Download or read book Confronting Omnicide written by Daniel Landes and published by Jason Aronson, Incorporated. This book was released on 1991-02-01 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today, humankind stands at a crossroads. In the past decades, technological advancements have transformed societies, giving us extraordinary capabilities. Our achievements, however, prove to be a double-edges sword, for the genius that enables is to enhance the quality and length of life has also put into our hands the means with which to destroy ourselves. How will we respond to the ultimate and absolute responsibility of preserving humanity? How will countries balance their need for self-defense and their desire for power? Where will societies turn for guidance as they grapple with the questions of survival? In Confronting Omnicide: Jewish Reflections on Weapons of Mass Destruction¸ Rabbi Daniel Landes has collected essays, by fifteen prominent Jewish thinkers and leaders, that address these issues. The authors of these essays represent a broad spectrum of religious and political ideologies and include Reuven Kimelman, Irving Greenberg, Lord Immanuel Jakobovits, Pinchas H. Peli, and Maurice Friedman. They share the basic assumptions that the threat of global destruction through nuclear and chemical warfare is a real possibility against which humans have no “fail-safe” mechanism; that we must search for solutions while avoiding apathetic fatalism and false optimism; and that the Jewish people have a special responsibility, because of their history and their culture, to respond to this crisis. Drawing on a rich variety of Jewish literary sources, including the Bible, rabbinic literature, and Jewish law and thought, the contributors to Confronting Omnicide explore different facets of the nuclear threat. For example, does Jewish law distinguish between civilians and combatants in the struggle to defeat an enemy, and if so, how does this affect military decisions? In Jewish law, owning wild dogs is prohibited as a violation of the biblical verse, “Thou shalt not bring blood upon thy house,” because of the seeming inevitability of the dog attacking the innocent. Is the very possession of a nuclear and chemical arsenal wrong, then, if its existence enables us to bring blood upon the collective house of humankind? Jewish tradition has classically required a just order before agreeing to peace with an enemy. But is that a realistic requirement in an age when peace is merely the absence of overt hostilities? Many of these essays also examine the Holocaust and the parallels and distinctions that can be made between it and absolute destruction. The paradox of power, the threat of its concentration and the vulnerability of its absence, is also discussed in this volume. Confronting Omnicide does “advocate specific strategic and political positions,” Rabbi Landes states. “It rather attempts to create a vocabulary and language for confronting the difficult decisions that will need to be made by both policy makers and an informed citizenry.” Its perspectives provide insightful guidance and encourage the development of a sense of individual and communal responsibility as we navigate our perilous journey into the twenty-first century.
Download or read book The Ethics of War written by Richard Sorabji and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-09-10 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 9/11 and the subsequent invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq have left many people baffled and concerned. This interdisciplinary study of the ethics of war provides an excellent orientation not only to present, but also to future conflicts. It looks both back at historical traditions of ethical thought and forward to contemporary and emerging issues. The Ethics of War traces how different cultures involved in present conflicts have addressed similar problems over the centuries. Distinguished authors reflect how the Graeco-Roman world, Byzantium, the Christian just war tradition, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism and the Geneva Conventions have addressed recurrent ethical problems of war. Cutting-edge essays by prominent modern theorists address vital contemporary issues including asymmetric war, preventive war, human rights and humanitarian intervention. Distinguished academics, ethical leaders, and public policy figures have collaborated in this innovative and accessible guide to ethical issues in war.
Download or read book Divine Service written by Stuart A. Cohen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-05-13 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Religion now plays an increasingly prominent role in the discourse on international security. Within that context, attention largely focuses on the impact exerted by teachings rooted in Christianity and Islam. By comparison, the linkages between Judaism and the resort to armed force are invariably overlooked. This book offers a corrective. Comprising a series of essays written over the past two decades by one of Israel's most distinguished military sociologists, its point of departure is that the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, quite apart from revolutionizing Jewish political activity, also triggered a transformation in Jewish military perceptions and conduct. Soldiering, which for almost two millennia was almost entirely foreign to Jewish thought and practice, has by virtue of universal conscription (for women as well as men) become a rite of passage to citizenship in the Jewish state. For practicing orthodox Jews in Israel that change generates dilemmas that are intellectual as well as behavioural, and has necessitated both doctrinal and institutional adaptations. At the same time, the responses thus evoked are forcing Israel's decision-makers to reconsider the traditional role of the Israel Defence Force (IDF) as their country's most evocative symbol of national unity.
Download or read book Nonviolent Struggle written by Sharon Erickson Nepstad and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015-09-01 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Gandhi's movement to win Indian independence to the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011, an expanding number of citizens have used nonviolent action to win political goals. While such events have captured the public imagination, they have also generated a new surge of scholarly interest in the field of nonviolence and civil resistance studies. Although researchers have produced new empirical data, theories, and insights into the phenomenon of nonviolent struggle, the field is still quite unfamiliar to many students and scholars. In Nonviolent Struggle: Theories, Strategies, and Dynamics, sociologist Sharon Nepstad provides a succinct introduction to the field of civil resistance studies, detailing its genesis, key concepts and debates, and a summary of empirical findings. Nepstad depicts the strategies and dynamics at play in nonviolent struggles, and analyzes the factors that shape the trajectory and outcome of civil resistance movements. The book draws on a vast array of historical examples, including the U.S. civil rights movement, the Indonesian uprising against President Suharto, the French Huguenot resistance during World War II, and Cesar Chavez's United Farm Workers. Nepstad describes both principled and pragmatic nonviolent traditions and explains various categories of nonviolent action, concluding with an assessment of areas for future research. A comprehensive treatment of the philosophy and strategy of nonviolent resistance, Nonviolent Struggle is essential reading for students, scholars, and anyone with a general interest in peace studies and social change.
Download or read book Contemporary Muslim Christian Encounters written by Paul Hedges and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2015-07-30 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contemporary Muslim-Christian Encounters: Developments, Diversity and Dialogues addresses the key issues in the present day global encounter between Christians and Muslims. Divided into two parts, the first examines theoretical issues and concerns which affect dialogue between the two traditions. The second part highlights case studies from around the world. Chapters come from established scholars including Reuven Firestone, Douglas Pratt and Clinton Bennett, emerging scholars, as well as practitioner perspectives. Highlighting the diversity within the field of "Christian-Muslim" encounter, case studies cover examples from the US and globally, and include dialogue in the US post 9/11, Nigerian Muslims and Christians, and Christian responses to Islamophobia in the UK. Covering unique areas and those not explored in detail elsewhere, Contemporary Muslim-Christian Encounters: Developments, Diversity and Dialogues will be of interest to advanced students, researchers, and interfaith professionals.
Download or read book The Ethics of War in Asian Civilizations written by Torkel Brekke and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2006-03-13 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores how issues of ethics in war and warfare have been treated by major ethical traditions of Asia. It opens a discussion about whether there are universal standards in the ideologies of warfare between the major religious traditions of the world. While the chapters are written by specialists in Asian cultures, some of the conceptual apparatus is drawn from the scholarly discourse on just war, developed in the study of the ethical tradition of Christianity. Taking a comparative approach, the book looks at six different Asian religious, philosophical and political traditions: Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, China and Japan; and is organized according to geography. This innovative approach opens a new field of research on war and ideology, and extends the debate on modern warfare, universalism and human rights.
Download or read book Continuity and Change written by Steven T. Katz and published by University Press of America. This book was released on 2012-07-10 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of essays was inspired by the desire to create a suitable tribute to Dr. Irving Greenberg. Dr. Greenberg has been one of the truly major figures in the American Jewish community for the past forty years. A community activist and a theologian of distinction, he has influenced not only the practical direction of Jewish life, especially through his work with the leadership of Jewish Federations throughout the country, but also the shape of contemporary Jewish thought through his writings on the Holocaust, the State of Israel, and traditional Jewish themes. The outstanding list of authors who have contributed to this volume, writing on central issues in traditional and modern Jewish thought and history, are a testimony to Dr. Greenberg's repercussive presence and theological contribution. Those interested in the contemporary American Jewish community and the nature and shape of modern Jewish thought at the beginning of the new millennium will find this a valuable, thought-provoking addition to their libraries.
Download or read book Ethics and Weapons of Mass Destruction written by Sohail H. Hashmi and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2004-07-19 with total page 558 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher Description
Download or read book Why Ask My Name written by Adele Reinhartz and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1998-11-12 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Unnamed characters--such as Lot's wife, Jephthah's daughter, Pharaoh's baker, and the witch of Endor--are ubiquitous in the Hebrew Bible and appear in a wide variety of roles. Adele Reinhartz here seeks to answer two principal questions: first, is there a "poetics of anonymity," and if so, what are its contours? Second, how does anonymity affect the readers' response to and construction of unnamed biblical characters? The author is especially interested in issues related to gender and class, seeking to determine whether anonymity is more prominent among mothers, wives, daughters, and servants than among fathers, husbands, sons and kings and whether the anonymity of female characters functions differently from that of male characters.
Download or read book An Introduction to Jewish Ethics written by Louis Newman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-10-16 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For courses in Religion, Judaism and Ethics. This text offers an overview of the Jewish ethical tradition as it has evolved from biblical times to the present. Provides an overview of the central beliefs of classical Judaism and the ways in which these frame traditional Jewish approaches to issues in ethics, both theoretical and practical.
Download or read book Corporate Responsibility in the Hebrew Bible written by Joel S. Kaminsky and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 1995-06-01 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores a variety of biblical texts in order to clarify and better understand the relationship between the individual and the community in ancient Israel. Although much of the argument is focused upon Deuteronomy and the deuteronomistic history, other pentateuchal and prophetic texts are also probed. In particular, certain instances of divine retribution that are corporate in nature are explored, and it is argued that such punishments are quite common and completely understandable of the basic theological ideas that are operative in such cases. The examination turns to other biblical texts that appear to reject the notion of corporate divine retribution (e.g., Ezekiel 18). Here the focus is on whether these texts do in fact reject all forms of corporate divine retribution and how large a shift these texts signal in the biblical understanding of the relationship between the individual and the community. Finally, Kaminsky asserts that certain theological features explored in this study can be used by those scholars who argue that the enlightenment idea of individualism needs to be balanced by a renewed philosophical and theological emphasis on the individual's responsibility to the larger society.
Download or read book Interfaith Just Peacemaking written by S. Thistlethwaite and published by Springer. This book was released on 2012-01-02 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Interfaith Just Peacemaking is a collected work by 27 Jewish, Muslim and Christian scholars and religious leaders on the ten 'practice norms' of the peacemaking paradigm called 'Just Peace.'Just Peace theory, like the paradigm it most resembles, Just War theory, is a list of specific practices that are applied to concrete contexts.
Download or read book Jewish Meaning in a World of Choice written by David Harry Ellenson and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2014-10-01 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Reader s Guide to Judaism written by Michael Terry and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-12-02 with total page 1768 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Reader's Guide to Judaism is a survey of English-language translations of the most important primary texts in the Jewish tradition. The field is assessed in some 470 essays discussing individuals (Martin Buber, Gluckel of Hameln), literature (Genesis, Ladino Literature), thought and beliefs (Holiness, Bioethics), practice (Dietary Laws, Passover), history (Venice, Baghdadi Jews of India), and arts and material culture (Synagogue Architecture, Costume). The emphasis is on Judaism, rather than on Jewish studies more broadly.
Download or read book Houses on the Sand written by James Irvin Lichti and published by Peter Lang. This book was released on 2008 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Under Hitler, Germany's state-linked provincial churches functioned as seedbeds of nationalism. A smaller and independent church form - the "free church" or denomination - offered greater promise of nonconformity. Linked by pacifist traditions, German Mennonites, Seventh-day Adventists, and Quakers promoted a range of liberal principles: empowerment of the individual conscience, respect for confessional diversity, and separation of church and state. Nonetheless, two of these denominations used these same principles to defend and even embrace the Nazi regime. This book examines what makes Christian communities - when meeting the harsh challenges of modernity - viable entities of faith or hollow forms."--BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book The A to Z of Judaism written by Norman Solomon and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2009 with total page 570 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book includes a chronology and an introduction that presents an overview of all aspects of Judaism. Numerous cross-referenced dictionary entries detail important people, writings, institutions, concepts, Hebrew words, philosophy, theology, and religious law, and an extensive bibliography provides access for further study."--Jacket.
Download or read book The God Who Risks written by John Sanders and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2009-09-20 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If God is all-knowing and all-powerful, can he in any way be vulnerable to his creation? Can God be in control of anything at all if he is not constantly in control of everything? John Sanders says yes to both of these questions. In The God Who Risks defends his answer with a careful and challenging argument. He first builds his case on an in-depth reading of the Old and New Testaments. Then Sanders probes philosophical, historical and systematic theology for further support. And he completes his defense with considerations drawn from practical theology. The God Who Risks is a profound and often inspiring presentation of "relational theism"--an understanding of providence in which "a personal God enters into genuine give-and-take relations with his creatures." With this book Sanders not only contributes to serious theological discussion but also enlightens pastors and laypersons who struggle with questions about suffering, evil and human free will.
