, forced to give him up by Pharaoh's decree; the Egyptian princess who defies her father and raises Moses as her own child; and his headstrong sister Almah, who discovers a greater kinship with the Egyptian deities than with her own God of the Hebrews. Told by Moses and his sister Almah from alternating points of view, this stunning novel by Newbery Honor-author Julius Lester probes questions of identity, faith, and destiny.

Debate over the authenticity of "On the Jews" has persisted for nearly 1,900 years. Bezalel Bar-Kochva attempts to overcome this stalemate in his finely detailed and convincingly argued study that proves the forgery of the book and suggests not only a source for the text, but also a social, political, and cultural setting that explains its conception. Bar-Kochva argues that the author of this treatise belonged to the moderate conservative Jews of Alexandria, whose practices were contrary to the contemporary trends of Hellenistic Judaism. They rejected the application of Greek philosophy and allegorical interpretations of the Holy scriptures and advocated the use of Pentateuch Hebrew as the language for educating and for religious services. They showed a keen interest in Judea and identified themselves with the Jews of the Holy Land. "On the Jews," then, was the manifesto of this group and was written at the peak period of the Hasmonean kingdom. Its main purpose was to legitimize Jewish residence in Egypt, despite being explicitly prohibited in the Pentateuch, and to justify the continued residence of Jews there in a time of prosperity and expansion of the Jewish independent state.

Book by Neusner, Jacob

Originally Published by Scholars Press Now Available from Duke University Press In this interdisciplinary work, Martin H. Krieger examines the entrepeneur in terms of modes and ideal figures drawn from religion and classical studies. In so doing, he provides a means or vocabulary with which entrepreneurs can articulate their experience of risk, commitment, and judgment. In addition, by establishing a comparison between the entrepreneur and the figures he utilizes from religious and classical literature, Krieger generates surprising new ways to look at the careers of such traditional figures as St. Augustine, Moses, Oedipus, Antigone, and the characters of Shakespeare's The Tempest. Both an exercise in the humanities and in the pragmatic world of business, Krieger's work offers an intriguing methodology for how humanistic learning can be applied to the real world concerns of the entrepreneur. A teaching and self-study guide to Entrepreneurial Vocation is included as an appendix for those wishing to adopt the text as a classroom resource.