Defining Jewish Difference

Defining Jewish Difference
Author: Beth A. Berkowitz
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2012-03-19
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1107013712

Berkowitz shows that interpretation of Leviticus 18:3 provides an essential backdrop for today's conversations about Jewish assimilation and minority identity.

Religion Or Ethnicity?

Religion Or Ethnicity?
Author: Zvi Y. Gitelman
Publisher:
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2009
Genre: Social Science
ISBN:

Can someone be considered Jewish if he or she never goes to synagogue, doesn't keep kosher, and for whom the only connection to his or her ancestral past is attending an annual Passover seder? In Religion or Ethnicity? fifteen leading scholars trace the evolution of Jewish identity. The book examines Judaism from the Greco-Roman age, through medieval times, modern western and eastern Europe, to today. Jewish identity has been defined as an ethnicity, a nation, a culture, and even a race. Religion or Ethnicity? questions what it means to be Jewish. The contributors show how the Jewish people have evolved over time in different ethnic, religious, and political movements. In his closing essay, Gitelman questions the viability of secular Jewishness outside Israel but suggests that the continued interest in exploring the relationship between Judaism's secular and religious forms will keep the heritage alive for generations to come.

Time and Difference in Rabbinic Judaism

Time and Difference in Rabbinic Judaism
Author: Sarit Kattan Gribetz
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 408
Release: 2020-11-17
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0691209804

How the rabbis of late antiquity used time to define the boundaries of Jewish identity The rabbinic corpus begins with a question–“when?”—and is brimming with discussions about time and the relationship between people, God, and the hour. Time and Difference in Rabbinic Judaism explores the rhythms of time that animated the rabbinic world of late antiquity, revealing how rabbis conceptualized time as a way of constructing difference between themselves and imperial Rome, Jews and Christians, men and women, and human and divine. In each chapter, Sarit Kattan Gribetz explores a unique aspect of rabbinic discourse on time. She shows how the ancient rabbinic texts artfully subvert Roman imperialism by offering "rabbinic time" as an alternative to "Roman time." She examines rabbinic discourse about the Sabbath, demonstrating how the weekly day of rest marked "Jewish time" from "Christian time." Gribetz looks at gendered daily rituals, showing how rabbis created "men's time" and "women's time" by mandating certain rituals for men and others for women. She delves into rabbinic writings that reflect on how God spends time and how God's use of time relates to human beings, merging "divine time" with "human time." Finally, she traces the legacies of rabbinic constructions of time in the medieval and modern periods. Time and Difference in Rabbinic Judaism sheds new light on the central role that time played in the construction of Jewish identity, subjectivity, and theology during this transformative period in the history of Judaism.

Encyclopaedia Britannica

Encyclopaedia Britannica
Author: Hugh Chisholm
Publisher:
Total Pages: 1090
Release: 1910
Genre: Encyclopedias and dictionaries
ISBN:

This eleventh edition was developed during the encyclopaedia's transition from a British to an American publication. Some of its articles were written by the best-known scholars of the time and it is considered to be a landmark encyclopaedia for scholarship and literary style.

Defining Jewish Difference

Defining Jewish Difference
Author: Beth A. Berkowitz
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages:
Release: 2012-03-19
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1107378915

This book traces the interpretive career of Leviticus 18:3, a verse that forbids Israel from imitating its neighbors. Beth A. Berkowitz shows that ancient, medieval and modern exegesis of this verse provides an essential backdrop for today's conversations about Jewish assimilation and minority identity more generally. The story of Jewishness that this book tells may surprise many modern readers for whom religious identity revolves around ritual and worship. In Leviticus 18:3's story of Jewishness, sexual practice and cultural habits instead loom large. The readings in this book are on a micro-level, but their implications are far-ranging: Berkowitz transforms both our notion of Bible-reading and our sense of how Jews have defined Jewishness.

Boundaries of Jewish Identity (Samuel and Althea Stroum Book)

Boundaries of Jewish Identity (Samuel and Althea Stroum Book)
Author: Susan A. Glenn
Publisher: University of Washington Press
Total Pages: 259
Release: 2010
Genre: History
ISBN: 0295990554

The subject of Jewish identity is one of the most vexed and contested issues of modern religious and ethnic group history. This interdisciplinary collection draws on work in law, anthropology, history, sociology, literature, and popular culture to consider contemporary and historical responses to the question: "Who and what is Jewish?"

Jews and Race

Jews and Race
Author: Mitchell Bryan Hart
Publisher: UPNE
Total Pages: 323
Release: 2011
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1584657170

An anthology of writings by Jewish thinkers on Jews as a race

Letters to Josep

Letters to Josep
Author: Levy Daniella
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2016-03-30
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9789659254002

This book is a collection of letters from a religious Jew in Israel to a Christian friend in Barcelona on life as an Orthodox Jew. Equal parts lighthearted and insightful, it's a thorough and entertaining introduction to the basic concepts of Judaism.

Jews, Gentiles, and Other Animals

Jews, Gentiles, and Other Animals
Author: Mira Wasserman
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2017-05-19
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0812249208

In Jews, Gentiles, and Other Animals, Mira Beth Wasserman undertakes a close reading of Avoda Zara, arguably the Babylonian Talmud's most scandalous tractate. According to Wasserman, Avoda Zara is where this Talmud joins the humanities in questioning what it means to be a human.