“One of the greatest religious biographies ever written.” – Dennis Prager In this enlightening biography, Joseph Telushkin offers a captivating portrait of the late Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, a towering figure who saw beyond conventional boundaries to turn his movement, Chabad-Lubavitch, into one of the most dynamic and widespread organizations ever seen in the Jewish world. At once an incisive work of history and a compendium of Rabbi Schneerson's teachings, Rebbe is the definitive guide to understanding one of the most vital, intriguing figures of the last centuries. From his modest headquarters in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, the Rebbe advised some of the world's greatest leaders and shaped matters of state and society. Statesmen and artists as diverse as Ronald Reagan, Robert F. Kennedy, Yitzchak Rabin, Menachem Begin, Elie Wiesel, and Bob Dylan span the spectrum of those who sought his counsel. Rebbe explores Schneerson's overarching philosophies against the backdrop of treacherous history, revealing his clandestine operations to rescue and sustain Jews in the Soviet Union, and his critical role in the expansion of the food stamp program throughout the United States. More broadly, it examines how he became in effect an ambassador for Jews globally, and how he came to be viewed by many as not only a spiritual archetype but a savior. Telushkin also delves deep into the more controversial aspects of the Rebbe's leadership, analyzing his views on modern science and territorial compromise in Israel, and how in the last years of his life, many of his followers believed that he would soon be revealed as the Messiah, a source of contention until this day.

"Hasidism, a movement many believed had passed its golden age, has had an extraordinary revival since its near decimation in the Holocaust and Soviet communism. These Hasidim, now settled primarily in North America and Israel have reversed the losses they suffered and rebuilt their communities. The once unimaginable is today routine. Hasidism is alive and growing. How? "Who Will Lead Us?" is the story of five contemporary Hasidic dynasties and how they have handled the delicate issue of leadership and succession. It explores two groups with too few successors, two with too many successors, and one that claims there is no need for a successor, as they claim their leader never died"--Provided by publisher.

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.

This is an amazing book about Jewish women's rights in the traditional world of religious practice. This is an important ongoing debate in the Jewish world. Women are increasingly claiming the right of religious practice equal to men. In Israel traditional religious practice does not allow women in roles of religious leadership. In this book nine Jewish Reform clergywomen describe their experiences of becoming religious professionals, either rabbis or cantors. Some were born in Israel and others in the United States or Russia, but all found their way to Israel where Orthodox practice is the primary state-supported form of Judaism. Although Orthodox Judaism does not permit women to lead regular services, Reform and Conservative Judaism do. In these nine narratives women tell their personal stories of religious practice within the background of their families and social contexts.

A Jewish leader describes how to reinvigorate the Jewish community in North America, calling for acceptance of intermarried families and disengaged Jews, embracing of Jewish diversity, and openness to innovation and young leadership.

"The Jewish community has been rocked by shocking stories about rabbis and other community leaders sexually abusing their congregants, their students, or their coworkers. And the question on everyone's mind is: How is this happening? With a portrait of high profile figures, including their personality types and tactics, Dr. Sztokman's analysis is grounded in interviews with 84 abuse victims/survivors, Jewish communal professionals, and volunteers. The book documents how communal settings are ripe for abuse, how abusers coopt Jewish values as a grooming tactic, how high-profile abusers often receive high-profile support, and how the search for support and accountability often doubly victimizes the abused. Dr. Sztokman concludes with sweeping recommendations for social and cultural change, reminding us that we are not free to desist from action, especially not now." --

"Following the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 CE, Jews were faced with a world in existential chaos--both they and their God were rendered homeless. So the rabbis, aspirants for leadership of the post-destruction Jewish community, appropriated inherited traditions and used them as building blocks for a new religious structure. Not unexpectedly, given the circumstances, this new rabbinic formation devoted considerable attention to matters of space and place. Rabbinic Judaism: Space and Place offers the first comprehensive study of spatiality in Rabbinic Judaism of late antiquity, exploring how the rabbis reoriented the Jewish relationship with space and place following the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple. Drawing upon the insights of theorists such as Tuan and LeFebvre, who define the crisis that "homelessness" represents and argue for the deep relationship of human societies to their places, the book examines the compositions of the rabbis and discovers both a surprisingly aggressive rabbinic spatial imagination as well as places, most notably the synagogue, where rabbinic attention to space and place is suppressed or absent. It concludes that these represent two different but simultaneous rabbinic strategies for re-placing God and Israel--strategies that at the same time allow God and Israel to find a place anywhere. This study offers new insight into the centrality of space and place to rabbinic religion after the destruction of the Temple, and as such would be a key resource to students and scholars interested in rabbinic and ancient Judaism, as well as providing a major new case study for anthropologists interested in the study of space"--

The title of political theorist Alan L. Mittleman's captivating new book is drawn from the patriarch Jacob's blessing to his children and grandchildren. The blessing contains the promise that Judah will become a royal house, perhaps forever. Kings, of course, ceased in Israel, but politics did not. Regime replaced regime. National independence was compromised and lost, regained and lost again. Yet the attention to things political was never lost. Old texts were applied to new political realities. Political awareness and thought, constantly transformed and adapted to new historical exigencies, persisted among the Jews. In The Scepter Shall Not Depart from Judah , Mittleman looks at some of the central problems of political philosophy-such as fundamental rights and the common good-from the point of view of rabbinic Judaism. At the same time, he considers conceptual issues in Judaism-such as covenant and tradition-from the perspective of political philosophy. Mittleman's sources range from the ancient rabbis to contemporary political theorists, making this volume an important one for courses and research in both Jewish studies and political theory.

Confidently navigating the ancient wilderness, master educator Erica Brown guides readers through the tumultuous events of the book of Numbers in search of the key to successful leadership. How might a leader overcome unrest? How to contend with external challenges and internal doubts? And how to rekindle the faith of a people who have all but given up? Bringing together Bible and commentary, literature and philosophy, travelogues and corporate manuals, Leadership in the Wilderness presents a guide to good government, as relevant today as it was three thousand years ago.

Based on documentation from various archives, discusses religious and halakhic issues which affected the lives of observant Jews during the Holocaust. Includes chapters on the reactions of rabbis in various towns to reports on the extermination of Jews; the persecution and suffering of rabbis and the rescue of some hasidic rabbis; halakhic rulings in ghettos and camps, e.g. concerning the desire of individual Jews to sacrifice themselves for others; rulings on problems involved in posing as a non-Jew; marriage, prayers, and the sanctification of God's name during the Holocaust; responsa of Rabbi Yehoshua Moshe Aronzon, a rabbi in Sanniki, Poland, who survived Nazi camps; sermons delivered by Rabbi Kalonimus Kalmish Shapira in the Warsaw ghetto; diaries, memoirs, and letters of survivors.

2006 National Jewish Book Award, Modern Jewish Thought Long the object of curiosity, admiration, and gossip, rabbis' wives have rarely been viewed seriously as American Jewish religious and communal leaders. We know a great deal about the important role played by rabbis in building American Jewish life in this country, but not much about the role that their wives played. The Rabbi’s Wife redresses that imbalance by highlighting the unique contributions of rebbetzins to the development of American Jewry. Tracing the careers of rebbetzins from the beginning of the twentieth century until the present, Shuly Rubin Schwartz chronicles the evolution of the role from a few individual rabbis' wives who emerged as leaders to a cohort who worked together on behalf of American Judaism. The Rabbi’s Wife reveals the ways these women succeeded in both building crucial leadership roles for themselves and becoming an important force in shaping Jewish life in America.

Rabbi Meir Kahane is a member of the Israeli Knesset. According to public opinion polls, the movement he heads is gaining enormous power among Israelis, and particularly among the young. Kahane has long been a thorn in the buttocks of the wealthy and entrenched Jewish leadership. His founding of the Jewish Defense League, his demands for Jewish defense of poor and elderly Jews in the inner cities, his taking to the streets in the late '60s and his use of violence to draw international attention to the Soviet Jewish problem, have all gained him the hostility of so-called Jewish leaders. In Uncomfortable Questions for Comfortable Jews, Meir Kahane touches the most painful nerves and psyches of those Jewish liberals who would prefer to believe that Judaism and Zionism arc compatible with liberal concepts. He challenges us all with such agonizing questions as: If a Jewish and Zionist state was created in Israel to guarantee a homeland for Jews with a guaranteed permanent Jewish majority and Jewish sovereignty, will Arabs be allowed to peacefully and democratically become a majority and turn Israel into an Arab nation? * If the answer is "No," isn't that a contradiction of the western democratic thesis: "one person, one vote"'? * Is Zionism, which calls for a Jewish majority, not in total conflict with Western democracy, which insists on majority rule, no matter who constitutes the majority? * Can any Jewish leader or even an average Jew offer a young Jew any logical reason not to marry a non-Jew? Or even the slightest logical reason to insist on being a Jew rather than a "human being"? * Is Israel a Jewish state or is it a Hebrew-speaking gentilized one whose secular youth haven't the slightest idea of what Jewishness is and who dream of living in the fleshpots of the West? * How many Arabs will sit in the Knesset in ten years? In twenty years? Will they become a majority and vote Israel out of existence? * Does that matter? * Does anyone care? These are but a few of the challenging questions Kahane asks and it is the reason Jewish leaders have tried to build mountains of antagonism against him to insure that this book is buried and that Jews do not read it. Uncomfortable questions indeed-and Rabbi Kahane offers Jewish answers. The language and the ideas are not "polite" and "temperate." He isn't following the doctrine of phoniness to "be nice" because, in the end, he is talking about a single issue: Jewish survival.

Hinduism has become a vital 'other' for Judaism over the past decades. The book surveys the history of the relationship from historical to contemporary times, from travellers to religious leadership. It explores the potential enrichment for Jewish theology and spirituality, as well as the challenges for Jewish identity.

Help sustain the Jewish tradition's legacy of community leadership by building strong leaders today. "Great Jewish leadership has helped us survive slavery, guided us to the Promised Land, given us hope through exile and oppression, helped us enjoy membership in a nation of overachievers and given birth to the State of Israel. Great Jewish leadership generates vision and, as a result, followers. It inspires us and helps us to stretch higher, see farther and reach deeper." --from the Introduction Drawing on the past and looking to the future, this practical guide provides the tools you need to work through important contemporary leadership issues. It takes a broad look at positions of leadership in the modern Jewish community and the qualities and skills you need in order to succeed in these positions. Real-life anecdotes, interviews and dialogue stimulate thinking about board development, ethical leadership, conflict resolution, change management and effective succession planning. Whether you are a professional or a volunteer, are looking to develop your own personal leadership skills or are part of a group, this inspiring book provides information, interactive exercises and questions for reflection to help you define leadership styles and theories, expose common myths and coach others on the importance of leading with meaning.

The first book-length study of contemporary British Jewry, 'Turbulent Times: The British Jewish Community Today' examines the changing nature of the British Jewish community and its leadership since 1990. Keith Kahn-Harris and Ben Gidley contend that there has been a shift within Jewish communal discourse from a strategy of security, which emphasized Anglo-Jewry's secure British belonging and citizenship, to a strategy of insecurity, which emphasizes the dangers and threats Jews face individually and communally. This shift is part of a process of renewal in the community that has led to something of a 'Jewish renaissance' in Britain. Addressing key questions on the transitions in the history of Anglo-Jewish community and leadership, and tackling the concept of the 'new antisemitism', this important and timely study addresses the question: how has UK Jewry adapted from a shift from monoculturalism to multiculturalism?

Why do people follow a leader, particularly a religious leader? And why, given that Americans are still an overwhelmingly religious people, is the clergy declining in influence? Byron Sherwin argues that what is missing is the perception that religious leaders today are capable of working wonders. Sherwin leads the reader through five periods of Jewish history: the era of biblical prophets, Jesus and first-century Israel; Babylonian rabbis of the third and fourth centuries; the east European Hasidic Masters of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and twentieth century North African rabbis. In all cases, the moral authority of the leaders came primarily from popular belief in their power to work wonders for the people. Sherwin applies history to the current situation. If the clergy is to be re-empowered, to reclaim leadership and authority as holy people, they must reassert the ability to work wonders. This is a book that every member of the clergy and every religious leader should read, ponder and take to heart.

Judaism's Promise, Meeting The Challenge Of Modernity follows Seymour W. Itzkoff's well-received three-book series, Who Are the Jews? Judaism's Promise , confronts the many revolutions that have reshaped Judaism over the centuries allowing it and its people a path of leadership into the modern world. It takes the writings of the Torah, Holy Scriptures, and Talmud seriously as exemplars of the human search for civilizational and moral intellectuality. The book's basic concern is with the withering of Judaism as a force in contemporary Western civilization. Sadly millions of Jews have left the faith. Others venture forth only hesitantly into a synagogue, now a bastion of fossilized ritual and conspicuous consumption. These millions needed more from the orthodoxy, and this book attempts to show them the way back by giving renewed life to the heritages of Judaism, and, consequently, to its meaning for the modern world. Judaism's Promise argues for a return to the synagogue's originating Hellenistic commitment «to come together» in intellectual and moral study. As Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan argued, Judaism must once more become in the 20-21st century the civilization that it once represented to the wider world, and not a fossilized ceremonialism.

"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"--