Download or read book Becoming Jewish written by Rabbi Steven Carr Reuben and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2019-03-01 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Becoming Jewish is an engaging, accessible, all-inclusive step-by-step guide to converting to Judaism that introduces readers to finding life's meaning through the evolving religious civilization that is Judaism. Written with humor and heart, readers learn the ins and outs of becoming Jewish and discover the wonder that is the language, literature, history, rituals, food, music, and culture of contemporary Jewish life.
Download or read book Confessions of the Shtetl written by Ellie R. Schainker and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2016-11-16 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the course of the nineteenth century, some 84,500 Jews in imperial Russia converted to Christianity. Confessions of the Shtetl explores the day-to-day world of these people, including the social, geographic, religious, and economic links among converts, Christians, and Jews. The book narrates converts' tales of love, desperation, and fear, tracing the uneasy contest between religious choice and collective Jewish identity in tsarist Russia. Rather than viewing the shtetl as the foundation myth for modern Jewish nationhood, this work reveals the shtetl's history of conversions and communal engagement with converts, which ultimately yielded a cultural hybridity that both challenged and fueled visions of Jewish separatism. Drawing on extensive research with conversion files in imperial Russian archives, in addition to the mass press, novels, and memoirs, Ellie R. Schainker offers a sociocultural history of religious toleration and Jewish life that sees baptism not as the fundamental departure from Jewishness or the Jewish community, but as a conversion that marked the start of a complicated experiment with new forms of identity and belonging. Ultimately, she argues that the Jewish encounter with imperial Russia did not revolve around coercion and ghettoization but was a genuinely religious drama with a diverse, attractive, and aggressive Christianity.
Download or read book The D nme written by Marc Baer and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first study of the modern history, experience, and ethno-religious identity of the Dönme, the descendants of seventeenth-century Jewish converts to Islam, in Ottoman and Greek Salonica and in Turkish Istanbul.
Download or read book Conversion to Judaism written by Lawrence J. Epstein and published by Jason Aronson. This book was released on 1994-07-01 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conversion to Judaism provides information, advice, and support for individuals contemplating conversion to Judaism, as well as those who have converted and the families affected by this decision. With sensitivity and compassion, Lawrence J. Epstein offers an informative volume that warmly welcomes the newcomer to Judaism.
Download or read book When the State Winks written by Michal Kravel-Tovi and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2017-09-05 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Religious conversion is often associated with ideals of religious sincerity. But in a society in which religious belonging is entangled with ethnonational citizenship and confers political privilege, a convert might well have multilayered motives. Over the last two decades, mass non-Jewish immigration to Israel, especially from the former Soviet Union, has sparked heated debates over the Jewish state’s conversion policy and intensified suspicion of converts’ sincerity. When the State Winks carefully traces the performance of state-endorsed Orthodox conversion to highlight the collaborative labor that goes into the making of the Israeli state and its Jewish citizens. In a rich ethnographic narrative based on fieldwork in conversion schools, rabbinic courts, and ritual bathhouses, Michal Kravel-Tovi follows conversion candidates—mostly secular young women from a former Soviet background—and state conversion agents, mostly religious Zionists caught between the contradictory demands of their nationalist and religious commitments. She complicates the popular perception that conversion is a “wink-wink” relationship in which both sides agree to treat the converts’ pretenses of observance as real. Instead, she demonstrates how their interdependent performances blur any clear boundary between sincere and empty conversions. Alongside detailed ethnography, When the State Winks develops new ways to think about the complex connection between religious conversion and the nation-state. Kravel-Tovi emphasizes how state power and morality is managed through “winking”—the subtle exchanges and performances that animate everyday institutional encounters between state and citizen. In a country marked by tension between official religiosity and a predominantly secular Jewish population, winking permits the state to save its Jewish face.
Download or read book First Converts written by Shelly Matthews and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It has often been said that rich pagan women, much more so than men, were attracted both to early Judaism and Christianity. This book provides a new reading of sources from which this truism springs, focusing on two texts from the turn of the first century, Josephus's Antiquities and Luke's Acts. The book studies representation, analyzing the repeated portrayal of rich women as aiding and/or converting to early Judaism in its various forms. It also shows how these sources can be used in reconstructing women's history, thus engaging current feminist debates about the relationship of rhetorical presentation of women in texts to historical reality. Because many of these texts speak of high-standing women's conversion to Judaism and early Christianity, this book also engages in the current debate about whether early Judaism was a missionary religion. The author argues that focusing on these stories of women converts and adherents, which have been largely ignored in previous discussions of the missionary question, sets the missionary question in a new, more adequate framework. The first chapter elucidates a story in Josephus's Antiquities of the mishaps of two Roman matrons devoted to Isis and Jewish cults by considering the common Hellenistic topos linking high-standing women, promiscuity, and religious impropriety. The remaining chapters demonstrate that in spite of this topos, Josephus, Luke, and other religious apologists did tell stories of rich women's associations with their communities for positive rhetorical effect. In so doing, the book challenges the widespread assumption that women's association with "foreign" religious cults was always derided, questions scholarly arguments about public and private roles in antiquity, and invites reflection on issues of mission and conversion within the larger framework of Greco-Roman benefaction.
Download or read book Embracing the Covenant written by Rabbi Allan L. Berkowitz and published by Turner Publishing Company. This book was released on 2011-11-23 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a practical and inspirational companion to the conversion process for Jews-by-Choice and their families. Written primarily for the person considering the choice of Judaism, it provides highly personal insights from over 50 people who have made this life-changing decision. But it also will speak to their families—the non-Jewish family that provided his or her spiritual beginnings and the Jewish "family" which receives the convert—and help them understand why the decision was made.
Download or read book Converts to Judaism written by Lawrence J. Epstein and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2015-01-14 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the biblical story of Ruth to the star conversion of Elizabeth Taylor, Converts to Judaism tells the stories of people who have converted to Judaism throughout history. The book introduces readers to origins of Judaism and shares the first conversion stories of the people who helped the early Jewish faith grow. Subsequent chapters trace the trajectory of Judaism through the ages while highlighting the stories of converts—both well-known and lesser-known—and how they shaped the tradition. The book includes not only the story of Warder Cresson, who was put on trial for insanity after converting to Judaism, but also famous celebrities who became Jewish such as Marilyn Monroe and Sammy Davis, Jr. Written by a noted expert on the conversion process, Converts to Judaism serves as a unique resource to people considering the challenging path of conversion and an illustration of the important, and sometimes surprising, role Jewish converts have always played in Jewish life.
Download or read book Jewish Just Like You written by Kylie Lobell and published by . This book was released on 2020-10-14 with total page 25 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Jewish Just Like You" is the first children's book for the children of Jewish converts, written by convert Kylie Ora Lobell. This book teaches children about the process of Jewish conversion that one or both of their parents may have gone through, as well as how converts are just like Jews who were born Jewish. It is an uplifting and empowering book that answers questions that children of converts may have. Perfect for elementary-school aged children and up, it touches on key Jewish concepts like having Shabbat dinner, lighting Hanukkah candles, saying the Shema, having strong values, studying Torah, and having pride in Israel. Praise for "Jewish Just Like You" from today's influential Jewish leaders "An emotionally uplifting, profound yet fun book, written by one of the most sincere, talented and insightful writers of our time, beautifully illustrated, that will be a blessing and a treat to children and parents alike!"- Rabbi Jason Weiner, senior rabbi and director of the Spiritual Care Department at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, and rabbi at Knesset Israel Congregation of Beverlywood "Kylie Ora Lobell is one of today's most eloquent Jewish voices in print. This book fills an important gap in the market and introduces children to sensitive and nuanced subject matter in a gentle and positive way, overflowing with Jewish pride. 'Jewish Just Like You' will capture your heart with its sincerity, powerful imagery and clear presentation." - Rabbi Elchanan Shoff of Beis Knesses of Los Angeles and author of, "Paradise: Breathtaking Strolls through the Length and Breadth of Torah" "This is a delightful and charming story with captivating illustrations. The story's positive theme about being the child of a convert is a much-needed and timely contribution to diversity in literature for young Jewish children." - Judy Gruen, author of "The Skeptic and the Rabbi: Falling in Love with Faith" About the Author Kylie Ora Lobell is a writer and personal essayist who has been published in New York Magazine, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles, The Forward, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Chabad.org, Tablet Magazine, Alma, Aish, Mayim Bialik's GrokNation, and Jew in the City. Originally from Baltimore, she is a convert to Judaism who lives in Los Angeles with her husband, comedian Daniel Lobell, her daughter, and her two dogs, four chickens, two tortoises, and hedgehog. About the Illustrator Barbara "Willy" Mendes is an American cartoonist and fine artist. She is best known in the comic world for her work alongside Trina Robbins in "It Ain't Me Babe" and "All Girl Thrills." Mendes was one of the early and very influential members of the underground comix movement, working alongside the other few female artists who contributed to the newly founded underground comix movement. After completing a mural in a Sephardic synagogue in Los Angeles, Mendes felt reconnected with her heritage and then began to study the Torah and actively practice Judaism which became the driving force in both her life and art.
Download or read book Divided Souls written by Elisheva Carlebach and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2008-10-01 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: divThis pioneering book reevaluates the place of converts from Judaism in the narrative of Jewish history. Long considered beyond the pale of Jewish historiography, converts played a central role in shaping both noxious and positive images of Jews and Judaism for Christian readers. Focusing on German Jews who converted to Christianity in the sixteenth through mid-eighteenth centuries, Elisheva Carlebach explores an extensive and previously unexamined trove of their memoirs and other writings. These fascinating original sources illuminate the Jewish communities that the converts left, the Christian society they entered, and the unabating tensions between the two worlds in early modern German history. The book begins with the medieval images of converts from Judaism and traces the hurdles to social acceptance that they encountered in Germany through early modern times. Carlebach examines the converts’ complicated search for community, a quest that was to characterize much of Jewish modernity, and she concludes with a consideration of the converts’ painful legacies to the Jewish experience in German lands. “Carlebach’s reading of autobiographical texts by converts from Judaism is careful, intelligent, and skeptical--a model of how to treat spiritual memoirs.”--Todd M. Endelman, University of Michigan “This superb book highlights the ambiguous identities of these boundary crossers and their impact on both German and Jewish self-definitions.”--Paula E. Hyman, Yale University Elisheva Carlebach is professor of history at Queens College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York. She is the author of The Pursuit of Heresy: Rabbi Moses Hagiz and the Sabbatian Controversies, winner of the National Jewish Book Award for Jewish History, and coeditor of Jewish History and Jewish Memory. /DIV
Download or read book A Convert s Tale written by Tamar Herzig and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2019-12-03 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Salomone da Sesso was a virtuoso goldsmith in Renaissance Italy. Brought down by a sex scandal, he saved his skin by converting to Catholicism. Tamar Herzig explores Salamone’s world—his Jewish upbringing, his craft and patrons, and homosexuality. In his struggle for rehabilitation, we see how precarious and contested was the meaning of conversion.
Download or read book Choosing to be Jewish written by Marc Angel and published by KTAV Publishing House, Inc.. This book was released on 2005 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book challenges readers to consider the issues relating to halakhic conversion, and to rethink historic attitudes and policies concerning conversion. Whereas for many centuries conversion to Judaism was relatively rare, in modern times it is a significant phenomenon. This book will enable readers to better understand the phenomenon and to appreciate the need for halakhic conversions."--BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book Bastards and Believers written by Theodor Dunkelgrün and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2020-03-06 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A formidable collection of studies on religious conversion and converts in Jewish history Theodor Dunkelgrün and Pawel Maciejko observe that the term "conversion" is profoundly polysemous. It can refer to Jews who turn to religions other than Judaism and non-Jews who tie their fates to that of Jewish people. It can be used to talk about Christians becoming Muslim (or vice versa), Christians "born again," or premodern efforts to Christianize (or Islamize) indigenous populations of Asia, Africa, and the Americas. It can even describe how modern, secular people discover spiritual creeds and join religious communities. Viewing Jewish history from the perspective of conversion across a broad chronological and conceptual frame, Bastards and Believers highlights how the concepts of the convert and of conversion have histories of their own. The volume begins with Sara Japhet's study of conversion in the Hebrew Bible and ends with Netanel Fisher's essay on conversion to Judaism in contemporary Israel. In between, Andrew S. Jacobs writes about the allure of becoming an "other" in late Antiquity; Ephraim Kanarfogel considers Rabbinic attitudes and approaches toward conversion to Judaism in the Middles Ages; and Paola Tartakoff ponders the relationship between conversion and poverty in medieval Iberia. Three case studies, by Javier Castaño, Claude Stuczynski, and Anne Oravetz Albert, focus on different aspects of the experience of Spanish-Portuguese conversos. Michela Andreatta and Sarah Gracombe discuss conversion narratives; and Elliott Horowitz and Ellie Shainker analyze Eastern European converts' encounters with missionaries of different persuasions. Despite the differences between periods, contexts, and sources, two fundamental and mutually exclusive notions of human life thread the essays together: the conviction that one can choose one's destiny and the conviction that one cannot escapes one's past. The history of converts presented by Bastards and Believers speaks to the possibility, or impossibility, of changing one's life. Contributors: Michela Andreatta, Javier Castaño, Theodor Dunkelgrün, Netanel Fisher, Sarah Gracombe, Elliott Horowitz, Andrew S. Jacobs, Sara Japhet, Ephraim Kanarfogel, Pawel Maciejko, Anne Oravetz Albert, Ellie Shainker, Claude Stuczynski, Paola Tartakoff.
Download or read book Conversion to Judaism written by Lawrence J. Epstein and published by Jason Aronson. This book was released on 1994-07 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conversion to Judaism provides information, advice, and support for individuals contemplating conversion to Judaism, as well as those who have converted and the families affected by this decision. With sensitivity and compassion, Lawrence J. Epstein offers an informative volume that warmly welcomes the newcomer to Judaism.
Download or read book Egermeier s Bible Story Book written by Elsie Emilie Egermeier and published by Warner Press. This book was released on 2008-07 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As a more economical alternative to the standard hardbound edition, this softbound version of Egermeier's Bible Story Book brings you all the same text, artwork and study guides (minus the expanded map section).
Download or read book Embracing the Covenant written by Allan L. Berkowitz and published by Jewish Lights Publishing. This book was released on 1996-06 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through personal experiences of 20 converts to Judaism, Embracing the Covenant illuminates reasons for converting, the quest for a satisfying spirituality, the appeal of the Jewish tradition, and how conversion has changed lives.
Download or read book The Convert written by Stefan Hertmans and published by Pantheon. This book was released on 2020-02-04 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Finalist for the 2020 National Jewish Book Awards In this dazzling work of historical fiction, the Man Booker International–long-listed author of War and Turpentine reconstructs the tragic story of a medieval noblewoman who leaves her home and family for the love of a Jewish boy. In eleventh-century France, Vigdis Adelaïs, a young woman from a prosperous Christian family, falls in love with David Todros, a rabbi’s son and yeshiva student. To be together, the couple must flee their city, and Vigdis must renounce her life of privilege and comfort. Pursued by her father’s knights and in constant danger of betrayal, the lovers embark on a dangerous journey to the south of France, only to find their brief happiness destroyed by the vicious wave of anti-Semitism sweeping through Europe with the onset of the First Crusade. What begins as a story of forbidden love evolves into a globe-trotting trek spanning continents, as Vigdis undertakes an epic journey to Cairo and back, enduring the unimaginable in hopes of finding her lost children. Based on two fragments from the Cairo Genizah—a repository of more than three hundred thousand manuscripts and documents stored in the upper chamber of a synagogue in Old Cairo—Stefan Hertmans has pieced together a remarkable work of imagination, re-creating the tragic story of two star-crossed lovers whose steps he retraces almost a millennium later. Blending fact and fiction, and with immense imagination and stylistic ingenuity, Hertmans painstakingly depicts Vigdis’s terrible trials, bringing the Middle Ages to life and illuminating a chaotic world of love and hate.
