At once it must be recognized that religious law by its very nature regulates and restricts the conduct of its adherents. One of the major foci of The Oxford Handbook of Judaism and Economics is therefore to describe the impact economic regulation in Jewish law has on the integration of Jews into the economic fabric of societies governed by different legal systems. Factors that impede integration, as well as those that facilitate it, are identified. More globally, a number of the papers in this volume discuss the positive contribution of Jewish business ethics to the morality of the marketplace, as well as Jewish legal perspectives on economic public policy. In the discipline of economics, advances in theory provide the grist for debate regarding the appropriate role for government. Accordingly, this volume presents papers dealing with economic theory in the Bible and Talmud, as well as comparative law studies that relate to economics. Also included are studies of the influence of religious economic law on the economic sphere of life in societies of the past.Finally, this work investigates how successfully Jews, as a people, have integrated into American economic life, and the related question of how economic forces have played a role in causing the American Jew to assimilate, shedding religious practice and commitment.
