Download or read book The Birth of Conservative Judaism written by Michael R. Cohen and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Solomon Schechter (1847-1915), the charismatic leader of New York's Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS), came to America in 1902 intent on revitalizing traditional Judaism. While he advocated a return to traditional practices, Schechter articulated no clear position on divisive issues, instead preferring to focus on similarities that could unite American Jewry under a broad message. Michael R. Cohen demonstrates how Schechter, unable to implement his vision on his own, turned to his disciples, rabbinical students and alumni of JTS, to shape his movement. By midcentury, Conservative Judaism had become the largest American Jewish grouping in the United States, guided by Schechter's disciples and their continuing efforts to embrace diversity while eschewing divisive debates. Yet Conservative Judaism's fluid boundaries also proved problematic for the movement, frustrating many rabbis who wanted a single platform to define their beliefs. Cohen demonstrates how a legacy of tension between diversity and boundaries now lies at the heart of Conservative Judaism's modern struggle for relevance. His analysis explicates four key claims: that Conservative Judaism's clergy, not its laity or Seminary, created and shaped the movement; that diversity was--and still is--a crucial component of the success and failure of new American religions; that the Conservative movement's contemporary struggle for self-definition is tied to its origins; and that the porous boundaries between Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Judaism reflect the complexity of the American Jewish landscape--a fact that Schechter and his disciples keenly understood. Rectifying misconceptions in previous accounts of Conservative Judaism's emergence, Cohen's study enables a fresh encounter with a unique religious phenomenon.
Download or read book Modern Conservative Judaism written by Elliot N. Dorff and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2018-01-01 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A major Conservative movement leader of our time, Elliot N. Dorff provides a personal, behind-the-scenes guide to the evolution of Conservative Jewish thought and practice over the last half century. His candid observations concerning the movement's ongoing tension between constancy and change shed light on the sometimes unified, sometimes diverse, and occasionally contentious reasoning behind the modern movement's most important laws, policies, and documents. Meanwhile, he has assembled, excerpted, and contextualized the most important historical and internal documents in modern Conservative movement history for the first time in one place, enabling readers to consider and compare them all in context. In "Part 1: God" Dorff explores various ways that Conservative Jews think about God and prayer. In "Part 2: Torah" he considers different approaches to Jewish study, law, and practice; changing women's roles; bioethical rulings on issues ranging from contraception to cloning; business ethics; ritual observances from online minyanim to sports on Shabbat; moral issues from capital punishment to protecting the poor; and nonmarital sex to same-sex marriage. In "Part 3: Israel" he examines Zionism, the People Israel, and rabbinic rulings in Israel.
Download or read book Tradition and Change written by Mordecai Waxman and published by United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. This book was released on 1958 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in 1958, this volume has been reprinted in a paperback edition with a new preface. Contains an extended introduction by the editor followed by classic statements by the founders and leading spokesmen of the Conservative Movement. Included among the authors are: Cyrus Adler, Morris Adler, Jacob Agus, Louis Finkelstein, Zacharias Frankel, Israel Friedlander, Louis Ginzberg, Robert Gordis, Simon Greenberg, Mordecai Kaplan, Solomon Schechter, Milton Steinberg, and Henrietta Szold.
Download or read book Jews in the Center written by Jack Wertheimer and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Addressing provocative questions on synagogue participation and modern values, eight contributors discuss the findings of the North American Study of Conservative Synagogues and Their Members, 1995-96, within the landscape of American religion. The study is based on new research and a reanalysis of the 1990 National Jewish Population Survey. Wertheimer teaches American Jewish history at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR
Download or read book The Observant Life written by Martin Samuel Cohen and published by Aviv Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 935 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A decade in the making, The Observant Life: The Wisdom of Conservative Judaism for Contemporary Jews contains a century of thoughtful inquiry into the most profound of all Jewish questions: how to suffuse life with timeless values, how to remain loyal to the covenant that binds the Jewish people and the God of Israel and how to embrace the law while retaining an abiding sense of fidelity to one s own moral path in life. Written in a multiplicity of voices inspired by a common vision, the authors of The Observant Life explain what it means in the ultimate sense to live a Jewish life, and to live it honestly, morally, and purposefully. The work is a comprehensive guide to life in the 21st Century. Chapters on Jewish rituals including prayer, holiday, life cycle events and Jewish ethics such as citizenship, slander, taxes, wills, the courts, the work place and so much more.
Download or read book Conservative Judaism written by Elliot N. Dorff and published by U'd Syn Conservative Judaism. This book was released on 1977 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book American Judaism written by Jonathan D. Sarna and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2019-06-25 with total page 558 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jonathan D. Sarna's award-winning American Judaism is now available in an updated and revised edition that summarizes recent scholarship and takes into account important historical, cultural, and political developments in American Judaism over the past fifteen years. Praise for the first edition: "Sarna . . . has written the first systematic, comprehensive, and coherent history of Judaism in America; one so well executed, it is likely to set the standard for the next fifty years."--Jacob Neusner, Jerusalem Post "A masterful overview."--Jeffrey S. Gurock, American Historical Review "This book is destined to be the new classic of American Jewish history."--Norman H. Finkelstein, Jewish Book World Winner of the 2004 National Jewish Book Award/Jewish Book of the Year
Download or read book Jews by Choice written by Brenda Forster and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Neoconservative Revolution written by Murray Friedman and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book which will come as a surprise to many educated observers and historians suggests that Jews and Jewish intellectuals have played a considerable role in the development and shaping of modern American conservatism. The focus is on the rise of a group of Jewish intellectuals and activists known as neoconservatives who began to impact on American public policy during the Cold War with the Soviet Union and most recently in the lead up to and invasion of Iraq. It presents a portrait of the life and work of the original and small group of neocons including Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, and Sidney Hook. This group has grown into a new generation who operate as columnists in conservative think tanks like The Heritage and The American Enterprise Institute, at colleges and universities, and in government in the second Bush Administration including such lightning rod figures as Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and Elliot Abrams. The book suggests the neo cons have been so significant in reshaping modern American conservatism and public policy that they constitute a Neoconservative Revolution.
Download or read book The Zionist Ideas written by Gil Troy and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 722 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The most comprehensive Zionist collection ever published, The Zionist Ideas: Visions for the Jewish Homeland--Then, Now, Tomorrow sheds light on the surprisingly diverse and shared visions for realizing Israel as a democratic Jewish state. Building on Arthur Hertzberg's classic, The Zionist Idea, Gil Troy explores the backstories, dreams, and legacies of more than 170 passionate Jewish visionaries--quadruple Hertzberg's original number, and now including women, mizrachim, and others--from the 1800s to today. Troy divides the thinkers into six Zionist schools of thought--Political, Revisionist, Labor, Religious, Cultural, and Diaspora Zionism--and reveals the breadth of the debate and surprising syntheses. He also presents the visionaries within three major stages of Zionist development, demonstrating the length and evolution of the conversation. Part 1 (pre-1948) introduces the pioneers who founded the Jewish state, such as Herzl, Gordon, Jabotinsky, Kook, Ha'am, and Szold. Part 2 (1948 to 2000) features builders who actualized and modernized the Zionist blueprints, such as Ben-Gurion, Berlin, Meir, Begin, Soloveitchik, Uris, and Kaplan. Part 3 showcases today's torchbearers, including Barak, Grossman, Shaked, Lau, Yehoshua, and Sacks. This mosaic of voices will engage equally diverse readers in reinvigorating the Zionist conversation--weighing and developing the moral, social, and political character of the Jewish state of today and tomorrow.
Download or read book Etz Hayim written by David L. Lieber and published by Jewish Publication Society of America. This book was released on 2004 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: JPS is pleased to make available a new, more compact edition of the landmark publication, Etz Hayim: A Torah Commentary. This book, a publication of the Conservative movement, was produced through a joint venture of the Rabbinical Assembly, the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, and The Jewish Publication Society. This new, smaller edition is a convenient alternative to the standard hardcover edition and is ideal for personal study and travel. It contains all the material in the original, excerpt for the essays. The Bible text, translations, and commentaries as well as the blessings, artwork, maps, glossary and other reference tools for the worshiper and student of Torah reader are included. The sturdy, coated paper cover is designed to stand up well, even with heavy use.
Download or read book The Chosen Wars written by Steven R. Weisman and published by Simon & Schuster. This book was released on 2019-08-20 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An important beginning to understanding the truth over myth about Judaism in American history” (New York Journal of Books), Steven R. Weisman tells the dramatic story of the personalities that fought each other and shaped this ancient religion in America in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The struggles that produced a redefinition of Judaism illuminate the larger American experience and the efforts by all Americans to reconcile their faith with modern demands. The narrative begins with the arrival of the first Jews in New Amsterdam and plays out over the nineteenth century as a massive immigration takes place at the dawn of the twentieth century. First there was the practical matter of earning a living. Many immigrants had to work on the Sabbath or traveled as peddlers to places where they could not keep kosher. Doctrine was put aside or adjusted. To take their places as equals, American Jews rejected their identity as a separate nation within America. Judaism became an American religion. These profound changes did not come without argument. Steven R. Weisman’s “lucid and entertaining” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) The Chosen Wars tells the stories of the colorful rabbis and activists—including Isaac Mayer Wise, Mordecai Noah, David Einhorn, Rebecca Gratz, and Isaac Lesser—who defined American Judaism and whose disputes divided it into the Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox branches that remain today. “Only rarely does an author succeed in writing a book that reframes how we perceive our own history. The Chosen Wars is...fascinating and provocative” (Jewish Journal).
Download or read book Modern Orthodox Judaism A Documentary History written by Zev Eleff and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2016-07-01 with total page 567 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Modern Orthodox Judaism offers an extensive selection of primary texts documenting the Orthodox encounter with American Judaism that led to the emergence of the Modern Orthodox movement. Many texts in this volume are drawn from episodes of conflict that helped form Modern Orthodox Judaism. These include the traditionalists’ response to the early expressions of Reform Judaism, as well as incidents that helped define the widening differences between Orthodox and Conservative Judaism in the early twentieth century. Other texts explore the internal struggles to maintain order and balance once Orthodox Judaism had separated itself from other religious movements. Zev Eleff combines published documents with seldom-seen archival sources in tracing Modern Orthodoxy as it developed into a structured movement, established its own institutions, and encountered critical events and issues—some that helped shape the movement and others that caused tension within it. A general introduction explains the rise of the movement and puts the texts in historical context. Brief introductions to each section guide readers through the documents of this new, dynamic Jewish expression.
Download or read book Conservative Ideology in the Making written by Iván Zoltán Dénes and published by Central European University Press. This book was released on 2009-09-15 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fifty years or so preceding the watershed of 1848–49 witnessed the emergence of liberal nationalism in Hungary, along with a transmutation of conservatism which appeared then as a party and an ideological system in the political arena. The specific features of the conservatism, combining the protection of the status quo with some reform measures, its strategic vision, conceptual system, argumentation, assessment criteria and values require an in depth exploration and analysis. Different conservative groups were in the background or in opposition from 1848 to 1918, while in the period between the two World Wars, they constituted the overwhelming majority of ruling parties. During the one-party system, from 1949 to 1989, the liberals and conservatives—like all other political groups—were illegal, a status from which they could later emerge upon the change of the political system. The inheritance of the autocratic system frozen up and undigested by the one-party state was thawed after the peaceful regime change, the constitutional revolution and its discrete components began to be reactivated, including the enemy images of earlier discourses. "Liberal" and "conservative" had become state-party stigmas in line with fascist, reactionary, rightist, and bourgeois. In reaction to that, at first conservative then liberal, intellectual fashions and renascences unfolded in the 1980s. The attempts by liberal and conservative advocates to find predecessors did not favor an objective approach.The first step toward objectivity is establishing distance from the different kinds of enemy images and their political idioms. This is a pressing need because, although several pioneering works have appeared on different variants of the Hungarian liberalisms and conservatisms, there are no serious unbiased syntheses. This work is urgent because the political poles of the constitutional revolution and the ensuing period have up till now been described in terms of different conspiracy theories.
Download or read book Black Power Jewish Politics written by Marc Dollinger and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2024-04-02 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Black Power, Jewish Politics expands with this revised edition that includes the controversial new preface, an additional chapter connecting the book's themes to the national reckoning on race, and a foreword by Jews of Color Initiative founder Ilana Kaufman that all reflect on Blacks, Jews, race, white supremacy, and the civil rights movement"--
Download or read book White Protestant Nation written by Allan J. Lichtman and published by Grove Press. This book was released on 2008 with total page 628 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the origins, development, and achievements of conservatism in the United States, from the birth of the modern right in the 1920s through the restoration of the conservative consensus at the end of the twentieth century.
Download or read book Halakhah for Our Time written by David Golinkin and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
