Norman Solomon – författare

Normon Solomon's succinct book is an ideal introduction to Judaism as a religion and way of life. Demonstrating the diverse nature and ethnic origin of those with the Jewish faith, Solomon explores how the Jewish religion has developed in the 2,000 years since the days of the Bible. This Very Short Introduction starts by outlining the basics of practical Judaism - its festivals, prayers, customs, and various sects - and goes on to consider how Judaism has responded to, and dealt with, a number of key issues and debates, including the impact of the Holocaust and the establishment of the State of Israel. In this new edition, Solomon considers issues of contemporary Judaism in the twenty first century.ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Very Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, InspiringHow has Judaism changed since the days of the Bible? What sects and divisions does it have, and how does it respond to the challenges of modernity? How does the secular state of Israel resolve the conflicts of ‘Church’ and state?In this Very Short Introduction, Norman Solomon explores Judaism as a religion and as a way of life, including its festivals, prayers, customs, and sects. Solomon considers how Judaism is perceived and understood in the 21st century, discusses how Judaism deals with issues such as feminism, gender, homosexuality, and gay marriage, and looks historically at the relationship between Judaism and the Muslim faith.ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

War Made Easy cuts through the dense web of spin to probe and scrutinize the key ""perception management"" techniques that have played huge roles in the promotion of American wars in recent decades. This guide to disinformation analyzes American military adventures past and present to reveal striking similarities in the efforts of various administrations to justify, and retain, public support for war. War Made Easy is essential reading. It documents a long series of deliberate misdeeds at the highest levels of power and lays out important guidelines to help readers distinguish a propaganda campaign from actual news reporting. With War Made Easy, every reader can become a savvy media critic and, perhaps, help the nation avoid costly and unnecessary wars.

War Made Easy cuts through the dense web of spin to probe and scrutinize the key ""perception management"" techniques that have played huge roles in the promotion of American wars in recent decades. This guide to disinformation analyzes American military adventures past and present to reveal striking similarities in the efforts of various administrations to justify, and retain, public support for war. War Made Easy is essential reading. It documents a long series of deliberate misdeeds at the highest levels of power and lays out important guidelines to help readers distinguish a propaganda campaign from actual news reporting. With War Made Easy, every reader can become a savvy media critic and, perhaps, help the nation avoid costly and unnecessary wars.

Abraham's Children brings together essays by leading scholars of each faith to address key issues for the faiths and to collaboratively identify common ground and pose challenges for the future. The book will inspire readers in the process of inter-faith dialogue, contribute clearly to vital religious issues of contemporary world concern and help readers to understand faiths that are different from their own.

Abraham's Children brings together essays by leading scholars of each faith to address key issues for the faiths and to collaboratively identify common ground and pose challenges for the future. The book will inspire readers in the process of inter-faith dialogue, contribute clearly to vital religious issues of contemporary world concern and help readers to understand faiths that are different from their own.

Judaism, the religion of the Jewish people, is one of the first recorded monotheistic religions, and as such is one of the oldest religious traditions still practiced today. While its influences can be seen in the religions of both Christianity and Islam, many of its beliefs, traditions, and practices are unknown. The second edition of The A to Z of Judaism doesn't just present "religious" beliefs in a traditional sense but investigates the complex intermingling of religion, devotion, lifestyle, and culture as it is found in diverse Jewish populations around the world and as it has evolved over the course of recent human history. Judaism, like many other cultural institutions, has rarely remained static—instead, continually investigating and questioning itself, metamorphosing in relation to the world.By means of a chronology, an introductory essay, a bibliography, and numerous cross-referenced dictionary entries on important persons, writings, institutions, concepts, Hebrew words, philosophy, theology, and religious law, author Norman Solomon provides an important reference source for the study of Judaism.

First published in 2008. The strands of this book form a unique weave of personal narrative and historical inquiry. Made Love, Got War lays out a half century of socialized insanity that has brought a succession of aggressive wars under cover of—but at recurrent risk of detonating—a genocidal nuclear arsenal.

Ernest Bloch left his native Switzerland to settle in the United States in 1916. One of the great twentieth-century composers, he was influenced by a range of genres and styles - Jewish, American and Swiss - and his works reflect his lifelong struggle with his identity. Drawing on firsthand recollections of relatives and others who knew and worked with the composer, this collection is the most comprehensive study to date of Bloch's life, musical achievement and reception. Contributors present the latest research on Bloch's works and compositional practice, including studies of his Avodath Hakodesh (Sacred Service), violin pieces such as Nigun, the symphonic Schelomo, and the opera Macbeth. Setting the quality and significance of Bloch's output in its historical and cultural contexts, this book provides scholarly analyses as well as a full chronology, list of online resources, catalogue of published and unpublished works, and selected further reading.

Ernest Bloch left his native Switzerland to settle in the United States in 1916. One of the great twentieth-century composers, he was influenced by a range of genres and styles - Jewish, American and Swiss - and his works reflect his lifelong struggle with his identity. Drawing on firsthand recollections of relatives and others who knew and worked with the composer, this collection is the most comprehensive study to date of Bloch's life, musical achievement and reception. Contributors present the latest research on Bloch's works and compositional practice, including studies of his Avodath Hakodesh (Sacred Service), violin pieces such as Nigun, the symphonic Schelomo, and the opera Macbeth. Setting the quality and significance of Bloch's output in its historical and cultural contexts, this book provides scholarly analyses as well as a full chronology, list of online resources, catalogue of published and unpublished works, and selected further reading.

A text which draws on traditional sources, mainly but not exclusively Jewish, to address contemporary issues, ranging from conservation of the environment, through to business and commercial ethics, to relations between State and religion.

This third edition of Historical Dictionary of Judaism covers the history of the Jewish religion, ranging from its biblical roots, through its formulation in the era of the Talmud, to the present day. This collection covers the development of Judaism in the medieval Christian and Islamic worlds, its varied responses to Enlightenment and modernity, the creation of new philosophies of Judaism in the wake of the Holocaust, and the establishment of the State of Israel, and contemporary issues such as feminism, secularism, and the ethics of war and medicine. This is done through a chronology, an introductory essay, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 800 cross-referenced entries on important personalities in Jewish religious history, including biblical personalities with an emphasis on how they are understood in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic tradition. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Judaism.

What we now call “Judaism” is the religion of the rabbis; it is rooted in scripture—the Hebrew Scriptures—but it is not to be identified with Old Testament theology. Judaism in its many manifestations has continued to evolve, rereading its ancient texts and extracting new meaning, while addressing contemporary issues such as the status of women and attitudes to sexual orientation. History, or rather our perception of it, has changed substantially. Previously unknown documents and artefacts have surfaced, while scholars have proposed far-reaching changes to the way we read and evaluate ancient texts. Nowadays, we have a more nuanced understanding of how to evaluate statements in the Talmud and other rabbinic writings, and we are better able to contextualize them not only in Greco-Roman antiquity but also in the Sasanian environment in which the Babylonian Talmud was formed. Historical Dictionary of Judaism, Fourth Edition contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has more than 800 cross-referenced entries on on important personalities in Jewish religious history, including biblical personalities with an emphasis on how they are understood in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic tradition. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Judaism.

An unflinching exposé of the hidden costs of American war-making written with “an immense and rare humanity” (Naomi Klein) by one of our premier political analysts“[War Made Invisible is] an antidote to twenty years of U.S. media malpractice and should be required reading for journalists and all those who long to live in peace.”—Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CODEPINKMore than twenty years ago, 9/11 and the war in Afghanistan set into motion a hugely consequential shift in America’s foreign policy: a perpetual state of war that is almost entirely invisible to the American public. War Made Invisible, by the journalist and political analyst Norman Solomon, exposes how this happened, and what its consequences are, from military and civilian casualties to drained resources at home.From Iraq through Afghanistan and Syria and on to little-known deployments in a range of countries around the globe, the United States has been at perpetual war for at least the past two decades. Yet many of these forays remain off the radar of average Americans. Compliant journalists add to the smokescreen by providing narrow coverage of military engagements and by repeating the military’s talking points. Meanwhile, the increased use of high technology, air power, and remote drones has put distance between soldiers and the civilians who die. Back at home, Solomon argues, the cloak of invisibility masks massive Pentagon budgets that receive bipartisan approval even as policy makers struggle to fund the domestic agenda.Necessary, timely, and unflinching, War Made Invisible is an eloquent moral call for counting the true costs of war.

With a new preface by the author on the Gaza war An unflinching exposé of the hidden costs of American war-making written with “an immense and rare humanity” (Naomi Klein) by one of our premier political analystsEvery election cycle, candidates across the political spectrum repudiate what has become one of the most consequential and enduring components of American foreign policy: the forever war. Yet, once the ballots have been cast and the camera crews go home, the American war machine chugs along in almost complete obscurity.The journalist and political analyst Norman Solomon’s War Made Invisible is a “gripping and painful study” (Noam Chomsky) of the mechanisms behind our invisible, but perpetual, national state of war. From ever-compliant journalists serving as little more than stenographers for the Pentagon to futuristic military technology, horrifying in its destructive power, that makes dropping a bomb or pulling the trigger on a drone strike more of an abstraction than a moral calculation, Solomon’s “staggeringly important intervention” (Naomi Klein) exposes the profoundly human consequences at home and abroad of the bipartisan commitment to war making.In an era of increasing global instability in which it is all too easy to succumb to despair, Solomon pierces the “manufactured ‘fog of war’ . . . [and] casts sunlight, the best disinfectant, on the propaganda that fuels perpetual war” (Amy Goodman). Now in paperback with a new preface by the author on the Gaza war, Solomon’s incisive, ever-timely analysis “provide[s] the fresh and profound clarity that our country desperately needs” (Daniel Ellsberg) now more than ever.

Traditional Jewish religious belief speaks of a divinely revealed, perfect text, authoritatively expounded. The question this book addresses is one with which the author has struggled all his life: in the light of historical criticism, advances in knowledge, and changing moral attitudes, is the traditional notion of divine revelation and authoritative interpretation still valid? The focus is on Judaism and the examples are mostly drawn from that tradition, but the arguments are easy to transpose to other religions. Norman Solomon's discussion will appeal to those who seek to identify with a religious community but who are troubled by the claim of divine authority made for the scriptures of that community. Ranging across several academic disciplines, it is addressed to people of all religions who find their heads and their hearts are not in accord with each other. It is accessible to a general readership interested in the relationship of scripture, interpretation, and religious authority, though scholars will find original observations and historical interpretations in many areas.It should find a ready place in university and popular programmes in Jewish studies, general theology, and philosophy of religion.

Traditional Jewish religious belief speaks of a divinely revealed, perfect text, authoritatively expounded. The question this book addresses is one with which the author has struggled all his life: in the light of historical criticism, advances in knowledge, and changing moral attitudes, is the traditional notion of divine revelation and authoritative interpretation still valid? The focus is on Judaism and the examples are mostly drawn from that tradition, but the arguments are easy to transpose to other religions. Norman Solomon's discussion will appeal to those who seek to identify with a religious community but who are troubled by the claim of divine authority made for the scriptures of that community. Ranging across several academic disciplines, it is addressed to people of all religions who find their heads and their hearts are not in accord with each other. It is accessible to a general readership interested in the relationship of scripture, interpretation, and religious authority, though scholars will find original observations and historical interpretations in many areas.It should find a ready place in university and popular programmes in Jewish studies, general theology, and philosophy of religion.