Download or read book Hasidism Incarnate written by Shaul Magid and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2014-12-10 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hasidism Incarnate contends that much of modern Judaism in the West developed in reaction to Christianity and in defense of Judaism as a unique tradition. Ironically enough, this occurred even as modern Judaism increasingly dovetailed with Christianity with regard to its ethos, aesthetics, and attitude toward ritual and faith. Shaul Magid argues that the Hasidic movement in Eastern Europe constitutes an alternative "modernity," one that opens a new window on Jewish theological history. Unlike Judaism in German lands, Hasidism did not develop under a "Christian gaze" and had no need to be apologetic of its positions. Unburdened by an apologetic agenda (at least toward Christianity), it offered a particular reading of medieval Jewish Kabbalah filtered through a focus on the charismatic leader that resulted in a religious worldview that has much in common with Christianity. It is not that Hasidic masters knew about Christianity; rather, the basic tenets of Christianity remained present, albeit often in veiled form, in much kabbalistic teaching that Hasidism took up in its portrayal of the charismatic figure of the zaddik, whom it often described in supernatural terms.
Download or read book Place in Modern Jewish Culture and Society written by Richard I. Cohen and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-07-12 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Notions of place have always permeated Jewish life and consciousness. The Babylonian Talmud was pitted against the Jerusalem Talmud; the worlds of Sepharad and Ashkenaz were viewed as two pillars of the Jewish experience; the diaspora was conceived as a wholly different experience from that of Eretz Israel; and Jews from Eastern Europe and "German Jews" were often seen as mirror opposites, whereas Jews under Islam were often characterized pejoratively, especially because of their allegedly uncultured surroundings. Place, or makom, is a strategic opportunity to explore the tensions that characterize Jewish culture in modernity, between the sacred and the secular, the local and the global, the historical and the virtual, Jewish culture and others. The plasticity of the term includes particular geographic places and their cultural landscapes, theological allusions, and an array of other symbolic relations between locus, location, and the production of culture. The 30th volume of Studies in Contemporary Jewry includes twelve essays that deal with various aspects of particular places, making each location a focal point for understanding Jewish life and culture. Scholars from the United States, Europe, and Israel have used their disciplinary skills to shed light on the vicissitudes of the 20th century in relation to place and Jewish culture. Their essays continue the ongoing discussion in this realm and provide further insights into the historiographical turn in Jewish studies.
Download or read book Hasidism written by David Biale and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-04-14 with total page 890 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A must-read book for understanding this vibrant and influential modern Jewish movement Hasidism originated in southeastern Poland, in mystical circles centered on the figure of Israel Ba’al Shem Tov, but it was only after his death in 1760 that a movement began to spread. Today, Hasidism is witnessing a remarkable renaissance around the world. This book provides the first comprehensive history of the pietistic movement that shaped modern Judaism. Written by an international team of scholars, its unique blend of intellectual, religious, and social history demonstrates that, far from being a throwback to the Middle Ages, Hasidism is a product of modernity that forged its identity as a radical alternative to the secular world.
Download or read book Imagining the Jewish God written by Leonard Kaplan and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2016-09-09 with total page 575 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jewish art has always been with us, but so has a broader canvas of Jewish imaginings: in thought, in emotion, in text, and in ritual practice. Imagining the Jewish God was there in the beginning, as it were, engraved and embedded in the ways Jews lived and responded to their God.This book attempts to give voice to these diverse imaginings of the Jewish God, and offers these collected essays and poems as a living text meant to provoke a substantive and nourishing dialogue. A responsive, living covenant lies at the heart of this book—a covenantal reciprocity that actively engages the dynamics of Jewish thinking and acting in dialogue with God. The contributors to this volume are committed to this form of textual reasoning, even as they all move us beyond the “text” as foundational for the imagined “people of the book.” That people, we submit, lives and breathes in and beyond the texts of poetry, narrative, sacred literature, film, and graphic mediums. We imagine the Jewish people, and the covenant they respond to, as provocative intimations of the divine. The essays in this volume seek to draw these vocal intimations out so that we can all hear their resonant call.
Download or read book The Literary Imagination in Jewish Antiquity written by Eva Mroczek and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-04-29 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2017 Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise Winner of the 2017 The George A. and Jean S. DeLong Book History Book Prize The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls revealed a world of early Jewish writing larger than the Bible, from multiple versions of biblical texts to "revealed" books not found in our canon. Despite this diversity, the way we read Second Temple Jewish literature remains constrained by two anachronistic categories: a theological one, "Bible," and a bibliographic one,"book." The Literary Imagination in Jewish Antiquity suggests ways of thinking about how Jews understood their own literature before these categories had emerged. In many Jewish texts, there is an awareness of a vast tradition of divine writing found in multiple locations that is only partially revealed in available scribal collections. Ancient heroes such as David are imagined not simply as scriptural authors, but as multidimensional characters who come to be known as great writers who are honored as founders of growing textual traditions. Scribes recognize the divine origin of texts such as Enoch literature and other writings revealed to ancient patriarchs, which present themselves not as derivative of the material that we now call biblical, but prior to it. Sacred writing stretches back to the dawn of time, yet new discoveries are always around the corner. Using familiar sources such as the Psalms, Ben Sira, and Jubilees, Eva Mroczek tells an unfamiliar story about sacred writing not bound in a Bible. In listening to the way ancient writers describe their own literature-rife with their own metaphors and narratives about writing-The Literary Imagination in Jewish Antiquity also argues for greater suppleness in our own scholarly imagination, no longer bound by modern canonical and bibliographic assumptions.
Download or read book Blessings beyond the Binary written by Nora Rubel and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2024-09-13 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Transparent made history as the first television show to feature a transgender character in the main role, as the first streaming series to win the Golden Globe for Best Television Series, and as, in the words of journalist Debra Nussbaum Cohen, “the Jewiest show ever.” No television show in history has depicted the lives of American Jews with as much attention to Jewish rituals, quirks, or culture. And no series has portrayed issues of gender and sexuality alongside Judaism with such nuance and depth, making Transparent a landmark series in the history of television. Blessings beyond the Binary brings together leading scholars to analyze and offer commentary on what scholar Josh Lambert calls “the most important work of Jewish culture of the century so far.” The book explores the show’s depiction of Jewish life, religion, and history, as well as Transparent’s scandals and criticisms and how it fits into and diverges from today’s transgender and queer politics. The first book to focus on Transparent, Blessings beyond the Binary offers a rich analysis of the groundbreaking series and its connections to contemporary queer, trans, and Jewish life.
Download or read book A Remembrance of His Wonders written by David I. Shyovitz and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2017-06-13 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In A Remembrance of His Wonders, David I. Shyovitz uncovers the sophisticated ways in which medieval Ashkenazic Jews engaged with the workings and meaning of the natural world, and traces the porous boundaries between medieval science and mysticism, nature and the supernatural, and ultimately, Christians and Jews.
Download or read book Idolatry written by Alon Goshen-Gottstein and published by Academic Studies PRess. This book was released on 2023-05-16 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Idolatry, or its Hebrew equivalent Avodah Zarah ̧ is a fundamental feature of a Jewish view of other religions. All religions must pass the test of whether they are compliant with a Jewish view of religions as being free from the worship of another God. With the advance in interfaith relations, positions have been affirmed that clear most major contemporary religions from the charge of idolatry. What remains of “idolatry” once it no longer serves as a tool for evaluating other faiths? Does the category continue to have theological appeal? What are its internal uses? A cadre of Jewish scholars and thought leaders explore in this volume what the continuing relevance of “idolatry” is and how it might continue to inform our religious horizons, allowing us to distinguish between good and bad religion, both within Judaism and beyond.
Download or read book Ethnographies of Waiting written by Manpreet K. Janeja and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-05-27 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We all wait – in traffic jams, passport offices, school meal queues, for better weather, an end to fighting, peace. Time spent waiting produces hope, boredom, anxiety, doubt, or uncertainty. Ethnographies of Waiting explores the social phenomenon of waiting and its centrality in human society. Using waiting as a central analytical category, the book investigates how waiting is negotiated in myriad ways. Examining the politics and poetics of waiting, Ethnographies of Waiting offers fresh perspectives on waiting as the uncertain interplay between doubting and hoping, and asks "When is time worth the wait?" Waiting thus conceived is intrinsic to the ethnographic method at the heart of the anthropological enterprise. Featuring detailed ethnographies from Japan, Georgia, England, Ghana, Norway, Russia and the United States, a Foreword by Craig Jeffrey and an Afterword by Ghassan Hage, this is a vital contribution to the field of anthropology of time and essential reading for students and scholars in anthropology, sociology and philosophy.
Download or read book Matzah Balls to Communion Wafers written by Gail Baker and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2019-07-29 with total page 167 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Baker yearns for something more, she discovers that the Christian message answers the deep yearning within each of us to resolve human suffering. Baker’s conversion is not a blinding-light epiphany, but a process spanning years of agonizing conflict, echoing twenty centuries of misunderstanding between Christians and Jews. Living in the same city as her chagrined parents, she is forced to process difficulties related to family dynamics, group loyalty, and identity politics. Readers will be emboldened by Baker’s decision to follow Christ at the risk of rupturing ties with family and community. Her book will appeal to all who seek God’s guidance in making difficult life decisions. This book is a must-read for Christians who wish to engage with their Jewish friends. The Jewish mindset is tenderly revealed, showing why so many Jews bristle at the mere mention of Jesus.
Download or read book As the Dust of the Earth written by Harriet Murav and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2024 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An estimated forty thousand Jews were murdered during the Russian Civil War between 1918 and 1922. As the Dust of the Earth examines the Yiddish and Russian literary response to the violence (pogroms) and the relief effort, exploring both the poetry of catastrophe and the documentation of catastrophe and care. Brilliantly weaving together narrative fiction, poetry, memoirs, newspaper articles, and documentary, Harriet Murav argues that poets and pogrom investigators were doing more than recording the facts of violence and expressing emotions in response to it. They were interrogating what was taking place through a central concept familiar from their everyday lifeworld--hefker, or abandonment. Hefker shaped the documentation of catastrophe by Jewish investigators at pogrom sites impossibly tasked with producing comprehensive reports of chaos. Hefker also became a framework for Yiddish writers to think through such incomprehensible violence by creating new forms of poetry. Focusing less on the perpetrators and more on the responses to the pogroms, As the Dust of the Earth offers a fuller understanding of the seismic effects of such organized violence and a moving testimony to the resilience of survivors to process and cope with catastrophe.
Download or read book Maimonides Review of Philosophy and Religion Volume 2 2023 written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2023-09-04 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Maimonides Review of Philosophy and Religion is an annual collection of double-blind peer-reviewed articles that seeks to provide a broad international arena for an intellectual exchange of ideas between the disciplines of philosophy, theology, religion, cultural history, and literature and to showcase their multifarious junctures within the framework of Jewish studies. Contributions to the Review place special thematic emphasis on scepticism within Jewish thought and its links to other religious traditions and secular worldviews. The Review is interested in the tension at the heart of matters of reason and faith, rationalism and mysticism, theory and practice, narrativity and normativity, doubt and dogma.
Download or read book Birth in Kabbalah and Psychoanalysis written by Ruth Kara-Ivanov Kaniel and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2022-07-05 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Birth in Kabbalah and Psychoanalysis examines the centrality of "birth" in Jewish literature, gender theory, and psychoanalysis, thus challenging the centrality of death in Western culture and existential philosophy. In this groundbreaking study, Ruth Kara-Ivanov Kaniel discuss similarities between Biblical, Midrashic, Kabbalistic, and Hasidic perceptions of birth, as well as its place in contemporary cultural and psychoanalytic discourse. In addition, this study shows how birth functions as a vital metaphor that has been foundational to art, philosophy, religion, and literature. Medieval Kabbalistic literature compared human birth to divine emanation, and presented human sexuality and procreation as a reflection of the sefirotic structure of the Godhead – an attempt, Kaniel claims, to marginalize the fear of death by linking the humane and divine acts of birth. This book sheds new light on the image of God as the "Great Mother" and the crucial role of the Shekhinah as a cosmic womb. Birth in Kabbalah and Psychoanalysis won the Gorgias Prize and garnered significant appreciation from psychoanalytic therapists in clinical practice dealing with birth trauma, postpartum depression, and in early infancy distress.
Download or read book The State of Desire written by Lea Taragin-Zeller and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2023-08-08 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An intimate account of Orthodox family planning amid shifting state policies in Israel In recent years, Israeli state policies have attempted to dissuade Orthodox Jews from creating large families, an objective that flies in the face of traditional practices in their community. As state desires to cultivate a high-income, tech-centered nation come into greater conflict with common Orthodox familial practices, Jewish couples are finding it increasingly difficult to actualize their reproductive aims and communal expectations. In The State of Desire, Lea Taragin-Zeller provides an intimate examination of the often devastating effects of Israel’s steep cutbacks in child benefits, which are aimed at limiting the rapid increase in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish population. Taragin-Zeller takes the reader beyond Orthodox taboos, capturing how cracks in religious convictions engender a painful process of re-orientating desires to reproduce amidst shrinking public support, feminism, and new ideals of romance, intimacy and parenting. Paying close attention to ethical dilemmas, the book explores not just pro-ceptive but also contraceptive desires around family formation: when to have children, how many, and at what cost. The volume offers a rare look at issues of contraception in the Orthodox context, and notably includes interviews with men, making the case that we cannot continue to study reproductive choice solely through the perspectives of women. The State of Desire is a groundbreaking anthropological approach to the study of religion and reproduction, and a remarkably intimate account of the delicate balance between personal desires and those of the state.
Download or read book The Collected Writings Of Murray Stein Volume 4 written by Murray Stein and published by Chiron Publications. This book was released on 2023-11-01 with total page 526 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Practice of Jungian Psychoanalysis is the fourth volume in The Collected Writings of Murray Stein. It includes works by the author with special relevance to analytic practice. Among them are the Ghost Ranch papers from 1983-1992, essays on transference and types of countertransference, the problem of sleepiness in analysis, sibling rivalry and envy, the aims of analysis, the faith of the analyst, and reflections on spirituality in analysis.
Download or read book Jesus the Jew in Christian Memory written by Barbara U. Meyer and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-12 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shows how research and reflection on Jesus's Jewishness transforms contemporary Christian thought on memory, otherness, natality and law.
Download or read book Defender of the Faithful written by Arthur Green and published by Brandeis University Press. This book was released on 2022-12-13 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Defender of the Faithful is an intellectual and religious biography of Levi Yitshak of Berdychiv (1740-1809), one of the most fascinating and colorful Hasidic leaders of his time. Featuring examples of Levi Yitshak's extraordinary texts alongside insightful analysis, Arthur Green examines both Levi Yitshak's theology and broader philosophy"--
