Politics of Torah

Alan L. Mittleman is Associate Professor of Religion at Muhlenberg College. He is the author of Between Kant and Kabbalah, also published by SUNY Press.

"Mittleman seeks to do something which—to my knowledge—has not been done before, to see the emergence of the Agudah in Germany as a religious expression of a Jewish politics. He uses sociological theory to bring the 'intentionality' of the founders and spokesmen of the Agudah into view. He also locates his description of the Agudah in contemporary discussion about Jewish political theory. There is no doubt in my mind about the significance of the study for the history of modern Judaism, particularly modern Orthodoxy." — Robert S. Schine, Middlebury College"This is a flowing, intellectually challenging work. Mittleman breaks new ground, shedding light on a central stream in modern Jewish history in the context of religio-political fusion, and he does so in a clear, systematic, and analytic way. The intellectual apprehension of the data; the transfomation of the diverse material into core issues (which are demonstrably the issues); and the questions posed in analyzing the directions of nineteenth-century German Orthodoxy and early Agudah, and their placement within the scientific study of religion, are impressive." — Gershon Greenberg, The American University"This book is full of insights, and it is far more sophisticated than most other works dealing with similar issues. I especially like the use of sociological theory in its analysis of the phenomenon of a particular form of German Jewish Orthodoxy. Anyone interested in modern Jewish politics would be interested in reading this book." — David Novak, University of Virginia

• Preface Introduction 1. Interpreting the Sacred Polity: The Concept of the Jewish Political Tradition 2. The Sacred Polity in Transition: Medieval Norms and Modern Ideals 3. Renewing the Sacred Polity: The Founding of Agudat Israel Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index