Download or read book Halakhah and Politics written by Sol Roth and published by . This book was released on 1988 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Invention of Jewish Theocracy written by Alexander Kaye and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book is about the attempt of Orthodox Jewish Zionists to implement traditional Jewish law (halakha) as the law of the State of Israel. These religious Zionists began their quest for a halakhic sate immediately after Israel's establishment in 1948 and competed for legal supremacy with the majority of Israeli Jews who wanted Israel to be a secular democracy. Although Israel never became a halachic state, the conflict over legal authority became the backdrop for a pervasive culture war, whose consequences are felt throughout Israeli society until today. The book traces the origins of the legal ideology of religious Zionists and shows how it emerged in the middle of the twentieth century. It further shows that the ideology, far from being endemic to Jewish religious tradition as its proponents claim, is a version of modern European jurisprudence, in which a centralized state asserts total control over the legal hierarchy within its borders. The book shows how the adoption (conscious or not) of modern jurisprudence has shaped religious attitudes to many aspects of Israeli society and politics, created an ongoing antagonism with the state's civil courts, and led to the creation of a new and increasingly powerful state rabbinate. This account is placed into wider conversations about the place of religion in democracies and the fate of secularism in the modern world. It concludes with suggestions about how a better knowledge of the history of religion and law in Israel may help ease tensions between its religious and secular citizens"--
Download or read book Politics and the Limits of Law written by Menachem Lorberbaum and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2002-11-01 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the emergence of the fundamental political concepts of medieval Jewish thought, arguing that alongside the well known theocratic elements of the Bible there exists a vital tradition that conceives of politics as a necessary and legitimate domain of worldly activity that preceded religious law in the ordering of society. Since the Enlightenment, the separation of religion and state has been a central theme in Western political history and thought, a separation that upholds the freedom of conscience of the individual. In medieval political thought, however, the doctrine of the separation of religion and state played a much different role. On the one hand, it served to maintain the integrity of religious law versus the monarch, whether canon law, Islamic law, or Jewish law. On the other hand, it upheld the autonomy of the monarch and the autonomy of human political agency against theocratic claims of divine sovereignty and clerical authority. Postulating the realm of secular politics leads the author to construct a theory of the precedence of politics over religious law in the organization of social life. He argues that the attempts of medieval philosophers to understand religion and the polity provide new perspectives on the viability of an accommodation between revelation and legislation, the holy and the profane, the divine and the temporal. The book shows that in spite of the long exile of the Jewish people, there is, unquestionably, a tradition of Jewish political discourse based on the canonical sources of Jewish law. In addition to providing a fresh analysis of Maimonides, it analyzes works of Nahmanides, Solomon ibn Adret, and Nissim Gerondi that are largely unknown to the English-speaking reader. Finally, it suggests that the historical corpus of Jewish political writing remains vital today, with much to contribute to the ongoing debates over church-state relations and theocratic societies.
Download or read book Halakhah written by Chaim N. Saiman and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-09-29 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How the rabbis of the Talmud transformed Jewish law into a way of thinking and talking about everything Typically translated as "Jewish law," halakhah is not an easy match for what is usually thought of as law. This is because the rabbinic legal system has rarely wielded the political power to enforce its rules, nor has it ever been the law of any state. Even more idiosyncratically, the talmudic rabbis claim the study of halakhah is a holy endeavor that brings a person closer to God—a claim no country makes of its law. Chaim Saiman traces how generations of rabbis have used concepts forged in talmudic disputation to do the work that other societies assign not only to philosophy, political theory, theology, and ethics but also to art, drama, and literature. Guiding readers across two millennia of richly illuminating perspectives, this panoramic book shows how halakhah is not just "law" but an entire way of thinking, being, and knowing.
Download or read book The Jewish Political Tradition written by Michael Walzer and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2000-01-01 with total page 693 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The third of four volumes in a distinguished series, this volume includes chapters on the nature of the communal bond, marriage and family, welfare, taxation, government, and criminal justice The four-volume series on the Jewish political tradition that includes this volume seeks to connect the political thought of ancient Israel and the Diaspora with the emerging traditions of the modern Israeli state. The first two volumes dealt with authority and membership, respectively; this third volume, with Madeline Kochen as coeditor, deals with community, with chapters on the communal bond, marriage and family, welfare, taxation, government, and criminal justice.
Download or read book The Jewish Political Tradition written by Michael Walzer and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2006-05-15 with total page 664 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book launches a landmark four-volume collaborative work exploring the political thought of the Jewish people from biblical times to the present. The texts and commentaries in Volume I address the basic question of who ought to rule the community."--Descripción del editor.
Download or read book Halakha and the Challenge of Israeli Sovereignty written by Asaf Yedidya and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2019-05-24 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Halakha and the Challenge of Israeli Sovereignty examines the issues surrounding national, political, and religious sovereignty from the vantage point of halakha and its evolution. The work analyzes the efforts of the interpretative communities who adhered to halakha—the rabbinical authorities—as well as other groups who endeavored to help or to change it: the Jewish jurists in Eretz Israel who sought to integrate sections of halakha into the Jewish collective; and the religious academics who wanted more meaningful recognition of halakha in non-halakhic values. The assessment extends from the beginning of the Jewish national movement in the last two decades of the 19th century to the first two decades of the State of Israel, when weighty problems arose that required a halakhic response to the challenge of sovereignty. In this, the volume sheds light on the pliable nature of the concept of halakha, particularly in conjunction with its application to the notion of sovereignty.
Download or read book Orthodox Judaism and the Politics of Religion written by Daniel Mahla and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-26 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Investigates traditionalist struggles about Zionism and the emergence of national-religious Judaism and ultra-Orthodox in the early twentieth century.
Download or read book The Jewish Political Tradition written by Michael Walzer and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2008-10-01 with total page 521 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book launches a landmark four-volume collaborative work exploring the political thought of the Jewish people from biblical times to the present. Each volume includes a selection of texts—from the Bible and Talmud, midrashic literature, legal responsa, treatises, and pamphlets—annotated for modern readers and accompanied by new commentaries written by eminent philosophers, lawyers, political theorists, and other scholars working in different fields of Jewish studies. These contributors join the arguments of the texts, agreeing or disagreeing, elaborating, refining, qualifying, and sometimes repudiating the political views of the original authors. The series brings the little-known and unexplored Jewish tradition of political thinking and writing into the light, showing where and how it resonates in the state of Israel, the chief diaspora settlements, and, more broadly, modern political experience. This first volume, Authority, addresses the basic question of who ought to rule the community: What claims to rule have been put forward from the time of the exodus from Egypt to the establishment of the state of Israel? How are such claims disputed and defended? What constitutes legitimate authority? The authors discuss the authority of God, then the claims of kings, priests, prophets, rabbis, lay leaders, gentile rulers (during the years of the exile), and the Israeli state. The volume concludes with several perspectives on the issue of whether a modern state can be both Jewish and democratic. Forthcoming volumes will address the themes of membership, community, and political vision. Among the contributors to this volume: Amy Gutmann Moshe Halbertal David Hartman Moshe Idel Sanford Levinson Susan Neiman Hilary Putnam Joseph Raz Michael Sandel Allan Silver Yael Tamir
Download or read book The Democratic Evolution of Halakhah written by David Raab and published by . This book was released on 2018-07-17 with total page 114 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book sets out to provide a new perspective on the evolution of halakhah. According to David Raab, halakhah should be seen through a "people-centric" narrative, where the community of observant Jews - the People - drive the refinement, redefinition, change in, and, finally, acceptance of halakhah. In a word, the corpus of halakhah and the details of its observance as it is practiced today is what the people have decided it to be. This people-centric evolution of Jewish law should be characterized as democratic.
Download or read book Kinship and Consent written by Daniel Judah Elazar and published by University Press of America. This book was released on 1983 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Co-published with the Center for Jewish Community Studies, this volume is based on the finest fruits of a summer Colloquium of The Institute for Judaism and Contemporary Thought held at the Kibbutz Lavi in Israel. Explores Jewish political life and thought from the Biblical period to the present in order to ascertain the content and character of the Jewish political tradition and its relevance for our time.
Download or read book Democracy and Halakhah written by Eliezer Schweid and published by Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs/Center for Jewish Community Studies Series. This book was released on 1994 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eliezer Schweid in Democracy and the Halakhah analyzes the writings of Rabbi Haim Hirschensohn, one of the early Hebrew cultural pioneers who laid the foundation for the Zionist enterprise. Born in Safed Eretz Israel in 1857, Hirschensohn was pushed out of the fanatic Ashkenazi religious community and ended up as an Orthodox rabbi in Hoboken, New Jersey. His writings focus on finding a philosophic basis that could reconcile the Torah with the transformation forced upon the Jewish people by modernity so as to come out with a coherent systematic system of political thought that could encompass both. Co-published with the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
Download or read book The Holocaust and Halakhah written by Irving J. Rosenbaum and published by . This book was released on 1976 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Commandment and Community written by Daniel H. Frank and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 1995-07-01 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is divided into two parts, "Judaism and Political Praxis" and "Halakha and the Political Order." The first part is concerned with issues at the interface of Jewish political theory and practice: a Jewish philosophy of justice, the formulation of a practical philosophy based on traditional Jewish sources, and the need for greater political activism among Jews. The second part presents both systematic and historical studies. It includes the strategies used to determine the meaning and intelligibility of texts and norms in the rabbinic tradition, trends in the history of Jewish political thought, and the connectedness of law and morality in traditional Judaism.
Download or read book Evolving Halakhah written by Rabbi Dr. Moshe Zemer and published by Turner Publishing Company. This book was released on 2012-07-13 with total page 510 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An essential reference work for any thinking student of religion. Innovative and provocative, Evolving Halakhah affirms the system of traditional Jewish law, Halakhah, as a developing and moral structure, flexible enough to accommodate the changing realities of each generation. In this accessible analysis of Halakhah, Moshe Zemer issues a clarion call to follow the ancient and modern principles of evolving Halakhah, which demands ethical deeds, the discovery of holiness in the Commandments, a critical approach to the Tradition, and responsibility of the entire Community of Israel. These principles are viewed as the framework in which the other commandments are applied. To Jews who sometimes see no choices but those of fundamentalist rigidity on the one hand, or total rejection of tradition on the other, Zemer argues instead for awareness of the inherent flexibility of the halakhic system. Halakhah, he argues, has had many voices, and has changed to meet every generation’s needs. Equipped with this view, liberal Jews can reclaim their tradition from a conservative rabbinic establishment that all too often—especially in Israel—has seen the voice of strictness as more authentic than the voice of lovingkindness. The product of Zemer’s thirty-five years of work in the Israel Movement of Progressive Judaism, Evolving Halakhah includes chapters on matters ranging from personal status, especially marriage and conversion, through the “political” Halakhah of a response to the intifada. It shows that the traditional framework for understanding the Torah’s commandments can be the living heart of Jewish life for all Jews—including Reform, Reconstructionist, Conservative, and Modern Orthodox.
Download or read book Covenantal Rights written by David Novak and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2009-11-02 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Covenantal Rights is a groundbreaking work of political theory: a comprehensive, philosophically sophisticated attempt to bring insights from the Jewish political tradition into current political and legal debates about rights and to bring rights discourse more fully into Jewish thought. David Novak pursues these aims by presenting a theory of rights founded on the covenant between God and the Jewish people as that covenant is constituted by Scripture and the rabbinic tradition. In doing so, he presents a powerful challenge to prevailing liberal and conservative positions on rights and duties and opens a new chapter in contemporary Jewish political thinking. For Novak, "covenantal rights" are rooted in God's primary rights as creator of the universe and as the elector of a particular community whose members relate to this God as their sovereign. The subsequent rights of individuals and communities flow from God's covenantal promises, which function as irrevocable entitlements. This presents a sharp contrast to the liberal tradition, in which rights flow above all from individuals. It also challenges the conservative idea that duties can take precedence over rights, since Novak argues that there are no covenantal duties that are not backed by correlative rights. Novak explains carefully and clearly how this theory of covenantal rights fits into Jewish tradition and applies to the relationships among God, the covenanted community, and individuals. This work is a profound and provocative contribution to contemporary religious and political theory.
Download or read book Law Politics and Morality in Judaism written by Michael Walzer and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2009-02-09 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jewish legal and political thought developed in conditions of exile, where Jews had neither a state of their own nor citizenship in any other. What use, then, can this body of thought be today to Jews living in Israel or as emancipated citizens in secular democratic states? Can a culture of exile be adapted to help Jews find ways of being at home politically today? These questions are central in Law, Politics, and Morality in Judaism, a collection of essays by contemporary political theorists, philosophers, and lawyers. How does Jewish law accommodate--or fail to accommodate--the practice of democratic citizenship? What range of religious toleration and pluralism is compatible with traditional Judaism? What forms of coexistence between Jews and non-Jews are required by shared citizenship? How should Jews operating within halakha (Jewish law) and Jewish history judge the use of force by modern states? The authors assembled here by prominent political theorist Michael Walzer come from different points on the religious-secular spectrum, and they differ greatly in their answers to such questions. But they all enact the relationship at issue since their answers, while based on critical Jewish texts, also reflect their commitments as democratic citizens. The contributors are Michael Walzer, David Biale, the late Robert M. Cover, Menachem Fisch, Geoffrey B. Levey, David Novak, Aviezer Ravitzky, Adam B. Seligman, Suzanne Last Stone, and Noam J. Zohar.
