Visar resultat för..."The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization"

Women are conspicuously absent from the Jewish mystical tradition. Even if historically some Jewish women may have experienced mystical revelations and led richly productive spiritual lives, the tradition does not preserve any record of their experiences or insights. Only the chance survival of scant evidence suggests that, at various times and places, individual Jewish women did pursue the path of mystical piety or prophetic spirituality, but it appears that they were generally censured, and efforts were made to suppress their activities. This contrasts sharply with the fully acknowledged prominence of women in the mystical traditions of both Christianity and Islam. It is against this background that the mystical messianic movement centred on the personality of Sabbatai Zevi (1626 - 76) stands out as a unique and remarkable exception. Sabbatai Zevi addressed to women a highly original liberationist message, proclaiming that he had come to make them 'as happy as men' by releasing them from the pangs of childbirth and the subjugation to their husbands that were ordained for women as a consequence of the primordial sin. This unprecedented redemptive vision became an integral part of Sabbatian eschatology, which the messianists believed to be unfolding and experienced in the present. Their New Law, superseding the Old with the dawning of the messianic era, overturned the traditional halakhic norms that distinguished and regulated relations between the sexes. This was expressed not only in the outlandish ritual transgression of sexual prohibitions, in which Sabbatian women were notoriously implicated, but also in the apparent adoption of the idea - alien to rabbinic Judaism - that virginity, celibacy, or sexual abstinence were conducive to women's spiritual empowerment. Ada Rapoport-Albert traces the diverse manifestations of this vision in every phase of Sabbatianism and its offshoots. These include the early promotion of women to centre-stage as messianic prophetesses; their independent affiliation with the movement in their own right; their initiation in the esoteric teachings of the kabbalah; and their full incorporation, on a par with men, into the ritual and devotional life of the messianic community. Their investment with authority was such as to elevate the messiah's wife (a figure mostly absent from traditional messianic speculations) to the rank of full messianic consort, sharing in her husband's redemptive mission as well as his divine dimension. By the late eighteenth century, a syncretistic cult had developed that recognized in Eva - the unmarried daughter of Jacob Frank, one of Sabbatai Zevi's apostate messianic successors - an incarnate female aspect of the kabbalistic godhead, worshipped by her father's devotees as 'Holy Virgin' and female messiah. This was the culmination of the Sabbatian endeavour to transcend the traditional gender paradigm that had excluded women from the public arena of Jewish spiritual life.This work is translated by Deborah Greniman.

Marcel Simon's classic study examines Jewish-Christian relations in the Roman Empire from the second Jewish War (132-5 CE) to the end of the Jewish Patriarchate in 425 CE. First published in French in 1948, the book overturns the then commonly held view that the Jewish and Christian communities gradually ceased to interact and that the Jews gave up proselytizing among the gentiles. On the contrary, Simon maintains that Judaism continued to make its influence felt on the world at large and to be influenced by it in turn. He analyses both the antagonisms and the attractions between the two faiths, and concludes with a discussion of the eventual disappearance of Judaism as a missionary religion. The rival community triumphed with the help of a Christian imperial authority and a doctrine well adapted to the Graeco-Roman mentality.

The Zohar is the fundamental work of Jewish mysticism. Isaiah Tishby’s classic and definitive Wisdom of the Zohar makes the world of the Zohar available to the English-speaking reader in all its complexity and poetry.The extended extracts are arranged by topic, each section being prefaced by introductory explanations and accompanied by copious notes. There is also a General Introduction on the complex symbolism of the Zohar and on its historical and literary background.The scholarly value of David Goldstein’s acclaimed translation is enhanced by an index expanded to include references to passages cited in the introduction and notes, and by the addition of a subject index and an index of biblical references.Isaiah Tishby was awarded the Bialik Prize 1972, the Israel Prize 1979, and the Rothschild Prize 1982, mainly for his work on The Wisdom of the Zohar. David Goldstein was awarded the Webber Prize 1987 for this translation.

Moses Hayim Luzzatto (1707-1746), rabbi, mystic, teacher, poet, playwright, and writer of ethical works, gathered around him in his 'house of study' in Padua an inner circle of devout Jews who shared his belief in the imminent arrival of the messianic age and who privately identified members of their circle as divinely ordained to usher in the Redemption. To the rabbis of Venice and Frankfurt, however, Luzzatto was a heretic, whose claims to have written works at the dictation of a messenger from heaven could not be genuine. Under pressure from them he was obliged to withdraw a number of such works, and the manuscripts were either lost or destroyed. Yet his known works came to earn him admiration: as a literary figure among the adherents of the Enlightenment, as a great kabbalist and profound mystic by hasidim and even by some of their leading opponents, and as a great ethical teacher by all religious streams. Isaiah Tishby spent many years in the study of Luzzatto and his group, and succeeded in tracing a number of the lost manuscripts.In the essays in this volume translated by Morris Hoffman, he described and annotated the manuscripts which he found, giving the full text of some of the prose works and of all the poems. From these manuscripts and Luzzatto's published works, he was able to correct and add detail to the incomplete picture of Luzzatto and his mystical world which had been current among scholars. He showed how far the views of earlier kabbalists and messianists had been accepted or modified by Luzzatto, and found evidence that he had influenced the early hasidic movement, so lending weight to Hayim Nahman Bialik's description of Luzzatto as 'the father and first begetter' of the three main streams of Judaism in modern times. Tishby also clarified the messianic role for which, as the Padua group believed, certain of their members were destined under the leadership of Luzzatto. One of the most illuminating documents discovered by Tishby and reproduced here is Luzzatto's version of his ketubah or marriage contract.The phrases of the traditional contract are interspersed with a mystical commentary in which Luzzatto identifies himself with the biblical Moses and interprets his earthly marriage as a marriage with the Shekhinah, the Divine Presence or female element of the Godhead. Thus she would be rescued from exile among the forces of evil and the way would be cleared for the final redemption. A second key document is the personal, mystical diary which Luzzatto's second-in-command, Rabbi Moses David Valle, wrote in the margins of his own voluminous commentary on the Bible. The commentary itself, written in impersonal terms, yields autobiographical information, but the diary entries, in short and often enigmatic notes, record the personal mystical visions and experiences, encouragements, and disappointments of the man who saw himself and was seen in Luzzatto's group as the Messiah ben David.

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.

The present-day traces of the Jewish past in Poland are complex. Jewish life lay in ruins after the Holocaust. Much evidence of ruin remains, but there are also widespread traces that bear witness to the elaborate Jewish culture that once flourished there, even in villages and small towns. One also sees places where Jews were murdered by the Germans in the war: not only in death camps and ghettos, but also in fields, forests, rivers, and cemeteries. After the war forty years of communism suppressed even the memory of the destroyed Jewish heritage. Today, by contrast, the historic Jewish culture of Poland is increasingly being memorialized, by local Poles as well as by foreign Jews. Synagogues and cemeteries are being renovated, monuments and museums are being set up. There are festivals of Jewish culture, hasidic pilgrims, and Jewish tourists; and local people who rescued Jews during the war are being honoured. In rediscovering the traces of memory one also finds clear signs of a local Jewish revival. This extensively revised second edition includes forty-five new photographs and updated explanatory texts. Together they suggest how to make sense of the past and discover its relevance for the present. This innovative, multi-layered book will appeal to everyone concerned with questions of history, memory, and identity.Photographs by Chris Schwarz and Jason Francisco.

Orthodox Jewish women are increasingly seeking new ways to express themselves religiously, and important changes have occurred in consequence in their self-definition and the part they play in the religious life of their communities. Drawing on surveys and interviews across different Orthodox groups in London, as well as on the author’s own experience of active participation over many years, this is a thoroughly researched study that analyses its findings in the context of related developments in Israel and the USA. Sympathetic attention is given to women’s creativity and sophistication as they struggle to develop new modes of expression that will let their voices be heard; at the same time, the inevitable points of conflict with the male-dominated religious establishment are examined and explained. There is a focus, too, on the impact of innovations in ritual: these include not only the creation of women-only spaces and women’s participation in public practices traditionally reserved for men, but also new personal practices often acquired on study visits to Israel which are replacing traditions learned from family members. This is a much-needed study of how new norms of lived religion have emerged in London, influenced by both the rise of feminism and the backlash against it, and also by women’s new understanding of their religious roles.

The two decades since the last authoritative general history of Dutch Jews was published have seen such substantial developments in historical understanding that new assessment has become an imperative. This volume offers an indispensable survey from a contemporary viewpoint that reflects the new preoccupations of European historiography and allows the history of Dutch Jewry to be more integrated with that of other European Jewish histories. Historians from both older and newer generations shed significant light on all eras, providing fresh detail that reflects changed emphases and perspectives. In addition to such traditional subjects as the Jewish community’s relationship with the wider society and its internal structure, its leaders, and its international affiliations, new topics explored include the socio-economic aspects of Dutch Jewish life seen in the context of the integration of minorities more widely; a reassessment of the Holocaust years and consideration of the place of Holocaust memorialization in community life; and the impact of multiculturalist currents on Jews and Jewish politics. Memory studies, diaspora studies, postcolonial studies, and digital humanities all play their part in providing the fullest possible picture. This wide-ranging scholarship is complemented by a generous plate section with eighty fully captioned colour illustrations.Translated by David McKay.

Leon Kellner was part of the intellectual and cultural elite of imperial Austria. Engaged in politics, a member of his regional parliament, and an essayist of repute, he was also a Zionist leader and confidant of Theodor Herzl. He created an institution for Jews’ cultural, educational, and social advancement modelled on London’s Toynbee Hall, which spread across east-central Europe to great effect. He was also an internationally recognized Shakespeare scholar. Yet for all this, today he is little known.How did someone born into a lower-middle-class Orthodox Jewish family from the province of Galicia come to gain such prominence in the Habsburg empire? Kellner’s is a thoroughly Habsburg Jewish story, spanning east and west and shaped by the empire’s history, politics, and culture. He was a singular character: a Galician Jew at home in Vienna and in Czernowitz, eyes towards Zion, yet content also in London, and never more so than when absorbed in the minutiae of Shakespeare’s texts. Kellner’s world was destroyed twice over: Habsburg Austria came to an end in 1918, east-central European Jewry in 1945. This biography recovers at least part of what was lost.

Finalist for National Jewish Book Award for Writing Based on Archival Material 2022.Jewish political and cultural behaviour during the first half of the twentieth century comes to the fore in this portrayal of a forgotten movement with contemporary relevance. Commencing with the Zionist rejection of the Uganda proposal in 1905, the Jewish Territorialist Movement searched for areas outside Palestine in which to create settlements of Jews. This study analyses the Territorialists’ ideology and activities in the Jewish context of the time, but their thought and discourse also reflect geopolitical concerns that still have resonance today in debates about colonialist attitudes to peoplehood, territory, and space. As the colonial world order rapidly changed after 1945, the Territorialists did not abandon their aspirations in overseas lands. Instead, in their attempts to find settlement solutions for Europe’s ‘surplus’ Jews, they moved from negotiating predominantly with the European colonizers to negotiating also with the ever more powerful non-Western leaders of decolonizing nations.This book reconstructs the rich history of the activities and changing ideologies of Jewish Territorialism, represented by Israel Zangwill’s Jewish Territorial Organisation (the ITO) and, later, by the Freeland League for Jewish Colonization under the leadership of Isaac Steinberg. Via Uganda, Angola, Madagascar, Australia, and Suriname, this story eventually leads us to questions about yidishkeyt, and to forgotten early twentieth-century ideas of how to be Jewish.

Finalist for The Rabbi Sacks Book Prize 2023.A new paradigm for relations between religions, one of acceptance and collaboration, requires not only a willingness to move beyond a tradition of hostility and competition but also significant theological rethinking. Within Jewish Orthodoxy there have been very few voices that have advanced and justified a vision of other faiths in this light: to this day, the reigning paradigm is one of practical collaboration while avoiding theologically based engagement or reflection. Two of the most important Orthodox Jewish voices advocating change have been those of Irving Yitz Greenberg and Jonathan Sacks. This book presents the theological, moral, and social views of these two leading rabbis. It focuses on the significance of covenant for both, and how they adapt this concept to enable the development of a Jewish view of other religions. In considering how they may have influenced each other, it also studies the limitations and internal contradictions that characterize their work as they attempt to point the way forward, in a spirit of dialogue, to continuing theological reflection on Judaism’s approach to world religions.

Finalist for National Jewish Book Award for Scholarship 2022.Karaite Judaism emerged in the ninth century in the Islamic Middle East as an alternative to the rabbinic Judaism of the Jewish majority. Karaites reject the underlying assumption of rabbinic Judaism, namely, that Jewish practice is to be based on two divinely revealed Torahs, a written one, embodied in the Five Books of Moses, and an oral one, eventually written down in rabbinic literature. Karaites accept as authoritative only the Written Torah, as they understand it, and their form of Judaism therefore differs greatly from that of most Jews. Despite its permanent minority status, Karaism has been an integral part of the Jewish people continuously for twelve centuries. It has contributed greatly to Jewish cultural achievements, while providing a powerful intellectual challenge to the majority form of Judaism. This book is the first to present a comprehensive overview of the entire story of Karaite Judaism: its unclear origins; a Golden Age of Karaism in the Land of Israel; migrations through the centuries; Karaites in the Holocaust; unique Jewish religious practices, beliefs, and philosophy; biblical exegesis and literary accomplishments; polemics and historiography; and the present-day revival of the Karaite community in the State of Israel.

The historical consciousness of medieval Jewry has engendered livelydebate in the scholarly world. The focus in this book is on the historicalconsciousness of the Jews of Spain and southern France in the late Middle Ages,and specifically on their perceptions of Christianity and Christian history andculture. In his detailed analysis of Jews’ understanding of the history of thecommunities they lived among, Ram Ben-Shalom shows that in these southernEuropean lands Jews experienced a relatively open society that was sensitive toand knowledgeable about voices from other cultures, and that this hadsignificant consequences for shaping Jewish historical consciousness.Amongthe topics that receive special attention are what Jews knew of the significance of Rome, of Jesus and the early days ofChristianity, of Church history, and of the history of the Iberian monarchies. Ben-Shalom demonstrates that, despite thenegative stereotypes of Jewry prevalent in Christian literature and increasingfamiliarity with that literature, they were more influencedby their interactions with Christian society at the local level. Consequentlythere was no single stereotype that dominated Jewish thought, and frequentlylittle awareness of the two societies as representing distinct cultures.This book contributes to medieval Jewishintellectual history on many levels, demonstrating that, in Spain and southernFrance, Jews of the later Middle Ages evinced a genuine interest in history,including the history of non-Jews, and that in some cases they were deeplyfamiliar with Christian and sometimes also classical historiography. In providinga comprehensive survey of the multiple contexts in which historiographicalmaterial was embedded and the many uses to which it was put, it enriches ourunderstanding of medieval historiography, polemic, Jewish-Christian relations,and the breadth of interests characterizing Provencal and Spanish Jewishcommunities.

Orthodox Jewish women are increasingly seeking new ways to express themselves religiously, and important changes have occurred in consequence in their self-definition and the part they play in the religious life of their communities. Drawing on surveys and interviews across different Orthodox groups in London, as well as on the author’s own experience of active participation over many years, this is a thoroughly researched study that analyses its findings in the context of related developments in Israel and the USA. Sympathetic attention is given to women’s creativity and sophistication as they struggle to develop new modes of expression that will let their voices be heard; at the same time, the inevitable points of conflict with the male-dominated religious establishment are examined and explained. There is a focus, too, on the impact of innovations in ritual: these include not only the creation of women-only spaces and women’s participation in public practices traditionally reserved for men, but also new personal practices often acquired on study visits to Israel which are replacing traditions learned from family members. This is a much-needed study of how new norms of lived religion have emerged in London, influenced by both the rise of feminism and the backlash against it, and also by women’s new understanding of their religious roles.

Finalist for The Rabbi Sacks Book Prize 2023.A new paradigm for relations between religions, one of acceptance and collaboration, requires not only a willingness to move beyond a tradition of hostility and competition but also significant theological rethinking. Within Jewish Orthodoxy there have been very few voices that have advanced and justified a vision of other faiths in this light: to this day, the reigning paradigm is one of practical collaboration while avoiding theologically based engagement or reflection. Two of the most important Orthodox Jewish voices advocating change have been those of Irving Yitz Greenberg and Jonathan Sacks. This book presents the theological, moral, and social views of these two leading rabbis. It focuses on the significance of covenant for both, and how they adapt this concept to enable the development of a Jewish view of other religions. In considering how they may have influenced each other, it also studies the limitations and internal contradictions that characterize their work as they attempt to point the way forward, in a spirit of dialogue, to continuing theological reflection on Judaism’s approach to world religions.

Through a detailed analysis of ghost tales in the Ashkenazi pietistic work Sefer ḥasidim, Susan Weissman documents a major transformation in Jewish attitudes and practices regarding the dead and the afterlife that took place between the rabbinic period and medieval times. She reveals that a huge influx of Germano-Christian beliefs, customs, and fears relating to the dead and the afterlife seeped into medieval Ashkenazi society among both elite and popular groups. In matters of sin, penance, and posthumous punishment, the infiltration of Christian notions was so strong as to effect a radical departure in Pietist thinking from rabbinic thought and to spur outright contradiction of talmudic principles regarding the realm of the hereafter. Although it is primarily a study of the culture of a medieval Jewish enclave, this book demonstrates how seminal beliefs of medieval Christendom and monastic ideals could take root in a society with contrary religious values—even in the realm of doctrinal belief.

Thoroughly researched, this study highlights thehistorical scholarship that is one of the lasting legacies of interwar PolishJewry and analyses its political and social context. As Jewish citizensstruggled to assert their place in a newly independent Poland, a dedicated groupof Jewish scholars fascinated by history devoted themselves to creating a senseof Polish Jewish belonging while also fighting for their rights as an ethnicminority. The political climate made it hard for these men and women to pursuean academic career; instead they had to continue their efforts to create anddisseminate Polish Jewish history by teaching outside the university and publishingin scholarly and popular journals. By introducing the Jewish public to apantheon of historical heroes to celebrate and anniversaries to commemorate,they sought to forge a community aware of its past, its cultural heritage, andits achievements---though no less important were their efforts to counter theincreased hostility towards Jews in the public discourse of the day. Inhighlighting the role of public intellectuals and the social role of scholarsand historical scholarship, this study adds a new dimension to theunderstanding of the Polish Jewish world in the interwar period.

Winner of the 2021 Gierowski-Shmeruk PrizeShortlisted for the Folklore Society's Katharine Briggs Award 2021Jews have been active participants in shaping the healing practices of the communities of eastern Europe. Their approach largely combined the ideas of traditional Ashkenazi culture with the heritage of medieval and early modern medicine. Holy rabbis and faith healers, as well as Jewish barbers, innkeepers, and pedlars, all dispensed cures, purveyed folk remedies for different ailments, and gave hope to the sick and their families based on kabbalah, numerology, prayer, and magical Hebrew formulas. Nevertheless, as new sources of knowledge penetrated the traditional world, modern medical ideas gained widespread support. Jews became court physicians to the nobility, and when the universities were opened up to them many also qualified as doctors. At every stage, medicine proved an important field for cross-cultural contacts.Jewish historians and scholars of folk medicine alike will discover here fascinating sources never previously explored—manuscripts, printed publications, and memoirs in Yiddish and Hebrew but also in Polish, English, German, Russian, and Ukrainian. Marek Tuszewicki's careful study of these documents has teased out therapeutic advice, recipes, magical incantations, kabbalistic methods, and practical techniques, together with the ethical considerations that such approaches entailed. His research fills a gap in the study of folk medicine in eastern Europe, shedding light on little-known aspects of Ashkenazi culture, and on how the need to treat sickness brought Jews and their neighbours together.

Finalist for The Rabbi Sacks Book Prize 2025Rav Kook (1865–1935), the first chief rabbi of pre-state Israel, was a revered thinker whose ideas were in the vanguard of religious Zionist ideology. His theological positions have continued to mould the attitudes and beliefs of successive generations.Newly published writings, however, reveal ideas that have not yet entered mainstream consciousness. Marc Shapiro has grappled with the complexity of the language of these difficult Hebrew texts and identified themes he sees as of critical importance for modern Jewish Orthodoxy. His study will be welcomed as an attempt to make these teachings more broadly accessible despite the complexity of Kook’s exposition.A key development in Kook’s thinking is that he points to the religious significance of non-Jewish religions, and even raises the possibility that non-Jews may also have experienced their own religious revelations. This is a major departure from the traditional rabbinic approach. Another innovative concept is ‘valorization of the masses’, a view that recognizes that basic morality has been preserved in a purer form among the uneducated pious masses than among learned scholars. He similarly reconsiders the nature of heresy and dogma and develops the idea of the ‘unintentional heretic’, a category that could be said to include many in the modern world who are no longer tied to traditional religious understandings. Perhaps most controversially for Orthodox Jewish circles, he also presents an innovative understanding of the animal sacrifice of Temple ritual that allows for its abolition in messianic times. Taken together, these ideas will reverberate, foment much discussion, and shape new ideological directions in the world of religious Zionism.

Emotions and emotional life have come to assume an important place in the study of religion and the humanities, but little attention has yet been given to considering the kabbalistic and hasidic traditions. This volume aims to fill that gap. Ranging historically from the thirteenth century to contemporary times, it touches on a broad selection of Jewish mystical movements. The theoretical and methodological approaches adopted are similarly diverse, drawn from fields including history, psychology and psychoanalysis, literary and cultural studies, and the history of religion. The range of emotions covered includes shame, guilt, sadness, anger, awe and fear, joy, compassion, and love. How have different teachers and communities conceived of and articulated emotional life? To what extent do emotions play a role in attaining spiritual and moral perfection, and what practices have been encouraged in the pursuit of these ideals? What is the relationship between notions of ethics, interpersonal relations, and emotions? When we speak of ‘emotional life’ we think not only of ideas about emotions, but also the complex, dynamic role that emotional experience plays in the actual lives of individuals and communities. A substantial introduction to the volume addresses these broad questions in the context of religious literature and culture.

Synagogues in early modern eastern and central Europe were often richly adorned with inscriptions and images. Archival photographs and documents, along with the few synagogues from that period that still stand, provide ample evidence of the tradition, but this is the first comprehensive study to analyse the information they contain. Setting this in the context of historical and liturgical sources, it shows the cultural wealth of traditional Judaism.The liturgical inscriptions found on synagogue walls illustrate a community’s spiritual concerns and customs of worship, while the dedicatory texts shed light on the personalities, values, and social realities of the time. The richly decorative images in the wall and ceiling paintings have prompted much speculation, with conflicting interpretations of their symbolism, but their meaning has largely remained elusive as individual elements have been analysed in isolation from the whole. By considering the overall composition in eachsynagogue in the context of the entire repertoire of Jewish visual motifs, the authors allow a new understanding to emerge.The book is divided into three parts. Part I outlines the historical background, looks at questions relating to construction and design, and introduces the artists and donors. Part II discusses the liturgical inscriptions and other texts inscribed on synagogue walls. Part III presents the wall and ceiling paintings. Detailed appendices give the reader systematic access to all the available data, including identification of the scribes and artists who created synagogue interiors.Illustrated in colour throughout, this monumental study brings to light information that lays the foundations for future research in Jewish liturgy, art, social history, and religious life.

Maimonides ends each book of his legal code the Mishneh torah with a moral or philosophical reflection, in which he lifts his eyes, as it were, from purely halakhic concerns and surveys broader horizons. Menachem Kellner and David Gillis analyse these concluding paragraphs, examining their verbal and thematic echoes, their adaptation of rabbinic sources, and the way in which they coordinate with the Mishneh torah’s underlying structures, in order to understand how they might influence our interpretation of the code as a whole—and indeed our view of Maimonides himself and his philosophy. Taking this unusual cross-section of the work, Kellner and Gillis conclude that the Mishneh torah presents not only a system of law, but also a system of universal values. They show how Maimonides fashions Jewish law and ritual as a programme for attaining ethical and intellectual ends that are accessible to all human beings, who are created equally in the image of God.Many reject the presentation of Maimonides as a universalist. The Mishneh torah especially is widely seen as a particularist sanctuary. This study shows how profoundly that view must be revised.

With the social and cultural upheavals of early modern Europe, rabbis were constantly struggling to preserve Jewish tradition. Hakham Tsevi Ashkenazi (1658—1718), the independent-minded chief rabbi of Amsterdam, came to be regarded as one of the leading halakhic authorities of this tumultuous era. The battles he waged changed Jewish practice in his lifetime and came to define rabbinic norms in the decades that followed, with relevance to the present day.The challenges for a leading rabbi in a time of ferment were many. With advances in communication and the early stirrings of political emancipation in Jewish and secular society, how could one establish halakhic authority? How were rabbis to navigate the new reality in which mystical texts—once the exclusive province of the elite—became accessible to the masses? As geographical boundaries shifted and cultural barriers crumbled, how could one build a bridge between the worlds of Ashkenaz and Sepharad? How were the keepers of tradition meant to respond to the religious laxity that accompanied acculturation? And how could the religious establishment engage sectarians in general, and crypto-Sabbatians in particular?Hakham Tsevi didn’t always win the battles he fought, but his arguments have endured. Products of his fierce independence, some of his responsa have attained near-canonical status., Today’s halakhic discussions of such contemporary issues as brain death and artificial intelligence often begin with the words he committed to posterity. Hundreds of years after his death, Hakham Tsevi and his work remain at the frontier of halakhic discourse.

Sephardi identity hasmeant different things at different times, but has always entailed a connectionwith Spain, from which the Jews were expelled in 1492. While Sephardi Jews havelived in numerous cities and towns throughout history, certain cities had agreater impact in the shaping of their culture. This book focuses on those thatmay be considered most important, from Cordoba in the tenth century to Toledo,Venice, Safed, Istanbul, Salonica, and Amsterdam at the dawn of the seventeenthcentury. Each served as a venue in which a particular dimension of SephardiJewry either took shape or was expressed in especially intense form.Significantly, these cities were mostly heterogeneous in their population andculture—half of them under Christian rule and half under Muslim rule—and thistoo shaped the Sephardi world-view and attitude. While Sephardim cultivated adistinctive identity, they felt at home in the cultures of their adopted lands.Drawing upon a variety of both primary and secondary sources, Jane Gerberdemonstrates that Sephardi history and culture have always been multifaceted.Her interdisciplinary approach captures the many contexts in which the life ofthe Jews from Iberia unfolded, without either romanticizing the past ordiluting its reality.

The enigmatic kabbalist Samuel Falk, known as the Ba’al Shem of London, has piqued the curiosity of scholars for generations. Eighteenth-century London was fascinated by Jews, and as a miracle-worker and adventurer, well connected and well read, Falk had much to offer. Interest in the man was further aroused by rumours of his dealings with European aristocrats and other famous characters, as well as with scholars, Freemasons, and Shabbateans, but evidence was scanty. Michal Oron has now brought together all the known source material on the man, and her detailed annotations of his diary and that of his assistant give us rich insights into his activities over several years. We learn of his meetings and his travels; his finances; his disputes, his dreams, and his remedies; and lists of his books. We see London’s social life and commerce, its landed gentry and its prisons, and what people ate, wore, and possessed. The burgeoning Jewish community of London and its religious practices, as well as its communal divisiveness, is depicted especially colourfully. The scholarly introductions by Oron and by Todd Endelman and the informative appendices help contextualize the diaries and offer an intriguing glimpse of Jewish involvement in little-known aspects of London life at the threshold of the modern era.Translated by Edward LevinWith an introduction by Todd M. Endelman

National Jewish BookAwards Finalistfor the Nahum N. Sarna Memorial Award for Scholarship, 2018.Hasidism, a movement of religious awakening and social reform,originated in the mid-eighteenth century. After two and a half centuries ofcrisis, upheaval, and renewal, it remains a vibrant way of life and acompelling aspect of Jewish experience. This book explores the profoundintellectual and religious issues that the hasidic masters raised in theirTorah commentary, and brings to the fore the living qualities of their sermons(derashot). Ora Wiskind-Elper addresses a spectrum of topics: creation,revelation, and redemption; hermeneutics, epistemology, psychology,Romanticism, poetry and poetics, art history, Hebrew fiction, cultural history,and tropes of Jewish suffering and hope. Fully engaged in the texts and theirspirituality, she brings them to bear on postmodernist challenges totraditional spiritual and religious sensibilities.This is a comprehensive study, unique in pedagogy, clarity, andoriginality. It uses the full range of critical scholarship on hasidism as asocial and ideological movement. At the same time, it maintains a strong focuson hasidic Torah commentary as a conveyor of theology and value. Each of itschapters presents a fundamentally new approach. Wiskind-Elper’s translationsare in themselves an innovative moment in the tradition and spiritual historyof the passages she offers.

National Jewish BookAwards 2019 Winner of the Barbara Dobkin Award for Women’s Studies and Finalist forEducation and Jewish Identity.Sarah Schenirer is one of the unsung heroes of twentieth-century Orthodox Judaism. The Bais Yaakov schools she founded in interwar Poland had an unparalleled impact on a traditional Jewish society threatened by assimilation and modernity, educating a generation of girls to take an active part in their community. The movement grew at an astonishing pace, expanding to include high schools, teacher seminaries, summer programmes, vocational schools, and youth movements, in Poland and beyond; it continues to flourish throughout the Jewish diaspora.Naomi Seidman explores the movement through the tensions that characterized it, capturing its complexity as a revolution in the name of tradition. She presents the context which led to its founding, examining the impact of socialism, feminism, Zionism, and Polish electoral politics on the process, and recounts its history, from its foundation in interwar Kraków to its near-destruction in the Holocaust, and its role in the reconstruction of Orthodoxy in subsequent decades.A vivid portrait of Schenirer shines through. The book includes selections from her writings published in English for the first time. Her pioneering, determined character remains the subject of debate in a culture that still regards innovation, female initiative, and women’s Torah study with suspicion.

Mendele Mocher Sefarim's seven novels constitute the most important and influential body of work in modern Jewish prose fiction written prior to the First World War. These novels-five of which he wrote twice, once in Yiddish and once in Hebrew-are devastating satiric portraits of Jewish life in nineteenth-century Russia. They are permeated by Mendele's passion for social change, and an often equally passionate contempt for his own people for failing to achieve it. David Aberbach, exploring these passions in terms of the psychology of prejudice and self-hate, provides the first full-length analysis of the tension between realism and caricature in Mendele's descriptions of his fellow-Jew. At the same time, his analysis conveys Mendele's fascinating social and psychological insights into the forces which led to the mass emigration of Jews from Russia before the First World War, to the rise of Zionism, and to Jewish involvement in the socialist and revolutionary movements in Russia at the turn of the century. The picture is broadened through references to contemporary Russian literature so as to portray these forces in the context of Russian society at the time.Aberbach's skilful presentation allows the reader to gain access to Mendele's works through many tantalizing excerpts, with some of the key passages provided in Hebrew and Yiddish as well as in Aberbach's lively translation. He also makes available the considerable body of Mendele scholarship that has been published in Hebrew in recent years. From this fascinating and lucid work, scholars and general readers alike will gain a new understanding not only of the social realities of Jewish life in tsarist Russia but also of how the self-image of an ethnic minority may be affected and even determined by the character and social problems of the majority culture.

TurnAside from Evil and Do Good was written by ZeviHirsch Eichenstein (1763–1831), a hasidic master and renowned adept in Lurianickabbalah. He wrote it with the intention of providing a guide to would-behasidic kabbalists on how to live a holy life. Eichenstein was unusual in thehasidic world in that as well as being a kabbalist he was a competent talmudistand was also acquainted both with the science of his day and with medievalJewish philosophy. His views differ from those of other hasidic masters,principally in the importance he attributes to studying the kabbalah, which heconsiders an important antidote to unbelief, and in his more positive attitudeto the enjoyment of sexual activity and to business activity; he is concernedto show how both can be integrated in a holy life.This lively translationby Louis Jacobs of the second edition (1850), which includes the notes of R.Zevi Elimelekh of Dynow, gives the reader an insight into a highlyunconventional hasidic master and the basic ideas of Lurianic kabbalah as heperceived them. Through hundreds of scholarly annotations, printed at the footof each page for ease of reference, Louis Jacobs helps the reader to understandthe kabbalistic ideas and imagery and other opaque terms, and clarifies thesources to which the author alludes.TurnAside from Evil and Do Good conveys the fullflavour of an original hasidic approach to kabbalism. Immensely readable, itwill be of interest to anyone interested in hasidism and Jewish mysticism orthe religious way and its social history. Louis Jacobs has added a veryaccessible introduction to explain the Lurianic system of kabbalah; he alsoprovides biographical details of Eichenstein and his school, and a fullbibliography.