Franz Rosenzweig's near-conversion to Christianity in the summer of 1913 and his subsequent decision three months later to recommit himself to Judaism is one of the foundational narratives of modern Jewish thought. In this new account of events, Benjamin Pollock suggests that what lay at the heart of Rosenzweig's religious crisis was not a struggle between faith and reason, but skepticism about the world and hope for personal salvation. A close examination of this important time in Rosenzw...

Over the centuries, the messianic tradition has provided the language through which modern Jewish philosophers, socialists, and Zionists envisioned a utopian future. Michael L. Morgan, Steven Weitzman, and an international group of leading scholars ask new questions and provide new ways of thinking about this enduring Jewish idea. Using the writings of Gershom Scholem, which ranged over the history of messianic belief and its conflicted role in the Jewish imagination, these essays put asid...

Franz Rosenzweig's near-conversion to Christianity in the summer of 1913 and his subsequent decision three months later to recommit himself to Judaism is one of the foundational narratives of modern Jewish thought. In this new account of events, Benjamin Pollock suggests that what lay at the heart of Rosenzweig's religious crisis was not a struggle between faith and reason, but skepticism about the world and hope for personal salvation. A close examination of this important time in Rosenzw...

A rich study of Jews and Jewish history that offers a unique look at a people who have persevered through unspeakable adversity and have contributed incredible advancements to the world we know today.How have the Jews survived through so many millennia while other civilizations have declined and perished? What qualities mark the culture that has produced Moses, Christ, Spinoza, Marx, Freud, and Einstein?From ancient Palestine through Europe and Asia, to Ame...

AS a preliminary to the translation of the great Kabbalistic work, "The Sepher Zohar, or Book of Light," we purpose to sketch in brief outline the history of its origin, the nature and purpose of its doctrines and teachings, as also the great influence of its philosophy which is reflected in the writings of Albert the Great, Reuchlin, Raymond Lully, Boehmen, More the Platonist, Spinoza, Balzac, and many others whose names are famous in the annals of literature and learning. To the readers ...

Becoming Jewish is the first all-inclusive, step-by-step guide to converting to Judaism. Steven Carr Reuben, a highly respected rabbi, and Jennifer S. Hanin, a convert to the faith, lead readers through the conversion process, providing the right mix of advice, resources and humor for the journey.Jews-to-be often find the steps to Judaism foreign, complex, and mysterious. From learning an ancient language, to entering the mikvah (ritual bath), to choosing a Hebrew name, to circumcis...

The Life of Flavius Josephus by the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus,a first-century Romano-Jewish scholar, historian and hagiographer.This book is an autobiographical text written by Josephus in approximately 94-99 CE – possibly as an appendix to his Antiquities of the Jews (cf. Life 430) – where the author for the most part re-visits the events of the War, apparently in response to allegations made against him by Justus of Tiberias (cf. Life 336).

A "witty and accessible look at Scripture" that explores what the Bible meant before two millennia of mistranslations and misinterpretations ( Publishers Weekly, starred review).In this fascinating book, acclaimed translator and biblical scholar Dr. Joel M. Hoffman walks the reader through dozens of mistranslations, misconceptions, and other misunderstandings about the Bible. In forty short, straightforward chapters, he covers morality, lifestyle, theology,...

Is Judaism a religion, a culture, a nationality--or a mixture of all of these? In How Judaism Became a Religion, Leora Batnitzky boldly argues that this question more than any other has driven modern Jewish thought since the eighteenth century. This wide-ranging and lucid introduction tells the story of how Judaism came to be defined as a religion in the modern period--and why Jewish thinkers have fought as well as championed this idea.Ever since the Enlightenment, Jewish ...

The Catskills (“Cat Creek” in Dutch), America’s original frontier, northwest of New York City, with its seven hundred thousand acres of forest land preserve and its five counties—Delaware, Greene, Sullivan, Ulster, Schoharie; America’s first great vacationland; the subject of the nineteenth-century Hudson River School paintings that captured the almost godlike majesty of the mountains and landscapes, the skies, waterfalls, pastures, cliffs . . . refuge and home to poets and gangsters, tyco...

The increasingly popular genre of “alternative histories” has captivated audiences by asking questions like “what if the South had won the Civil War?” Such speculation can be instructive, heighten our interest in a topic, and shed light on accepted history. In The Holocaust Averted, Jeffrey Gurock imagines what might have happened to the Jewish community in the United States if the Holocaust had never occurred and forces readers to contemplate how the road to acceptance and empowe...

Leah Trachtman-Palchan was an ordinary woman who lived an extraordinary life. This was a life of migration, dissent, exile and survival. Born in the final years of Tsarist Russia, her family was forced to leave their small town following the repeated pogroms of the Civil War era. A two year voyage followed, bringing them all to British Mandate Palestine in 1921. Here what seems like a typical Jewish story of migration from Eastern Europe in the early twentieth century took an unexpected tu...