White Cross Mills, Hightown, LANCASTER LA1 4XS, United Kingdom.
Telephone: +44(0)1524 68765
Fax: +44(0)1524 63232
Email: sales@gazellebooks.co.uk
Web: www.gazellebooks.co.uk
 |
ANTHOLOGY OF YIDDISH FOLKSONGS, VOLUME 7
: The Itzik Manger Volume
Text in English & Yiddish. Mark Warshavsky was born in Odessa in 1848 and was a poet-composer of many famous Yiddish folksongs. It was Sholom Aleichem who first "discovered" Warshavsky with whom he often appeared in cultural evenings in Kiev. Like some of the early songs of Gebirtig -- Warshavsky's songs too became folksongs, the lyrics and melodies spread like wildfire among the Jewish masses. The appearance of Warshavsky's Der Alef Beys, or as it quicky became known from its first words Oyfn Pripetchek, caused a real revolution in the minds of orthodox as well as progressive Jews in Eastern Europe.
{
250pp,
215x280mm,
January 2004;
HB,
£38.50,
9652234478:9789652234476
, Hebrew University Magnes Press
} |
 |
ASK NOW OF THE DAYS THAT ARE PAST
[Eliezer Segal]
This collection of essays from various topics in Jewish history & traditional religious literature demonstrates the diverse aspects of Jewish tradition that can still speak with familiarity to modern 'western' culture. Though the essays are on topics such as religious custom & scholarship, community, liturgy, & interfaith relationships, they are designed for a non-academic audience, using humour & insight to stress themes that speak to contemporary situations.
{
311pp,
125x190mm,
February 2005;
PB,
£14.99,
1552381315:9781552381311
, University of Calgary Press
} |
 |
COLLECTED WRITINGS IN JEWISH STUDIES
[Ephraim E Urbach]
This volume comprises a collection of English and French articles in Jewish Studies published by Professor E E Urbach in the course of over fifty years, as well as several articles and lectures found among his papers after his death in 1991. The articles collected here include contributions to various spheres of Jewish Studies, particularly those to which the author dedicated most of his scholarly career and in which he became a leading figure: Halakhah, Aggdah, classical rabbinic thought, anti-Christian polemics, and Jewish history of the Second Temple, talmudic and medieval periods. The history and spiritual world of Polish Jewry, a topic on which the author concentrated his later years, is also represented here. Also included are several essays in which the author surveyed trends and developments in the field of Jewish Studies.
{
582pp,
175x240mm,
January 1999;
HB,
£70.99,
9654930447:9789654930444
, Hebrew University Magnes Press
} |
 |
DAUGHTERS OF SARAH
: Anthology of Jewish Women Writing in French
[Eva M Sartori & Madeleine Cottenet-Hage (eds)]
Translated into English. This book doesn't just fill a niche, it opens up a new perspective on the relations among Jewishness, gender and modernity in Europe. It will certainly spark new and creative thinking by anyone wise or lucky enough to dip into its contents. The writings are made all the more valuable by an excellent introduction that provides a context for the history of Jews and women in France as well as the position of women with the Jewish tradition.
{
269pp,
152x228mm,
January 2006;
PB,
£10.99,
0841914451:9780841914452
, Holmes & Meier Publishers Inc
} |
 |
JEWISH LIFE
: Tales From Nineteenth-Century Europe
[Leopold von Sacher-Masoch]
This work, originally published in Mannheim in 1891, is a collection of twenty-six stories illustrating various aspect of Jewish life and culture in Europe prior to the twentieth century. Each story takes place in a different country, ranging from England to Turkey, and develops an isolated topic or theme from Jewish life, such as its holidays, cabalism, the Chasidic movement, fanaticism, secularism, etc., in a sometimes humorous, sometimes dramatic, and often sentimental fashion. While the endings are always happy, the level of historic realism in the stories is high. Jewish Life offers a richly detailed portrait of Jewish customs and culture prior to the deplorably successful attempt to destroy them during the Holocaust.
{
210pp,
140x215mm,
January 2002;
PB,
£14.99,
1572411147:9781572411142
, Ariadne Press
} |
 |
JEWS, JUDAISM & THE CLASSICAL WORLD
[Gedalyahu Alon]
These studies cover a span of time beginning with the Hasmoneans and the earliest intervention of Roman power in the land of Israel -- that is, from the second and first pre-Christian centuries -- and extended as far as the third and fourth centuries of the present era. Most of the questions dealt with originate in the inner world of Judaism and Jewish law (halacha). However, the issues are examined in relation to other factors as well, such as the Hellenistic literature of the Jews, early Christian traditions, and classical culture as a whole.
{
499pp,
155x230mm,
January 1977;
HB,
£32.50,
9652234680:9789652234681
, Hebrew University Magnes Press
} |
 |
LIFE IS LIKE A GLASS OF TEA
: Studies of Classic Jewish Jokes
[Richard Raskin]
An examination of Jewish humour, in which individual jokes are singled out for comprehensive study. The author examines six classical jokes and their development through the centuries. He also discusses what jokes on Jews have meant to the Jews themselves, as a minority trying to find its identity.
{
264pp,
May 1992;
PB,
£14.95,
8772884096:9788772884097
, Aarhus University Press
} |
 |
SCHOOLING AS A SOCIO-POLITICAL EXPRESSION
[Shimon Frost]
Of all the religious-cultural expressions in Jewish life in Poland between the First and Second World Wars, education is by far the most neglected. The few studies published in this area are largely limited to the descriptive and the statistical without venturing into an in depth analysis of the various school networks which functioned within the pluralistic Jewish community of Poland's Second Republic. This study, based on published and archival material, seeks to fill that gap. It postulates that education, most particularly that of a minority group, is an expression of communal aspirations for cultural distinctiveness and continuity. The Jewish educational system is viewed in relation to the social, cultural and political dynamics of Jewish life of the period.
{
176pp,
155x230mm,
January 1998;
PB,
£19.50,
9652239887:9789652239884
, Hebrew University Magnes Press
} |
 |
WORLDS OF MEMORY & WISDOM
: Encounters of Jews & African Christians
[Jean Halpérin & Hans Ucko (eds)]
This book reflects a fascinating chapter in a genuinely intercultural dialogue, conducted on an equal footing, at the highest level of intellectual integrity. The texts come out of three Jewish-Christian consultations held in Africa, all aiming at focusing on subjects pointing to a commonality of concerns and purpose. Any topic that could hint at suspicion of superiority, precedence or domination was carefully avoided, and the dialogue was shaped along different lines than those usually followed in similar Jewish-Christian consultations held in Europe and America over the past half-century. In Nairobi, discussions were devoted to ancient wisdom in both cultures and its value for contemporary life; the understanding of scripture; and creation in both cultures. In Johannesburg debate centred on family, community and tradition as a way to the future and dealt with fundamental questions common to both cultures: the encounter with the age of modernity; preserving traditional family life; sustaining a sense of community; maintaining and reinforcing religious heritage and cultural tradition in the face of disintegration and dissipation. The third consultation, in Yaoundé, looked at shalom and ubuntu, memory and experiences of violence, and the challenge of peace-building. The texts included in this book provide ample food for thought. They will remain of lasting value as a source of inspiration and sound reflection.
{
161pp,
130x215mm,
May 2005;
PB,
£11.00,
2825414298:9782825414293
, World Council of Churches
} |
 |
CHRISTIANS & JEWS IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE -- TWO VOLUME SET
[Benjamin Braude & Bernard Lewis (eds)]
This two-volume set explores the history of Christians and Jews in the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire and how their identities as non-Muslims evolved over four hundred years. At the start of this period, in the sixteenth century, social community was circumscribed by religious identity and non-Muslims lived within the hierarchy established by Muslim law. In the nineteenth century, however, in response to Western influences, a radical change took place. Conflict erupted between Muslims and Christians in different parts of the empire in a challenge to that hierarchy. This marked the beginning, as the author illustrates, of the tensions which have to a large extent inspired the nationalist and religious rhetoric in the empire’s successor states throughout the twentieth century. In this way, Masters negotiates the present through the past. His book will make a major contribution to an understanding of the political and religious conflicts of the modern Middle East. Features: An innovative approach which considers the role of religion in defining identity in pre-modern Middle East; Explains the origins of nationalism among Arabic-speaking peoples and casts light on the roots of violence in the modern Middle East; Written by an established scholar of Ottoman and Christian studies.
{
697pp,
155x230mm,
January 1982;
HB,
£65.00,
0841905193:9780841905191
, Holmes & Meier Publishers Inc
} |
 |
CRYPTO-JEWISH MASHHADIS
: The Shaping of Religious & Communal Identity in their Journey from Iran to New York
[Hilda Nissimi]
This book tells the little-known story of a fascinating crypto-Jewish community through two centuries and three continents. Beginning as a precarious settlement of a few families in mid-eighteenth-century Mashhad, an Islamic holy city in northern Iran, the community grew into a closely-knit group in response to their forced conversion to Islam in 1839. Muslim hostility and a culture of memory sustained by intra-communal marriages reinforced their separate religious identity, vesting it in strong family and communal loyalty. Mashhadi women became the main agents of the cultural transmission of communal identity and achieved social roles and high status uncharacteristic for contemporary Jewish and Muslim communities. The Mashhadis maintained a double identity -- upholding Islam in public while tenaciously holding onto their Jewish identity in secret. The exodus from Mashhad after 1946 relocated the communal centre to Tehran, and later to Israel and after the Khomeini revolution to New York. The relationship between the formation and retention of communal identity and memory practices -- with interconnected issues of religion and gender -- draws upon existing research on other crypto-faith communities, such as the Judeoconversos, the Moriscos, and the French Protestants, who through the special blend of memory-faith and ethnicity emerged strengthened from their underground period. For the immigration period, the author challenges the old paradigm that “modernity and religion are mutually exclusive”. The book also explores the sometimes uncomfortable yet intimate relationships that exist between seemingly incompatible ways of seeing the past, both secular and religious.
{
180pp,
152x229mm,
December 2006;
HB,
£55.00,
1845191609:9781845191603
, Sussex Academic Press
} |
 |
EXPULSION OF THE JEWS
: 500 Years of Exodus
[Yale Strom]
According to legend, in 1492, 200,000 Jews marched from Spain, singing religious songs, led by their rabbis. They were called the Sephardim. They left at the orders of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, who's Edict of Expulsion gave Spanish Jews the choice of conversion to Christianity or exile. To commemorate the five-hundredth anniversary of the expulsion, Yale Strom represents a memorable, beautifully crafted portrait of the subsequent Jewish existence in the secluded exilic lands - their sorrows, their courage, and the awe-inspiring that have kept them religiously and culturally whole for half a millennium.
{
180pp,
215x280mm,
December 1992;
HB,
£16.99,
1561710814:9781561710812
, SPI Books
} |
 |
FALSE START
: Jewish Studies at German Universities During the Weimar Republic
[Henry Wasserman]
At the beginning of the 20th century German scholars doing cutting-edge research on the history of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament became aware that Jewish scholars versed in traditional, rabbinical, Jewish lore had something to offer them. Though the Germans on their own had made great strides in the scientific study of biblical literature, they could not match the vast learning of certain Jewish specialists who carried on a centuries-old tradition of textual exegesis. This was especially true of New Testament scholars who had much to learn from Jewish expertise in first-century rabbinical literature. So began a gradual movement to incorporate Jewish studies into the curriculum and faculty of departments of Old and New Testament Studies at German universities. Tragically, this new direction gained the most momentum during the Weimar Republic (1918-1933) on the eve of the catastrophe that would permanently sunder the German and Jewish communities. Through meticulous research into the lives of the scholars who played a role in this convergence of German and Jewish scholarship, historian Henry Wassermann vividly brings back to life a forgotten chapter in modern history. In one respect it is a hopeful history, for there was a brief time before the Holocaust when it seemed that anti-Semitic discrimination was giving way to the interests of scholarship and the pursuit of truth. Yet, despite such progress, the history of suspicion and animosity between Jews and Christians often created obstacles. Wassermann shows that the new open approach to biblical studies proved to be a false start: for a variety of reasons, most of the Germans and Jews appointed to the new academic positions proved to be mediocre and their careers were undistinguished. Finally, Wassermann's history offers intriguing glimpses into the all-too-human side of academia: the gossiping and back-stabbing, the struggles for promotion, and departmental politics, aspects of academic life that are as true today as they were seventy-five years ago.
{
253pp,
155x230mm,
January 2003;
HB,
£30.99,
1573929611:9781573929615
, Prometheus Books
} |
 |
FINDING HOME
: In the Footsteps of the Jewish Fusgeyers
[Jill Culiner]
Since the Jewish Diaspora, the stereotype of the Wandering Jew has haunted the Jewish understanding of identity. In "Finding Home", author Jill Culiner has uncovered a largely forgotten corner of Jewish history. The Fusgeyers (the Yiddish word for 'foot-goers' -- wayfarers) were Jews who fled persecution in Romania in the early 1900s in order to find refuge, ultimately, in the New World. One hundred years later, Culiner retraces their steps in search of remnants of this lost epic journey. Culiner is a keen observer of eastern European culture, and her acerbic wit and stunning lyrical style have created a compelling chronicle of loss and discovery. The focus on Holocaust studies can sometimes tend to obscure the fact that the roots of anti-Semitism go back long before the Second World War. Culiner's astute perceptions reveal the origins and persistence of European anti-Semitism. Her encounters with the past and the present of the Jewish presence in Europe are both chilling and illuminating.
{
315pp,
155x230mm,
October 2004;
PB,
£17.50,
1894549406:9781894549400
, Sumach Press
} |
 |
HOMELAND
: The Illustrated History of the State of Israel
[Marv Wolfman, Mario Ruiz & William J Rubin]
Depicting the history of Israel from biblical Abraham to the present, this sophisticated, four-colour graphic adaptation is academically grounded, guiding readers through highlights both in historical detail and from Israel's world view. History, religion, politics, and the current Middle East situation are all given comprehensive coverage in the text, which opens in a university setting with a professor teaching a series of sessions on Middle East/Near East modern history, beginning with Israel. With painted art that jumps right off the page, this crash course is an absorbing way for readers to absorb, understand, and retain key information about 4000 years of complicated history.
{
119pp,
215x280mm,
April 2007;
PB,
£13.50,
0977150704:9780977150700
/
HB,
£23.50,
0977150712:9780977150717
, IPG (Nachshon Press)
} |
 |
ISRAEL, THE DIASPORA & JEWISH IDENTITY
[Danny Ben-Moshe & Zohar Segev (eds)]
Features: Investigates the significance, contribution, and role played by the State of Israel -- ideologically and practically -- in the identity of Diaspora Jews; Explores the extent and way Israel features in Diaspora identity through a range of issues including: anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, Jewish continuity and Israel visits, the peace process, pro-Israel lobbying, philanthropy, religious thought and gender; Examines the place of Israel in the identity of Jewish communities in eight countries and amongst the Israeli Diaspora; A unique feature of this volume is that each chapter is followed by short and insightful viewpoints by Israeli and Diaspora commentators, with the book reflecting a dialogue between these different voices from across the Jewish world.
REVIEW: "...a thought-provoking collection of essays in an interesting, effective arrangement...Recommeded for academic and research libraries, as well as other libraries with collections on Israel and the Diaspora." -- Ilya Silbar Margoshes, University of Regina, SK Canada, in Association of Jewish Libraries Newsletter, May/June 2008.
{
353pp,
152x229mm,
August 2007;
PB,
£18.95,
1845192427:9781845192426
/
HB,
£55.00,
1845191897:9781845191894
, Sussex Academic Press
} |
 |
JEWISH ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN SALONICA, 1912–1940
: An Ethnic Economy in Transition
[Orly C Meron]
This book documents and analyses the transformations in the Jewish-owned economy active in Salonica during the period of the consolidating Greek nation-state, prior to World War II. Based on archival materials, the author provides a comprehensive, comparative inter-ethnic empirical study of Jewish entrepreneurial patterns for two distinct historical periods: the multi-ethnic business world of Greek Macedonia (1912-1922) after its incorporation into the Greek nation-state; and the era of minority-majority relations (1923-1940), following a radical modification of the city's demographic composition -- a process that culminated in Salonica's ethnic unification. A macro analysis combines a comparative static overview of the Jewish-owned firms vs. the Greek-owned firms active in the city at three points in time (1912, 1921, 1930), with a dynamic analysis focusing on transitions in structure and entrepreneurial behaviour. A micro analysis then examines the characteristics of Salonica's Jewish entrepreneurial elite, its businessmen and professionals, including class resources, familial and ethnic networks, business strategies and methods. Included in the analysis is a unique database illustrating Jewish entrepreneurial patterns during the 1930s. This study applies the "ethnic economy" approach in explaining Jewish entrepreneurial dynamics, and contributes new theoretical insights. The research presented provides hitherto unavailable details about the economic and demographic history of the Jewish community of Salonica, a city known as the "Jerusalem of the Balkans" due to it being home to the largest concentration of Sephardic Jews found in the territories once belonging to the Ottoman Empire.
{
272pp,
152x229mm,
September 2008;
HB,
£55.00,
1845192613:9781845192617
, Sussex Academic Press
} |
 |
JEWS AMONG ARABS
: Contacts & Boundaries
[Mark R Cohen & Abraham L Udovitch (eds)]
During two days in May 1986 some fifty scholars, graduate students, and other interested individuals gathered at Princeton University for a colloquium entitled 'Jews Among Arabs: Contacts and Boundaries'. The conference was organised in awareness of the controversial tone in which the subject of 'Jews and Arabs' has been discussed in recent years. Against the backdrop of the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Jewish-Arab relationship of the past has come under new and intense scrutiny, with historical questions often masking political predilections. The six papers of this book comprise the fruits of the colloquium and, it is hoped, make a qualitative though small contribution to a different kind of study of Jewish-Arab relations in the modern world, one that might be relevant for other minorities as well.
{
140pp,
150x230mm,
January 1989;
HB,
£13.50,
0878500685:9780878500680
, Darwin Press
} |
 |
JEWS OF LEBANON, 2ND EDITION
: Between Coexistence & Conflict
[Kirsten E Schulze]
This is the first book to tell the story of the Jews of Lebanon in the twentieth century. It challenges the prevailing view that Jews everywhere in the Middle East were second-class citizens, and were persecuted after the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. The Jews of Lebanon were just one of Lebanon’s 23 minorities with the same rights and privileges, and subject to the same political tensions. The author discusses the Jewish presence in Lebanon under Ottoman Rule; Lebanese Jews under the French mandate; Lebanese Jewish identity after the establishment of the State of Israel; the increase of the community through Syrian refugees; the Jews' position in the first civil war; their involvement in the exfiltration of Syrian Jews; the beginning of their exodus after the 1967 War; the virtual extinction of the Jewish community as a result of the prolonged 1975 second civil war and the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon; and finally the community's memory of their Lebanese past.
REVIEW: "An outstanding sociopolitical history of the Jewish community of Lebanon. Highly recommended..." -- Choice "Dr Schulze succeeds in placing the Jewish community in the broader context of Lebanese and Middle Eastern politics, and makes a highly significant and substantive contribution to the study on minorities in the Middle East." -- From the foreword by Professor Avi Shlaim, St Antony’s College, Oxford
{
224pp,
152x229mm,
March 2009;
PB,
£22.50,
1845190572:9781845190576
, Sussex Academic Press
} |
 |
JEWS OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE
[Avigdor Levy (ed)]
This volume is a major contribution to Jewish as well as to Ottoman, Balkan, Middle Eastern, and North African history. These twenty-eight original essays grew out of an international conference at Brandeis University – the first ever to be convened specifically on this subject. Outstanding scholars from Israel, Turkey, Europe, and the United States contributed wide-ranging essays dealing with the Jewish communities of the Ottoman Empire, from the Balkans and Anatolia to Arabia, from Mesopotamia to North Africa. Presented here is an unusually broad historical canvas that brings together many different perspectives and viewpoints.
{
784pp,
155x230mm,
January 1994;
HB,
£46.99,
0878500901:9780878500901
, Darwin Press
} |
 |
JEWS OF WINDSOR, 1790-1990
: A Historical Chronicle
[Rabbi Jonathan Plaut]
Beginning with the first Jewish settler, Moses David, the important role that Windsor Jews played in the development of Ontario’s south is mirrored in this 200-year chronicle. the founding pioneer families transformed their Eastern European shtetl into a North American settlement; many individuals were involved in establishing synagogues, schools, and an organised communal structure in spite of divergent religious, political, and economic interests. Modernity and the growing influences of Zionism and Conservative/Reform Judaism challenged the traditional and leftist leanings of the community’s founders. From the outset, Jews were represented in city council, actively involved in communal organisations, and appointed to judicial posts. While its Jewish population was small, Windsor boasted Canada’s first Jewish Cabinet members, provincially and federally, in David Croll and Herb Gray. As the new millennium approached, Jews faced shrinking numbers, forcing major consolidations in order to ensure their survival.
{
320pp,
230x230mm,
April 2007;
PB,
£15.00,
1550027069:9781550027068
, Dundurn Press
} |
 |
OPTIMISTIC JEW
: A Positive Vision for the Jewish People in the 21st Century
[Tsvi Bisk]
The purpose of this book is to stimulate imagination and activate energy and idealism in a Jewish context -- to inspire the development of a 21st century Jewish paradigm as compelling as the 20th century Jewish paradigm that created the State of Israel and the extraordinary institutional structure of Diaspora Jewry. The 20th century model of Jewish life is no longer attractive or compelling for a growing number of young Jews (in Israel as well as in the Diaspora). The core theme of the book is that the global reality of the 21st century provides Israel and the Diaspora with the means to enable the self-actualisation of the Jewish individual. The book suggests concrete ways and means by which the Jews might reinvent themselves and build a future that is noble and good, secure and flourishing, meaningful and worthwhile.
{
273pp,
140x215mm,
July 2007;
PB,
£10.99,
1934515728:9781934515723
, Maxanna Press
} |
 |
RABBIS & THEIR COMMUNITY
: Studies in the Eastern European Orthodox Rabbinate in Montreal, 1896-1930
[Ira Robinson]
In one of the few studies of the early immigrant Orthodox rabbinate in North America, author Ira Robinson has delved into the Jewish community in Montreal in the first three decades of the twentieth century. Rabbis & their Community introduces several rabbis who, in various ways, impacted their immediate congregations as well as the wider Montreal Jewish community. Most studies of the early North American rabbinate focus on only one rabbi. Here, though, Robinson carefully examines the interrelationship among a number of rabbis sharing the same communal "turf". He has diligently researched the unpublished source material these men, generally forgotten to history, left behind. their writing offers a valuable glimpse at some of the struggles & challenges they faced in their own community, as well as those faced by Canadian Jewish society as a whole in the early twentieth century. Robinson introduces the reader to such leaders as Rabbi Hirsh Cohen, a fixture in the Jewish community of Montreal from 1901 through the late 1940s, Rabbi Simon Glazer, Cohen’s main rival for the chief rabbinate, & revolutionary thinker Rabbi Yudel Rosenberg. The issues they faced, such as the Kosher meat wars of the 1920s, & the institutions they created, most notably the Jewish Community Council of Montreal, were factors of fundamental importance for the development of the second-largest Jewish community in Canada.
{
166pp,
155x230mm,
September 2007;
PB,
£20.99,
1552381862:9781552381861
, University of Calgary Press
} |
 |
SEPHARDIM OF SYDNEY
: Coping with Political Processes & Social Pressures
[Naomi Gale]
The Sydney Jewish community is dynamic and vibrant, with many communal, social and religious institutions. This book investigates the Sephardic community of Sydney -- their history, their experiences as new immigrants in a host society after arriving from traditional Moslem cultures, as well as the changes they have undergone since they arrived in Australia. The Sephardic community comprises about 3,000 of the 40,000 Jews in Sydney, whose majority reside in the eastern suburbs, in Sydney's multicultural inner-city 'ethnic belt'. Although the Sephardim share some cultural features with the Jewish majority, there are substantial differences: they emphasise their cultural heterogeneity. Their experiences are viewed through the prism of their relationship to both the Ashkenazim and the larger Anglo-Australian society. Their inability to acculturate and assimilate into the Ashkenazi and Australian groups contributes profoundly to their poor self-image and to ethnic marginalisation. A negative ethnic identity and self-rejection, enhanced by rejection from the Ashkenazim and Australians, has a major impact on their everyday life and their perception of their social standing, especially on the younger Sephardic generation. This issue has been particularly relevant since 1988, when the Australian government moved to restrict Asian immigration. This became a media issue, with the Ashkenazim taking the side of white Australians and seeing themselves as superior to the Afro-Asian Jewish Sephardim, who are viewed as 'Asians' by both the Ashkenazim and the white majority. The result is a sense of 'double rejection', which pervades this group's political and social standing.
REVIEW: "Provides valuable insights into the dynamics of the formation of Sephardic Jewish identity..." -- Professor C Kessler, The University of New South Wales. "A valuable study of the problems facing a migrant ethnical community arriving in Australia..." -- Professor R Gabby, The University of Western Australia. "A commendable example of ‘salvage ethnography'..." -- Professor S Deshen, Tel Aviv University.
{
292pp,
152x229mm,
April 2005;
HB,
£49.50,
1845190351:9781845190354
, Sussex Academic Press
} |
 |
VIDAL & HIS FAMILY
: From Salonica to Paris -- The Story of a Sephardic Family in the Twentieth Century
[Edgar Morin]
Edgar Morin, one of France's greatest living intellectuals, tells the story of his father, Vidal Nahoum, but also the story of Sephardic Jews, and of Europe. In this 'holographic history' Vidal's story, and that of his family, carries within it the flowering, decline, and death of Jewish culture in Spain, the passage from Empires to Nation States, the complex relations between Jews and Gentiles, between East and West, and, ultimately, the history of the twentieth century itself. Morin's work ranges from the great sweep of global historical events to the everyday details of individual lives, letters, feelings, reflections, and experiences. Vidal was born in 1894 in the Ottoman Empire's great Macedonian port. His great-grandfather came from Tuscany and spoke Italian. His mother tongue was fifteenth-century Spanish. He learned French and German as a child. When he was an adolescent, he dreamed of living in France; he was deported there as a prisoner, and then liberated by the French Prime Minister. He lived through the Balkan wars, the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, and two World Wars. Vidal cannot be isolated from his family. And as Edgar Morin explains, "this book also tells the stories of the men and women in his immediate family… When, as his son, I inevitably come into his story... I describe him as objectively as possible. The reverence that inspired me did not call for a work of edification; it implied that I should attempt to write a truthful book. For this reason, the book is not in the least respectful, or at least not in the usual sense of the word. Vidal felt that loving someone meant being able to tease him. The author of these lines, who has inherited something of this trait, does not think it disrespectful to tease or make fun of the people he loves."
{
296pp,
152x229mm,
July 2008;
PB,
£19.95,
1845192745:9781845192747
, Sussex Academic Press
} |
 |
WORLDS APART
: The Re-Migration of South African Jews
[Colin Tatz, Peter Arnold & Gillian Heller]
If the 19th and 20th centuries witnessed the greatest migrations in the history of the world, then the story of the exodus of Jews from Lithuania to South Africa and then on again to Australia is one of the most extraordinary. For the first time, migrants, family and friends can discover the fascinating details of what led to the migration and re-migration of so many thousands of people. "Worlds Apart" is a study of a unique double translocation. It follows the footsteps of Lithuanian and Latvian-descended Jews (Litvaks) from their ancestral European homes to South Africa and then again, just a century later, to Australia and New Zealand. The authors describe the life of the forebears, both in Lithuania and in South Africa, the so-called ‘South African way of life’; the antisemitic forces there which might have propelled migration much earlier, but didn’t; and the political unrest which finally led to this ‘second Diaspora’ to the Antipodes and other parts of the world. "Worlds Apart" examines the patterns of recent emigrations, and the real and ostensible reasons for leaving. Based on hundreds of responses to a detailed questionnaire and dozens of interviews, Worlds Apart presents an unforgettable picture of how life for Lithuanian Jews was, what it became, and what it is today in new lands with new hopes for the future. It examines how and why Jews continue their millennia-old quest for a new and peaceful land, and how twice-removed Jews feel today, not just about their new homes, but about the trials and tribulations of their ancestors.
{
360pp,
210x225mm,
July 2007;
PB,
£13.99,
1877058351:9781877058356
, Rosenberg Publishing Pty Ltd
} |
 |
SACRIFICING TRUTH
: Archaeology & the Myth of Masada
[Nachman Ben-Yehuda]
In this fascinating analysis of history in the making, Ben-Yehuda closely examines the day-by-day transcripts of the archaeologists' conversations at Masada to determine the way in which they evaluated the findings. He skilfully demonstrates that the interpretation of the artefacts uncovered during the dig was significantly affected by the process of nation-building and the forging of a national identity, which was then underway in Israel. Nation-building required a heroic past, and the pressure of this requirement subtly led to concealing facts and even falsifying the historical evidence. Why did the archaeologists involved, all scientifically trained scholars, ignore scientific evidence in favor of a version of history that now appears to be largely a myth? The answer to this question is the focus of this study, which looks not only at Masada but at the whole issue of deception in science and the social construction of knowledge. Beyond this, Ben-Yehuda considers the larger question of how society creates
{
275pp,
150x230mm,
June 2002;
HB,
£25.50,
1573929530:9781573929530
, Prometheus Books
} |
 |
SECRETS OF CAVE LETTERS
: Rediscovering a Dead Sea Mystery
[Richard A Freud]
One of the most spectacular archaeological discoveries in Israel took place in 1960, when the legendary Yigael Yadin excavated a cave in the Dead Sea area subsequently called the 'Cave of Letters'. Located near the site of the famous Dead Sea scrolls, the cave contained the largest cache of ancient personal correspondence and documents ever uncovered in Israel. In 1997, archaeologist Richard A Freund and a team from the University of Hartford returned to the Cave of Letters and discovered exciting new evidence about the use of the cave. Freund presents these intriguing findings in an absorbing account that combines fascinating history with elements of suspense and mystery.
{
225pp,
150x230mm,
March 2004;
HB,
£21.50,
1591022053:9781591022053
, Prometheus Books
} |
 |
TEXT & ARTIFACT IN THE RELIGIONS OF MEDITERRANEAN ANTIQUITY
: Essays in Honour of Peter Richardson
[Stephen G Wilson & Michel Desjardins (eds)]
Wide-ranging and original studies demonstrating clearly that texts and artifacts can be mutually supportive. Of interest to all those fascinated by the ancient Mediterranean world and the origins of Judaism and Christianity.
{
612pp,
180x260mm,
January 2000;
HB,
£55.99,
0889203563:9780889203563
, Wilfrid Laurier University Press
} |
 |
BOOK OF DOCTRINES & BELIEFS
[Saadya Gaon]
Saadya ben Joseph al-Fayyumi (882-942), gaon (head) of the rabbinic academy at Sura and one of the pre-eminent Jewish thinkers of the medieval period, attempted to create a complete statement of Jewish religious philosophy in which all strands of philosophical thought were to be knit into a unified system. In 'The Book of Doctrines and Beliefs', Saadya sought to rescue believers from 'a sea of doubt and the waters of confusion' into which they had been cast by Christianity, Islam, and other faiths. By employing philosophical -- or kalamic -- argumentation to examine and defend traditional Jewish beliefs, Saadya hoped to turn blind faith into conviction based on rational understanding. First published in 1946, and reprinted here without alteration, Alexander Altmann's judicious abridgement of his own translation has remained the standard edition of this influential work. A new Introduction by Daniel Frank sets Saadya's work in its broader historical, cultural, and philosophical contexts.
{
194pp,
140x215mm,
September 2002;
PB,
£9.95,
0872206394:9780872206397
/
HB,
£27.95,
0872206408:9780872206403
, Hackett Publishing
} |
 |
DISPUTING CHRISTIANITY
: The 400-Year-Old Debate Over Rabbi Isaac Ben Abraham Troki's Classic Arguments
[Richard H Popkin]
Rabbi Isaac Ben Abraham was a little-known scholar from the hereitical Jewish group, the Karaites, who lived during the 16th century in Troki, a suburb of Vilnius, Lithuania. In 1593, the last year of his life, he wrote an incisive cogent polemic against Christianity which over the centuries has had an impact in Christian and Jewish circles that far exceeds what might have been predicted based on its obscure origins. A kind of underground samizdat classic of religious criticism, his critique of Christianity has been translated into many languages and has influenced English deism, Reform Judaism, the beginnings if Higher Criticism and the quest for the historical Jesus, and even Christian evangelical outreach programmes that exist to this day. Now historian and philosopher Richard Popkin has edited a critique of Christianity. Originally published in 1813 by Harvard graduate George Bethune English, it includes the first publication in English of a central portion of Ben Abraham's text. The book was part of the discussion surrounding the founding of Unitarianism in New England. Popkin provides a fascinating commentary that notes many points of historical interest involving this unusual work. Anyone interested in philosophy of religion or the history of dialogue between Christians and Jews will find this work to be of great value.
{
244pp,
145x215mm,
October 2007;
HB,
£32.99,
159102384X:9781591023845
, Prometheus Books
} |
 |
HEIDEGGER'S JEWISH FOLLOWERS
: Essays on Hannah Arendt, Leo Strauss, Hans Jonas, & Emmanuel Levinas
[Samuel Fleischacker (ed)]
Given Heidegger's eventual alliance with Nazism -- which many scholars feel had its roots in his thought from its inception -- it is remarkable that many of his students and followers were Jews. HEIDEGGER'S JEWISH FOLLOWERS addresses very important and relatively unexplored questions, namely, in what way did Heidegger's thought affect his most prominent Jewish students, and how did they respond to this influence? By focusing on four students who certainly came to be important philosophical figures in their own right -- Hannah Arendt, Leo Strauss, Hans Jonas, and Emmanuel Levinas -- these essays by a wide range of scholars weave together philosophical analysis, religious tradition, and historical background.
{
May 2008;
HB,
£37.50,
0820704121:9780820704128
/
PB,
£15.50,
0820704148:9780820704142
, Duquesne University Press
} |
 |
JUDAIC MAN
: Toward a Reconstruction of Western Civilization
[Paul Eidelberg]
With crime, drug addiction, nihilism, and pornography chipping away at the moral fibre of Western society, many people have turned to classical Greek philosophy and Christianity to restore both private and public morality. In "Judaic Man", Professor Eidelberg argues that the Greco-Christian tradition contains certain dichotomies that have resulted in the contemporary malaise, dichotomies that are foreign to Judaism. The author employs a Torah understanding of human nature and history to provide a model of man and community that transcends the magnanimous man of classical political philosophy.
{
193pp,
155x230mm,
June 1996;
HB,
£34.99,
1573925276:9781573925273
, Prometheus Books
} |
 |
LEVINAS & BUBER
: Dialogue & Difference
[Peter Atterton et al (eds)]
Emmanuel Levinas and Martin Buber -- considered by many the most important Jewish philosophers since the 12th century sage Maimonides -- knew each other as associates and friends. Yet although their dialogue was instructive at times, and demonstrated the esteem in which Levinas held Buber, in particular, their relationship just as often exhibited a failure to communicate. This volume of essays is intended to resume the important dialogue between the two. Thriteen essays by a wide range of scholars do not attempt to assimilate the two philosopher's respective views to each other. Rather, these discussions provide an occasion to examine their genuine differences -- difference that both Levinas and Buber agreed were required for genuine dialogue to begin.
{
325pp,
155x230mm,
December 2004;
HB,
£35.50,
0820703494:9780820703497
, Duquesne University Press
} |
 |
NIETZSCHE & THE JEWS
: Exaltation & Denigration
[Siegfried Mandel PhD]
German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche has been the subject of many intellectual biographies, yet none thus far is as liberating as Nietzsche & the Jews, an in-depth examination of his relationships with Jews and Judaism. For the first time in any study of Nietzsche, Siegfried Mandel persuasively argues that this controversial 19th-century philosopher was truly ambivalent toward Jews, many of whom were quite influential in his intellectual and social pursuits. Incorporating writings and conversations by philosophers and others with whom Nietzsche interacted (e.g., Wagner, Schopenhauer, Gibbon, Freud, and others), the author liberates his subject from 'venerators and detractors alike' by demonstrating that Nietzsche was both 'philosemitic' and anti-Semitic. This dual attitude of praise and criticism adds to the complexity of Mandel's subject, an intellectual enigma who remains one of the most controversial and misunderstood thinkers in history. Forceful, lively, and original, this book incorporates a wealth of evidence that opens Nietzsche's life and works to more careful study and reflection. The late Siegfried Mandel was professor emeritus of the University of Colorado at Boulder. He authored many books and articles dealing with European literature, culture, and art.
{
341pp,
150x230mm,
July 1998;
HB,
£39.50,
1573922234:9781573922234
, Prometheus Books
} |
 |
CAUSES OF ANTI-SEMITISM
: A Critique of the Bible (Revised Edition)
[Arthur Blech]
Using the Bible as primary evidence, with the finest modern scholarship as supporting evidence, Arthur Blech lucidly demonstrates that anti-Semitism is no accident of history, no tragic consequence of ignorance, or the influence of a few contemporary figures of unique evil. Blech argues that both Christianity and Judaism are responsible for anti-Semitism in claiming divine revelation as the source of their scriptures. By assuming divine authority, members of both religions felt justified in persecuting non-believers. In the case of Judaism, non-Jews were rejected as inferior to the "chosen people"; and in the case of Christianity, Jews in particular became the object of contempt because Christians believed that Jews had spurned divine revelation in the form of God’s son. Blech carefully explores the foundations of both major faiths, surgically dismantling their claims to divinity. Since more than a century of scientific research shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Bible was not divinely inspired, but composed by all-too-human authors, Blech makes clear that the hatred and contempt these human authors preached have irreparably misled Christians and Jews alike. "The Causes of Anti-Semitism" shows that the curse of anti-Semitism has been kept alive by inventions and myths -- artificial props to support the evil agenda of corrupt individuals throughout history. This paperback edition contains substantial new additions to the original hardcover edition of the book.
REVIEW: "...shows quite conclusively that the anti-Jewish animus of [the Christian Scripture] led directly to a systematic vilification of Jews and Judaism." -- Post & Opinion, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Chicago, April 30, 2008
{
462pp,
165x230mm,
September 2006;
PB,
£13.99,
1591024463:9781591024460
, Prometheus Books
} |
 |
CHRISTIANITY & JUDAISM
: Two Covenants
[Yehezkel Kaufmann]
The writings of Yehezkel Kaufman (1889-1963), late Professor of Bible at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, fall into three main categories: Bible studies, of which the four-volume History of the Religion of Israel is the magnum opus; socio-historical analysis of Jewry's fate and existence as a diaspora-nation community, with the two-volume Golah ve-Nekhar (Exile and Estrangement) being its most outstanding scholarly undertaking in this regard; finally topical articles dealing with immediate socio-political problems of Zionism and the emerging State of Israel. This book comprises three successive chapters from Yehezkel Kaufman's Golah ve-Nekhar which, though intrinsically related to the central topic of that work, constitute a distinct unit of its own. The basic difference between Judaism and Christianity is here defined as two forms of covenant being in conflict with each other.
{
230pp,
155x230mm,
January 1995;
HB,
£22.99,
9652236942:9789652236944
, Hebrew University Magnes Press
} |
 |
COMMENTARY ON THE LAMENTATIONS OF THE PROPHET JEREMIAH
[Peter Martyr Vermigli]
Peter Martyr Vermigli's earliest biblical commentary to survive is his lectures on the Book of Lamentations. As a refugee from Catholic Italy, Martyr sympathises with the Hebrew poet, who looks over the devastation of Jerusalem. The Introduction gives a précis of Christian Hebraism and pays particular attention to the Bomberg Bible. The notes highlight Martyr's allusions to the Jewish commentators of that Bible.
{
224pp,
155x230mm,
December 2002;
HB,
£29.99,
0943549647:9780943549644
, Truman State University Press
} |
 |
EXODUS TO HUMANISM
: Jewish Identity without Religion
[David Ibry]
The object of this book is to engage in a dialogue with the millions of the indifferent, the undecided, the don't knows and the don't cares who carry on pretending without any real conviction.
{
143pp,
155x230mm,
April 1999;
HB,
£17.50,
1573922676:9781573922678
, Prometheus Books
} |
 |
FINAL SUPERSTITION
: A Critical Evaluation of the Judeo-Christian Legacy
[Joseph L Daleiden]
As we approach the 21st century our society continues to grapple with a host of complex socio-economic issues such as population control, voluntary and involuntary euthanasia, in-vitro and ex-vitro fertilisation, homosexuality, and pornography. Traditional religions have staked out positions on most of these issues and have sought to determine the political response. The religious right had made major inroads in determining the platform for the Republican party and have sought to tear down the wall between Church and State. "The Final Superstition" shows that such efforts are nothing new. Claiming special knowledge of God's will, the Judeo-Christian religions have sought for three millennia to usurp the political process to further their theological ends.
{
490pp,
145x210mm,
August 1994;
HB,
£34.99,
0879758961:9780879758967
, Prometheus Books
} |
 |
FROM HERZL TO RABIN
: The Changing Image of Zionism
[Amnon Rubinstein]
This book traces the history of the Israeli state and provides the reader with a fascinating study of Zionism. Moving deftly between the roles of objective historian and persuasive politician, the author uses his skills to show both the political and religious aspects of Zionism and the attacks on it by the haredim and Post and Anti-Zionists. Israel's presence in the world has changed the status of Jews everywhere -- both inside and outside its borders. But a recent destructive reality threatens the classic Zionist perception. The threat comes from the danger of religious and 'haredi' Judaiism becoming the spearhead of nationalism in its most insidious form, and the threat to the essence of Judaism and Israel from the Left.
{
283pp,
160x233mm,
December 2000;
HB,
£25.00,
0841914087:9780841914087
, Holmes & Meier Publishers Inc
} |
 |
JEWS WITHOUT JUDAISM
: Conversations with an Unconventional Rabbi
[Daniel Friedman]
"It may fairly be said that religion plays virtually no part in the lives of most American Jews." So begins Daniel Friedman's provocative discussion of American Judaism. Friedman, a rabbi for almost forty years, has counselled thousands of Jews on the meaning of being Jewish. From this wealth of experience he has created this fascinating series of fictional conversations, each of them a distillation of many actual conversations. Should Jews marry outside the faith, and if so, what are the likely consequences? How should Jews cope with anti-Semitism, or evaluate their tense historical relationship with Christianity? Can one be Jewish without being religious; without belief in God; indeed, without Judaism? Are all values relative if one does not believe in God? In contemporary society these timely questions are of great importance to both practising and non-practising Jews.
{
125pp,
150x230mm,
April 2002;
PB,
£13.99,
1573929247:9781573929240
, Prometheus Books
} |
 |
JUST WAR & JIHAD
: Violence in Judaism, Christianity & Islam
[R Joseph Hoffman (ed)]
In the long history of the monotheistic tradition, violence -- often bloody with warfare -- have not just been occasional but defining activities. Since 9/11, sociologists, religious historians, philosophers and anthropologists have examined the question of the roots of religious violence in new ways, and with surprising results. In November 2004, the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion brought together leading theorists at Cornell University to explore the question whether religions are viral forms of a general cultural tendency to violent action. Do religions, and especially the Abrahamic tradition, encourage violence in the imagery of their sacred writings, in their theology, and their tendency to see the world as a cosmos divided between powers of good and forces of evil? Is such violence a historical condition affecting all religious movements, or are some religions more prone to violence than others? The papers collected in this volume represent the independent and considered thinking of internationally known scholars from a variety of disciplines concerning the relationship between religion and violence, with special reference to the theories of 'just war' and 'jihad', technical terms that arise in connection with the theology of early medieval Christianity and early Islam, respectively.
{
300pp,
152x228mm,
January 2006;
HB,
£19.50,
1591023718:9781591023715
, Prometheus Books
} |
 |
LAW IN RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES IN THE ROMAN PERIOD
: The Debate Over Torah & Nomos in Post-Biblical Judaism & Early Christianity
[Peter Richardson & Stephen Westerholm]
{
164pp,
155x230mm,
April 1991;
PB,
£22.99,
088920201X:9780889202016
, Wilfrid Laurier University Press
} |
 |
MARK'S OTHER GOSPEL
: Rethinking Morton Smith's Controversial Discovery
[Scott G Brown]
Did the evangelist Mark write two versions of his gospel? According to a letter ascribed to Clement of Alexandria, Mark created a second, more spiritual edition of his gospel for theologically advanced Christians in Alexandria. Clement's letter contains two extracts from this lost gospel, including a remarkable account of the raising of Lazarus. While scholars have reacted to this longer Gospel of Mark in different ways, after forty-five years of cursory investigation, one of the few things on which most scholars agree is that the letter's own explanation of the origin and purpose of this longer gospel need not be taken seriously. 'Mark's Other Gospel' calls this pervasive bias into question. After thoroughly critiquing the five competing scholarly paradigms regarding the gospel's status, Scott G Brown demonstrates that the gospel excerpts not only sound like Mark, but also employ Mark's distinctive literary techniques, deepening this gospel's theology and elucidating puzzling aspects of its narrative. This 'mystic gospel' would have served the interests of educated Alexandrian readers, who expected to discover essential truths of a philosophy beneath the literal level of revered texts.
{
332pp,
155x230mm,
April 2005;
HB,
£49.99,
0889204616:9780889204614
, Wilfrid Laurier University Press
} |
 |
MISHNAH & THE SOCIAL FORMATION OF THE EARLY RABBINIC GUILD
: A Socio-Rhetorical Approach
[Jack N Lightstone]
A socio-rhetorical analysis of Mishnah, the first document authored by the early rabbinic movement and its principal object of study for several centuries
{
224pp,
May 2002;
PB,
£22.99,
088920375X:9780889203754
, Wilfrid Laurier University Press
} |
 |
NAZARENE JEWISH CHRISTIANITY
: From the End of the New Testament Period Until its Disappearance in the Fourth Century
[Ray A Pritz]
This is a comprehensive study of the heirs of the earliest Jerusalem church, their history and doctrines, their relations with both synagogue and the growing Gentile church. The author analyses all sources, Jewish, Christian, and Pagan, which can throw light on the sect and its ultimate mysterious disappearance. He also deals with the Birkat haMinim and historicity of the flight to Pella.
{
154pp,
155x230mm,
January 1992;
HB,
£23.50,
9652237981:9789652237989
, Hebrew University Magnes Press
} |
 |
ONE VOICE
: The Selected Sermons of W Gunther Plaut
[Jonathan V Plaut (ed)]
W Gunther Plaut is an internationally recognised rabbi and scholar and one of the greatest preachers of the 20th century. Published on the occasion of his 95th birthday, this collection of sermons delivered over a 50 year period includes discussion on religion, faith and God, ethics and values, being a Jew, Reform Judaism and Israel. He is an electrifying speaker who has kept his audiences spellbound with his wit and charisma. This anthology is a fitting tribute to the spirit of this great man.
{
320pp,
150x230mm,
November 2007;
PB,
£14.99,
1550027395:9781550027396
, Dundurn Press
} |
 |
PARABLES OF WAR
: Reading John's Jewish Apocalypse
[John W Marshall]
A radical reinterpretation of the Book of Revelation of John, viewing it as a document of the Jewish diaspora during the Judean War.
{
262pp,
145x220mm,
November 2002;
PB,
£22.99,
0889203741:9780889203747
, Wilfrid Laurier University Press
} |
 |
RELIGION & ZIONISM
: First Encounters
[Yosef Salmon]
Along with a description of the evolving religious organisations within the Zionist movement and the ensuing tensions, this study presents biographical sketches of some of the most prominent Jewish religious and nationalist figures of the period.
{
399pp,
175x245mm,
January 2001;
HB,
£48.99,
965493101X:9789654931014
, Hebrew University Magnes Press
} |
 |
RHETORIC & REALITY IN EARLY CHRISTIANITIES
[Willi Braun (ed)]
One of the most pressing issues for scholars of religion concerns the role of persuasion in early Christianities and other religions in Greco-Roman antiquity. The essays explore questions about persuasion and its relationship to early Christianities. The contributors theorise about persuasion as the effect of verbal performances, such as argumentation in accordance with rules of rhetoric, or as a result of other types of performance: ritual, behavioural, or imagistic. They discuss the relationship between the verbal performance of rhetoric and other performative modes in generating, sustaining, and transmitting a persuasive form of religiosity. The essays in this book cover a wide chronological range (from the first century to late antiquity) and diverse topical examples contribute to the collection’s thematic centre: the relations among formalised and technical verbal performances (rhetoric, texts) and other forms of persuasive performances (ritual, practices), the social agendas that early Christians pursued by means of verbal, rhetorical performances, and the larger social context in which Christians and other religious groups competitively jockeyed to attract the minds and bodies of audiences in the Greco-Roman world.
{
257pp,
155x230mm,
November 2005;
HB,
£49.99,
0889204624:9780889204621
, Wilfrid Laurier University Press
} |
 |
RHETORIC OF THE BABYLONIAN TALMUD, ITS SOCIAL MEANING & CONTEXT
[Jack N Lightstone]
The book examines the character, use and social meaning of the formalised rhetoric which pervades the Babylonian Talmud. It first explores how the editors of the Talmud employ a consistent and highly laconic code of formalised linguistic terms and literary patterns to create the Talmud's renowned dialectical, analytic 'essays'. It next considers the social meanings implicitly communicated by the use of this rhetoric, which not only provided an authoritative model for modes of thought and for treatment of earlier authoritative Judaic tradition, but also reflected, reinforced or helped engender new social definitions.
{
317pp,
155x230mm,
June 1994;
PB,
£22.99,
0889202389:9780889202382
, Wilfrid Laurier University Press
} |
 |
SAGES -- TWO VOLUME SET
: Their Concepts & Beliefs
[Ephraim E Urbach]
Two volumes in slipcase. The author presents in this work, which is based on an exhaustive study of the sources by means of philological-historical methods, a vivid picture of the religious and social thoughts of the Tanna’im and Amora’im, their absorption and rejection of extraneous concepts, their spiritual struggles and the goals they sought to achieve. The intellectual ferment marking this era crystallised principles that fashioned the Jewish national and religious image for generations.
{
1088pp,
155x230mm,
January 1975;
HB,
£57.99,
9652233196:9789652233196
, Hebrew University Magnes Press
} |
 |
SEMITISM
: The Whence & Whither, 'How Dear Are your Counsels'
[Kenneth Cragg]
Semitism is a human story of distinctive intimacy with a God, believed to belong with birth, sealed in history and homed in given territory. These three denominators of tribe, territory and remembered time belong to all human identities, understood as one creation in a single cosmos in the Bible and the Qur’an. Anti-Semitism is a tragic misprision of this long conviction of the Judaic mind, bringing endless suffering to the one, shame and guilt to the other. Its effect has been to make 'those counsels dearer' still, whether in Zionist will to recover and rule territory or in a secular diaspora struggling to know itself. Semitism has overtaken itself with the barbarity of a dividing Wall -- a scar across a land allegedly 'beloved above all', by both God and People
REVIEW: "A masterful study that demonstrates Cragg’s profound knowledge and scholarship of the historical, theological and scriptural sources of Judaism, Christianity and Islam as well as the current conflict in the Middle East. Bold and original, it provides an empathetic reassessment of the Jewish fear of anti-Semitism grounded in the context of European history that culminated in the horrors of the Holocaust and the displacement and suffering of the Palestinian people. Cragg demonstrates his impeccable analytical skills to uncover the manipulation of the fear of anti-Semitism to justify Israeli policies. Profound, enlightening, a must read for anyone concerned with the issue of anti-Semitism and the Middle East conflict." -- Yvonne Y. Haddad, Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Georgetown University. "Cragg patiently explores the similarities and differences between Christianity and Islam... Crucially, he finds a key difference to be in the relation to political power of the later suras of the Qur’an, at least, and the life and teaching of Jesus... In another life, Kenneth Cragg would be a poet, and the text is dense with poetic allusion... it has a meditative quality that only enhances its call to re-engagement with contemporary Islam." -- The Revd Dr Timothy Gorringe, Professor of Theological Studies, University of Exeter.
{
214pp,
152x229mm,
January 2005;
PB,
£15.95,
1845190718:9781845190712
, Sussex Academic Press
} |
 |
ARAB-JEWISH RELATIONS
: From Conflict to Resolution?
[Elie Podeh & Asher Kaufman (eds)]
Distinguished American, Canadian, Palestinian and Israeli contributors illuminate the building blocks on the possible path from conflict to reconciliation between Jews and Arabs. The book is divided into three parts: Part I looks at the Arab-Jewish Conflict, from early Zionism to the 1967 Arab-Israeli War; Part II, Israel and the Arab States, focuses on Israel’s relations with its neighbouring countries, Syria, and Lebanon; and Part III is concerned with the Peace Process, its dynamics and the missed opportunities for peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
{
386pp,
152x229mm,
November 2005;
HB,
£55.00,
1903900689:9781903900680
, Sussex Academic Press
} |
 |
JEWS & AUSTRALIAN POLITICS
[Geoffrey Brahm Levey & Philip Mendes (eds)]
This book -- an edited collection of new contributions from distinguished Australian academics -- contextualises, illuminates, and explains the contemporary politics of Australian Jewry. It critically analyses the three broad themes above through relevant case studies and source material, and situates the politics of Australian Jews through comparisons with general patterns in Australian politics, the politics of other minorities in Australia, and the politics of other Western Jewish communities. Contains a detailed appendix of Jewish Parliamentarians, 1849 to the Present.
REVIEW: "This is an excellent collection by some outstanding Jewish social scientists. It should be included in any Australian politics course, where studies of 'ethnic politics' are still very marginal." -- James Jupp of the Australian National University, in the Australian Journal of Political Science Volume 43, No.3.
{
262pp,
152x229mm,
December 2004;
PB,
£18.95,
1903900727:9781903900727
, Sussex Academic Press
} |
 |
JEWS & THE OLYMPIC GAMES
: The Clash Between Sport & Politics; With a Complete Review of Jewish Olympic Medallists
[Paul Taylor]
No story so richly illustrates the interaction between sport and politics as the story of Jewish athletes and the Games. Each major event at the Games related to the Jews is covered in-depth, including: the story of the Jewish-Hungarian wrestler Károly Kárpáti in Berlin, 1936; the German-Jewish high-jumper Gretel Bergmann, who was callously exploited, then discarded, by the Germans; the American sprinters, Marty Glickman and Sam Stoller; and the legendary Mark Spitz. From the first Olympics in Athens in 1896, through to the disasters and triumphs of Munich 1972 and beyond, Jews and the Olympic Games, which features a list of the more-than 250 Jewish medallists at the Games, is a powerful account of the conflict between sport and politics.
REVIEW: "Taylor has produced a unique and compelling history of Jewish sporting achievement. He reveals how Jewish athletes have had to combat not only their Olympic competitors, but also an enduring, often lethal, anti-Semitism." -- Colin Tatz, sports historian and author of Obstacle Race: Aborigines in Sport. "Engrossing, innovative and original. Paul Taylor provides a fascinating glimpse into a neglected aspect of the modern Jewish experience; a window into a tumultuous and traumatic century. Through memoir, biography and careful reconstruction, he weaves a moving and dramatic tale, tracing the worlds and lives of Jewish Olympiads. Filled with bravery and pathos. Jewish fencers, athletes and swimmers straddle the stage. Inevitably Hitler's games and the Munich tragedy loom large. But Nordau's ‘muscular Judaism' is at last realized." -- Milton Shain, Professor of Modern Jewish History, University of Cape Town. "Makes good use of the published sources and brings them to bear on the Jewish angle." -- Choice.
{
268pp,
155x230mm,
June 2004;
PB,
£15.95,
1903900883:9781903900888
, Sussex Academic Press
} |
 |
JEWS & THE OLYMPIC GAMES
: The Clash Between Sport & Politics; With a Complete Review of Jewish Olympic Medallists
[Paul Taylor]
No story so richly illustrates the interaction between sport and politics as the story of Jewish athletes and the Games. Each major event at the Games related to the Jews is covered in-depth, including: the story of the Jewish-Hungarian wrestler Károly Kárpáti in Berlin, 1936; the German-Jewish high-jumper Gretel Bergmann, who was callously exploited, then discarded, by the Germans; the American sprinters, Marty Glickman and Sam Stoller; and the legendary Mark Spitz. From the first Olympics in Athens in 1896, through to the disasters and triumphs of Munich 1972 and beyond, Jews and the Olympic Games, which features a list of the more-than 250 Jewish medallists at the Games, is a powerful account of the conflict between sport and politics.
REVIEW: "Taylor has produced a unique and compelling history of Jewish sporting achievement. He reveals how Jewish athletes have had to combat not only their Olympic competitors, but also an enduring, often lethal, anti-Semitism." -- Colin Tatz, sports historian and author of Obstacle Race: Aborigines in Sport. "Engrossing, innovative and original. Paul Taylor provides a fascinating glimpse into a neglected aspect of the modern Jewish experience; a window into a tumultuous and traumatic century. Through memoir, biography and careful reconstruction, he weaves a moving and dramatic tale, tracing the worlds and lives of Jewish Olympiads. Filled with bravery and pathos. Jewish fencers, athletes and swimmers straddle the stage. Inevitably Hitler's games and the Munich tragedy loom large. But Nordau's ‘muscular Judaism' is at last realized." -- Milton Shain, Professor of Modern Jewish History, University of Cape Town. Listed in The Jewish Telegraph, August 2004. "Makes good use of the published sources and brings them to bear on the Jewish angle." -- Choice.
{
268pp,
155x230mm,
June 2004;
HB,
£45.00,
1903900875:9781903900871
/
PB,
£15.95,
1903900883:9781903900888
, Sussex Academic Press
} |
 |
PEOPLE WHO LIVE APART
: Jewish Identity & the Future of Israel
[Els Van Diggele]
Since its establishment in 1948, the State of Israel has been torn by a deeply rooted conflict between secular and religious Jews. Although this internal culture war has not received the publicity of Israel's violent conflicts with its Arab neighbours, it is every bit as serious. For it concerns the very nature and identity of the Jewish state, and it pits an Orthodox minority who envisions Israel as a religiously conservative theocracy against Jewish secularists who are keen on ensuring that their country becomes a European-style democracy. Journalist and historian Els van Diggele portrays and analyses the complexity of this 'quiet civil war' through more than sixty interviews with a wide spectrum of religious and secular Jews, as well as lively and penetrating reports of key events that over the past two years have widened the schism. This nuanced, multifaceted portrait is must reading for anyone who wants to understand the State of Israel and the complexity of tensions in the Middle East.
{
260pp,
150x230mm,
August 2003;
HB,
£21.50,
159102076X:9781591020769
, Prometheus Books
} |
