This essay in the history of ideas seeks to trace the development of creed formation in Judaism from its inception with Moses Maimonides (1135-1204) to the beginning of the sixteenth-century, when systematic attention to the problem disappeared from the agenda of Jewish intellectuals. Dr Kellner describes, analyses, and compares the dogmatic systems of Maimonides, Duran, Crescas, Albo, Bibado, Abravanel, among others. English translations are presented for relevant texts, which, for the most part, have never before been critically edited or translated.

Here the late Raphael Patai (1910-1996) recreates the fascinating world of Jewish seafaring from Noah's voyage through the Diaspora of late antiquity. In a work of pioneering scholarship, Patai weaves together Biblical stories, Talmudic lore, and Midrash literature to bring alive the world of these ancient mariners. As he did in his highly acclaimed book The Jewish Alchemists, Patai explores a subject that has never before been investigated by scholars. Based on nearly sixty years of research, beginning with study he undertook for his doctoral dissertation, The Children of Noah is literally Patai's first book and his last. It is a work of unsurpassed scholarship, but it is accessible to general readers as well as scholars.An abundance of evidence demonstrates the importance of the sea in the lives of Jews throughout early recorded history. Jews built ships, sailed them, fought wars in them, battled storms in them, and lost their lives to the sea. Patai begins with the story of the deluge that is found in Genesis and profiles Noah, the father of all shipbuilders and seafarers. The sea, according to Patai's interpretation, can be seen as an image of the manifestation of God's power, and he reflects on its role in legends and tales of early times. The practical importance of the sea also led to the development of practical institutions, and Patai shows how Jewish seafaring had its own culture and how it influenced the cultures of Mediterranean life as well. Of course, Jewish sailors were subject to the same rabbinical laws as Jews who never set sail, and Patai describes how they went to extreme lengths to remain in adherence, even getting special emendations of laws to allow them to tie knots and adjust rigging on the Sabbath.The Children of Noah is a capstone to an extraordinary career. Patai was both a careful scholar and a gifted storyteller, and this work is at once a vivid history of a neglected aspect of Jewish culture and a treasure trove of sources for further study. It is a stimulating and delightful book.

This is a biography of a young man who is not really sure what to do with his life, who gets thrown into the whirlwind of World War II and only then learns about life, about courage, and about honor. A boy, who grows up in poisonous, anti-Sematic surroundings in Poland, he travels to Palestine and unexpectedly finds a purpose in life. then everything changes for Abram with the outbreak of World War II. He joins the British Army as a private and a sequence of incredible events follow- he serves in the suicide comando and is court-martialed for hitting a British Sargeant Major. After the war ends, Abram, now a major in the British Army, organizes the transport of tens of thousands of concentration camp survivors to Palestine. he does this right under the noses of British intelligence, and is later detained for months while being investigated. Finally, the story moves on to the War of Independence in Palestine, where Abram plays a critical part in establishing a secret road to supply the surrounded Jerusalem Jews- saving them from the Arabs. Abram tells of his fight with Prime Minister Ben-Gurion and its consequences. The incredible saga of Abram plays out against the stark reality of World War II and its aftermath. It will no doubt leave an indelible impression on the reader.

Menaḥem Mendel Schneerson (1902-1994) was the seventh and seemingly last Rebbe of the Habad-Lubavitch dynasty. Marked by conflicting tendencies, Schneerson was a radical messianic visionary who promoted a conservative political agenda, a reclusive contemplative who built a hasidic sect into an international movement, and a man dedicated to the exposition of mysteries who nevertheless harbored many secrets. Schneerson astutely masked views that might be deemed heterodox by the canons of orthodoxy while engineering a fundamentalist ideology that could subvert traditional gender hierarchy, the halakhic distinction between permissible and forbidden, and the social-anthropological division between Jew and Gentile. While most literature on the Rebbe focuses on whether or not he identified with the role of Messiah, Elliot R. Wolfson, a leading scholar of Jewish mysticism and the phenomenology of religious experience, concentrates instead on Schneerson's apocalyptic sensibility and his promotion of a mystical consciousness that undermines all discrimination. For Schneerson, the ploy of secrecy is crucial to the dissemination of the messianic secret. To be enlightened messianically is to be delivered from all conceptual limitations, even the very notion of becoming emancipated from limitation. The ultimate liberation, or true and complete redemption, fuses the believer into an infinite essence beyond all duality, even the duality of being emancipated and not emancipated--an emancipation, in other words, that emancipates one from the bind of emancipation. At its deepest level, Schneerson's eschatological orientation discerned that a spiritual master, if he be true, must dispose of the mask of mastery. Situating Habad's thought within the evolution of kabbalistic mysticism, the history of Western philosophy, and Mahayana Buddhism, Wolfson articulates Schneerson's rich theology and profound philosophy, concentrating on the nature of apophatic embodiment, semiotic materiality, hypernomian transvaluation, nondifferentiated alterity, and atemporal temporality.

The book starts with a background story of the author which explains what led him to his strange life- long hobby of "collecting religions". It then continues by building a systematic foundation to his Exodus theory. It starts with a closely related descriptions of North African history, geography, climate, the Africans, Egypt, and its powerful Nile in ancient times. The author then tells the story of his experiences in Africa, which led him to start his investigation and come up with the theory that the Exodus was partially occurred in North Africa. The book supports the theory with rational proofs including military, engineering, leadership, and common-sense explanations to many mystical stories about the Exodus, including the 10 plaques, crossing the sea of reeds, the reasoning for moving west, the locations of mount Sinai and its volcano "pillar of fire", the Tombs of Lust, the snakes attack in the Valley of the Serpents, the Manna tree, the golden Calf, the construction of the large Ark of Covenant and more. In addition, the author supports his theory by identifying 20 locations, which are listed in the Bible through which the Israelites passed from Egypt to Canaan, that still exist in North Africa today. Finally, the author brings additional evidence in support of his theory which relate to the similarity of African languages, such as Bambara, to Hebrew as well as similarities of African religious traditions, customs, and rituals to the ancient Jewish ones. Thus, concluding that some of the Israelites left The Exodus journey and settled in Africa, such as the Bambara tribes. The second part of the book describes the author's search for the hidden footsteps of the Ten lost Tribes on Israel. It starts with an historical background of the life in Canaan after the Israelites arrived there from Egypt, and the misfortunate events which led to the expulsion of the Ten Tribes by the Assyrians. It also presents some known historical records of the Japanese people since the time they arrived in their islands including some personal adventurous experiences of the author along the route that they took from Assyria through Asia to Japan. The proof of the theory is greatly related to the author's discoveries of similarities between the Japanese mythological stories, customs, holidays, rituals and their parallel biblical Jewish stories, holidays, custom and traditions. In addition, it presents many linguistic similarities between Hebrew and Japanese including words, writing letters and symbols that support his theory that the Japanese and the ancient Ten Lost Tribes of Israel are strongly related. The book finishes with a dictionary that shows similarities in meaning and pronunciation of many Hebrew, Bambara and Japanese words that support the author's theories that their history is closely related.

This timely book tells the fascinating story of how Zionists colonizers planned and established nearly 700 agricultural settlements, towns, and cities from the 1880s to the present. This extraordinary activity of planners, architects, social scientists, military personnel, politicians, and settlers is inextricably linked to multiple contexts: Jewish and Zionist history, the Arab/Jewish conflict, and the diffusion of European ideas to non-European worlds. S. Ilan Troen demonstrates how professionals and settlers continually innovated plans for both rural and urban frontiers in response to the competing demands of social and political ideologies and the need to achieve productivity, economic independence, and security in a hostile environment. In the 1930s, security became the primary challenge, shaping and even distorting patterns of growth. Not until the 1993 Oslo Accords, with prospects of compromise and accommodation, did planners again imagine Israel as a normal state, developing like other modern societies. Troen concludes that if Palestinian Arabs become reconciled to a Jewish state, Israel will reassign priority to the social and economic development of the country and region.