Download or read book Jews and the Ends of Theory written by Shai Ginsburg and published by Fordham Univ Press. This book was released on 2018-12-04 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Theory, as it’s happened across the humanities, has often been coded as “Jewish.” This collection of essays seeks to move past explanations for this understanding that rely on the self-evident (the historical centrality of Jews to the rise of Critical Theory with the Frankfurt School) or stereotypical (psychoanalysis as the “Jewish Science”) in order to show how certain problematics of modern Jewishness enrich theory. In the range of violence and agency that attend the appellation “Jew,” depending on how, where, and by whom it’s uttered, we can see that Jewishness is a rhetorical as much as a sociological fact, and that its rhetorical and sociological aspects, while linked, are not identical. Attention to this disjuncture helps to elucidate the questions of power, subjectivity, identity, figuration, language, and relation that modern theory has grappled with. These questions in turn implicate geopolitical issues such as the relation of a people to a state and the violence done in the name of simplistic identitarian ideologies. Clarifying a situation where “the Jew” is not readily or unproblematically legible, the editors propose what they call “spectral reading,” a way to understand Jewishness as a fluid and rhetorical presence. While not divorced from sociological facts, this spectral reading works in concert with contemporary theory to mediate pessimistic and utopian impulses, experiences, and realities. Contributors: Svetlana Boym, Andrew Bush, Sergey Dolgopolski, Jay Geller, Sarah Hammerschlag, Hannan Hever, Martin Land, Martin Jay, James I. Porter, Yehouda Shenhav, Elliot R. Wolfson

Download or read book Jews and the Ends of Theory written by Shai Ginsburg and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This volume assesses the role of Jews, as both agents and figures, in the development of critical and literary theory in the twentieth century and beyond. Its topics range from biblical criticism to the relationship between Derrida and Levinas, from Mizrachi Jews in Israel to the Zionisms of Buber and Scholem"--

Download or read book Is Theory Good for the Jews written by Bruno Chaouat and published by Liverpool University Press. This book was released on 2016-12-16 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For at least fifteen years, any keen observer of European society has been aware that antisemitism is no longer a matter of racial theory, nationalism, or exclusion of the 'other.' While in the past antisemites saw Jews as all too modern 'rootless cosmopolitans' (to use Stalin's expression), today's European antisemitism construes them as obsolete precisely because they are attached to their roots, their land, their community, their origin. The Jews are now perceived as a reactionary force that hinders the progress of humankind toward multiculturalism, understood as the peaceful, infinitely enriching coexistence of ethnicities, races, religions, and cultures within the same territory. The antisemite of yore viewed the Jews as an inferior race; today he views them as racist. By looking back to the emergence of a postwar theoretical discourse on trauma, memory, victims, suffering, the Holocaust and the Jews, Is Theory Good for the Jews? explores how 'French thought' is implicated in intellectual, literary and ideological components of the global and local upsurge of antisemitism. The author probes the legacy of Heidegger in France and exposes the shortcomings of radical social critique and postcolonial theory confronted to the challenge of Islamic terrorism and Jew hatred. This book is the first effort to analyze French responses that have regrettably played their part in generating the new antisemitism.

Download or read book Jews and Power written by Ruth R. Wisse and published by Schocken. This book was released on 2008-12-24 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Part of the Jewish Encounter series Taking in everything from the Kingdom of David to the Oslo Accords, Ruth Wisse offers a radical new way to think about the Jewish relationship to power. Traditional Jews believed that upholding the covenant with God constituted a treaty with the most powerful force in the universe; this later transformed itself into a belief that, unburdened by a military, Jews could pursue their religious mission on a purely moral plain. Wisse, an eminent professor of comparative literature at Harvard, demonstrates how Jewish political weakness both increased Jewish vulnerability to scapegoating and violence, and unwittingly goaded power-seeking nations to cast Jews as perpetual targets. Although she sees hope in the State of Israel, Wisse questions the way the strategies of the Diaspora continue to drive the Jewish state, echoing Abba Eban's observation that Israel was the only nation to win a war and then sue for peace. And then she draws a persuasive parallel to the United States today, as it struggles to figure out how a liberal democracy can face off against enemies who view Western morality as weakness. This deeply provocative book is sure to stir debate both inside and outside the Jewish world. Wisse's narrative offers a compelling argument that is rich with history and bristling with contemporary urgency.

Download or read book The End of Jewish Modernity written by Enzo Traverso and published by Pluto Press (UK). This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A provocative take on Jewish history, explaining the metamorphoses ofmainstream Jewish culture and politics.

Download or read book Knowing Too Much written by Norman G. Finkelstein and published by OR Books. This book was released on 2012 with total page 493 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traditionally, American Jews have been broadly liberal in their political outlook; indeed African-Americans are the only ethnic group more likely to vote Democratic in US elections. Over the past half century, however, attitudes on one topic have stood in sharp contrast to this group's generally progressive stance: support for Israel. Despite Israel's record of militarism, illegal settlements and human rights violations, American Jews have, stretching back to the 1960s, remained largely steadfast supporters of the Jewish "homeland". But, as Norman Finkelstein explains in an elegantly-argued and richly-textured new book, this is now beginning to change. Reports by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the United Nations, and books by commentators as prominent as President Jimmy Carter and as well-respected in the scholarly community as Stephen Walt, John Mearsheimer and Peter Beinart, have increasingly pinpointed the fundamental illiberalism of the Israeli state. In the light of these exposes, the support of America Jews for Israel has begun to fray. This erosion has been particularly marked among younger members of the community. A 2010 Brandeis University poll found that only about one quarter of Jews aged under 40 today feel "very much" connected to Israel. In successive chapters that combine Finkelstein's customary meticulous research with polemical brio, Knowing Too Much sets the work of defenders of Israel such as Jeffrey Goldberg, Michael Oren, Dennis Ross and Benny Morris against the historical record, showing their claims to be increasingly tendentious. As growing numbers of American Jews come to see the speciousness of the arguments behind such apologias and recognize Israel's record as simply indefensible, Finkelstein points to the opening of new possibilities for political advancement in a region that for decades has been stuck fast in a gridlock of injustice and suffering.

Download or read book Jews and Other Differences written by Jonathan Boyarin and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 1997-01-01 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Salvation Is from the Jews written by Roy H. Schoeman and published by Ignatius Press. This book was released on 2019-04-15 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book traces the role of Judaism and the Jewish people in God's plan for the salvation of mankind, from Abraham through the Second Coming, as revealed by the Catholic faith and by a thoughtful examination of history. It will give Christians a deeper understanding of Judaism, both as a religion in itself and as a central component of Christian salvation. To Jews it reveals the incomprehensible importance, nobility and glory that Judaism most truly has. It examines the unique and central role Judaism plays in the destiny of the world. It documents that throughout history attacks on Jews and Judaism have been rooted not in Christianity, but in the most anti-Christian of forces. Areas addressed include: the Messianic prophecies in Jewish scripture; the anti-Christian roots of Nazi anti-Semitism; the links between Nazism and Arab anti-Semitism; the theological insights of major Jewish converts; and the role of the Jews in the Second Coming. "Perplexed by controversies new and old about the destiny of the Jewish people? Read this book by a Jew who became a Catholic for a well-written, provocative, ground-breaking account. Some of the answers most have never heard before." Ronda Chervin, Ph.D., Hebrew-Catholic

Download or read book The Invention of the Jewish People written by Shlomo Sand and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2020-08-04 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A historical tour de force that demolishes the myths and taboos that have surrounded Jewish and Israeli history, The Invention of the Jewish People offers a new account of both that demands to be read and reckoned with. Was there really a forced exile in the first century, at the hands of the Romans? Should we regard the Jewish people, throughout two millennia, as both a distinct ethnic group and a putative nation—returned at last to its Biblical homeland? Shlomo Sand argues that most Jews actually descend from converts, whose native lands were scattered far across the Middle East and Eastern Europe. The formation of a Jewish people and then a Jewish nation out of these disparate groups could only take place under the sway of a new historiography, developing in response to the rise of nationalism throughout Europe. Beneath the biblical back fill of the nineteenth-century historians, and the twentieth-century intellectuals who replaced rabbis as the architects of Jewish identity, The Invention of the Jewish People uncovers a new narrative of Israel’s formation, and proposes a bold analysis of nationalism that accounts for the old myths. After a long stay on Israel’s bestseller list, and winning the coveted Aujourd’hui Award in France, The Invention of the Jewish People is finally available in English. The central importance of the conflict in the Middle East ensures that Sand’s arguments will reverberate well beyond the historians and politicians that he takes to task. Without an adequate understanding of Israel’s past, capable of superseding today’s opposing views, diplomatic solutions are likely to remain elusive. In this iconoclastic work of history, Shlomo Sand provides the intellectual foundations for a new vision of Israel’s future.

Download or read book Queer Theory and the Jewish Question written by Daniel Boyarin and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2003-12-10 with total page 431 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essays in this volume boldly map the historically resonant intersections between Jewishness and queerness, between homophobia and anti-Semitism, and between queer theory and theorizations of Jewishness. With important essays by such well-known figures in queer and gender studies as Judith Butler, Daniel Boyarin, Marjorie Garber, Michael Moon, and Eve Sedgwick, this book is not so much interested in revealing—outing—"queer Jews" as it is in exploring the complex social arrangements and processes through which modern Jewish and homosexual identities emerged as traces of each other during the last two hundred years.

Download or read book The Jews written by Hilaire Belloc and published by DigiCat. This book was released on 2022-09-04 with total page 203 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "The Jews" by Hilaire Belloc. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

Download or read book Jews Confucians and Protestants written by Lawrence E. Harrison and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2013 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Jews, Confucians, and Protestants: Cultural Capital and the End of Multiculturalism, Lawrence E. Harrison takes the politically incorrect stand that not all cultures are created equally. Analyzing the performance of 117 countries, grouped by predominant religion, Harrison argues for the superiority of those cultures that emphasize Jewish, Confucian, or Protestant values.

Download or read book Joyce and the Jews written by Ira Bruce Hadel and published by Springer. This book was released on 1989-06-18 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nadel examines Joyce's identification with the dislocated Jew after his exodus from Ireland and analyzes the influence which Rabbinical hermeneutics and Judaic textuality had on his language. Biographical and historical information is used as well as Joyce's texts and critical theory.

Download or read book To Heal the World written by Jonathan Neumann and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2018-06-26 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A devastating critique of the presumed theological basis of the Jewish social justice movement—the concept of healing the world. What is tikkun olam? This obscure Hebrew phrase means literally “healing the world,” and according to Jonathan Neumann, it is the master concept that rests at the core of Jewish left wing activism and its agenda of transformative change. Believers in this notion claim that the Bible asks for more than piety and moral behavior; Jews must also endeavor to make the world a better place. In a remarkably short time, this seemingly benign and wholesome notion has permeated Jewish teaching, preaching, scholarship and political engagement. There is no corner of modern Jewish life that has not been touched by it. This idea has led to overwhelming Jewish participation in the social justice movement, as such actions are believed to be biblically mandated. There's only one problem: the Bible says no such thing. In this lively theological polemic, Neumann shows how tikkun olam, an invention of the Jewish left, has diluted millennia of Jewish practice and belief into a vague feel-good religion of social justice. Neumann uses religious and political history to debunk this pernicious idea, and shows how the Bible was twisted by Jewish liberals to support a radical left-wing agenda. In To Heal the World?, Neumann explains how the Jewish Renewal movement aligned itself with the New Left of the 1960s, and redirected the perspective of the Jewish community toward liberalism and social justice. He exposes the key figures responsible for this effort, shows that it lacks any real biblical basis, and outlines the debilitating effect it has had on Judaism itself.

Download or read book Jews Out of the Question written by Elad Lapidot and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2020-11-01 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In post-Holocaust philosophy, anti-Semitism has come to be seen as a paradigmatic political and ideological evil. Jews Out of the Question examines the role that opposition to anti-Semitism has played in shaping contemporary political philosophy. Elad Lapidot argues that post-Holocaust philosophy identifies the fundamental, epistemological evil of anti-Semitic thought not in thinking against Jews, but in thinking of Jews. In other words, what philosophy denounces as anti-Semitic is the figure of "the Jew" in thought. Lapidot reveals how, paradoxically, opposition to anti-Semitism has generated a rejection of Jewish thought in post-Holocaust philosophy. Through critical readings of political philosophers such as Adorno, Horkheimer, Sartre, Arendt, Badiou, and Nancy, the book contends that by rejecting Jewish thought, the opposition to anti-Semitism comes dangerously close to anti-Semitism itself, and at work in this rejection, is a problematic understanding of the relations between politics and thought—a troubling political epistemology. Lapidot's critique of this political epistemology is the book's ultimate aim.

Download or read book Smart Jews written by Sander L. Gilman and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 1997-01-01 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Smart Jews addresses one of the most controversial theories of our day: the alleged connection between race (or ethnicity), intelligence, and virtue. Sander Gilman shows that such theories have a long, disturbing history. He examines a wide range of texts-scientific treatises, novels, films, philosophical works, and operas-that assert the greater intelligence (and, often, lesser virtue) of Jews. The book opens with a discussion of concepts that relate intelligence and race (particularly those that figure in the controversial bestseller The Bell Curve); it then describes "scientific" theories of Jewish superior intelligence that were developed in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Gilman explores the reactions to those theories by Jewish scientists and intellectuals of that era, including Sigmund Freud, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Hugo von Hofmannsthal. The conclusion turns to how such ideas figure in modern novels and films, from F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Last Tycoon to Stephen Spielberg's Schindler's List and Robert Redford's Quiz Show. Gilman demonstrates how stereotypes can permeate society, finding expression in everything from scientific work to popular culture. And he shows how the seemingly flattering attribution of superior intelligence has served to isolate Jews and to cast upon them the imputation of lesser virtue. A fascinating, highly readable book, Smart Jews is an essential work in our ongoing debates about race, ethnicity, intelligence, and virtue. Sander Gilman is Henry R. Luce Professor of the Liberal Arts in Human Biology at the University of Chicago. His works include Difference and Pathology: Stereotypes of Sexuality, Race, and Madness; Jewish Self-Hatred:Anti-Semitism and the Hidden Language of Jews; and Inscribing the Other (Nebraska 1992).

Download or read book The Jews written by Nachoem M. Wijnberg and published by punctum books. This book was released on 2016-02-12 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Jews is an anti-historical thriller in the form of a Talmudic tragicomedy, taking place sometime during the Second World War. Stalin and his Minister of Security Beria are worried about the political developments in Germany, where Martin Heidegger has replaced Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of the Third Reich. Suspecting that the Frankfurt School, headed by Vice-Chancellor Walter Benjamin, has masterminded this takeover, he dispatches two Jewish actors, Salomon Maimon and Natalia Goncharova, to investigate the situation in the hope of uncovering the extent of the Jewish conspiracy.Upon arrival in Berlin, Maimon and Goncharova are received by Benjamin, who introduces them to Heidegger. The latter has stopped speaking to anyone except his mother since his rise to power, and Benjamin holds long speeches on the history of theater, the law, God, the royal gods and the old goddesses. Eventually, prodded by his mother, Heidegger marries Goncharova, surrounded by a merry audience.The novel ends on a plain somewhere between Moscow and Berlin, where the final battle for Jerusalem is being waged. In front of the entrance of a camp, Maimon and Benjamin are joined by a group of old Jews arriving by train, bringing the news of Stalin's death by circumcision. They reenact scenes from the Old Testament while Jerusalem is burning. Did the world to come finally arrive?