6 results for "Innovation"

The Dönme: Jewish converts, Muslim revolutionaries, and secular Turks

Baer, Marc David
This book tells the story of the Dönme, the descendents of Jews who resided in the Ottoman Empire and converted to Islam along with their messiah, Rabbi Shabbatai Tzevi, in the seventeenth century. For two centuries following their conversion, the Dönme were accepted as Muslims, and by the end of the nineteenth century rose to the top of Salonikan society. The Dönme helped transform Salonika into a cosmopolitan city, promoting the newest innovation in trade and finance, urban reform, and modern education. They eventually became the driving force behind the 1908 revolution that led to the overthrow of the Ottoman sultan and the establishment of a secular republic. To their proponents, the Dönme are enlightened secularists and Turkish nationalists who fought against the dark forces of superstition and religious obscurantism. To their opponents, they were simply crypto-Jews engaged in a plot to dissolve the Islamic empire. Both points of view assume the Dönme were anti-religious, whether couched as critique or praise. But it is time that we take these religious people seriously on their own terms. In the Ottoman Empire, the Dönme promoted morality, ethics, spirituality, and a syncretistic religion that reflected their origins at the intersection of Jewish Kabbalah and Islamic Sufism. This is the first book to tell their story, from their origins to their near total dissolution as they became secular Turks in the mid-twentieth century.
Stanford University Press 2010 332 pages

Dreamers of the Ghetto

Israel Zangwill
Dreamers of the Ghetto (1892) is a collection of stories by Israel Zangwill. Raised in London by parents from Latvia and Poland, Zangwill understood the plight of the city's Jewish community firsthand. Having risen through poverty to become an educator and author, he dedicated his career to the voiceless, the oppressed, and the needy, advocating for their rights and bearing witness to their suffering in some of the most powerful novels and stories of the Victorian era. "This is a Chronicle of Dreamers, who have arisen in the Ghetto from its establishment in the sixteenth century to its slow breaking-up in our own day. Some have become historic in Jewry, others have penetrated to the ken of the greater world and afforded models to illustrious artists in letters..." As a Jewish immigrant who grew up in poverty in London, Israel Zangwill knows that the condition of life in the ghetto changes not just lives, but mentalities. In the third installment of his Ghetto series, Zangwill imagines the lives of such historical Jewish figures as Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza, German poet Heinrich Heine, and Prussian lawyer and political activist Ferdinand Lasalle. The tales of Jewish life in Dreamers of the Ghetto earned Zangwill comparisons to Dickens upon publication, and helped to establish him as an author with a gift for intensive character study and a passion for political themes. This edition of Israel Zangwill's Dreamers of the Ghetto is a classic of British literature reimagined for modern readers. Since our inception in 2020, Mint Editions has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book. With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.
West Margin Press 2021-10-12 382 pages

B'Nai B'Rith and the Challenge of Ethnic Leadership

Deborah Dash Moore
B'nai B'rith has a history almost as diverse as the story of American Jewry itself. The oldest secular Jewish organization in the United States, it was founded in 1843. Thereafter, it followed in the footsteps of its immigrant founders, spreading into the cities, towns, and villages of America, eventually becoming the worldwide order it is today. What is more, B'nai B'rith's physical expansion was paralleled by the scope of its activities. It supports one of the most prominent American Jewish defense organizations, the Anti-Defamation League. Its Hillel Foundations constitute an international network of student activities on college campuses. It sponsors a broad array of learning programs through its Adult Jewish Education Commission. The B'nai B'rith Youth Organization serves the entire Jewish community. It conducts projects and programs in Israel of philanthropic and educational nature, helps finance several national Jewish hospitals and homes for the aged, and supervises an International Council to coordinate its overseas units and to take responsible action on issues relating to world Jewish affairs. And it is partnered in all these activities by B'nai B'rith Women, an independent organization. This is the saga of B'nai B'rith, recounted by Professor Deborah Dash Moore. To elucidate the diverse facets of this venerable, yet youthful, organization and to reveal their integral relationship to the history of the Jews in America, Professor Moore focuses on the moments of innovation that have influenced its development and direction, and on the outstanding individuals who have guided the Order's destiny.
State University of New York Press 1981 288 pages

Ghetto Tragedies

Israel Zangwill
Ghetto Tragedies (1899) is a collection of stories by Israel Zangwill. Raised in London by parents from Latvia and Poland, Zangwill understood the plight of the city's Jewish community firsthand. Having risen through poverty to become an educator and author, he dedicated his career to the voiceless, the oppressed, and the needy, advocating for their rights and bearing witness to their suffering in some of the most powerful novels and stories of the Victorian era. "People who have been living in a Ghetto for a couple of centuries, are not able to step outside merely because the gates are thrown down, nor to efface the brands on their souls by putting off the yellow badges. The isolation imposed from without will have come to seem the law of their being." As a Jewish immigrant who grew up in poverty in London, Israel Zangwill knows that the condition of life in the ghetto changes not just lives, but mentalities. In the fourth installment of his Ghetto series, Zangwill imagines the lives of everyday Jewish people. Zillah and Jossel, successful boot makers; Daniel Peyser, a father of seven daughters; Isaac Levinsky, the son of a pious Rabbi. These are the lives so lovingly shaped in the author's skillful hands, people whose experiences with love, loss, doubt, and faith are not so different from our own. The tales of Jewish life in Ghetto Tragedies earned Zangwill comparisons to Dickens upon publication and helped to establish him as an author with a gift for intensive character study and a passion for political themes. This edition of Israel Zangwill's Ghetto Tragedies is a classic of British literature reimagined for modern readers. Since our inception in 2020, Mint Editions has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book. With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.
West Margin Press 2021-10-12 272 pages

Ghetto Comedies

Israel Zangwill
Ghetto Comedies (1907) is a collection of stories by Israel Zangwill. Raised in London by parents from Latvia and Poland, Zangwill understood the plight of the city's Jewish community firsthand. Having risen through poverty to become an educator and author, he dedicated his career to the voiceless, the oppressed, and the needy, advocating for their rights and bearing witness to their suffering in some of the most powerful novels and stories of the Victorian era. "People who have been living in a Ghetto for a couple of centuries, are not able to step outside merely because the gates are thrown down, nor to efface the brands on their souls by putting off the yellow badges. The isolation imposed from without will have come to seem the law of their being." As a Jewish immigrant who grew up in poverty in London, Israel Zangwill knows that the condition of life in the ghetto changes not just lives, but mentalities. In the fifth and final installment of his Ghetto series, Zangwill imagines the lives of everyday Jewish people. A German painter searches for a Jewish model for his painting of Jesus Christ; Solomon Cohen, or S. Cohn, rises to prominence as a Town Councillor in Sudminster while suppressing his Jewish heritage; Bloomah Beckenstein, a young Jewish girl, is blamed for spreading smallpox at her school in London. These are the lives that take shape in the author's skillful hands, people whose experiences with love, loss, doubt, and faith are not so different from our own. The tales of Jewish life in Ghetto Comedies earned Zangwill comparisons to Dickens upon publication and helped to establish him as an author with a gift for intensive character study and a passion for political themes. This edition of Israel Zangwill's Ghetto Comedies is a classic of British literature reimagined for modern readers. Since our inception in 2020, Mint Editions has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book. With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.
West Margin Press 2021-10-12 266 pages

Rabbi Esriel Hildesheimer and the Creation of a Modern Jewish Orthodoxy

David Ellenson
The story of modern Orthodox Judaism is usually told only from the perspective of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch. Ellenson’s work, a thorough examination of the life and work of one of Hirsch’s contemporaries, Rabbi Esriel Hildesheimer, reveals another important contributor to the creation of a modern Jewish Orthodoxy during the late 1800s. like Hirsch, Hildesheirmer felt the need to continue certain traditions while at the same time introducing certain innovations to meet the demands of a modern society. This original study of an Orthodox rabbinic leader shows how Hildesheirmer’s flexible and pragmatic approach to these problems continues to be relevant to modern Judaism. The way in which this book draws upon response literature for its comprehension of Hildesheimer makes it a distinctive work in modern Jewish historiography and sociology.
University of Alabama Press 2003-05-05 232 pages