Johns Hopkins Jewish Studies – serie

When first published in 1966, "After Auschwitz" made headlines and sparked controversy as Jewish "death-of-God" theology. In this substantially revised and expanded edition, Rubenstein returns to old questions and addresses new issues with the same passion and spirit that characterized his original work. "Significant and often exciting ...Rubenstein's discussions are often superb".--"Saturday Review". (Judaism)

Jean Paul Sartre hailed him as the philosopher who introduced France to Husserl and Heidegger. Derrida has paid him homage as "master." An original philosopher who combines the insights of phenomenological analysis with those of Jewish spirituality, Emmanuel Levinas has proven to be of extraordinary importance in the history of modern thought. Collecting Levinas's important writings on religion, Difficult Freedom contributes to a growing debate about the significance of religion-particularly Judaism and Jewish spiritualism-in European philosophy. Topics include ethics, aesthetics, politics, messianism, Judaism and women, and Jewish-Christian relations, as well as the work of Spinoza, Hegel, Heidegger, Franz Rosenzweig, Simone Weil, and Jules Issac.

The Faith of the Mithnagdim is the first study of the theological roots of the Mithnagdic objection to Hasidism. Allan Nadler's pioneering effort fills the void in scholarship on Mithnagdic thought and corrects the impression that there were no compelling theological alternatives to Hasidism during the period of its rapid spread across Eastern Europe at the turn of the nineteenth century. In Nadler's account, Mithnagdism emerges as a highly developed religious outlook that is essentially conservative, deeply dualistic, and profoundly pessimistic about humanity's spiritual potential-all in stark contrast to Hasidism's optimism and aggressive encouragement of mysticism and religious rapture among its followers.

Hannah Arendt still makes people angry. Her writings on the modern German-Jewish experience are deliberately challenging -- and sometimes shocking -- to an audience used to thinking of the Jewish people as the victims of history. Visible Spaces is the most ambitious attempt to date to explore the origins and implications of Arendt's political thought. Dagmar Barnouw, an admiring yet critical reader, draws extensively on unpublished archival materials relating to the Jewish experience in modern Germany and its influence on Arendt's political philosophy. Arendt's work is discussed chronologically, from Origins of Totalitarianism to The Human Condition and the unfinished Life of the Mind. Barnouw also offers a challenging reassessment of Arendt's well-known report on the Eichmann trial. The result is an insightful study of Arendt's thought in its complex historical context.

Winner of the Montreal Jewish Public Library's J. I. Segal PrizeOriginally published in 1991. In the eighteenth century, more than half of the world's Jewish population lived in Polish private villages and towns owned by magnate-aristocrats. Furthermore, roughly half of Poland's entire urban population was Jewish. Thus, the study of Jews in private Polish towns is central to both Jewish history and to the history of Poland-Lithuania. The Jews in a Polish Private Town seeks to investigate the social, economic, and political history of Jews in Opatów, a private Polish town, in the context of an increasing power and influence of private towns at the expense of the Polish crown and gentry in the eighteenth century. Hundert recovers an important community from historical obscurity by providing a balanced perspective on the Jewish experience in the Polish Commonwealth and by describing the special dimensions of Jewish life in a private town.