Download or read book The Greening of American Orthodox Judaism written by Benny Kraut and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Yavneh serves as an illuminating historical marker by which to probe the evolution of American Orthodox Judaism from the 1960s to the early 1980s, when it ceased to exist. Yavneh and its members and supporters contributed significantly to the revitalization of Orthodoxy during this period but also experienced the same tensions felt across the movement during this period. Benny Kraut's historical account brings this singular organization to public consciousness and offers a revealing glimpse of American Orthodox Judaism at a critical juncture in its recent growth.

Download or read book Beyond Sectarianism written by Adam S. Ferziger and published by Wayne State University Press. This book was released on 2015-07-15 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1965 social scientist Charles S. Liebman published a study that boldly declared the vitality of American Jewish Orthodoxy and went on to guide scholarly investigations of the group for the next four decades. As American Orthodoxy continues to grow in geographical, institutional, and political strength, author Adam S. Ferziger argues in Beyond Sectarianism: The Realignment of American Orthodox Judaism that one of Liebman’s principal definitions needs to be updated. While Liebman proposed that the “committed Orthodox” —observant rather than nominally affiliated—could be divided into two main streams: “church,” or Modern Orthodoxy, and “sectarian,” or Haredi Orthodoxy, Ferziger traces a narrowing of the gap between them and ultimately a realignment of American Orthodox Judaism. Ferziger shows that significant elements within Haredi Orthodoxy have abandoned certain strict and seemingly uncontested norms. He begins by offering fresh insight into the division between the American sectarian Orthodox and Modern Orthodox streams that developed in the early twentieth century and highlights New York’s Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun as a pioneering Modern Orthodox synagogue. Ferziger also considers the nuances of American Orthodoxy as reflected in Soviet Jewish activism during the 1960s and early 1970s and educational trips to Poland taken by American Orthodox young adults studying in Israel, and explores the responses of prominent rabbinical authorities to Orthodox feminism and its call for expanded public religious roles for women. Considerable discussion is dedicated to the emergence of outreach to nonobservant Jews as a central priority for Haredi Orthodoxy and how this focus outside its core population reflects fundamental changes. In this context, Ferziger presents evidence for the growing influence of Chabad Hasidism – what he terms the “Chabadization of American Orthodoxy.” Recent studies, including the 2013 Pew Survey of U.S. Jewry, demonstrate that an active and strongly connected American Orthodox Jewish population is poised to grow in the coming decades. Jewish studies scholars and readers interested in history, sociology, and religion will appreciate Ferziger’s reappraisal of this important group.

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 528 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 American Post Judaism written by Shaul Magid and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2013-04-09 with total page 769 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do American Jews identify as both Jewish and American? American Post-Judaism argues that Zionism and the Holocaust, two anchors of contemporary American Jewish identity, will no longer be centers of identity formation for future generations of American Jews. Shaul Magid articulates a new, post-ethnic American Jewishness. He discusses pragmatism and spirituality, monotheism and post-monotheism, Jesus, Jewish law, sainthood and self-realization, and the meaning of the Holocaust for those who have never known survivors. Magid presents Jewish Renewal as a movement that takes this radical cultural transition seriously in its strivings for a new era in Jewish thought and practice.

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 Authentically Orthodox written by Zev Eleff and published by Wayne State University Press. This book was released on 2020-01-21 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With a fresh perspective, Authentically Orthodox: A Tradition-Bound Faith in American Life challenges the current historical paradigm in the study of Orthodox Judaism and other tradition-bound faith communities in the United States.Paying attention to "lived religion," the book moves beyond sermons and synagogues and examines the webs of experiences mediated by any number of American cultural forces. With exceptional writing, Zev Eleff lucidly explores Orthodox Judaism’s engagement with Jewish law, youth culture and gender, and how this religious group has been affected by its indigenous environs. To do this, the book makes ample use of archives and other previously unpublished primary sources. Eleff explores the curious history of Passover peanut oil and the folkways and foodways that battled in this culinary arena to both justify and rebuff the validity of this healthier substitute for other fatty ingredients. He looks at the Yeshiva University quiz team’s fifteen minutes of fame on the nationally televised College Bowl program and the unprecedented pride of young people and youth culture in the burgeoning Modern Orthodox movement. Another chapter focuses on the advent of women’s prayer groups as an alternative to other synagogue experiences in Orthodox life and the vociferous opposition it received on the grounds that it was motivated by "heretical" religious and social movements. Whereas past monographs and articles argue that these communities have moved right toward a conservative brand of faith, Eleff posits that Orthodox Judaism—like other like-minded religious enclaves—ought to be studied in their American religious contexts. The microhistories examined in Authentically Orthodox are some of the most exciting and understudied moments in American Jewish life and will hold the interest of scholars and students of American Jewish history and religion.

Download or read book Cosmopolitans and Parochials written by Samuel C. Heilman and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1989-10-11 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Far from simply vanishing in the face of modernity, Orthodox Jews in the United States today are surviving and flourishing. Samuel C. Heilman and Steven M. Cohen, both distinguished scholars of Jewish studies, have joined forces in this pathbreaking book to articulate this vibrancy and to characterize the many faces of Orthodox Jewry in contemporary America. Who are these Orthodox Jews? How have they survived, what do they believe and practice and how do they accommodate the tension between traditional Jewish and modern American values? Drawing on a survey of more than one thousand participants, the authors address these questions and many more. Heilman and Cohen reveal that American Jewish Orthodoxy is not a monolith by distinguishing its three broad varieties: the "traditionalists," the "centrists," and the "nominally" orthodox. To illuminate this full spectrum of orthodoxy the authors focus on the "centrists," taking us through the dimensions of their ritual observances, religious beliefs, community life, and their social, political, and sexual attitudes. Both parochial and cosmopolitan, orthodox and liberal, these Jews are characterized by their dualism, by their successful involvement in both the modern Western world and in traditional Jewish culture. In painting this provocative and fascinating portrait of what Jewish Orthodoxy has become in America today, Heilman and Cohen's study also sheds light on the larger picture of the persistence of religion in the modern world.

Download or read book Cosmopolitans and Parochials written by Samuel C. Heilman and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1989 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Far from simply vanishing in the face of modernity, Orthodox Jews in the United States today are surviving and flourishing. Samuel C. Heilman and Steven M. Cohen, both distinguished scholars of Jewish studies, have joined forces in this pathbreaking book to articulate this vibrancy and to characterize the many faces of Orthodox Jewry in contemporary America. Who are these Orthodox Jews? How have they survived, what do they believe and practice and how do they accommodate the tension between traditional Jewish and modern American values? Drawing on a survey of more than one thousand participants, the authors address these questions and many more. Heilman and Cohen reveal that American Jewish Orthodoxy is not a monolith by distinguishing its three broad varieties: the "traditionalists," the "centrists," and the "nominally" orthodox. To illuminate this full spectrum of orthodoxy the authors focus on the "centrists," taking us through the dimensions of their ritual observances, religious beliefs, community life, and their social, political, and sexual attitudes. Both parochial and cosmopolitan, orthodox and liberal, these Jews are characterized by their dualism, by their successful involvement in both the modern Western world and in traditional Jewish culture. In painting this provocative and fascinating portrait of what Jewish Orthodoxy has become in America today, Heilman and Cohen's study also sheds light on the larger picture of the persistence of religion in the modern world.

Download or read book American Jewish Year Book 2012 written by Arnold Dashefsky and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-09 with total page 609 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 2012 American Jewish Year Book, “The Annual Record of American Jewish Civilization,” contains major chapters on Jewish secularism (Barry Kosmin and Ariela Keysar), Canadian Jewry (Morton Weinfeld, David Koffman, and Randal Schnoor), national affairs (Ethan Felson), Jewish communal affairs (Lawrence Grossman), Jewish population in the United States (Ira Sheskin and Arnold Dashefsky), and World Jewish population (Sergio DellaPergola). These chapters provide insight into major trends in the North American and world Jewish community. The volume also acts as a resource for the American Jewish community and for academics studying that community by supplying obituaries and lists of Jewish Federations, Jewish Community Centers, national Jewish organizations, Jewish overnight camps, Jewish museums, Holocaust museums, local and national Jewish periodicals, Jewish honorees, major recent events in the American Jewish community, and academic journals, articles, websites, and books. The volume should prove useful to social scientists and historians of the American Jewish community, Jewish communal workers, the press, and others interested in American and Canadian Jews.​

Download or read book American Jewish Orthodoxy in Historical Perspective written by Jeffrey S. Gurock and published by KTAV Publishing House, Inc.. This book was released on 1996 with total page 492 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American freedom, opportunity and voluntarism has created challenges to the traditional faith and practice of all religious denominations. Jeffrey S. Gurock's pathbreaking work on the history of Jewish Orthodoxy in America has identified and explored the many ways that one religious group responded to those challenges. His model and influential studies of the American Orthodox rabbinate and synagogue have shown that attitudes favoring religious reconciliation and accommodation to the American environment were not less important than Orthodoxy's staunch resistance to that same environment. His seminal work has challenged scholars to understand that Orthodoxy is composed of a spectrum of approaches and has demonstrated that merely labelling a person or institution as "Orthodox" is only the first step towards understanding a particular stance on the most contentious of issues. American Jewish Orthodoxy in Historical Perspective brings together fifteen of Professor Gurock's most important essays with a new introduction that places his work in historiographical perspective. Beginning with his now-classic "Resisters and Accommodators" and "The Orthodox Synagogue", which provide the general viewpoint for what follows, this collection proceeds to individual case studies that examine the ways in which Orthodox Jews understood Christian religious threats, the challenges of modern Zionist ideologies, the varieties of Orthodox lay behavior, profiles of influential Orthodox rabbis, the styles of American Orthodox synagogues, and a description of one type of Orthodox day-school education.

Download or read book Yitz Greenberg and Modern Orthodoxy written by Adam Ferziger and published by Academic Studies PRess. This book was released on 2019-09-24 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sixteen scholars from around the globe gathered at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies in the bucolic Yarnton Manor in the Oxfordshire countryside in June 2014, for the first (now annual) Oxford Summer Institute on Modern and Contemporary Judaism. The current volume is the fruit of this encounter. The goal of the event was to facilitate in-depth engagement with the thought of Rabbi Dr. Irving “Yitz” Greenberg, concentrating particularly on the historical ramifications of his theological and public stances. Consideration was given to his lifelong and complex encounter with the Modern Orthodox stream of American Judaism and the extent to which his teachings functioned as “the road not taken.” This auspicious gathering was most certainly characterized by deep appreciation for Greenberg’s original outlook, which is predicated on his profound dedication to God, Torah, the Jewish people, and humanity. But this was by no means gratuitous homage or naive esteem. On the contrary, those in attendance understood that the most genuine form of admiration for a thinker and leader of his stature—especially one who continues to produce path-breaking writings and speak out publicly—is to examine rigorously and critically his ideas and legacy. We are confident that the creative process that was nurtured has resulted in a substantive contribution to research on the religious, historical, and social trajectories of contemporary Judaism, and, similarly will engender fresh thinking on crucial theological and ideological postures that will ultimately enrich Jewish life. This volume offers readers a critical engagement with the trenchant and candid efforts of one of the most thoughtful and earnest voices to emerge from within American Orthodoxy to address the theological and moral concerns that characterize our times.

Download or read book Returning to Tradition written by M. Herbert Danzger and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1989-04-26 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An outstanding book, original, well written, and incisive. It will become the point of departure for all other research in the area.-William B. Helmreich, author of The World of the Yeshiva Danzger's volume treats a subject that is both fascinating and complex. Especially noteworthy is his exploration of an inclusionary strain in Orthodox Jewish life that is often overlooked by sociologists and other contemporary observers.-Norman Lamm, Yeshiva University The issues raised in this book are critical for our times.-Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, Founding Rabbi, Lincoln Square Synagogue In a clear and lucid style, he examines the reasons for return, the schools established by Orthodox Judaism to deal with this return, and the values and conflicts thus engendered.-Library Journal If one were to select the most important of the books on baalei teshuvah, 'returnees to Judaism, ' the choice would clearly be Danzger's Returning to Tradition. This book goes far beyond the work of Janet Aviad and others. It offers the reader a clear, unified, and comprehensive approach to understanding the world of the baal teshuvah.It is based on many years of careful research into that community, both in Israel and in the United States. The author is intimately familiar with the ins and outs of the group he has chosen to study. He knows where they hang out, what their problems are, and the diversity of backgrounds from which they originate...First rate.-William B. Helmreich, American Jewish Histor

Download or read book Sliding to the Right written by Samuel C. Heilman and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2006-07-25 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Heilman is one of the most productive, interesting, and important sociologists writing about Jewish communities in the world today. This book is a significant snapshot, filled with Heilman's fine-grained observations of particular cultural practices such as humor, posters, and Rabbi portraits. Heilman is a first-rate thinker, an excellent researcher whose work is richly empirical, and an unusually clear and lively writer."—Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, author of Destination Culture: Tourism, Museums, and Heritage

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 From Fluidity to Rigidity written by Jeffrey S. Gurock and published by Jean and Samuel Frankel Center for Judaic Studies the Univ S. This book was released on 1998 with total page 72 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Orthodox Jews in America written by Jeffrey S. Gurock and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2009-03-26 with total page 802 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although there are many good books on the history of Jews in America and a smaller subset that focuses on aspects of Orthodox Judaism in contemporary times, no one, until now, has written an overview of how Orthodoxy in America has evolved over the centuries from the first arrivals in the 17th century to the present. This broad overview by Gurock (Libby M. Klaperman Professor of Jewish History, Yeshiva Univ.; Judaism's Encounter with American Sports) is distinctive in examining how Orthodox Jews have coped with the personal, familial, and communal challenges of religious freedom, economic opportunity, and social integration, as well as uncovering historical reactionary tensions to alternative Jewish movements in multicultural and pluralistic America. Gurock raises penetrating questions about the compatibility of modern culture with pious practices and sensitively explores the relationship of feminism to traditional Orthodox Judaism. There are several excellent reference sources on Orthodox Jews in America, e.g., Rabbi Moshe D. Sherman's outstanding Orthodox Judaism in America: A Biographical Dictionary and Sourcebook, to which this is an accessible and illuminating companion; recommended not only for serious readers on the topic but for general readers as well.David B. Levy, Touro Coll. Women's Seminary Lib., Brooklyn, NY Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Download or read book Social Change and Halakhic Evolution in American Orthodoxy written by Chaim I. Waxman and published by Liverpool University Press. This book was released on 2017-08-01 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chaim Waxman, a prominent sociologist of contemporary Orthodoxy, is one of the keenest observers of American Jewish society. In illustration of how Orthodoxy is adapting to modernity, he presents a detailed discussion of halakhic developments, particularly regarding women’s greater participation in ritual practices and other areas of communal life. He shows that the direction of change is not uniform: there is both greater stringency and greater leniency, and he discusses the many reasons for this, both in the Jewish community and in the wider society. Relations between the various sectors of American Orthodoxy over the past several decades are also considered.