Judaism

Most scholars believe that the numerous similarities between the Covenant Code (Exodus 20:23-23:19) and Mesopotamian law collections, especially the Laws of Hammurabi, which date to around 1750 BCE, are due to oral tradition that extended from the second to the first millennium.

Mystics are path-breaking religious practitioners who claim to have experience the infinite, word-defying Mystery that is God.

This volume presents a wide-ranging selection of Jewish theological responses to the Holocaust.

The Tenacity of Unreasonable Beliefs is a passionate yet analytical critique of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim scriptural fundamentalists.

The Babylonian Talmud was compiled in the third through sixth centuries CE, by rabbis living under Sasanian Persian rule in the area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

The book of Genesis tells us that God made a covenant with Abraham, promising him a glorious posterity on the condition that he and all his male descendents must be circumcised.

Hasidism, a kabbalah-inspired movement founded by Israel Ba'al Shem Tov (c1700-1760), transformed Jewish communities across Eastern and East Central Europe.

Moses Maimonides (1137/38-1204), scholar, physician, and philosopher, was the most influential Jewish thinker of the Middle Ages.

In 1391 many of the Jews of Spain were forced to convert to Christianity, creating a new group whose members would be continually seeking a niche for themselves in society.

Ancient Jewish sacrifice has long been misunderstood.

In his pathbreaking Israel in Egypt James K.

Scholars of the Hebrew Bible have in the last decade begun to question the historical accuracy of the Israelite sojourn in Egypt, as described in the book of Exodus.

The term 'mysticism' has never been consistently defined or employed, either in religious traditions or in academic discourse.

David Weiss Halivni's The Formation of the Babylonian Talmud, originally published in Hebrew and here translated by Jeffrey L.

The first anthology of Jewish mythology in English, Tree of Souls reveals a mythical tradition as rich and as fascinating as any in the world.

The Vatican II Council of 1965 signaled a new era in the relationship of the Jewish and Christian faiths.

Why is the number seven lucky--even holy--in almost every culture?

Holy war, sanctioned or even commanded by God, is a common and recurring theme in the Hebrew Bible.

The Latter Prophets--Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Book of the Twelve--comprise a fascinating collection of prophetic oracles, narratives, and vision reports from ancient Israel and Judah.

One of the most vexing problems facing medieval Jewish interpreters of the Hebrew Bible was how to implement the new interpretive strategy of extracting the straightforward, contextual meaning of biblical verses (peshat), without neglecting revered ancient rabbinic modes of interpretation (derash), which tended to be more fanciful and homiletical.

Walter E.

Apocalypticism arose in ancient Judaism in the last centuries BCE and played a crucial role in the rise of Christianity.

In this book, Yulia Egorova explores how South Asian Jews and Muslims relate to each other outside of a Western and Christian context, and reveals that despite some important differences, the relationship is still intrinsically connected to global narratives about Jews and Muslims.

Singing God's Words is the first in-depth study of the experience and meaning of chanting or "e;reading"e; Torah among contemporary American Jews.

Singing God's Words is the first in-depth study of the experience and meaning of chanting or "e;reading"e; Torah among contemporary American Jews.

Recent scholarship on ancient Judaism, finding only scattered references to messiahs in Hellenistic- and Roman-period texts, has generally concluded that the word 'messiah' did not mean anything determinate in antiquity.

Volume XXV of the distinguished annual Studies in Contemporary Jewry explores new understandings and approaches to Jewish "e;ethnicity.

President Franklin D.

For thirty years the director of the Wiener Library in London--the leading institute for the study of anti-Semitism--Walter Laqueur here offers both a comprehensive history of anti-Semitism as well as an illuminating look at the newest wave of this phenomenon.

"e;Operation Solomon"e; was one of the most remarkable rescue efforts in modern history, in which more than 14,000 Ethiopian Jews were airlifted to Israel in little more than a day.

Joyce Dalsheim's ethnographic study takes a ground-breaking approach to one of the most contentious issues in the Middle East: the Israeli settlement project.

The recent renewal of the faith-reason debate has focused attention on earlier episodes in its history.

June O.

Self-restraint or self-mastery may appear to be the opposite of erotic desire.

Pairing the two concepts of diaspora and modernism, Allison Schachter formulates a novel approach to modernist studies and diasporic cultural production.

Ritual has been long viewed as an undisputed and indisputable part of (especially religious) tradition, performed over and over in the same ways: stable in form, meaningless, preconcieved, and with the aim of creating harmony and enabling a tradition's survival.

In this book, Frederique Apffel-Marglin draws on a lifetime of work with the indigenous peoples of Peru and India to support her argument that the beliefs, values, and practices of such traditional peoples are 'eco-metaphysically true.

Winner of the Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological PromiseMatthew Thiessen offers a nuanced and wide-ranging study of the nature of Jewish thought on Jewishness, circumcision, and conversion.

Religious violence has become one of the most pressing issues of our time.

In the fifty years since the Holocaust, the Jewish People have felt one overriding concern: survival.

Religious violence has become one of the most pressing issues of our time.

Ruth Langer offers an in-depth study of the birkat haminim, a Jewish prayer for the removal of those categories of human being who prevent the messianic redemption and the society envisioned for it.

The early sixteenth century saw a major crisis in Christian-Jewish relations: the attempt to confiscate and destroy every Jewish book in Germany.

The interaction of Judaism and economics encompasses many different dimensions.

What is the difference between writing a novel about the Holocaust and fabricating a memoir?

In Leaves from the Garden of Eden, Howard Schwartz, a three-time winner of the National Jewish Book Award, has gathered together one hundred of the most astonishing and luminous stories from Jewish folk tradition.

Lauren Monroe argues that the use of cultic and ritual language in the account of the Judean King Josiah's reforms in 2 Kings 22-23 is key to understanding the history of the text's composition, and illuminates the essential, interrelated processes of textual growth and identity construction in ancient Israel.

For thirty years the director of the Wiener Library in London--the leading institute for the study of anti-Semitism--Walter Laqueur here offers both a comprehensive history of anti-Semitism as well as an illuminating look at the newest wave of this phenomenon.

Why is the number seven lucky--even holy--in almost every culture?

Winner of Honorable Mention in the Jordan Schnitzer Book Awards of the Association for Jewish StudiesMoshe Simon-Shoshan offers a groundbreaking study of Jewish law (halakhah) and rabbinic story-telling.